View Poll Results: Will FF ever get its mojo back?

Voters
17. You may not vote on this poll
  • It never lost its mojo, you people just whine too much

    4 23.53%
  • Yeah, I feel like they've been improving lately

    2 11.76%
  • Not sure, it's been bad, but I'm hopeful for the future.

    8 47.06%
  • Hell no, FF is dead to me and anyone with half a brain.

    3 17.65%
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 16 to 24 of 24

Thread: Do you think Final Fantasy will ever get its Mojo back?

  1. #16
    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Tower of the Swallow
    Posts
    18,929
    Articles
    57
    Blog Entries
    16

    FFXIV Character

    Fynnek Zoryasch (Twintania)
    Contributions
    • Former Editor
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Fox’s post summed up my thoughts. It’s incredibly frustrating constantly hearing people tell you you don’t enjoy whatvthe series has to offer at this point. Forcing yourself to endure misery just because everyone is telling you you’re wrong about the newer games is really harmful tbh, especially since there’s so many games out there for you to enjoy.

    Just because change is inevitable doesn’t mean everyone has to like the direction that change is going. So it’s incredibly dismissive to reduce the people who don’t enjoy that direction to “whiners” just because they disagree with you. That said( there nothing wrong with enjoying the new direction. Live and let live.

  2. #17
    Yuffie ate my avatar Sefie1999AD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    3,151

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    I gotta say how incredibly tired I am of hearing this remark. It's so dismissive and hand waves away so much legitimate criticism.
    You have a right to your opinion, but that doesn't remove other people's right to their opinions. If they like newer FFs, it's equally ignorant and dumb to say comments like, "FFX was the last good FF, Square Enix sucks, anyone who likes FF13 or FF15 is a millennial who likes objectively bad games." And yes, there are lots of people who openly state things like that. The new FFs are not beyond criticism, and I never even hinted that they are perfect. In fact, I even criticized them on my post, but the same rules apply to the older FFs too.
    People dislike FFIX because they're horrible idiots. - Kawaii Ryűkishi
    "One-Winged Angel" is far and away the best final boss song ever
    composed.
    - Kawaii Ryűkishi



  3. #18
    tech spirit
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Virgo supercluster
    Posts
    17,950
    Articles
    2
    Blog Entries
    2

    FFXIV Character

    Mirage Askai (Sargatanas)

    Default

    Maybe, but i don't really care if they don't. There's plenty of fish in the sea. I'm literally drowning in games I want to play and I don't have anywhere near enough spare time to get through them all.

    I'm with Fox mostly. There are plenty of new games that I love, both games that are different from what I grew up with, and games that tug on my nostalgia strings. FF13 and FF15 are just not among them. They're passable, but not something I want to invest more than the bare minimum of time into.
    Last edited by Mirage; 06-18-2018 at 06:51 AM.
    everything is wrapped in gray
    i'm focusing on your image
    can you hear me in the void?

  4. #19
    Black Magic Shopkeeper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    ... Corneria! (Check the World Map! |D )
    Posts
    322
    Blog Entries
    3

    Default

    In my honest, unbiased opinion, it's all up to where one started with the franchise as to where its "mojo" stemmed from. For me, that was in the PS1 era. I can't discredit FF7 for actually putting Final Fantasy in the mainstream market. But it's always going to be different for other people-- "nostalgia goggles" be damned. (and boy I sure am with the others here-- I hate that insulting old umbrella term. It looks like nothing more than a blatant verbal attack to me.)

    I dislike the more recent games not because "oh no it's new and different and I don't like change wah wah look at me I'm whining" but because I deeply, profusely dislike Nomura and Tabata's writing. They're into things that I'm definitely not a fan of; Urban fantasy, for one. Their characters barely appeal to me save for some background noise, and their stories meander off into directions that make me want to spit. If Hiroyuki Ito were put back on board, I'd probably return to loving the franchise as a whole. But for now, my interests are divided.

    I love Nomura's art, though. Beautiful character designs. He should have just stuck to that. Although, I will say that his work on FFVIII was an exception for me. That one was, after all, my gateway game. So who knows-- maybe even he can change my mind. But it would take a lot of effort on his part. Tabata... not so much. He has never once directed a single game that I enjoyed.

