Fnal Fantasy: Where did they go wrong?

[Razhen3]

My top three favorite FF games, from first to third, are: VI, X, VII.

With that being said, the FF seroius started going downhill with VII. I don't care how amazing you think any FF is, including VII... VII was the first FF where they started introducing rediculous Japanese Anime emo characters, which is what has ruined the genre for me.

After VII was a huge success, they decided to do something "new" and made the characters and setting a little more realistic, only to put out VIII which was probably one of the worst. Then for X they went back to the "over the top Japanese-Emo characters" and had another huge success. With the success of X they decided to make XII a little more realistic again, leaving behind the "hardcore Japanese Emo vibe" and produced a game that had a good setting but was not accepted by fans just because of it's gimmicky combat.

Which leads to the release of XIII, which went back to the "over the top Japanese-Emo characters" and, IMO, was THE worst game of them all. While I enjoyed the story, the characters were THE worst of any game I have EVER played. The combat played itself and was way way too easy.

Basically, with the huge succes of VII and X combined with the mediocre feedback of VIII and XII, the developers must be under the impression everyone wants to play a game that feels like a cheesy anime tv show, which is what has ruined the series for me. The only way I will be buying FFXV is if the setting is more realistic and mature.

 

[dncarolyn]

Totally unrelatable characters, re-using the same character tropes and story plot devices over and over, combat and leveling up systems that range from way too complicated to "do they even need me to help?", etc etc. I'm one of those people who doesn't like either FF (old school or modern) so yeah, I have a lot of gripes with them lol. They just aren't games that I like. I do appreciate that they try to change things up from installment to installment but they still rely on the same basic plot, characters and mechanics which just never appealed to me. Not saying that they're bad, but just not my cup of tea.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

They're developing their games based on Japanese pop culture. Japanese pop culture has gone through some batshit crazy phases in the last decade, most of which the American audience is totally detached from or unaware of. Yeah we may get their products but we don't have the cultural context, so when half of the characters are androgynous whiny she-males we just don't understand. Young Japanese gamers, however, have a certain class of pop culture icons that exemplify this style (Gackt, for instance).

The same can be said about the storytelling that seems like its ripped from a combination of insane made up crazy people mythology and teen angst diaries. It's just not our culture, and the inclusion of voice acting and realistic visuals in gaming has made that cultural difference much more apparent. Hell most of the Final Fantasy 7 related hate is from people who were introduced to it AFTER they were introduced to Advent Children. Cloud is anything but a whiny emo git in FF7, but because that was where Japanese pop culture was when AC was released thats the characterization they gave him.

The games that we in the United States tend to hate the most (8, X, X-2, 13) are considered the best in the series in Japan. Its just some things get lost in translation.

 

[Space Spoons]

Once they ditched turn-based combat, it was all over. At least, that's my opinion on the subject.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I would say the last genuinely good Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy 6. A large, interesting cast, a good story, and a fucking amazing villain who actually, for once, achieves his goal.

Other people would say FF7 was the last golden egg before the Final Fantasy chicken started producing nothing but turds, but I think FF7 has only been made out so good because it was the first 3D one, and every Final Fantasy fan seems to have a compulsive need to tongue-bath it's ballsack at every opportunity.

 

[aakibar]

For me its hit or miss, some of the FF games i like but others its like bleh this has gotten boring after the 30th time . Granted thats how i feel about most games is their replay value and there are a few ff games that meet that bar and sadly a few that don't. personally i think they should also come up with a different name, yes i know its a brand name but ff13quadrillion is a little redundant.

 

[babinro]

I'm in the minority that thinks they've done a lot of things right with FF 12 and FF 13.

Automating combat with gambits or abilities bar from FF13 takes a lot of the monotony out of gameplay while still giving the players meaningful decisions to make.

The non-combat aspects of the game are what needs fixing. Stories often feel to forced and require very few decisions from the players standpoint. As such these games play like playing an interactive TV show rather than a true game. Most characters come off as uninteresting with very few exceptions in these games as well.

