Square Enix to return focus to JRPGs

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

Just because they are going back to JRPGs doesn't mean they know what kind of JRPGs we need in this time and age. We need more dark fantasy JRPGs with softcore scenes like Thi4f and Witcher and political intrigue of morally grey heroes. Funny how they started off the whole "dark gritty RPG" and yet it was WRPGs who are still doing it.

I love how people say "we need" when what they really mean is "I want".

And Japan needs a better reputation since right now it's been shot to hell in all corners.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Yes, let's compare re-releases of FF7 to FF13. Isn't it forseeable that in 10 years FF13 could be rereleased on newer platforms and sell for $9.99 or $11.99?

My point is is that FF7 continued, and continues to this day, to have a tail, which in business-speak is sales that continue after the new release hype has worn-off.

FF13's tail all but disappeared very quickly after release and if you look at the overall fan reaction to FF13, basic inference tells us that when FF13 is well over a decade old, legions of fans are NOT going to be calling it a "classic" and re-buying it for a modern console or PC to play all over again.

THAT was my point of comparison.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Yes, let's compare re-releases of FF7 to FF13. Isn't it forseeable that in 10 years FF13 could be rereleased on newer platforms and sell for $9.99 or $11.99?

My point is is that FF7 continued, and continues to this day, to have a tail, which in business-speak is sales that continue after the new release hype has worn-off.

FF13's tail all but disappeared very quickly after release and if you look at the overall fan reaction to FF13, basic inference tells us that when FF13 is well over a decade old, legions of fans are NOT going to be calling it a "classic" and re-buying it for a modern console or PC to play all over again.

THAT was my point of comparison.

What is your basis for saying that FF13's tail was short? It sold almost 7 Million and spawned two sequels. I think it's awesome that you can predict the future. Could you PM me with next weeks lottery numbers?

 

[Eve Charm]

Fire the FF13 guys and give the bravely default guys all the money.

Do people really want the FF13 guys fired?
Look at who worked on FF13, and what their previous work was..

Toriyama (Director) - Event Director and scenario writer for Final Fantasy X
Kitase (Producer) - director of Final Fantasy VI, Director of Final Fantasy VII, and Director of Final Fantasy VIII
Kamikokuryo - Background Art Director for FFX
Wantanabe (Writer) - Served as a writer for Final Fantasy X

That is a tremendous amount of talent that has collectively worked on games adored by fans...

The way I see it, Final Fantasy XIII was a swing and a miss. They tried to do a lot of new things, but a lot of them didn't quite pan out. I would speculate that this was mostly due to the development team adjusting to the amount of work needed to produce a LARGE HD game with pressure to hurry up and release the game as delays mounted. The sequels to Final Fantasy XIII weren't made by the Final Fantasy A-team, and were the result of the company needing income in a time where they were bleeding money as they were (successfully) redoing a botched MMO.

I would be fine with the group of talent that was responsible for Final Fantasy XIII being the group that makes the next Final Fantasy, so long as their focus shifts. I would add Hiroyuki Ito to the team (inventor of the materia system, co-director of FF6, director of FF9, inventor of the ATB battle system), who is a tremendous talent currently being relegated to mobile games.

Seriously to make the worst grossing FF's one after another means they have no idea about why people Actually liked Final fantasy games anymore. You can't go by charts and graphs and expect to make a game people are going to get into.

Wikipedia says:

Final Fantasy XIII became the fastest-selling title in the history of the series. As of January 2013, the game has shipped 6.6 million copies worldwide.

Those sales are hardly poor.

It's a bit worse considering the people that made FF13 at least made passable FF games. And coming out the gate strong doesn't mean much. This was the FIRST NEXT GEN FINAL FANTASY, and also the FIRST ONE ON 360, Also the FF13 White PS3 in japan. Why bother going on sales anyway when we have all these great reviews bashing in.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Fire the FF13 guys and give the bravely default guys all the money.

Do people really want the FF13 guys fired?
Look at who worked on FF13, and what their previous work was..

