What The Hell Happened To Square Soft/Enix?

[Voulan]

The only games they make that I follow has been the Kingdom Hearts series, and I think they're doing phenomenally with it. That being said, their other titles are very lackluster. I've long since given up on Final Fantasy.

As long as KH still keeps its quality, I'm fine with how they're doing. As long as they understand that if they screw up KH3, there will be hell to pay.

 

[Lunar Templar]

snip

easy.

All the talent they had during the SNES/PS1 era's that made they great, left to do other things. hard to keep making great games when every one with the skills to do that leaves

 

[JagermanXcell]

I can describe them best:
They don't like money. Simple.
They push out games NO ONE wants and don't even try to advertise them (Deus Ex was phenomenal, its a shame no one told me it existed, thanks internet).

*Looks at the Kingdom Hearts fanbase*
I'm sorry guys...

 

[Tiswas]

Dragon Quest. Still a decent series. Even if the new one is a MMORPG (once it comes out here if it's free it'll do great. If it's paid for it'll go down quickly)
Kingdom Hearts. 3DS one was kinda bleh. And the DS ones were average. Didn't play the PSP one since it arrived too late and not on the PSshop.

Most of the spinoff Final Fantasies have been decent. I enjoyed Theatrythm quite a bit. but for me X-2 was the last good one (skip the barbie dress up and it was pretty darn decent.)

Nier is an exceptional game. And easily one of the better games this gen. As is Bravely Default.

I think the problem people have with Square is that they start and stop at Final Fantasy.

 

[AyaReiko]

Deus ex:HR ,Hitman absolution,Just cause 2 and sleeping dogs.Nuff said.Also it is one of the last PC publishers from Japan so that gives them extra credit on my book

Because those are all EIDOS games. We're talking abut SquareEnix, the developer here. And DX:HR got delayed because of the FF14 fiasco.

- - -

You can actually pinpoint the exact moment Square started to go downhill. It was the multimillion dollar flop of The Spirits Within, which lead to Sakaguchi getting ousted and Wada becoming the company's leader. Square under Wada has done nothing but suck.

 

[dimensional]

*snip*

I disliked Lost Odyssey, couldn't finish it. LO is a perfect example of what JRPGs are trying to turn into. (and failing IMO)

Really well you cant please everybody although I didnt think there was anything progressive in Lost Odyssey its standard JRPG fare just done well imo, the more progressive ones that evolve rather than abandon the template would be The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles from recent times anyway and I thought both of those were stunning hopefully more will move in that direction.

Not all JRPGS will evolve (much) though or need to, some like Blue Dragon some like Lost Odyssey theres room for both imo but continued evolution is necessary to prevent complete stagnation. I doubt many people would still be playing JRPGs if they were exactly the same as the first Dragon Quest. Also one game/companys output is not indicative of an entire genre/ sub genre/ whatever or even if some people do think JRPGs start and stop at Final Fantasy/ Square Enix.

In the west we only tend to see the biggest JRPGs anyway loads never leave Japan for better and/or worse.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

(the game played itself with the gambit system)

Only if you set it up to. I set it up for the other characters, but stuck with a main one and did all the combat myself. Sort of like how nobody is forcing you to fast travel in Fallout/Elder Scrolls games.

If you have to actively try to not make the game too easy for yourself, it's not good design. If you have to ignore an active and important game mechanic to enjoy a game, it's not good design. It also means that you'll run into situations where that mechanic needs to be used, but you're trying to ignore it. If you want to go back to the soul cairn in dawnguard without trekking through a massive dungeon, you need to fast travel to a balcony that's far above the ground.

Also i really hated FF12. I quit pretty early on when i realized the gambit system existed. Combat started to feel like monotonous busy work when i was faced with a computer that could do all my work for me. I shouldn't have to make my own fun in a video game.

I enjoyed it. Like I had said before, I just stuck with my main characters, then set the gambit system up for the others. Only time I set it up for the character I was playing as was the trick to power level with the unique ghost enemy or whatever it was. I also never needed to use it. I don't see how it is that hard or bad to not use it, but guess that is just my perspective. Just like how in the games where you unlock cheats by beating them doesn't mean you have to use them. I will say the boss battles were more just like Dragon Age's pathetic excuse for combat where you sit there up against them and just keep hitting them until they die.

So far, the only Final Fantasy game (that I've played) that I really disliked was VIII. The whole magic and summon system in the game was pretty stupid.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

Honestly, it's sad.

They're perfectly capable of making good games. They have done so. I didn't even think XIII was that bad- could have been far better, but it probably wouldve been best for the company to take the criticism aimed at the game and move on. Instead, they panicked, and now we're getting our second XIII 'apology' in the form of Lightning Returns.