    I prefer to think of it in this light: Way back in Andre Norton's later life, she launched a massive project called "Witch World", which enlisted young and new authors to submit short stories set within its canon world, following some very loose rules. Some of these young authors were one-hit wonders. Others-- well, they wrote something, that's for sure- but their writing just was not good enough to get them the right publicity. And then there are those that moved on to be great authors, like C.J. Cherryh or Mercedes Lackey. Among these stalwart authors, there were (and are) still some not-so-great ones, but they somehow still get their work's worth of fame. They must be appealing to some kind of audience, but it's not the kind that's looking for solid, sensible storytelling. Same thing goes for the likes of EL James and Stephenie Mayer. If we apply that to videogames (and it's not that hard to)- those in charge of the writing and direction of the title should be noted and recognized for their past credentials.

    Going back to Final Fantasy & Nomura and Tabata, their track records remain static for me. They, as writers and directors, have taken the franchise in their direction, and it will never change unless they change their style OR another director is put in charge in their place. These guys are to be held accountable for everything because they're the ones that give the ok for battle mechanics, UI designs, the whole nine yards. In the end, they do appeal to a large audience, otherwise they wouldn't be able to stay afloat as directors. We can also apply that to FFIX, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Hiroyuki Ito-- Ito and Sakaguchi were the ones that made IX possible, and for some, that's not a combination that worked well. For me it's a dream team, the likes of which we may never see again. Those are just a few of many names that have become famous off their work. And as some directors and writers grow older, their sensibilities mature, and they might take to concepts they hadn't before. Some even fall from grace. We can observe examples of this distortion of direction elsewhere, in the Tales series, in Elder Scrolls, in Thief and Tomb Raider and so, SO many other things. For better or worse. And fan incentive can't exactly influence that.

    But... I probably said too much now. TL;DR version: It's not the times that I care about, but who's in charge and what THEY, as people, are doing. So it gives me hope, knowing that 1) FF never has the same director/writers for long and 2) people are always changing-- game devs included.


  5. #20

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Black Magic Shopkeeper View Post
    I dislike the more recent games not because "oh no it's new and different and I don't like change wah wah look at me I'm whining" but because I deeply, profusely dislike Nomura and Tabata's writing.
    Not only that, but the way the both of them treat women characters. 3rd Birthday and Crisis Core can go and die in a ditch somewhere.... Not being a "sjw " or anything, but the removal of Aya's clothing the more she gets hurt was Nomura's idea, and Tifa's 15 year old Cowgirl Outfit is just disgusting. Don't get me started on KH where Kairi has been pushed aside for many games and she finally might be becoming a proper keyblade wielder.


    Sexualized women characters are fine, but not when they are a TEENAGER and not when it's borderline rape-y with 3rd Birthday. Characters who start as a damsel are fine too, but train them up eventually, and don't push them aside for sixteen years.

    You can have characters like GBA version of Edward from FFIV, who starts out feeble and frail, but becomes a absolute boss later on.
    Last edited by maybee; 06-20-2018 at 10:24 PM.

  6. #21
    Yuffie ate my avatar Sefie1999AD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    3,151

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by maybee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Black Magic Shopkeeper View Post
    I dislike the more recent games not because "oh no it's new and different and I don't like change wah wah look at me I'm whining" but because I deeply, profusely dislike Nomura and Tabata's writing.
    Not only that, but the way the both of them treat women characters. 3rd Birthday and Crisis Core can go and die in a ditch somewhere.... Not being a "sjw " or anything, but the removal of Aya's clothing the more she gets hurt was Nomura's idea, and Tifa's 15 year old Cowgirl Outfit is just disgusting. Don't get me started on KH where Kairi has been pushed aside for many games and she finally might be becoming a proper keyblade wielder.


    Sexualized women characters are fine, but not when they are a TEENAGER and not when it's borderline rape-y with 3rd Birthday. Characters who start as a damsel are fine too, but train them up eventually, and don't push them aside for sixteen years.

