What do you think fans feel is missing from Square Enix?

[Del Murder]

This question has come up in staff as we think about the future of our beloved company. So what would you like to see from SE that has been missing over the last few years?

[Shoeberto]

Games with stories/characters that have heart and don't feel either designed-by-committee or like cynical cash-grabs designed to profit off of fan nostalgia.

If they want a good FF game, they should hand it off to a small studio of people who grew up with the games, and let them look at it from a fresh angle. Stop letting management decide what is marketable. And for god's sake, stop trying to make all of the characters look like J-pop stars.

[Jinx]

Pretty much was Shoeberto said. Mainly, I think it's the story. Fans want a story with lovable characters, interesting setting, good pacing, and just overall great writing. Of course everyone has opinions and no Final Fantasy can be what every fan wants. But I think most people are in the unhappy camp these days, and even when a majority of fans are saying the same thing, SE doesn't listen.

Oh, and stop all of the spin-offs.

[Bolivar]

They have to vary the gameplay and let you do things other than fighting and talking, VII worked hard to break down the walls between cutscene and gameplay but Square has somehow built them back up again.

I'm not too worried about characters or writing because every game has its haters on that front.

I wish they would just be making more original games. It would be ok for them to make a mediocre FF every once in a while if there was a new RPG IP later that year or a new FF by the other dev team the year after that. Instead we just have a new FF every 5 years and countless spin offs and remakes in between time. That's not a healthy environment for their fans, although some of those remakes and spin offs have been incredible.

[Mirage]

More frequent game releases. That's about it, really. I don't have a lot of issues with them, except that they are taking forever to churn out games, so that when that one RPG they release in a 3 year period isn't very good, you end up with 6 years between two good titles, which is just terrible.

[Jinx]

I wish they would just be making more original games. It would be ok for them to make a mediocre FF every once in a while if there was a new RPG IP later that year or a new FF by the other dev team the year after that. Instead we just have a new FF every 5 years and countless spin offs and remakes in between time. That's not a healthy environment for their fans, although some of those remakes and spin offs have been incredible.

More frequent game releases. That's about it, really. I don't have a lot of issues with them, except that they are taking forever to churn out games, so that when that one RPG they release in a 3 year period isn't very good, you end up with 6 years between two good titles, which is just terrible.

And that's part of the problem. They're too focused on making spin-offs and sequels that they put making new, original games on the back burner. It can be especially alienating to fans who didn't like the original title, and then are only receiving sequels of that title (think FFVII or FFXIII).

[Spuuky]

A new non-handheld, non-multiplayer Dragon Quest. That's all I've ever really asked for in life.

[Bolivar]

A new non-handheld, non-multiplayer Dragon Quest. That's all I've ever really asked for in life.

I will joyfully but whichever console it is released for.

[Shiny]

I want characters like Cid, Barrett, Auron and Tifa. I'm so sick of these princess-like characters.

I want characters that are funny like Quina and a battle system that gives me time to think.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I've got something to add. It's too aggravating not to share. Here's my story:

I never received my Square Enix Members Rewards this year. The other day I was wondering how long it would take, so I looked it up and it turns out people were getting their prizes as early as May and June.

I e-mailed SE support to see what the issue could be and this was the e-mail I received:

We are sorry to inform you but unfortunately we do not currently see your account being a SQUARE ENIX Members Rewards winner. If there are any other e-mails you may have used with us, please reply back with any additional e-mails so we can check those with our records."

So of course I thought to myself "How could this be?". I know for a fact that I entered 1000 points on my profile. So I looked in to it and did a little research and I found this page:

http://na.square-enix.com/us/blog/se...acelift-part-1

This is an article on the Square Enix website about how the website changed and they merged the NA and EU sites. Well if you'll look in the comments below you'll see that there's a lot of members complaining that they see zero points on their profile. General consensus is that when Square merged the two sites a lot of members profiles were just completely wiped of all their info.

You can see where the problem arises. Now, this is very disheartening for me because not only will I not get the prizes I earned, but it also means that I won't be writing an article about it for our site. I was looking forward to showing everyone and describing to everyone the value of using those little red cards you get in every new SE game. Now I can't do that. Granted you can just watch a YouTube unboxing video or read a page somewhere else, but I thought it would be really cool to have an EoFFer describe every item and the rewards system to all the other EoFFers. You know what I mean?

Well, in any case. It looks like I'm out of luck. I've emailed SE support again explaining how the site merging might have been the cause for no points showing up and I'll see what becomes of that conversation.

In keeping with the point of the thread, I'd just like to say that my complaint is not related to in-game content. It's not even about customer service, because I've had great communication with SE support. I guess my concern is that in the future SE takes extra precautions when making site changes to ensure a situation like this doesn't happen anymore. I mean, I'm crushed here.

But hey, maybe it's just one of those things that could have happened no matter what SE did. No one saw this as a risk that was coming and I understand that. I just wish there was something that could be done.

[Elskidor]

Pump out a new game every two years or so. It's okay to have totally different games like XIII, that may not always sit well with everyone, but if it's the only game we will be getting for 7 or 8 years at a time then it becomes a big deal. Oh yeah, sequels to the game that was most recently put out do not count as a new game...I am talking main numeral title. XV. XVI, XVII and so on. Sequels are fine if they don't delay new titles. XV has been being worked on since 2006! That's one of the biggest issues for me. That and I want a FFVI PS4 remake, but seeing as that won't happen I'll stick to my main complaint.

[Gamblet]

What's missing? ATB is missing. Best games in the series had ATB system.

[Mirage]

FF13 has ATB, with some tweaks. Most notably that you can some actions without waiting for your turn. Other than that, it's just a fast ATB system with the ability to stack several turns and perform them at once.

Except the thing where you get game over if the character you control dies, FF13's battle system is actually pretty neat. FF13-2 fixed that problem, though, and is perhaps the most enjoyable game to actually play out of almost all the final fantasy games.

[Polnareff]

Yeah, one of their biggest problems is that they don't make original stuff anymore, but it is kinda hard to blame them. I mean, games like Live-A-Live, Rudra, Threads of Fate, Musashi, SaGa, etc. all fell through the cracks. People bought games like Tobal No. 1 just to play an FFVII demo. When people only care about FF, what message does that send to the company itself?

Not that Squenix isn't to blame. They have been in the habit of doing crazy things like porting every FF game to Android/iOS/whatever the hell. Fans requested remakes of FFV and FFVI for the 3DS but has Square delivered? No. It took Nintendo to finally release Bravely Default overseas. Their philosophy is to do nothing but Final Fantasy, but release the ports and remakes in a stupid fashion. Or make games like All the Bravest.

[Elskidor]

They have been in the habit of doing crazy things like porting every FF game to Android/iOS/whatever the hell. Fans requested remakes of FFV and FFVI for the 3DS but has Square delivered?

Yeah. WTH is up with that jazz? I was pretty hyped for future remakes after FFIV DS in 2008...2008! Blast you, Squenix! Blast you and your little dog too.