The final Final Fantasy (will it ever be final?)

[Syilph]

This is it. The end of the line.
The latest installment of FF came out recently and, well, it is not what one would call
"Final Fantasy". Not at all. I'm not here to bash it down or complain about it in my disappointment, no I would just like to know what you think about it, all of you.
Old fans of the early FF franchise, guys and gals who favor the newer ones and the ones preffering the "spin-offs",
FF crystal chronicles for example.
I want to ask each one of you...

What are your thoughts about it?
About Lightning returns, about FF in general and a few honest words about Square Enix too.
Please, I would like to know if there is any hope left for this series or if it is, in fact, dying or dead already and since when it is from your point of view.

If you'd like to I would be happy to hear about your favorite installment of Final Fantasy as well,
what you love about it and what not.
Maybe a little dwell in nostalgics will ease the pain that SE inflicted on me yet again...

 

[alphamalet]

I think Final Fantasy is fine, personally.

Sure FF13 might not have been the best, but I'd play FF13 and its sequels over FF8 any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

FF12 was a great game, and FF14 is a great game. I think Square distancing themselves from the FF13 franchise is long overdue.

FF15 is being made by a different team, and by a man whose track record speaks for itself. I predict it will be a good game.

I honestly don't understand Final Fantasy fans. They throw a fit when a game isn't like their favorite Final Fantasy. Don't they realize that every Final Fantasy is supposed to be different? I think Square deserves a marginal degree of credit for what they at least TRY to do with FF. We are experiencing an industry where genres and franchises are approaching total stagnation. Square can't be condemned for doing the same thing over and over again, but their attempts to innovate just didn't hit the mark this time around.

Favorite Final Fantasy: FF6

 

[krazykidd]

Favorite FF is 6( i still got the cartridge where it was 3).
Favorite spin off is Tactics ( on the ps1 fuck the war of the lions nonsense).

This is a hard question. I like all the "main" series ones ( apart from x-2 and xiii-2 have yet to play xiii-3). I understand why they are taking the FF series in different directions, the market is changing. However, i see the FF logo as a name and nothing else. Personally i think if it has the Final fantasy stamp on it, people will buy it, and i think Square is banking on that. I find that final fantasy has lost it's magic from back in the day. It may just be me getting old , and i understand that Square can't just make a new IP and sell like an FF game. So i guess it's a sort of stalemate of sorts.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I like that they change it for each numbered entry, last entry was well received ok change it up last entry sucked ok change it up. I hope it stays that way as it certainly keeps it fresh even if it dosent always mean success.

I actually think that because it does this that it is one of the series with the potential to carry on without getting stale as it has little it has to do so to speak, Chocobos possibly Moogles some guy called Cid yup theres FF the rest could be anything. I just hope they seriously dont get Lightning to start appearing in games outside of the XIII series.

I cant say I enjoyed XII or XIII and XIII-2 much (havent played XIII-3 yet) but then I didnt enjoy a fair few others much either. So im not to worried as some of the entries are amazing even if most range from mediocre to a couple of pretty damn bad like FF2

 

[Padwolf]

I love Final Fantasy. I have so many great memories of playing FFX which was my first one. I spent hours and hours on it, making sure I got everything. I remember going from there and playing X-2 and thinking "oh my... well this is different" and while I like many things about the game, the ditsy girlpower theme is kinda annoying after a while. Especially that damn "is it key mon?" scene.

However one of my favourites is FF8. Love the music and the romance. Final Fantasy really helped renew my interest in piano playing. Once I found all the sheet music I was lost in it. I adore the music. I have a few gripes with FF13, but overall I don't feel too negatively about it. I liked the settings a lot, and again I thought the music was still as great as it's ever been. I don't mind the spin offs so much either. Hell FF Tactics Advance was one of my favourite GBA games. Crystal Chronicles was pretty damn fun too.

I think Final Fantasy has to go through changes, it has a new audience to appeal to, it needs to grow. They are all meant to be different afterall.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I don't like XIII, I'm ambivalent towards XIII-2 (has some cool parts, but it retains a bit of what I didn't like in XIII) and I haven't played Lightning Returns beyond the demo. I liked XII a lot, but just felt that it wasn't as good as it could have been, I can't afford XIV but it looks great and I'm still looking forward to XV.

XIII isn't the series' first mis-step in my eyes, and it won't be the last but I'm optimistic that at least some future entries will be quality games. They do have a lot of freedom, after all; all it takes to be labelled a Final Fantasy by Square is to be a big-budget JRPG with Chocobos in it somewhere.

