Poll: The thing about Square Enix

[Quaidis]

I don't think Enix is entirely to blame. Square has been making chaotic decisions at random for a while now with the Final Fantasy series (and before). In the NES era, they went nearly bankrupt with their games until they made Final Fantasy 1, which was to be their final game. The decisions of the head honchos on the Final Fantasy genre has been the main problem. They feel threatened by Gamer Generation 2000, which mostly wants to buy action games and FPS's with pretty graphics than jrpgs, and are trying to change their series to 'meet with the times'. The problem lies in the fact that games don't run on pretty graphics alone, and they're going too far away from the formula and plot-schemes that made the first handful of Final Fantasy's successful. I'm sure they're either scratching their head confused right now or finally coming to a realization of that fact. I'm sure some of their teams have realized this long ago and are making other games that are just as good as previous popular Final Fantasy's, just under different names.

Meanwhile you have those 'other games' such as The World Ends with you and the freaking Dragon Quest series, which are selling very well. DQ is still in Enix's ballgame, so to speak.


So saying the absorption of a company into another company is the reason for that other company's casual rotting is as ludicrous as saying that Activision absorbing Vivendi (Blizzard) is what made Activision so much more evil. It's also referred to as Scape Goating.

 

[Madara XIII]

I agree!!!

Square Enix really wen't into a Lull and if it weren't for Birth By Sleep I'd have lost all hope for them

Exactly man, Kingdom Hearts is barely saving them, it sorta evens them out compared with Final Fantasy *continues playing as Aqua*

Indeed, Oh btw fair warning. Aqua's last boss is a *****!!!

Right now I already beat Ventus' and Aqua's story and as of Now almost done with Terra's (who may now be my favorite Kingdom hearts character mainly because of the 3 people he becomes)

Well, I've beat Ventus's story (and leveled him up so far he's practically God with a Keyblade)

I guess I'd better hit the Mirage Arena, 'cause I'm still stuck on fighting "The Masked Boy"(Whose name I will not disclose) for the second time in Never Land, mainly because I dont have Once More, *grunt*

And does Terra get any special abilities from Never Land, you know, like how Ven can glide, Aqua can double jump, ect. And try not to spoil too much for me. I almost spoiled Blank Points for myself by looking on the KH Wikia.

Not that I know of yet, Buuuuuuuut no need to Keep Vanitas a secret I already figured out most of the story especially what happens with Terra....just WOW!!! Kingdom Hearts 3 Here I COME!!!

Oh and dude if you're having trouble with Vanitas at Never Land with Aqua, I suggest you go back and Level up.....ALOT! I beat him easily by using Time Splicer. Secondly Yeah Ventus has some Kickass Combos and attacks when you level him up. Especially when you learn to turn Faith into Salvation!! OMG I spammed that attack so much when going thru the tornado trench

 

[Larmo]

The only FF game I played was 12, i enjoyed it quite a bit but it could be because it was the Collectors edition and i didn't have any preconceived notions of the game history as a whole.

 

[Acidwell]

The thing is if square enix were making the same game over and over there would be so many more people complaining about it.

After 13 single player games they have to change some stuff, i'm sure everyone who played the first few were really annoyed that there wasn't a huge crystal involved in the plot of the rest.

But anyway why would you judge 13 as being exactly part of the same series as 1-12 they all had so many changes from each other that complaining is pointless.(I loved 13 btw, awesome game)


Tl;Dr : In my experience the only people who complain about 13 being so different are people who started with ffx


Edit: Whats with all these non poll poll threads?

 

[CmdrGoob]

Indeed, they've kinda sucked for almost a decade now and are getting worse.

They seem to have serious problems with their project management, claiming that considering the amount of work to make graphics that deserve HD, it is hard to make towns in the conventional style [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98084-FF13-Producer-Explains-Why-FF7-Remake-is-Unlikely], or that enough content was deleted from the project (FF13) to make an additional game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.168724-Mounds-of-Content-Cut-from-Final-Fantasy-XIII].

The of course there's the debacle that is FF14, which was announced years ago but came out as an unfinished, unpolished, copy-pasted train wreck with very little content.

I have no confidence that the management of SE are competent.

A question - why do you go into every single thread about JRPGs, particularly the Final Fantasy ones, when you hate the genre? Surely you have better things to do than continually go into the same threads over and over to spout off your bullshit about how much Square Enix and JRPGs such?

