Eversince FF13 and FF14 people have been very pessemistic towards Final Fantasy which begs the question: "Which direction should the Final Fantasy franchise take?"
Which Direction Should The Final Fantasy Franchise Take?
- Thread starter FranticDarkness
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Honestly I think Square-Enix needs to sit back and let the Final Fantasy franchise cool down a bit. Maybe at most release the FF7 remake that every Final Fantasy fanatic has been demanding since the PS3 came out.
Maybe focus on a few other games for a while, get people wanting another Final Fantasy game and then seriously actually let people test their games out. That's their number-one problem is I honestly don't think they ever beta-test their games for anything other than bugs. I remember XIV and how they wouldn't even let us submit feedback (and we all know how that turned out).
Maybe focus on a few other games for a while, get people wanting another Final Fantasy game and then seriously actually let people test their games out. That's their number-one problem is I honestly don't think they ever beta-test their games for anything other than bugs. I remember XIV and how they wouldn't even let us submit feedback (and we all know how that turned out).
Honestly, at this point I don't really care where they go. I think my FF love has waned. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
I just don't think they are capable of changing their design philosophy to start making good games again.
I just don't think they are capable of changing their design philosophy to start making good games again.
Beg Sakaguchi to come back, possibly with offers of candy.
If not...? Stop trying to westernize it, that just botches it even more. They clearly have only a vague, flawed concept of what we like and hey, we LIKED most FFs.
EDIT: Bring Uematsu back too, for the love of god.
If not...? Stop trying to westernize it, that just botches it even more. They clearly have only a vague, flawed concept of what we like and hey, we LIKED most FFs.
EDIT: Bring Uematsu back too, for the love of god.
i personaly think they should ditch the game and carry on making movies. i dont really like any of the games but i loved the movies (avent children<3) and the cutscenes in the games were mostly awesome
Agreed with Stammer, a remake of FF VII would be awesome for PS3. For the rest? Let Final Fantasy have a bit of a breather, so many games have been pumped out that the general level of them has really gone down massively.
While I'm not the biggest FF fan (as in after 7 I personaly found damn near all of them somewhat horrid) I think what they need to do, is take the game engine for 13 spend a good long time writing, fixing/polishing the engine/mechanics and make one final, final fantasy.
Then I honestly think they need to start something new, maybe try something crazy and innovative. Who am I kidding though we all know FF will be churned out regardless of quality 'till it no longer makes profit, as is the way with basicaly all things now.
Then I honestly think they need to start something new, maybe try something crazy and innovative. Who am I kidding though we all know FF will be churned out regardless of quality 'till it no longer makes profit, as is the way with basicaly all things now.
Bring back the original team?
I'd say take a small bring break to it. Give people time to forget the bad stuff and remember the good ones. Yes, they can remake FF7 and make a huge sum of money. (And please god don't make a movie sequel where every character development from the game is throwed out the window).
I'd say take a small bring break to it. Give people time to forget the bad stuff and remember the good ones. Yes, they can remake FF7 and make a huge sum of money. (And please god don't make a movie sequel where every character development from the game is throwed out the window).
Why not try and take the franchise in a direction completely different than just the same old kingdom evil powers femmie looking male lead road and change it up a bit.
Why not, for example, have a world mixed of Cyberpunk and Steampunk? I know that sounds weird, but hey, sometimes fusing things works (sometimes it doesn't, but at least you made an effort)
Also, why not change up combat? Why have turn based combat when you could, say, use something other than weapons even. What if you fought w/ only your fists? Or stared at each other, or cast a spell on the other and then whoever could rap the best insults would get a cheering, standing ovation from the crowd while the loser is thrown into a dog pit and devoured by 4 headed dogs as the crowd screams for more blood?
Or how about they do all that from above and more and stop making Final Fantasy? The franchise is milked harder than Star Wars and is so overused and disconnected that it should be let to rest. Give us a new franchise, give us new, new new new new new new and new, not new everything under an old name with an increasing number.
