PDA

View Full Version : Is It Worth Being A Final Fantasy Fan Anymore ?



maybee
11-09-2018, 08:48 PM
FFXIII was a disappointment. FFXV was a mess. FFVII Remake sounds like it's a future mess waiting to happen.


And yet, I'm still a fan because the older games were so good.


I feel like this and Mr. Burns is Square Enix.


https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Forig11.deviantart.net%2Fd862%2Ff%2F2013%2F213%2F3%2F5%2Fdon_t_forget_you_re_here_for ever_by_soks2626-d6g6shs.jpg&f=1

Wolf Kanno
11-09-2018, 09:23 PM
We all just outgrow series after awhile but it doesn't mean we can't still maintain a soft spot for it. XIII was crap, and the trilogy is mostly garbage, but I didn't mind XV as much. Not my type of game mind you, but as someone who hasn't bothered with the DLC or event nonsense, I still feel like I got my money's worth.

VIIR never meant anything to me to begin with, so SE can fuck that up as much as they want. My only real issue is that it will delay XVI from coming out because SE seems to be incapable of producing more than one AAA title at a time in-house at least; but now that it's become more and more likely my least favorite director will be helming that project. Whatever though, I came to the conclusion around XIII's time frame that SE doesn't make games for people like me anymore. Doesn't mean I can't gleam some enjoyment out of what they do produce, it just means I know now not to get my expectations up that this next entry will somehow recapture the magic or anything.

On the brightside, I've been really enjoying the companies focus on medium sized titles like reviving SaGa and Mana which both give me a taste of the genre you don't see anymore. Efforts like I am Setsuna are interesting and when I feel really indulgent, I can always jump into one of their nostalgia filled titles like World of Final Fantasy or Record Keeper.

Even with all that, I can also still play the classics when I feel like it, so I'm not really bothered still being a fan.

Lord Golbez
11-09-2018, 11:23 PM
Worth it? Does it cost something? Well I guess it costs the money of buying games if you find it necessary. I'm a fan insofar as I'm a fan of FFX and earlier. I don't like the games from the past 17 years. So basically half the life of the series but fewer than half of the games. Right now it doesn't look likely that they're going in a direction with the series that I will enjoy, but that could change. So we'll see.

WarZidane
11-09-2018, 11:30 PM
About as worth as being a fan of any series of media releases, sure. Which is to say, nothing wrong with being a fan, just don't be a blind fan.

They've had their ups and downs, and opinions will be opinions so it's going to be different for everyone.
FFXIII-2 and XV might not have been amazing, but they'd still easily make it into the top half of my ranked FF games list. XIV had a rough 1.0 launch but was great again post-2.0. WoFF was great.

But hey, there's nothing wrong with being disenfranchised either, as long as you don't put down people who aren't.

Vermachtnis
11-09-2018, 11:57 PM
https://i.imgur.com/Hpb5oR4.png

Spuuky
11-10-2018, 02:14 AM
I've never considered myself a Final Fantasy fan, really. I'm a traditional JRPG fan, and Square used to make a lot of the best ones. They don't make traditional JPRGs anymore, in general, but the ones they do make aren't Final Fantasy games.

MJN SEIFER
11-10-2018, 05:06 PM
You can still be a fan of the parts of it you like, even if the later stuff isn't good for you. I still consider Final Fantasy to be my favorite videogame series, even though I don't care about any of the main games after Final Fantasy X (I'll think about Final Fantasy X-2.) It's like how I am finding myself being less and less impressed with and having less and less faith in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, because it just doesn't feel like the same show to me anymore most of the time (though the movie was excellent in my opinion), but I still love the earlier seasons, and the earlier generations, and even find the odd thing I like or that inspires me.

So yeah, you can still be a fan, just of the parts of it you like.

I don't think it's to do with growing out of it either, at least not in all cases (some people might do, I personally don't grow out of things) - it could easily be that thing has changed from what it was, which FF (and MLP, actually) appears to have done.

