Just curious to see what people think!
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Just curious to see what people think!
Yeah. I think the last couple years were pretty awesome.
Right now they're doing pretty well. Back when they were doing FF13 they were pretty mediocre in my opinion. Tomb Raider saved their asses.
I voted "terrible" but I would change my answer to "mediocre."
They're doing well with FFXIV, but XV was a disaster and everything surrounding that has been utterly disappointing. I think SE in general is doing well, but the mainline FF series isn't.
Mediocre @ best
Dragon Quest XI looks awesome and XIV has taken all my time for the past two years.
And then there's XV and all that other stuff. There's that mobile app that is a blatant cash grab and there's that other app that's just why? At least they got a butt slider.
I'd say mediocre. I think the only thing they have in the pipeline I'm remotely interested in now is the remakes for Secret of Mana. I just can't be bothered to get excited about Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, or their outsourced IPs like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider.Course this has been going on for a long time now, and while I felt XV was a decent game that could have been a hell of a lot worse, the FF franchise has simply been moving in a direction I don't care for.
With that said, I don't feel like they make bad games, XIII was the last title to offend my sensibilities, but most of their games are so okay, they're average.
No love for World of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest Builders? My love for those 2 games factors heavily into my "They're doing awesome." opinion.
Pretty okay
I dunno.... I dont like ffxv. But love xiv and tgey are both kinda recent. Xv obviously way more. But. Havent played any other SE games though so cant judge there. Well. I like XIV enough to say they are doing alright ayre.
alright meaning. Pretty well
even if I dont like XV it does seem to be quite popular.although with that mobile version coming oot I dunno what they were thinking. Looks soo weird.
Voted for terrible but then remembered that they are doing okay with DQ XI and they did a good job with The Zodiac Age. If they stopped with the milking.....
Ones there take on Mincraft which was already an established IP, and the other is them milking nostalgia. SE is incredibly good at milking nostalgia, but I don't feel like that's something that should be praised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaymin
They don't make titles I'm particularly excited to play any more, so in my eyes they're doing terrible.
I disagree. I think every aspect of that game was done excellently, it showed their ability to put out a great AAA game which was hilarious, fun, had buckets upon buckets of brand new gameplay content that was for me a winner on almost every front, had it's own story independent of the nostalgia milking (and for me that story was more than good enough when compared to Final Fantasy games), and the nostalgia factor was a bonus - admittedly a huge bonus, but a bonus all the same. And it wasn't dumb nostalgia milking like you see in card games etc. It was legit, with the proper voice actors, loads of dialogue and scenes, all new entertainment and things that a lot of us really wanted. I think they did everything right. How is it not something that should be praised? And when you take away the characters from previous games and focus on the other things in the game, what's not to like? I can understand your other points but I feel WoFF is so, so much more than what you've dismissed it as.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Below average. I haven't bothered to pick up FFXV yet as one; they have moved in a completely different direction than what the games were and two, it's now an action RPG now which is a gameplay style I've never cared for. Why alienate your own fan base? Don't get me started on FFXIII.
FFXIV is a very good game gameplay-wise and although it was the first MMO I got involved in, the story still couldn't get me absorbed, and this has been an issue with this company for years in my experience.
RE: Curious, have you checked out WoFF? The battle system is like Pokémon mixed in with the old school FF battle systems.
Sweet. I remember I downloaded the demo/beta some time ago just before it came out but I was so busy at the time I never gave it a try. Sounds good. No excuse not to try it & I'm sure I could get a cheap copy online.
