Topic: Tabata resigns from Square Enix

[Shiroi Koumori]

Hmmmm.... smells fishy. Was he forced to resign because his new studio Luminous Productions reported a $33m loss, which was not his fault but the fault of the company to restructure the studio into a game development one.

I watched the FFXV stream yesterday and instead of being a happy 2nd anniversary. It felt like a funeral.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/tabata-resigns-from-square-enix-ffxv-dlcs-canceled-episode-ardyn-still-coming-read-op.79650/

[Aiddon]

Been processing this, and I can sum it up as thus: Square-Enix needs to get itself in order. This is now three mainline FF's in a row (four if you count XIV, though that's an MMO) that have had troubled, messy production cycles and awkward reception. This is their flagship series and they keep screwing things up. This can't go on

[X]

Maybe they need to go back to what made final fantasy 'final fantasy' rather then what we've been getting instead. FF14 wasn't bad. I played a bit of it and it was a fantasy-style world despite being an MMO. But the other recent ones I just don't see the final fantasy in them at all.

[Super Waffle]

I think what happened is he just finished reading https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12336925/1/Getting-Crazy-with-the-Daisy and immediately retired after realizing he could never surpass its brilliance.

[Aiddon]

Maybe they need to go back to what made final fantasy 'final fantasy' rather then what we've been getting instead. FF14 wasn't bad. I played a bit of it and it was a fantasy-style world despite being an MMO. But the other recent ones I just don't see the final fantasy in them at all.

Not really, because with years of reflection, if anything they need to step away from giving FF an "identity." FF is a weird series in that it doesn't really have any recurring narrative themes or motifs. I-VII, regardless of quality (high as it was on average), kept doing something new with the series. They were really experimental and never really rehashed things. The only thing they've had in common are being fantasy games. Heck, VII, by far the biggest one in the public consciousness to this day, went from medieval and steampunk to outright futuristic with some interesting social and environmental commentary. Even Sephiroth and Jenova are very different villains, the latter especially being this weird alien life form instead of the usual supernatural threats.

The point of FF is to do new things, make new worlds and explore new ideas and characters. Looking to its past entries for inspiration is a bad idea. That's okay for stuff like XIV, which is an MMO so it's really more of a celebration and pastiche of stuff from the entire franchise, but the mainline series needs to be bolder. The hints of this started with IX going back and being a nostalgia trip for no real reason. Yeah, those Easter eggs are kinda neat, but they're also kinda shallow and preditably safe. It really became a problem with XII when guys like Kitase seemed to believe that there was this "image" of FF that needed to be maintained and as such it's why that game's story is so disparate. (Then again, Kitase did say he believes people "age out" of FF which means he doesn't actually have confidence in the series.) This is also why the VII Remake is probably ill-fated.

But before all that, this is the main problem Square needs to fix: that they have a problem getting, identifying, and keeping talent. The exodus has been going on for awhile, with Takahashi having left shortly after Xenogears to found Monolith-Soft, but it really kicked when Matsuno dropped out of FFXII's production halfway through because he had enough of dealing with meddlesome executives. Since then Square has HEMORRHAGED talent. They basically have no wise veterans equivalent to, say, Miyamoto, Sakamoto, Aonuma, etc over at Nintendo and as such don't really have any leaders. It also doesn't help that the current guys in charge have no eye for talent. Kitase tried to make Motomu Toriyama the new golden boy, but he was a walking disaster, making not only one of the most divisive FF's in history with XIII, but then trying to cram two sequels down the players' throats and scuttling both the Front Mission and Parasite Eve series with horrendously written entries. The man was a complete bust. And because of difficulty in getting talent they basically have no rising stars.

So, before anything else, Square needs to sit down and figure itself out. They need to think about what direction to take things, because this is clearly affecting the production process and that happening to their mainline series consistently is bad. Because of this, don't expect to hear about FFXVI for a good, long while.

[X]

Even Sephiroth and Jenova are very different villains, the latter especially being this weird alien life form instead of the usual supernatural threats.

Have you not completed Final Fantasy 4? The boss was not supernatural in that game. Zeromus was a f**kin' alien!

And I agree with the Square-enix situation. But personally FF needs to go back to what made the series great and that was its fantasy setting. Even FF6, while steampunk in theme, was still very much in a fantasy setting, especially the second half of the game. FF7 was a very strong departure from the established formula and I feel this is where the series was no longer FF for me. I played 7 for a time but it just wasn't doing anything for me. 8 was terrible for its overly complex system that I was never able to grasp. 9 felt more like a traditional FF game with its theme and I still occasionally play that one. as for the rest minus 14? I've read about them but never tried them. They just don't come off as being FF. And yeah, the guy who did the FF13 series? Christ, was he a basket case. His whole obsession with the character Lightning is a must for those wanting to get into the psychologist practice 

[Aiddon]

Have you not completed Final Fantasy 4? The boss was not supernatural in that game. Zeromus was a f**kin' alien!

