Topic: The game company apologist ("Companies Exist to Make Money" excuse)

[Kale]

I have to wonder what their profit on that game is...

I think you're missing out by not playing 9 at least. It's very reminiscent of the older FF games. I also liked 7 for it's combat system, 8 overall, and tactics overall.

[TheCruelAngel]

Hurrah for another fan of VIII! I seriously run into more haters of VIII but turn around and adore X, who then in turn hate on XIII, despite it being just as linear and with less interesting characters! >_< WRRRRRYYY~

Though, I know a lot of old school FF fans (as in I-VI) also tend to adore Tactics, so I do recommend it as well.

But I think Square is a good example of a company that's run off of it's mark and definitely...just trying to make money. I think a lot of that is tied with Hironobu Sakaguchi leaving the company and starting Mist Walker (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey and The Last Story are win!), he was a lot of the life blood in Square and you can tell that after he left a lot of the...I don't know what to say but..."quality"? had gone down. I think you can tell they're trying really hard to make another "VII" since it was such a huge blockbuster hit (it's super apparent with XIII), and instead of trying to create something new and exciting, they're just trying to revise the glory days because they think it will print them money.

I also have to wonder what a huge blunder like FFXIV did to Square and how they'll start moving forward when it comes to new games (as opposed to rehashes of old games). I mean, I bought FFXIV since I thought it would be sweet like FFXI, but the quality just wasn't there. I'm tentative about FFXIV: Realm Reborn...but I'll probably try it, since I was dumb enough to buy it the first time around. To go with someone's comment earlier, FFXIV, for all intents and purposes was a failure. And I think Square is at least slightly smart enough to learn from their failures. I hope the failure was a good slap to the face and will open their eyes to see the state of the market, their company and what consumers want.

Because somehow Sakaguchi still knows!  Seriously, guy is so boss.

[Ratty]

Yeah you're missing out if you skip Final Fantasy 9. It's the last hoorah for traditional non sci-fi style Final Fantasy. It was originally going to be a spinoff but the quality was such that they made it a numbered game. Plus I think Sakaguchi once said it was his favorite in the series, though that could have just been for advertising.
Seriously though great characters, touching story. Some of the best artwork and music on the PSX. Worth playing to say the least.

[son_the_vampire]

worth playing indeed! i never got to beat ozma though! that was a tough opti boss lol

[Sonic_Reaper]

well for the record because people keep mentioning them;  FFIX was alright.  Never finished it.  Lost interest after awhile.  I will say that I appreciated the characters.  They were much better defined from the shallow holes masquerading as characters in VII and VIII, and the game itself had a much more light hearted feel, which IMO, it benefited from.  Especially after the migraine inducing emo fest that was VII and VIII.  As to why I lost interest, not really sure why. 

Tactics is and was amazing.  I have personally spent over 1000 hours on the PS game, nevermind the iOS version, or the online tournaments I've partaken in.  It too, though, just lost it's glimmer for me.  Mind you, that was after exploring it to the depths and beyond, multiple times over.  The only reason I don't play it anymore, is because I just literally played way too much of it.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Yeah you're missing out if you skip Final Fantasy 9. It's the last hoorah for traditional non sci-fi style Final Fantasy. It was originally going to be a spinoff but the quality was such that they made it a numbered game. Plus I think Sakaguchi once said it was his favorite in the series, though that could have just been for advertising.
Seriously though great characters, touching story. Some of the best artwork and music on the PSX. Worth playing to say the least.

If I remember correctly, I think it was also written on the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary History Book at the Interviews section.
Personally, I like 9 the best. I really love the plot of this FF.

[Kale]

I hated Necro(Did I get that right?) though, he seemed to just popped out of nowhere, and said I'm the boss, beat me!
9 was awesome for me because of 2 things.... Vivi, and the Black Waltz! Okay, maybe 3, the Bahamut Alexander fight was awesome.....
I hated FF13 though. And while I liked some of FFX, most of it was meh. Gotta love the To Zanarkand theme though.

Final Fantasy X OST : To Zanarkand

I also really liked Lost Odyssey, but I never beat it. I kept getting stuck at one place or another then I stop. Can't say the same for Blue Dragon though.

[son_the_vampire]

I hated Necro(Did I get that right?) though, he seemed to just popped out of nowhere, and said I'm the boss, beat me!
9 was awesome for me because of 2 things.... Vivi, and the Black Waltz! Okay, maybe 3, the Bahamut Alexander fight was awesome.....
I hated FF13 though. And while I liked some of FFX, most of it was meh. Gotta love the To Zanarkand theme though.

