Japanese RPGs are thriving this decade, so why isn't Final Fantasy?
Japanese RPGs are thriving this decade, so why isn't Final Fantasy?
Dragon Quest, Trails, Like a Dragon and Persona have all flourished thanks to their consistency—and knowing exactly what their players want.
Because it became an action adventure game with very little depth to the combat. This made it appealing to a wider audience (NA) but mostly antagonized fans that have been playing FF games for over 30y. FFXII was the last good single player FF, the gambit and license systems were just amazing! FFXVI has a great plot and voice acting but the combat and overall lack of strategy and tinkering were a sore disappointment.
I feel like there's a disconnect between what Square thinks their audience wants and what the audience actually wants. What do you think the split would look like if measured statistically?
I don't know the split and am guilty of helping proliferate this since I own every Final Fantasy. Nonetheless, ever since XIII, which is the only one I couldn't finish because the writing is atrocious (Flashbacks of Beverly Hills 90210 galore), the quality has gone downhill. Every release offering an ever dumbed down world and mechanics in favour of simplifying it for a broader audience. That said, Vagrant Story's upgrade tree is my wet dream on any RPG so I can tell I'm a minority. I'd like to see a FF with complex systems like Vagrant Story (mixed with magic fusion from FFVIII) and a story drawing from Joana D'arc or the Anglo-Zulu war.
Well I wouldn't say it's measurable since we're talking about something qualitative. It's hard to speak for the audience as a whole too, but for my part the disconnect is pretty fucking big.
Last one I played was FFXV and it was... weird. Hero is an emo jerk, everyone has a kpop haircut and worries about their weight when they go have fried chicken. Setting is fantasy rural USA. Who is even the target audience of this thing?!
They're sitting on something lovely and precious. Squenix could make a turn-based RPG with Chocobos and airships and little black mages with large straw hats and red mages with musketeer swag and everybody would lose their shit. They don't need to make it an action based 3D megaproduction. 2.5D with a spruced up battle system would be so fine.
I remember being super excited over 13, only to fall asleep playing it. 98% of combat encounters was just mashing X-button :/
I was really sad for it after liking XII so much. I must have spent days configuring and re-configuring the gambits just to try to make a party fight without input to optimise npc routines during combat, only to override it anyway during gameplay. Such a great game. Gave me Dragon Age origins tickles those gambits
I took 3 days off work when it dropped to play it.. Errr.. Or rather to watch it play itself.
Poor management decisions, drive for profit over making something people will truly love.
FFXVI was made by CBU3 who saw major success with FFXIV. I feel like with the release of the Dawntrail expansion it shows they took their best people to work on FFXVI and it hindered the expansion. Additionally they aimed to cater the game to a completely different crowd than those who loved the previous FF games up to X.
Because the marketing was absolute fucking dog shit
Exclusive for PS4, then exclusive for Epic Game Store and also Denuvo to "protect" sales.
Well, I see this as a complete success: Square Enix just protected the sales from the hungry wallets of their fans. Their fans wallet are now not starving, and so they should be happy. SE is a sensible company.
No one else is calling it out so I think I will:
Everything after FFXII looked the god damn same. Then it's world building was so overwhelming, like it's really too good for you to understand unless "You're with it."
Persona, Yakuza:like a dragon, hell even DQ11 just wanted to take you for a ride.
Where later Final Fantasy games (excluding the MMO), really need to chill on trying to create a epic cinematic universe before the game exists. To take a quote from Family Guy, "It insists upon itself."