Out of Pod Experience

It's easy to say that a game is bad, and that it could be better. We know it can be better because we have played better. When you get through a few hours of Final Fantasy XIII and ponder back on the days of Final Fantasy VII, all you can think about is how much better the older game was. Yet something drew you into this one and tricked you into wasting your time with it. What is it? Gorgeous graphics? People talking about how great it is? Or maybe trust in the series that has been built up over multiple installments, perhaps loaded up with a healthy dose of hope that this one won't be as bad as the last one. It can't get any worse than it already has. It can only go up from here, you tell yourself.

Square Enix seems to be under the strange impression that the way to sell a game is to fill it to the brim with flashy and arguably gorgeous graphics but spend almost no time on the actual gameplay. And when they do put some gameplay in it, the story falls apart. In the end, anything they release is basically just an acid trip down a long hallway with lifeless paintings on the walls who follow you throughout the game with their stern, unmoving expressions. It's not a childhood fantasy anymore, it's a child's nightmare.

I don't claim to be an expert with making story-RPGs, but would it be so hard to spend a bit less money on seizure-fuel art and maybe concentrate a bit more on staying power? It's not like it takes work to sell a Final Fantasy game. Not too long ago, you could have tossed out any piece of junk with the title "Final Fantasy" on it and everyone would be grabbing for it. That's still the case to some extent. I understand how fresh game designers need to put almost all of the budget into the art to sell the game (not that I'm endorsing this behavior), but Square has enough clout in the industry to sell an ugly game if it's good, and enough budget to make it breathtakingly gorgeous but still have most of the money left over for actual story and gameplay development.

All they need to do is hire a good storyteller. They need a good director. There's tons of people out there who can direct a better game than what we're getting out of Square these past few years. I know it because I'm one of them. I'm no good writer or game designer, but I can literally just take a mismash of things from old Final Fantasy games that were good, tweak them a bit, and come up with a basically original Final Fantasy game that would be miles better than the crap Square has been painting the shelves with since the PS3 came out.

Here's an article I just got through reading, the author points out a lot of the flaws Square Enix has and some ways they could improve that.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-to-fix-final-fantasy/1100-6417822/?utm_campaign=gamespace_f&utm_content=footer&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=gamefaqs
I wanted to share this with you guys because it's a topic that is a big deal to me. Most bad games I can just look away from and not play them. I may be a little frustrated that they are getting more money than they should, which takes development resources away from good games, but that all is nothing compared to my love for what Final Fantasy has been in the past. It's more than just a few games I liked. It became a welcome part of my life, and I've been clinging to it ever since I grew up with it. I don't want to let it go because I'm still in love with Final Fantasy. If Square could just release one more good game, then for a few years all would be forgiven.

Yeah, well, they both left AFTER it all went to shìt.

Not necessarily.

Tech advanced.

And FF is arguably the pinnacle of the JRPG genre. They were expected to "innovate" to appeal to gamers of other genre's. As they have been expected to since the beginning. Recent installments are especially meant to try and appeal to "action-adventure" genre Western gamers.

Kitase did a great job directing V-VIII. Those are all great games as well. Each for something singular that made them unique.

Nomura did great on X, meh on X-2, and I hated XI.

Yoshida did solid on XII, but his style brought with it the same political intrigue from Vagrant Story. XII's biggest problem was the main character not being the main character. Also had a very, very interesting mechanic in the gambit system. License grid sucked compared to the sphere grid, however. But I guess I am a little biased on this one, as this is one of my favorites from the series.

Since then, with the 13 trilogy, they have lost sight of what made them stretch Final Fantasy into a franchise of 20+ years. After all, it was originally called Final Fantasy due to Squaresoft's financial woes at the very beginning. They designed a game to fill a niche, and survived. Became a damn near a household name in earlier generations of consoles. But they lost that vision, sadly.

And one could even further say that the Enix merger was the first nail, with growing corporate intervention and growth(moving toward a more "producer" capacity, the nails that continue to plague the franchise. Realistically I think this is why Sakaguchi and Uematsu both left the company. Because frankly I consider them artists, not corporate hand puppets.

vOv

We can speculate, but it all comes to opinions. I know that 13-2 was a vast improvement from 13. Haven't been able to play Lightning Returns or 14, so I cannot speak for those.

15 doesn't seem to appeal to me at all. Maybe, again, in a politically motivated storyline........but frankly it looks like a standard Japanese action game to me, with the Square/Enix tech and graphics on top of it.

But I will probably play it.

Because I have remained faithful to the series this long.......why not keep up the hope. Eventually they will open their eyes. In the meantime.....pop in your favorite, and play it again. That is what I do.

And I believe Kitase should be on directing, too. He is an artist as well. Only too blinded by the corporate side of things. But that is the business, I suppose.

I never played any game in the series, but I love Amano's artwork for it.. especially for the earlier games. The games are quite popular in the cosplaying world.
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Yoshitaka_Amano

I looked up FFX and it looks like it's a Playstation game. Since I don't own one, I decided to go basic and start at the beginning..
http://imgur.com/gFMMtwO

i played FF VII when it came out. got addicted to chockobo breeding and racing . have not touched the games since, many iskies spent on therapy

Gameplay?

Final Fantasy?!

Sorry I dont see the connection.

If you were talking about Dragon Quest, or Wizardry, then this thread would make sense.

Out of the same reasons basically all other gaming/movie series in the last couple of years failed eventually: No matter what business analysts and focus groups tell you, endless repetation does not equal innovation... no matter how imaginative your original material was...

...but, one good thing came out of this thrend, the real gems do become exceedingly easier to spot among all the rubble that is todays entertaiment industry... sadly, the Final Fantasy frenchise has failed to produce one of those for quite some time now.

The junction system and draw system made that a great game.

The junction and draw system were really fun once you got the hang of using them. It was a bit of a learning curve that many people found frustrating, in part by the dry and confusing tutorial. Also a lot of people wasted a lot of time drawing and stocking lots of magic, unaware they couold have been saving tons of time by getting magic from cards first, and junctioning to the magic attribute to draw faster. It was a hidden trick that most people figured out after finishing the game once or twice, as opposed to before they wasted 15 hours drawing every elemental variation from buels in the fire cavern just so they could win against the T-Rexaur more easily, which mysteriously seemed to get stronger every time they fought it. And also people would grind experience, unaware they were just making the game more difficult.

So there was a ton of balancing work to do with the game, but once you get past some of those basics, the entire battle system was actually pretty complex and fascinating. And the story was truly exceptional.