Toriyama (Director) - Event Director and scenario writer for Final Fantasy X
Kitase (Producer) - director of Final Fantasy VI, Director of Final Fantasy VII, and Director of Final Fantasy VIII
Kamikokuryo - Background Art Director for FFX
Wantanabe (Writer) - Served as a writer for Final Fantasy X

That is a tremendous amount of talent that has collectively worked on games adored by fans...

The way I see it, Final Fantasy XIII was a swing and a miss. They tried to do a lot of new things, but a lot of them didn't quite pan out. I would speculate that this was mostly due to the development team adjusting to the amount of work needed to produce a LARGE HD game with pressure to hurry up and release the game as delays mounted. The sequels to Final Fantasy XIII weren't made by the Final Fantasy A-team, and were the result of the company needing income in a time where they were bleeding money as they were (successfully) redoing a botched MMO.

I would be fine with the group of talent that was responsible for Final Fantasy XIII being the group that makes the next Final Fantasy, so long as their focus shifts. I would add Hiroyuki Ito to the team (inventor of the materia system, co-director of FF6, director of FF9, inventor of the ATB battle system), who is a tremendous talent currently being relegated to mobile games.

Seriously to make the worst grossing FF's one after another means they have no idea about why people Actually liked Final fantasy games anymore. You can't go by charts and graphs and expect to make a game people are going to get into.

Wikipedia says:

Final Fantasy XIII became the fastest-selling title in the history of the series. As of January 2013, the game has shipped 6.6 million copies worldwide.

Those sales are hardly poor.

It's a bit worse considering the people that made FF13 at least made passable FF games. And coming out the gate strong doesn't mean much. This was the FIRST NEXT GEN FINAL FANTASY, and also the FIRST ONE ON 360, Also the FF13 White PS3 in japan. Why bother going on sales anyway when we have all these great reviews bashing in.

We are going by sales because YOU said that it was the worst grossing Final Fantasy. You were wrong, it's actually the third best selling and unless you can prove otherwise, it outsold your precious Bravely Default.

I get it, some people hate FF13 but atleast get your facts straight before you call for people to lose their jobs.

 

[Eve Charm]

Ah fine I amend 13-2 and 13-3 are your poor grossing games one after another of mainline final fantasy games

 

[WeepingAngels]

Ah fine I amend 13-2 and 13-3 are your poor grossing games one after another of mainline final fantasy games

I don't know the sales for 13-3 (I personally hope it fails miserable, I hate time limits) but 13-2 sold over 2 million, that's nothing to ignore.

 

[Eve Charm]

Ah fine I amend 13-2 and 13-3 are your poor grossing games one after another of mainline final fantasy games

I don't know the sales for 13-3 (I personally hope it fails miserable, I hate time limits) but 13-2 sold over 2 million, that's nothing to ignore.

The same company calling Hitman absolution and Tomb raider ((won some GOTY's)) Huge disappoints after selling 3.6 mill and 3.4 mill respectively in a few months.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Yes, let's compare re-releases of FF7 to FF13. Isn't it forseeable that in 10 years FF13 could be rereleased on newer platforms and sell for $9.99 or $11.99?

My point is is that FF7 continued, and continues to this day, to have a tail, which in business-speak is sales that continue after the new release hype has worn-off.

FF13's tail all but disappeared very quickly after release and if you look at the overall fan reaction to FF13, basic inference tells us that when FF13 is well over a decade old, legions of fans are NOT going to be calling it a "classic" and re-buying it for a modern console or PC to play all over again.

THAT was my point of comparison.

What is your basis for saying that FF13's tail was short? It sold almost 7 Million and spawned two sequels. I think it's awesome that you can predict the future. Could you PM me with next weeks lottery numbers?

Of those millions, the vast majority were sold very soon after release. Look it up if you don't believe me.

And people predict the future all the time. It's called "speculation" and "inference." I'm completely open to the possibility that my speculating and inferring CAN BE WRONG. If you don't understand that concept, then I suggest you look up the definition of the word "prediction" as well. Would it have been better if I said it like this: "I don't see legions of fans calling it a classic"? Would that have avoided illiciting your compulsion to be a white knight for FFXIII?