And I agree with the Square-enix situation. But personally FF needs to go back to what made the series great and that was its fantasy setting. Even FF6, while steampunk in theme, was still very much in a fantasy setting, especially the second half of the game. FF7 was a very strong departure from the established formula and I feel this is where the series was no longer FF for me. I played 7 for a time but it just wasn't doing anything for me. 8 was terrible for its overly complex system that I was never able to grasp. 9 felt more like a traditional FF game with its theme and I still occasionally play that one. as for the rest minus 14? I've read about them but never tried them. They just don't come off as being FF. And yeah, the guy who did the FF13 series? Christ, was he a basket case. His whole obsession with the character Lightning is a must for those wanting to get into the psychologist practice 

Yeah, he was an alien, but if anything that reinforces that FF has not been straight medieval fantasy for a long time, if ever. Heck, that's actually part of the problem: what constitutes "fantasy" anyway? Restricting it to set parameters like "it must be medieval!" is a bit odd. FF is not a series like Zelda, Fire Emblem, Castlevania, or even SE's own Dragon Quest where there are recurring motifs, themes, or settings. The whole point of every entry is (or at least was) to do something new, bringing in new worlds, different themes, characters, terminology, so it's always a fresh start. It's an anthology. The reason FFIX didn't make a big splash during its release was partly because it was obsessed with going back to the series "roots" and as such doesn't really have an identity of its own.

It was same problem that befell XII, XIII, and XV. The executives forced Matsuno to make XII more "traditional" (whatever the hell that means for the series) and as such that game is a mess in terms of story, being this wishy-washy end product that can't decide to be either a political intrigue plot or a save the world plot. XIII and XV are clearly trying to be the next FFVII, Lightning even being a blatant copy of Cloud...except forgetting what made Cloud iconic and endearing (yet another issue: producers having a very selective memory of what made the classics good and usually coming back with drastic misinterpretations). Again, trying to go back to past entries like they're holding some secret with their setting, characters, or story or engaging in this misbegotten idea that there is a "traditional" FF. That doesn't exist, it never has.

But again, before any of that, it's mostly a production issue in that the higher ups keep meddling with their creators instead of just letting them do their jobs. That's what they really need to do, especially since these games keep taking really long to come out, not because of making sure they're carefully crafted and meticulously designed, but because of general incompetence. Furthermore they plain need to get better creators because the current crop isn't cutting it.

[Dracula9]

square's problem is it has this weird vision for things that isn't really lined up with reality and do everything possible to force it on their production teams

the fact they have, at best, a teetering understanding of their fanbases certainly doesn't help either

but in their defense a bit, what else is there for them to do, really?

looking at I-IX, what's there--plotwise and thematically?

-time travel in high fantasy
-high fantasy where a dude's whole plan is to be an asshole so he can be killed by heroes and go to hell and take over
-high fantasy with an evil cloud who wants to erase reality because reasons
-high fantasy but slightly scifi with moon people and a return of the jedi ending
-high fantasy but also slightly scifi with meteor spaceships and an evil tree who wants to erase reality because reasons
-half high-fantasy with believable industrial revolutions in place with demigods and a sociopathic god clown
-scifi with very minor fantasy elements about aliens and soul magic and a dude so OP even ichigo backed out
-modernized world following a cataclysmic event that turns into a time travel acid trip with demigod women and amnesia
-return to pseudo high fantasy with a vastly cohesive world, and then aliens and clones and mind control and planet cloning and more references than a marvel cameo

and i'll give X a special mention despite how much i dislike 90% of it

-kill god with your imaginary friend who has daddy issues and a bubble soccer sword, but loljk nothing you did actually matters in the end also you have to kill all your magic murder slaves

so with all this in mind...where the hell do you GO from all that? it comes as no surprise their post-IX iterations are all over the place in terms of lore and thematic quality, since to try to step out of their established box and try something new...they actually have to tone all the fantastical shit down by a considerable amount in order to deviate from their then-norm

but this doesn't excuse a lot of the highly questionable and "okay what the literal fuck are you guys DOING" choices they have and seem to be intent on continuing to make, in fairness

i can see where they're coming from in certain respects, but squeenix still really needs to sit down and get their shit in order

[zangetsu468]

what constitutes "fantasy" anyway? Restricting it to set parameters like "it must be medieval!" is a bit odd. FF is not a series like Zelda, Fire Emblem, Castlevania, or even SE's own Dragon Quest where there are recurring motifs, themes, or settings. The whole point of every entry is (or at least was) to do something new, bringing in new worlds, different themes, characters, terminology, so it's always a fresh start.

