Can't get enough Final Fantasy?

[Wolf Kanno]

Well apparently SE does and so they have announced they are going to try and cut back development time so they can release FF either annually like Madden or Assassin's Creed or bi-annual.

News: Square targets new Final Fantasy game every 1-2 years - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

Thoughts? I'm not sure if they can pull this off really well. Many of those games they mentioned they are trying to follow don't have drastic changes from each other from year to year.

[Levian]

FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and FFX were released in Japan in 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2001, respectively.

Four of the best received entries released in five years.

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah, but that was back when FF and Squaresoft meant something.

[Del Murder]

I think that timetable is fine with the right people working on it, which I no longer think they have.

[Slothy]

What Del said, though I don't think that kind of schedule really works anymore. Bi-annual maybe, but I dislike series with annual releases. Not to even mention that at the rate they make games now they'd have to have about 5 development teams working simultaneously, or release sequel every other year.

Sure, they may have released four games in five years once before like Levian said, but that's not realistic these days for a series that's known for drastic changes from one entry to the next.

[Quindiana Jones]

The Square Enix bloke himself said that they're never going to make games like the old school goldies again. Well, he kind of said it. What he actually said was in reference to a VII remake, and that it would take as much as ten times the cost of production and work hours to do the graphical revamp. While I may be wrong, I carried this over into the assumption that big, story filled, well developed worlds cannot be done anymore because doing the sexy graphics for them would cost a ridiculous amount (if only SE had more money *snark snark*). Now, whilst most non-sociopathic, emotionally and intellectually brain dead people wouldn't give a toss about graphics quality if they could just get a good game that's actually worth the smurfing money, the majority of gamers are moronic tosspots who I wouldn't trust with even the bluntest of knives or the most resilient of Ming vases.

[ShinGundam]

Looks like i won't play Versus XIII because of this policy.

[Bolivar]

If they had two development teams doing them bi-annually, like Call of Duty, they could definitely pull it off. They'd need to be console spin-offs though or else FF will start having Super Bowl-esque numbers on the end and that ain't good.

Of course there's an issue of making a game of this scale with today's development costs. You really need about 3-4 years for games like this. But there's no reason why you can't have three teams doing it - give one to Kitase, one to Ito, and one to Minagawa. At least 2 out of 3 will be solid games

[Slothy]

If this arrangement meant more games directed by Ito I'd probably get behind it actually. Not so sure on Minagawa simply because he only has one directing credit to his name, and I have no idea how much of FFXII to attribute to any of them (Minagawa, Ito or Matsuno).

[Loony BoB]

If they don't spend time making a new engine for every new numbered FF release, I think they can achieve that without too big an impact. They are currently using the Crystal Tools engine and that new fancy engine (I forget the name) and have also noted their intent to use the Unreal engine again very recently. So... who knows where that will end up.

Maybe if they rush out the games then at least a couple of them will be received a bit better, although to be honest I think the fans often have too high (and too specific, perhaps) an expectation when it comes to Final Fantasy games. They're still better than any other "high-end" JRPGs out there, to my knowledge.

[Del Murder]

What other 'high-end' JRPGs are there available to the English market? It's a dying breed. Square was once the king of this genre (and that's why expectations are high) and they seem to be moving more and more away from it. They're (arguably) still better than the other options simply because there are so few of them.

[Loony BoB]

While true, I still think FF is a quality brand. FFXIV was a failure at launch and that is obviously a bad thing, but they have obviously learned enough to turn things around and they are heading in the correct direction on that end. For single player games, are FFXII and FFXIII really that horrible? For me, no, not at all - I played them through to completion, which is more than I can say for Lost Oddyssey (although I do intend on finishing that someday!).

As for JRPGs being a dying breed, that depends on how you look at it. Do you mean quality, or just whether fans will actually want to play the games at all regardless of how good they might be? I think the quality is about as good as it's ever been for single player games. I do think VII is the best ever, but I don't think that means all the other games are a pile of crap. I think they're really good. Will they ever match VII's quality? Personally, I'm not sure. The gameplay shown in VII wouldn't be complimented well by HD - the cartoony look fits the less serious moments far more than high quality graphics would. I actually think FFX would have been a better game if it didn't have voice acting and had less quality graphics when dealing with the characters. I guess that makes me weird, but oh well. As for the actual gameplay, I think the games are doing alright. XII had so much gameplay on it it was overwhelming and - for me, at least - affected my appreciation of what story they had.

