The Anti-Fantasy

Who is Final Fantasy's "other half?"

It's been traditional to give that distinction to the Dragon Quest series, but they've been absorbed by Final Fantasy, and have drifted in and out of the international scene over the years.

So who is the contender that's out to knock Final Fantasy off its high Chocobo?

This list says that, in terms of sales, the Tales Series is the only non-SE property that ranks, and is a straight-up JRPG like Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest.

And it's waaaaaaay down the list. Final Fantasy is at 110 million, and Tales ranks in at a paltry 13.77 million.

So the question is, what can the Tales Series do that Final Fantasy can't? What is its position on the spectrum?

...To be perfectly honest, it really only seems like it sells well because of its similarity to FF. It doesn't attempt to set itself up as a serious contender.

I say, somebody needs to come along and punch SE right in the face with a JRPG-style game that deconstructs their entire approach to storytelling, gameplay and worldbuilding.

It isn't healthy for one company to own that much of the market. SE have gotten lazy with the FF series because they have no competition.

The competition that JRPGs have in the west is with ... WRPGs. Final Fantasy has to compete here with the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Dragon Age.

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Originally Posted by Spooniest

So the question is, what can the Tales Series do that Final Fantasy can't?

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Funnily enough you mentioned deconstructing and that is one of the main story telling elements to Tales games. For example: Tales of Symphonia (which is strikingly similar to FFX story-wise) is actually a deconstruction of the Chosen One trope, showing what could happen when that kind of burden is placed on one person (SPOILER)to the point where one of them is suicidal. Tales of the Abyss is a deconstruction of the Predetermined Destiny trope and what that would bring. Deconstruction popular RPG tropes is one of the things the Tales series does best

It also does more for character relationships. In FF games, the characters generally have one main relationship: the main hero. Maybe a few things here and there with someone else. But there are a lot of cases of the character speaking or interacting almost exclusively with the hero, or the main dude and main dudette. Every Tales game I've played does a good job of making the group feel like an ensemble. The characters have relationships between each other and interactions and stuff outside of the main guy and girl. Which to me makes a lot more sense when you have a group doing something as important as saving the world.

I really like both series and there are things one does better than the other, but I do find the Tales series a very strong contender for me personally.

In Japan, I think SMT is pretty close to FF in terms of popularity..

Anti Fantasy? Or anti Final Fantasy? I was actually coming in there hoping this would be a discussion about sci-fi RPGs or alien landscape RPGs (extremely rare) :( Now I'm sad

But yeah. In Japan it probably is either Tales or SMT. Now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy XIII or Skyrim sold better in the West. Pretty good point, Spuuky

And I never noticed that Tales games make a habit of deconstructing tropes. I should pay more attention, because that means they're doing exactly what I've been complaining the most about Japan's other games. Too married to tradition, tropes, and archetypes, and relying too heavily on those alone to carry the story and game without any addition or adjustment to make it unique and interesting. Just a bunch of cookie-cutter characters and plot devices. Hurray for Tales

But then again, SMT does a lot of that too, and puts most tropes and cliches on their head, when compared to Final Fantasy. As pointed out in another thread, they still use tropes and archetypes, but not in a cliche fashion. They mold them to their own design in fairly unique and interesting ways. At least so far as compared to other generic JRPGs. They admittedly do tend to stick to their own devised formulas (People have said that Persona 4 is just Persona 3 in a new setting, and the Devil Survivor games are generally identical with the cast just being the same personalities with new faces pasted on, but you can't really easily compare either of them to any other generic tactical JRPG)

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Originally Posted by Vyk

Now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy XIII or Skyrim sold better in the West. Pretty good point, Spuuky

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FFXIII sold over one million copies in North America on its release month, Skyrim sold 3.4 million copies in two days.

Back in the day I always felt the anti-Final Fantasy JRPG series was Phantasy Star. However, it's been many moons since Sega has made one, that was a typical RPG.

