Square + Enix = ???

Ever since Square and Enix joined forces, they have been taking a lot of risks with Final Fantasy.

Enix are the masterminds of Star Ocean, and so when I saw that they teamed up with Square, it seemed promising.

However, a lot of Square-Enix titles have proven to not be as good as they are presented. One thing about the company is that they can make any game look incredible, but when you play it you may be left with disappointment. I haven't played FFXIII yet, but the presentation was insanely good. That is why I was taken back by the bad reviews it got.
Could it be possible that they would mess up the first next-gen FF?
Obviously so., and I think they are well aware of it and that is why they released a part 2 to salvage some of it's intended glory.

FFX is great, though not one of my top favs. But one will notice that while X was made by Squaresoft, X-2 was developed with Enix in the mix and, well, it was horrible.

But in my opinion, Enix can't be specifically to blame. Personally, I much enjoyed FFXII. I think some of the criticism it takes is a bit exaggerated and over reaching.
It whispers Enix intrigue in many ways. Anyone who has played the Star Ocean series knows what I mean- the huge dungeons, free roaming and grinding, and so on.

I have a lot of respect for Square and Enix both, but they seem to either be losing their touch or are simply overly experimenting with the series. Hopefully, FFXV will bring back a more traditional touch. I think that will proof to be awesome now that programmers know how to take full advantage of the power that the PS3/360 have.


The thing is, Square was seemingly incapable of making a bad game in the past. They ruled the RPG department of the Super Nintendo and the PS1. And Enix, by their selves, are pretty good their selves. So what is causing them to lose their touch? I know Nobuo Uematsu left the music department, which is a shame. But that's obviously not the only issue. Is Sakaguchi (creator of FF) still in charge of his creation?

Anyways, figured I'd post this to hear what others know or feel about it :)

Final Fantasy X-2 has one the best battle systems in the series. The fact that the game was packaged as fan service and an unnecessary expansion to a main series installment is the reason everyone bashes it, but underneath all the crap there is a sound game. Taking risks on the battle system style seems to be what they've been doing. If you look between IX and XIII, basically every game has had a completely unique or at least different twist on the battle systems within the series.

Obviously there is a huge focus on visuals. There is also a huge focus on trying to create characters that people can identify with. Better characters. It's not necessarily working for everyone, but I feel like the characters of XIII are far and away more developed than those of other installments, even though you really have to search for all of their backstory. And the actual plot of the game is wtf so I don't know what they were doing. BUT THE POINT is that they're trying to shake things up again. As much as fans might think they're failing, none of you would want to play the same game every time. Or maybe you would. I 'unno.

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Originally Posted by Sum1sGruj

Is Sakaguchi (creator of FF) still in charge of his creation?

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Sakaguchi is head of Mistwalker now, he left Square Enix some time ago. Mistwalker is taking risks with their games as well, but in a different manner to Square Enix. There was a greater focus on adapting the traditional. Lost Odyssey is a great example of Mistwalker taking the stock standard JRPG, throwing in a somewhat less common Ring based battle system and then trying their damndest to put a story in there, a deep story. (It worked for me.) Blue Dragon was basically a flashy Final Fantasy V. You have a set number of party members who can take on a couple of different "jobs" and you just go on a grand adventure.

The problem is that people want improvements, adaptations, innovations and such, while keeping things "traditional". You can't really have your cake and eat it too. You can eat half of the cake, but then you're going to bitch because you only have half a cake and it's gone stale now. As masterful as I feel Final Fantasy IX is, I don't think you could release it tomorrow with nicer graphics and have the same reception. The audience in general has changed and diversified and it's not "hit or miss" with an insanely good success rate now, it's "how hard did I hit". Take the reception of XIII on this forum. Generally there's a consensus about what works and what doesn't in the series on here. But there were a handful of people who really liked XIII while there were a lot of people who thought it was a glaring failure. And then there's folks like me who enjoyed it despite it's flaws because gosh guys not everything is going to be perfect.

I think this is the longest post I've ever made here.

Most people still prefer the older FFs, which seems to indicate that they don't want a titty banana and coleslaw cake, they want a Victoria Sponge. If there's anything I want added to it, it's some nice butter icing in the middle to complement the jam, but that's really an unnecessary addition as long as the cake remains the same. I think upgrading from strawberry jam was a good idea, but they need to stop using marmalade and get on with using raspberry.

Sakaguchi's Lost Odyssey is a good example of a modernised JRPG. The sponge was delicious, and the icing was pretty good too, though I think it good have been smoother. And while blackcurrant jam isn't perfect, it was some of the tastiest I've experienced in a JRPG.