But then, as much as FF has always been "about the story" for some people, I've always felt the storywriting for the games wasn't the major point of them. The characters and gameplay have dictated my enjoyment. The script - not in it's whole, but in it's moments - has always been strong, too. But the story? Well, most of the stories were either incredibly basic in the earlier games, then they went for some fairly cliché bits in the mid-series and then later it got to the point that everything had to be overly complicated (particularly from VII onwards). Have the stories ever been incredible? No, not for me. Not even VII. Moments, scenes? Definitely. Overall story? Hell no. XIII is absolutely fine for it's moments, for me, just as much as any of the previous series. The characters just as good. The gameplay and replayability are lacking, and perhaps map design could have been improved. But I really enjoyed it.

Perhaps people are just more vocal when they really dislike things these days and it makes the games come across a little worse for it. When you pick up so many fans over so many years for so many different games with different characters... how can you please everyone in the end? For every person who said FFXIII was rubbish, metacritics and the rule of averages show that there were at least as many who thought it was fantastic, because it rates around 80-something there.

What other JPRGs sell well here? Pokémon, I guess, if you think of it that way. But they just rehash the same thing over and over and over, so it's hardly a case of them losing their skill for making a game so much as it's them being lazy ever since they made that first one. Mario RPG does well, I understand, and is well received, right? What else... well, the other ones aren't really mainstream and for the most part I put that down to a complete lack of advertising. I don't know about what it's like there, but over here these are the only JRPGs that are advertised outside of gaming magazines. Every major selling £40 game in the past few years has surely had high advertising in order to get that success. I can't think of the last #1 game that didn't advertise at least on television. Everything from Football Manager to Uncharted to Skyrim to World of Warcraft to Starcraft, even Deus Ex and Portal 2. Hell, even Final Fantasy XIII. They all were advertised. And that's just talking television, not billboards and the sides of buses or whatever. If the other JPRGs don't advertise, they will not be a big selling game. It's a fairly simple thing, really. The exception to this rule is, of course, cheap games. But we're not talking about them, I'm talking £40 games!

[Jessweeee♪]

I'm more concerned with the end product. I don't really care about the time table P:

I agree about the whole advertising thing. IMO the Shin Megami Tensei series is on par with Final Fantasy as far as quality goes (at least the entries I've played), and recently they've been getting a lot more awesome, but aside from gaming magazines and word of mouth, there's no real advertising. Leading up to the release of Catherine Atlus had a huge PR campaign (though I don't know if it involved television because I did not have cable) and it's their best selling game yet even though it's the kind of game that typically appeals to a small niche.

[Del Murder]

I've never played the Shin Megami Tensei series. I agree it is hurt by bad PR. What's the most recent game for current gen consoles? I'll give it a look (if it exists, I can only find Persona 4 for PS2).

BoB: I'm not counting FFXII. FFXII was a brilliant game. It was not my type of game, but I don't deny it was a well-made and smart game. But that was previous gen. The only current gen JRPG Square has released for consoles is FFXIII. I would not consider that a great game. It was so bad that they had to make a sequel to correct for a bunch of stuff that they should have thought of in the first place. It was certainly good enough to play all the way through, since I did that. But I didn't find it good enough to play through the one 'side quest' or ever have the desire to pick up again (even FFX and FFVIII which are on the bottom of my FF favorite list I've played through at least twice). Still, even with its flaws FFXIII is the best JRPG I've played for PS3, mostly for lack of other options. And that makes me sad. When I say JRPGs in the English console market are a dying breed I mean there's not enough of them out there, or at least ones worth playing.

I'm currently playing Radiant Historia for DS right now and it has so far blown anything Square has done for the DS out of the water (excluding remakes). Square used to make games like this (as evidenced by all the remakes and PSN releases!). Why can't they do that any more?

[Jessweeee♪]

Catherine isn't part of the SMT series or even an RPG (it's a puzzle game), but it was made by the Persona team and it shows. It's something fun to play and I highly recommend it! Other than that, I think Persona 4 was indeed the last console RPG, so uh, keep an eye out for Persona 5?