I do think the series has lost something since Sakaguchi left, though. What the series really needs is a strong - and constant - leader.

Not sure what my favourite main entry would, really. It's between V, VII and IX. V has the best gameplay, so I guess I'll give it to that. My favourite spin-off - and overall game in the franchise - is Tactics.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't think it will end, ever. And why would it? Are they losing money over it?

 

[Fox12]

FF15 is the last chance I'm giving them. Keep in mind the last (3?) FF games have been headed by their worst developer. We haven't seen Nomura release a major game in nearly a decade. Since he's heading FF15, I'm willing to see if he can save the franchise. However, I'm not nearly as excited for his game as I used to be. When it was announced I was in middle school, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I'm about to graduate college, and I don't really care any more.

FF isn't about to disappear, but it's becoming horribly insignificant. It's losing value in the United States, and other JRPG's are beginning to surpass the series in value. Persona blows FF out of the water in terms of quality, and I believe Monster Hunter surpasses it financially. The series isn't dead, but it's time to face the truth: FF is not the greatest RPG series in the world anymore.

Personally i think if it has the Final fantasy stamp on it, people will buy it, and i think Square is banking on that.

Unfortunately this is the whole problem. They took too much for granted. The series has taken a MASSIVE brand name hit in both the states and in Japan. In the U.S. a new FF game was a massive event rivaling a new Halo. Now... most people I know aren't even aware of Lightning Returns. I haven't touched the series since 13. The series is falling in rank in Japan as well, and even the executives have had to acknowledge their mistakes. Thankfully the old president got fired over the ordeal, so maybe they'll pull themselves together.

 

[loa]

Final fantasy died the moment I learned about the shin megami tensei series which dissects the human condition in every iteration and cares to have a coherent, well constructed plot while final fantasy just can't get over "grr religion bad! Dogma smash!" and increasingly becomes nothing but a platform to show off their "cool" character designs striking some "cool" poses and generally acting like anything but actual human beings.

It's weird how characters just become more and more unbelievable the higher the graphical fidelity becomes.
Lightning returns kind of takes this to the next level by making the titular heroine a literal lobotomized dress up doll.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Just finished the demo for Lightening Returns, the fight system is horrible. Its similar to FF13 except it comes with a clothes change which is ridiculous. The graphics and detail in the backgrounds were nice as always. Only other problem i would say is after playing FF13 and FF13-2, i still dont give a crap about any of the characters.

 

[Caliostro]

Here's the thing, for the unaware: The series was originally called "Final Fantasy" because the first game was made in 1987, at a time where Square-Enix (back then just Square) was pretty much going bankrupt. The game was called "Final Fantasy" as it was meant to be the company's final last ditch effort before closing their doors. They never expected it to be anything unusual sales-wise, let alone become the franchise behemoth it did.

Fortunately Final Fantasy ended up being a bigger success than they could have ever hoped for. It didn't just do well, it actually saved their company and ended up catapulting them back into stardom and what they are today.

For all of what it is and represents I don't think Final Fantasy will ever stop existing as long as Square does.

Additionally, I don't think Final Fantasy really needs to stop existing. They're not really "sequels" per say. In fact they're completely different games save for sharing some characteristics - characteristics which have often been reinvented along the series. For example, going from 2D to 3D.

As such I really don't see the issue with continuing the series. Improve what's needed, change what isn't working. The series itself can be almost entirely reinvented to the point where mostly the only thing it truly shares is the name.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

As long as it continues to sell, I don't see why they would stop.

Some of the games are not connected at all, like FFXIII is a single player, big campaign RPG. FFXIV is an MMORPG. If you were to buy the games continuously without any consideration, this would surely be quite confusing.

It would be like if the latest Civilisation game was real-time strategy, instead of turn-based. Or if the latest Sim City game was online multiplay.... wait... that happened. s***.

I think Square deserve some credit for trying to bring difference to each of their games, rather than just recreating the same game. It is, in the end, their choice whether they essentially just re-release the same games but re-skinned or create new experiences and I say, good for trying something different.

It's a rather individual model though, because there isn't necessarily the same interconnectivity of the games and their stories as there are in say a trilogy - where it is obviously mapped out and planned to last 3 games and the story reaches some sort of climax.

But I wouldn't discredit them for wanting to continue the franchise; if people continue to be interested in it, then why stop?

 

[JayRPG]

The series has taken a MASSIVE brand name hit in both the states and in Japan.