Compared that to SE's FFXIII, which had a stale sponge and the icing was so sweet it was sickening and detracted from the already average flavour. The jam didn't work either, as it just had too many ingredients so the cake was unstable and eventually crumbled into a horrible mess.

It's a matter of personal taste I think. Overall I've enjoyed Square-Enix titles a little more than Squaresoft. I don't think they're losing their touch, I just think they're changing and not everyone is going to follow them to the next thing. Hey does anyone remember how much more bitched and moaned about how FFVIII was the worst game ever a few years ago?

Yes, and now instead of just complaining that it was a bad game I can claim it was the begging of the end for the series. ;)

^ Some would say walking into the VIII forum now will tell you that the bitching and moaning hasn't stopped. ;)

When I first heard about the merger, I was actually ecstatic about it, because I was hoping that both companies would learn from each other and fill in each others weaknesses. At the time I felt Square was making the FF franchise a bit too much like a film, with a very linear progression with little to do to besides advance the story and maybe a terrible mini-game thrown in to add a bit of variety. With Enix, I felt they went the other way, DQ had this incredibly annoying habit of giving the player no help in advancing the story, and instead required you to basically wander around until you magically tripped over the arbitrary element that started the plot up again. Not to mention I felt that DQ had great premises for epic fun adventures and characters, but often the story and cast fall completely flat (even titles like DQV and DQVIII couldn't change this opinion for me I'm afraid.) so I was hoping both sides would help the other. Have Enix teach FF how to be a bit more open-ended and give the player some breathing room and let them see the world a bit at their own pace, while Square would teach DQ how to make characters feel less two-dimensional and actually create a sense of epic scope in their stories.

Over ten years later, I've seen that never happened. I think part of it was that what I didn't realize at the time was that Square was kind of failing for me simply because everyone I liked in the company was leaving or taking purely administrative positions during the end of the PS1 era and going full blown in the PS2 era. The other issue I had not really thought about was that other companies simply caught up with Square. BoF and Suikoden were both great thoughtful series that did a lot of what Square was doing back then in terms of gameplay innovations and writing more mature stories, not to mention MegaTen finally hitting mainstream in the PS2 era during the numbered FF drought. As for Enix, I kind of got my way. DQVIII-X are all radical departures from the series, and while it's quaint charm and most of it's antiquated gameplay mechanics are all still there, the series has been doing things that are unheard of for it, but rather common things I would expect from FF (I'm still waiting for a numbered FF to be an exclusive handheld title, maybe FFXV?). For me, I think I realized things weren't going to pan out when X-2 was announced. At the time I didn't have my legendary malice for FFX but I did think it was odd for a numbered entry to get a serious gaming sequel. I kind of knew in the back of my head it was the end of an era. My real revelation that Squenix was not perhaps not for me was when the Compilation of VII was announced. I always half-joked that if FF was truly on the ropes, it would simply just start going back to FFVII and pumping it for money and I definetly feel I was right. I still standby my assertion that the Compilation has done little to actually expand the VII mythos in a meaningful way but instead just served as a way to keep Squenix afloat while DQVIII and FFXII kept suffering from more delays. These last ten years saw the death of two of Squares other notable franchises, namely Seiken Denetsu and Front Mission. Enix seems to have finally retired Star Ocean after SOIII kind of killed the franchise. Which is a shame cause I really liked some of these franchises.

It hasn't been all bad, FFXII was a magnificent game imho, and I was flat out surprised by The World Ends With You, which is an exceptional game, and both of these titles are definetly in my top 10 Squenix titles. Kingdom Hearts franchise hasn't been too bad though I can't bring myself to care for it more than as a simple diversion while I wait for something more meaningful, same with the Tactics Advance series which is a cute franchise that still trying to overcome the shadow of it's series legacy. Dissidia turned out to be a shameless but overall fun fanservice fighting game (which is what an FF fighting game would always be) and DQVIII actually kind of showed that old school RPG maps can be done in a modern game though it doesn't seem like anyone is listening anymore... They saved Taito and Eidos from disappearing forever, and ironically enough, Eidos has turned into the company's main bread winner with the Batman: Arkhum series, Deus Ex revival and Tomb Raider reboot. XIII and XIV may have been huge setbacks for the company but XIII-2 seems to have won over the fanbase that felt XIII was "okay" and both Type-0 and Versus XIII both look exceptional. Not to mention that now that JRPGs are kind of disappearing from the mainstream view, it's very possible that Squenix could focus their resources and really set in a second coming of the genre in the West with either Versus XIII or even FFXV.

