14 or bust?

To put this in plain terms, what is your opinion on this?

If you are like myself and have played FF since 1991 (I was pretty much a baby), you have seen a general decline in Final Fantasy over the past few years, and the fun that has been associated with FF has been taken over by insanely complex graphics and overwhelming CG renders. The mystical "power" that FF once had is essentially gone now to traditional FF fans and now, Final Fantasy is actually quite low on my list of fun things to do.

My earliest FF game was the U.S. II or (IV) which I faithfully played for years. I still have it, and play it on occasion. The storyline and the captivating power of this game was unreal, and was able to keep me fighting monsters and gaining exp. points for hours on end. Maybe it was my little boy crush on Rydia that kept me in, or maybe it was the game (we will never know).

Then, FF U.S. III (VI) came along a few years later, and was even better. More fun characters, better graphics, engrossing story, semi 3D interaction, and lush backdrops and maps, it was a masterpiece. I've spent many hours on end playing 3/6 and even play occasionally now. Kefka, what an entertaining and hateful villian!

I then had a break from FF for a couple years until I was 12, when I saw FF7 on the shelves that had just come out. I couldn't believe in paying $49.99 for a new game, but I did anyway. I bought the action figures, the guides, the accessories....everything! Who knows why, I didn't like that game a whole lot. But, none the less, I still had fun while playing it and got my money out of it. In fact, I could sell my collection for a heck of a lot more.

Then FF8 in my opinion was terrible. It's the only FF I have not completed besides FFX-2 (which I am currently playing). No more comments except that Rinoa was good looking. I have a wallpaper of her, and she looks gorgeous in it.

Then I skipped 9 in disgust, and took a break while I got myself a truck and began working on it. I have it now, and it's wasn't bad. Just nothing special to me.

(Spoiler)
FFX just about dropped me out of the FF series for good. I could not stand this game. No world map, no levels (traditional system), etc. etc. Not to mention that the soundtrack was just horrible. Oh, and Auron was dead this whole time? I wanted to toss this game in the trash.

FFX-2 I bought for $1.50. I like this game, and it's more fun than X by far. It's for sure no FF (traditional style), but it's entertaining.

FFXI I've never played.

Now I've seen the previews for FFXII, I think I'm done with the series. The games that Squaresoft is producing now just don't have the power and "fun" factor that they used to. FF's now are being overpowered by graphics and special effects, while the writers are either thinking too deep for a plot, or not deep enough. Whatever the case, FF's are going downhill, and I believe that by FFXIV (14), Square Enix will discontinue the series and either replace it with a new one or drop the idea all together. These are my thoughts and feelings for FF, but this is coming from a traditional FF lover. Maybe Square Enix is aiming towards a new generation of kids since people like me are getting married soon and having kids. I've seen some great reviews for FFX (which I absolutely did not like), so maybe Square Enix is doing a good job. I don't know, so that's why I'm opening it up to discussion. I want to see what you guys think. Will FF shifts it's target audience sucessfully, or will it dimish and become a beloved memory?

As you youself mentioned, there is a very clear gap in the differences between fandom for a series that is close to twenty years old. Chances are, while the original fans may not be there to support the game, there is probably going to be a new generation of players who will pick up the game, play it, become involved with the series, yet never consider playing the old ones.

I, personally, would like to admit that I am an original old school fan, but I'm not. I didn't play the series when I was young. I didn't even have an SNES when growing up. Yeah, my first FF game that I completed may have been IV (just like you), but the only reason I bothered was because I was waiting for FFX to come out (which, despite my fervor for the game, is not my favorite FF).

I think the series will go on past fourteen. Whether or not anyone who knows that the old games exist are still around, is subject to the passing of time. At least SE can still strike it rich when they pander to the calls of their "dearly beloved" FFVI-and-below fans.

The storylines in the new Final Fantasies are different, not worse, in my opinion. As for the game play, FFX had a superior battle and levelling system to all FFs in my opinion. VIII also had a good battle system.

I think that people should stop complaining about how much Final Fantasy sucks now and just stop playing if they don't like it. :greenie:

I think it will continue well past XIV, which, by the way, will feature an extremely affeminite vampire with really lame hair ;). I can predict the future, I tells you.

If Square went back to random encounters every 2 seconds and a story that included "go collect the crystals and save the world" and not much else I would be pissed off. I think they got better, much better, not worse.