Final Fantasy X OST : To Zanarkand

I also really liked Lost Odyssey, but I never beat it. I kept getting stuck at one place or another then I stop. Can't say the same for Blue Dragon though.

blitzball was great. never beat shinryuu :::::snaps fingers

[DragonSlayr81]

Final Fantasy is a shell of what it used to be. Doesn't help that they have someone like Toriyama in a place to make vital decisions about things when he should just be an event director with little to no actual input regarding the story or general direction of the series. His writing's barfferoni. Love Spoony's rant on the game(most of it is pure nitpicking fun, but he does make some interest points and I totally agree with his loathing for the writer, Toriyama):

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/12/15/final-fantasy-xiii-part-1/
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/12/31/final-fantasy-xiii-part-2/

It's funny, because many rag on Sakaguchi and how his MistWalker games aren't close to being FF good, but after I played The Last Story, while it might not be the best RPG esperience ever, and certainly not the most original, there was something about it that, at it's soul/spirit, felt like what was missing from the FF series for a LONG time.

[TheCruelAngel]

Sakaguchi really is a missing element from the FF series, and I think long time fans can really feel it when they play through the games.

And yeah, while The Last Story isn't the end all be all RPG experience, it has so much charm and character that you really can't help but love it. 

Also, Square Enix is posting bad numbers again. =\ I wonder how this bodes for (imo) development hell Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

[DragonSlayr81]

Sakaguchi really is a missing element from the FF series, and I think long time fans can really feel it when they play through the games.

And yeah, while The Last Story isn't the end all be all RPG experience, it has so much charm and character that you really can't help but love it. 

Also, Square Enix is posting bad numbers again. =\ I wonder how this bodes for (imo) development hell Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

It's funny, because I see a lot of people online saying the same thing, "Make and release games the fans are asking for, don't make games NOBODY'S asking for!". I don't think anybody truly wanted a FFXIII-2, because the end of the first one was pretty closed-ended(even though certain characters were rendered into a specific "object"). You'd think, logically, if a game does well(FFXIII, for being bad, did alright), the next logical step(since FFXIV was obviously going to be MMORPG) would be to focus on a sequel to the SERIES, not to FFXIII specifically. I think the "direct sequel" thing was what really started to annoy me. FFX-2 being the first one to churn my stomach. It just felt like an obvious sellout move, in the way Disney did in the late Eisner years when we got crap like Cinderella 2 and Aladdin 3. Who really wanted Lady and the Tramp 6?! I don't give a friggin DAMN about Ariel's daughter. For me, when the original movie ends, finito, that's it. Move on to the next new movie. Same for Final Fantasy. Square, IMO, needs someone to shake up their sensabilities like when Eisner left Disney. Someone to come in and try to put the pieces back together. I think Wada's one of the main culprit hindering Square.

[TheCruelAngel]

I would argue, to an extent, that Nomura doesn't help much either. Another horrible entity that, I think, is really stifling Square are the fans.

Now, I don't mean casual fans of Final Fantasy, or long term old school fans, who understand that each Final Fantasy should be unique and there shouldn't be any direct sequels. Once the game is done, you're done with that world. I mean, rabbid horrible fans that live, breathe and eat materia for breakfast.

You know the type I'm talking about; "We want more Final Fantasy VII!" "Where's Final Fantasy VII HD?" "Kyaa~ Sephiroth and Cloud are my waifu/husbando, otp, etc. etc." They cry the loudest and foulest when a FF title doesn't meet the criteria for their penultimate FF, since clearly they have the most sugoi taste (yeah, now I'm getting out of hand).

Who care if FFVII has dated graphics? It still works, you can easily get it on PSN, and possibly Steam in the future. Square has better, and more deserving titles that could use a HD remake (and in all honesty, none of them need it, because rose-tinted glasses). I understand world building is difficult business, and takes a large amount of time, but I think a lot of FFXIII's world was superfluous. FFIX's world wasn't that intricate with all sorts of weird terms, rules, etc.; and I don't think anyone really cared.

I think, for a lot of us FF fans from yesteryear, we enjoyed a compelling, and at some times, deep story. Exploring a skewed version of our world with fantastic technology, magic, or even magi-tech! Combat was never super deep, and we could always grind for hours on end to make any battle a breeze. We loved the music, the art, the characters. So...where has it all gone? Why am I suddenly trudging through a hallway where everyone is talking about these...weirdly named things? Sure the combat is unique and can be excited, but...what do I care about these people? One's a whiny brat who can't express himself, the other a half-cocked show off to cover his uncertainty. What do I care about the fate of their... Cocoon? Is that...a planet? Country? Oh wait, it's a giant biosphere thing...in the sky...with airships inside of it? What?

