Square-Enix Is Final Fantasy falling apart?

Probably the same reason that KHIII isn't out yet. They're trying to suck as much money out of the cow before they give the one that people REALLY want. They add tidbits to the plot, or not depending on what you look at. Granted, I never played KHDDD or Re: Coded, so I can't really say anything, but the games that jut cover the same material that's been out for years with a few add-ons to the story so you'll keep on buying until the market is nearly dry. Granted, not all games are like this. BBS was fantastic plotwise and added a lot to the KH universe, so did Chain of Memories, debating you take in the ending. I can see this happening for a while.

Though at least it's better than X-2 where they just made a whole different plot because X ended on such a high note. I even heard XIII-2 ended with a massive cliffhanger or no conclusion. But I'm not sure.

 

It's the exact same reason KH3 isn't out. They'll only start making it once Versus XIII is out. Not kidding.

 

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Actually, from what I hear, XIII is MASSIVELY popular in Japan. It being voted best game of the year and debated on the decade. I take your point on development time, and I see that with Kingdom Hearts, but with XIII they're coming out with ones every few years on a console. If you count XIV, they hit one game a year syndrome as I aptly call it where for a while they were making a game every year or two. Which when it was the NES and SNES it was fine, mostly. But now it can't be nearly as done with the development of games.

Where some people hated the XIII mechanics, a lot of Japanese said it was better than VII overall.

I do digress though, even if you have a straight hallway, appealing characters and great storyline can make it better. NPC's are one of my favorite things about games though. Some of the things that are said can be hilarious. One of my favorite NPC games hands down is Super Mario RPG and that DEFINED linear. There was little wiggle room to go anywhere but the characters in the towns and the ones in your party made it worth it. Where else would you find a cloud that thinks it's a frog that can't jump?

That was another Square game along with Nintendo, btw.

I do hope they wake up with this. I just don't see it happening, even when XII came out it was a disaster for me. Ever since I'd say the beginning of the PS2 era they started to show signs of wear.

 

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Agreed with your comments on XII, but like I said before: The licensing system did me in. I might have made it through if the battle system didn't get so convoluted for me and that I spent half of my time grinding looking for things to do the licensing system. The story was meh for me, and I know people liked it and the characters were okay mostly.

Just a btw, Super Mario RPG was in the SNES. Unless you're talking about another game, I thought you should know. I think it's for the Virtual Console, but I'm not sure.

 

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Call me an idiot, but I like all the FF games the way they are. I am like that for some reason; I don't usually see the flaws people want to change most until I go online. For example: DDD. "UGH, why is sora acting like an Idiot, he is so much smarter than that." *Goes online "Unexplained Phenomena in DDD... Wait why does that need explaining? It's simple isn't it?" I guess I am just simple minded... (Not happy about it, but will have to accept.)

 

Uh, what formula? Final Fantasy has only had a few things that have been consistent over the years. The only ones that can be seen as following a common formula are FFI, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFIX and FFX to an extent. That's less than half of the series. And even then, its largely graphical aesthetics, stories revolving around elemental crystals and the Job System.

Anyway, to answer the question: Yes. It is. Let's briefly look at the whole main series
FFI: A fantastic unlicensed adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons.
FFII: A decent story hindered by a broken leveling system.
FFIII: A great update to FFI with a great new take on the Job System established by FFI.
FFIV: One of the best games of all time with a phenomenal story of redemption and sacrifice.
FFV: A great update to FFIII hindered slightly by its bland story (which the GBA version makes up for with a near parody translation).
FFVI: An excellent story about an oppressive empire and those who try to stop it.
FFVII: A good story about identity.
FFVIII: Dreadful. A lame story that doesn't know what its doing with unlikable characters and plot holes that you can drive a battleship through.
FFIX: The best damn game in the series. The story is the most well built of any in the series and explores themes of life and death, humanity, family and loyalty. Every character (save Quina) is at least decently developed and the villain is the best in the series.
FFX: A good story that explores sacrifice and religion, but hindered by a few unlikable characters, but helped by great gameplay.
FFX-2: A bad story that throws the returning characters and the entire setting horribly out of character, not to mention being a complete missed opportunity with the establishment of various political factions that are all vying to lead the people. At least the combat worked.
FFXI: A solid MMO that completely alienates the uninitiated.
FFXII: A very well built world with a decent story about political warfare that is greatly hindered by the unnecessary (and executively mandated) point of view character.
FFXIII: An idiotic story that meanders aimlessly for 20+ hours with a mixed bag of characters that drops the player into an endless hallway with combat that plays itself.
FFXIV: One of the worst MMOs ever made.