Edit: I also dislike that I see constantly "Square is just about good graphics now." Why on earth would Square make their games ugly on purpose. I gaurantee half the people who hated X would love it if it came out during the Snes times, with the same story and battle system, and was ugly (though it would have amazing graphics for the time, so the whole logic is a little weird).

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Originally Posted by LunarWeaver

If Square went back to random encounters every 2 seconds and a story that included "go collect the crystals and save the world" and not much else I would be pissed off. I think they got better, much better, not worse.

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Yep.

The "final" fantasy is immortal. just like megaman.

Hopefully it won't go past 20. That'd be a bit ridiculous, they'd probably have to just use subtitles or something past that point.

But, nevertheless, I'd follow the installments probably until the day I die. It's actually a bit scary, thinking about it that way...

It's not that I dislike new ideas that the games present. I do have my likes and dislikes of both the games I favor and the games I don't like. I'll go into a little more depth about what makes the games more entertaining to me.

Personally, during FF4, I did not like the idea of crystals and other mystical "medival" ideas that accompanied. But it was the general enjoyablity of the battles, and the lack of things that bug me. For instance, FFX had a very non spectacular and repetitive soundtrack which really got on my nerves when trying to complete the sphere grid. FFIX took such a long time to enter a battle, so leveling up (something I always do) was a very boring and horrible experience. That's was has turned me off about the recent games.

About the "SE is focusing only on graphics" I think is true because the graphics in the more recent games, such as X, X-2, 11 and 12 are just too complicated and overdone. I think of it as "now that we have the power to make anything we want, we will do so." There is no theme, trend, or pattern that someone tries to follow. It all appears that the characters have as much stuff crammed on them as possible, except the girls, which have as little as possible. There is nothing spectacular about the FFXII's characters outfits to me. For instance, I can say "that looks like Tifa's outfit." and we'd know what you mean. But if I say, "It looks like Seymours outfit, or Larsa's, or Yuna's Black Mage DS." how do you describe that? They're a mess! Things need to be simplified a little to be easier on the eyes.

Anyway, I think that all of the FF's have their strong points and weak points. It's just that the weak points of some games really get to me, and some of the strong points don't appeal to me.

I'm kind of tired of people bitching about how the FF series has changed as if this is the first time it has happened or something. Most game series change over time, so I don't know why FF fans get so cynical when FF decides to evolve. Sure, you don't have to like it, but don't be suprised if it happens. In fact, my favorite games are usually older ones, but that doesn't mean I am not going to like a series just because the games don't have the same feel like they did in the early-mid 90's.

Most of the games in the series have had impressive graphics for their time, and great visuals and fun are hardly mutually exclusive anyway. I think the only time graphics were ever given higher priority than fun was FFVIII. And apparently Dirge of Cerberus, but that doesn't count.

i can see what you're getting at, a lot of the old traditions from the series are things i'm sorry to see go. especially things like the new ones not even having shiva, ifrit, ramuh etc...

at the same time, FF4 had the simplest battle system of all of them. it's a bit of a contradiction to criticise FFX for having no levels, when FFIV basically had no anything. all your characters were on rails and would gain abilities at certain levels.

i enjoy a bit of tweaking and control.

I can see where your getting with the outfits, they are a bit complicated (I have no idea how to get into some of them without instructions), but I think the plots of the later games are pretty good. My favourite story is probabaly FFX's, and My favourite game is (SPOILER)FFX-2 because it's just fun to play, also it's impossible to get stuck, and getting stuck at a boss is my pet peeve when it comes to FF.

I still find the graphics argument weak. X and XII are absolutely beautiful, and X's plot was still way deeper than IV's. So how can it have a better plot if they were just focusing on graphics.

I also found the outfits to be amazing. Yuna's outfit is crammed with stuff on it, but I don't see how that's bad. More details can only be good. Nomura designed both Tifa and Yuna, and it's funny you use them both as opposite examples since many people say all of Nomura's designs all look exactly the same. I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, I'm just pointing out how different opinions can be.

I don't think it's overdone at all. XII has the same character designer as Tactics and Vagrant Story, and the characters have the same crazyass clothes they do in those games, and if Tactic's characters were in full 3-D it would be apparent.

FFIX was also the same exact battle system I've seen a million times. The battle screen does take way too long to load, but it's not exactly a deal breaker. I don't see how anybody could say IV is pure fun and say IX isn't, since they're basically the same thing.