13 45 23 34 12 07

There, there's my prediction for the lottery numbers, but again, I COULD BE WRONG, because predictions CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE WRONG and I didn't make any pretense to the contrary; just like I didn't carry pretense when I predicted FFXIII's long-term lack of success going forward. Maybe if you would have been less defensive, you would've noticed that.

 

[alphamalet]

It's a bit worse considering the people that made FF13 at least made passable FF games.

That, or that there were extenuating circumstances like I suggested. FF13 was originally supposed to come out on the PS2 (in 2007 if I recall, but I'm having trouble confirming that).
Source:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/11/08/final-fantasy-xiii-update-11
http://kotaku.com/5460183/final-fantasy-xiii-on-the-ps2//all

Shit obviously happened with the game. I affirm that the talent of the individuals working on FF13 had been proven, and the reason it misstepped was due to issue during the development process. The game was suffered numerous delays, and the amount of content cut from FF13 could have made a whole other game.
Source
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97532-Mounds-of-Content-Cut-from-Final-Fantasy-XIII

This was the FIRST NEXT GEN FINAL FANTASY, and also the FIRST ONE ON 360, Also the FF13 White PS3 in japan.

An opportunity that was horribly squandered, I agree.

Why bother going on sales anyway

Because that's what you referenced in your first post.

we have all these great reviews bashing in.

Ummmm... Where?

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) currently has an 83% "Generally favorable" rating on Metacritic.

 

[Fox12]

I can just see the corporate decision making now.

*Two teenagers sitting in an office, reclining in chairs, throwing darts at board with names on it*

Guy 1: What's it say.

Guy 2: Fuck, I don't know, rhythm games or something.

Guy 1: Cool. Throw another.

Guy 2: *sigh* JRPG's.

Guy 1: Cool. Throw, like, fifty million at it. Did Nomura ever get off break.

Guy 2: He died or something.

Guy 1: Cool.

Just because they are going back to JRPGs doesn't mean they know what kind of JRPGs we need in this time and age. We need more dark fantasy JRPGs with softcore scenes like Thi4f and Witcher and political intrigue of morally grey heroes. Funny how they started off the whole "dark gritty RPG" and yet it was WRPGs who are still doing it.

I love how people say "we need" when what they really mean is "I want".

Yeah, I think the market is glutted on "dark and gritty" at the moment. I'd rather see them do something unique and new, not try and chase the market and produce an awful Witcher/Dark Souls rip off. And why on earth does the industry need more softcore pornography? As hilarious as Toriyama Final Fantasy softcore porn would be, I don't think it has any impact on the quality of a game/book to just have it for the sake of having it.

 

[sXeth]

I'd call FF13 (the first part anyways) some sort of oddball strategy game more then a JRPG. Granted, JRPG's have always had some level of strategic element, but it really seemed more about pre-planning over directing individual combat.

The series problems have been more on attempts to modernize though. From fancy high end graphics (which choke off the exploratory content by virtue of development/technical requirements), to the expansion into much more drastically sci-fi worlds, and the "dark gritty" characters and storylines, the series has kind of waffled starting with VII (debates about the quality of 7 aside, it was a definitive starting point for many of the current "plagues" that have become attached to the series).

 

[Maxtro]

If this means we'll see Chrono Break or a new Xenogears game I will be extremely happy.

 

[aozgolo]

If this means we'll see Chrono Break or a new Xenogears game I will be extremely happy.

Let's hope so, I swear reading this thread you would assume the only JRPGs Square Enix made were Final Fantasy. They have lots of other properties they could conceivably work with:

Dragon Quest
World of Mana
Chrono Trigger/Cross
Xenosaga
Kingdom Hearts
Front Mission
Romancing SaGa
Tactics Ogre


They have lots of great franchises they can go back to and expand upon, and can even try their hands at new IPs like Bravely Default or Last Remnant.