But before we begin, let me explain my position a bit. I have been a fan of the series since I was 12 (so about 12 years now). Since then, I have collected every title in the main series except FFXI (but I did play it briefly), FFXIV and FFXIII-2. Final Fantasy helped shape my tastes as a gamer. It helped me appreciate storytelling in games and showed me what character development was. I have no idea where I would be as a gamer if it weren't for Final Fantasy.

While the series has had its weak spots (FFII had an atrocious and broken leveling system, FFVIII was all around bad), the games since FFX have had far worse reactions. FFXI alienated anyone who actually wanted to learn how to play the game without having friends already playing, FFXII was criticized for its far more subtle story and use of an "MMO combat system" (which has always confused me as it played far more like Knights of the Old Republic than any MMO I've ever played), FFXIII being even worse than FFVIII and FFXIV being considered one of the worst MMOs ever made to the point where they fired the entire team and rebuilt it from scratch. But let's ignore FFX, XI and XII for now and focus on the only two current generation titles.

Ok, I take that back. Sort of. We'll actually start by looking at FFX-2, AKA, the money grab sequel. No one asked for this sequel and it really only existed as a money grab when Square hit a rough patch, so its existence is forgivable. What it did to the series was not. The story was a massive missed opportunity. On the one hand, the story didn't need to exist. FFX's plot was wrapped up nicely and its bittersweet ending worked (even if Tidus is annoying as ****). On the other hand, the setting could be explored much further. After Yevon's fall, three political factions filled the power vacuum and two of them, New Yevon and the Youth League, were on the verge of going to war with each other. There is a lot of room to tell a story of how Yuna prevents that war and gets the three factions to work together to defeat a bigger threat, which sort of happens in the game we got, but not without a bunch of worthless treasure hunting, pop music and bad writing.

The success of FFX-2 inspired Square to launch the most overblown tribute to anything ever conceived by mankind: The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. A film sequel, a video game sequel, two video game prequels, an anime OVA based on events in the game and a series of short stories. At best, these were decent, but added nothing. At worst, they made no sense whatsoever in the context of the original and had no reason to exist. However, after this, the only extension of anything in the series was the Ivalice Alliance, which didn't amount to a whole hell of a lot (and the only direct sequel in the Ivalice Alliance, FFXII: Revenant Wings, is allegedly pretty good).

On top of the Compilation of FFVII, we have the biggest failure of a project that Square has ever attached to the series: Fabula Nova Crystalis: Final Fantasy XIII. Concieved as a project where each game in the project would bear the number 13, three titles were announced initially: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0 (then known as Final Fantasy Agito XIII). Final Fantasy XIII was released worldwide, a sequel to FFXIII was also released worldwide, another sequel to FFXIII was announced, Type-0 was released in Japan with its planned North American release ammounting to nothing and FFvXIII is the new Duke Nukem Forever. The initial announcement was in 2006. It was concieved as a ten year project from its announcement and we're seven years in and one of the games in the initial announcement has yet to be released or even have any sort of significant information released. The Fabula Nova Crystalis project is pretty much a failure and Squares lack of acknowledgement of the project pretty much cements that. And I think that's about it for big overarching projects for the series because of this failure.

But let's go back to individual titles. Final Fantasy XIII is easily the worst title in the series. The plot amounts to our designated heroes wandering about aimlessly and going "Should we do something? We should do something!" It tries to be a character driven narrative, which is fine and, in fact, I welcome it as I think characters are the most important part of a story, but there's no plot for the characters to drive. They wander around aimlessly for hours until they Sazh and Vanille are caputured, then they go back to wandering after rescuing them (hell, I don't even know if they do anything after this point as I gave up after auto-battling Barthandelus to death. The characters themselves are a mixed bag that range from unlikable to Sazh. And no, that's nothing against Sazh. He's awesome. He's the only character in the game that isn't either totally forgettable (Fang), annoying (Hope and Vanille), an idiot (Snow) or an unlikable jerk (Lightning). Not to mention the Hallway of Doom and the combat that plays itself.

