What would it take to restore your faith in Square Enix?

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Just answer the question in the title. I feel like a lot of people have gotten burnt out with the company over the years, what with the XIII trilogy being pretty poorly received here and Versus XIII (now XV) existing in development hell for so long.

I think they are making steps in the right direction. XIII-2 and LR both greatly improved aspects of the gameplay and world that were greatly lacking in the first game. XIV:ARR was able to turn a dying game completely around into a success with a continual stream of information from the developers to the players. (Unfortunately, this constant communication is still lacking in terms of other games. *cough XV *cough*) Bravely Default brought a return to the roots of the genre, so to speak, bringing us that traditional JRPG formula we've craved from Square for a while.

What do you want from Square Enix? What did they used to have during the SNES/PS1/beginning of PS2 eras that you feel they are lacking now?

[Ergroilnin]

I won't be so specific on the topic but pretty much the only way I could see FF games from SE the same would be if they returned many of the things that were in FF VI-X without the sequel stuff.

[Mo-Nercy]

Square Enix isn't doing a whole lot wrong at the moment in a business sense. As a publisher, they've got their name on the rebooted Tomb Raider, the Sleeping Dogs franchise, Thief etc. The X/X-2 HD Remaster and XIV: A Realm Reborn has helped put them back in the black.

In actually developing games though, SE has been doing a lot of HD Remasters, Remixes and sequels. Really, all I want is just one truly great game in the main Final Fantasy series. I don't care if it takes the form of an action-RPG or if it's a big departure from the traditional elements of the series - just make it something that just about everyone with a current gen console will want to play. Real AAA, Game of the Year quality stuff.

[Pumpkin]

I have faith enough I suppose. They've made games I love, they've made games I like, they've made games I don't like. Same as any other game developer I suppose.

At worst I don't buy one of their games. Really not a big thing to me. Heck, I can't even remember who makes what games for the most part without looking it up. I base merit more on individual games rather than the company as a whole. When I buy a game, very rarely is my criteria "who made it", but more "Do the characters look interesting? What's the story? What does the gameplay look like?" The only company I can think of specifically turning me off to games is Atlus because I've had some bad experiences in the past with the games scaring me, but I've played some since and I'm still not totally opposed to buying one of their games if it seems lighter.

tl;dr I never lost faith or had faith. If they make a good game, I'll buy it. If they make a game that doesn't interest me, I won't

[escobert]

I don't think there is much they can do. I just don't care for their games like I used to. RPGs are slow to me now. They used to excite me but now it's something I can play when I don't feel like paying much attention. I guess if they came out with a real FFVII remake or something I'd get into that. But, since IX the direction the FFs have been going just annoys the hell out of me. maybe its the detail they can give the characters now but, I don't like it.

[metagloria]

I haven't lost faith per se, but they definitely have lost some of the shine from their golden age. Here's what I would like to see them do, if it were all up to me:

1) Make sure XV is a really good, engaging, futuristic-style FF that blends new ideas with the best parts of VII/VIII (and the XIII sequels) and avoids the mistakes of XIII.
2) Give the XII team total control over XVI. Bigger worlds, more sidequests. What XII was to XI, let XVI be to XIV.
3) Keep making great modern-classic JRPGs, as they're trying to do with Bravely Default/Second. Don't forsake that niche.

[jodymcdougle]

they still put out games with breath taking music and graphics! I think I'm going to explore their back catalog a little bit and get a few of those titles completed while I wait on anything big from Square. kind of get back to my roots.

[Wolf Kanno]

There are too many elements to say, I guess if I had to boil this down to three things:

1) Better turn a-around time for in-house development, it doesn't take a decade to make a great game and the longer you prolong the titles development the more likely you're just digging yourself into a deeper grave.

2) More transparency about development, like I mentioned in a XV thread, SE may have avoided a lot of bad publicity if they just came out and said they were having development problems. No one was pissed off when Type-0 was delayed in Japan after the negative feedback given by fans from the demo made the team delay the title to fix those problems. True fans will stick with you so don't worry about sometimes delivering bad news. It's better than leaving it to the fans or critics imagination to come up with why you are dragging your feet.

3) Release a slew of great games, as a publisher you don't have to worry, this is more for the internal development side, I need you people to release some awesome games in a row. Maybe not best sellers but games that prove you still know what your doing, XV being good isn't going to save you from releasing another turd right after it nor is it going to allow you to wait ten years to release FFXVI, only Atlus is allowed to release a numbered title from their flagship franchise once a decade.

[Ayen]

Wolf put it better than I could.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I personally would love to see Square get involved in creating some new, original IPs. Honestly, they could return to some of their older ones that haven't gotten love in a long time.

PS1 era Square will always be my favorite just because of how many different things they were doing. Sure, nowadays Square has been publishing a bunch of different games not in the FF franchise, but these games exist within already established franchises of their own. They used to have things like Threads of Fate, Vagrant Story, the Chrono series, Xenogears, Ehrgeiz, Einhander, Brave Fencer Musashi, etc. etc. Nowadays we've gotten Bravely Default, Nier, the World Ends With You... maybe some others. Sure, FF and Kingdom Hearts can take a long time to produce more numbered titles, but I'd love to see more work being done on original IPs like these in between those main franchises.

[Freya]

Get XV out. Get some new IPs that aren't new technofangled stuff. Like bravely default but on a grander scale with an actual console game.

ALSO GET XV OUT ALREADY. Stop having development times so high, it's getting ridiculous.

Also what kanno said, be more transparent. What is so great about ARR is that Yoshi-P is so open about it. This, as in an article I wrote a while ago, has bothered some of the higher SE execs but it let's the fans know they are working on things and they care.

[Quindiana Jones]

Yeah, they desperately need to cut development times and, as Jiro said somewhere, stop advertising games decades in advance of their release. Just smurfing silly ways to do things.

[Spooniest]

Put out another 2-D game...really getting tired of this uncanny valley stuff...

[Uchu]

I agree with a lot of what has already been said, especially about being more honest and not having ridiculous development cycles.


For me, SE's problems really began around the same time when Japanese devs decided to try and tackle the western audience by making "western" games... which for obvious reasons didn't work.


I feel that is a topic in it's own right, so to keep the reply on topic I will say that SE should have faith in making Japanese games and trust they will (hopefully) do well in the western market. While a slight generalisation, people played the original games not because they were like western games, but because they were a type of game that *typically* only came from Japanese devs. Of course this mainly points to their Japan/RPG making studios. Oh, and trusting the fans... I have no idea why they suddenly decided that western gamers didn't understand how to play RPG's and required 20 hours of tutorial driven gameplay.


Also, cut back on the smart phone games, or at least stop producing money grabbing shovelware. Things have gotten better on this front and I appreciate the smart phone market is on fire here, but that doesn't mean you should just not bother putting effort into them.


Regarding FF, I am glad they seems to be on the right track again and while I want to see FFXV, i think FFXVI will be the true work that will show if lessons have been learned.

[Bolivar]

Yeah, I was under the impression public opinion on SE is pretty high right now. FFXIV ARR was a resounding success, Bravely Default shifted a million units (and their corporate focus), the FFX and Tomb Raider remasters were well received, and Type-0 is releasing imminently with some HD eye candy making it worth the wait. FFXV and a new Deus Ex are on the horizon, as are more handheld games, with Chaos Rings III just announced for Vita today.

If they wanted to become my favorite publisher again, they'd just need to keep a steady output on PS4 and Vita (cross-buy titles wouldn't hurt).