Do you think Squenix has lost vision of the FF series?

[Wolf Kanno]

X and X-2 were very different to what preceded them. But they were both very enjoyable.

I have also been playing my way through VI. I've also played V, as well as I. I have yet to finish any of them. Why? Because I was bored with the game, didn't have any particular feelings towards the characters, and wasn't enjoying the story. So what if Kefka had basically destroyed the entire world - I really couldn't care (although VI did have one or two good moments).

Now, I am not saying that they are bad games. They are great games, for their time. But I did not play them in their time, I played them recently, and I couldn't get into it. The fact that people are able to thoroughly enjoy the FFIV remake, from a generation that did not play NES or SNES shows you how well Squenix have done in their remake.

We each have our own tastes and tolerance levels. I'm not going to say you are wrong for disliking the earlier titles. Despite my stance; I'm not actually crusading for the belief that "it was better in the old days" but I do feel the later titles have their fair share of flaws in terms of story and characters. I just find it funny that people are more forgiving when later games make the same mistakes because of technical achievements. Yet, it works the other way as well since I know too many people who forgive the earlier titles for unforgivable mistakes just because it was "old and they didn't have foresight then." You can hold onto your feelings concerning the earlier titles and yes, I do feel that playing them at the time helps but not all the time and we will get to that later...

Also, the improvement from VI to VII is unbelievable. And not just the leap from 2D to 3D (or pseudo-3D). The dialogue and the story was notched up immensely. The towns had histories, and the NPCs in those towns gave the impression of that town history. When you went through Gongaga and Corel, you were aware of how Shinra had destroyed these places. You didn't get that impression when you went through the towns in the Empire from VI.

I actually disagree with most of what you said but I'm really not in the mood to degrade this thread into the VI vs. VII debate. Its been done to death and we should all accept the fact that nothing anyone is going to say is going to change our views about this.

Then one has to look at the improvement from VII to VIII. VII did have certain weak moments, especially with some of the translation, but VIII was basically flawless in its production. Yes, the story may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but the characters had a depth about them and the world had a massive background. Also the improvement in body language managed to convey the game's mood a lot better than VII's more simplified range of movements.

I disagree about the characters. Granted, I love VIII's cast infinitely more than VII's but I can't in good conscience say VIII's cast is well developed. Squall yes. Rinoa and Laguna to a certain extent but not close to Squall's level and the rest of the cast is pretty two dimensional in my book. I like them and I find them interesting but the game doesn't bother to go into anyone else so its difficult for me to appreciate them on the same level I did as Squall. The graphics were impressive but outside of the CGI Cutscenes, I never felt the upgrade did anything for the story or characters. I will be honest though, I am rarely impressed by graphics and I generally feel that they only help the less imaginative (I mean that generally and not as a slam to anyone)

I still have to play IX, so I can't comment.

Do, its a great game and I feel you will understand me better when it comes to my dislike of X. XI really built upon the foundations of all the previous titles and I felt it worked really well.

But again, the movement from PSone to PS2 was very innovative. They were making fully 3D landscapes for the first time on a new system. They moved the game away from the swords-and-sorcery theme of IX to something you have said was completely new. The artistic nature within the game was new and interesting, and freshened up the game.

The transfer wasn't as grand as most people had hoped. Despite being 3d the backgrounds are still for the most part treated as the pre-rendered kind from the PS1 days. Though it does have its moments.

And I don't care what you have to say about CTB - it actually bought a lot of thought into the bosses. Yes, it wasn't active, so it gave time to develop strategy.

My beef with it has nothing to do with it being ATB on Wait mode, I just point it out cause its hard to grasp how people see it as an innovation. I do the same with XII cause ADB is still ATB but you get to move around but you still don't get the real benefits of being in a 3D environment.

I actually love the move to strategy, me beef was that nothing in the actual story part of the game is a major enough threat to warrant a greater strategy than, "hit it til its dead". It does get better by end game but I felt the lack of challenge diminished the gameplay side and when it finally did get good, I stopped caring. I do occasionally jump onto my end game file and battle end game and arena creatures to enjoy the battle system. I did like the concept, I just felt the execution was terrible. I only wish the fun part had been like that for most of the game.

I also don't see what you have against the story. Tidus continued his quest to defeat Sin, knowing he would disappear. He kept it to himself, protecting Yuna from that emotion. Yuna, for most of the game, travelled with the thought that her achieving her quest would lead to her death. Her companions had to help her, knowing this. And Tidus hated his dad, because he was harsh towards him, but also because he disappeared. The scene at the end is touching in a strange way.

My main issue was that it was predictable and it was horribly over dramatic. The plot is a retelling of the Tale of the Yamato-no-Orochi with a bit of a Hollywood twist.

I got bored, cause once you understood the scenario (I am still trying to figure out how people missed the fact Yuna was going to sacrifice herself before the big reveal at Home) its easy to predict how everyone will react. Throw in the Rpg cliche cast of characters and it was just boring. I even had a point in the game where I started to ask myself if it was ever going to pick up. The ending is well executed but I felt the emotion was forced and thus it lost its impact for me.

I guess my main issue is that I felt X was kind of second rate and mediocre. Had it been made in the days of the 16-bit rpgs, I would probably agree with the majority that it was an excellent game but I feel RPGs have come a long way since then in terms of story and depth. When you turn around and play something like Ico and Suikoden III (two titles that were around at the same time) it really felt like X was backtracking with storytelling and characters choosing instead to rely on technology instead of innovation and good story fundamentals.

