Final Fantasy XV: What we're all thinking

I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for Final Fantasy XV to finish being developed. No really, I was around 14 when the game was first announced. In fact, I don't think it was all that long after Final Fantasy XII had come out. It has been that long that my memory is quite foggy on the whole thing. I remember my friend from school called me when he got his copy of XII, and we spoke very briefly and excitedly on the phone for a few minutes; "Omg, I know it looks soooooo good." We knew that we both wanted to hang up though, I mean we wanted to play this game so bad!

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The same friend was super excited about Final Fantasy Versus XIII too, we watched the trailer one night back on the good old days of MSN.

"OMG."

"I know. Man it looks so good"

"What are all of those swords?"

"I don't know but it looks so amazing it's going to be fantastic."

We kept the hype up for the next year. At 15, we would talk more about what was happening in real life than what was going on with the development of Versus XIII, which boy I fancied, how that girl so wasn't good enough for him. Gosh. Slowly, we were over Versus XIII, only ever really sharing the odd tidbit of info that appeared on Wikipedia.

Cue being 16, and the announcement of Final Fantasy XIII - WHAT? Lightning WASN'T going to be in Versus XIII? Was Versus XIII going to be the boy version? We'd be puzzled about it and talk for hours, again, on MSN about this game. We both fell in love with Vanille when she was announced as a character, and then Fang.... The Shiva BIKE? What the hell are they thinking, the Queen of Ice is not a bike...

I remember all of these conversations quite clearly because my friend and I really bonded for 2 years over Final Fantasy. It was after I saw that his MSN avatar was that of an upside down Yuna falling from Bevelle at her Wedding. "Omg you like Final Fantasy?" and that was that. We were friends.

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You're probably wondering where all of this is going; well, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you will know that the amount of Final Fantasy XV information that has come out this last week is insane. 8 long years of nothing - and all of a sudden a flurry of information we can hardly keep up with. This is all great, but I feel like my hype-train died a long time ago. Maybe it's because my Final Fantasy friend and I aren't as good friends anymore, and now seeing all of this new information about the game - and how different it looks to those original concepts - maybe I just don't feel interested in it because it stings my nostalgic memory of it.

It seems that some of our Eyes On members have similar feelings on it too... I've been scouring the comments on the forum this week for varying views about the bombardment of news.

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

"I wish I could get excited about the game, I really do. But as it stands I just can't. Maybe when the game is out and it proves to be as good as they're selling it, but until then it's not happening. I don't have as much faith in Square as the rest of you seem to have."

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Originally Posted by Sephiroth

It is not good to announce projects that probably only consist of the overall ideas, some artworks and a trailer while it is not done yet for a good deal and while the probability of remaking a good deal of it in between is there and that for sure is one of the reasons, it should not be like this. Making big games needing time is obvious but then I need to plan properly and I am sure such a faux pas will never happen again as Final Fantasy XV mustn't need another 8 years - except they begin with development early but do not announce it at that time.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

I'm excited to hear about the camping stuff and the weather effects. I like those little details. Of course, like Lightning Returns showed, even if you have a bunch of cool gameplay elements it really doesn't make up for bad writing and flat characters.

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Originally Posted by Hannibal_Khan

I'm effin hyped. Demo can't come soon enough.

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Originally Posted by FFFFsephychibi

Is it also a little weird that he's suggesting they can't implement everything that was originally designed because the hardware and software got... better? That doesn't make sense. It sounds like the game has been stripped of fun mechanics for graphical quality

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

What the smurf are they actually doing?

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Originally Posted by Bolivar

I'm concerned, from the recent trailer and the comments in the interview, that they're focused on shipping a title with a high artistic and graphical standard, rather than putting their heads together on how to make a really awesome role playing game.

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Originally Posted by shion

I am very disappointed by the lack of female playable characters. When I look at a game, that's one of the main things I look for and I have shot down a good number of games because they had no playable ladies. This has dropped my hype about 80%

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Originally Posted by Edge7

So, this game's been a pretty controversial one. In between the all male boy band cast, the focus on action over turn based combat, the modern setting, the "road trip" feel of the game; it really feels like this shouldn't be a main series title.THAT BEING SAID, I CAN'T HELP BUT GET SUPER EXCITED FOR THIS GAME.

