"Lost Potential"

[Loony BoB]

FFXII could have been more involved with the other races in particular. They had this massive multi-race world and barely touched on it, every main character bar Fran was human. Huge letdown.

FFXIII is probably the strongest candidate for not living up to potential. The concepts had potential pretty much bleeding out of the game. But then they failed to do anything 'dangerous' with the characters and that let it down a lot.

The others I feel all did what they wanted to do and were capable of doing at the time, and while I don't like some of them as much as XII/XIII, I appreciate that there are others that do and that is largely because they realised their potential in various ways.

[Del Murder]

I agree with you Pike. I feel like FFXII had a lot more potential and, even though it was fun, it could have been a lot grander. It's a shame that they didn't build on XII at all and instead went a completely different route with XIII.

[Egami]

It's a shame that they didn't build on XII at all and instead went a completely different route with XIII.

Yeah, XIII as a follow up to XII doesn't makes any sense to me. I think it was a huge misstep on SE's part and by the looks of it and how they are apparently back-pedalling on what they did with XIII, they realise it too.

[Loony BoB]

Honestly I think XIII was largely a reaction - perhaps knee-jerk - to the criticism they got from a lot of fans when XII was released. If you go back and read the threads that were around the time of XII's release, you'll find a lot of people were not happy with it (as always with an FF release), including people who criticised relatively dull characters (say what you like about XIII's characters, I feel they are far from dull), the size of the maps, the political nature of the world, the micro management required for the gambit system, things like that. You can kind of look at XIII as almost an opposite to XII, and I suspect that XV will take all the criticisms XIII received and potentially be extreme reactions to those criticisms. Personally I don't mind either but I would prefer they find that beautiful middle ground instead of jumping from one end of a spectrum to the other. What I did like is that we had a couple of sequels between XIII and XV in which SE could really gauge just what works. Unfortunately people who very much disliked XIII were never going to go out of their way to enjoy XIII-2 or LR, so it's hard to say if they'll get the feedback they required from those games, but I'm hoping they did and that XV will benefit from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not endorsing any of the criticisms mentioned, just stating that they existed.

[Bolivar]

There were some things in XIII that were nearly inexcusable, though, like going back to having a separate battle screen and not giving any kind of way to control your party members. It felt like it had less features than a game that was half a decade old on a previous generation of hardware.

[Loony BoB]

There was a pretty notable dislike for the loss of random battles (something I personally don't care to see the return of) at the time of FFXII, if I recall correctly, and I actually feel FFXIII does it better than most. You could argue for or against having a separate 'field' for battles, but I think that with the design of FFXIII's fields it worked decently in the end. SE were trying to find that middle ground between random battles and FFXII's MMO-like style, and I seem to recall people going on about how it was managed to avoid random battles while still allowing a battle field to be generated in a Chrono game and I believe that FFXIII ended up doing just that. In the end, I feel SE are damned if they do, damned if they don't when it comes to a lot of things and battle random battles (I-X) vs. fixed battle fields (XIII) vs. MMO-like battles (XII). I can see the merits of all three options, personally, and the downsides. I don't know which I like best, but it's probably something between FFX's style and that of FFXIII.

[VeloZer0]

Actually I though the constraint of having all your field maps be able to accommodate battles had a devastating effect on FF12's dungeon design. I was very glad to see the separate battle screen return.

It isn't so much a technical limitations as a function limitation, if you have battles one the field then you must make all field areas more or less the same dimensions for a minimum.

[Egami]

Actually I though the constraint of having all your field maps be able to accommodate battles had a devastating effect on FF12's dungeon design. I was very glad to see the separate battle screen return.

You could probably elaborate on what you are referring to but XIII had only mostly straight narrow corridors for it's dungeons and it brought back the (imo) outdated and immersion breaking separate battle screen.

It isn't so much a technical limitations as a function limitation, if you have battles one the field then you must make all field areas more or less the same dimensions for a minimum.

Again, not sure what you are referring to but I don't really see a problem with it in XII or other games that do this like Demon's / Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age or even good old Chrono Trigger.

[Fox]

XII is definitely the biggest missed potential for me. I think far more so than XIII because I think you would have had to change so much of XIII to make it great that it wouldn't be the same game any more.

XII on the other hand actually completely lived up to its promise, in my view, for about the first half of the game, but just couldn't stick the landing. If they'd focussed more on the politics, more on some of the side characters, more on freaking Judge Drace seriously​ then it would have been the best game in the series.

[Del Murder]

Honestly I think XIII was largely a reaction - perhaps knee-jerk - to the criticism they got from a lot of fans when XII was released. If you go back and read the threads that were around the time of XII's release, you'll find a lot of people were not happy with it (as always with an FF release), including people who criticised relatively dull characters (say what you like about XIII's characters, I feel they are far from dull), the size of the maps, the political nature of the world, the micro management required for the gambit system, things like that. You can kind of look at XIII as almost an opposite to XII, and I suspect that XV will take all the criticisms XIII received and potentially be extreme reactions to those criticisms. Personally I don't mind either but I would prefer they find that beautiful middle ground instead of jumping from one end of a spectrum to the other. What I did like is that we had a couple of sequels between XIII and XV in which SE could really gauge just what works. Unfortunately people who very much disliked XIII were never going to go out of their way to enjoy XIII-2 or LR, so it's hard to say if they'll get the feedback they required from those games, but I'm hoping they did and that XV will benefit from that.

Totally agreed. The shame I was referring to is that they went way too far to address fan concerns directly rather than using those complaints as guidance to making an overall polished FF experience. It's something I always tell my staff: give the customer what they actually want, not what they specifically ask for. The feedback loop at SE is archaic and devoid of critical thinking. I would even prefer the old approach of them just making the game they want to make rather than micromanaging these specific concerns. How much fan feedback was incorporated into FFs II-X? Probably close to none. Listening to fan reaction is not always a good thing.

[VeloZer0]

Actually I though the constraint of having all your field maps be able to accommodate battles had a devastating effect on FF12's dungeon design. I was very glad to see the separate battle screen return.

You could probably elaborate on what you are referring to but XIII had only mostly straight narrow corridors for it's dungeons and it brought back the (imo) outdated and immersion breaking separate battle screen.

I'm saying that having fights on the field map forces you to only make field map layouts in a certain way. If you have separate screens for battles you have the freedom to do it however you want, if that freedom is utilized well or poorly is up to the designer.

[Bolivar]

Actually I though the constraint of having all your field maps be able to accommodate battles had a devastating effect on FF12's dungeon design. I was very glad to see the separate battle screen return.

You could probably elaborate on what you are referring to but XIII had only mostly straight narrow corridors for it's dungeons and it brought back the (imo) outdated and immersion breaking separate battle screen.

I'm saying that having fights on the field map forces you to only make field map layouts in a certain way. If you have separate screens for battles you have the freedom to do it however you want, if that freedom is utilized well or poorly is up to the designer.

While it certainly influenced the way they created dungeons, calling it a "devastating effect" is a bit much. It forced their indoor spaces to be a bit on the larger side but, as Egami pointed out, I really can't say XII's dungeons look all that different from other games. If anything, it contributed to the epic sense of scale that attenuated the game's plot and themes.

[VeloZer0]

Personally I found it to lead to a situation where all the physical layouts felt exactly the same. Though I will admit that the camera plays it's role in that as well.