The problem is that there are a few well done character moments. There is potential in Lightning's character arc, the conflict between Snow and Hope was a solid one, if poorly set up and the conflict between Sazh and Vanille is about the only part of the game I actually like. It is a massive missed oppurtunity. Give us an actual story (doesn't even have to be a complex one if the characters can carry it well enough) and make more than one character actually sympathetic and likable.

But this is only part of the problem. The Hallway of Doom is a comparitively minor problem I have with the game when you place it along side the narrative and the combat. However, as the Hallway of Doom is something that should NEVER be done in an RPG, even one with a linear story, that should put things into perspective on how bad I think this game is. You put the game in and then you start running in a straight line. And then you don't stop running in a straight line for 20+ hours. You may as well have nothing but cutscenes and combat if all of the rest of what you do is run in a straight ****ing line. And this isn't even getting into the combat, which serves no purpose outside of padding the game out.

But before we get into the combat, let's talk about weapon upgrades and the Crystarium. The Crystarium is the easy part. It has no reason to exist. A better system would be to have you level normally, then choose which role your levels go into. Such a system would literally do the same thing as the Crystarium because the Crystarium, which they sell as an open-ended system, is no different than leveling normally and choosing which role the levels go into.

Weapon upgrades are similarly arbitrarily complex. Using items to upgrade weapons? Sure, fine, no problem. Giving them an arbitrary level cap unique to each item? Stupid, but not the worst part. Having piles of items with no other purpose outside of selling that give arbitrary amounts of experience that varies from weapon to weapon with pretty much no pattern and literally no explanation? Now we've got a serious problem. Combine all of these and we get FFXIII's weapon upgrade system. It is an arbitrarily complex system that leaves your best option to be to upgrade one weapon and ignore all of the other ones. And this and the Crystarium are the LEAST of this game's problems.

Now let's get into the combat. The combat is almost a trainwreck. It almost literally plays itself. All you have to do to win any battle outside of the Eidolon battles is Libra your target, mash Auto-Battle on a balanced Paradigm until they Stagger, then switch to an aggressive Paradigm and continue to mash Auto-Battle. Occasionally you'll have to switch to a defensive Paradigm to heal, but that's literally the strategy for every. Single. Battle. Its terrible and takes absolutely no effort to play.

Then we have Final Fantasy XIII-2, the world's most unnecessary sequel. I can't speak for the story (though from what I understand, someone at Square decided that Lightning is the best character ever and Noel and Serah spend the entire game practically worshipping her), and the Hallway of Doom is gone, but the game still uses the god-awful Paradigm system. That alone was enough to tell me not to play this piece of ****.

And, from the looks of things, they managed to find a way to keep using the ****ing Paradigm system with Lightning Returns, despite there only being one playable character. Only time will tell if Lightning Returns will also play itself.

And finally, we have Final Fantasy XIV, which was so bad and had such a botched launch (where they literally released the beta as the retail release) that they fired the entire team and started over. This has never happened before. The PS3 version has been indefinitely delayed and only time with tell if A Realm Reborn actually works.

So, yeah, I think its safe to say that Final Fantasy needs a good kick in the ass.

EDIT: Oh, and Bravely Default, which is technically a part of the series (even though by that logic, Chrono Trigger and Bahamut's Lagoon should also technically be part of the series), which is regarded as a very good game, barely got greenlit for a western release and only because Nintendo decided to co-publish it. Square's got their heads up their collective asses at the moment with them blaming Eidos for the failings of their Japanese games and not listening to their customers.

 

Thanks for explaining that Engine problem Libre, I never really got that untill just now, I had so many Japanese games in the PS2 era and hardly any in the PS3 era. Go figure.
I for one could not stand the FFXIII battle system. To me it was even worse than FFXII's. I had really high hopes for Versus, but I'm not even so sure about that anymore. I hope they can finally do some real good stuff after they release their new Engine!

