People's Issue With Square Enix

[Cyanin]

They're not Squaresoft?

Well my issue is that they need to scale it back a bit. Yes, they're good at epic games. But who wants a line of hyper-linear clones that are all looks and no brains.

Yeah I'll be that guy but FF 12 and 13 are worrying trends in the games. If they can bring it back to a great story, (maybe about the interesting character instead of the bloody weenie) and just focus on characters interacting with the world.

*In my opinion* that's what made Final Fantasy games so appealing in particular. The ability to interact and to see that there was a living, breathing world lying around which you were trying to save. 12 destroyed that with a notice board, 13 with statues.

 

[Jiffylust]

I think the only way to get Square back on track is to let them go under and donate money to Mistwalker so they can buys the rights to FF/KH. Seriously Lost Odyssey is FF11.

Square said it was embarrassed by the lack of interest in JRPG's during E3 this year, when they could have said five words and had the biggest game at the conference. (Final Fantasy 7 Remake Confirmed). If Square continues to act so oblivious and irrational they really are going to go under in no time.

O yes *ahem, In My Opinion

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

I don't really hate squareenix. I hate what they have been doing to final fantasy.

their mindset seems to be:
"1-10 and tactics all had some level of success with only little tweaks to combat and mechanics, so lets try everything except what has worked. oh, and make sure to tie it to other successful games, that should make it successful regardless"

basically i hate whats going on with final fantasy.
kingdom hearts is good, and there are other games that do well. but screwing around with final fantasy, their "phoenix from the ashes", and getting effects like 11,12,13,CC, or any of the spin off games from earlier successes is just foolish.
they could just as easily make a different name and just use whatever spells and stuff they wanted like kingdom hearts did and keep final fantasy intact.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Other peoples opinions are stupid. I don't understand why people don't just agree with me.
Am I right, OP?

Oi.

Well, I'm sorry. People are entitled to think what they think. Of course, that applies for you too. If you made a thread which said "a lot of people dislike Square Enix games but I disagree, can someone explain why?" then that would've been fine.
But, you've basically said "a lot of people dislike Square Enix because they don't understand they're wrong".

But I've just given it a bit of thought and I'd like to weigh in. First of all, I don't really have any strong opinions on JRPGs. I've played a good few and if one gets recommended to me by one of my JRPG enthusiast friends then I'll probably give it a go. I've had fun playing them, I've given up on some after 2 hours. Either way, I have 2 points I'd like to make.

1) A lot of people won't play JRPGs because they're too... I don't know the word. More so than any other genre, there's a culture that surronds JRPGs and that puts a lot of people off. It's like the weeaboo thing. The attitude of big JRPG fans towards those games, manga/anime and just Japan as a concept is offputting to the newcomer. It makes the games less accessible.

2) Sometimes when I play a JRPG, I feel like there's a pressure on the game to be a certain length, even if it isn't needed. I know people like running around, doing fetch quests and leveling up, but if that's not the kind of thing you do like then towards the end of the second act, you'll get bored. JRPG fans talk a lot about their great stories and characterisation and the storys can be very good, but they can also get buried underneath side quests.

Let me explain. Regular JRPG format is you go around doing your normal thing, at the end of the first act, something threatens something important to the player. Their friend, their town, the world or whatever. And then, in the third act, you defeat the menace. But then there's Act 2. Act 2 which lasts 60 hours.

In this time, the threat should always be in your mind. Final Fantasy X did this well. You had to stop that giant ball of destruction and the whole game was you trying to chase it down. If you wanted to, you could do the side quests and get rare stuff but it wasn't vital, you know? Along the way, you found out more about your companions and story unfolded itself in a logical way. Half the characters were morons, but at least they did have character. Rikku and the Kimahri were interesting enough that I kept playing to the end to see what happened. Also because I wanted to see Tidus die.

I hope that gave you some points to think about. I'm sorry I'm not very good at explaining things.

 

[Canadish]

WoW wasn't made in a fucking day.

But FF 14 clearly was *innocent face*

Seriously, though, they're just a company who make traditional games. Isn't that what a lot of people want? Or at least you'd think so from all the complaining over Skyrim...

No, they dumbed down as well.
JRPG's were never as in depth as Western counterparts at the best of times, though there was alot of variety in gameplay. Presentation and graphics were years ahead.
Then the world map vanished in FF10.
FF12 actually tackled some grey moral issues, politically speaking, but the characters were just awful. Boring or annoying or just outright pointless.
Then FF13 came alot nothing but corridors and a literal "Press X to win".
FF13 was the worst offender for dumbing in years and REALLY damaged the brand name.
It had nothing that traditionally made FF great, other than fantastic graphics.

I don't speak for everyone, but myself and alot of my friends are seeing Bioware and Bethesda taking similar actions and worried the Western market is going the way of the Japanese one.

 

[Saibh]

If I made a guess, it was that their earlier games were more revolutionary--they were new, different, and exciting. As we got used to their formula, we wanted different things. Some fans hated that, some liked it. At first it seemed like they were doing well introducing new concepts. But they also have a lot of misses, which not only alienates old school fans, but also puts off fans who are open to new ideas but dislike the handling of it.

Besides that, the whimsical design of FF looked fine in 8-bit or 16-bit, but 3D looked alienating to many players. Games have been changing, and tastes have changed too, but many feel like FF is rooted strongly in '90s style tastes. Not to mention advances in technology mean things like story and graphics started to take precedent where they couldn't before in exchange of gameplay and content. And some people aren't terribly keen on the story FFs often have.

 

[NickCaligo42]

snip

I like how this post acts like all of what is said is fact.

