Final Fantasys Demise!

[blade1001]

Hi all! Now dont get me wrong cos im a 100% Final Fantasy fan and own all of them from FFI to FFXI but it just seems to me that SquareEnix have just lost the plot!!!
Now without a doubt in my mind FFVII and FFVIII were the best two out of the whole franchise with FFVI and FFIX being close seconds but does no one else think that the whole originality of the game is slowly getting lost and the storylines are going downhill?
Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8 and 9 were amazing storylines i fort they got u involved in the game and were in most parts a challenge to complete fully, whereas X and X-2 were far too easy and the storylines sucked, they concentrated on getting the voiceovers done and the optimum graphics and 4got about everything else! As far as XI goes, Online Only! there are quite a number of mmorpgs out there now and this has got to be one of the worst! No PvP and it takes stupid amounts of time to make money at the start! Would you not have preferred another console based Final Fantasy?
I hope for Squares sake that FFXII is better than the last three, although im not sure about being able to move around the battlefield freely, more like a platform game!
I say that SquareEnix should go back to there roots (like when it was Squaresoft) what do you guys think???

[RiseToFall]

To be honest, I though X had the best plot in the series.

[My_car_is_faster_than_you]

We had a thread like this one strangely enough, exactly one month ago. Linky.

I agree, I think it's going downhill. I disliked X a bit, but still play it. The plot in X was the most confusing I thought.

[Dragon Mage]

I agree with you 100%. SE is losing their touch. back to the good ol' days. X made me sick. If I hadn't played 7 after that, I wouldn't be here.

[RiseToFall]

If Square went back to random encounters every 2 seconds and a story that included "go collect the crystals and save the world" and not much else I would be pissed off. I think they got better, much better, not worse.

This is from the other thread created by car, how can you not agree?

[Bolivar]

I don't get your point... you said you like 6-9, and because one of the installmetns (unless you're really gonna classify X-2 and XI with the others) doesn't live up to your expectations the series has met its demise???

Give XII a chance.

[LoKuS]

Don't play the new games then.

[NINJA_Ryu]

what about FF IV? It was also very good!

I dont think that Square is majorly losing its edge, it might be a little slump, or try on something new, but the rebound is coming.

[feioncastor]

If Square went back to random encounters every 2 seconds and a story that included "go collect the crystals and save the world" and not much else I would be pissed off. I think they got better, much better, not worse.

This is from the other thread created by car, how can you not agree?

Because the games referenced in that post (probably 1, 4 and 5, from what I know) were excellent games. I loved them. I play them all the time, still, and I still enjoy them. I wouldn't mind having another "collect the crystals" game. You don't see that anymore. Even so, FF6 had no crystal collecting (unless you count magicite, and I DON'T), and it was (IMO) the best of them all (excepting FFT, which actually is the best FF game ever.)

FFX was a bit too loopy, storywise. It's like (SPOILER)Tidus isn't real. He's a dream. Zanarkand? He never lived there. He never played Blitzball there. But his dad Jecht was real. And he was one of Braska's guardians. But Jecht also lived in the fake Zanarkand with Tidus. And at the same time, must've lived in the real Spira too because he made one of those recordings where he acknowledges the existance of his son, Tidus. Oh, and Auron knows all the answers. But he's dead. And he refuses to ever actually answer any of Tidus's questions. He's just stands there and says things like "They called it Sin" as it's destroying the only city that Tidus has ever known, but it's okay because the city isn't real. And Tidus's dad is Sin. And when Sin attacked that fake dream Zanarkand, Auron was there, for some reason, even though it was only a dream world and Auron was a real guy. A real and dead guy. And when it did, it just sent Tidus into the real world. And then he meets some people on a boat, then gets attacked again, and ends up in Besaid, rather than in a different world, like the last time. And in Besaid, when they pray, they do the Blitzball victory sign which probably means that Blitzball and Yevon are related...

See what I mean? Sure, you can get it to all make sense if you go over it a few times, ask a few questions and such, but I played through the game, paid good attention, and by the end, I still didn't quite get it. I had a conversation with a friend that cleared up most of it. Even so, I didn't like the overcomplexity of the story.

Plus, with FFX, it's like you're watching a movie. You watch an FMV, then do a bit of gameplay, but the next time you talk to Wakka, BOOM! Screen fades out, and he tells you some stuff in FMV, then screen fades back in so you can talk to Yuna and watch the screen fade out again! Every now and then, you get to solve a Cloister of Trials place, or do some boss battle, or walk across a stupidly long field with a couple of random battles that never seem to give you the things you need to level up your stupid Sphere Grid.