In terms of graphics and audio quality, X was a great improvement for Square and better looking than anything else on the market (except for MGS2). Yet, I felt they did a mediocre job on everything else. Especially when coming off the back seat of IX, which was a game that really defined what Square could do at the time.

Outside of the Ivalice team, I don't feel SE has been able to recapture the quality of storytelling and characters they had in the PS1 and earlier generations. I find they are constantly being outdone by other companies. Outside of XII and maybe even perhaps Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories,I feel SE has not been able to live up to the legacy they established in the PS1 generation. I'm still waiting for them to release games that surpass titles like, Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Chrono Trigger. I feel XII is a step in the right direction but that is only how one part of the company envisions and feels the genre should go.

X-2 is a sequel, kind of like the compilation games. It wasn't aimed to be a true FF. It was designed to be fun. In my mind, it succeeded. I think the game also succeeded in illustrating how a world that had been oppressed for centuries would begin once that oppression ended. It was decent.

I felt there could have been more political strife and less poorly ripping off Macross but as you said, X-2 was designed to be fun, and I do feel the game succeeds. It was a decent game and had X borrowed more of X-2's gameplay side, I might have enjoyed its predecessor a bit more. Yet, I am strongly against the idea of making sequels for the numbered FFs as I feel it cheapens the epic impact the games held. I find it silly to believe a few weeks later the world is hit with another world shattering event that only our fearless heroes can prevent. I can't say I want FF to follow into the same trappings as comic books or movie sequels.

My main issue with X-2 is that it destroyed the few touching and interesting moments of X by retconning all of it. X really loses its impact when you know Tidus comes back in the sequel. Even if you don't get the ending yourself, just knowing that weakens the originals impact. I actually started to think less of X because of X-2's retconning.

You yourself have highlighted the qualities of XII. I don't need to continue. And remember, Matsuno did leave roughly midway through it. The people who continued it are part of the Square team.

Hiroyuki Ito took over with the Ivalice Teams Art director to finish directing and overseeing the project. By then the main parts of the game were finished and I feel they're main focus and impact was telling the programmers to stop writing 3 extra pages of code so that one red jewel in the Dalmascan treasury would look a little shinier, you know, so they could release the game before the end of the decade.

My point is that the Final Fantasy series has evolved through the years, and each evolution has improved it.

I agree the series has always been about evolution and innovation but I feel lately, when I see many of their more big budget projects, the games are less innovated and just heavier on graphics and poorly convulated plot lines. I feel the series has been stagnating since X and though a few titles come and go that show there is still a bit of spirit left in SE something happens. Like when I read interviews with directors of upcoming games and listen to XIII's director Toriyama state this in Edge magazine when asked about whether the current generation of consoles should offer more than just a graphical update on their predecessors, he stated:

"The current generation might be percieved as merely visual leaps but the battle system now looks so realistic that any player will draw more of an emotional experience from their link with the characters: actions within the game are presented so realistically that the user feels completely in command." Edge Magazine, July 2007, page 78.

I feel this is more of the Kitase, Nomura, and Nojima route of "style over substance". His statement reflects my feelings about his last major FF title. Graphically it was nice but there was little else and I really felt it did not show the true potential of the PS2.

Seriously, you yourself have admitted your dislike of X. Go play Final Fantasy I in it's original form, which Sakaguchi was heavily involved in (from what I've heard). Then go play X. Tell me which one is better.

Okay, that is a bit overboard. But do the same with VI and X. Or even VII and X. And it is not just technical limitations of the SNES that gives X the upper hand. The level of detail in the modern day Final Fantasies is exceptional.

I actually did... its really amusing you ask this. A few months ago, I had to play through X cause my Gf got stuck (she didn't know how to activate nodes and finally got stopped by the boss at Macalania Temple. That far with only starting stats and abilities ). At the time, I was playing through VII again cause it had been awhile and eventually I got her to start playing VI Advance cause I started a new file on FFVI and she watched me play. The backstory of the Figaro Bros, Cyan and the whole damn opera won her over.

I still prefer VI over both VII and X; and I still prefer VII over X. I only finished X cause my GF wanted to see the ending. Funny enough, despite being a huge X-2 fan, she found X to be boring and disappointing as well. In the end, I still feel X is the weakest title in the series. I have never considered it to be truly innovative on the same level as its predecessors and successors.

X to me is a game that proves that good technology cannot cover up poor storytelling and bad gameplay design. But this is my own personal feelings. I don't believe that true achievement can be achieved solely on technology without people who know how to utilize that technology to create a fun an engaging experience.

Ico for instance has one of the greatest stories of the PS2 generation in my opinion, it has 1/1000th of the dialogue X had and still was able to give a tearful ending and overwhelming sense of satisfaction and it did all of it with gameplay instead of heavy use of cutscenes or heavy handed melodrama. Even the MGS series, which is known for its heavy use of cutscenes, many fans would agree its strongest moments are the parts when story and gameplay intertwine.

This is why the older games still entertain and enthrall me, cause they have good fundamentals and I do find their stories and characters engaging. We probably do not agree with each other but I feel we both know through our past dialogues that we come from opposite perspectives on the subject.