The only FF I played was XII, and I was enjoying it for while I was playing, I have not, however, played any other (well, the GBA on, FF5 reloaded or something), and when I tried FFXIII I got bored w/in 5 minutes, the story bored and uninterested me, the combat was dull and I ran from it and nothing exciting was happening, so I turned it off and gave up on the game. And I hear that both XI and XIV sucked a hairy monkey ball, so why keep trying to beat the dead horse when they could instead beat some live horses who are chilling out in the stable eating cake and ice cream because they know they're safe from the evil whipping stick for now?
If my comments seem abusive, it's because I'm a fan of new things, and abusing a franchise tag to guarentee sales instead of having them come from your own tag seems like an insult to me, the consumer, and a put down of a company that is getting more stale than the food in my kitchen. For fucks sake, would you PLEASE mix it up Square Enix? Your name is on Just Cause 2, isn't it? I love that game! Why can't we get more games like that? Games that are original, and we know that your name is on them and we say "That's a company I trust to make a great game, sequel to an original concept or a brand new franchise," not "OMG FFXV IS GOING TO BE SET IN A SPACE CASTLE! OMG OMG OMG!" or something.
I mean no insult to FF fans, but as a gamer, for people to become FF fans over and over as they rehash a tag the way Enix^2 has is just...well it makes me a sad panda that it does
Why not, for example, have a world mixed of Cyberpunk and Steampunk? I know that sounds weird, but hey, sometimes fusing things works (sometimes it doesn't, but at least you made an effort)
Also, why not change up combat? Why have turn based combat when you could, say, use something other than weapons even. What if you fought w/ only your fists? Or stared at each other, or cast a spell on the other and then whoever could rap the best insults would get a cheering, standing ovation from the crowd while the loser is thrown into a dog pit and devoured by 4 headed dogs as the crowd screams for more blood?
Or how about they do all that from above and more and stop making Final Fantasy? The franchise is milked harder than Star Wars and is so overused and disconnected that it should be let to rest. Give us a new franchise, give us new, new new new new new new and new, not new everything under an old name with an increasing number.
The only FF I played was XII, and I was enjoying it for while I was playing, I have not, however, played any other (well, the GBA on, FF5 reloaded or something), and when I tried FFXIII I got bored w/in 5 minutes, the story bored and uninterested me, the combat was dull and I ran from it and nothing exciting was happening, so I turned it off and gave up on the game. And I hear that both XI and XIV sucked a hairy monkey ball, so why keep trying to beat the dead horse when they could instead beat some live horses who are chilling out in the stable eating cake and ice cream because they know they're safe from the evil whipping stick for now?
If my comments seem abusive, it's because I'm a fan of new things, and abusing a franchise tag to guarentee sales instead of having them come from your own tag seems like an insult to me, the consumer, and a put down of a company that is getting more stale than the food in my kitchen. For fucks sake, would you PLEASE mix it up Square Enix? Your name is on Just Cause 2, isn't it? I love that game! Why can't we get more games like that? Games that are original, and we know that your name is on them and we say "That's a company I trust to make a great game, sequel to an original concept or a brand new franchise," not "OMG FFXV IS GOING TO BE SET IN A SPACE CASTLE! OMG OMG OMG!" or something.
I mean no insult to FF fans, but as a gamer, for people to become FF fans over and over as they rehash a tag the way Enix^2 has is just...well it makes me a sad panda that it does
Okay, to everyone saying "Give it a break," you do realize that the last 'real' Final Fantasy game came out back in 2006? You know, FOUR YEARS before Final Fantasy XIII? If that's not a big enough break for you, then you simply cannot be pleased.
On Topic: Bring back the World Map. I call B.S. on these people saying "We don't have the tech." Okay, fine. Disregard the fact the the PS3 is a powerhouse. You can at least FAKE it like you did in X. Shops and towns--with actual people to talk to--is a step in the right direction as well. XIII felt very empty and lonely. When I finally got back to Cocoon at the end, I was like, "Oh yeah, there are other people in the world. I forgot." Finally, make the characters special and unique. Give them their own back stories that, unless you explore the game, you'll never learn about them. XIII was better than XII in this regard, but not by much. Remember in VII where, unless you explored, you'd have never found Yuffie or Vincent, never have gotten Yuffie's quest, or Vincent's complete back story. In VIII, you could go on a quest to find about about Squall's parents helping those Moomba creatures, or Zell's little fling with the girl with the ponytail. These little touches made the characters seem like actual people, not a ragtag group of heroes.
