Are you disappointed with Square-Enix?

[Ryotknife]

as far as JRPGs or games with a story (besides bioware for storyline), they are still one of the best in the market. that is...not quite the complement as it sounds as it merely shows how far the industry as fallen in both of those regards.

I liked FF13. loved? no, it had too many flaws for that. Vanille is the single most annoying character i have ever met (even beating out Edge Maverick), it was very linear, and you did not have full control over your party or abilities until about 30 hours in. I actually really enjoyed the story especially the moral dilemma of "do i turn into a heartless monster to save millions that act like total jerks towards me (for good reason) or commit genocide and save myself". Granted the story did a full faceplant at the very end of the game.

The Last Remnant I enjoyed very much (on the PC). yea, the main protagonist Rush was annoying and a doofus, but much of the supporting cast was excellent and the gameplay elements were fun.

13-2 tried to fix a lot of the problems that 13 had. Overall it was designed better (besides SENT being MANDATORY and SYN sucking balls), but other than the part of the story involving Adam i was quite disappointed with this plot revolving around timelines and paradoxes (a recipe for awesome as Chrono Trigger and Legacy if Kain has shown). Not to mention the DLC and the ending made me sick.

Really, besides their recent DLC and ending trends with 13-2, the only thing SE has done that REALLY irritates me is the direction they have gone with the kingdom hearts series. That enrages me. Specifically how it is all over the place system wise. Now when or if KH3 comes out im going to have NO idea what is going on as ive only played KH1 and 2, and the story was already getting a bit complicated as it was in 2 in terms of what the hell these enemies are.

 

[FalloutJack]

Apparently Square was involved in making Quantum Conundrum, which I had been following the hype of for a while and now own. An impressive and fun physics puzzle game featuring the voice talent of John De lancie. I see no problem with this. Speaking on the part of Final Fantasy, some disappointments with games (like FF8, for instance) are founded. Others are questionable. I've no desire to speak at length on the matter because I have so much to do before I retire at 65 and just don't have the 35 years to spare.

 

[Tiswas]

Square are fine if you remember they have more than Final Fantasy on their shoulders. Nier, Kingdom Hearts, TWEWY, Heroes of Ruin, Just Cause 2 and Deus Ex were all decent to good.

They also got Dream Drop Distance and Thearythm out in the upcoming weeks which both seem to be pretty decent.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As developers I don't care about them at all. I don't get Final Fantasy. I just can't get into it. As publishers, they've done some pretty good things. They are OK in my book.

 

[havoc33]

As a developer they have completely lost their focus. It is mind boggling how they have utterly destroyed two of the best brands in the RPG genre, Final Fantasy and Seiken Densetsu/Secret of Mana. Basically with their massive succes of the FF's on the PSX, Square just got greedy. They somehow thought it was a great idea to create as many spin offs as possible, no matter which genre, and that the public would all love them. And along the way they completely forgot what made people really care about their main franchises to begin with. Alas, their process of westernizing their games began, and their downfall was complete. The fact that it took an immense shitstorm from the fans after FFXIII to make Square realise they messed up just shows you how disconnected they were from their fans.

Sadly, even with that backclash, they still don't get it, as evident by their recent comments about wanting the FF series to produce new titles in the same way as the Call of Duty series. In other words, yearly releases and innovation in the back seat.

I still don't understand how they could make such an utter mess of the Seiken Densetsu series. After finally publishing part two in US/Europe under the name Secret of Mana, they never even bothered to release the next one outside of Japan. Mind boggling, as sales numbers and reviews from the Western world more than justified a release over here as well. As it is, Seiken Densetsu 3 stands as one of the greatest JRPG's never released outside Japan. In 2000 Square, finally announced a sequel to the Mana series, this time on Playstation, but it contained nothing of the parts that made us love the series to begin with. Gone were the strong and cohesive story, the lovable characters and multiplayer option. What was left was beatiful graphics and a strong soundtrack, a collection of miniquests instead of the focused Action-RPG classic that is was supposed to be.

You wouldn't think it at the time, but this game represented the first worrying sign of Square really dropping the ball, and now we can see they have done the same to Final Fantasy.

 

[Padwolf]

I'm not that disappointed. All I ask for is Kingdom Hearts 3. I didn't enjoy Final Fantasy 13, but I did enjoy the previous ones. I really did enjoy The Last Remnant, currently playing it right now. It is a lot of fun and the characters are not that annoying.

 

[Infernai]

Why did Cavia fail? NIER was amazing. Square was pub.

Because they also made the one game that stands against everything Square Enix Games represent. A game of such darkness and ill intent that they shudder at the mere mention of it's name, and do all in their power to deny the existence of:

Spoiler

 

[Mysterious Druid]

They've gone from a mediocre publisher and great developer to just the opposite. If they put as much interest in making great games as they do in publishing them, they'd be the best company out there.