I don't know where you are getting the info from Japan from but that is incorrect, Lightning is one of, if not the, most popular FF characters ever produced by Square, Lightning has a huge fan base in Japan and it is partly the reason why the last game in the series centered almost entirely around her.

FFXIII is nowhere near as maligned in Japan as it is here, and frankly I don't know why people don't like it anyway, because it's just corridors? who played previous final fantasy's thinking the game was all about open world exploration?

Final Fantasy has always been about story, story above all else and then the other stuff - and I quite liked 13's story.

I can't speak for FF taking a brand name hit in the states but here in Australia, EBgames (our biggest and only dedicated video games retailer) sold out of copies of lightning returns, they are taking preorders for their next shipment in march...

 

[loa]

Final Fantasy has always been about story, story above all else and then the other stuff - and I quite liked 13's story.

I think by "story" you meant you like the setting because if you take ff13s story and examine it up close, it is nothing but contradictory nonsense presented in the worst way possible (read these footnotes to understand what is going on at all).

As for that poll they ran, I've heard it's not really representative of japan at all, like they ran it on their forums with 500 participants shortly after final fantasy 13 has been released.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Final Fantasy ended a long time ago. *zing!*

I'm sure they'll keep abusing the franchise's brand name as long as they keep making money.

FF6>FF9>FF4>FF7>FF10>FF5>FF1>FF8. I don't even know where to put FF12, it's too forgettable to rank.
And I wasn't even gonna waste my time with FF13.

Sequels and spin-offs don't count. (If it's not worth including as part of the main story, then why bother? Seriously, who wants to play Side Quest, the Video Game!?)
Neither do Tactics, or the MMOs, since they're not even the same genre, so it's not really a fair comparison. They may be great games (Tactics certainly is), but if they didn't have "Final Fantasy" in the title they'd have to stand up on their own merits.
(Why on God's green earth did they give their MMOs numbers instead of just calling them "World of Final Fantasy" or World of Ivalice" or whatever?)

Yes, I'm an old-school purist. Deal with it.

 

[GoodNewsOke]

I'm pretty indifferent about the franchises' future. I found XIII to be an absolute disappointment and XIII-2 to be too forgettable and unnecessary to be worth the time to talk about it. XIII-3 so far is entertaining and interesting enough so far though (although the writing makes me want to throw my controller into the tv screen more often than not).

To me it seems like FF has lost it's "magic". The first I played was VII, which was also the first JRPG I played, and it just blew me away back in the day. So many memorable characters & places, a big world to explore, great music. granted the story was a bit convoluted and the german translation certainly made things worse, but it was still great.

XIII however was completely different. Was was no charm, everything seemed forced to make it "interesting" and cool. The point where the game completely lost me was when Snow got his Esper Shiva... and she transformed into a motorcycle(!). I put my controller down, turned the game off and thought "okay, I'n not the target audience anymore". I did finish it eventually, but the game was just littered with stuff like that. The character design, the world design, Odin being a high heels wearing pink horse...

From what I've seen from XV, I'm not convinced yet. Seems like they try again to be special, instead of good. But who knows?

 

[GabeZhul]

To this day I still don't know why people hate Final Fantasy VIII and venerate VI so much. Sure, I thought FFVI was great, but then I replayed it lately, and it was just meeeeeeeh. The characters are not all that interesting and their interactions are very limited, the plot is pretty meh and the combat really, really didn't age well. It is still a decent game, but not the holy grail people make it out to be.

On the other hand, I absolutely adored FFVIII when it came out. The characters are okay, the plot is convoluted and the combat didn't age well, but I don't find it inferior to FFVI in any way and superior in some, a decent game all around, and yet it is universally hated on the net while the other is venerated. It just baffles me.

 

[go-10]

so far I'm really enjoying Lightning Returns and I'm one of the few people that really like Lightning. I like her almost as much as I like Tifa; and that's A LOT!

as for the series itself, honestly I feel like I'm done and maybe it should be done too. The numbers have gotten too high and I feel that XV should be the last one in the series and from that point on simply release a game called Final Fantasy and make it an MMO. As for the next RPG's they have Dragon Quest which can cover fantasy, Star Ocean to cover Sci-Fi, and the newly released Bravely Default (which got rid of the numbering system) can be the mixture of both fantasy and sci-fi and should be the series that replaces Final Fantasy. The series has had a long running numbering system that has gotten too high, it's time to pull out and concentrate on a series that doesn't have all the baggage or the large fan base the FF series has

as for my favorite title in the series it's FF VII. I mean just look at my avatar! There's a reason I haven't changed it ever since I joined the escapist FF VII's world and characters really stuck with me, maybe because I was 12 when I played it and that's kind of the age when kids stop being kids and anything you're doing during that period kinda sticks with you as a defining characteristic. Hell I like it so much I even 100% Dirge of Cerberus, a game that is largely regarded as bad, and don't expect me to defend it the game's BAD, still I had to know everything about it because it was more of the FF VII lore for me to explore. I could go on and give extensive detail on everything I like about FF VII but it would take too long and I've already made a wall of text

tl;dr

Bravely Default should replace Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy should become an MMO (no more numbered sequels)
Final Fantasy VII is my all time favorite game EVER!

