Square-Enix Isn't Sure Where to Take Final Fantasy

[whtkid6969]

In all of its brutal honesty, i did not like FF XIII, and yet I can not say why... I am not sure but it feels unimpressive, i've played FF games before and I found them all very likeable and they all have a special place in my mind, but this one didnt feel right.
It may be that my standards have most likely been raised by the fantastic Bioware games I have been playing, so I have begun to expect a good game with outstanding charcters and a steller story, but FF XIII just couldn't deliver.

 

[zehydra]

Lol, I'm not sure if anyone's said this, but lol, will this be, the "FINAL" Fanasty?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

The west thinks that JRPG's are stagnating? What must they think of our releases? FPS, FPS, FPS, FPS, 3PS, FPS, FPS, FPS.........sport sim

You forgot a sprinkling of either a Bioware or Bethesda style RPG. Although I would be interested in seeing FF go a more Kingdom Hearts like route but that would really require a controller with more buttons as that is what Kingdom Hearts needs anyway.

 

[ultimasupersaiyan]

In my opinion Square-Enix has 2 options

1) Make Final Fantasy the was the fans want and return it to the way it used to be.

2) Do a full reboot to appeal to the western croud majority and alienate there fans.

Option 1 is there best bet or even better

3) Sell or give Final Fantasy to Hironobu Sakaguchi and Mistwalker and make new IPs for themselves.

Option 3 will save the franchise.

 

[FloodOne]

This thread is filled with people who don't want another Final Fantasy game, they want a fucking WRPG with the FF name slapped on the cover.

Don't draw influence (at least artistically) from anime? Are you kidding me? Should they make a bunch of roided out space marines weilding chainsaw shotguns for their next game instead? It's FF, it's a franchise developed in Japan, not Boston or New York.

Make the game with an action only battle system. they did that already, that franchise is called Kingdom Hearts. Play that if you don't like turn based combat.

Seriously SE, don't listen to fuck asses on the internet, they don't have a clue what they want.

The JRPG is stagnating according to these morons, and yet FF13 outsold both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 combined.

But yeah, fuck it SE. Don't make a game that sells 5 million copies, make something more like a WRPG that might sell 1.5 instead.

 

[tetron]

FFXIV, that should keep em busy for a good while.

 

[Zeromaeus]

First I didn't think 13 was the worse. Also Square should go back to the roots make some Final Fantasy's with the same battle style(s) as the older generation ones and with castles and knight and try to avoid the whole 'future' design.

Pretty much this. Give a knight, his squire, a thief, and a mage an I'm happy as can be. That sort of game that played out like a Japanese spin on a D&D campaign. It was fun.

Also, I can just imagine someone reading this and flipping out about how they should remake FFVII. That would be cool and everything, but its not all that important.

Also, I find it funny how many people say the series should die. I also bet that about half of them would argue why Call of Duty, Halo, Medal of Honor, or some such should never end.

 

[lokun489]

i say start some new series.

 

[MattAn24]

Two things I'd say would massively improve the next Final Fantasy game:
1: Get rid of that bloody grid and just give us regular xp and levels again.
2: Don't make what is effectively the opening sequence 3 bloody hours long. In FFVII you've blown up a reactor and escaped within the first 40 odd minutes of play, in XIII you've still got no idea what the hell's going on after 3 hours of running down the same corridor and watching morons bicker or sulk for 10 minutes at a time.

HELL. NO.

That's the LAST thing the series needs. Regular boring exp/level grinding is what KILLED Final Fantasy XI Online. Thank fucking Christ XIV isn't making the same mistake. MUCH better concept and MUCH better progression. Numbers need to be thrown out for something more... Natural.

Also, you only "don't know what's going on 3 hours into the game" if you're completely idiotic and don't care to pay attention to what's being said. I knew EXACTLY what was going on. The first time I even considered reading any of the datalogs was halfway through Disc 2. Possibly upon getting near Pulse. Then I did a catch-up of anything I may have missed or confirmed my assumptions, etc. Perfectly fine.

 

[Rakkana]

Remake time.

 

[MattAn24]

What we want is a game like Final Fantasy 7 for the new generation. Separate battle screens, overworld map, no clear linear path though there is always a place to go next, interesting characters ... First make a game like that before you decide to take it to a whole new place.

Right, next person who says "random encounters" or "separate battle screens" gets assaulted with a barrage of bullets. A lot of bullets.

Overworld maps only EXTEND the dull journey. Seamless progression and journeying is MUCH better. Oh well, FFXIV will thankfully feature vast open areas that go on for miles with little loading screens and minuscule versions of the character..

 

[Zeromaeus]

What we want is a game like Final Fantasy 7 for the new generation. Separate battle screens, overworld map, no clear linear path though there is always a place to go next, interesting characters ... First make a game like that before you decide to take it to a whole new place.

Right, next person who says "random encounters" or "separate battle screens" gets assaulted with a barrage of bullets. A lot of bullets.

Overworld maps only EXTEND the dull journey. Seamless progression and journeying is MUCH better. Oh well, FFXIV will thankfully feature vast open areas that go on for miles with little loading screens and minuscule versions of the character..