It would be ideal to make decisions that have a meaningful impact on the story in games like this. Mass Effect/KOTOR/Dragon Age seems to have a better grasp on this these days than Final Fantasy.

 

[Ampersand]

I guess if you want to call it "wrong", they actually try and do other things with the game instead of just re-releasing the same game over and over again like other series do (*cough* Halo *cough*).

You're comparing halo (a game that has release 5 games while making subtle differences to refine the gameplay) to final fantasy (that has release close to 20 game without changing anything at all besides the graphics engine)?
I really don't think you have the high ground here.

 

[Superbeast]

YOU. HOW DO YOU DO IT?! HOW DO YOU TOLERATE....vaan

*shudder*

....No seriously, how?

I'm a Classics student that willingly watches Troy - I can put up with a lot of annoying crap

I don't find him too irritating once you've got past the Yensa sand-seas. In the early part of the game he can be infuriating, but I like to ignore him (video-wise) in favour of the other characters, whom I find to be quite well developed and likeable.

++EDIT++

I am beginning to wonder why people think I'm "wrong" or "a totally retarded 9-year-old" for actually liking XII, and that I should get my "head out my ass and try real games". Sometimes I hate these forums for messages like that which get sent via PM* simply for expressing an opinion on something as irrelevant to the world as console game preference. Why can't people accept the fact that such things are subjective?

*naming no names, but it wasn't sent by the person I've quoted. In fact I'm not sure they've actually commented in this thread at all.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

The problem is that every 3D FF game has SOMEthing wrong with it.
VII: amazing story with a surprising amount of depth, but some very one-dimensional characters and god aeris didnt die quick enough, although thats merely a personal gripe, something that many of you dont share
VIII: bad characters, incomprehensible story, and broken battle system
IX: I havent finished this one yet. I cant make myself play any longer than that opening scene with the play.So i'll get back to you
X: Intellectually impressive story with interesting philosophical connotations, hampered by badly translated/poorly delivered dialogue (especially on yuna's part. screw you, ms. buress!). I quite Seymour, however, but he would have been much better not being voiced by a pedophile
X-2:excellent gameplay. Terrible, terrible everything else. But then, it's FFX's "we made these tits! now look at them!" so the gameplay should have been terrible too
XI:hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh wait, this was serious?
XII: Again, philosophically interesting, but the overall story is let down by some awful gameplay (I'm captain Bosch!) decisions and as said above, the main cast could have been much smaller without any sort of sacrifice. That and the fact that by the time you were able to get to a boss without dying, you were overleveled for the encounter. Especially the final boss battle. Sad. The only difficulty in the game came from "shiishitshit i pissed off an entite at l10!" and when the game said "fuck you, I'm immune to damage. For how long? Hmmm.... till i get bored"
XIII: everything
XIV:see XI

 

[KurnalGraham]

I think final fantasy was fine up until 13 but I've never heard of fnal fantasy from the posts im going to guess its a series of never ending pretentious RPG's about a group of people trying to stop the evil company thats trying to take over the world.

 

[LittleChone]

2 letters. One number.
F. F. 7.
X(

 

[-Samurai-]

It went bad with fanboys and fangirls wetting themselves with the mention of every new Final Fantasy game after FF7. Stop hyping the shit up.

Being someone that hates the Final Fantasy series, I actually enjoyed the latest one(FF18,000 was it?). I went into it expecting nothing, and I got a pretty good game.

Same goes for the one where you play as Titus. Gave it a shot, with no expectations, and I liked it.

I've hated all other Final Fantasy games.

 

[tyriless]

Here is the breakdown of the Final Fantasy games as I seen, played, or heard about them:

Final Fantasy: I played this on the Nes and it was a breakthrough in RPGs. Challenging party based combat mixed in with a little of bit plot, but zero character development.