Even the story and characters, in particular writing and voice acting? I liked the rest of the game well enough and it was a fun, if not spectacular, little romp - but a key part of an FF title for me is the story and characters. It is, without doubt, the most cringeworthy writing I have ever experienced in a game. Yes, worse than FFX-2. I had to put my head in a pillow and scream at one point. Tama's irritating verbal tic is of course well-documented, but Reynn in particular is unlikable, nasty and obnoxious, and Serafie's voice acting was just. What. What the hell was that. The story did become more interesting and better towards the end (you'll know what I'm referring to) to salvage it from awful to okay, but it's a far cry from "excellent".Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoBI disagree. I think every aspect of that game was done excellentlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
To be fair, though, replaying all the games recently kind of made me realize that the story and characters of FF were never really that good to begin with. Sure, they have their charm, but there's always the part in every FF where everything just goes crazy, sometimes really stupid, and it's really hard to take them seriously as an adult. And the dialogue is very much cringy, especially in games that never got a proper retranslation (ahem FFVII).Quote:
Originally Posted by PsychoticEven the story and characters, in particular writing and voice acting? I liked the rest of the game well enough and it was a fun, if not spectacular, little romp - but a key part of an FF title for me is the story and characters. It is, without doubt, the most cringeworthy writing I have ever experienced in a game. Yes, worse than FFX-2. I had to put my head in a pillow and scream at one point. Tama's irritating verbal tic is of course well-documented, but Reynn in particular is unlikable, nasty and obnoxious, and Serafie's voice acting was just. What. What the hell was that. The story did become more interesting and better towards the end (you'll know what I'm referring to) to salvage it from awful to okay, but it's a far cry from "excellent".Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoBI disagree. I think every aspect of that game was done excellentlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I still love the series and stuff, mostly due to the nostalgia that I have for it and, indeed, for all the charm it has, but really good story and character writing was never really its strong point. It has had its moments, but since experiencing all that for the first time, I've played so many other games that do all of that much better
Yeah I don't disagree there's some dodgy writing and translations, but the dialogue in WoFF is... something else. It doesn't have that old-fashioned video game dorkiness to fall back on. They're trying to write in quirky and funny ways for kids/teenagers and just failing miserably. I think they wanted WoFF to be something like Adventure Time meets Pokemon/Kingdom Hearts in terms of who they're pitching it at. They missed the point that we all picked up earlier FF titles and kids and they didn't have babyish or dumbed down writing.
I have never in my entire life associated amazing story or voice acting with Final Fantasy. Ever. It's horribly full of plot holes and miracles and all that. It has always been this way. Same with dialogue. Didn't feel that WoFF was any bit worse than the other games in any of those regards, particularly when considering it is supposed to be a more 'fun' game than the others. When you add that in, I dare say they did better than any of the other FFs, with perhaps the exception of FFV.
EDIT: Also, I'll happily say that all pre-voice acted games had, in retrospect when playing them, shoddy writing. Not dumbed down? Eh, perhaps not, maybe? But no better than WoFF for me.
I just want to go on the record and say that I don't associate top notch voice acting with FF either! For me all the best games in the series are text based.
With that said though, I think WoFF had the lowest quality voice acting in the series. Nobody can justify the horror show that was Serafie! And even Tara Strong (Rikku) who is a superb voice actress had an off day in WoFF. She sounds like she has a cold or something. I actually thought they'd changed Rikku's voice actress.
(other than FFXII which has flawless voice acting that other games can only wish they could reach the level of)Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the voice acting in FF games apart from WoFF has been bad (Troy Baker is love), I'm just saying that it's not what I instantly think of when someone asks me why I like FF, primarily because my very favourite titles have been text based.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fynn(other than FFXII which has flawless voice acting that other games can only wish they could reach the level of)Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
hipster
I'm not sure that's the word you're looking for. :p My favourite FF is VII aka the mainstream mega smash hit.
That said, hating on FFVII has become so cool - see the character tournament - that maybe it's trendy to like it now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
You guys are out of your minds. WoFF's voice acting was great. They put a lot of effort getting a large voice cast and tracking down the original actors. Rikku did sound a little off but Im not sure if that was anything more than her actress aging like 16 years.
Serafie was hilarious. Her dry deadpan performance was obviously on purpose.
There is virtually no reason to automatically disregard taking something that is widely liked and using it again or expanding it as long as the execution itself is not reflected as absolutely forced in the final product. Or in general the "forcing yourself to do that so much that the consumer can feel it". And if you ask me Final Fantasy XV with both the Open World to please those who hated XIII as well as Ardyn with this forced pseudo-cool Kefka nuisance kind of character that had to appear everywhere is one of the only examples where that happens. Final Fantasy XV itself is full of "making use of nostalgia and using it for the respective product" but that does not make everything that comes out of it inherently unenjoyable. As a matter of fact even this open world and Ardyn thing is highly liked by a lot. It is just one of those obvious factors for me and even obvious things would be no problem for me, it is just that such cases for me are so straight in your face that they feel kind of unnatural and with no real other purpose which I hardly ever have with other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
That being said I liked WoFF a lot more than XV for the mere reason that Final Fantasy first is an enjoyable story to me and while having its dorkiness WoFF had least had a story as well as one that i liked. I like the exaggerated anime foolishness in it way more than oh-hoo-look-at-me,-I-am-Ardyn-I-wear-a-hat-and-am-not-shaved-I-am-such-a-funny-wannabe-Kefka-who-happens-to-have-more-writing-than-a-lot-of-other-FF-villains-yet-fail-to-deliver.
