JRPG enthusiasts: When (if ever) did Square 'fall off' for you?

[Angel4576]

Think I've become a bit jaded with games that have been 'years in the making' - GT5 was incredibly rough around the edges when released, and personally, Alan Wake didn't do much for me either, certainly didn't make up for the 5 year wait!

That being said, what I've seen, and read, so far about Versus would lead me to a similar conclusion in that I think it'll be the better game, and a good game in general. It's just whether or not it elevates itself to 'great' that I'll be eager to see. Hard to judge XIII-2 too much yet I guess, but again, based on the writer, I'm not overflowing with optimism shall we say. I found parts of XIII to be very confusing - having played through the ending twice I'm still not entirely convinced that I understand what happened! I watch anime too, and I love stuff like Evangelion, and that's about as open-to-interpretation as it gets, but I still understood the ending to that show a hell of a lot more than I understood the end of FFXIII!

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Yeah, I'm jaded about long-development games as well. Believe you me, I am. I could go on an extensive rant about why FFXII's imperfections exist in the first place and how it correlates to a very haphazard development cycle but you haven't played the game yet so I'll let you enjoy it for its all glorious good stuff first.

As for FFXIII... Square has always had a tendency to release a lot of supplemental material (including the oft-released 'Ultimania Omega' line) back in the home country (with fan translations all we get elsewhere) that help to explain what's going on in their games while fleshing-out the game universes remarkably.

The trouble is, sometimes these books need to do more than others. FFXIII is by far the most criminal of offenders on this -- the book, plus a radio dramatization, plus interviews with the developers and the FF Wiki are all needed to make definitive heads-or-tails of what's going on, and the real baffling matter is, once you figure it all out you realize that the mythos is astonishingly good and could have been used to a much, much more impressive maximum potential in-game.

Yes, I understand that this is a mythos which was specifically designed to encompass several titles, but with each title being set in a different 'retelling', as the developers have stated (with the obvious exception of the upcoming XIII-2, anyway) there should have been a lot more advantage taken of it all in the first game.

XIII's ending is hecka confusing, but if you read the Ultimania, check out the radio dramatization, read the novella that comes with the re-release in Japan that leads into FFXIII-2, tap your shoes together three times, eat various herbal tonics given to you by your local shaman, close your eyes and count to ten and really believe, you'll understand what they were going for.

The same can sort of be said for things in Xenogears, admittedly, but the difference is that Xenogears has a much more well-presented story overall.

 

[Angel4576]

Yeah, I'm jaded about long-development games as well. Believe you me, I am. I could go on an extensive rant about why FFXII's imperfections exist in the first place and how it correlates to a very haphazard development cycle but you haven't played the game yet so I'll let you enjoy it for its all glorious good stuff first.

As for FFXIII... Square has always had a tendency to release a lot of supplemental material (including the oft-released 'Ultimania Omega' line) back in the home country (with fan translations all we get elsewhere) that help to explain what's going on in their games while fleshing-out the game universes remarkably.

The trouble is, sometimes these books need to do more than others. FFXIII is by far the most criminal of offenders on this -- the book, plus a radio dramatization, plus interviews with the developers and the FF Wiki are all needed to make definitive heads-or-tails of what's going on, and the real baffling matter is, once you figure it all out you realize that the mythos is astonishingly good and could have been used to a much, much more impressive maximum potential in-game.

Yes, I understand that this is a mythos which was specifically designed to encompass several titles, but with each title being set in a different 'retelling', as the developers have stated (with the obvious exception of the upcoming XIII-2, anyway) there should have been a lot more advantage taken of it all in the first game.

XIII's ending is hecka confusing, but if you read the Ultimania, check out the radio dramatization, read the novella that comes with the re-release in Japan that leads into FFXIII-2, tap your shoes together three times, eat various herbal tonics given to you by your local shaman, close your eyes and count to ten and really believe, you'll understand what they were going for.

The same can sort of be said for things in Xenogears, admittedly, but the difference is that Xenogears has a much more well-presented story overall.

Crikey, suddenly playing a game has become a full-time job!

I'm all for supplementary material that exists to complement the game, but making your understanding of the game contingent upon it is perhaps taking it a little too far IMO. Ideally it should be a situation where you enjoy the game to the extent that you're compelled to seek out additional material to enhance the experience. in FFXIII's case, when I'd finished it I was exactly going to go out of my way to seek out the stuff that would help fill in the (many) gaps. For me, if it's that important to the plot of the game, or your understanding of it, then it should be in the game, simple as that.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

100% agreed. And precisely the reason I came out of FFXIII giving it a particularly mediocre score. I love supplemental material to the fullest but the game needed a lot less questioning and quite a bit more answering.

