Fnal Fantasy: Where did they go wrong?

[Lullabye]

Its a great series, and each game has something to offer someone out there. But i think the main problem started at 7. One of my favs, but thats why its flaws stuck out for me so much.
Though I gotta say, to date FF13 takes the cake for crappy FF games. Even Dissidia was moer immersive and fun for me.

 

[pyrosaw]

My theories are that they thought that people only played Final Fantasy for the art style.

 

[Manji187]

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

Two words: targeted demographic. People grow up, FF....not so much.

 

[malestrithe]

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

*shudder*

....No seriously, how?

I didn't tolerate him. I did not have to when I realized the main focus of that story was Balthier and Ashe. As soon as that happened, the game got better. Sure Vaan was the person that started the game, but the story picked up when Ashe and Balthier got involved. Think of Vaan as being the prologue character.

In literature, I can think of 2 famous examples of this happening. Moby Dick was supposed to be focused on the ships bosun and Melville went along with it until he wrote in Ahab. After that, the Bosun was washed out to sea. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the story moved along faster right after Aragorn was introduced.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

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.

From what I have gathered, it was mostly due to the chemistry between Matsuno's mainstays and the FFIX team, chemistry which was mostly NEGATIVE. If it was health issues, it was probably due to severe stress with having to put up with one half of the team fighting over direction of the title (as Matsuno's plots and designs are always WAY different than your typical post-VII FF plot) as well as the common syndrome of meddling execs trying to "market" the damn thing. For instance Basch was supposed to be the main character and Vaan wasn't even in the script (or at least NOT as the hero).

 

[BlumiereBleck]

The fact there were 12 sequels and like 100 other games for it.

 

[Racthoh]

FFX changed the cursor used for making selections from a white glove to a stupid arrow. Honestly, that never sat well with me. VIII I dismissed immediately simply because I like my RPGs to be set in a fantasy setting, not the future. Later on when it was a $20 greatest hits I actually picked it up only to discover the game was severely lacking in... everything. I still say FFT should've been VIII.

 

[malestrithe]

Nostalgia plays a part of it. A lot of Final Fantasy fans think that 6 and 7 were the absolute pinnacles of the series and everything else does not hold a candle to them. Personally, I do not think that Final Fantasy VII is as good as everyone said it. I can say this because I recently replayed the game. Never mind the clunky graphics, the music, or any of the characters in it. I do not think the plot is as good as everyone said it is.

Then again, Nostalgia is what is fueling Bioware's success is this nostalgia. From my summation, Bioware has been releasing the same game since Knights of the Old Republic. I mean fundamentally and thematically. Dragon Age and KotOR are, at their core the same game. You play a person with a mysterious past and you have to battle through the game to find out who you are supposed to be or destined to become. At the end, you are given the choice of the good ending or the evil one. Along the way, you face an extremely patient plot that will wait until it is damn good and ready for you to continue it. I am pretty sure some of you are itching at the reigns to tell me how wrong I am, but save your fingers. Better men than you have tried and failed to convince me otherwise.

 

[VondeVon]

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.

I spent most of FFXII waiting for Vaan to do or be something important. Like Ashe's little illegitimate brother or something. (Especially when he could see Ashe's ghostly BF when no-one else could) Because he was the character we started with, I identified with him as the main one...

I think they were aiming to tell Ashe's story from the perspective of a nobody (which isn't fun when you're playing the nobody. I eventually took control of Fran instead.) but Ashe herself was a shockingly rude, selfish, entitled little madam who was willing to throw away the uneasy peace her people had and go to war just so she could sit her royal little buttocks on the throne again. (And it's hard to believe she was 'doing it for her people' when she treated Vaan and Penelo so terribly.)

If FFs were in the habit of letting us make plot decisions (sighs blissfully for a moment) then I would have killed her in a heartbeat - even if that was the 'bad ending'.

 

[LogicNProportion]

It's not just you, believe me.

I've ranted enough about how most of the newer Final Fantasy's have blown whale dick, so I'm not going to dedicate another hour of my life merely saying: "Kill the current people in charge."

I'm sure it would be stupidly easy to find a proper rant in my posts archive anyway...

 

[The Rockerfly]

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

ff10 sucked balls. The sphere grid was awefull removed any uniqueness from the characters. Don't even wanna talk about blitz ball. Yuna was the best character in game. the VO sucked.

Also dragon quest 9 says hello.

I say I hated dragon quest, the sphere grid did remove the uniqueness towards the end I will admit that and there is only one forced blitz ball game in the entire game, you obviously didn't get wakka to max level where his over drive could do 99,999 x 16 and I have no idea what you mean by VO

 

[Superbeast]

I spent most of FFXII waiting for Vaan to do or be something important. Like Ashe's little illegitimate brother or something. (Especially when he could see Ashe's ghostly BF when no-one else could) Because he was the character we started with, I identified with him as the main one...

As a poster above said, I think Ashe and Balthier are the main characters that drive the story on - Vaan is just to set everything into context.