Or as I like to say: You know something is wrong when your final boss is fought next to the bus stop of the royal city.
It's not cool. it's just the reasonable thing to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
But you are a beast. What does a beast know.Quote:
Originally Posted by FynnIt's not cool. it's just the reasonable thing to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
Oh, you dislike FFVII Fynn? You should've warned me, I'd have been more careful not to cut myself on your edge. ;)
I feel it was an interesting venture, but let's be honest here BoB. SE was using the nostalgia as the basis for all their marketing about the game. If they sold the idea as a beginner RPG for kids about kids collecting original monsters to wear as hats, most of us would have ignored it. Getting to see our favorite FF Heroes again in Chibi style interacting was the selling point of the title, not to mention the Pokemon collecting of FF Monsters which itself SE has used before with the DQ Monster series. SE themselves have said the game was meant to be an introduction for new younger players to scary thirty year old franchise with the Trekkie fanbase. I liked the battle system, as weird as it is, I felt it was interesting enough to keep me hooked, but the plot is kind of vapid for my taste, but as I said before, the game wasn't really designed for someone like me and I doubt I would have given it the time of day if it didn't offer the chance to see classic characters again. The game even has Sora and a vague Xenogears cameo to add street cred for the older salty fans. It feels to me like SE knew that hammering home the nostalgia would help that game sell and as usual, SE has fallen back on their glory years to get back into people's good graces instead of taking the initiative to really strike out and do something new because the company is afraid of failure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoBI disagree. I think every aspect of that game was done excellently, it showed their ability to put out a great AAA game which was hilarious, fun, had buckets upon buckets of brand new gameplay content that was for me a winner on almost every front, had it's own story independent of the nostalgia milking (and for me that story was more than good enough when compared to Final Fantasy games), and the nostalgia factor was a bonus - admittedly a huge bonus, but a bonus all the same. And it wasn't dumb nostalgia milking like you see in card games etc. It was legit, with the proper voice actors, loads of dialogue and scenes, all new entertainment and things that a lot of us really wanted. I think they did everything right. How is it not something that should be praised? And when you take away the characters from previous games and focus on the other things in the game, what's not to like? I can understand your other points but I feel WoFF is so, so much more than what you've dismissed it as.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Man, you're really hating on Ardyn aren't you? Technically, my statement would cover all your complaints about Ardyn and the open-world design, so I'm not sure what your point is here. SE did to XV with all the VI milking what XIII was doing with all of the VII references, so yeah, again my point has been made that SE falls back on reminding us about the "good times" instead of building a world and story that can stand on it's own.Quote:
Originally Posted by SephirothThere is virtually no reason to automatically disregard taking something that is widely liked and using it again or expanding it as long as the execution itself is not reflected as absolutely forced in the final product. Or in general the "forcing yourself to do that so much that the consumer can feel it". And if you ask me Final Fantasy XV with both the Open World to please those who hated XIII as well as Ardyn with this forced pseudo-cool Kefka nuisance kind of character that had to appear everywhere is one of the only examples where that happens. Final Fantasy XV itself is full of "making use of nostalgia and using it for the respective product" but that does not make everything that comes out of it inherently unenjoyable. As a matter of fact even this open world and Ardyn thing is highly liked by a lot. It is just one of those obvious factors for me and even obvious things would be no problem for me, it is just that such cases for me are so straight in your face that they feel kind of unnatural and with no real other purpose which I hardly ever have with other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
That being said I liked WoFF a lot more than XV for the mere reason that Final Fantasy first is an enjoyable story to me and while having its dorkiness WoFF had least had a story as well as one that i liked. I like the exaggerated anime foolishness in it way more than oh-hoo-look-at-me,-I-am-Ardyn-I-wear-a-hat-and-am-not-shaved-I-am-such-a-funny-wannabe-Kefka-who-happens-to-have-more-writing-than-a-lot-of-other-FF-villains-yet-fail-to-deliver.
Or as I like to say: You know something is wrong when your final boss is fought next to the bus stop of the royal city.
While I don't necessarily feel that an open world design is a bad move for FF, I would agree with many that SE, like many companies that attempt the model, simply copy/pasted what has worked in the past instead of taking the concept in a new direction, which would have been appreciated more. Most of it's design is the result of listening to fans and simply "throwing it in" with no real regard to how it would work in the larger narrative. The Flying Regalia is funny but largely pointless, especially since the game already allows for multiple modes of transportation and the very concept kind of runs counter to the "fantasy based in reality" central design of the game.