 

[Bishop76]

^ Yes.

 

[Angel4576]

100% agreed. And precisely the reason I came out of FFXIII giving it a particularly mediocre score. I love supplemental material to the fullest but the game needed a lot less questioning and quite a bit more answering.

It's an interesting concept, the supplementary material thing. In truth, it's part of the reason why I don't quite hold VII in the same high regard that a lot of people do. Don't get me wrong, I loved VII, and still do, but I also love VIII, and whilst VII has had a plethora of material to supplement it (games, movie, etc), VIII, to my knowledge hasn't had anything.

So there you go, it's just all about the jealousy!

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Well, it might interest you to know that the bulk of VII's supplemental material doesn't do much for me. So nyah!

 

[Angel4576]

Apart from AC, it didn't for me either, and even then it was only really for the HD CGI and HD Aerith.......

Even so, something for VIII would have been nice. IMO

 

[Bishop76]

Yeah, it's all pretty meh stuff. Advent Children was pretty... but that's about it.

 

[Elemental]

FF has been my favourite game series since getting into it in the Playstation 1 era and I've since finished all the main series titles as well as many others. I can understand why some people have been disappointed with certain elements of recent entries, but IMO, they've all had their strengths and weaknesses, and for me, the only other games that come anywhere close in entertainent value are the Metal Gear Solid games. So, I would say that the series never "fell off" for me. They're having some trouble with 14 right now, but since identifying a problem, they've been working their asses off to repair it and I have every confidence that they will get it to a level that is deserving of the FF name. There has already been significant improvement.

People are always going to have individual preferences, which is why some don't like FF11's online element, FF12's battle system, FF13's linearity, FF9's disproportionate characters, FF8's love story, etc, etc. What I really appreciate about the series is that they truely try to reinvent things new with each game - they don't just try and replicate what worked the last time, so one has to expect that sometimes they'll find more mass appeal than others. However, I'm an FF fan for life.

If I have any one gripe about the series, it's in some of its stereotypical Japanese character archetypes. The overly giddy schoolgirl types (Yuffie, Selphie, Rikku, Vanille, etc.), the isolated strong silent heroes, the more-brawn-than-brains energetic side-kicks, the helpless-one-minute-kickass-sexy-the-next love interests, etc all can wear on my nerves a bit when overplayed. This is one reason I absolutely cannot tolerate animes. Few things bother me more in a story than predictability. However, these elements have been with the series since its inception so I can't really say that this has only been an issue lately.

I do hope the series takes some lessons from other awesome "modern" RPGs like Mass Effect to further help with the reinventions.

 

[Roland19]

I didn't become a JRPG fan until Final Fantasy 7. Before that, I had played some RPGs, but hadn't cared much for them (the only expection being Earthbound, which is still a great game. I wish it was on the Wii's Virtual Console).

I liked Final Fantasy 7 a lot. Slowly, I started to play some other rpgs, but mostly I was a Square/Final Fantasy fan. I really enjoyed Final Fantasys 8, 9, and 10. Parasite Eve was good and Xenogears was really good. OH and Chrono Cross was GREAT. Also got a chance to play the older FFs on the PS1, like Final Fantasy 6 (wow) and of course I played Chrono Trigger (great!).

Then, I played Final Fantasy 12 and...well...it was OK. I didn't care for the battle system. I liked that the towns & etc were more open than 10 and the story seemed ok, but the game just didn't grab me. I also wasn't interested in the Online FFs. And I was really excited about Final Fantasy 13 and I liked it when I first started playing it and then I lost interest. Strangely enough, I lost interest when the world started to open up a little...lol.

That said, I really do miss the Final Fantasys like 7, 8, and 9. 10 is great, but I missed the open world in it. I'm not sure why Square has moved away from that. I don't think its because of the visuals. I mean, look at Fallout 3 or Mass Effect for goodness sake. Great graphics & a huge places to explore on both. Why can't Square do that?

The best Square game recently has been Dragon Quest 9 on the DS imo. Very good graphics, great battle system, good story, and a HUGE open world to explore. But the thing is....LEVEL 5 developed it. Not Square. They just published. lol.

