Does Final Fantasy not have it anymore?
I'm beginning to think Square has lost it's edge, ever since the merging with Enix.
They just don't make RPG's like they used to anymore. And I'm not too excited about the new Final Fantasy... What ever happened to a good storyline and fun gameplay.
Anyone share the same views?
Square merged with Enix. Which means that Enix bought Square out. Square had lost a lot of money on its ill-fated "Square Pictures", and firing Sakaguchi wasn't enough to save the company.
Notice that Final Fantasy, the moment Square was bought by Enix, became a cash cow of epic proportions, giving fans exactly what they wanted. That was never what Sakaguchi's goal was. He was an artist; he had visions; he wanted to make a beautiful story about the power of friendship, goodness, and nature versus cynicism, techonological sterilization, and evil.
And then, Enix heard the fans, who missed the grandiose (if slightly pretentious) ideas of Sakaguchi and scremed such inanities like, "But Cloud's hair is sooo kakkoi".
Enter: FFX-2. Yuna with hot pants.
It's not that the games suck. They're polished, beautiful, and a joy to play. They are also under new management, and made to promote profits. Notice the team that makes Dragon Quest: they take their time and produce higher quality games than ever before.
Delita, you and I and a few others may weep for Bartz and co. saving the crystals and bringing kindness to different worlds (including our own), but... well, the fans have spoken.
Besides, they made Emperor Mateus so sugoi in Dissidia, don't you agree?
俺は人間なのか?
We got both with FFXII, but who would expect any less with Matsuno involved. Sadly he' gone now.Originally Posted by Delita
And I don't think Square losing it's touch has anything to do with the merge with Enix. Guys like Nomura and Kitase were losing their touch a long time ago and sadly they're at the Final Fantasy helm now.
Personally I don't think I've really enjoyed a Square story/characters since FFIX. Some of the games that have been published I've played through for game play reasons, but mostly found everything else meh. I can't say I know very much about the in depth workings of SE to try and analyse why this is happening. (I am more likely to blame industry trends in general)
I love that this thread pops up every couple of years and the current game which is being released marks the end of "when Square had it". With FFVII-FFXII people felt that the series had lost it's mojo and it wasn't the same and had discussions about it.
Basically, what's happened is that you've come to associate the Final Fantasy series with whatever game or two you first played and hooked you to the series. Because they can't churn out the same games over and over again (although some argue that they do), they have to try new directions and ideas with games. Since these new directions and ideas are not in alignment with what your expectations are of the series, it seems that they have lost their way.
Don't worry, there will be people who will pick up the series with FFXIII-FFXV and love it and then create a thread like this stating that the series is going downhill or lost their way with FFXVI.
I disagree with that. I forgot that XII even had a storyline throughout most of the game. Had the best gameplay out of the entire series to me.
I feel that they have probably gone down quite a bit. I wasn't really around then, but I heard there used to be a good number of RPGs or other types of games that they produced before they merged with Enix. Some of those were Front Mission, Ergheiz, Xenogears, Bahamut's Lagoon, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, The Bouncer, and Threads of Fate for a few.
After the merge I believe it's been mostly ports and remakes.
Final Fantasy I and II for PSP
Final Fantasy VI for GBA
FFV for GBA
FFIV for GBA
FFIII for DS
FFIV for DS
I'm not sure if Dawn of Souls was before or after
Chrono Trigger DS
Outside of remakes we have FF spin offs
FFVII Crisis Core
FFVII Dirge of Cerberus
FF Dissidia
Chocobo Tales
FFXII Revenant Wings
Original Games
The World Ends With You
Kingdom Hearts II
Mario Hoops
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Last Remnant
Infinite Undiscovery
Out of this list the last few games released by them were
Chrono Trigger DS
KH 358/2 Days
FF Dissidia
FFIV DS
Infinite Undiscovery
Last Remnant
The World Ends With You
For choices of games for the Square Enix fan there isn't much for them to choose especially if you don't have a portable system. So what does that leave you? Just with Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery which I've heard that neither are any good, plus both are 360 only. So you're screwed PS3.
To Mullet as you can see for my reasons I have no problem with the the majority of the numbered games in recent years. It's just their business aspect now. They have nothing to hold me over until XIII, which I'm afraid for not becuase of the last FFs, becuase the company lied about not compensating the PS3 version because of the 360.
Last edited by Depression Moon; 11-14-2009 at 01:30 AM.
You having a short memory doesn't make the story bad.I disagree with that. I forgot that XII even had a storyline throughout most of the game.
In fairness, there may have been long breaks in the story and the pacing could have been better in that regard, but what was there was great.