Example
11-27-2018, 09:02 AM
I'm a fan of Squaresoft-era Final Fantasy, even though I still haven't played half of them. Square Enix-era I couldn't care less about, everything FF-related from them now is either a massively overhyped disappointment that takes way too long to develop, or a shameless fanservicy cashgrab that does more damage than it adds. Square Enix in general is just a troutty company with hilariously awful management. And then there are the rumors of them stifling Cloud's inclusion in Smash Bros. Ultimate i.e no more songs, no ATs and not being available for the story mode. Honestly I could live just fine with never buying a single product from SE ever again.

Lord Golbez
11-27-2018, 08:47 PM
Well most straight Square-Enix games themselves seem to be pretty bad, but they have some decent subsidiary companies that still make good games. Reflecting on it, I kind of think the FF series I loved died with the departure of Sakaguchi. I'm sure his involvement was diminished in his later uears with Square anyway, but I can't help thinking the timing on changes in the series indicates that his influence may have been holding the series to certain traditions.

Example
11-27-2018, 11:16 PM
Well most straight Square-Enix games themselves seem to be pretty bad, but they have some decent subsidiary companies that still make good games. Reflecting on it, I kind of think the FF series I loved died with the departure of Sakaguchi. I'm sure his involvement was diminished in his later uears with Square anyway, but I can't help thinking the timing on changes in the series indicates that his influence may have been holding the series to certain traditions.

With him gone things certainly took a turn for the worst. The very first game they made after his departure was a fanservicy cashgrab sequel to their most popular game at the time. Then there's the milking of their other games with endless gluts of spinoffs that only cheapen any thematic and emotional weight and meaning the source material may have once had. Even in games that have the potential to be good i.e Crisis Core they still find some way to fuck it up i.e Genesis, among other things. Sakaguchi seemed to be the only one at Square who still valued the traditional JRPG, which we saw with FF9 being a love letter to oldschool JRPGs and Lost Odyssey, which is head and shoulders above any Final Fantasy released after his departure from Square.

Pike
11-28-2018, 01:24 AM
I don't know if I ever really considered myself to be a Final Fantasy fan as much as a video game fan in general; I got into the FF fan community because it happened to be one of the Big Things people made forums about back in the day and I was super into Tactics Advance at the time so I figured yeah why not make an account (at some other FF forum, it kind of died out and I migrated to EoFF). I was also on a Starcraft forum (well, a Blizzard forum, but this was pre-WoW if you can believe it so we just talked about Starcraft and Warcraft 3) and a Zelda forum and all sorts of other game forums back then. I think they're all dead except for this one, lol.

The primary reason I stuck around EoFF wasn't for the Final Fantasy but for the community. Don't get me wrong there are a great many FF games I've enjoyed very much but I've enjoyed a lot of other game series just as much or more.

Loony BoB
11-28-2018, 09:21 AM
Completely agree with everything WarZidane said.

Personally, I'd rather play FFXIII than FFII. Everyone will have differing opinions on games and it's important to remember that the more games there are in a series, the more chance there is of you not liking some of them. Final Fantasy likes to do things different each time, and that is a blessing and a curse for them. Still, I prefer it to game series that do the same thing every time.

As for growing out of it, I think there is a sense of rose-tinted glasses at the old games and I think there is a sense of jadedness in video game fans in general as they get older. They lose their naivety, they start thinking about adult things like costs, or plot holes, and they become harsher and harsher critics as they get on. If Final Fantasy released Final Fantasy I right now I'd think it was crap. It was good for it's time, but you have to remember that games weren't what they are today. Now they have to be so much more. The amount of dialogue and character information you got in FFXIII was astronomical in comparison to what you got in earlier games. If you got the character development given to some in VI and VII, you might feel short-changed these days. They have to say what feels like ten times the amount of things and that means you have to expand the characters a bit more, and that's difficult for the developers, I'm sure. I do feel like fans are harsh critics though, very harsh. Especially whey they keep comparing to what they felt when they played an older game. I don't say comparing to older games, because I don't think that's what the harsher critics are doing. If FFI and FFXIII were released at the same time for the same cost, everyone knows which one would be considered the better game. Again, they were different times. You can't realistically compare the two, you can only compare what feelings you got from them. I imagine newer, younger gamers are experiencing Final Fantasy's modern games much like we did when we were their age, with awe and wonder.

