How could Final Fantasy be fixed?

[Diddy_Mao]

Fire your translation staff.

From what I understand (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) a large portion of the terms and concepts in FF XIII weren't just translated, they felt the need to jazz them up for a Western audience. Because we apparantly can't deal with a Warrior class, they need to be a Blitzerker! (paraphrasing there.)

From a UX standpoint...make sure the features added actually mesh with the rest of the game. FFXII was terrrible about this.

The point buy "License grid" is a cool idea. In theory it means I can customize my characters to fill various heal/tank/damage roles as I see fit. Except that pretty much everyone had to be skilled in healing and buffing magics to stay alive thereby rendering the whole practice virtually void.

Another example is the summons. Big attacks that take up ALL of your special skill resources to use. Which is fine if the knacks didn't reliably dish out more damage for less resource. Pretty much making sure nobody was going to bother with summons.

The series is littered with this kind of thing and it's easily one of the most consistent frustrations I have.

 

[WeepingAngels]

We could pretend that IX was the last released game...

We could pretend that IX was so damned slow that it put us all to sleep for 14 years.

Let me rephrase, we could pretend that we have all been asleep for 14 years due to Final Fantasy IX putting us all to sleep. The battle system in that game ran at a snails pace.

 

[loc978]

They could let it die.

The talent that brought them through the first half of the series so far just isn't there anymore. Whether that is due to loss of personnel, complacency of individual developers, market pressure, all of the above or something else, I don't know... but I do think letting the series die would be doing the industry (and gamers in general) a solid.

 

[Nathan Josephs]

ACTIVE TIME BATTLE. bring it back. that is all.

 

[FoolKiller]

OT: Well, first of all they could stop saying that they have to make everything a tight hallway because of the graphics. I might just be one person, but I'd be fine with them sacrificing some of their graphical budget to actually build a fully-fleshed out world again instead of just the written lore for one.

Exactly. But sometime around FFX and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Square decided that pretty was the most important factor.

If you look at all the Final Fantasys up until IX you realize something. While they were the prettiest games in the genre, they were generally bad looking games compared to other genres. Then in FFX they went from having the best looking RPG to one of the prettiest games at the time. Since then, this obsession with graphics has caused issues with the gameplay as it handcuffs what you can do in an open environment.

Let's compare it to another game. GTA. GTA III through V have looked fantastic.... for giant sandbox worlds where there is a lot of freedom. They look crappy compared to some other genres but the game more than makes up for it.

It's a lesson that Rockstar hasn't forgotten but Square needs to remember.

 

[WeepingAngels]

OT: Well, first of all they could stop saying that they have to make everything a tight hallway because of the graphics. I might just be one person, but I'd be fine with them sacrificing some of their graphical budget to actually build a fully-fleshed out world again instead of just the written lore for one.

Exactly. But sometime around FFX and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Square decided that pretty was the most important factor.

If you look at all the Final Fantasys up until IX you realize something. While they were the prettiest games in the genre, they were generally bad looking games compared to other genres. Then in FFX they went from having the best looking RPG to one of the prettiest games at the time. Since then, this obsession with graphics has caused issues with the gameplay as it handcuffs what you can do in an open environment.

Let's compare it to another game. GTA. GTA III through V have looked fantastic.... for giant sandbox worlds where there is a lot of freedom. They look crappy compared to some other genres but the game more than makes up for it.

It's a lesson that Rockstar hasn't forgotten but Square needs to remember.

I remember Final Fantasy VI being the best looking game I had ever seen on the SNES in 1994. That's when their obsession with graphics started. VII may look bad now but when it came out in 1997, it blew people away and VIII looked even better. IX was largely overlooked I think due to it coming just before the PS2 launch.

I remember expecting X to look better than it did because after 6,7,8 and 9...I knew Final Fantasy was supposed to look beautiful. XII delivered though, it's a beautiful game if you play it in 480p with the component cables. In fact, Final Fantasy XII looked better on the PS2 than Xenoblade Chronicles did on the Wii (both in 480p, both on the same TV).