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Originally Posted by Freya

Writing all these news bits has me excited again. I just hope it isn't another 8 years.

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It seems that some of us are quite cautious and disappointed, and most who are optimisic are cautiously so. By what we've seen this week. Square Enix have a lot riding on this game being a big success. If it isn't THE GREATEST FINAL FANTASY OF ALL TIME EVER, then they're going to lose a lot of fans for good. But then again, they could win us all back with Kingdom Hearts III. ;)

I don't need a greatest final fantasy of all time. I just need a game with good gameplay and a comprehensible, believable story.

I was actually going to make a topic of a similar manner because I didn't want to derail the hype thread, but I'll just go ahead and post my thoughts here. Thanks for the shout out, by the way.

My problem with the game is really quite simple, it been eight years. And in all that time it seems like they only did anything with it in two. What, why, how, I don't know. Because everything as to their reasons seem to be pure fan speculation and that's where it's going to stay until someone at Square talks. That's why I'm really surprised that out of all these interviews no one has asked, "Why did it take so long?" Or maybe they have and I just missed it somewhere. But it wouldn't surprise me any if no one is allowed to ask that question.

But really, if it was something as simple as not having the technology to do what they wanted with the game, that would have been easy to state. It would have taken perhaps two minutes. So if that really was the reason I don't understand why they were dead silent until this past week. Hajime Tabata has given us more information on this game in a week than the entirety of Square has been able to give us for what is almost a decade. "Oh, that's just how the Japanese are." So what's changed? They finally sit down with their other branches to learn how the Western world work?

I don't have faith in Square because they haven't given me any reason to put faith in them. "What about Bravely Default?" It was outsourced. "What about Tomb Raider?" It was outsourced. "What about A Realm Reborn?" A Realm Reborn is what Final Fantasy XIV should have been when it first came out, and had they listened to their beta testers, that may have been the case. Almost all the mistakes I've known Square to make has been things they could have easily avoided. This isn't rocket science. And in the same vein as Lockharted stated, I got excited for those old images of Stella that showed her with a staff casting a spell of some kind. I wanted to play as a kickass female mage. And games like X-2, XII, and XIII has spoiled me somewhat because it allowed you to play as a woman more directly. And that's something that hasn't been seen since Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy III, if you're a hipster. But even if you couldn't play as them directly you always had them in your party that gave you some control in battles. In V you could make Lenna or Faris your party leader and run around as them. And in an industry that's largely male-dominated, that's sort of a big deal.

Then there's the case of this game suffering from being a spinoff with a number. And I already see that happening. "Why doesn't it have this, this, or that?" Because it was originally meant as a spinoff. That's why I wouldn't be surprised if after it came out several people go, "I liked the game, but it shouldn't have been a main number entry." It wasn't supposed to be. It's only a main number entry because it been eight years, and we can't go that long without one. So for right or wrong, Square chose to go with the game that was already in development instead of making something from scratch. They could have called Bravely Default "Final Fantasy XV" and most people probably would have been happy. Except the ones that don't play handhelds.

Cautiously optimistic is probably the best stance to have. Because games that have been in development hell for this long rarely turn out good. And when Square keep showing us features that have been around for years as if they were just recently created, that doesn't exactly fill me up with warm, tingling feelings. Maybe they just meant it as being done in a way that has never been seen before because "next gen" and it got lost in translation, but that's not how it's sounding. Don't even get me started on the names. We went from generic sounding code names to stuff that sounds like they put random words into a translator until something cool sounding came out. Because that's exactly how I seen Ignis used as a name before.

As it stands, I don't think Final Fantasy XV's presentation is bad, it just doesn't interest me. And it'll need to be released as a full game and deliver before I can muster up any sort of hype for it.

Nice post ToriJ, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I will play this game, for sure. But the point I am making by linking back to my first memories of this game, are that I don't think my excitement will ever be that high again. Something felt so magical about this one title back then when I was 15/16!! I don't know if it will be as good now I am 22, but then again maybe me and my old friend will reconnect over this game and I might just feel that old Final Fantasy magic again :)

I think you mentioned it, Locky, or I could be incorrect. In any way I read your article when I just woke up and then I went back to sleep...

My feelings on it are, it looks like a completely different game! That doesn't mean that it's going to be a bad or boring game, just that I was SO excited about the old stuff we saw.

