Poll: What, in your personal opinion, is the greatest flaw with modern day installments of Final Fantasy?

[Arsen]

I'll make my statement brief: It's a combination of everything above. The lack of it being a true modern fantasy and only becoming some poppy, overly sentimental piece of rubbish. FFX officially ruined the continuity of the series and it's been progressing downhill from there ever since. While I can understand why everyone rags on FF8 it's arguably just "flawed" in sense since it was compared to FF7 the second it came out. Although the horrible clothing design could've possibly come from that game alone still.

This is why I've more or less left gaming. The world's no longer contain soul, wit, and creation. It's become a product a company continously wants to shelve out. They don't have to try to please anyone anymore with artistic merit.

Go.

 

[Nomanslander]

All the douchbags here and every where else that just got up one day and decided it was cool to hate on a linear RPGs even though they had no problem with it before.

Personally, never been much of a fan, as much as I liked 9. But I just find this as ridiculous.

 

[SalamanderJoe]

I liked FFXIII quite a bit actually. I just thought it was a bit straight-forward, and then when you went free-roaming the world was just flat green fields with some dinosaurs lurking around. Love to see what FFXIII-2 has in store.

 

[The_Yeti]

The game-play is terrible, makes you want to render yourself sexless via a cheese grater.

 

[Liberaliter]

Most things really, it would be quicker (and a much shorter list) if we just listed was is actually 'right' with the games, otherwise this will take forever.

 

[Harlemura]

I'd say the biggest flaw is just calling them Final Fantasy. Ever since X, apart from direct sequels, every game's been different and everyone seems to think this is a bad thing.
If you like your game, play your game. I liked XIII, I didn't like VII. I don't see why they should make changes to game and appeal to a wide audience instead of remaking the same game over and over that will only appeal to one audience that'll get smaller and smaller.

People confuse me. Final Fantasy changes, that's a bad thing. Call of Duty stays the same, hat's a bad thing. Poor example, but you see my point.

[sub]Yes, this is a terrible argument, but sense goes out the window once I get ranty. Sorry about that.[/sub]

 

[Casual Shinji]

Square Enix really needs to reassess the FF franchise, because it's clear that they can't keep going the same route they've gone for the past 14 years. They simply need to get with the times, that's all.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

To me,the only real problem is that they overcomplicated 13's battle system.Other then that,moogles will rule the earth

 

[aguywhoknowsaguy]

A lack of evolution. The Game is nearly exactly the same as it was in the old days, and people are either used to it by now or have experienced new or different styles of play. Also the story of Final Fantasy has always been large, sprawling, and strange. But these days we can find big and strange games all over the place. Also The games looked beautiful, but beautiful games aren't hard to come by these days. The game simply isn't as unique or magical anymore. We are used to innovation, amazing graphics, and "better" stories. We also are not children anymore. The early ones have their nostalgic claws embedded into our brains and they will not release. Final Fantasy has its ups and downs, but the failure that it has most of all is being the first and best of its kind. We've all seen the clones and some did better and some did worse, but final fantasy didn't change that much except for graphics and everyone did that. So those are my thoughts.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

Theres a few problems I have (mainly 13, only one I was disappointed with)First the combat, no strategy, just hit auto attack and win, that easy. Then the plot was just meh, the voice acting was good enough, but there is no character development. I really hope versus fixes these problems, or the sequel to FF13

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I chose other because I don't feel that there is any problem with recent final fantasy titles in general. Each title had some individual problems, but those problems didn't track from game to game.

 

[Razhem]

Voice acting.
It's the sonic phenomenom.
Ever since they started to babble, it went downhill.
Ha. Ha. Ha.

Have to eco this, I'm firmly trenched in the camp that voice acting is more of a plague to the medium than an "enhancer". Yes, there are exceptions, but most times it's either too half assed or to obsessed with copying the bullshit that passes of for wit in hollywood to make me do anything else aside from cringing.

Ehem, more on topic. The characters looking like if they crashed into 3 different clothes shops is not a problem nor are the super metrosexualized Japanese character designs. The problem stems mostly from incredibly overcomplicated stories that in reality are as simple as rocks, makes it all be pretentious, you don't need to sugar coat what is basically a "save the world" story if the characters are likeable enough. Also, yes, the games have been linear mostly, but they have always left you some fuck around margin, that is always nice to have.

But frankly, the biggest fucking offender is the goddamn graphics arms craze, since everything has to be so fucking purty, it jacks up the costs and timeframes to stupid levels and I'm 100% convinced that it's what caused the game to just be Hallway Fantasy. The battle system being more immersion instead of gimmicky would also be nice, but that's a lot harder to actually do, so I can give them a kudos for still trying new stuff from that angle.

 

[Harlemura]

Spoiler: Snippy

I'd say the biggest flaw is just calling them Final Fantasy. Ever since X, apart from direct sequels, every game's been different and everyone seems to think this is a bad thing.
If you like your game, play your game. I liked XIII, I didn't like VII. I don't see why they should make changes to game and appeal to a wide audience instead of remaking the same game over and over that will only appeal to one audience that'll get smaller and smaller.

People confuse me. Final Fantasy changes, that's a bad thing. Call of Duty stays the same, hat's a bad thing. Poor example, but you see my point.

[sub]Yes, this is a terrible argument, but sense goes out the window once I get ranty. Sorry about that.[/sub]

Final Fantasy is obviously a unique case in part, but I think my theory on how to do sequels right still applies here. Take what concepts you've done well before, and build upon them further. ADD things to your game. Don't drop everything just to replace it with something else. People hated DA2 for this exact reason.

So yes, change up the story with every new FF game, obviously. Then take something you've done well in another game, like the OPEN-WORLD in FF7, and build upon that further. Take other parts from other FF games, and build upon those further as well. Like say, the strategic depth and customization options of FF Tactics. Basically, with all the things they have done right in the past, Square-Enix should have built the perfect Final Fantasy game already just by piecing together all the best bits of the FF games they've already made. But instead, they try to do everything new, every time. And it gets a mixed reaction at best. I'd say people are starting to lean towards a more negative attitude by this point.

Actually, I'll give you that one. Building upon an existing game does make more sense.
But that's where I think my point comes back about calling it "Final Fantasy" being a mistake. Personally, I didn't like the open world aspect. I have a short attention span, so being lost with another fight every two steps got on my nerves mighty quick. Maybe having a straight line from the start of the game to the end wasn't the best way to go about it, but I still liked it. Guess it's all down to preference.

Maybe Square would be best off having a kinda Final Fantasy sub-series. Y'know, games like XIII that aren't actually Final Fantasy, but can get away with having the same names for spells and summons and whatnot.