With all that said, XV is a lot like VIII for me, flawed as hell, but had a few redeeming qualities that made it worth playing through. Yet, I also understand how some people can be upset about it because a) I'm not the biggest fan of some of the core gameplay design choices and b) I was in a very similar place when the last console exclusive entry was released. My point still stand though, that SE tries to placate the fans rather than surprise us.
I would rather see the core design teams in Japan just send FF and KH on holiday and work on original IPs for awhile instead of cracking under the pressure of making the next numbered installment and pulling out the FF name and characters in every new IP because they simply don't have the confidence to believe their internal projects can sell anymore without them.
God the whining between you and BoB in that thread. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
I've been increasingly less interested in every Final Fantasy game starting with XII. However, I still think their remakes and the Bravely Default and KH series have my interest. These days, SE is just any old developer, who sometimes makes things I like and sometimes don't. Their days of continuing to move the bar for RPGs are over but they can still make a good product.
Me? What are you talking about? I like Terra!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Is this about Red XIII? Are you still salty that I, a General Chat posting upstart, schooled the legendary FF gamer Wolf Kanno and helped "A Talking Cat" win the vote? :cool: ...Prompto should've beaten him though.
I actually replied to that post but the vote was over by then. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by PsychoticMe? What are you talking about? I like Terra!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Is this about Red XIII? Are you still salty that I, a General Chat posting upstart, schooled the legendary FF gamer Wolf Kanno and helped "A Talking Cat" win the vote? :cool: ...Prompto should've beaten him though.
Exactly what my post implied: That you totally generalize to make the expanding and nostalgia thing an automatically bad thing. Which is even more highlighted by using the obligatoric bad-tasting "milking" term for these situations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
And to answer your question: Ardyn is the only character in the entire franchise I dislike. Simply because I cannot like when the execution of pleasing someone leaks of just that alone. That is why I never became a fan of Naruto. The series might be cool, but from the very beginning it reeked of me as the "lets make a story of ninja because ninja are cool, many people like ninja" creation. It might be a bit unfair because the series might not be that bad but that alone makes it unattractive to me. People hate fan service overall. I do not. I hate "obvious smeling fan service that was not utilized well".
Actually it did not. XIII has a few hommages to VII, sure. XV by trying to be a love letter to the franchise - which I in general think is a good thing - takes a lot from many games. As a matter of fact that was even the intention of a character called "Safeiroth" being in the game which can still be seen by the MagiTek mechs having the letters "SAF" on them. It is not even that XV takes it to the next level because I am Final Fantasy addicted and therefore love the throwbacks. The VI influence itself is not what I do not like. It simply is the execution of that influence, such as with Ardyn or the heavily Open World influenced "we got criticised by the fans for XIII so it has to be like that now" thing that can just be felt even though as I very often say XIII-2 and Lightning Returns very much already did a good job of listening to fan wishes AND YET at the same time doing what the creators themselves want and not just "wanting what the fans want". I have no problem with throwing one a bone. I do not call that "milking" and I do not associate the term "fan service" with something evil. It is all about the modalities. And XV with its trophy that literally says "The Open World" fitting its open world design and the forced Ardyn is just too extreme. Same goes for Breath of the Wild. As I always say. Breath of the Wild is basically nothing but a cool sounding alternative to "Zelda: Open World": I do love XV and BotW a lot. But especially this whole "we have to force ourselves to make an open world and all" thing does not appeal to me when I can feel it that much. Hate XIII as much as you want, but XIII never even was advertised as being like normal Final Fantasy. In 2009 Kitase-san already explained it is a "genre straddler" and that it is supposed to be different, supposed to be something else. And I would not even need that. As far as it seems you are the one who wants diversity even more. What I am talking about though is that I simply want a product that, when it actually wants to throw you a bone, does not fail at its execution, thus the mentioning of Ardyn and the Open World factor where I cannot help but feel WHY exactly they are in there and are bundles with an overkill of that instead of moderately executed integration of those aspects.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I still enjoy what they put out for the most part, but regardless of how much fun I have I haven't felt a "WOW" factor in a long time.
This accurately sums up my opinion of them lately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RlbYMVlq3k
I feel like I'm missing a lot because I didnt grow up with this forum.
Cool to bash on VII? News to me. Back in the day when it came out I remember being practically the only person to not be absolutely enthralled with it and now even I think it's good.