The old stuff sort of seemed like it was going to be about a tormented prince who just/was about to become king and dealing with a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance. And that there was going to be threats of war attacking his kingdom. That would be a freaking awesome game (in my opinion).

This game is much less to my taste, although it does look fun and just absolutely stunning.

I really like Final Fantasy games, and RPG's in general, and unlike a good chunk of people, I have not lost faith in the company. Heck I never really have faith to begin with. I pick up a game if it looks interesting, regardless of who made it. But when I find a series, I will stick to it unless I see there is only 1 or 2 titles in it I like depending on the number of games in the series. So far, Final Fantasy has yet to put out a game I dislike. Some I like less, some I think fall short of the FF title, but none I have actually disliked and turned off because I couldn't play it. And so I am going to give XV a try. Some of the news has me worried, and I am very much less hyped about it, but I will still give it a fair try and see what I think.

And if I dislike it? I'll still be there for FFXVI. I can't really get too upset if they make ONE game I dislike. Also, doesn't really make a difference to me how Bravely Default and FFXIV came to be what they are, Bravely Default is a fun game and I am enjoying the heck out of FFXIV.

And yes, Shiva is NOT A BIKE

Well

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

But really, if it was something as simple as not having the technology to do what they wanted with the game, that would have been easy to state. It would have taken perhaps two minutes. So if that really was the reason I don't understand why they were dead silent until this past week. Hajime Tabata has given us more information on this game in a week than the entirety of Square has been able to give us for what is almost a decade. "Oh, that's just how the Japanese are." So what's changed? They finally sit down with their other branches to learn how the Western world work?

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Square have always been notoriously bad at PR. Who actually knew FFIX was coming out until it suddenly appeared on store shelves? Europe didn't get FFX for nearly 6 months after the US an almost an entire year after Japan. It was never mentioned why and we pretty much just got some of the features of X International (which even then came out before X was even released in Europe, and despite the fact it came out before, EU didn't even get all the features that were in X International). Square have always been quiet on the development of their games. A Realm Reborn is the most transparent they've even been, and Yoshi-P had to have an uphill battle with the executives before they eventually signed off on him doing A Letter From the Producer Live. A lot of the higher-ups thought that it wouldn't be very well received.

If you've been following our frontsite, you would've seen the article that Freya made showing that SQEX have setup a Final Fantasy "council" to get the franchise back on track, Yoshi-P and Tabata were bought onto that council. It's funny that how after that happened, Type-0 and Agito were confirmed for the west and we started getting more information. There's been a very clear shift in dynamic with SQEX in the past couple of years.

It's not just exclusive to SQEX either. Other major Japanese companies like Capcom are woeful at the PR side of things in the internet day and age. Nintendo struggled with it for ages too, and eventually found their niche by ditching big glitzy press conferences at E3 and just messaging directly to their fans via things like Nintendo Direct. The Asian market is hugely different to the western market.

The flipside of this is a western company like Blizzard, that generally announces well in advance what it's planning to do. Particularly with the likes of World of Warcraft. The issue Blizzard has, is that they might start publicly discussing a feature for an expansion - that as development progresses they realise doesn't actually feel as fun in practice as it looked on paper. Then they gut it. Then they have players screaming at them going "oh but you promised us this" because it seems game consumers still can't grasp the concept that sometimes, during development of a game, things don't always work out. It's pretty much a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. No communication, people get annoyed. Explaining every change, people get offended and act like you're somehow nickle and diming them.

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

I don't have faith in Square because they haven't given me any reason to put faith in them. "What about Bravely Default?" It was outsourced."What about Tomb Raider?" It was outsourced. "What about A Realm Reborn?" A Realm Reborn is what Final Fantasy XIV should have been when it first came out, and had they listened to their beta testers, that may have been the case. Almost all the mistakes I've known Square to make has been things they could have easily avoided. This isn't rocket science.

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In the case of Bravely Default, SQEX JP was involved in the development of it. It still cost them money to make it and as the publisher they could still have royally screwed it over in an attempt to "westernize" it. But they didn't.

Tomb Raider was made by Crystal Dynamics which is a development studio that SQEX completely owns, they could've got involved in that and royally screwed it over too.