I don't hate the genre, I just don't like what the genre has become. Once upon a time I played and liked many of the classic JRPGs, and I'd like JRPGs to rediscover some of their classic charm and unique world building and design and combine it with modern advances in gameplay, instead of delivering regurgitated stale anime cliches with clunky combat. If I didn't have any interest in JRPGs I wouldn't pay attention to them, just like I don't pay any attention to sports games.

 

[Gasaraki]

Look up Mistwalker. There is your Final Fantasy.

Really. Lost Odyssey was epic.

That said, I like the newer FFs just fine. FF13 is my RPG of the year, even over Mass Effect 2 at the moment.

But for the "classic FF" feel, keep an eye on what Mistwalker does. It even has some of the devs of old FFs.

This, definitely this. Mistwalker is brilliant.
I think a lot of it stems from the fact that it's headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, he seems to know what actually makes a JRPG.

OT: I actually thought that FFXIII would've been much better if the took out all of the unnecessary combat (leaving in a couple of bosses and whatnot). Seriously, I found just about everything about it to be fairly good. The music was nice, the story was fairly interesting and of course the graphics were awesome. It's just all the battles were tedious as hell. :/

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

I don't touch anything by them that wasn't on super nintendo. (Dawn of souls excluded.)

they are a really"bleh" company who constant forget the absolute most important part of any story: subtlety

"doooh this guy isn't a super smar-"
"lets make him so stupid hes more annoying than the last fucktarded character we made!"
"yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!"

zell from FFVIII was so flamboyant... just... bleh.

also, these people need to learn that they AREN"T FUNNY. they don't generally go for a humorous angle, but my god help my tolerance for them when they do.

 

[siddif]

Im gonna have to stop you there and say its not the fault of Enix but the fact that this man had left the company due to illness, Hironobu Sakaguchi - the creator of Final Fantasy and also had various levels of involvement in each individual game. His last concept role was FFIX though he was executive producer for X. He later went on to found Mistwalker as most of you may know and to me his other games such as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are truer to Final Fantasy that the later games in the actual series have been.

Check this table out if you want to know about his involvement in certain games - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hironobu_Sakaguchi#Games

 

[Scarecrow]

All Square Enix games suck IMO. I need not say more.

I don't think so. 'The World Ends With You' was one of the best games of all time.

 

[Lyri]

Did someone actually post that here? Zell isn't from 7, he's from 8. And probably one of the least androgynous characters square has created.

Could easily be a typo & flamboyancy and androgynous have zero correlation, your last point is tangential.

Someone give me hope that XIV isn't complete garbage, I've been wanting to try it for a while now but everything about it screams wrong.

 

[Teh_Lemon]

TBH, Square Enix shouldn't be allowed to make a game all by themselves. Most everything they made in conjunction with another company (Whether it be Nintendo, Disney, etc- and I'm not saying that bc I like games for younger people or w/e) was great and every game of theirs I played that was made by solely them was... dissapointing.

Although there was one exception to this rule I can't quite seem to name, that broke the norm from most Square Enix games...

 

[Zero_ctrl]

I do like me some Kingdom Hearts.

 

[CK76]

Grandia IV would make me happy for good five years with them.

 

[e.wlmo4]

The thing about Square Enix and the Japanese industry at large is the lack of innovation however thats common knowledge but Square Enix specifically is with their purchase of Eidos last year has given them control of their ip's which have more worldwide appeal and therefore have a higher amount of money to make and as any corporation would they will focus on where there is more money to make and because of this their traditional titles fall to the bottom of the heap.

 

[siddif]

1. Get out of the MMO market. WoW has too much share, you guys don't know what you're doing there. The run-of-the-mill MMO raider/pvper isn't massively concerned with storyline or fluff aspects. If you can't make a streamlined MMO that's enjoyable, you don't stand a chance. Ask NCSoft, they're the #2 guys and they struggle to keep up. Concentrate on Single-player RPGs, since most people are trying to dethrone WoW it leaves you with less competition.

2. It's a JRPG, don't try to compete with WRPGs. Fallout and Oblivion are very different animals from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. They do not appeal to the same kind of player for the most part. WRPGs are generally about flexability, customization and exploration. But JRPGs are more about plot, pacing and characterization. Don't be afraid to try to appeal to anime fans, either. There's still a lot of crossover potential there.

3. Get away from the XBox 360. Not because it's a bad console, but because your audience is mostly on the PS3 and Wii. 360 is still defined by FPS, sports and action games. Though it has more RPGs then it did a long time ago, I still think 360 is a poor market for Square. If you want to reach a new audience, you might consider PC. But test the waters with smaller endeavors first.