And what's your beef with Ardyn exactly? I personally dont see him as a Kefka analog at all.
Well you lost me on your point around the second paragraph of your tangent, that had really nothing to do with commenting on my "generalization and obligatory use of milking and fan-service" unless I was simply missing some subtext here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
Oddly enough I agree that I strongly dislike "obvious smelling fanservice that was not utilized well" I think the issue is that we both simply have different criteria for what that entails, and I most likely have a smaller threshold for when I feel like enough is enough.Quote:
And to answer your question: Ardyn is the only character in the entire franchise I dislike. Simply because I cannot like when the execution of pleasing someone leaks of just that alone. That is why I never became a fan of Naruto. The series might be cool, but from the very beginning it reeked of me as the "lets make a story of ninja because ninja are cool, many people like ninja" creation. It might be a bit unfair because the series might not be that bad but that alone makes it unattractive to me. People hate fan service overall. I do not. I hate "obvious smelling fan service that was not utilized well".
I'm getting more of the impression from this tangent that you simply dislike Open world style games since you referenced two different games with the same core principle and your dislike of said games for implementing it because you see SE and Nintendo simply trend following. I have a bit more of a tolerance for the genre, but I have my fair share of grievances as well, so I'll move away from this line of thought to discuss the real heart of the matter here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
When I say "milking", I mean the fact that when SE needs to sell a game they either slap the FF Moniker on it regardless of quality or pull out classic character and promote the hell out of them being in their. WoFF is a fun game, I'm not necessarily saying it's bad, but I take offense to how it was marketed, especially when it was obvious from the game's core design and story that this was really meant to be a fun game for newbies of the series, like Mystic Quest/ FF U.S.A. but almost all of the marketing was about pushing those nostalgia buttons by throwing in every fan favorite they could and making sure that image of Chibi Cloud and Sephiroth show up in all the marketing so older fans would buy it up. While I have nothing against a title that re-uses classic characters in a fun tongue-in-cheek manner, I feel like this is the move of a company that had no faith in a "beginner FF RPG" without having to drag in all of the old fans to save the game's sales. If the FF characters had all been removed, could the game had gotten the same recognition?
Squenix pushed out a half finished MMO hoping the nice graphics and the FF name would carry it to the usual million unit sales, but it floundered, while fixing it, they finally decided to change gears with the development team on an IP the company had been sitting on for almost a decade and rebrand it a numbered entry to move it away from the bad PR it had garnered in the time SE ignored it. Just as the new development team got something a bit more substantial going for it, SE decides to finally drop the FFVII Remake onto everyone's lap, which to me feels less like "Yes, we heard your cries and we're doing this because we love and appreciate you." and a bit more like "Okay, so we smurfed up. The MMO bombed but we're fixing it, and there is just no way we can get XV to perfect QA since you've only been waiting for this game for most of a console cycle. So we're going to remake this classic you've wanted us to do for ages to get back into your good graces and to make back all the money we'll likely lose from the other trout we half ass did".
FF has become more and more self-referential, XII borrowing a few popular monsters from the FF series to use as Mark Hunts and having a random NPC talk about Spoony Bards is cute fan service, and I can get behind that. Having the opening of XIII be a broad strokes remix of the opening to FFVII tells me the devs would rather have you think about the glory years than really stop and think about this modern game representing the future of the brand, which I eventually decided was a really bad FF re-imagining of Persona 3. I initially liked all the nods to VI, but then, like XIII with VII, it got to the point where it felt like you couldn't go ten minutes into the game without the tile making another not-clever nod to my favorite FF, and that's when it started to wear on my nerves. That is my issue here, IX was always meant to be a throwback title and Tactics was a love letter to the franchise, but none of the past games were this bad and I feel like SE is getting worse. The differences between us is that I feel XII was the cutting off point, whereas XIII's actual use of aping several elements from a popular FF in a non-satirical fashion told me the devs don't have faith in their ability and would rather try Jedi Mind tricking you into having fun by reminding you of all the good games in the series than actually spend the effort making the player actually care about their own product like we do those classics. It half worked, I would be lying if I said I didn't think about stopping both XIII and XV to pull out VII and VI instead, but that really wasn't the intended result.