I think they were aiming to tell Ashe's story from the perspective of a nobody (which isn't fun when you're playing the nobody. I eventually took control of Fran instead.) but Ashe herself was a shockingly rude, selfish, entitled little madam who was willing to throw away the uneasy peace her people had and go to war just so she could sit her royal little buttocks on the throne again. (And it's hard to believe she was 'doing it for her people' when she treated Vaan and Penelo so terribly.)

I actually liked both those aspects - instead of being someone "destined" to do something badass, or finding themselves out of "time"; it was just a random person from the city who got swept up in events far bigger than they could understand.

Ashe being an "entitled little madam" actually worked quite well in my view - it's the haughty arrogance expected of the aristocracy, which created some interesting dichotomies of good/evil in regards to the Empire, particularly when compared to Larsa. Had Ashe been nicer, on a par with Larsa, then I think it would have made the whole story too cliche in terms of small nation (good) attacked by large empire (evil).

If FFs were in the habit of letting us make plot decisions (sighs blissfully for a moment) then I would have killed her in a heartbeat - even if that was the 'bad ending'.

I would love to be able to make larger plot decisions in FF - it would make the games so much more dynamic. I'm not sure such a thing is possible when you consider the sheer scale of the games like FF XII/XIII, and how the main story is relatively convoluted, but I would like to see it.

 

[Kinghoza]

I think the developers just watch too much anime.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

From what I have gathered, it was mostly due to the chemistry between Matsuno's mainstays and the FFIX team, chemistry which was mostly NEGATIVE. If it was health issues, it was probably due to severe stress with having to put up with one half of the team fighting over direction of the title (as Matsuno's plots and designs are always WAY different than your typical post-VII FF plot) as well as the common syndrome of meddling execs trying to "market" the damn thing. For instance Basch was supposed to be the main character and Vaan wasn't even in the script (or at least NOT as the hero).

I see. FFXII had so much unrealized potential. I really hope that he comes back, because so far Matsuno is the only one with the vision to revitalized Final Fantasy. I believe that he helped to re-release Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, so maybe there's hope.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

From what I have gathered, it was mostly due to the chemistry between Matsuno's mainstays and the FFIX team, chemistry which was mostly NEGATIVE. If it was health issues, it was probably due to severe stress with having to put up with one half of the team fighting over direction of the title (as Matsuno's plots and designs are always WAY different than your typical post-VII FF plot) as well as the common syndrome of meddling execs trying to "market" the damn thing. For instance Basch was supposed to be the main character and Vaan wasn't even in the script (or at least NOT as the hero).

I see. FFXII had so much unrealized potential. I really hope that he comes back, because so far Matsuno is the only one with the vision to revitalized Final Fantasy. I believe that he helped to re-release Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, so maybe there's hope.

yes, he has returned to revive the Ogre Battle Saga, but after the amount of crap from XII I doubt he'll touch the FF series again. It proved way too hectic for him so he's probably better off sticking to smaller projects.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

From what I have gathered, it was mostly due to the chemistry between Matsuno's mainstays and the FFIX team, chemistry which was mostly NEGATIVE. If it was health issues, it was probably due to severe stress with having to put up with one half of the team fighting over direction of the title (as Matsuno's plots and designs are always WAY different than your typical post-VII FF plot) as well as the common syndrome of meddling execs trying to "market" the damn thing. For instance Basch was supposed to be the main character and Vaan wasn't even in the script (or at least NOT as the hero).

I see. FFXII had so much unrealized potential. I really hope that he comes back, because so far Matsuno is the only one with the vision to revitalized Final Fantasy. I believe that he helped to re-release Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, so maybe there's hope.

yes, he has returned to revive the Ogre Battle Saga, but after the amount of crap from XII I doubt he'll touch the FF series again. It proved way too hectic for him so he's probably better off sticking to smaller projects.

*Sigh* I can't blame him though.

 

[Timbydude]

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*).

This.

You can't knock them for not trying. They are definitely trying to take the series in new directions. It doesn't always work, though. I liked XIII, but I know that a ton of people didn't. Also, XIV was pretty much despised by everyone who played it.

 

[astrav1]

Childhood nostalgia might be at fault, but I've been pretty unimpressed with recent Final Fantasies. Unlikeable characters, boring stories, too many deserts...

I can't decide if they need better writers or less irritating female lead characters...

THANK YOU! Ever since Squaresoft ceased to exist they just were terrible.

 

[LordLoudmouth]

Oh i will so get raged for this but: Emo and angst happened...in every game after 7 (save for 12 and MMO´s), escpecially 7 and 8, had atleast 4-6 reaaally emo scenes.
What else, what else....they introduced grinding too....also....I´d like to point out Vanille and Rikku to be....the more than weirdly cheerful characters those get on your nerve...too many random plot points those have no impact on the story, like, say, The damn love affair in 9 and the randomness of random characters from past in 10 and random "did i see this guy in the last game" in 10-2(which is my fav of the new FF´s)...thats about it...also some other valid points that people make in their comments, that i dont care to write in here