I agree with this. The thing is more so that a lot of games in early days were either sci-fi or medieval, not really both. Yeah there are some cases (like Phantasy Star for example) where the lines are blurred, but for the most part it felt like the same series had the same recurring motifs. Shit I mean look how long it took Zelda to incorporate "technology"(rather than ancient or alien technology) it wasn't until SS we saw robots fixing things and flying around, and how many Zelda's had passed in between.

The reason FFIX didn't make a big splash during its release was partly because it was obsessed with going back to the series "roots" and as such doesn't really have an identity of its own.

I never liked FFIX, from the first day I saw it at a mate's house, he got to that scene where the villain (or whoever) sees Odin the summon and is dazzled. I was thinking wtf is this nostalgia trip that's being portrayed as so amazing...

It was amazing in VII, that was years ago. IX seemed childish to me and as a fan of both VII and VIII I couldn't feel engaged by it at all.

Yes as Dracula9 mentioned the end of VIII was just weird, but it came with a premise, the characters and graphical style seemed more mature than VII and the gameplay brought a level of innovation with the trigger prompts to inflict more damage during battle. The music was also fantastic, I didn't love the villain or the fact that you couldn't go back after entering the mind-fuck part of the game, but those things aside it was still good. I actually missed X and never got the chance to play it, and although I agree XII's story shifts from Vaan to Ash quite drastically (it should've stayed about Vaan) the game itself was pretty damn good. I was addicted to it for a while and it did have some decent challenges.   

I think sometimes disjointed things work and other times they don't. For example - and I'm making up terms here - Hallway XIII and Pulse XIII worked for me. I liked the balance that the game had from going to a straight forward narrative into an open-world exploration game. I like that in XV you go from American-style diners into industrial places teeming with spectres cloaked in soldier uniforms that try to kill you. I'm not a huge fan of the main campaign occurring off the map, but the memory system rectifies this imho. It's open areas (most of the game) work quite well, while its hallway sections feel clostrophobic and awkward when juxtaposed with the gameplay (in most instances). Sometimes vastly different things work, sometimes they don't.

Part of the issue Square will have is that they've been capitalising on the success of FFVII for so long now. First it was FFVII, then Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus etc. The game has had its time in the limelight. They even said that remaking FFVII wouldn't happen for many years, then they announced an FFVII remake... Seeing KH4 was meant for the PS3, the VII remake announcement came way too early tbh, it's making Metroid Prime 4 seem like a preemie.

In a sense I believe they do need to re-define their identity and the identity of the franchise - which may well be scatterbrain but that's what works for the franchise as a whole - otherwise they'll just lapse and do the same thing again and again. Why not have a castle that lifts off the ground and hovers like a UFO and call it Highwind Castle? I'm just spitballing here, but many franchises have done things like this an executed them well. Sonic for one, you get ancient ruins loaded with red springboards, it can be done. 

[X]

Why not have a castle that lifts off the ground and hovers like a UFO and call it Highwind Castle?

They had a flying castle in the original Final Fantasy. Tiamat ruled it after she and Kraken downed the ancient civilisation that ruled the northern regions prior.

[zangetsu468]

They had a flying castle in the original Final Fantasy. Tiamat ruled it after she and Kraken downed the ancient civilisation that ruled the northern regions prior.

Fair enough, I never played the first FF all the way through. My point is that they can have weird stuff and normalise it.

I think the only recurring theme in FF aside from the fantasy aspect is that a group of people who otherwise may not have met wind up banding together on a journey. Not going to lie, XV is one of my most played games of all time, but I would've appreciated it more if the open-ended aspect was pushed much more like Zelda, rather than having everything in the overworld and the story on rails going into foreign places which feel more like FFXII did. The overworld in XV basically has it all, they should have just focused on that and had the whole Altissia thing occur in a part of the map that was accessible. (I really just disliked that part of the game in general, the rest is fine, even though it's not necessarily on the main overworld map) i.e. go to 12 shrines, find the King's Weapons, you need x number to reach the final boss, progress from there. I feel like they tried to put too much story into it, and even though I think it's cool to see snippets of Cloud losing Aeris, particularly in the scene where Noctis loses Luna, I see using successful elements that have been repeated becoming a potential hazard if not handled with care in an ongoing sense.