FFXIV yes, you're right, but this was at a time when they had a different CFO who pushed the game out. Several other big name publishers (read: EA) would've just left it dead in the water (see: Warhammer Online). Rebuilding FFXIV from the ground up, while supporting the old version and allowing people to play the old version for free is something a lot of companies wouldn't even dream of doing. Let alone pretty much firing everyone involved and building a new development team, at what was probably a considerable financial overhead for them. In hindsight we can say the mistake shouldn't have happened, but everyone makes mistakes - not one single gaming company (not even, dare I say it, Valve - have a 100% perfect track record of 0 mistakes), very few companies actually have the balls to stand up, admit to them and then dump probably billions of yen into fixing said mistakes.

Earlier this year at GDC they even held a press conference going through why 1.0 failed and what they learned. I believe Freya also made an article about this.

Does this excuse the mistakes they've made? No. But at least they're willing to stand up and admit to them. You can either be stubborn about it, or give them a chance to see what they can do. They are certainly making more of an effort in the past 12 months to win back the trust.

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And in the same vein as Lockharted stated, I got excited for those old images of Stella that showed her with a staff casting a spell of some kind. I wanted to play as a kickass female mage. And games like X-2, XII, and XIII has spoiled me somewhat because it allowed you to play as a woman more directly. And that's something that hasn't been seen since Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy III, if you're a hipster. But even if you couldn't play as them directly you always had them in your party that gave you some control in battles. In V you could make Lenna or Faris your party leader and run around as them. And in an industry that's largely male-dominated, that's sort of a big deal.

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Stella was never a staff wielder in any material we've seen of her. She was always wielding a rapier as far back as the initial Versus XIII trailers. In the early trailers they (Stella and Noctis) were shown at being odds with one another in the grand conflict, but friends at the same time. The latter part I agree wtih you on though, and one of my main drawbacks with XV is that there aren't any playable female characters.

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And when Square keep showing us features that have been around for years as if they were just recently created, that doesn't exactly fill me up with warm, tingling feelings.

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Like what?

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Don't even get me started on the names. We went from generic sounding code names to stuff that sounds like they put random words into a translator until something cool sounding came out. Because that's exactly how I seen Ignis used as a name before.

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Oh you mean the fact that they're Latin words with everything we've seen or heard thus far of the game having a very strong Latin literature based theme running through it? Fancy that.

To go off on a tangent here, I honestly cannot understand some of the people giving out about "real time combat" and "cars" as if they're something that's only just been shown off. The combat has always been real time in pretty much every trailer it's been shown in. The combat scene we saw at E3 2013 even looks like it was lifted almost directly from the first ever trailer of Versus XIII and turned into an actual in-game scene than an FMV. The car has been in from pretty much the second ever trailer of the game. Honestly aside from the aesthetical changes and character re-designs, everything from the 2006 days still seems to be there.

Watch this and just see how much stuff you can recognise (and for the recent car critics out there, look at just how many roads are in the trailers)

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Originally Posted by Lockharted

It seems that some of us are quite cautious and disappointed, and most who are optimisic are cautiously so. By what we've seen this week. Square Enix have a lot riding on this game being a big success. If it isn't THE GREATEST FINAL FANTASY OF ALL TIME EVER, then they're going to lose a lot of fans for good. But then again, they could win us all back with Kingdom Hearts III. ;)

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This is actually not very far from the truth either! There's an interesting article on Kotaku. A lot of Japanese developers are shifting more and more toward the mobile market because Japanese consumers are always on the move. If FFXV flops it could very well be the last console FF we see for quite some time. A whole lot is riding on it for both fans and Square Enix, and considering how frank Tabata and Sakaguchi have been in recent interviews, they sure as hell know that they've got an inordinate amount of pressure piling up to deliver.

The reality is they won't be able to please everyone. They've stated from the outset that they want this to be a modern FF. That's already riled up those who wanted a traditional high-fantasy FF. Real time combat has riled up those who wanted a turn-based game. All in all I will judge XV on what it's setting out to do, not my own pre-conceived notions of what I want the game to be. For me, judgment day will pretty much be when I get my hands on the demo with Type-0. If I end up not liking it, it's not going to be the end of the world for me because I know from trying to play the JPN version of Type-0, that Type-0 is a great game that will give me my "fix."

