What Modern FF Is Missing

[Freya]

The Last Story is great. You should play it if you get a chance. It's not perfect by any means and a lot about it is rough but it feels far more like Final Fantasy games of yore.

Ugh stop reminding me of my wii's death. I bought this game the same day my wii died on me never got to see what lovely adventure sakaguchi had for me.

[Jiro]

Also re: the thread title.

Modern Final Fantasy games are missing a release date. Zing!

[Scotty_ffgamer]

This reminds me that I still need to beat Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower since I own both of them.

Anyways, I won't be able to accurately judge what modern Final Fantasy is missing until XV comes out. All of the Final Fantasy games since the PS2 era have been vastly different games. Each of them have their shortcomings or things that don't match my preferences, but those shortcomings are different in each game. If I were to choose anything that's missing, it would be Nobuo and nostalgia. Even then, the music isn't bad, I just like the older soundtracks much better.

[Cosmiccandy]

If I were to choose anything that's missing, it would be Nobuo and nostalgia. Even then, the music isn't bad, I just like the older soundtracks much better.

Oh man, I know what you mean. The new guys they have on music aren't bad or anything, but almost every track is utterly forgettable to me besides "A Thousand Words". Well I also remember "Real Emotion", but thats because I didn't like it at all.

I guess X-2 is the first game that actually remains engaging in Wait Mode? I never had an issue with it though, I kept it on active the whole way.

Plenty of people go through the game without noticing it, myself included until my second playthrough on NG Plus where I was screwing around with three Black Mages and noticing the pace of battle had slowed considerably. To be honest the game is mostly easy and its not unless you want to do the tough as nails optional stuff like the Via Infinito or Angra Mainyu where it really comes into play. You cant afford to give something like Chac any extra turns than it might already get.

[Bolivar]

I think the only thing missing is focus. Squares new bread and butter is the handheld market, Japanese gaming culture has changed and now the main console series is not the center of their attention. If you look at all the top designers on the main FF games, the catalogue speaks for itself: all of them have worked on numerous portable side projects in the time it took them to release a single console game. They need to keep their top talent focused on the main console games, two teams each working on a two year cycle, much like they did in the Playstation era, and focus on making great games that generate a ton of buzz.

I've said it before, I really can't complain about the quality of the series, the next game will be completely different from the last few, but I've liked them all so far anyway. I don't know what someone who said its not about characters anymore is talking about. The first half of XIII splits the party up into pairs on different journeys, letting them interact with each other as their arcs progress. Not to mention the different duos made the combat very fun to play around and experiment with. I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to say XIII was a bad video game.

Also, the series isn't going to stop focusing on graphical fidelity; it wouldn't be FF anymore. Even in the Famicom days, Square has always been a company that thrives on the bleeding edge of what video game graphics can achieve, regardless of whether you appreciated it or not.

[Karifean]

I guess X-2 is the first game that actually remains engaging in Wait Mode? I never had an issue with it though, I kept it on active the whole way.

Plenty of people go through the game without noticing it, myself included until my second playthrough on NG Plus where I was screwing around with three Black Mages and noticing the pace of battle had slowed considerably. To be honest the game is mostly easy and its not unless you want to do the tough as nails optional stuff like the Via Infinito or Angra Mainyu where it really comes into play. You cant afford to give something like Chac any extra turns than it might already get.

For some reason I could never play X-2 in Wait Mode. It just feels wrong, like you're fighting in a way you shouldn't. Nothing against people who use it, but I don't think I'll ever use Wait Mode. For me, Active Mode is just the way to go. It did lead to some undesirable deaths (such as Chac shattering a character before they could be unpetrified simply because another character was using an Elixir at the time) but it feels more satisfying for me to beat all those enemies in Active Mode. They're all perfectly vincible anyway.

Ontopic, I think Modern FFs are missing the nostalgic feeling. Maybe in some years' time I'll look back on the current gen FF games and be reminded of the good old days. Other than that, I can't really complain. The formula keeps on changing which is great and every game is still unique.