Back in...2005? We heard about XIII, Versus XIII and how they were going to share stuff together, and it was kind of exciting. Especially since XII was kind of a let down (it would of done a lot better on better hardware, i.e. more RAM for more environment and less loading). Then XIII came out back in...2010? Still no Versus XIII, and the title, was again, a bit of a let down. XIV came out shortly after and was a major let down. So...where was the announcement for XV (I imagine it's being held off for PS4/720 development)?

Financially, I can understand why they're doing sequels and not main series. For each new title, Square develops a new engine, from scratch (I imagine) and develops technology for that series based around that engine. So with something like FFX-2, FFXIII-2 and Lighting Returns: FFXIII, rehashing your old code, making a couple new assets, etc. is cheaper...but it's not something us fans really want.

Kojima Pro ran into this when developing MGS4, and so they created a new engine (FOX engine) that is more flexible. I believe Capcom did the same thing with their Unity engine. I hope Square uses this approach and create a dynamic and flexible engine that they can use across multiple platforms and to develop a variety of different titles. =\

[DragonSlayr81]

I would argue, to an extent, that Nomura doesn't help much either. Another horrible entity that, I think, is really stifling Square are the fans.

Now, I don't mean casual fans of Final Fantasy, or long term old school fans, who understand that each Final Fantasy should be unique and there shouldn't be any direct sequels. Once the game is done, you're done with that world. I mean, rabbid horrible fans that live, breathe and eat materia for breakfast.

You know the type I'm talking about; "We want more Final Fantasy VII!" "Where's Final Fantasy VII HD?" "Kyaa~ Sephiroth and Cloud are my waifu/husbando, otp, etc. etc." They cry the loudest and foulest when a FF title doesn't meet the criteria for their penultimate FF, since clearly they have the most sugoi taste (yeah, now I'm getting out of hand).

Who care if FFVII has dated graphics? It still works, you can easily get it on PSN, and possibly Steam in the future. Square has better, and more deserving titles that could use a HD remake (and in all honesty, none of them need it, because rose-tinted glasses). I understand world building is difficult business, and takes a large amount of time, but I think a lot of FFXIII's world was superfluous. FFIX's world wasn't that intricate with all sorts of weird terms, rules, etc.; and I don't think anyone really cared.

I think, for a lot of us FF fans from yesteryear, we enjoyed a compelling, and at some times, deep story. Exploring a skewed version of our world with fantastic technology, magic, or even magi-tech! Combat was never super deep, and we could always grind for hours on end to make any battle a breeze. We loved the music, the art, the characters. So...where has it all gone? Why am I suddenly trudging through a hallway where everyone is talking about these...weirdly named things? Sure the combat is unique and can be excited, but...what do I care about these people? One's a whiny brat who can't express himself, the other a half-cocked show off to cover his uncertainty. What do I care about the fate of their... Cocoon? Is that...a planet? Country? Oh wait, it's a giant biosphere thing...in the sky...with airships inside of it? What?

Back in...2005? We heard about XIII, Versus XIII and how they were going to share stuff together, and it was kind of exciting. Especially since XII was kind of a let down (it would of done a lot better on better hardware, i.e. more RAM for more environment and less loading). Then XIII came out back in...2010? Still no Versus XIII, and the title, was again, a bit of a let down. XIV came out shortly after and was a major let down. So...where was the announcement for XV (I imagine it's being held off for PS4/720 development)?

Financially, I can understand why they're doing sequels and not main series. For each new title, Square develops a new engine, from scratch (I imagine) and develops technology for that series based around that engine. So with something like FFX-2, FFXIII-2 and Lighting Returns: FFXIII, rehashing your old code, making a couple new assets, etc. is cheaper...but it's not something us fans really want.