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Hopefully I'll get through the game just fine
I don't know why I continue to play each game
They'll be making these 'til the end of time
Oh I guess that I will pay
For these new games 'til Doomsday"

Those are lyrics from Chocobo Robo Voice made about FFX...
They pretty much describe how I feel about the Final Fantasy Franchise. I don't know why I continue to play each game, but Square keeps making them and I keep buying them. I just can't help the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that maybe the series is just going through growing pains, that maybe in this next one, they'll re-prioritize, maybe they'll look back on what made the most beloved installments so successful and it will click to them. Maybe they'll bring themselves to let go of the extreme emphasis on graphics at the sacrifice of gameplay, maybe hell will freeze over, maybe pigs will fly, but too much more of this and I'm done with the series, then again, I said that at number 10.

Bravely Default reawakened a little bit of my enthusiasm for Final Fantasy, knowing that there's at least some small portion left in Square that gets it. Then I read this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130865-Bravely-Default-Producer-Wants-to-Make-Bravely-an-Annual-Series] and my hope died a little again.

 

[RJ 17]

Please, I would like to know if there is any hope left for this series or if it is, in fact, dying or dead already and since when it is from your point of view.

It's a rather complicated question. A couple months ago I made a topic surveying people as to what their experience with the FF series was. I'm still going over all the data I received in that topic in what little free time I have these days, hoping to post my official findings soon.

Anyhow, from what I've gone through so far I can stay that there's a correlation between age-groups and their preferences for FF games. The younger crowd tend to fancy the Disc Era (FF7, FF8, FF9, etc) games while more older players like myself prefer the old classics (1 - 6).

If you ask me, the franchise has officially been dead since FF7. That's when they started moving away from the High Fantasy and start working more towards putting the J in JRPG. That's when the games started becoming like crappy anime with character designs and story arcs. 7 suffers from this greatly, and because of that I can't see it as god's gift to RPG's like most other people do. It was a decent game, but still, it marked the beginning of the end for the FF series. Look at what came out next: FF8, a game in which every - single - character (with the exception of Selphie, who's just the token perky-loli character (see Rikku in FFX) ) is completely emo about something. Squall is emo because he's way too concerned about what other people are thinking about him. Seifer is emo because he's going through puberty and doesn't want to be considered a little boy anymore. Zell is emo because everyone makes fun of him. The list goes on. We then get to FF9 and for the life of me I'll never understand what makes this game so popular. Yes, they were trying to get back to the High Fantasy of the classic games, but they failed completely...at least with me. I was so bored with watching that 9 year old Super Saiyajin protagonist run around that I stopped playing after the first disc.

Then came the abomination known as FFX what with it's story so riddled with plotholes and it's level-up system so pointlessly tedious and its ear-bleedingly bad voice acting (not just the laugh scene, throughout the entire game). But I'm starting to get off track here. As I said there's a clear point where you can divide the old from the "new" in terms of the FF series, and it really started heavily when Square merged with Enix to form bile-spewing abomination we have today known as Square-Enix. That's when it really became noticeable that - as Yahtzee once said - SE started saying "We just want to make movies, what's wrong with you people?!" and then began turning all their games into crappy overly complicated and thus plot-hole riddled anime RPGs.

I don't begrudge people for liking the newer games. As I said, my own personal research into the matter shows that the newer games are simply for the newer generation of gamers. Unlike myself, who remembers when the first FF was released on the NES and grew up with FF 2 and 3 (4 and 6, respectively, but on the SNES they were 2 and 3), the people who say they love 9, 10, and on are simply claiming to love the games that they, themselves, grew up with.

Still, I do find it funny that even the "new" crowd of FF players mostly agree that FF6 is better than any of the recent games. :3

In summation: yes, I do think that Final Fantasy needs to die. It needs to be laid to rest so that it can stop embarrassing itself and SE can finally start making crappy CGI movies instead of crappy games.