 

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All right, this thread begs a question in particular, and I can tell from a cursory glance of the posts so far that it's been brought up. But I'm just gonna set aside my feelings on XIII for a second, because there are other more pertinent things to talk about - trends that can be traced much farther back.

Now, I started with FFVII, but I have since reached back into the series to the more memorable 16-bit titles; the only ones I haven't touched (yet) are the first three. I've also played chunks of XII and XIII. The thing I notice is that, over the years, the more the technology that powers the series has evolved, the more Square and Square Enix have begun to take control away from the player. Until FFX, there really was no such thing as a "cut scene" in Final Fantasy. What we got instead were short CG scenes as a reward for reaching certain milestones in the game. They're short because they take up a lot of processing power, but that's what makes them so sweet; the developers knew they'd have to fit as much as they could into as short a frame of time.

More importantly, in lieu of fully realized cut scenes, often the story was advanced by long stretches of dialogue. But even these weren't ever completely hands-off; every now and then Square would throw a curveball at you, with one character interrupting another's speech bubble, or posing a choice to you, or allowing you freedom of movement while someone was talking. That meant you never put down your controller. It kept you invested, kept you alert, made you feel like you were always in control, even at points where you had to hand it over.

As much as I love Final Fantasy X, I believe it was the start of some disconcerting trends in the Squaresoft design philosophy. Kingdom Hearts showed shades of this as well. They started to take control away from the player. They started telling the story without the player instead of depending on you to advance. They completely mistook what fans loved about the series to date: the richness and depth of setting and the feeling of actually playing a role in a grand epic, slaying dragons, discovering grand treasures, raging against the heavens themselves, what have you. They began to phase that out and focus on more pretty things, more CGI. This is what led to KHII being a clunky piece of garbage, I believe it's partially responsible for the quality of Final Fantasy XIII, and it's probably a piece of the "Why hasn't Versus XIII been released yet" puzzle.

But it's only one point of interest, and there are many more. If you compare Squaresoft's list of games to Square Enix's, you'll probably notice that they didn't start going crazy with ports, sequels, and spin-offs until they made that merger. (That's also around the time these flashier main series entries started coming out, but no need to beat a dead horse.) Square Enix is a nostalgia factory. A recycling plant of video games. Squaresoft created all these beautiful titles, kickstarted so many excellent series, and it seems that their successor is just trying to cash in on that instead of continue the tradition. I can name the number of unique, enjoyable Squeenix titles I've played on one hand, whereas I'd need an extra person to help me with the Square games.

If it seems like I'm pining for the old days too, well, you might be right about that. But I'm also not one to deny the bare facts. This started with Squaresoft. All of the games that brought about this change can be traced back to the original company. Hell, Square put out X-2, and that was a disaster in all but the combat. But we don't exactly blame Notorious B.I.G. for the collapse of mainstream rap, and we shouldn't blame Square for doing what worked, especially since they never exaggerated it to Square Enix's degree. (Of course, maybe Nomura's the P. Diddy in this analogy, but I wouldn't know enough to follow up on that.) SE is the one who put out All the Bravest, and that might be the greatest travesty of a "game" anyone's ever heard of. It's pretty clear, no matter how long Square had the ball, Squeenix snatched it up and took off like a shot.

Ok, those are the two points everyone sees coming. But I think there's a third item to address, which I don't hear people talk about very often. Squaresoft, and even moreso Square Enix, love to experiment. And what both companies definitely have in common is they're not very good at it. Exhibit A: The Bouncer. I picked this game up for less than ten dollars back in the early 2000's, and I thought I was getting a bargain. Then I sat down with it for an hour and realized I'd been scammed. "Unplayable" is generous; "a steaming pile of the devil's excrement" is a compliment. If you managed not only to endure that game, but beat it, you might actually be the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama. And that was early Square! Square Enix would go on to release such "memorable" titles as Dirge of Cerberus - which I honestly liked a lot, mind you, but I can still admit it has its share of problems. FFXI was such a radical break from formula that I barely know any FF fans who've actually played it at length, and I'm told that XIV is disliked even by MMO fans.