Maybe Square should think about letting LEVEL 5 develop the Final Fantasy series. lol. Level 5 did do a great job with White Knight Chronicles on the PS3 too (the battle system was a little like FF12's but much better imo. And the world looked great and there was a lot of places to explore). Well, ok, the "ending" sucked on White Knight, but the rest was great.

Anyway, I do think Square has lost it for the most part. Its too bad. They use to be the best JRPG developer...

 

[clint g]

I'd point to the time after Final Fantasy X's release as when Square began to decline. X was a masterpiece. Everything afterwards felt sort of meh. The online stuff just wasn't my thing and the stories of XII and XIII were rather dull.

That being said, there are still some decent JRPGS out there. Tales of Vesparia was awesome and Persona 2 and 4 shows that there is still some creativity to be had in the genre.

 

[LitmusDragon]

As a whole, I prefer the Dragon Quest games to the Final Fantasy games. This was especially true of Dragon Quest VIII versus Final Fantasy XII. But, it's been true historically too.

I haven't really been plugged in to console gaming for a very long time, probably not since the Super Nintendo. I can play a Mario game for a few minutes and be entertained, but Super Mario World was the last one I played to completion. The same is true for Metroid, Zelda, etc.

I did like Final Fantasy X a lot though. VI and X are my two favorites. I liked VII at the time, but have never been able to get very far with it when I try to go back and replay it.

 

[Meredith]

My progression into the darkness that is my Final fantasy Addiction....


Well I first started with a game called " dotHack.//SIGN"...

I played all of them, it was my first JRPG. Then I played Final Fantasy XI, then I got all of the onmes they had for Final Fantasy on the GB advance, then the DS, then FFXIII, then FFXIV. I actually like Finaly Fantasy XIV!

I am weird

 

[Bishop76]

If you liked FFXIV you most certainly are. But at least you recognize that. It is nice to put a name to the one subscriber they have left

 

[froot]

If you liked FFXIV you most certainly are. But at least you recognize that. It is nice to put a name to the one subscriber they have left

Well, it IS pretty. And it's got a lot of similarities to XI. But the gameplay really, really needs improvement. It didn't fix enough of XI's problems, IMO.

But there were bits of the beta I liked, so I wouldn't say it's entirely weird. Maybe just a little weird.

 

[Bishop76]

It did have a lot of similarities to XI... which is a huge problem seeing as XI is almost 10 years old now. XI was actually not a half-bad game for its time. It was grindy and slow like all JRPGs are, but ALL MMOs were grindy and slow and harsh at the time. The fact that they made XIV in that same mold almost 10 years later is... problematic.

Though it was pretty.

 

[froot]

It did have a lot of similarities to XI... which is a huge problem seeing as XI is almost 10 years old now. XI was actually not a half-bad game for its time. It was grindy and slow like all JRPGs are, but ALL MMOs were grindy and slow and harsh at the time. The fact that they made XIV in that same mold almost 10 years later is... problematic.

Though it was pretty.

Yeah, that was my exact problem with XIV. XI worked great for its time, but this was before WoW came out and basically re-invented the genre. It's like Squeenix entirely missed the memo. Like you said earlier, it's like how Advent Children was a total eye feast, but lacked... well, in my case, it lacked a story that made any kind of sense. Seriously, I still don't know what the plot of that movie is.

Would it be a good idea for Square to release a fully-updated version of VII? They've been dropping the ball as of late; would it help for them to go back to the game that made them successful in North America? Not prequels or sequels or movies, I mean re-making the actual game.

 

[Bishop76]

Like you said earlier, it's like how Advent Children was a total eye feast, but lacked... well, in my case, it lacked a story that made any kind of sense. Seriously, I still don't know what the plot of that movie is.

You wouldn't be alone there. It was a fantastic visual assault of things just happening because they could happen. I loved seeing all the characters updated and I loved seeing them all working together again... but I would have loved to have known just what they were working towards... It was an hour of pseudo-story so they could justify making a 10 minute Cloud/Sephiroth fight.

Would it be a good idea for Square to release a fully-updated version of VII? They've been dropping the ball as of late; would it help for them to go back to the game that made them successful in North America? Not prequels or sequels or movies, I mean re-making the actual game.

I think it would be a great idea. I know the fans are clamoring for it, but I don't know what the interest would be outside of the (shrinking) fandom. I know I'd be there at midnight for my copy. The only thing I would fear with it would be that they would try to make it fit in with Advent Children, that stupid Vincent game, Crisis Core, and all the anime shorts they produced for it. That could muck up a pretty solid story really quickly.

 

[Meredith]

Final Fantasy VII-HD

I would buy it!