As an aside, my main reservation with FFXV is the combat system. I like Kingdom Hearts and the combat system there, but FFXV definitely looks like it's going to take some getting used too, with all the teleporting around and stuff. I only hope that the controls for it are fluid and responsive.

This i why i rarely even pay attention to a game early in development. Developers change, overhaul, and tinker with games so much that the end result is almost never what is hinted at in the beginning. I tend to wait until a game has a release date before i even look a any of the information, and soon after i mostly ignore it some more and go into spoiler-avoiding mode. XD

I was hardly aware of FFXV until a couple of weeks ago. I knew it would be years before anything was solid, because this is how Final Fantasy works. I still don't know anything about Type-0, other than i have preordered it for PS4. :D

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Originally Posted by shion

I really like Final Fantasy games, and RPG's in general, and unlike a good chunk of people, I have not lost faith in the company. Heck I never really have faith to begin with. I pick up a game if it looks interesting, regardless of who made it. But when I find a series, I will stick to it unless I see there is only 1 or 2 titles in it I like depending on the number of games in the series. So far, Final Fantasy has yet to put out a game I dislike. Some I like less, some I think fall short of the FF title, but none I have actually disliked and turned off because I couldn't play it. And so I am going to give XV a try. Some of the news has me worried, and I am very much less hyped about it, but I will still give it a fair try and see what I think.

And if I dislike it? I'll still be there for FFXVI. I can't really get too upset if they make ONE game I dislike. Also, doesn't really make a difference to me how Bravely Default and FFXIV came to be what they are, Bravely Default is a fun game and I am enjoying the heck out of FFXIV.

And yes, Shiva is NOT A BIKE

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This is pretty much how I feel too :monster: I don't mean to offend anyone, but waiting for FFXV has never been a personal issue to me and I really fail to understand why so many people became so upset over it. One, it's just a game, even if a very personal one. Two, I understand why Nomura would take his sweet time with it from a creator standpoint (Wolf Kanno pretty much nailed my thoughts on that in another thread). It's great Tabata finally helped him get it all together and finally finish up, but it's not like the ideas that built up over those years have been wasted. Some have evolved and some stayed, but so far it looks like the final product may yet be the best FF yet. So thank you Nomura for your imagination and creativity which, even though it has spun out of control and made your project run forever, I think will be the breath of fresh air the series needs, especially since you've mentioned the truly mature topics that you want the game to deal with, so I expect some genuine human emotions for once. And thank you Tabata for grounding Nomura's dream in reality and doing all you can to show it to the world ASAP. I have a feeling these people compliment each other very well and should collaborate more often.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and the game may turn out to be trash. Despite that, I really have faith in this game now with all the new info.

That's a really cool way to look at it, Fynn!

I'm sure the game will be great, I just hope it is as FINAL FANTASY as I, personally would like it to be. We can only hope! :)

Even if Square or Nomura didn't say it exactly, it's pretty easy to infer that the game took so long because they weren't really working on it. I mean, most all of the news of the game has been recent, but even disregarding the fact that they kept not sharing info on it, there were some hints. For one, when Les Miserables came out, Nomura was so moved that he immediately went back to Square and said, "Versus XIII is now a musical. Scrap everything and make it so." Square said no.... but he wouldn't have said that probably had the game had serious work done on it. I'm pretty sure they have said they were waiting in part because the PS3 wasn't powerful enough for their vision... but that was after the PS4 came out. In that sense, you're probably right ToriJ that they should have been more open about what was going on. Really, they just shouldn't have announced it before work was being done on it to begin with.

I'm way too excited for this game. I still have that sense of awe I had when I was a kid with a new FF coming out. I will admit that it is somewhat diminished, but that has more to do with responsibility and lack of time to play games than anything.

I think that's the biggest issue here - a lot of us were still high school kids when this was announced. Now we're adults with jobs and families and less time to invest in or get excited with video games. Priorities changed, worldviews changed, so it got harder and harder to squee in delight.

I forgot about the council thing, whoops. And yeah I really appreciated the GDC panel Yoshi-P did about XIV 1.0. That was really nice to actually have them tell us what went wrong and what they did and are doing to fix it.

