Imagine being able to interact with other characters in the Final Fantasy games like you can in Mass Effect. Imagine how drastically different the interactions between characters would be if you could do that as Cloud, Squall, or other characters. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea, since JRPGs are extremely linear in nature, but I think it might be interesting to see what it would be like, what do you think?

Then the protagonists would be empty cyphers, rather than actual characters, and the overall central plot would become far less focused and weaker over all in order to maintain the illusion that your choices actually mean anything in the long run.  No thanks.

They would still suck

They would still suck

Then the protagonists would be empty cyphers, rather than actual characters, and the overall central plot would become far less focused and weaker over all in order to maintain the illusion that your choices actually mean anything in the long run.  No thanks.

Personally, I don't think it would really work in a Final Fantasy setting.

@Hailinel said:

Then the protagonists would be empty cyphers, rather than actual characters, and the overall central plot would become far less focused and weaker over all in order to maintain the illusion that your choices actually mean anything in the long run.  No thanks.

Except Commander Shepard is an infinitely more interested character than anyone from the recent Final Fantasy games, despite the fact his/her general personality changes depending on how you play. Not that it's something I necessarily want in Final Fantasy, or think the developers would be able to do very well..  But playing as a more custom defined characters over the likes of Vaan or Tidus would be very welcome.

Personally, I don't think it would really work in a Final Fantasy setting.

If they did that to Final Fantasy then I might finally start caring about Final Fantasy.
 
...and then I'll realize I like Mass Effect more and begin once again to ignore the Final Fantasy series as a whole. 

Then the main character won't cry all the time.

They would still suck

What if the Final Fantasy games brought back the fucking JOB SYSTEM? 
 That would be the only thing that could get me interested in these games again.

@Hailinel said:

Then the protagonists would be empty cyphers, rather than actual characters, and the overall central plot would become far less focused and weaker over all in order to maintain the illusion that your choices actually mean anything in the long run.  No thanks.

Except Commander Shepard is an infinitely more interested character than anyone from the recent Final Fantasy games, despite the fact his/her general personality changes depending on how you play. Not that it's something I necessarily want in Final Fantasy, or think the developers would be able to do very well..  But playing as a more custom defined characters over the likes of Vaan or Tidus would be very welcome.

Final Fantasy VII featured dialogue trees with choices that had a decisive impact on later events in the game-world, ten years before Mass Effect. 
  

-Whine like a bitch.
-Come up with some stupid plan.
-Sigh.
Interesting choices, really.
How about they focus on FF not sucking?

final fanatsy 1-10 are ten times better than mass effect and they didn't have choices !! so i think they don't need it  imo . 

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Hailinel said:

Then the protagonists would be empty cyphers, rather than actual characters, and the overall central plot would become far less focused and weaker over all in order to maintain the illusion that your choices actually mean anything in the long run.  No thanks.

Except Commander Shepard is an infinitely more interested character than anyone from the recent Final Fantasy games, despite the fact his/her general personality changes depending on how you play. Not that it's something I necessarily want in Final Fantasy, or think the developers would be able to do very well..  But playing as a more custom defined characters over the likes of Vaan or Tidus would be very welcome.

Yes, because the Mass Effect manner of character interaction did such a bang-up job for Dragon Age II, as well.

That's never gonna happen. Japanese devs dont want ANYONE to interfere with their magnificent storytelling talents. Specifically not you, the player!!! How DARE you? Fuck up their superb and perfect story???
 
What? You want to customize a character??? Fuck off!!!

I never understood why BioWare receives so much praise for their dialogue system as I personally find it to be severely flawed. You could be asked a question with extreme urgency in the heat of battle and decide to just kick back, relax, and inquire about the lore for the next 10 minutes. By the time you answer the question it has nothing to do with the topic at hand and just sounds extremely awkward. Not once in a BioWare game was I convinced that these were real people having a real conversation. DA2 was even worse than ME2 in that regard as my character always came across as bipolar and having some serious anger management issues unless I stuck to one attitude throughout a given conversation.
 
Your choices also don't carry any weight and all you're really doing is deciding which voice clip will be played next. At the end of the day, It doesn't matter if you said nice things or rude things or punched a few people in the face, you're still playing as the good guy. At least the Fallout series allows you to play as someone genuinely evil. A true psychopath who wants to destroy humanity. If it was up to me, I wouldn't save Earth in ME3, so BioWare had better come up with some damn good incentive to get my Shepard to comply.
 
When I look back to the WRPGs I've played, I don't think about what little story I encountered, but moreso how much of a bad-ass my character was. That's great and all, but I don't see any reason why all games should be like that. Especially not the FF series, which has always been the polar opposite of WRPGs. 

Imagine if Final Fantasy even had some decent voice acting, so maybe you could actually tolerate the characters instead of cringing every time you get to a cutscene.  That might be enough of a baby step forward for me to actually enjoy the next FF game.

If FF games had choices that exist in a vacuum and don't really matter it wouldn't change anything but I guess some people are into that gimmick, so it couldn't hurt. While we're at it, make it a shooter. You know, "Innovation". 
Now if you mean FF could use choices that actually matter, well that could be fun. But "Mass Effect" style choices don't matter. Everyone played ME2 from the exact same beginning and reached the same ending (give or take a few coffins) for how much your choices mattered throughout the game. But for choices to actually matter, you have to actually exclude content. Exclude a pathway and a big bundle of possible sidequests. You can't go "choices matter but you can still do 95% of all quests and the main quest is the same no matter what" cus that's the very definition of choices not mattering. And I don't mind that shit too much, it just doesn't add anything to the game for me.

The potential here, as I see it, is being able to choose whether you want all that exposition to a character or not. If you're interested and want to get to know them better, you can exhaust all options and hear their story instead of being forced to do so.

The potential here, as I see it, is being able to choose whether you want all that exposition to a character or not. If you're interested and want to get to know them better, you can exhaust all options and hear their story instead of being forced to do so.

I liked the last Final Fantasy :(  I would still love to see a Japanese take on the Bioware style RPG.   The JRPG genre in general is dying and maybe borrowing elements from Western RPG  would help.