Kojima Pro ran into this when developing MGS4, and so they created a new engine (FOX engine) that is more flexible. I believe Capcom did the same thing with their Unity engine. I hope Square uses this approach and create a dynamic and flexible engine that they can use across multiple platforms and to develop a variety of different titles. =\

I think, sometimes, the minimalist approach works better than trying to make a story and world so complex, chocked full of ideas, it becomes just too much to handle. I can understand, you have an imagination, Toriyama. Imagination is a great and wonderful thing, but you gotta know how to focus. You can't just pop out ideas and try to stuff as much as you can into a game or game world. Especially if it hinders the story. I recall people saying, "Oh, FFXIII's story makes sense to why they don't explain everything, because not only do the characters KNOW about their world's 'logic', the fast paced story(as in, they are on the run and don't have time to smell the roses) doesn't allow it!". Still, though, you have to think, any REAL, capable writer not only COULD squeeze in exposition to let the player(who is unfamiliar with the world) in on everything without resorting to the lazyass cliffnotes datalog, a REAL writer could do it so good WHILE retaining the pacing of the story.

When I think of Toriyama, I think of this guy who, while the team is hard at work developing the game, he comes in every hour and says, "Hey guys, I have another new idea. Let's add THIS into the mix!". So, basically, he's just making stuff up as they go along, which results in this total hodgepodge of a monstrosity that is just kinda just schlumped together, with caution blown to the wind. He makes up the rules as they go along, which is pretty obvious with FFXIII-2. Chances are, Lightning Returns will bring up it's own unique set of rules that differ from that of both FFXIII and FFXIII-2. In the end, it's just Toriyama ex Machina.

I agree with the rabid FF fans. I really hate those guys. Though, you get fans like that with a lot of series. They are the gamers equivalent to kids who want candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, it's bad for kids to eat that much candy. It's one of those things you just shouldn't encourage. The lack of self control and balance really wrecks everything good in life. I mean, trends are a great example. Trends usually start off on the heels of a dying, previous trend. The new trend is fresh, and get's people's attention because it's different from the previous trend, and becomes big. Then, people within the trend want more, and more, and MORE. Oversaturation of the trend leads to overkill. The trend's days are numbered because, quite frankly, people can't control themselves. Of course, companies(be it music, fashion and such) play into the trend. It's like addict mentality. There's no savoring something good, no moderation. It's all gorging until you get sick of it. That sort of quality of humanity churns my stomach. It's like we are our own worst enemies. We wonder why we can't have good things, and it's apparent WE are the reason why we can't have good things.

[TheCruelAngel]

(click to show/hide)

I think, sometimes, the minimalist approach works better than trying to make a story and world so complex, chocked full of ideas, it becomes just too much to handle. I can understand, you have an imagination, Toriyama. Imagination is a great and wonderful thing, but you gotta know how to focus. You can't just pop out ideas and try to stuff as much as you can into a game or game world. Especially if it hinders the story. I recall people saying, "Oh, FFXIII's story makes sense to why they don't explain everything, because not only do the characters KNOW about their world's 'logic', the fast paced story(as in, they are on the run and don't have time to smell the roses) doesn't allow it!". Still, though, you have to think, any REAL, capable writer not only COULD squeeze in exposition to let the player(who is unfamiliar with the world) in on everything without resorting to the lazyass cliffnotes datalog, a REAL writer could do it so good WHILE retaining the pacing of the story.

When I think of Toriyama, I think of this guy who, while the team is hard at work developing the game, he comes in every hour and says, "Hey guys, I have another new idea. Let's add THIS into the mix!". So, basically, he's just making stuff up as they go along, which results in this total hodgepodge of a monstrosity that is just kinda just schlumped together, with caution blown to the wind. He makes up the rules as they go along, which is pretty obvious with FFXIII-2. Chances are, Lightning Returns will bring up it's own unique set of rules that differ from that of both FFXIII and FFXIII-2. In the end, it's just Toriyama ex Machina.

I agree with the rabid FF fans. I really hate those guys. Though, you get fans like that with a lot of series. They are the gamers equivalent to kids who want candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, it's bad for kids to eat that much candy. It's one of those things you just shouldn't encourage. The lack of self control and balance really wrecks everything good in life. I mean, trends are a great example. Trends usually start off on the heels of a dying, previous trend. The new trend is fresh, and get's people's attention because it's different from the previous trend, and becomes big. Then, people within the trend want more, and more, and MORE. Oversaturation of the trend leads to overkill. The trend's days are numbered because, quite frankly, people can't control themselves. Of course, companies(be it music, fashion and such) play into the trend. It's like addict mentality. There's no savoring something good, no moderation. It's all gorging until you get sick of it. That sort of quality of humanity churns my stomach. It's like we are our own worst enemies. We wonder why we can't have good things, and it's apparent WE are the reason why we can't have good things.

Here, here. +1, couldn't agree more.

[Lashen]

FFV is the greatest thing ever. <_<