And that's another thing. The Sphere Grid is the worst idea in leveling up, ever. Ever. I mean, what was wrong with the old "gain levels based on XP' thing? And if that was so awful, why not use the FF2/SaGa style of individual stat leveling based on what you did in the fight? I couldn't stand the Sphere Grid.

My girlfriend, who is only slightly into video games, saw me playing FFX for about 45 minutes one time, and said, "That games looks more like a movie with a few options".

Dang, she was right.

Back when FFVII came out, FMVS were a treat. You'd play and play, and then it would happen. The screen fades out, and everyone in the room just shuts the f*** up immediately. As the screen is fading back in, you quickly turn the volume up and watch as the weapons emerge from the Northern Crater or whatever, and then you get back into basic gameplay, and turn the volume back down, and say "Oh my god." to your friends.

In FFX, the FMVs felt more like a hinderance from me getting to play the game than a treat/reward for what I had just worked through. It's like everytime I thought I would get to play, I'd get interupted by an FMV.

[vorpal blade]

I was the best in my German class. Straight A's on all of my work and the whole class knew it. The classmates sitting around me would keep telling me how good I was at it. Because of that, I felt a little pressure, like I had to get an A or else.
Perhaps SE feels this same pressure. After all the great games they've put out, they keep raising the bar, so they need to surpass that bar over and over again. You don't do that with the same, so they have to come out with new FF games with totally new features (case in point: the FFXIII games). If they returned to their roots, the critics might complain and SE's reputation might be damaged as a result.

And i generally like the innovations. I didn't have a big problem with the Sphere Grid, and I liked FFVII's relatively more scifi story. But I would like to see the "return to the roots" installment they attempted (with a little success, I feel) with FFIX. lease, give me an FF that's more like fantastic stories in FFI and FFV. It's a very simple plot, yes, but you can have a lot of fun with the characters, as demonstrated in FFV. I would love to see another "collect the crystals" title like the ones that made the series so popular. Not that I'm not gonna play FFXII or FFXIII because they're not.

[blade1001]

Im still going to play FFXII and FFXIII but dont u think that instead of wasting time creating X-2 and XI Online, they would have made more fans happy by making XI a console installment to the series? I just think that they were more intrested in making a quick buck.
I never saw what the problem with the random battles was either, it was the random battles and the storylines that made Final Fantasy different to any other RPG!
I just think that SE are wasting too much time and money on games like Kingdom Hearts and Star Ocean which wernt bad, but the flagship is Final Fantasy! Invest in it!

[Raebus]

Im still going to play FFXII and FFXIII but dont u think that instead of wasting time creating X-2 and XI Online, they would have made more fans happy by making XI a console installment to the series? I just think that they were more intrested in making a quick buck.
I never saw what the problem with the random battles was either, it was the random battles and the storylines that made Final Fantasy different to any other RPG!
I just think that SE are wasting too much time and money on games like Kingdom Hearts and Star Ocean which wernt bad, but the flagship is Final Fantasy! Invest in it!

Okay, okay you've just lost my respect. First you say "It was random battles and the storyline that made final fantasy different to other RPG's" HA, most rpg's use random battles, it isnt anything special.

Then you comment on them making games that arent final fantasy, oh man, I'd love to live in your world where the only rpg's that are released are final fantasy, final fantasy and more final fantasy.

[Frozen Phantom]

Origionally bespoken byBlade 1001

I just think that SE are wasting too much time and money on games like Kingdom Hearts

*pulls off glove and slaps Blade1001* I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL

KH is a great game...and if you mess with KH, you mess with me
AND I DONT THINK YOU WANT TO MESS WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

good day to you sir

[blade1001]

I never said that KH was cr*p or anything i just meant that FF was more successful and therefore made them more money! In Europe the last 1/2 decent FF was in 2002 (FFX) thats nearly 5 years ago, is it not time that XII was released at long last, cos XI and X-2 were rubbish.

Yea ok some other RPGs may use random battles but the point is if you do away with them in Final Fantasy then you are gunna be losing a major part of the game that has been seen in them all from the beginning!

[Raebus]

Personally, I appreciate games like KH for not being ff games, something thats more entertaining to me.

As for the "Take away random battles and lose a major part of ff" I'm getting sick of random battles, heck I'm sure MOST people are getting sick of random battles. So what if you take away random battles? It isnt an important part of ff, the storys/visuals are what make ff entertaining. Which is why I'm looking forward to ff 12.