I want the old Square Enix back, the old company that settled for nothing less than quality. There was a time when every game they made was to the best of their ability but now they pump out rushed games like Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant. They need to get back to their roots and start making some decent JRPG's with big production values.
My faith now lies in Mistwalker, a company reminiscent of what Square Enix use to be. 

Well, the only one product that Square Enix seems to take that philosophy to is Final fantasy.

All the others just may not be done by the same team that does FF, so you get mixed results. (think CoD4, and Cod5).

I was actually having this same conversation with two of my friends yesterday.  I remember the glory days of Squaresoft, that being the SNES and the Playstation One.  It seemed like every game that came out in those generations by them was a must own.  But for me the begining of the end of that was FFX it was the last playable game Square ever made.  Its gotten to the point where im pretty much uninterested in anything they do now when it use to be id scour the internet for news and videos of their new games.  Its a bizarre feeling to have.

Then comes this generation.  I was really excited to hear Square was making some new games for Xbox 360 (some being exclusive) but after watching a bunch of video reviews of I.U. and seeing all the recent media on Last Remnant I really get the feeling that Square has fallen off.  I dont think its a coinsodence that there games started becoming bland and lifeless around the time Hironobu left with his team to form Mistwalker.  We havent seen much on FFXIII besides cinemas and really brief battle clips but im sure that will at least be worth owning.  But thats exactly whats wrong with the company, they make a few games at once but it seems like the only one they give a shit about is FF.  They have all these great oppurtunities to create something new and different from their FF series and they turn out being run of the mill at best.  Maybe all they know how to make are FF games now.

Im really holding out hope that they wont get too involved in the new Star Ocean game and just let Tri-Ace do its thing cause that still has a chance at being great.  But if its not at least I have Mistwalker to count on for JRPGs, cause Hironobu is not fucking around.  Lost Oddyssey was the best JRPG ive played in a good 5 years.

FFX-2 was the first game they made after Sakaguchi left, right?
Makes sense.

I lost faith in Square back when they released FF X

"I want the old Square Enix back, the old company that settled for nothing less than quality. There was a time when every game they made was to the best of their ability but now they pump out rushed games like Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant. They need to get back to their roots and start making some decent JRPG's with big production values.
My faith now lies in Mistwalker, a company reminiscent of what Square Enix use to be. "

i heard they are stating a headquarters in USA. I wish they dont mess up the Final fantasy series as well

Important to note:

• Infinite Undiscovery was developed by tri-Ace, and Square Enix doesn't even own the rights to the IP--Microsoft does.
• The Last Remnant was doomed from the start; Japanese companies shouldn't try to create RPGs specifically for the Western audience. At least, I don't think that's what anyone wants. I like my Japanese RPGs to be Japanese.
• Square Enix has no involvement in the development of SO4; they just thought it would be a good idea to put their name in the trailer.
• Final Fantasy X-2 was developed and originally published by Squaresoft. Only when it was localized was it released under the Square Enix name. All that getting bought by Enix did was give them more money, but it was mostly Squaresoft employees that took up leadership roles in Square Enix. So stop giving shit to Enix--the company that saved your precious Squaresoft from going bankrupt from their own stupid mistakes.

Yeah I loved old Sqaure, Mario rpg anyone? FF7, Chrono Trigger, they just seem to have lost there touch, maybe they'll find it again : )

Until I play FFXIII I will still have some faith in them. They take their time and make really good RPG's. I can play other games while I wait for them to get finished so I got no issues.

"There just seems to be a lot of unjustified hate for this company. Sure, their outsourced games (which make up a good chunk of their games nowadays) don't always turn out so great, but nobody's forcing you to buy them. For all their in-house games you can still expect a certain level of quality.
"

"Axersia said:

"There just seems to be a lot of unjustified hate for this company. Sure, their outsourced games (which make up a good chunk of their games nowadays) don't always turn out so great, but nobody's forcing you to buy them. For all their in-house games you can still expect a certain level of quality.
"

They produce and develop what are widely considered to be crappy games. Sounds justified to me."

People say FFXII actually wasn't that bad, but X-2 was a hysterical abomination. Then again, my favourite was X, so colour me biased.

"FFX-2 was the first game they made after Sakaguchi left, right?
Makes sense."

what? square hasn't even developed that many games since the PS3 and 360 came out. If anything we should be bitching about the ridiculous amount of remakes they've been milking us, but even those remakes are some high ass quality games (and VC/PSN/XBLA games). Just look back at Square's developed games, they haven't released anything they've developed that was a high profile game since FF12. I personally thought FF12 wasn't up to the old FF standards, but it was still pretty good. I personally liked Infinite Undiscovery, but it wasn't developed by Square, only marketed and published. They just slapped their logo on it for suckers to buy since most will see "oh it's square's name, must be good." I haven't played Last Remnant yet so I can't comment, but I doubt its as bad as everyone says, and I doubt anyone saying it sucks right now has even played more then an hour of it. At least they're trying to do something for the western market, people bitch about how jp companies don't give a crap about us, but here's square trying to appeal to western players and giving us simutaneous releases.

TalahRama said:

"Im really holding out hope that they wont get too involved in the new Star Ocean game and just let Tri-Ace do its thing cause that still has a chance at being great.  But if its not at least I have Mistwalker to count on for JRPGs, cause Hironobu is not fucking around.  Lost Oddyssey was the best JRPG ive played in a good 5 years."

"Axersia said:

"There just seems to be a lot of unjustified hate for this company. Sure, their outsourced games (which make up a good chunk of their games nowadays) don't always turn out so great, but nobody's forcing you to buy them. For all their in-house games you can still expect a certain level of quality.
"

They produce and develop what are widely considered to be crappy games. Sounds justified to me."

Amazing posts there Axersia and suneku, only people in the thread to actually throw out some of the facts. A lot of people do not seem to understand those though, unfortunately. Another for the record, Last Remnant is the only game Square themselves have actually developed on the 360/PS3 this gen (unless you are wanting to count FFXI, which was a PC and PS2 game before obviously).

 Last Remnant is the only game Square themselves have actually developed on the 360/PS3 this gen

Wait, and the Last Remnant spurred this?
THe Last Remnant is the first good game that they've developed since like... well last gen. 

And hell, what other rpg have they actually developed this gen?  IU is Tri-Ace and I don' think anyone counts  their casual stuff.
Last Remnant is very underrated

I agree with the others that Mistwalker is the better dev for JRPGs this generation.  That being said, FF13 is obviously going to kick everything else's ass

"Zenaxzd said:

 Last Remnant is the only game Square themselves have actually developed on the 360/PS3 this gen

This is true, and most of their other games have been fine. I mean, TWEWY was great and Dissidia looks awesome.
But I still feel Mistwalker have overshadowed them, now that they have Uematsu(kind of) and Sakaguchi, not to mention quite a few others."

I'm going to cross my fingers for Chrono Break.

"atejas said:

"Zenaxzd said:

 Last Remnant is the only game Square themselves have actually developed on the 360/PS3 this gen

This is true, and most of their other games have been fine. I mean, TWEWY was great and Dissidia looks awesome.
But I still feel Mistwalker have overshadowed them, now that they have Uematsu(kind of) and Sakaguchi, not to mention quite a few others."

My personal opinion about Mistwalker is still mixed. I definately feel they are no where near as great as Square this gen (but then its hard to compare since SE has really made no "next-gen PS3/360 titles"), especially after making Blue Dragon which I find to be one of the worst RPGs ever made. LO on the other hand has been great what I got to play of it, a lot of care seem to went into the production values as well which I think is really key in an RPG.

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

"Blue Dragon is an awesome game. 
If you're  a true die-hard jrpg fan and like anime, you'll absolutely love it.

And if you say you like DQ but not BD, you're in denial about something.

And again, BD had crappy music?  What?  The only thing you can actually hit on that game in terms of music is the repetitive boss battle music."

"Zenaxzd said:

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

Eh, I haven't tried Blue Dragon, but I like Lost Odyssey better than any FF I've played. Then again, I have yet to play VI, VIII, and IX.
Lost Odyssey is, in fact, my favourite jrpg. I know."

"Zenaxzd said:

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

Eh, I haven't tried Blue Dragon, but I like Lost Odyssey better than any FF I've played. Then again, I have yet to play VI, VIII, and IX.
Lost Odyssey is, in fact, my favourite jrpg. I know."

"atejas said:

"Zenaxzd said:

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

Eh, I haven't tried Blue Dragon, but I like Lost Odyssey better than any FF I've played. Then again, I have yet to play VI, VIII, and IX.
Lost Odyssey is, in fact, my favourite jrpg. I know."

FFIX is easily my favorite Sakaguchi game of all time, it has many homages to his old school FF games. Blue Dragon sucked, LO was good. That's about all Mistwalker has right now so I have no high hopes for them.

For the record, UEMATSU is doing FF13 music, but he's co-composing it. Still, whenever he co-composes, it still turns out to be classical Uematsu music."

"suneku said:

"atejas said:

"Zenaxzd said:

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

Eh, I haven't tried Blue Dragon, but I like Lost Odyssey better than any FF I've played. Then again, I have yet to play VI, VIII, and IX.
Lost Odyssey is, in fact, my favourite jrpg. I know."

FFIX is easily my favorite Sakaguchi game of all time, it has many homages to his old school FF games. Blue Dragon sucked, LO was good. That's about all Mistwalker has right now so I have no high hopes for them.

For the record, UEMATSU is doing FF13 music, but he's co-composing it. Still, whenever he co-composes, it still turns out to be classical Uematsu music."

Hmm really on the co-composing it? I could of swore he was only doing the theme again. Still if that is the case then fuck yea that restores a lot of my hope in the quality of the music being up there again. (Also, man I totally love FFIX myself, I just replayed it earlier this year and keep getting the urge to do it again. That ending scene gets me in tears of joy everytime)."

One thing I will say about LO is that the final boss music is VERY hit-or-miss.
Especially the chanting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbeGTgt0RWQ

"Actually now that you mention it, I think he is only doing the theme. I might have mixed this up with something else, my bad."

"suneku said:"

"Actually now that you mention it, I think he is only doing the theme. I might have mixed this up with something else, my bad."

Wikipedia claims he is only doing the theme, oh well though was nice to have some hope for the music there for a second. I just have not enjoyed much of what the other guy has worked on in terms of music."

"interesting, can you name me games they've developed that were widely considered crappy games?"

one of square's other composers, Masashi Hamauzu. He's done a decent amount of work for square, though none of them are up to Uematsu standards IMO. Hamauzu did work on FFX with Uematsu though.

"suneku said:

"interesting, can you name me games they've developed that were widely considered crappy games?"

The Last Remnant is apparently broken, infinite Undiscovery was considered bad enough to drop the price by 50% before it had even been out for 3 weeks, people who've played the second Star Ocean port for the PSP say they fudded up the graphics badly. FFT:A2 was dull and boring (especially compared to the first one). FFCC: My Life as King isn't even worth mentioning. Chrono Trigger DS somehow managed to get fucked up graphics-wise in the port too. And most of their other minor releases aren't even worth bothering to list, being either random ports or re-releases."

"Jayge said:

"suneku said:

"interesting, can you name me games they've developed that were widely considered crappy games?"

The Last Remnant is apparently broken, infinite Undiscovery was considered bad enough to drop the price by 50% before it had even been out for 3 weeks, people who've played the second Star Ocean port for the PSP say they fudded up the graphics badly. FFT:A2 was dull and boring (especially compared to the first one). FFCC: My Life as King isn't even worth mentioning. Chrono Trigger DS somehow managed to get fucked up graphics-wise in the port too. And most of their other minor releases aren't even worth bothering to list, being either random ports or re-releases."

half the stuff you listed arent even developed by square."

"one of square's other composers, Masashi Hamauzu. He's done a decent amount of work for square, though none of them are up to Uematsu standards IMO. Hamauzu did work on FFX with Uematsu though."

yes but my response you quoted refers to developed games only.

"suneku said:

"Jayge said:

"suneku said:

"interesting, can you name me games they've developed that were widely considered crappy games?"

The Last Remnant is apparently broken, infinite Undiscovery was considered bad enough to drop the price by 50% before it had even been out for 3 weeks, people who've played the second Star Ocean port for the PSP say they fudded up the graphics badly. FFT:A2 was dull and boring (especially compared to the first one). FFCC: My Life as King isn't even worth mentioning. Chrono Trigger DS somehow managed to get fucked up graphics-wise in the port too. And most of their other minor releases aren't even worth bothering to list, being either random ports or re-releases."

half the stuff you listed arent even developed by square."

Haha read my original post Suneku, I know you're better than that. I said developed or published. They're responsible for any of the projects that their name is on anyway. They put out crappy shit."

"suneku said:

"one of square's other composers, Masashi Hamauzu. He's done a decent amount of work for square, though none of them are up to Uematsu standards IMO. Hamauzu did work on FFX with Uematsu though."

Oh, that explains the reactions to X's soundtrack.
I love it though."

Last Remnant looks quite good.

"yes but my response you quoted refers to developed games only."

well I guess that's a decent list, I doubt you've even touched Last Remnant though. If you're going to include ports in the list of crappy games they've made, I could easily name at least 3 ports that are excellent. Now on to FFX-2 and FF12, those are subjective to your opinion. Besides it not being up to Final Fantasy standards, what's so bad about those 2 games? Is FFX-2 too girly for you? The game play was actually really damn good. Anyways I'm too lazy to defend FF12 because I got some busniess class quizes to take care of right now but I highly doubt 12 is a widely crappy game.

"well I guess that's a decent list, I doubt you've even touched Last Remnant though. If you're going to include ports in the list of crappy games they've made, I could easily name at least 3 ports that are excellent. Now on to FFX-2 and FF12, those are subjective to your opinion. Besides it not being up to Final Fantasy standards, what's so bad about those 2 games? Is FFX-2 too girly for you? The game play was actually really damn good. Well I'm too lazy to defend FF12 because I got some busniess class quizes to take care of right now but I highly doubt 12 is a widely crappy game."

My faith in Square Enix is dead.

I was never interested in Square Enix 

Japanese should only create horror Games XD

I only care about Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, and it seems they're treating those franchises right, for the most part. So, I'm good.

"atejas said:

"FFX-2 was the first game they made after Sakaguchi left, right?
Makes sense."

Nah i think you can tell Sakaguchi was geting smaller and smaller actual roles and work in the company right around FF7s release and thereafter specially with the spirits within debacle which wasn't a debacle since that movie was fine as long as you didn't go in thinking of a final fantasy movie though that was the fault of square for naming it final fantasy.

As per the topic at hand, I lost faith in Square long ago when i first played and beat FF7 it was just downhill from there the only keynote was tactics."

"I only care about Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, and it seems they're treating those franchises right, for the most part. So, I'm good."

"suneku said:

"atejas said:

"Zenaxzd said:

I am more than happy Sakaguchi is gone, personally. Something happened with that guy since he broke Square's bank and a lot of the stuff he works on now seems to be less than good. The only real thing I feel Mistwalker has over SE personally is Nobuo's music. I sorely missed wonderful music in FFXII and am sure I will hate not having him on board in XIII (then again blue dragon had some crappy music overall I thought which I found really weird).

"

Eh, I haven't tried Blue Dragon, but I like Lost Odyssey better than any FF I've played. Then again, I have yet to play VI, VIII, and IX.
Lost Odyssey is, in fact, my favourite jrpg. I know."

FFIX is easily my favorite Sakaguchi game of all time, it has many homages to his old school FF games. Blue Dragon sucked, LO was good. That's about all Mistwalker has right now so I have no high hopes for them.

For the record, UEMATSU is doing FF13 music, but he's co-composing it. Still, whenever he co-composes, it still turns out to be classical Uematsu music."

Hmm really on the co-composing it? I could of swore he was only doing the theme again. Still if that is the case then fuck yea that restores a lot of my hope in the quality of the music being up there again. (Also, man I totally love FFIX myself, I just replayed it earlier this year and keep getting the urge to do it again. That ending scene gets me in tears of joy everytime)."

You are just NOW losing faith?  Hell, I lost faith when their name became Square Enix.

how dare you question the awesomeness that is squaresoft all their ps1 and snes games are masterpieces in my opinion