Yeah, people don't really even think of JRPG when they think of Phantasy Star anymore :/ They think of the Monster Hunter hybrid it's sort of become

I kinda wish they'd do a real Phantasy Star again. That's one reason I tried to enjoy Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It seemed so close to what Phantasy Star would have evolved into. Didn't live up to expectation unfortunately

On that subject though, Shining Force was always my anti-Final Fantasy. But that's strictly personal preferences, not sales numbers

Shadow Hearts is to this date still my favourite JRPG that hasn't been crafted by the Square or Sakaguchi camp. A genuinely good game set outside of the realms of high fantasy and sci-fi dystopian nonsense. There aren't enough games set in the transitional period of 19th and early 20th centuries that aren't bonefide blow your face off war shooters. There are some seriously good settings you could base an JRPG or WRPG in, which doesn't feature a future suffering the effects of nuclear anal rapeage, or armour made out of dragon scales and the power of a bit of granite and rock.

Don't forget Pokemon - they may have eclipsed Final Fantasy in the West, partly because they still release and remake games on a regular schedule. We haven't even had a remake since FFIV Complete. In a way, it's somewhat of an anti-FF in that it puts stock into simplicity and mirrors some of the mundane everyday life of our own world, whereas FF has gotten flashier and more surreal since it's first installment.

It doesn't match it in sales but I would still mention Ogre Battle. Whereas FF tells a different story in every installment, Ogre Battle tried to use a different genre in every entry. There were only two but after they rebooted the series as Ivalice with Final Fantasy Tactics, they moved on onto Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII after that.

I think that maybe Persona might be FFs biggest competition. It seems to get mentioned the most after FF, but then again Pokemon does as well and it's been around longer than Persona and has more entries to compete with Final Fantasy.

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

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Originally Posted by Vyk

Now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy XIII or Skyrim sold better in the West. Pretty good point, Spuuky

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FFXIII sold over one million copies in North America on its release month, Skyrim sold 3.4 million copies in two days.

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So they're getting the living trout beaten out of them. :)

Next time somebody is hating on FF, I'll mention this tidbit to them.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

I think that maybe Persona might be FFs biggest competition. It seems to get mentioned the most after FF, but then again Pokemon does as well and it's been around longer than Persona and has more entries to compete with Final Fantasy.

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Well, Persona is a part of the MegaTen series. I stand by what I said - they're both big long-runners with substantial fanbases, and really, they're both insanely popular in Japan.

Hm...

Yeah. You're right. Persona is what I'm thinking of.

It is everything that Final Fantasy is not, and all it's going to take is for Persona to have its "Final Fantasy VII" moment.

Unfortunately, I think the nature of the game's premise is inherently inaccessible to people raised in the political bitunbelievably passive aggressive in its repression of minorities United States.

So until things around here change a bit, it may not happen. Perhaps my teenage son will one day come to me and ask if I've ever played Persona. :/

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Originally Posted by Spooniest

Hm...

Yeah. You're right. Persona is what I'm thinking of.

It is everything that Final Fantasy is not, and all it's going to take is for Persona to have its "Final Fantasy VII" moment.

Unfortunately, I think the nature of the game's premise is inherently inaccessible to people raised in the political bitunbelievably passive aggressive in its repression of minorities United States.

So until things around here change a bit, it may not happen. Perhaps my teenage son will one day come to me and ask if I've ever played Persona. :/

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Actually, Persona 3 was its FFVII moment. Seriously, it put Atlus on the map in the West last generation, making then a serious competitor to Square Enix. You should give it a go and see what the fuss is about ;)

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Originally Posted by Spooniest

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

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Originally Posted by Vyk

Now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy XIII or Skyrim sold better in the West. Pretty good point, Spuuky

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FFXIII sold over one million copies in North America on its release month, Skyrim sold 3.4 million copies in two days.