[Shiroi Koumori]

What I know from reading things on the development side of XV, they spent more time on the Lucis map than the second half of the story. The executives forced them to rush the story to meet the hard deadline. Thus the 2nd half was rushed. In those videos that went out of bounds, there were possible places for dungeons and other explorable bits in the 2nd half of the game, but was never finished.

[Dracula9]

"Hallway XIII"

tbh 13 was actually really damn good and a breath of fresh air as far as lore and worldbuilding and even a large portion of the writing and acting goes (if you can look past a LOT of sickeningly hopeful dialogue told with more cheese than a certain cake factory)

its biggest problem was simply that...it was, truly, Hallway XIII

hard to get immersed in this great world when it's apparently one big straight line

frankly this is how most of the entire 13 trilogy goes, i think -- mostly solid worldbuilding and lore bogged down by either shit gameplay or writing/acting that either leans onto disgustingly sweet and "power of friendship and love" or laughably edgy (see: 95% of everything that comes out of caius' mouth) sucking the player right out of any immersion that might've been there

(click to show/hide)

13-1: general premise of good/bad "gods" and their human slaves, the supergod that just wants to die so all of them can see MEGAgod again, mostly decent social commentary throughout, and literally every scene barthandelus is chewing the hell out of

13-2: the "last human" angle and a moderate chunk of noel's backstory is appropriately tragic and not unbearably so, the former mcguffin-in-distress serah taking center stage as a capable woman was a pleasant changeup, and lightning in that armor was some nice eyecandy and no i have zero shame in admitting it because both she and the armor itself are equally attractive, chocolina was genuinely funny in her ditziness at least for a little while before she and her overplayed sex appeal (seriously what was with that, i spent the first game loving the adorable little smartass bird that lived in an afro, that same bird being human and hot confuses my penis and i don't like that one bit) got grating and annoying

13-3/LR: some good looks into "what humanity might be like when it's on the verge of literal extinction", particularly with snow who flipped from overly optimistic to overly depressed in a believable fashion, good ol' RELIGION BE CRAY YO, and doing the "go kill god because he's an asshole" thing way better than 10 did because this time god's not mindless and actually has reasons for being a shit that make sense from the stance of a deity, and bhunivelze has the single greatest design in the FF series change my mind

IX seemed childish to me and as a fan of both VII and VIII I couldn't feel engaged by it at all.

i'll be honest with you, zang -- give 9 another shot if you think you can get past its blatant references and mashups of "basically every FF that came before it"

we all generally play FF for its story, and 9's will rip your guts right out once you're done with it

it's IMO one of the better examples of diverse character studies through the series and will always recommend it to people on that front alone, but in the end if it isn't for you then it isn't for you (still can't suggest hard enough to give it another shake, though)

They had a flying castle in the original Final Fantasy

Fair enough, I never played the first FF all the way through.

be glad you never made it to warmech's playground

be glad, you lucky son of a bitch

[Aiddon]

What I know from reading things on the development side of XV, they spent more time on the Lucis map than the second half of the story. The executives forced them to rush the story to meet the hard deadline. Thus the 2nd half was rushed. In those videos that went out of bounds, there were possible places for dungeons and other explorable bits in the 2nd half of the game, but was never finished.

XV's development is by far the messiest and most drawn out FF development cycle ever. I thought nothing would surpass XII's famously troubled production which caused its director to say "Screw it!" and leave after the executives forced him to change protagonists and makes the story more "traditional" (again, an empty term) which led to poor Minagawa and Ito left to pick up the pieces and make something workable out of it. It was "playable", but that's different from "good." This is why I don't blame Tabata fully because making something "workable" isn't really a good end goal for games.

But again, before anything else Square needs to figure itself out. They've got no mentors, they have no rising stars, thus they have no leaders and they're scattershot as hell. They just don't have the talent anymore and with every mainline FF since XII and beyond having trouble production cycles due to executive meddling (XII) or just gross incompetence (XIII). They need to realign themselves if they're going to keep making FF titles.

[zangetsu468]

@Dracula9 I know exactly what you mean about IX and maybe one day I will try it because there are games I've felt like that about such as Granstream Saga, where I look passed a lot of imperfections. However, I can't bridge that gap with IX, it just doesn't appeal to me personally in terms of presentation and it feels like a de-volution somehow from the grittier and more industrial undertones which fewer games possessed at the time but yet the previous FF's did have, I liked that about them.

I actually don't mind Hallway XIII, particularly that it's balanced by Pulse XIII. One of my guilty pleasures was XIII. Although I admit it was cliché, Lightning was basically less tragic Cloud and Snow was basically Squall x Zell, I like it. I like the in-game world, the characters (aside from Fang, her kiwi accent sucks) and the OST is great.