Nah It's been years since I've played IV and VII and I can still give detailed description what happened to the story in those games and I've only beaten VII once and IV twice. XII I've done twice too and it was the last FF I played right before VI which wasn't even a year ago. From what I can remember none of it got me interested at past the beginning of the game.You having a short memory doesn't make the story bad.
From what the developers were saying in interviews and articles they were more focused and proud of the battle system than the story.
I also disagree with that. FFXII's storyline was haphazardly told exclusively through large cutscenes which were often many hours apart, which not only meant horrible pacing but a disappointing amount of substance and development as well. There's only so much development that can go into 5-10 minutes every 5 hours. Still, FFXII was enjoyable to play, at least the first time (doubt I'd care enough to give it another go).
On topic: I haven't been really engrossed by a FF since FFT, so yeah, the label has lost something. The only thing surprising to me is that the OP says that he's just "beginning" to think that.
>>> Im still enjoying FF games but without Sakaguchi Final Fantasy will never be the same..
>> The black orb glitters ominously... but nothing happens..
Christ guys. Where's Kanno when I need him?I also disagree with that.
I do like Dissdia, I have to admit.. They brought a lot of the classic FF characters in and stayed up to the last true Final Fantasy (which is X, in my opinion)
To be honest I don't have any next-gen consoles.. the newest system I have is a PSP, because it seems they're releasing the SNES/PS1 type RPG's for it. :)
...Though I might pick up a DS if I get the cash one day.
I don't think you can say it's losing touch because the last game in the series was pretty damn good. I would still hold that it doesn't have that Final Fantasy feel, at least in its pacing/design but it was still a top notch game.
Despite the large number of remakes and spinoffs, a lot of them have been fun like Revenant Wings, III & IV DS, the new GBA ports of IV, V & VI, Dissidia and TA2 from what I've heard.
Also you can't blame the merger/acquisition b/c X-2/Dirge/Advent Children (just ok to me) were all in production or released when sakaguchi was still around.
Also, some of the original members of FF from the early days like Akitoshi Kawazu, Hiromichi Tanaka and Hiroyuki Ito are all still heavily involved in the major titles and are project heads on whatever they work on.
The one complaint isn't about FF, but more about Square Enix, I just think they should be thinking about how to innovate the RPG genre with new IP's, one-offs, something they simply couldn't get enough of during the PSOne era.
Actually, the merger is what finally green lighted the Compilation of VII project. While Nojima and Nomura had been talking of the film idea it actually didn't start production until 2003 after the merger specifically which is the same year Sakaguchi resigned. It should also be noted that Sakaguchi formed Mistwalker in 2001 when he was still technically employed by Square.
I don't think you can pin the Compilation on him since he's not actually credited in any titles and because he was more involved with getting his own company started at the time. Its also incredibly difficult to discern what he actually did for X-2 since it was developed in a year and his executive role was questionable at the time. The last title we actually have evidence he worked on was Kingdom Hearts and that was him mostly giving Nomura advice that KH needed o be a grander project on scale of FF.
On Topic: I feel creatively, part of the problem with SE is that they are trying too hard to make this a business by trying to franchise out titles. I have only played a handful of titles since the merger that I feel really capture the appeal I had for Square back in the day. I feel SE has not only created for themselves a creative slump by letting talent leave (Gears team, Chrono Team, and Matsuno) but they also choose not to actually bolster up and give proper PR to the original IPs they do have. Both Mana and Front Mission have suffered sales abroad from SE's total lack of promoting such titles. On the other hand, the Compilation has been terrible and the Ivalice Alliance has been hit or miss.
Their most creative products are usually small scale like TWEWY and Sigma Harmonics and I feel the major projects are trying too hard to appeal to a western mindset which is kinda silly since these western mindsets bought all these Japanese mindset games for years but suddenly now we don't like it? I blame a majority of SE's problems on Wada and the people who supply him with information.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
I myself feel like the final fantasies just became less and less final fantasies after sakaguchi left. It started with X-2 having only 3 characters and became critical when XII lost (my opinion) the best thing of which you could tell it was a Final Fantasy: the battle system. I think that was one of the most important parts of Final Fantasy. Also, neither X-2 nor XII have the original "limit attacks". XII's quickenings are just not the same. XII also lost the feature of enemy skills and I cannot compare the espers to aeons/g.f.s/summons. Also, what I hated about XII is that you couldn't really "enter" the Strahl. You couldn't walk around inside it. And it doesn't have any minigame with chocobos. This I cannot forgive. VII had the whole breeding, VIII at least had the woods minigame and if you had a pocket station chocobo world. X had a number of minigames concerning chocobos and X-2 did too. But XII? All it has is the possibility of riding them. And I don't count the fact that you can reach areas with chocobos that you couldn't without as a minigame.
I must admit that I haven't played IX, but I did like Final Fantasy better when you could still walk around on the world map.
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