 

[Burst6]

I enjoyed it. Like I had said before, I just stuck with my main characters, then set the gambit system up for the others. Only time I set it up for the character I was playing as was the trick to power level with the unique ghost enemy or whatever it was. I also never needed to use it. I don't see how it is that hard or bad to not use it, but guess that is just my perspective. Just like how in the games where you unlock cheats by beating them doesn't mean you have to use them. I will say the boss battles were more just like Dragon Age's pathetic excuse for combat where you sit there up against them and just keep hitting them until they die.

So far, the only Final Fantasy game (that I've played) that I really disliked was VIII. The whole magic and summon system in the game was pretty stupid.

Cheats are different because the game often blatantly says that they're cheats and usually punishes you for using them. It's pretty hard to take a game seriously when it wants to make itself too easy and you have to stop it.

Also i hope you're talking about dragon age 2 there. In the original doing that was a great way to get yourself killed. Dragon age was the only game i played that pretty much forced me to use strategy to succeed. I can't remember how many times i led enemies into ambushes, breached doors by putting my melee characters to the sides of the door and my mage in front to cast cone spells, etc. The strategy pretty much dissapeared with 2 though.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I enjoyed it. Like I had said before, I just stuck with my main characters, then set the gambit system up for the others. Only time I set it up for the character I was playing as was the trick to power level with the unique ghost enemy or whatever it was. I also never needed to use it. I don't see how it is that hard or bad to not use it, but guess that is just my perspective. Just like how in the games where you unlock cheats by beating them doesn't mean you have to use them. I will say the boss battles were more just like Dragon Age's pathetic excuse for combat where you sit there up against them and just keep hitting them until they die.

So far, the only Final Fantasy game (that I've played) that I really disliked was VIII. The whole magic and summon system in the game was pretty stupid.

Cheats are different because the game often blatantly says that they're cheats and usually punishes you for using them. It's pretty hard to take a game seriously when it wants to make itself too easy and you have to stop it.

Also i hope you're talking about dragon age 2 there. In the original doing that was a great way to get yourself killed. Dragon age was the only game i played that pretty much forced me to use strategy to succeed. I can't remember how many times i led enemies into ambushes, breached doors by putting my melee characters to the sides of the door and my mage in front to cast cone spells, etc. The strategy pretty much dissapeared with 2 though.

I was talking about Origins. After how insanely bland and boring it was, and after seeing the demo of Dragon Age 2 wasn't much better, I didn't waste the money on it.

 

[havoc33]

In my opinion, SquareEnix got greedy. Simple as that. From them feeling the need to change the series in order to attract a bigger market, to the statements of wanting to have the same release schedule as Call of Duty.. it all points to them seriously misreading what the majority of their fans really wanted from them. I have to admit, most people were probably more than happy when they finally removed random battles (the most annoying thing in the world), and I actually have no problem with them tinkering with the gameplay each edition, as it's probably needed to keep the series from getting stale. But no fans ever said we wanted to remove all forms of exploration, remove the world map hub, dumb down the customization, remove all cities, shops and NPC's to interact with.. I mean, what the heck were they thinking? FF13 basically has NONE of the elements that series have been know for, at least the attractive ones. What we're left with is some corridor based, all flashy animations/no strategy or fun in combat and characters that no one can relate to. It's turned into an action adventure with RPG elements and squeemy japanese pop teens.

For SquareEnix to turn it around, the remedy is quite easy really: go back to your roots. Do what you did so well for many, many years. The gameplay mechanics are not broken, just give us a awesome new world (in the vein of IX or XII) with the freedom to explore and customize, and most of us are back on board. You'll see.

 

[Casual Shinji]

They can't think outside of the box anymore.

They have a mind now only of bloated fireworks displays. Bigger is always better.

Also, the old fashion Japanese business model might be what's causing them to fall behind as well. Same as what's happening to Sony.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Disagree, most of the talent that worked on older games is still around, people just forget that games aren't a two man show and now that two of the most recognizable faces have left people think the series doesn't have any old blood on it anymore.

Blue Dragon sold like crap and got panned because it was a shit game, it only sold on the names behind the game and they made a shit game, Lost Odyssey wasn't much better yet people treat it like the second coming because if you downgrade the graphics it could be a pretty shit SNES game and no one would care.

Well I'd call you out on this ignorance but I think it's probably better if we agree to disagree.

You talking about the fact that a lot of old guys still work on SE games and Final Fantasy in general or my opinion on Lost Odyssey?

The first is pretty much true, a lot of the designers have been working on FF since the SNES and it's only Sakaguchi and Uematsu that have left, even Amano still does a lot of art for the series.

As for LO, opinion is opinion and while I did enjoy the game, I don't think it did anything exceptional aside from the 1000 years of dreams mini-stories, the rest was standard JRPG and it wouldn't have been out of place on a 16-bit console.