Overworld maps, battle screens, levelling up with experience, its all the Final Fantasy experience, baby.

 

[Billion Backs]

They should look at their chosen trademark and the name of the series next time this kind of thoughts arise.

You know, "final". As in, "last". Nevermore!

Which would be an extremely bad decision if you look from the business perspective and not, perhaps, artistic or some other. A well-known trademark with a huge fanbase counts for something. And the fact that it still sells only shows that it should keep being produced until people lose interest.

Meh, whatever.

 

[MatsVS]

This thread is filled with people who don't want another Final Fantasy game, they want a fucking WRPG with the FF name slapped on the cover.

Don't draw influence (at least artistically) from anime? Are you kidding me? Should they make a bunch of roided out space marines weilding chainsaw shotguns for their next game instead? It's FF, it's a franchise developed in Japan, not Boston or New York.

Finally, a voice of reason.

People projecting their preferences and ideals unto a franchise never intended for them in first place are nothing less than petty and vindictive. Please keep your yardstick to yourselves, as you have put absolutely NO EFFORT into thinking it through and giving it some intellectual gravitas. Your voices corrupt the debate, and that is not wanted nor needed.

 

[NickCaligo42]

take it to the furnace. you've got a great replacement already

KH1 was a work of SHEER GENIUS; the BEST possible crossover we could've hoped for from Square and Disney, easily the equivalent of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.

KH2... Countdown to Final Crisis. At best. If that metaphor doesn't communicate the sheer magnitude of the disappointment KH2 represents for me, then try this: KH1 is Highlander and KH2 is Highlander 2: The Quickening. You get the idea--TOTALLY non-sensical shits-all-over-itself sequel.

Sora's a boring, wooden protagonist, like he knows he's in a video game and if he just keeps going forward he'll eventually beat the final boss and everything will be resolved. Pete, Maleficent, The Heartless, and the Organization all suck as antagonists. Roxas was a complete waste of time, and the DiZ plot twist had to be the DUMBEST, most NEEDLESS excuse for shoehorning another one of Nomura's character designs into this franchise. There's no sense of tension, no sense of suspense, mystery, intrigue, or excitement, and the whole thing, much more so than the first game, always feels like it's talking down to you like a child when you play it. Interesting additions to gameplay--IE the Drive Forms--are present, but battles themselves are just a clusterfuck; it's like a series of vaguely interesting toys rather than a cohesive, engaging battle system.

The sickening thing is that I'm probably STILL going to buy Birth by Sleep just because the gameplay looks fascinating to me, if not a lot tighter than KH2. >_<

But you know what? Even with all these flaws and as convoluted and stupid as the Kingdom Hearts storyline's gotten, it's STILL better than Final Fantasy's been for the last ten years... so I'm not sure if I agree with you or not. A BETTER replacement, maybe, but I wouldn't call it a great one. Not if Square keeps making appallingly bad creative decisions at the rate they seem to be lately.

 

[MattAn24]

Overworld maps, battle screens, levelling up with experience, its all the Final Fantasy experience, baby.

No. No it is not. There's no expectation for it to be a pigeon-holed fucking EXP grind!

Crisis Core on the PSP wasn't! THAT is how you make a Final Fantasy game! It was SO MUCH MORE FLUENT. Want to just play the story? Awesome! Want to do optional missions? Sure! Go for it! You "leveled up" rather randomly through the Digital Mind Wave slots, every 777 number. But every other roll, there'd be stat bonuses and buffs or 3 character portraits initiating a limit break.

It was an action FF game that WORKED PERFECTLY.

 

[Pearwood]

In my opinion Square-Enix has 2 options

1) Make Final Fantasy the was the fans want and return it to the way it used to be.

2) Do a full reboot to appeal to the western croud majority and alienate there fans.

Option 1 is there best bet or even better

3) Sell or give Final Fantasy to Hironobu Sakaguchi and Mistwalker and make new IPs for themselves.

Option 3 will save the franchise.

I don't think that's the problem, I think the problem is there's criticism no matter what Square do. They tried doing the "return to how it used to be" thing with FF9, people complained then too. Every time a FF game has been released for about 10 years now people have been saying it's the worst thing that has ever happened in human history, people just love to whine about this stuff.

Anyway responding to the first post, FF12/13 were different, I can appreciate why people didn't like them but complaining about linearity in an almost entirely linear series was just ridiculous. There have been likable characters too, Lightning was pretty much how you'd* expect a soldier to be, Sazh was a pretty good father figure to the rest of the cast, (god what was that guy who reminded me of Indiana Jones' name in FF12? Balthier?), whatever his name was he was pretty cool too, him and his partner.

I really don't think Square have anything to worry about, they've kept a series going for 13 games and the only time it felt boring was playing FF10 when I genuinely hated every part of the cast besides Auron and I think I only liked him because he seemed to dislike everyone else too (I know it has a great storyline and the end is a mindfuck but by the time I got to that point I'd given up and was just watching a friend play I found the entire cast so boring).

Bit of a long post but I'm on a break from CP farming FF13 right now so I'm in the FF mindset I guess