Now, at the same time, these experiments occasionally yield beautiful results; after all, what else can we call Kingdom Hearts? And it's been successful enough to bring us all together here. The World Ends with You is another stand-out example, one that far too few of us have played for how brilliant and enchanting it is. The problem, sadly, is that Squeenix's win-loss ratio on these gambles is discouraging. They may have been able to afford these risks at one point, but now each hit they take is costing them dearly. I only foresee this ending one of two ways: Either they will stop taking risks entirely, leading to bland games that barely meet their sales goals and essentially have Square Enix living paycheck to paycheck; or they will continue to bet big bucks on these hit-and-miss experiments, and ultimately go under.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE FINAL FANTASY XIII. It's not even a f#$%♪@& fantasy! Every other game in the series has incorporated scant to moderate amounts of sci-fi elements, but retained the focus on the hero's journey, the wonderment of exploring a new realm and unlocking its mysteries, and the ultimate clash of good and evil. FFXIII is cyberpunk with magic. That's the plain and simple truth. Everyone with any ounce of purity is either a wuss or a ditz, and everyone else is either an insufferable jerk or crooked as an abortion clinic wire hanger. There's no fantastic world to explore because it just drags you along for the ride and feeds everything to you in journal entries and data files (JUST BECAUSE IT WORKS FOR MASS EFFECT DOESN'T MEAN IT WORKS FOR EVERYBODY, SQUEENIX). No one really learns anything in the end, except how utterly screwed they are.

This approach works fine for some people and some stories, but it's not Final Fantasy. Of all the myriad things Final Fantasy has been, it has never been this. There has never been so great a break from tradition before now; no matter how angsty the characters got, no matter how many flashy, beeping deelywhoppers they got to mess around with. This is in addition to faults in the combat and story in general, and there are plenty. So not only is it not Final Fantasy, but for what it is, it's not even that good! More italics are necessary to prove my point!

I believe Final Fantasy XIII is the culmination of the three cardinal flaws in Square Enix's design philosophy. It is flashy, it features lengthy cut scenes that move the game forward in baby steps, and it keeps control of the game away from the player. Many of its characters are shallow throwbacks to well-liked characters in Final Fantasy's history; this has been admitted. (Not the shallow part, that is, but the throwback part.) And it is such a dramatic step away from the classic formula, such a bold and dangerous foray into territories untested, that it couldn't help but receive some backlash - and really didn't come out much better for the effort than games where they just did what they do best.

Yes, Final Fantasy is falling apart. If Square Enix does not fix this, it is going to tank. I believe that with all my heart, now matter how it aches to think of it. It's their flagship series; if people lose interest in it, the company's options will start to shrink. I think Squeenix realizes this as well; it's probably why they acquired Eidos, though that doesn't seem to be going well, either. I just wish I knew what to do about it. They've been saved by miracles before, but those miracles came from bright minds with brilliant ideas, and the drive to make them a reality. Unfortunately, those kinds of people don't just turn up every day. Nomura's been at the wheel on several projects for a long time, and I believe he's trying his best, but one man can only provide so many ideas. After KHIII and VXIII finally come out, and maybe (crossing my fingers 'til they break) we see a bona fide TWEwY sequel, what else will he do? What else can he do?

I dunno, my forecasts for the Sonic franchise were as grim as this around the time Sonic '06 came out, and they managed to pick up the pieces. Maybe SE can manage it too. It just stings to see a company responsible for so many fond childhood memories suffering like this.

As an addendum can I just say that y'all need to stop hatin' on FFVIII that sh#% was fun LAGUNA'S BETTER THAN YOUR FAVORITE FF CHARACTER

 

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I just hope it's a dip in the series and it'll pull itself up over time soon. I mean, when Final Fantasy was made, the game was going to be the final game for the company. Hence the title, it became a trademark and a unforgettable series instead that helped them bloom into way more branches. Hell, we wouldn't have had Kingdom Hearts if Final Fantasy was made.

I hope whatever has happened to them with XII and XIII it will improve over time and it'll go back to the glory days it used to have when VI and VII hit the shelves and their dominance in PS1 returns.

 

well I feel you on the huge drop of final fantasy titles in my opinion they could have brought dissidia to consoles....I mean I loved dissidia and if its on a console they can add way more characters and moves I mean the characters when from characters being turn based badasses to freely movable ultimate badasses who eat lighting and CRAP THUNDAAAHH!!!!!