You have very good points, I played XI before WoW and found it rather confusing with little to no guidance of where the action is or where you are supposed to go. As for point 2 I wish they would listen to this one - being a JRPG is what made them stand out from the rest for me and be enjoyable but I havent enjoyed a single main game since X and I'm speaking as a major fan of the era beforehand especially 7.

Personally i have jumped ship to Mistwalker for any FF cravings i have as they are a lot closer to the series than XI-XIV have been though XIII felt like a "greatest hits" to me combining all the best bits from previous games and still falling short in my eyes

 

[Fusioncode9]

I enjoyed X and X-2 even though the writing was god awful but I've come to expect this. 12's open world was really cool but the characters were the most unlikable of the series. I loved 13's length and enjoyed the game in general. It wasn't amazing but it was a huge time sink.

 

[burningdragoon]

Well, I'll concur with that completely. God knows I was excited for FFXIII even though I didn't like XII at all, because I adored VII-X. I even liked X-2!

I guess Final Fantasy is kind of like the gaming equivalent to something on the level of Star Wars. The name recognition and nostalgia factor is so huge that people will go and pay money for it, even if they hated the most recent incarnation of it.

Yeah I would say that's about right.

Oh look a new FF title, awesome.

Meh, I didn't like that at all.

Oh look a new FF title, awesome.

...

repeat

 

[Defense]

In defense of Final Fantasy XIII, most of the series was linear. Just look at Final Fantasy IV, you controlled Cecil and had no choice in where you were supposed to go. However, as much as I don't hate XIII, I'd definitely say it's one of their less spectacular Final Fantasy games overall. I really don't like where they're going being a JRPG fanboy, but I'm definitely going to support them more if Versus XIII is as good as they say it is.

You're never going to get a truly fair discussion about JRPGs or Final Fantasy from this community. Sadly there are just too many people eager to blindly mimic Yahtzee's point of view, which is that JRPGs can never be good games, expect for Earthbound. I have been somewhat disappointed with later entries into the Final Fantasy series, but it's important to note that the problem may be Square-Enix is having difficulty adjusting to the modern NA market. Square-Enix is still doing huge business in Japan.

My suggestion for Square is to...
1. Get out of the MMO market. WoW has too much share, you guys don't know what you're doing there. The run-of-the-mill MMO raider/pvper isn't massively concerned with storyline or fluff aspects. If you can't make a streamlined MMO that's enjoyable, you don't stand a chance. Ask NCSoft, they're the #2 guys and they struggle to keep up. Concentrate on Single-player RPGs, since most people are trying to dethrone WoW it leaves you with less competition.

2. It's a JRPG, don't try to compete with WRPGs. Fallout and Oblivion are very different animals from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. They do not appeal to the same kind of player for the most part. WRPGs are generally about flexability, customization and exploration. But JRPGs are more about plot, pacing and characterization. Don't be afraid to try to appeal to anime fans, either. There's still a lot of crossover potential there.

3. Get away from the XBox 360. Not because it's a bad console, but because your audience is mostly on the PS3 and Wii. 360 is still defined by FPS, sports and action games. Though it has more RPGs then it did a long time ago, I still think 360 is a poor market for Square. If you want to reach a new audience, you might consider PC. But test the waters with smaller endeavors first.

I love you. As much as I appreciate their effort to appeal to more markets, they need to play classic Final Fantasy games(VI, VII, Tactics, and X in my opinion) and make a great game like they did before they merged with Enix.

I didn't personally like any of the Final Fantasy games, but I could see the appeal of a few, like III and VII. But now we've got over 13 of them, and it's just a big hulking monstrosity of the same thing ground down to a blunt object.

Actually, Final Fantasy is one of the series that changed most, gameplay wise. Final Fantasy I was classic turn based, II adopted an experimental form of stat grinding and put levels in magic and weapons instead of characters, III went back and used a prototype Job system and introduced summons, IV finally made the Active Time Battle System, V improved upon III and made an amazing Job system, VI introduced magicite, VII had materia, VIII had magic junctions, X had a sphere grid, XII wasn't even turn based, and XIII changed quite a few things, like removing almost all stats, changing jobs on the fly, and making Stagger.

Dragon Quest is probably more stale than Final Fantasy, but I guess the charm could forgive it for being so archaic.