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Found this intriguing article the other day and thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss.
For those who can't be bothered to read the rather short article, the question is whether SE's recent dealings with the FF brand has helped to bring the series out of it's slump from last generation? Did it need it to begin with or do you feel SE needs to do more win back the franchise?
Can't really say. I still haven't gotten around to playing A Realm Reborn yet and it's going to be a while before I can play Type-0, so I only have second hand information to go off of from that, which would lead me to say it's still too early to tell. For all I know both games suck major dick.
I don't think we have enough to go off of yet to see if we are getting out of a slump. Strangely, we don't have a lot to go off of during the supposed slump itself, which I think is a lot of the problem. XIII isn't well liked and XIV originally bombed. However, A Realm Reborn brought the FF MMO world back up to par. XIII-2 and Lightning Returns also wen't on to fix pretty much everything wrong with XIII outside of story/characters, but they didn't sell that well just because of the connection back to XIII.
For me, I think everything looks a bit more positive just from the perspective of seeing a change of mind set in the company. XIV had the live letters with Yoshi-P, keeping a dialogue open with the players. Tabata has had a very similar approach with XV and Type-0 HD. I'm interested to see if we get faster development times and a similar open attitude once we leave the Fabula Nova Chrystallis games (or however you spell it.)
Yeah, they need to crank this trout out faster, even if it means the games aren't as beautiful as FFXV.
Wasn't really interested in Type -O and not really interested in FF XV. They don't really have the old Final Fantasy feeling at all.
I think everything's going in the right direction. Like Scott said, they're becoming much more open and, seeing how Tabata wants to incorporate all the feedback from Episode Dudcae, actually listen to their fans. I can wait to play XIV, type-0 and FFXV, and that's saying something. It really does look like SE is learning.
Openness is everything when trying to regain trust in players both fans and non-fans alike. The fans appreciate letters and dialogue because they feel listened to, and non-fans simply get to hear more about development and gameplay features. For little time and effort, you've established good relations with gamers. I'm honestly surprised more companies don't invest even a little bit of time on this front.
As for Final Fantasy, I feel like they are still getting over a hump. They've had some awkward growing pains in recent times, which they are only now getting out of. I think FFXV will be a major point in their history. How that game is received will determine how well this 'rebranding' period has actually been.