And for the love of all that is holy, never, EVER make it so every character can use every weapon. Stupid XII gambit system...
On Topic: Bring back the World Map. I call B.S. on these people saying "We don't have the tech." Okay, fine. Disregard the fact the the PS3 is a powerhouse. You can at least FAKE it like you did in X. Shops and towns--with actual people to talk to--is a step in the right direction as well. XIII felt very empty and lonely. When I finally got back to Cocoon at the end, I was like, "Oh yeah, there are other people in the world. I forgot." Finally, make the characters special and unique. Give them their own back stories that, unless you explore the game, you'll never learn about them. XIII was better than XII in this regard, but not by much. Remember in VII where, unless you explored, you'd have never found Yuffie or Vincent, never have gotten Yuffie's quest, or Vincent's complete back story. In VIII, you could go on a quest to find about about Squall's parents helping those Moomba creatures, or Zell's little fling with the girl with the ponytail. These little touches made the characters seem like actual people, not a ragtag group of heroes.
And for the love of all that is holy, never, EVER make it so every character can use every weapon. Stupid XII gambit system...
Bring back turn-based battles, cut out the voice acting, get Tetsuya Nomura the hell off the FF development team (he should be focusing his attention on the KH franchise anyway, at least fans of that series actually like his style of character design and storytelling), and get away from the whole Neo-Tokyo, cyberpunk/retrofuture aesthetic for awhile. Put the "fantasy" back in Final Fantasy.
Writing interesting characters instead of filling party slots with cardboard cutouts vaguely resembling archetypes might be nice. Bring back a nice open world -- that was one thing I liked in XII (and XI for that matter), the ability to explore a huge world, although too much of it was empty useless space; a generous world map with plenty of locales to visit is also acceptable. Bring back the fantasy, lay off the sci-fi a bit more, or find a way to mix the two delightfully again as they did in VI.
Add back in all the basic features they took away. Towns, world map, minigames, exploration, puzzles, triple the number of characters (XIII had about 20 compared to around 60 in previous games), double number of locations (XIII had 19 compared to 40-50 every other game had except X), add back the complexity to the battle system (XIII was arguably the most dumbed down rpg system in the series), take away illogical battle transitions as they're antiquated now, add in features that western games have standardised in the past decade (conversation tree, emergent gameplay, real-time physics, varying plot consequences), add in radio stations and vehicles instead of ambient background music that repeats ad nauseum, get back to sci-fi/realistic/modern settings and writing instead of crystal fantasy nonsense.
What the hell is this?? They've been fantasy since VIII. You're confusing vaguely futuristic settings with sci-fi. X-XIII were not sci-fi, they were pure fantasy. Giant magical futuristic looking airships powered by magic and crystals are not sci-fi. XIII's world is powered by 5 million gods, not technology, i.e. fantasy not sci-fi.Nightshard said:
Ugh, I hate the FF fan base so much, so much ignorance. XII had 16 weapons with varying effects that everyone could use. It was fantastically complex and interesting and it's far more logical to allow characters to have every weapon. XIII had 6 weapons that stayed the same all game and were all effectively the same 2 generic attacks. Vanille/Hope/Sazh could hit multiple enemies. Lightning/fang/snow hit single enemies. Other than that they were all exactly the same except in appearance. In XII there was a huge practical difference between an arrow and a hammer and a stave. There was even a significant difference between a bow and a crossbow, and a few of the weapons had varying ammo types to use making it even more interesting. There was lots of stats involved. With XIII I completed the entire game without changing weapons from what they had at the start, weapons were superfluous and actually often made it harder to get 5 stars. It also got rid of armours (when XII had 172 of them in 5 categories) and many other things like MP. And autobattle + auto libra meant that you never had to think about things like elemental weaknesses and instead 99% of the game is spent tapping x and ocassionally paradigm shifting. I don't understand why a lot of fans complain about characters being more customisable and not preset in XII, isn't it better to develop the characters in whatever way you want than to have them predetermined as in X and XIII?
science fiction definition:
Works of fiction that use scientific discoveries or advanced technology ? either actual or imaginary ? as part of their plot.