 

[Tupolev]

The same company calling Hitman absolution and Tomb raider ((won some GOTY's)) Huge disappoints after selling 3.6 mill and 3.4 mill respectively in a few months.

Those games probably had vastly higher budgets than the FFXIII sequels, though.

From where I'm standing, it looks like SE's initial FNC development plans were extremely ambitious, things failed catastrophically, and FFXIII was quickly scraped together after a lengthy development that was going nowhere. FFXIV experienced a similar fate, but as an MMORPG they couldn't simply hack stuff off and pull a tightened-up project into shape, and the result was that the game was just plain hopelessly bad. Enough that SE allocated development resources to remaking it with better understanding of modern game development, which presumably meant freezing the large Versus project. In the meantime, they probably still felt like they needed to do something, so they had Toriyama lead a team to push out a couple of low-budget unplanned sequels to the only non-completely-screwed recent FF IP they had.

Especially once you consider the asset reuse and technical simplicity of those titles, I'd be extremely surprised if they were internally treated as full crazy-high-budget modern AAA titles.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

looks like the wakeup call finally came. Expanding is always encouraged, but for the love of Buddha, don't forget where you came from. They really need to just start getting new talent that know what the hell they're doing.

 

[panosbouk]

The title is kinda missleading.
They are talking about how making games focused on a wider audience was a bad thing to do. Especialy Hitman: Absolution

The example of Bravely Default was that they made a more traditional JRPG that they thought they could only profit from Japanese audience while they where making money outside of Japan as well.

So it is not only JRPGs that will be focused on the core audience but their other projects as well. And thats a general good thing to happen. Having finaly a big publisher-developer realising that is a big step forward.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Yes, let's compare re-releases of FF7 to FF13. Isn't it forseeable that in 10 years FF13 could be rereleased on newer platforms and sell for $9.99 or $11.99?

My point is is that FF7 continued, and continues to this day, to have a tail, which in business-speak is sales that continue after the new release hype has worn-off.

FF13's tail all but disappeared very quickly after release and if you look at the overall fan reaction to FF13, basic inference tells us that when FF13 is well over a decade old, legions of fans are NOT going to be calling it a "classic" and re-buying it for a modern console or PC to play all over again.

THAT was my point of comparison.

Games with long tails, like good JRPGs, died out some time in the early 2000's. It's not totally surprising WeepingAngels isn't getting your point

Naw, but seriously. The modern AAA industry seems to have totally forgotten the value of a game that still sells months, weeks, years after the initial release. It used to be that games got constant support and patches (at least on PC, where that was possible) for anywhere from months to years, with 1-2 years being about average. They'd stay on the shelves for a couple of years after that, unless they totally bombed. We now call those patches DLC and it costs at least as much as the initial game did to get it all, often more. Console games didn't usually get updates due to the technical realities of the time, but people continued to talk about and buy the successful ones for ages after release, it wasn't "buy day one or don't bother" like the publishers want us to think it is now. The really successful ones would get multiple print runs, and sometimes later printings of console games actually /did/ have updated game content, though it was more often to fix bugs and remove dummied out code left over from beta versions than to add new content.

Of course I understand why the publishers switched the model. Why put resources into making and supporting a decent product when you have an industry that won't give refunds? Just sell to as many rubes on day 1 as you can and laugh all the way to the bank, making millions on broken but cheaply made crap, and then not caring once the reviews start coming. Doesn't matter if you don't make another sale, you've already made your money and nobody's getting a refund, nor will they remember this the next time you pull it because your target audience has the attention span of a goldfish and the spine of an earthworm. I have less sympathy or understanding for gamers who fall for the tricks, and none at all who actually defend the industry for its business practices, of which what I just described is one of the least objectionable, as bad as it is. At least the industry is acting in its own best interests[footnote]Short term, anyway. Long term this isn't sustainable, or at least it wouldn't be in an industry with customers who had memories and spines.[/footnote]. The people who defend it are working against theirs.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I didn't think Final fantasy 13 was bad. FFX was pretty linear too but no one seemed to complain.
Great news nonetheless, now if only Konami gets the same message. I miss Suikoden so much!