When it comes to gameplay, I don't think graphics have been the reason for the drop in gameplay quality, just bad design decisions. Final Fantasy X was a good game that moved at a nice pace. The Sphere Grid was different and most people liked it. Final Fantasy XII was so big and looked so good, I still don't know how they fit it all on one DVD. The gameplay was fine aside from the License board.

 

[DragonLordSerge]

The easiest way to fix the FF series in my view is to look at Lost Odyssey to me it was more of a FF game than XIII

 

[Requia]

Limit the budget for cutscenes. It's not that cutscenes are bad per se, but FFXIII was so big on them it tried to cover up its flaws, I figure if the devs have to look at a project that has a saner amount of animation they'll see just how much of everything else is missing.

 

[Fox12]

They need to focus on substance, not style. Their games are flashy and good looking, some of the best looking games on the market, but all of that color is artificial and shallow if the writing is bad. From an artistic standpoint they need to simplify their stories and write more compelling characters. This, more than anything else, is breaking them. They shoehorn vaguely mythic or religious imagery into their stories, but they never mean anything. FF7 had the perfect balance to me. It had the flashy style that Tetsuya Nomura is known for mixed in with the original writers. The result was a perfect balance of new and old Final Fantasy. Gameplay wise I think they're fine (so long as they make less linear games). They just need to focus on telling concrete, straightforward stories. They can look at games like Persona and Valkyria Chronicles for inspiration.

From a business standpoint they're a mess. They currently have 14 FINAL Fantasies. Lets pretend you're a 12 year old kid. You hear about the Final Fantasy series so you decide to go pick up the newest game from Game Stop. When you get there you see the first ten Final Fantasies, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 13-3, and Tactics. You also have Final Fantasy 13 Versus (which is now FF15), which was part of the Fabula Crystalla Nova shamalongadingdong project, a series of three separate stories that had nothing to do with one another, but were supposedly set in the same universe. Final Fantasy 13 Versus is also slated to have its own series of sequels. Being a 12 year old kid you decide to give up and buy COD instead. My point is, it's incredibly difficult for new fans to get into the series. You shouldn't need a doctorates degree to figure out which FF game you want. The barrier to entry is massive. Their marketing department is possibly the worst I've seen in the entire industry. Even Microsoft knew when to turn things around. They need to simplify things NOW if they want to save the brand from further damage, and they have got to stop flooding the market with so many Final Fantasy titles.

 

[Akiraking]

I liked the characters from Final Fantasy 13 though I mainly got into it because of 13-2's time travel features (they were really fun for me). I can't comment on the combat system because as far as I can tell I enjoy the old fashioned systems and the new real time systems. There are going to be games made for both of these styles but I understand if this annoys older players since I would get annoyed if a racing series decided to go from street racing to entirely competitive lap racing.

In regards to the making the world more open I think that is something that they have never really changed it is just more noticeable in the recent games because other series have such big worlds though I will admit 13 was just a giant corridor but that is the only one which has made me feel like I am in a giant corridor.

I don't think the series needs to be fixed because that suggests that it is a broken object like a tool or a machine but to be more enjoyable then I just think they need the game play to match the story. 13's world was so big in scope but not in game play, the world of 13 needed to be explored to understand it all. The best we got were tours through sections of this world and the rest was limited to text blurbs in the menus. Also I do think the characters need a bit of work as Lighting does feel like she has already been done before (a lot).

 

[sXeth]

-Pick whether they're gonna go with action combat or strategy combat, not their half between junk.
-Stop using MMO-style sidequests in an SP game, and bring back RPG side quests and exploration.
-Cut down on the cutscenes a bit. Especially the gratuitous and ludicrously over the top action stuff. You're a game, your action sequences should be gameplay.
-Don't build half your second/third act content/side missions around selling a strategy guide.

 

[KazeAizen]

For me personally, make a battle system like in the newer games, but give the user more control.
Make it a bit more tactical.

Big open world that you actually walk on from place to place.

Lots of side quests/mini game/other stuff to do.
They can even keep the half magic/half sci-fi setting they've been keen on for sometime.

Sooooo pretty much Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2?

 

[KazeAizen]

They could let it die.