If you want a well-thought-out, well-researched, comprehensively cited article, a forum post asking people to explain their disillusionment with Square is is the wrong place to go. The guy asked, I'm just calling it the way I see it.

 

[Katana314]

I still kind of see EIDOS seperately, and I'm curious about how much they work together. They did Just Cause 2 wonderfully, and I'm eager to see how Hitman turns out. Their newer RPGs...well, I may not have played much of anything since FF7. They should realize they'll never convert a "mainstream" crowd by steering closer to "mainstream gameplay" and making their RPGs more action-oriented and simplistic; the blend doesn't work. Concentrate on what you do well, and do better at it, and maybe more people will convert over.

 

[Gindil]

Okay. All I wanna know is...

Why the hell do people ***** about Square Enix so much?

They complain about how Final Fantasy has 14 base installments, how they decided to pursue the asshole who is trying to jeopardize their game because they faked their identity to get it, and their games in general.

I can get how Kane and Lynch 2 would suck, but I get the feeling that most of that hate comes from people who don't understand the point of JRPG's. They make great games. If you don't like it, piss off and go away. They've had some issues this year, and sure, 14 isn't going too well but it's a work in progress. WoW wasn't made in a fucking day.

Point is, why do people complain about them? It's the one thing that irritates me about Yahtzee and IGN and Gamespot and all of those gaming sites based in America or otherwise.

Where do I start?

First, I have gotten no update to the Chrono Trigger series. At all. Square buys the copyright on Crono Break, puts out a half assed remake and squats on the extended copyright to make a few extra dollars. If a fan makes a game using the characters, woe betide!

Let's get into the Final Fantasy series of 14+ games. They ain't final. They take the name of the FF series, tack it onto other products and BAM! It's FF but it's not. FFTactics was a great story. But then you got FFXII that's linked to the games along with Vagrant Story. The same problem occurs. Where is the VStory update?

I haven't played FF since X. The reason being, I got tired of FF taking over for everything else in the genre. The Chrono Trigger series stands above any other game that Square ever did and still resonates quite strongly nostalgically for me. You had seven characters who you came to grow with (Crono is still the exception being a player avatar) and a world that was very unique. With FFX, the thing that STILL resonates with me is how whiny Tidus is. By the GORDS [http://www.actsofgord.com/]did I hate that... With the next game being FFXI, an MMO where you have to grind a helluva lot more than WoW (In XI, GAME PLAYS YOU!), I lost all interest in Square as a developer.

Now, Eidos has Deus Ex. I won't be getting the game. Square's business practices of being a legal bully for people that want to make a series based on their characters shows me they're thinking about this in the wrong way. If they were like Capcom, they would have included the community and their talents for a game. If they were like Activision, they would have licensed a fan game. Being a copyright bully that enforces censorship means I will not spend time on a company with a very poor choice in legal strategies.

TLDR - Their games went from great to suck after FFX. When their legal strategies equate to being copyright bullies, I move on to other companies such as Valve who like me putting up my own content.

 

[health-bar]

I dont like square enix simply because they keep making Final fantasy games (a series which i never really liked) and not the third Kingdom Hearts. seriously, its been like, what 8 years since KH2?

 

[Nightvalien]

I can give you about 10 reasons for not liking it and they are all final fantasy from 8 to 13 and all the crap mmos, the shit they did with hitman and thief and don't even let me get started on that horrible coded crap that was mind hack, a publisher should have more common sense than that.

 

[The Geek Lord]

... but I get the feeling that most of that hate comes from people who don't understand the point of JRPG's. They make great games. If you don't like it, piss off and go away.

You know what I love? JRPGs. You know what I hate? Squeenix.

Square hasn't made a "great" game since the fucking Super Nintendo, with the possible exception of Final Fantasy IX. But HEY, this is just an OPINION, just like you have an OPINION. That's what you're going to say, right? And you'd be right; on the other hand, arguing that certain [http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/final-fantasy-viii/page/3/] games [http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/game-reviews/final-fantasy-x/] were "great" is going to earn you a few facepalms. Just about the only thing I've seen Squeenix do right is publishing Persona 4 in Europe, and that's the truth.

You can go enjoy Final Fantasy 3,248,520: Whiny Douchenozzles, Atrocious Character Designs, and Giant Plot Holes, Oh My! or whatever, but quite honestly if you are incapable of finding flaw in a company that is nothing but, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Norris IV]

To me theyre too stuck in the past for their RPG's, for example FF13's battles are so arduious and lenghened that it just saps all enthuisam. When its compared to RPG's like oblivion, ME, Fallout and the old school FF's (4,5,6,9) its just too damn slow!

 

[General_Potatoes]

People didn't complain when Just Cause 2 came out.

I did. I complained a lot about it.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

Funnily enough, Yahtzee's Alice Returns quote applies beautifully here (though the number of situations in which a Yahtzee quote applies beautifully seems to have no end):

"When it's not boring, it's obtuse... and let's call it what it is: pretentious."

Square Enix suffers severely from a case of pronounced pretentiousness. I mean hell, just look at the titles they've given their new games: Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Revenant Wings, RE: Chain of Memories, 300/2 Days, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012 (and that - let's call it what it is - pretentious "Duodecim"). There's only so much butchered language one can take before his own tongue starts turning to mush. And you just know that back in his little office in the Square Enix headquarters, surrounded by his loli fetish designs that didn't make it past his Suck Me Off And Say Yes Committee, Nomura is smiling smugly to himself and thinking what a clever pedophile dog he is.

Oh, yeah: "Agito XIII" and "Versus XIII." The former sounds like someone clearing their throat, and the latter makes me think of Roman numerals squaring off.