    You can have characters like GBA version of Edward from FFIV, who starts out feeble and frail, but becomes a absolute boss later on.
    I'd like to talk about Tabata's work a bit too. From what I've seen about Final Fantasy XV so far (after watching some more clips and gameplay throughout the game), I wasn't really impressed. The bros and their bonding in a road trip doesn't really interest me, so hopefully the characters will have some more interesting moments later. Noctis seems like a combination of a spoiled prince and a brooding Squall, and I'm not a fan of such character type. The others were so forgettable that I always have to check their names to remember who's who. Gladiolus as the big muscular guy just seemed meh. Ignis being the smart guy and Prompto being the playful guy were at least a bit more interesting. The female characters aren't exactly impressive, either: Lunafreya seems very underdeveloped, and Cindy is nothing but a sex object. I'm somewhat okay with her dressing up so scantily, but the camera gives me just awkward moments when it focuses on her breasts or butt. Come on, I may have found such childish humor funny when I was 11.

    Nomura was the character designer in FFX, if I remember correctly, and I thought the game had stupid moments too, such as the camera constantly zooming in on Lulu's cleavage, or Rikku's butt when she's wearing the diving suit or taking it off. Come on, she's 15! Yunalesca was also really strange, being half-naked and then slowly transforming into a monster with tentacles. I don't want to sound like an "SJW", and I usually enjoy dirty jokes, but bad character writing and overly juvenile humor just don't improve the gaming experience, IMHO.
    People dislike FFIX because they're horrible idiots. - Kawaii Ryűkishi
    "One-Winged Angel" is far and away the best final boss song ever
    composed.
    - Kawaii Ryűkishi



  7. #22
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Nowhere and Everywhere
    Posts
    19,544
    Articles
    60
    Blog Entries
    27
    Contributions
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    To be fair to Tabata, he's not in charge of the design of the females. In fact, Cindy "jiggled so much" in the early builds, Tabata had them tone it down according to interviews. I'm not saying he's some saint or anything, but he seems to at least understand that such blatant sexual fanservice isn't okay with part of the fanbase, especially in the West.

    The writing is a bit different, but in CC's case, that was out of his hands and Nojima's retcons to the characters, though I would say Cissinei was probably one of the better original characters to come out of the Compilation. XV goes back and forth. Cindy does have a bit more depth to her, but it's also obvious she's here for fanservice. Lunafreya is underutilized and feels more like Compilation Aerith where she's more of an ideal than a person. On the other hand, Iris and Aranea are some of the best NPCs in the game, far better developed than Cor (a guy who was meant to travel with the team in Versus XIII) and Genitana was one of the surprise hit characters for me in XV. Of anything, the two females who got the most marketing underperformed, whereas the ones who weren't shown ended up having the most depth to them. He certainly could have done more for Lunafreya, especially when the character she replaced had more potential from the early trailers of vXIII. Cindy is certainly a mark against him cause while I feel her questline gives her some good characterization, the pandering to the more pervy part of the fanbase is pretty obvious.

    I really need to get back to Type-0, which I feel would be a more fair assessment of Tabata's style since it's an original piece and not him being roped into work on another person's concept.

    ************************************************************************************************

    To swing this back to the original topic, I was reading an interview between Famitsu and the DQ team where they discussed the possibility of a large scale HD 3D remake of any of the classic DQ titles. While the team said they thought about the possibility of doing so with DQIII, they ultimately decided it would be better to simply focus on DQXII instead, and this kind of caught me by surprise of the difference between DQ's producers and FFs. Let's face it, XVI is on hiatus until the VIIR comes out, and it's always struck me as peculiar that so many FF fans would rather see a remake of an older game than a new entry, which I feel is telling of the series and the fans in general.

  8. #23
    Huh? Flower?! What the hell?! Administrator Psychotic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Posts
    53,267
    Articles
    71

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
    I really need to get back to Type-0, which I feel would be a more fair assessment of Tabata's style since it's an original piece and not him being roped into work on another person's concept.
    Ah yes, Type-0, the game where they specifically went out of their way to give each one of the 16/17 year old schoolgirls their own unique set of panties that changed with their outfit because they thought players would be disappointed with an empty void.

  9. #24
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Nowhere and Everywhere
    Posts
    19,544
    Articles
    60
    Blog Entries
    27
    Contributions
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychotic View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
    I really need to get back to Type-0, which I feel would be a more fair assessment of Tabata's style since it's an original piece and not him being roped into work on another person's concept.
    Ah yes, Type-0, the game where they specifically went out of their way to give each one of the 16/17 year old schoolgirls their own unique set of panties that changed with their outfit because they thought players would be disappointed with an empty void.
    Well then, he's no better than the rest.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •