I remember the day that I used to be interested in everything that was Square or Enix. From the Final fantasy series to the Dragon quest series they really knew how to execute fantastic gaming experiences.

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm getting older or that the market has grown to a state where other gaming giant's such as Bioware and Bestheda have taken the RPG mantle but to me it really seems that Square Enix has lost the ability to make competive games of this genre.

I thought that FF13 was the game that confirmed my suspicions that S-E has grown stale and it's designers have opted for a linear and very predictable approach but the new game FF13-2 is the first in series that I simply am not going to buy.

I thought that I would wait and read the reviews with this one, I have also watched some game footage and frankly it just looks like a complete waste of time.

How can they really expect me to go from a masterpiece like Skyrim to purchase this??? I am not sure what there target market is anymore, I have either drifted away from it or it's just getting much smaller.

I would give anything if they just realised that it's not all about creating graphics and they put all there resources into making a fixed 3d world or a really pollished 2d or isometric RPG with some REAL exploration and role playing.

Granted i guess Deus ex was an ok game but also after the monumental failure of FF14, it's obvious that the company needs to go back to it's roots, stop thinking about investors and cutting corners, pull some money out of the Art department and plough some resources back into Game design and development.

It really seems like they don't know what to do with Final Fantasy and I don't blame them. What do you do with it at this point? If you make it too much like the older games, it won't appeal much to today's gamers, aside from those that like JRPG's. When they tried to do things differently and make the game more accessible, no one liked it much and they cut corners in a few areas they probably shouldn't have. It's a tricky problem to solve and I'm not confident a Japanese developer could do it.

Well you know what they say about opinions like the one you're spouting right? They are just like assholes. Everyone's got one. One thing though. I really don't understand why you would compare any FInal Fantasy game to SkyRim though. Beyond having a sword and humans in them they are nothing alike.

Yes I did awhile ago.

Never had it so no I didn't lose it. I am annoyed that they still have not done a new Final Fantasy Tactics game on something other then a dam hand held. I would kill to see one of those games done in a full HD fashion of ether sprites or even just good 3D. Seriously. Kill. Just point to the man and he's dead.

No? Why would I?

I think Square Enix had some major growing pains this generation. They got off to a really slow start and just haven't been able to catch up. I think part of the change in Final Fantasy though is just that the majority of people who made that series great have left the company or moved to more managerial positions. That said I'm looking forward to Versus 13 as that is the Kingdom Hearts team which has always put out good stuff.

@ShadowSkill11 said:

Well you know what they say about opinions like the one you're spouting right? They are just like assholes. Everyone's got one. One thing though. I really don't understand why you would compare any FInal Fantasy game to SkyRim though. Beyond having a sword and humans in them they are nothing alike.

I think that you can compare the quality of the 2 games. They are both Role playing experiences. Years ago I would have thought that Final fantasy's direction would of been something closer to this type of game, granted not as sandboxed.

Nope; I like FF13 and 13-2. Square makes some great games still.

Doesn't Square Enix own Eidos? They made Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I'm good with that.

@Astras: So accorsing to your logic it would be perfectly fine to say that Shadow Complex is a better game than Skyrim because it's a quality game?

I feel like the route that has been described by the press, including our very own Jeff Gertsman, is the way for them to go - taking notes from the Western acquisitions and branching out in general. I also totally agree on their inability to go anywhere with the FF franchise. They just need to let the dying horse lie or hand it off to other people (never going to happen). I want a pretty hefty overhaul for the next FF, but I highly doubt that's going to happen which fucking sucks. 

@ShadowSkill11 said:

@Astras: So accorsing to your logic it would be perfectly fine to say that Shadow Complex is a better game than Skyrim because it's a quality game?

accorsing to my logic :P, i'm saying that I would have thought that the FF games of this generation would have had real towns to explore that act as quest and interactive hubs that would have pushed me to explore the surroundings and progress with a story... instead of being shoved relentlessly down some corridor.

As a developer i don't care about them one way or another.

As a publisher they put out a bunch of great stuff. Like my GoTY for 2011 Deus Ex: Human Revolution

@SirOptimusPrime said:

I feel like the route that has been described by the press, including our very own Jeff Gertsman, is the way for them to go - taking notes from the Western acquisitions and branching out in general. I also totally agree on their inability to go anywhere with the FF franchise. They just need to let the dying horse lie or hand it off to other people (never going to happen). I want a pretty hefty overhaul for the next FF, but I highly doubt that's going to happen which fucking sucks.

Agreed, it's a damn shame to be honest. I was kinda clinging to the hope that other RPG's of this generation might have rubbed off on them and they might favour a change in there engine which it seems is still an iteration of the FF10 engine.

It seems that they design there games now around there engine limitations, maybe letting it die would be for the best. As for FF14, is anyone playing that?

Nah they can still publish some good stuff I just lost all faith in final fantasy because 13 and 13-2 look so god damn dumb.

I never give up hope on Square-Enix. All of their games focus on bringing in new people and I believe that most of the people of old don't realize that. You can't expect all of their games to be like the old Final Fantasy's. If they do that, then you will have another typical JRPG developer. We have to give them a break at some point. They're the only ones that are actually trying something new with every game. Yes, Final Fantasy XIII was linear. So what? There are all kinds of linear games out there. I'm just actually glad that Square-Enix managed to fit enough into that game to make it worth my buy.

At this point, Square-Enix should not change a single thing they are doing. Wait, I take that back. There is one thing that they should do. They should remake any of the Final Fantasy's from 4-9. I'm talking about a whole new game using the Final Fantasy XIII engine. And I'm only talking about doing that. Don't change the gameplay and the story. Do that and sell it for $40-50. You will make the old crowd happy and you might actually bring in a new crowd.

why would I have total confidence in SE? I just liked the look of 13-2 so I got it. If FF15 shows up and looks bad I won't get it, but having total confidence in a company is a dangerous thing, no matter the company.

Also you can't really compare western RPG's and JRPG's at this point, they're way too dissimilar to make a fair comparison.

@Astras: ...FF13-2 does have town hubs and doesn't keep the last games mostly corridor asthetic. Have you at least read a review before making outdated assumptions based solely on the previous game?

@ShadowSkill11 said:

@Astras: ...FF13-2 does have town hubs and doesn't keep the last games mostly corridor asthetic. Have you at least read a review before making outdated assumptions based solely on the previous game?

Really, from what I have seen and read, having a few corridor's branching off a main path hardly qualifies. Having a map grid representing different time periods also from what I have read is pretty linear in where you need to go and ends up being more of a level select then much else.

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

Nope; I like FF13 and 13-2. Square makes some great games still.

I would argue that final fantasy never started turning the big bucks until it started being style over substance and yeah, that means final fantasy 7. The problem with ff now is at in Japan, it's cool. And what's cool in Japan is weird and off putting to me as an American. As long as motion capture, voice acting, etc gets used more and more, ff is going to appeal to me less and less.

Around the PS1 era I stopped caring at all about their RPGs. However I love Just Cause and Deus Ex. It's really upsetting just to see how mediocre they're RPGs have become. Like you said though it might just be because of other great Western RPGs from Bethsheda and Bioware that make their products just look stale.

I want them to make a new original IP, maybe that will win them back some fans or it could blow up in there face. I never really liked final fantasy, loved chrono trigger though.

Square was killing it in the playstation era of tonal, einhander, bushido blade, tactics and front mission.band then came the awful playstation 2 era when square decided they wanted to be " cool". The bouncer was garbage and everything after that was unplayable. Kingdom hearts too.

I think Vs. 13 looks alright. I'm not a huge fan of the Nomura art style, but that game isn't FFX style crazy, it seems a bit more modern and less fantastical. I've never been offended by a square enix game to the point that I wouldn't buy a new Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy game that looks good to me.

I'm enjoying Final Fantasy XIII-2 more than Skyrim. So no I haven't. In fact... while its REALLY stupid at this point to even utter the words "Game of the year" I wouldn't be suprised if FFXIII-2 showed up in my personal list at the end of the year. I'm enjoying it that much. XIII was my 2010 GOTY. People keep saying SQUARE DOESN' T GET IT ANYMORE REMEMBER THE OLD DAYS? Yeah, I do and those games were fine and so was XIII.

I think the general audience has moved on. The era where JRPG's were a mainstream thing is over they are no longer relevant. Just look at fighting games. Sure, they never went away but for the longest time the general populus was not getting excited about fighting games AT ALL. It was a niche market for a niche crowd. JRPG's are now in that niche market. And its pretty obvious how big a impact WRPG games like Elder Scrolls , Dragon Age etc... have all had on the RPG market even japanes companies are trying to make games like Dragons Dogma or Dark Souls that disinctly feel influenced by western fantasy tastes.

@JazGalaxy said:

Square was killing it in the playstation era of tonal, einhander, bushido blade, tactics and front mission.band then came the awful playstation 2 era when square decided they wanted to be " cool". The bouncer was garbage and everything after that was unplayable. Kingdom hearts too.

I forgot about some of those Ps1 games, awesome memories!

I kind of wish they'd bring back something like Illusion of Gaia. Although I don't know if they really could.

@Demoskinos said:

I'm enjoying Final Fantasy XIII-2 more than Skyrim. So no I haven't. In fact... while its REALLY stupid at this point to even utter the words "Game of the year" I wouldn't be suprised if FFXIII-2 showed up in my personal list at the end of the year. I'm enjoying it that much. XIII was my 2010 GOTY. People keep saying SQUARE DOESN' T GET IT ANYMORE REMEMBER THE OLD DAYS? Yeah, I do and those games were fine and so was XIII.

I think the general audience has moved on. The era where JRPG's were a mainstream thing is over they are no longer relevant. Just look at fighting games. Sure, they never went away but for the longest time the general populus was not getting excited about fighting games AT ALL. It was a niche market for a niche crowd. JRPG's are now in that niche market. And its pretty obvious how big a impact WRPG games like Elder Scrolls , Dragon Age etc... have all had on the RPG market even japanes companies are trying to make games like Dragons Dogma or Dark Souls that disinctly feel influenced by western fantasy tastes.

Sure, i'm happy for you that you enjoy the new games although I feel that the problem for me lies more in the engine and execution of the game at a playable level rather than the evolution of the genre.

SE's products feel like they have drifted away from key fundamentals that were even apparent in legacy JRPG's in favour of overly linear story telling. In terms of JRPG's in general, im not sure the term "No longer relevant" is appropriate.

@Astras said:

@SirOptimusPrime said:

I feel like the route that has been described by the press, including our very own Jeff Gertsman, is the way for them to go - taking notes from the Western acquisitions and branching out in general. I also totally agree on their inability to go anywhere with the FF franchise. They just need to let the dying horse lie or hand it off to other people (never going to happen). I want a pretty hefty overhaul for the next FF, but I highly doubt that's going to happen which fucking sucks.

Agreed, it's a damn shame to be honest. I was kinda clinging to the hope that other RPG's of this generation might have rubbed off on them and they might favour a change in there engine which it seems is still an iteration of the FF10 engine.

It seems that they design there games now around there engine limitations, maybe letting it die would be for the best. As for FF14, is anyone playing that?

idk final fantasy versus interested me and i hate jrpgs/ only one i ever reallly liked was kingdom hearts and when i heard it had that type of combat i was sold

They recently published games I enjoyed such as Deus Ex, Tatics Ogre and Nier. They have also done a poor job with FF in my opinion, however, I don't really "trust" any publishers, I trust individual tittles.

This is how you avoid logic fallacy and oversimplification, be specific.

@Astras: Thats the thing though linearity is NOT a bad thing in my eyes. In fact it afforded them the opportunity to tell a very finely crafted story in XIII where as while I'm still enjoying XIII-2 it feels a little more well... disjointed? Being able to explore and jump around at will is awesome but also hampers the actual flow of the game and in some cases you can do story bits out of order and end up confusing yourself in the process. Granted, I'll give you that XIII threw an awful lot of jargon at you with L'cie this and C'eith that etc... but in the end I felt it was a good story.

People have their opinions about the characters but I felt they did a really good job. Sure, Hope was annoying but he has a pretty good character arc and actually changes. And the fact that everyone pretty much hates each other is great. In most JRPG's seemingly party members are cool to just ditch their hometowns on the drop of a hat to adventure with someone they only met minutes ago. And I won't be all positive on XIII there were things that they did do wrong. Not giving you all of the tools to your disposal up front was a key mistake. I'm glad Squarenix is willing to at least TRY new things even if sometimes they don't hit a homerun with everyone.

I fell off the Final Fantasy wagon a while ago, they don't make games for me anymore and that is fine, not every game needs to be made for me to be considered a good game.

It's a different market. Enough said.

No, they've been great after buying Eidos.

But if you mean, as a JRPG developer, absolutely. Versus 13 is their final chance to win me back, and shit they've been working on that game for 7 years now. For all we know it could be vaporware by now.

Plenty of janky-ass boring lifeless western RPGs like Skyrim for you to play and me to avoid, don't take away the spectacular wonderment and tactical beauty of SE games from me just because you can't handle bright colors and feathered hair.

They're not for you.

@Astras: My, such strong opinions about a game you never actually played. Ok then. Sit there and stew about what you think the game is like. I'll just continue having a blast actually playing a great game.

They just need to work on their storylines. The gameplay of their games is perfectly fine almost all the time.

I never had total faith in Square-Enix, and Squaresoft existed before I knew of game companies beyond Gamefreak, Rare, and Nintendo. I don't have total faith in any game company anymore, which is kind of sad. However, I've not totally lost faith in Square-Enix, if you catch my meaning; I have no interest in most of what they're putting out, but I bet they could put out a good game again, and soon at that.

Also, Deus Ex is really Eidos's work. It's not really fair to count them as part of Square-Enix proper.

Ha ha, no, don't be silly. n_n

@Little_Socrates said:

Also, Deus Ex is really Eidos's work. It's not really fair to count them as part of Square-Enix proper.

Except you can't really say that anymore, given that Eidos is just part of Square Enix now. It is a Square Enix game, like it or not.

I was excited for XIII, as I was with every Final Fantasy announcement. Even with the long wait, the "now it's on 360 and will be marketed as a 360 only title in the west" and even the fact that they announced 3 games all at once knowing that a collection of games in a universe is a dumb idea (Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Ivalice Alliance and what they did with Final Fantasy IV), but then after Final Fantasy XIII comes out to *gasp* mixed reviews and just straight up hate from some fans S-E decides to announce XIII-2...what?

Now, I have my theories as to why S-E went ahead and started work on XIII-2, but that's not the point. The point is that instead of giving their developers so much freedom, S-E should have cracked down on their asses sooner than later. Final Fantasy XIII felt like such a polished rush job, and they pulled off one of my greatest RPG pet peeves: the old final boss switch-a-roo.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is supposed to be sooo much better than XIII. From what I've played, it's not. It's like they took all the cool stuff from some games that people love and just sucked at it.

Collecting monsters, time travel, puzzles, a customizable character load out and non-linearity. Sounds awesome! Except the monster design is ass, the time travel feels convoluted, the puzzles do not belong there, the crystarium is the WORST way to level up in all of Final Fantasy (yes, even worse than the License Board in FF XII, but eff you FF XII is amazing) and the "towns" are so dull and lifeless. But hey, at least they tried making another Golden Saucer...

A lot of people praised FF XIII for its battle system and to this day I still don't understand why. It's not fun. XIII-2's isn't much better, but at least we can switch the party leader... -___-

And finally, the music...What happened? Like for realsies....what happened...

I am one of the few people who champion Final Fantasy XII as being a logical progression in the series. Everything from the story to the battle system was so involved (even towards the mid-ending of the game where it was apparent where Matsuno had taken his leave). Final Fantasy XIII is a regression of the series in my eyes and XIII-2 doesn't alleviate that, it only tried to fix the problems people had with the first game.

As a developer, I'm still confident in what Square-Enix has to offer. From what I've read from Japanese previews and reviews of Type-0, it seems to be what the next Final Fantasy game should have been and also looks like a more realized world than what Final Fantasy VIII offered, which is not a bad thing at all. As for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, well, I enjoy the battle system of Kingdom Hearts, and what little they've shown of the story and reading the translation of the latest trailer, it certainly seems darker and more focused on the characters instead of the usual 'rah rah, let's save the world' stuff.

After those two games...well XIV v2.0 looks okay? I dunno. I think they need Yasumi Matsuno back.

/rant off. If y'all haven't noticed, I'm bitter and bothered by what S-E has done with FF XIII and XIII-2. It's been my favorite franchise since FF IV.

@Hailinel: It's still the same guys running Eidos as before though, right? The only difference is they're technically working for Square, but the devs who made Deus Ex are really answering to the Eidos guys, right?

@Little_Socrates said:

@Hailinel: It's still the same guys running Eidos as before though, right? The only difference is they're technically working for Square, but the devs who made Deus Ex are really answering to the Eidos guys, right?

Eidos and Square Enix don't exist in separate bubbles. They're all part of the same company and share resources. I recall an interview where a Deus Ex staffer referred to assistance they received from Square Enix, and Final Fantasy XIII-2's team took some business practices from Eidos. It would be foolish to think that no one on either side ever talks to each other; they are the same company now.

No ... people just dont understand that they wont like all of the games , they think that all of the FF games will be the same , guess what , each one has always differed from one another (big reveal eh?sheesh). I know I wont like all of their FF releases (I hated FFIX and FFXII was a bore fest) but you know at least they try to make different games unlike some other developers out there (actimilktion , ninty etc.) , and really the only FF that has been a real disaster was FFXIV... one out of 15 plus ... not a bad track record. One thing I will agree on is that perhaps they should by now drop Nomura as main inspiration for character designs or heck they should go bonkers and give us some stylized designs (like the people do at Atlus ... not the same tho )

Square Enix owns Eidos now and Eidos knows how to make good games. Because of that, I would say my faith in Square Enix is greater than zero.

I don't think Square (or Enix) were ever such great companies. They've only ever put out maybe 3 or 4 good (not great, good) games between the both of them.

Total confidence?

@Aetheldod: really, though, the only other big artist they have is amano and I don't want to see character designs by amano...