Whether or not they're futuristic, or even that they run on magic or crystals does not change the fact that they're imaginary things with a scientific base (aeronautics, space travel, etc). Granted, I didn't play XIII so I can't make a comment on that one, but there's enough technology in what I've seen to qualify it as science fiction in my book.
While we're at it, with your definition, even VII falls into "fantasy" categories. Power Plants running on life energy? Crystal balls granting magic powers? Birds that can run over water and mountains endlessly?! Shenanigans!
Works of fiction that use scientific discoveries or advanced technology ? either actual or imaginary ? as part of their plot.
Whether or not they're futuristic, or even that they run on magic or crystals does not change the fact that they're imaginary things with a scientific base (aeronautics, space travel, etc). Granted, I didn't play XIII so I can't make a comment on that one, but there's enough technology in what I've seen to qualify it as science fiction in my book.
While we're at it, with your definition, even VII falls into "fantasy" categories. Power Plants running on life energy? Crystal balls granting magic powers? Birds that can run over water and mountains endlessly?! Shenanigans!
"The stories and characters change each time. This is because stories tend to limit a world and I think by changing these aspects and creating new material for each title, we try to show our full potential." sakaguchiTheDist said:
FF is not like other series where they repeat the characters and story each time. You should go complain about mario and zelda being milked. There have been 2 main releases in the Final Fantasy series in the past decade (excluding the 2 MMO's). How is that milking it? Maybe there's been too many spin offs but then you should be saying stop making spin offs and concentrate on the main series again instead of stop milking the series.
All games in the series are fantasy, and all feature lots of anachronisms (swords > guns?!). It's like star wars which has a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi tropes. I know none are hard sci-fi, but there's a huge difference between VII's sci-fi elements (rocket/dirigible/helicopters/motorbikes for vehicles instead of nonsensical shaped magical airships, shinra and hojo are sci-fi themed, bionic limb etc.) and the level of realism in the world design than X-XIII where it's meaninglessly futuristic and there's no sci-fi related exploration at all. Sci-fi isn't just about believable technology explanations, but it's about the type of writing and tone/style too. VII had a plot that was relatable with a mix of not too hard to accept fantasy elements like the lifestream. Sci-fi has themes like dystopian worlds and technological moral quandaries (VII had Midgar, a pure cyberpunk city, and gene manipulation is a common sci-fi trope). Fantasy has themes like destiny and gods (the by-line of XIII is "do you have the courage to face your destiny?"). VII featured hacking, terrorism, submarines, etc. XIII has things like holograms and virtual shopping, but it's futuristic fantasy. Just look at the clothing, X-XIII they all have crazy nonsensical garb, but in VII and VIII it's just normal practical clothing.Nightshard said:
In XIII there's a floating hollow satellite called cocoon that people live inside. It's entirely artificial and run by 5 million gods. In VII, they live on a natural planet and there are no gods. Instead of a nonsensical floating orb that somehow has seas and beaches and sky and weather despite the game saying the people live inside it and not on the surface, VII has a meteor that is coming to destroy the planet. Neither are realistic astronomy, but VII's is much more believable/acceptable. In X the story is all some religious mumbo jumbo. In XII it's politically themed and I would accept it's a lot more sci-fi and there's even a scientist in it, but it's not coherently explored. Even IV, VI and IX are more sci-fi than X & XIII. Despite the superficially medieval settings, explainable technology is a significant theme in them and there are no gods. IX has some extra terrestrial stuff that's close to a sci-fi explanation. And you can kinda place I-IX in a time period. VII is 20th century, VI is 19th century etc. The antagonists are very indicative. VII has relatable and realistic characters that have varied believable motivations. Sephiroth is chaotic evil, shinra is lawful evil, the turks are lawful neutral and hojo is neutral evil. X and XIII have Sin and Barthandelus who are nonsense gods which only exist to be powerful bosses and have very little intelligent character development. Yeah I suppose it's not a black and white issue and each game has both sci-fi and fantasy elements, but VII is definitely the most sci-fi.
The original point I wanted to make was that the series should go for more sci-fi and realism, not less. Crystal fantasy crap is lazy and uninteresting.