TO BE HONEST, I wasn't hyped for Versus. I was like "why does XIII need so many sequels and branches" And then, after XIII came out, I was like ughhhhhhh since I was not a big fan of XIII. So i'm glad they moved away from it. In fact I really only got hyped after they changed it to XV at E3 2013 but I may be unique in that sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Aulayna

Shorten for space

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Them having bad PR for longer than I initially thought doesn't make it better, and I'm quite aware they aren't the only one over there with the issue. You're likely to see me talk about Square more than others on here for the simple fact that this is a Final Fantasy site so Square is going to be brought up more.

Maybe outsource isn't the right word to use, but they were still made by separate development teams from the ones that were working on their AAA titles to my knowledge, hence my statements. If I'm wrong I'm wrong. As for features we have seen before: day/night cycle, weather condition affecting magic (done in FFXII and Xenoblade, if I'm remembering the last part right), weather conditions in general, tent.

I actually didn't know about the Latin stuff. And I don't give a crap whether there are cars or not. And with that, I will no longer be carrying on with this discussion as I grow weary of people jumping on me because I'm either not as hyped as they are or my opinion differs from their own. Have a nice day.

FFXV doesn't need to be the best game ever. Like Mirage said, good gameplay and a decent story will already make it top FFXIII, which had so-so gameplay and a forced story that ended up becoming a pile of mess. I at least believe it will top that.

My biggest gripe with this game is the age old question 'what makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy?' Because, with FFXV as we know it, these days the only thing that makes a game FF is the words 'Final Fantasy' in the title. Square has overused this franchise label to the point that any game with even a shred of the old FF feel to it would be welcome. The fans are pining for this. I actually applaud SE for taking the FF label off of the Bravely Default franchise and making it its own, even though BD is the most FF-like game to have come out in years.

So far, FFXV is an action RPG in a modern setting where you control only the main character and the rest of your party is a bunch of other white dudes. That's fine for a spinoff game or new franchise but I expect more from the main series. I feel like staples such as a fantasy or science-fantasy setting, a diverse cast of playable characters, and some form of turn-based combat are things that should define a FF game. Some people seem to be happy with the new direction but where does it stop? If FFXVI was a shooter RPG like Mass Effect would people be on board with that too?

In the end FFXV looks like a fun game and based on the reviews it gets I'll probably give it a shot. I just don't like that it's FFXV instead of Versus and that it might be the last FF we get on consoles. It would be really sad if we never see a game that captures the magic of the SNES and PS1 titles fully realized on today's HD consoles, because, dammit, no matter how crappy SE's games are they are always smurfing gorgeous.

As put-off as I am with the announced details, I'm mostly aggravated about how mainline Final Fantasy had been mismanaged and de-prioritized, starting with Final Fantasy XII. This used to be a near-annual franchise with different teams, the bread-and-butter that allowed Square to experiment with other projects. Now, those smaller mobile projects are the focus (yet with the FF name tacked on) while main Final Fantasy titles are 5-6 years apart, with shifting teams who only work on it when they can no longer ignore the public. Case-in-point: XIII's leads admitting they had no idea what the game was going to be like until they were obligated to deliver a demo for the Advent Children Blu Ray.

They have failed to transition the series into the post-Sakaguchi era. Yoshinori Kitase is arguably the greatest game director of all time but he has undeniably failed to fill Sakaguchi's shoes as a Producer. If Hideo Kojima is still directing video games, Kitase needs to be knocked off his pedestal and go back to making video games. That "FF Quality Committee"is a disgrace. Tabata and Toriyama are great developers but they just are not of the same caliber as FF'S past leaders, some of whom still work for the company like Ito and maybe Minagawa, both of whom's absence on any such committee is a bad omen.

I understand Japanese gaming culture had changed and Square had adapted accordingly, but I feel such a large company should be able to have both its domestic portable library along with a dedicated console focus internationally. As a fan I would like to see them demonstrate a real commitment to Final Fantasy.

XIII was still a great game though!

I'm still really looking forward to this game. At the end of the day it's been almost a decade and I'm just glad that things are starting to materialise! Sure it may not be the exact same vision that Nomura had in mind, but to me the new trailer looks phenomenal and I have faith that Tabata will deliver a solid experience; Crisis Core was good and Type-0 was well received so that must say something about him as a director.

The only thing I will say is that I'm a bit concerned about the battle system. From what we've heard it seems far too easy with this "hold one button to attack, another to defend". If that's truly the case then where's the challenge? That's literally the ONLY thing that's bothering me.