I can't pretend to know you or anything of the sort, and this next comment isn't directed at you in particular but just at everybody: I see way too many people who will only lag one system behind. When the Playstation came out it's all about FFIV-VI. Now that the PS2 is out people run around calling themselves old-school because VII is their favorite. And when the PS3 comes out everybody will get bumped up again and be true fans because they like X instead of the super silly graphics heavy XIII.

My point is people are attaching unimportant things to Final Fantasy games. If these games did not carry the Final Fantasy name 90% of the people who do not like them would love them. If you slapped the Final Fantasy name on a Shadow Hearts game, the Judgement Ring system would spawn 10,000 bitching threads, but because it's a different series it doesn't get that sort of uber-criticism. The team is just trying to make a new experience each time utilizing the system at hand the best they can. They are going to make them as pretty and long and fun as they can with the time they have. Nobody is making a bad game on purpose. Do you really think a series should go 13 titles using the same battle system? In fact, the gaming industry is taking a lot of criticism for putting out the same game over and over and putting a new title on it. As a series goes and goes, at some point you have to start doing new things to shake things up. I've already played thirty million RPGs where you kill monsters and gain a level. I've done it so, so many times. I need systems like the Sphere Grid or it's just the same thing.

But because they're all so different some will like them and some won't. I don't care if somebody hates X, based on music, battle system, or it's linear tube approach, but when they list "The game is too pretty" as a reason, it comes off like the only reason they don't like the game is it didn't come out 14 years ago.

Edit: Wow this post is so serious. I need to make some sort of joke now ;_; You ever notice how you can't when you want to?

If you don't like them, don't play them. Really, that's all there is to it. Besides, if the series stuck to the same theme every time, the series would have gone stale an awfully long time ago. Also, don't get me started on the "SE only cares about graphics!" argument. That one is just ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by LunarWeaver

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The team is just trying to make a new experience each time utilizing the system at hand the best they can. They are going to make them as pretty and long and fun as they can with the time they have. Nobody is making a bad game on purpose. Do you really think a series should go 13 titles using the same battle system? In fact, the gaming industry is taking a lot of criticism for putting out the same game over and over and putting a new title on it.
SNIP

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Thank you so much for this post. After some thought, I've decided that the part quoted above in particular is essential to what Final Fantasy is about.

Because the series doesn't follow a particular storyline or main character (even if certain elements are often recycled), it's not really beholden to a particular system of play. IOW, imagine if Nintendo's Zelda series turned into a FF-style RPG. The outrage would be unlike anything the game industry has every seen.

Instead, experimentation is part of what Final Fantasy IS. It is a quest to determine what makes for an entertaining and enjoyable RPG experience, while exploring what can be achieved in the RPG genre with the hardware at hand. When something works, they might keep it, or come back to it in a later iteration, and when it doesn't work/people don't like it, then it gets revised or dropped altogether. Things become more complex as they have more and better hardware to work with because the developers of the series are always asking "what can be done with this?" rather than saying "people really liked this, so we should use it again, nevermind that we already know we could do it on a system that is now seven years out of date."

And honestly, in that light, it's hard to argue that the later games in the series don't achieve those aims. That's not to say that you have to like what they tried in a particular game (and to be sure the complexity of "what is possible" is truly becoming a lot for people like me to manage), but it's hard to argue that they haven't accomplished the sort of exploration/experimentation of the RPG genre and it's limits that they shoot for each and every time they put a FF game out.

Or I could be talking totally out of my behind...

I'm an avid FF player, and I do play X (without the music on) which solves my problem. And also, I do like Yuna's outfit in X and even more in X-2. The gunner outfit, but some of the outfits were a bit outlandish to me.

I know we all have our opinions, and that is what this post is really about. To see the different sides. I'm getting older, and playing something like IV or VI is really easy for me, because I still know the system and can jump right in. That's why it works for me. Everyone else probably can't get over the 2D pixels, which were so very cool looking to me at the time. For me, it's more reminiscence than anything.

If I was first to play X, I'd probably like it a lot more than I do. I personally love the Sphere Grid (one of the few old timer FF fans that does), and love the way I can customize my characters however I want. Lulu ended up being a White Mage, Rikku the Attacker, and Yuna the Black Mage, so you never know. The only reason I had problems with it, was because it was so different than the previous FF's I've played and I was expecting levels, powerful weapons (ones that can make or break your character), and world maps. If someone would have told me the differences before I got it, it would have been a much better experience.