Final Fantasy IV: The first time I ever got pulled into a RPG storyline. Now-a-days I am astounded that a well orchestrated midi, text based storytelling, and maybe four character emotes would be so engaging. Plus it had, pixel-for-pixel, one of the most satisfying video game endings of all time.

Final Fantasy VI: A leap forward for the genre on every level. A masterpiece of the 16-bit era. An awesome story (even more epic than the last entry) with a high degree of character customization. Also had may absolute favorite in FF music: Terra's theme.

Final Fantasy VII: For what was at the time was cutting edge at the time, the cinematic scenes where very engaging. Anyone who played FFVII remembers when they first saw Aeris died. It was the only time I have ever cried playing a video game. The mechanics where improved and a little streamline from the last entry. However, the overall plot begins to suffer from the EMO hero syndrome. To me Cloud is very moody and not like-able. He is a step back as far as protagonist go.

Final Fantasy VIII: For every step the genre takes forward it take another two back. First, the cinematic scenes are outstanding with an incredible opening that is unmatched in the series. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. The absorption based magic system is a travesty of game design. Now not only do I have to grind for experience points and gil, but now I have to grind for the small hope a magic spell is absorbed by my character. It is only time I have actively hated a game while playing it. Finally, in the fine continuation of the emo-hero syndrome we have Squall who is eternally joyless and an absolute douche. Way to go Square, you made me despise your main protagonist.

Final Fantasy X: Say what you want about Tidus, but I found his happy-go-lucky attitude to be very refreshing and ultimately tragic. Square ditches any non-linearity for a more cohesive story line, but with the eclectic cast and new and improved combat system, I find it works. I might of said earlier on that Aeris's death is the only time I cried for a video game and well... that is not true. The final scenes of FFX reach that benchmark too. The one huge flaw I could find is that its linear nature made replays difficult because in the end the game is a very long interactive movie.


So those are the games I played. I would of likely checked out the more recent FFXIII but I heard a lot a of bad things about it and to Bioware has taken the genre in a direction I find to be very engaging. For Square Enix to continue to produce top quality games I believe they need to focus much more on character choices and better character-character interaction. Stories and their outcome need to have greater impact based on what the player wants to do and not some predetermined choice by a script writer. Now Bioware has a lot of room to improve, but Square/Enix can take the initiative and move the roleplaying genre forward. Or they can make more interactive movies.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Oooh! linky time!
http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/final-fantasy-viii/

According to Spoony, it started with 8 and rapidly went downhill from there.

Final Fantasy IX is arguably the best in the series and FFX was the the best RPG on the PS2 and again one of the best in the series
No it didn't start with VIII
I think it started when any of the writers with any talent left, Nobuo Uematsu stopped making the music and then they made FF XIII
Ugh

Sorry, but no. Yes FFIX is arguably the best in the series storyline wise (even it does decently re-use elements from the previous games). I give it to VII for gameplay mechanics. FFVIII's Jinction system was waaay to complex for what it was.

ANd FFX is not the best RPG on the PS2. By Far. I'd give that to Tales of The Abyss. Better story, better battle system, actually good voice acting, and it didn't end with the protaganist being a dream. Tales of the Abyss was by far the more mature story. The ended FFX with Tidus high-fiving his father. There were a decent amount of RPGs on the PS2 that were better than FFX.

 

[Akihiko]

So those are the games I played. I would of likely checked out the more recent FFXIII but I heard a lot a of bad things about it and to Bioware has taken the genre in a direction I find to be very engaging. For Square Enix to continue to produce top quality games I believe they need to focus much more on character choices and better character-character interaction. Stories and their outcome need to have greater impact based on what the player wants to do and not some predetermined choice by a script writer. Now Bioware has a lot of room to improve, but Square/Enix can take the initiative and move the roleplaying genre forward. Or they can make more interactive movies.