>>> Square + Enix = Valkyrie Profile Silmeria.. :luca:

Atleast I got one good thing from it..

I've heard some disapprove of Silmeria. Personally, I liked it better than Lenneth though I've never played the original and don't know if they tweaked it for the worse for the PSP release.

I don't think Square's decline had anything directly to do with the merger. It's more to do with a loss of connection with their fanbase and their own overconfidence. Perhaps the merger, which eliminated a competitor, caused them to get lax.

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Originally Posted by Mercen-X

I've heard some disapprove of Silmeria. Personally, I liked it better than Lenneth though I've never played the original and don't know if they tweaked it for the worse for the PSP release.

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>>> Lenneth and the original VP are exactly the same if im not wrong. The original VP is the most awesome my fav game ever..:luca:

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Originally Posted by Sum1sGruj

Ever since Square and Enix joined forces, they have been taking a lot of risks with Final Fantasy.

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Really? I'd say they've been doing anything but taking risks with Final Fantasy. Unnecessary sequels made to cash in on popular games and lower development costs? Check. Milking their most popular game for all it's worth and then some? Check. Putting out fewer new titles and series than ever before in favour of all of these FF titles? Check. Taking inspiration from popular western titles like COD? Check. Though admittedly the last one kind of blew up in their face because they don't actually understand why those games are popular and why those features aren't very compatible with JRPG's.

Hell, FFXII is probably the riskiest thing they've done in years because of how different it was from other FF titles. Not surprisingly it was the one I've enjoyed the most post merger.

Actually, no. Tri-Ace are the masterminds of Star Ocean. Enix just published their games. I don't really know of any Enix-developed game that I think is really good.

Things I think Enix has done well since the Merger:

FFXII: it was a new way of looking at FF, and it mixed a futuristic game with ffix. I couldn't be happier with the result unless they gave you full KH type command over a character.
Crisis Core: Probably the best handheld game SE has ever made
3rd Birthday: Awesome.
Just cause 2: Absolutely epic adventure.
Kingdom Hearts 2 and BBS.

Things SE has made that don't count as new games:
numerous remakes of most of the pre ps1 era games.
Repackaging a succesful game doesn't count as a new game.

Things SE has made that were terrible:
1. Dirge of Cerberus: I will never understand what they were thinking here, this game is terrible.
2. XIV
3. XIII
4. Before Crisis: seriously SE, what were you doing?
5. Kingdom Hearts Re:coded. A terrible remake of a great game.

And that's just the first 5 I thought of.

I'm waiting for an RPG where I can decide whether to ruthlessly hack away at my foes a la KH or to turn my back momentarily and let the AI temporarily attack and defend using my character like in XII. The downside of KH battlesystem is no breathing room, whereas with XII it comes off feeling slow.

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Originally Posted by Vivi22

Taking inspiration from popular western titles like COD? Check.

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Are you talking about when they made DoC? I liked that game. Selling it in exchange for a ticket to Canada is not what I'd call a fair deal. I want my game back and the time I spent in Canada.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Actually, no. Tri-Ace are the masterminds of Star Ocean. Enix just published their games. I don't really know of any Enix-developed game that I think is really good.

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I can't really think of any recently. The Dragon Quest series was developed by Enix by itself, right? That series is pretty popular. I don't like it that much anymore, though.

Dragon Quest was perhaps their only big title, but I never really cared much for that series. I've only played one of the more recent ones, and that was DQ8. It was sort of like playing a NES game with prettier graphics and voice acting.

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Originally Posted by Mercen-X

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Originally Posted by Vivi22

Taking inspiration from popular western titles like COD? Check.

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Are you talking about when they made DoC? I liked that game. Selling it in exchange for a ticket to Canada is not what I'd call a fair deal. I want my game back and the time I spent in Canada.

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Final Fantasy XIII's straight-line-with-cutscenes gameplay is admittedly inspired by Western shooters like Call of Duty. Which was a completely idiotic decision.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Dragon Quest was perhaps their only big title, but I never really cared much for that series. I've only played one of the more recent ones, and that was DQ8. It was sort of like playing a NES game with prettier graphics and voice acting.

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Dragon Quest VIII was way too slow.

Agreed. Still, I loooooved Jessica!

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Originally Posted by Mercen-X

Agreed. Still, I loooooved Jessica!

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Va-va-voom? ;)

Particularly in that Playboy Bunny outfit. You know Metal Saga? You can buy clothes for the female characters and see them worn once, but also there are collectible items that gave me the impression I could assemble a Hot Bunny outfit for one of the girls. If it's supposed to be possible, I've seen no clues, hints, or guides on how to approach it.

So, what were we talking about again?