The talent that brought them through the first half of the series so far just isn't there anymore. Whether that is due to loss of personnel, complacency of individual developers, market pressure, all of the above or something else, I don't know... but I do think letting the series die would be doing the industry (and gamers in general) a solid.

You see I'm not so sure about that. There are several long running series that people think should die. However its a difference between the series that don't give and damn and do give a damn. For example the CoD devs obviously aren't really trying anymore with their franchise. However between Final Fantasies I can see that the devs are giving a damn and still care about making the games. Sure they don't always hit bullseyes but its obvious effort is being put into it. The reason I think they shouldn't is because we already have one company who has abandoned the series that essentially built them up and its a damn shame. The loss of Mega Man is terrible. So I don't think Square Enix should let the game series that essentially made them die. Whatever has been going over there recently though seems to be good things. Rebuilding their MMO, pushing out titles that have been in development hell for years. They still care. Capcom on the other hand. It doesn't care anymore. Why else would Keiji Inafune and Hideki Kamiya, people that made two of their biggest franchises, leave and make spiritual successors to their own creations?

 

[piinyouri]

Sooooo pretty much Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2?

Apparently not, since I didn't much care for 13. (Aside from the combat. If it had been tweaked a bit it would have been really fun I thought)

13-2 had a lot of potential to be fun, but it just didn't quite get there for me.
(I missed visual job/class changes, among other things)

 

[kaizen2468]

Stop blowing your entire budget on graphics and get back to basics.

 

[gargantual]

Release Final Fantasy XV...

*cough*

Premature fangirlism aside and based off of the more recent releases of Final Fantasy, I'd say give the players a bit more control over the battle. In XIII the battles were extraordinarily boring because they were just incredibly automated. Yes, you could choose from a list of abilities but your enemies would often attack you in the meantime. I'm not sure if anyone else experienced the same thing but I just found it easier to press the automated attack button which had the aforementioned downside of dull battles. As much as I like the old tactical turn-based system, I would look forward to something more action oriented like it seems they're trying to do with XV. The middle ground doesn't seem to work out too well.

I loved the open worlds of most of the pre-XIII releases so I would definitely say that we should see more of that as well. It makes levelling far less tedious when you aren't just running back and forth through a corridor.

Also, one last thing since this is one of my biggest gripes with XIII. No game over just because the party leader has died. It's a real pain in the ass when you've nearly beaten a boss but then you lose because one person died. I hoard Phoenix Downs for a reason!

Amen! One my my most memorable battles in FF8 was the first times I faced Diablo. Squall as party leader and Zell died and I squeaked out victory with Selphie (serving as healer). Or the time I beat ruby weapon with barret. Now how can a person get any of those proud tension-filled awkward victories if the game just assumes you're dead before giving you a chance to rally back?

 

[___________________]

12 - Don't make the main character feel less important than the other ones, but still make them all feel important and don't leave them on the background. FFXII and FFXIII were crap on this aspect. Don't know about FFXIII because honestly I gave up on FF.

For this one you do know that Vaan was never actually meant to be the main character of Final Fantasy XII right? It was supposed to be Balthier and Basch, but the executives at Square Enix felt that those two were too old to be relatable to others, so they added in Vaan and Penelo. With XII's development the executives were changing a lot of things, and it was pissing off the director so he left Square Enix because he couldn't take it anymore.

Oh, hold on. I meant "Don't know about FFXIII-2". I think you thought I was wailing on FFXII there, because I wrote FFXIII instead. Nope, just a typo on my part kid. My bad. I'll edit my post.

 

[Lightknight]

They're a little off in every area. From character design to plot to battle system. I don't think they have too far to go but hopefully they'll eventually find the right mix. Turning into an Action RPG would certainly be an easy action to take.

I'm also not really invested in being a female protagonist in an RPG. I'd be interested in having the option. But in a fighting game I just can't get into the female fighter aspect. Not when she's maybe 135 lbs soaking wet.

Maybe as a Brienne of Tarth or Agrias from Tactics, but not Lightning's size. She has no musculature whatsoever. At least Zane was a knife bearer.