So, some people are not happy with the direction FF games have been heading lately. It seems that Square-Enix is aware of this and has formed the Final Fantasy Committee headed by "top creators" with the goal of ensuring the quality of the series.

In an effort to bolster the quality of the Final Fantasy series going forward, Square Enix has deemed it necessary to bring together some of the franchise’s top creators in what they’re calling the “Final Fantasy Committee.”

According to a report by FF-Reunion, the committee will be headed by Yoshinori Kitase, Hajime Tabata, Naoki Yoshida and Motomu Toriyama. Details remain sparse, but their meetings will take place to ensure the quality of the FF series going forward. Long time series character designer and now director of Final Fantasy XV Tetsuya Nomura, however, appears to be separate from this initiative as his priorities lie within another timeline.

-novacrystallis.com

I'm really enjoying a Realm Reborn and looking forward to 15, after not giving a shit about Final Fantasy for somethin a few years. So someone's doin something right.

Maybe they should just put the series to rest at this point. At least for a while. If even they don't know what the hell a good Final Fantasy game should be, maybe the best answer is to do something different.

It feels like that moment in a relationship when you know it's over but you're both too affraid to meet new people so you decide to go to a relationship counselor instead of going your seperate ways.

Unless they get Sakaguichi back I can't be optimistic about Final Fantasy these days.

It's a good sign if Nomura isn't involved with this.

Don't they need some fresh blood with new ideas to shake it up a bit rather than a gathering of old? Eh I don't know, cool to see that they are putting a lot of effort into trying to figure it out though

I don't have a problem with the idea of playing another Final Fantasy game, and I would say changing it up too much like XIII is probably a bad idea. People go to Final Fantasy for Final Fantasy. Opening the game up after 30 hours was probably just a bad design choice.

I don't get how this is supposed to help anything, but I thought 13-2 was great so maybe I'm not the person they're trying to satiate with this news.

I don't like the idea of a committee. Haven't seen much good that comes from design by committee, tends to make things bland and conservative.

Maybe they just need to rotate lead designers.

Where's Uematsu in all this?

Isn't he just a character designer, though? Is Final Fantasy's downhill slope in terms of quality really just Nomura's fault?

Hopefully this team determines two things 1) All of the mainFinal Fantasies need a good port, in one package, to the PC, along with Tactics and a copy of the DS version of Chrono Trigger. 2) Final Fantasy XII is in desperate need of the treatment you're giving X. XII looks fantastic even today and really just needs a higher resolution and some anti-aliasing.

I agree on the thoughts about designs by committee. That said, some sort of top-level quality control is a definite must for SE. I have to wonder though if this isn't just a bunch of bluster to quiet vocal fans. What does any of it even mean beyond the PR speak?

Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama are good people, they know what they're doing. They were key talent in some of Square's best games, they are exactly the kind of people you would want in charge of this sort of thing. Tabata was responsible for a lot of their psp stuff, which included Crisis Core, so that's cool, but also the Third Birthday so ehh. I don't recognize the other guy (after looking it up it seems he played a role in lot of Dragon Quest spinoffs and ARR so idk).

So two of the four people listed make me feel really positive about this initiative, I also like that Nomura isn't involved (not that I dislike him, I'm looking forward to 15, but I'd much rather see him focus his efforts on other projects for a while). There's just something undeniably cool about Final Fantasy veterans getting together to form a task force to try and save the series. I just hope this gives the series a more solid direction. A lot of their decisions since Fabula Nova Crystallis was unveiled just haven't made any sense to me.

I'm not familiar with the names on that list except Kitase, but isn't the committee made up of people who are already making these games? I don't see how it would solve the problem.