For me, good fan service should be subtle and more of a "blink and you missed it" kind of reference that only a true fan would probably notice like the record player in the Black Mage Village playing Doga and Unei's theme when you have the key items associated for them, but only for like twenty seconds; than one that is smacked into your face with the grace of Jerry smacking Tom in the face with a frying pan for a few cheap laughs. That's my issue here. SE isn't clever with their fanservice, Even in IX and Tactics, only a few of their fanservice elements were truly clever. Either that or I prefer when it's completely played for laughs, which is where I can get behind WoFF, Chocobo Racing, and Dissidia that have their fanservice held on their sleeves. Despite this though, I'm tired of having SE screw up, and thinking that they can make a game that pokes at my nostalgia is somehow going to rectify my underlying issues with the company. So no, I can't really back something like WoFF because I feel like it's more of a half-hearted apology from a company that is likely going to screw me over in the future. I need a win from them, and not something associated with their golden years. I want the company to succeed and I would love for FF to mean the same thing it did almost twenty years ago, but as long as SE sticks to following trends, building games for profit instead of what would be fun, and resorting to selling back fan nostalgia in order not to lose the long time fans that support them; I just don't think that's going to happen. Heaven help us when SE realizes they could make more money from an FFVII Remake themed Pachinko machine at a tenth of the cost it would do for the real remake. I know they've been trying to win back the Western fans lately with more focus on console titles and being less stingy with porting, but I simply don't feel like the games are there anymore. They look great, but the games lack substance. For someone like myself who prefers to have a little more to mull around with in my mind long after I finish the game, it's been sad for me to get through games like XIII and XV and not give them a second thought afterwards outside of some criticism here and there, and I'm honestly not pleased with this turnout. FF for me is like the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster, all flash and little substance, just enough to make you care and check it out.
I don't! I just feel betrayed by it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
Surprised by all the negative nancies in here (tho maybe I shouldn't be?). Square is doing great. They've been one of the strongest publishers in the industry over the past few years. Theatrhythm 2, FF Explorers, Life is Strange, Dragon Quest Heroes/Builders, Just Cause 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, I Am Setsuna, Turing Test, Deus Ex 4, NieR: Automata, Bravely Second, A Realm Reborn, and yes FFXV. Sorry if some of these games aren't 10/10 games, but that doesn't mean they're bad. The elitist mindset needs to die. Try to be objective, my dudes.
And that list doesn't even count the cool remakes like the various Kingdom Hearts, FFXII, upcoming Secret of Mana, etc.
Sure there are some "bad" games like Star Ocean, Murdered Soul Suspect, etc, but that just comes w/ the territory of being a major publisher.
My only real quarrels w/ Square recently have been the lack of 3DS games in the past couple years and NieR: Automata not being patched on PC. But I'm not gonna sh*t on Square just for some minor quibbles. Their games are good and they make plenty of them. Deal w/ it. :ffvistrut:
Not really outsourced...they own the companies that make those games and whom originally owned the IPs, anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I think they're doing okay. Final Fantasy's kinda been all over the map in terms of reception after FFIX, but I've come to accept that not every FF will be universally loved (even the ones I don't like, like FFXIII, I can at least see some sort of appeal for). I've heard amazing things about FFXIV, and if I had more time, I'd even pick it up. Same could be said for the throwback games like I am Setsuna and Bravely; neither one really grabbed me, but I'm happy they exist. Dragon Quest is going pretty strong, I'm excited for Kingdom Hearts 3 and the FFVII remake (oh God, it's 2006 again). All in all, I'd say "okay" is a pretty decent summation; Square isn't the giant they were in the 90s, and their fanbase is definitely fractured to hell and back, but I don't think they've done poorly enough to be considered mediocre (SPOILER)yet
Okay to well I guess.
Without getting into too much detail, I feel Square Enix has declined over the years, they haven't declined as badly as most of the AAA industry. The fact that 2/3rds of my PS4 collection are Square-published games has to count for something. Final Fantasy XV isn't anywhere near to what it could have been (although I still liked the game), Dragon Quest is stronger than ever, Nier Automata was a nice surprise from what I hear; but KH3/FF7-R when? And let's not get started on if FF7-R should be episodic.
Stand-out publishers now are few and far between. CD Projekt RED has done great work with Witcher 3 (from what I here; have yet to make it to the game) but they don't their cyberpunk game is due out, when, 2019? Nintendo seems to be doing very well now all things considered (maybe the Wii U's failure displaced complaency). I guess Bethesda isn't bad either with Wolfenstein but I can't say I care about Elder Scrolls online at all and they are trying paid mods again?
Basically, past square was much better; but modern square compared to everyone else doesn't seem that bad.
Squee definitely is trying to gets those titles out that I'm very interested in playing. My experiences with previous games in their repertoire has yet to deter me.