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So they're getting the living trout beaten out of them. :)

Next time somebody is hating on FF, I'll mention this tidbit to them.

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It needs to be emphasized that Skyrim is the only WRPG selling at this level and it did so only after Bethesda either streamlined or eliminated many of the franchise staples that actually made it an RPG. Even then, it catapulted it to a Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto level of cross over success that transcends genre debates, at a number Final Fantasy never sold at, even in its prime.

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Actually, Persona 3 was its FFVII moment. Seriously, it put Atlus on the map in the West last generation, making then a serious competitor to Square Enix. You should give it a go and see what the fuss is about ;)

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Until Atlus is a publicly-traded company, no they are not on the map.

It's entirely possible that Persona 3 is as good a game as FFVII, but what I mean is a moment where Persona as a series "goes mainstream" the way FFVII did.

Like I said, the premise is a little strange for the political bitxenophobic as smurf USA. If I were in charge of that series' next installment, I'd work on researching ways to tell the story from a newcomer's perspective.

Pokémon, surely.

I do think that you can compare Square, Enix and SE with WWF, WCW and WWE. Bare with me, here.

When they had each other to compete with, they were in their prime. When one bought the other one out and the competition dwindled as a result, the quality of the one bigger group also dwindled. Others, such as TNA (let's say, whoever made the Tales games) attempted to rise and take on WWE to some extent, but they were never quite at that level. Instead, WWE found itself competing with other similar sports like MMA (WRPGs) and the competitions within them such as UFC (Elder Scrolls) and it's hard to say if there were any real winners once that happened, because they aren't really the same form of entertainment - WWE focuses on adding in story elements, while UFC is all about the gameplay.

I often look back in fondness to the times when WWF and WCW were competing with one another, as I feel the competition really benefited the genre as a whole. I often wonder if things would have been different. Still, despite all that, I am confident that, given time, the future can still lead to good things for WWE. But perhaps the best thing that they could do is sell off parts of their business so they can compete with one another in a less "in-house" manner.

Back to gaming (but did we ever leave that topic? Oh ho ho), I think the best chance of competition SE had was born in Mistwalker and then died when they couldn't get the marketing or investment done right. Mistwalker should have started up as a Kickstarter. I can't take the art style of some other games seriously, in all honesty. Tales in particular. I feel like I'm watching a cartoon and I just lack any form of immersion in the story because of it. Persona can be similar. Ni no Kuni, likewise. I want a game that does things like Final Fantasy and Lost Odyssey do things. The graphical quality mixed with the good gameplay. I mean, I can dig the games with poorer graphics but AAA games can make it that much better if they play their cards right, and I'm sure we all know that by now. Perhaps it'll happen someday.

^ lol that was awesome.

...and disturbingly accurate.

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Originally Posted by Spooniest

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Actually, Persona 3 was its FFVII moment. Seriously, it put Atlus on the map in the West last generation, making then a serious competitor to Square Enix. You should give it a go and see what the fuss is about ;)

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Until Atlus is a publicly-traded company, no they are not on the map.

It's entirely possible that Persona 3 is as good a game as FFVII, but what I mean is a moment where Persona as a series "goes mainstream" the way FFVII did.

Like I said, the premise is a little strange for the political bitxenophobic as smurf USA. If I were in charge of that series' next installment, I'd work on researching ways to tell the story from a newcomer's perspective.

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It may not be on the same scale, but it really did just that. This series actually caused Persona (and the whole of the SMT series for that matter) to be more than just a niche title nowadays. I doubt there's a chance for a JRPG today to make as big an impact on the industry as FFVII did back in the day, but Persona 3 sure did the thing in the JRPG community.

I have heard more about Ni no Kuni, Lost Odyssey and some random phone games than I have about Persona 3 over here in the UK. I've only heard about Persona 3 at EoFF, actually. I think it's a marketing issue as much as anything. I don't think it's had anything remotely close to an FFVII scale of impact on the wider market.