I do my best to forget about adult things and all that when I play Final Fantasy games. Also, can I just say that when playing Final Fantasy XIII for the first time, alongside the many who were also playing and posting in the various chapter-threads in the FFXIII forum at the time, loads of us were having an awesome time. Sometimes we analyse things to death afterwards and I don't think we did so much of that back in the 90s.

Fynn
11-28-2018, 10:07 AM
So what you’re asking is

Is it worth keeping your eyes on final fantasy

Pike
11-28-2018, 01:12 PM
Honestly it's all perspective.

If you go to tumblr where the average age is like 17, there is a full blown fandom obsessed with FFXV. Writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, the whole works.

On the flip side you can dig up old usenet posts from the 90s where people who are the age we are now were talking about how FFVI was the worst game ever and was ruining Final Fantasy and JRPGs. No, for real, they all defected to TES II: Daggerfall.

Jessweeee♪
11-28-2018, 01:32 PM
I still enjoy my FFXIV sub so yeah. FFXV was fun too even if there was a lot of missed potential with the story.

maybee
11-29-2018, 05:57 AM
On the flip side you can dig up old usenet posts from the 90s where people who are the age we are now were talking about how FFVI was the worst game ever and was ruining Final Fantasy and JRPGs.

Where did you find this Pike ? I searched around old Final Fantasy forums and only found posts from 2002- 2001 being the oldest and FFVIII was considered to be the worst- and I don't think that's changed much.

:(




No, for real, they all defected to TES II: Daggerfall.

Ew.



Honestly it's all perspective.

If you go to tumblr where the average age is like 17, there is a full blown fandom obsessed with FFXV. Writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, the whole works.


Not surprised. Cute boys & Yaoi bait. They don't call it Yaoi anymore- but it's still Tumblr obsessing over Gay Ships. It's the same thing.

Pike
11-29-2018, 01:13 PM
Hey now some of us on tumblr are obsessed with yuri. And in my case I have a valid excuse because I am in fact a raging gay.

For usenet posts you have to go further back than forums. Try Google Groups.

Loony BoB
11-29-2018, 07:27 PM
You can find a lot on ezBoard if you spend enough time trying to find 'em.


Raistlin is going to hurt me because I posted in a closed thread but I just felt it should be noted that all of the following bthehighwind pages are accessable through archive.org :p I just don't think it warrants a thread, merely here for reference...

All visible pages from archive.org:

The Main Index
http://web.archive.org/web/20000304153108/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20001015083136/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20001020065820/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind
http://web.archive.org/web/20010310103044/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind
http://web.archive.org/web/20010717224220/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20011102085450/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind
http://web.archive.org/web/20020107185727/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20020223142154/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122130727/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind

Contribute to the Community Chest!
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122092558/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showContributeToCommunityChest
http://web.archive.org/web/20030526055028/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showContributeToCommunityChest

Asorie's Profile
http://web.archive.org/web/20001020075552/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=asorie
http://web.archive.org/web/20020720014342/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=asorie

Dragoon's Profile
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122131034/pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=dragoon

Justanotherguy's Profile
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122231603/pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=justanotherguy

princeofdarknez's Profile
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122231800/pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=princeofdarknez

spiderramza's Profile
http://web.archive.org/web/20001028055635/pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=spiderramza

Tell A Friend!
http://web.archive.org/web/20000713023208/pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.tellAFriend

You Haven't Contributed Jack
http://web.archive.org/web/20020317210353/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.viewMyCommunityChestContributions
http://web.archive.org/web/20021122093336/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.viewMyCommunityChestContributions

Completely off topic but just examples of how far back you can dig if you wanna ;)

maybee
11-30-2018, 02:04 AM
None of them work, they all say "his URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."

Loony BoB
11-30-2018, 06:14 PM
What!? What the actual crap is the point of archive.org if it's going to delete things? I am so annoyed by this development. It even lists the pages as archived still when you search for http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.*

maybee
11-30-2018, 11:27 PM
What!? What the actual crap is the point of archive.org if it's going to delete things? I am so annoyed by this development. It even lists the pages as archived still when you search for http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://pub4.ezboard.com/bthehighwind.*

Weird!

I heard that you can ask for the website to delete things that you don't want other people looking up, maybe somebody did that ??