 

[Arina Love]

Nope. Pretty much every game i played from Square-Enix was pretty good and they publish pretty good games too.

 

[Sangreal Gothcraft]

As Developers they fail, but as publishers..i forgive them.

 

[DanielBrown]

Not sure about the company, since I generally don't keep much track on the companies, but I am disappointed in the Final Fantasy franchise. In general they've gotten worse and worse ever since FFIX. FFXIII-2 was better than it's predecessor, but I still thought it was bland and annoying.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I cannot thnik of a single game made by Square-Enix that I actualy like. The last FF I liked was X and that was Squaresoft before the merger and while I liked 12's gameplay I hated the bad return of the jedi rip off story and the story was always the best part of FF games for me. I am done being hopefull about any game they make.

 

[RJ 17]

I've been fed up with them since X-2, but I had started losing faith in them at FF8.

8 was decent, but every single character was specifically designed to be an emo in their own little way...with Squall being King Ultimate Emo.

9 was a childish mockery of everything the old FF's stood for and I couldn't even bring myself to play beyond the first disc.

10 was alright...but I realized I liked playing Blitzball more than the game itself.

10-2 was rented and returned 2 hours later. I haven't played another FF since.

From what I've heard of the installments since I gave up on the franchise, I really haven't been missing much.

 

[MammothBlade]

Short Answer: Yes...

Somewhere between 2005 and 2007, I started to realize that I didn't like JRPGs as much as I used to. Most of the ones I picked up didn't appeal to me as much as they used to. I started being more annoyed by certain recurring themes and was just enjoying them less and less.

Now admittedly I don't blame just Square for this. Other companies like NISA aren't pumping out JRPG games that I enjoy either, and even other Atlus games like Radiant Historia or the Etrian Odyssey series don't grab my attention.

I guess my disappointment in Square comes from my own sense of nostalgia. Unlike these other companies, Squaresoft was once my favorite developer.

Truth is now, the amount of games actually developed by SquareEnix that I have enjoyed can be counted on my fingers, and that's being generous by counting ones that weren't developed directly by them, but more of a third party working under them.

Right now, the JRPG I'm keeping a cautious eye on is Level-5's Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.

This might be true for me too. I've actually noticed, since I first got my hands on Persona 4 and got into SMT, I've been expecting something with the combat freedom of MegaTen games, but Persona/SMT and a few others are the only franchises which seem to be sticking to their guns with classic turn-based battles. In particular, the auto-attack button in FFXIII is nothing of the sort, whereas in megaten you get a rush button in case you just want to get a random encounter over with. Maybe it's just fanboyism, but I was quite the Final Fantasy lover before I got into Shin Megami Tensei. Now I'm judging FF by SMT standards.

I'll have to take a look into Wrath of The White Witch.

 

[Martin Yao]

In my opinion, things are getting better. As such, I'm not disappointed at SquareEnix....
To me, the FF franchise is getting better each time (Hey, at least they try coming up with something different with each release right?).

 

[havoc33]

I've been fed up with them since X-2, but I had started losing faith in them at FF8.

8 was decent, but every single character was specifically designed to be an emo in their own little way...with Squall being King Ultimate Emo.

9 was a childish mockery of everything the old FF's stood for and I couldn't even bring myself to play beyond the first disc.

10 was alright...but I realized I liked playing Blitzball more than the game itself.

10-2 was rented and returned 2 hours later. I haven't played another FF since.

From what I've heard of the installments since I gave up on the franchise, I really haven't been missing much.

I agree that 8 had some annoying characters and was generally badly paced (it didn't take off until Disc 3), but 9 was an amazing game. How could you not like it? It had great humour and writing, and basically was one big homage to the entire FF series before it.

Neither X or X-2 was anything special, but XII more than made up for it. Best battle system since FFVII, and most importantly: it killed off random battle encounters! Plus, by having a more medevial setting you avoided having the game full of these annyoing emo characters the Japs seem to love.

 

[Sylveria]

I'm not sure about FFXIII-2. Is it superior to its predecessor? Is it necessary to play the first XIII in order to get into it?

Yes it's better, no you don't really need 13 to play it. However, saying 13-2 is better than 13 is like saying stepping in dog poo is better than falling down into it face first.

But yeah, I have no hope for Square Enix any more, not as a development studio anymore.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I just started Deus-Ex yesterday, and I love it! Also Kingdom Hearts 3D is one of my most anticipated games of the moment!

So... I still have faith!

 

[MammothBlade]

I just started Deus-Ex yesterday, and I love it! Also Kingdom Hearts 3D is one of my most anticipated games of the moment!

So... I still have faith!

Just so you know my dear Watson, Deus Ex HR was developed mainly by Eidos, a newly-acquired UK subsidiary of Square-Enix. So I'm not sure how much impact they had on its development.