Personally, I think a new IP is needed to really break the market.

I wouldn't say Pokemon is a better fit. It's always been huge and it's demographic has always been pretty different than FF. Persona is where a lot of people turned to when the non-controversial FFs ended. I know it's not as large as FF is, but it still means a whole lot in the industry these days. And it's a similar demographic, plus it often deconstructs themes present in FF, so...

I liked the social/dating sim elements of Persona but that was about all that drew me to the games. The actual gameplay did nothing for me. jRPG combined with Roguelike, just like Azure Dreams, which was also a snorefest. =P

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

I wouldn't say Pokemon is a better fit. It's always been huge and it's demographic has always been pretty different than FF. Persona is where a lot of people turned to when the non-controversial FFs ended. I know it's not as large as FF is, but it still means a whole lot in the industry these days. And it's a similar demographic, plus it often deconstructs themes present in FF, so...

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I just found out that Persona 3 sold in the low hundreds of thousands in both Japan and North America. Compare that to Ni no Kuni which had something like double the total sales of Persona 3 and I think it's fair to say that Persona is not the real competition for Final Fantasy at this point. Sure, Ni no Kuni is a one-off game, but if a new IP can outsell the "breakthrough" game for a series, then the series is not really doing that hot.

Found out while doing that research that Persona really didn't take off in Europe, which explains why I'd never really heard much of it outside of EoFF.

I think that if Persona as a series really made up its mind about it, it could challenge FF, but it would have to make itself a lot easier to get into. Aesthetically and gameplay-wise, it is polarized in the opposite direction.

Pokemon is the FF series' biggest direct competitor monetarily, but it aims at a completely different age group.

Final Fantasy may be intended for Teens, but it's been a while since it was marketed to pre teens.

If you're going by sales, I guess. I was thinking more along thematic lines and fandom wars. FF is actually the only JRPG relevant in the mainstream nowadays, and I doubt that will change. Among JRPG fans, however, Atlus is on the rise. And in Japan, it, FF and DQ for this holy triad of JRPGs.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

I wouldn't say Pokemon is a better fit. It's always been huge and it's demographic has always been pretty different than FF. Persona is where a lot of people turned to when the non-controversial FFs ended. I know it's not as large as FF is, but it still means a whole lot in the industry these days. And it's a similar demographic, plus it often deconstructs themes present in FF, so...

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I just found out that Persona 3 sold in the low hundreds of thousands in both Japan and North America. Compare that to Ni no Kuni which had something like double the total sales of Persona 3 and I think it's fair to say that Persona is not the real competition for Final Fantasy at this point. Sure, Ni no Kuni is a one-off game, but if a new IP can outsell the "breakthrough" game for a series, then the series is not really doing that hot.

Found out while doing that research that Persona really didn't take off in Europe, which explains why I'd never really heard much of it outside of EoFF.

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I think it is fair to say that no jRPG has really taken off in the West (sans-Final Fantasy), outside of a select niche demographic. The only reason I turned to jRPGs was because the Adventure Genre had well and truly took a nose-dive by the time Final Fantasy VII came out. jRPGs were the only games that had that sort of storytelling that I appreciated.

I think on forums and video game communities, we often forget that we are usually the minority...in that we care enough to discuss them. Black Ops almost sold 30 million units, but I am yet to see a forum with 30 million members, let alone, 30 million active members. =P

Oh, sorry, I thought we were going by status rather than similarity. In the case of similarity I'm really unsure what there is out there these days that isn't a one-off game, so I suppose Personal will have to be it. If you count one-off games, Lost Odyssey, The Last Story and others are probably closer to FF, but this is an assumption I'm making so I'll defer to the judgement of others. ^^;

Tales is accurate, in my opinion. It complements the series nicely.

Alternatively, Mass Effect. The fanbases are similar and both are huge story-based games with lots of fans from other sides of the Pacific.