It's all how we perceive things and how we take them to heart. Not like anyone's wrong. FF isn't for everyone. My dad can't stand it, but I love it. My girlfriend may or may not like it, I haven't asked. It's just all in tastes, and that's what makes us human.

Provided the series continues to move on and innovate as much as it has, it will still keep selling. After all there are music acts that have the same sound for years and keep selling records (AC/DC, Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones etc.), as well as certain computer game franchises (Megaman, Dragon Quest). In comparison Final Fantasy is a series that always manages to feel continually fresh.

You aren't alone in your love of old school FF, and apathy towards the newer ones, but I certainly don't share your view. Though I love the old school stylings of games like FFIV, V, and VI, and will gladly admit that FFVI is my favorite game of all time, I can't deny that for the most part these games keep getting better. FFIX is easily my second favourite in the series for it's story and battle system, and FFX had one of the best done stories I've seen in any game because everything felt natural. The characters and their motivations and the changes they go through felt right to me, and the battle system rocked. Having played the FFXII demo, I also can't deny that it has what could be my favourite battle system in the entire series from what I've played. All of these games easily top games like FFIV and V for me in every respect except nostalgia perhaps. They're just plain better made, whether they share the style of the older games or not.

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Originally Posted by Maxx Power

Provided the series continues to move on and innovate as much as it has, it will still keep selling. After all there are music acts that have the same sound for years and keep selling records (AC/DC, Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones etc.), as well as certain computer game franchises (Megaman, Dragon Quest). In comparison Final Fantasy is a series that always manages to feel continually fresh.

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I agree with you there, FF's have always seemed to implement enough changes to keep us interested. Hah, I keep buying them, so I guess it works.

I'm assuming that most people on this site are from North America.

Here's the problem with N. Americans criticizing a game series because it "lost its touch".

Final FAntasy is a Japanese game. And in Japan, they keep rating these games better and better every time a new one comes out.

Look at Famitsu's fan-made list of the greatest 100/200 games ever made. Final Fantasy X is #1. #2 is Final Fantasy VII.

There's also the problem when people who played FFVI came out call it the greatest FF. Because they claim to be afficionado's, but in reality, at the time they weren't even aware that half the series existed.

One of my best friends is one of those people. He, too, says that the only thing Square cares about now is Graphics, rather than story, characters, and other elements.

As someone who recently completed all the SNES FF's, I can honestly say, the stories and character development has gotten BETTER with almost every game. When FFVII came out, one reviewer stated that it was the first time when storytelling in videogames actually surpassed that in movies.

If you go back and play VI, the dialogue in the game would never hold up in any RPG today, because the story and character interaction isn't real or logical enough to be implemented into a game. So even if it was to be remade with 3D graphics, it would still seem outdated unless they revamped the entire game.

I think one of the main reasons that this has been a prevailing issue among American fans of FF is because of Final Fantasy VIII. I think Square had an enormous vision for a video game, it just didn't turn out the way they wanted, at least the reception in America wasn't.

I think FF will keep going strong well into the XX's. The games had a huge impact on a generation of SNES gamers in the 90's. Undoubtedly, it won over a new generation with the PS generation of games. And if you look today, there's a new generation of gamers who love FFX and Kingdom Hearts.

I find it ironic that in this post I was criticizing the VI-fans for having a grudge against the newer games for the way they've changed, as now I am unsure whether or not the Gambit system in XII will win me over. It may be too much of a departure, but the American audience can't decide that until it reaches our shores.

i think the problem is partly that RPGs are quite formulaic and predictable. when you approach this forumla for the first time, it will blow your mind. but as each FF game is released, following a similar pattern, it's hard to stay impressed.

but secondly, the games aren't necessarily getting better every time. basically, each game has a different gameplay system. these appeal to different players in different ways. FF3, 5, 7, 8 and 10 are the games that really had intricate battle customisation possibilities. some people like materia, hate junction, it's one of those things. some systems are better than others.

as for story, basically the early games had rather primitive stories, which began to get a lot more interesting with FF6, then became incredibly detailed with FF7. this was the peak, FF8 tried to take things in a different direction, and became a "love it or hate it" thing. FF9 returned to the light hearted and less complicated stories of the 16 bit era. FF10 tried way too hard with unbelievable and ridiculous plot twists, and the horrible voice acting didn't help at all.

i'm sure every title in the series is SOMEBODY'S favourite (okay maybe not FF2), but they aren't necessarily getting better every time. especially in terms of story. better presented, yes. but i haven't felt too involved in any of the stories since FF7, although they are still entertaining.