If Bioware are already taking it in that direction, then why would SE want to follow behind like a lapdog? SE are taking the genre in a different direction, which in my opinion is a good thing. I love Bioware games too, however we already have Bioware releasing them. Bethesda offer choice too. Why would we want to loose what SE offers? It gives us a variation in games. SE, as linear as they may be, because of that linearity they can work on giving the story and characters more depth, as they don't have to worry about if someone wants to be evil. I guess someone could class that as an Interactive Movie(Which by the way I don't think is a bad thing), however it still has choice of how you kill enemeys, what equipment you use, and how you level your characters, the gameplay is still there too, so the GAME part is still there. It just gives a deeper story... Usually...

 

[Ganthrinor]

The plots of the Final Fantasy games have always had pretty gargantuan holes in them. It's just that in the last decade or so they've been getting more and more obvious as the overall quality of videogames increase.

FF6 still remains my favorite of the series, and probably always will be.


Oh, and I blame Enix. Squaresoft made some mistake with FF8, which they more or less corrected with 9 (I have my issues with 9, but that's a whle other rant) and 10.

Then came Enix, followed by an avalanche of total SHIT.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

What you're really just talking about is FFXI, FFXII and FFXIII

Problem with XI: £9 a month on top of Xbox live... I can't believe they themselves didnt see the problem with this...
Problem with XII: The story just wasn't that interesting compared to others. They did try something new though - a story concerned with politics. It was a swing and a miss for me, but some people liked it.
I havent played XIII yet so I dont know what its like but Im really hoping it beats XII!!

Well with FFXI you didn't need a gold account to play actually.
MS wanted a Gold account to be required to play FFIV so Square Enix told them, they aren't going to get them game on 360. I agree with this %100. Why should I pay two subscriptions to play one game?

 

[Grand_Arcana]

The series peaked at the back-to-back masterpieces of VI and VII. VIII is one of the worst games in the series with its slipshod narrative, terribly written cast, and gameplay that can be broken with no effort whatsoever. It was no wonder that Sakaguchi yanked the reins of the series away from VIII's dev team and gave it someone else.

IX, unfortunately, still wasn't quite there. The battle system was back to basics and fine and the characters were likable, but there were a few problems. The plot, for instance, was kind of meandering and loose, leading to confusion at times. The skills system was also a bit clunky and led to a lot of instances of grinding for abilities. A good game, but a flawed one to say the least.

X had a more coherent narrative and by far the best battle system of the entire series. The supporting was interesting as well as Tidus but it suffered from two big problems. 1) Yuna was BORING. Seriously, she was a stiff, uninteresting heroine and because of that Tidus was left with a love interest that killed his development. 2) Seymour might very well be the worst villain/rival in FF history. He was annoying, boring, and uninteresting. I know Square was drained after Kefka and Sephiroth, but a terrible, uncharismatic villain leads for bad conflict. Again, a flawed game but still good.

XII is where things officially turned BAD. Before Sakaguchi left he hand-picked the game's director: Yasumi Matsuno, a man whose track record is absolutely spotless containing some of the best narratives in gaming. However, the team consisted of the FF Tactics team and the FF IX team. Long story short, the FFIX team threw a hissy fit and Matsuno left halfway through development due to the amount of bullshit and it shows in the game. The battle system is painfully boring, the characters the worst since VIII (three of them having NO justification for their existence), a storyline that is impenetrable, and a stupid skills system. That was the point where FF died and Square has merely been directing a desecrated corpse.


As for XIII, I needn't say anything. I would say that Square has a chance to save the series if they handed the reins to Matsuno, but considering the amount of bullshit he had to stomach the first time I doubt he'll ever touch the FF series again. Best to just euthanize the series at this point.

Dear Buddha, that's a lot of words.

Could you elaborate on what happened with the XII team? Particularly, why Matsuno left the team. I heard that it was due to "health issues" on the FF Wiki.

 

[Liberaliter]

Well it's always been a mediocre franchise, I guess people like to expect something more each time but it never delivers.