"Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

I wasn't really under the impression it was broken, but one less than stellar entry... and a follow-up to said entry, and you get these type of articles.

(I guess XIV also counts as a bad entry, but who plays that?)

http://www.rpgamer.com/editor/2012/010312mc.html

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

I would say that gamers having the opinion of "who plays that?!" about one of the games in your series is a decent sign that it's broken.

FFXIII was just boring as hell. Linear to the point of being bad, and when the world did open up, it wasn't the same kind of open world as in other Final Fantasies. There wasn't really much to do in it. There were those side mission things, but those were best left until after you beat the game, and at that point, who really cares to do them?

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

You can find handfuls of people who will say that exact thing about every single game, to be fair. Plus I'm sure there are entire cities full of Japaneseies who would disagree with anything being wrong with the series.

(And I actually enjoyed 13 :( . I mean, the linear part pissed me off - but I think they created a good story, and a very visually pleasing world with an interesting history [if you read those dossier-type things like in the ME series].)

----
But anywhoo, I believe that a big part of "the problem with final fantasy" is that the North American gaming core who loved the series when it was first released for the NES, and played it when the series matured during the PSone days - has aged. We aren't the whimsical children we once were who were satisfied with a JRPG with frilly music, and girls in tight clothes with big tits (....).
We want RPG's like Mass Effect, Fallout, Bioshock. A dark world with gritty, dark surroundings, and girls in tight clothes with big tits. We as a gaming core have evolved, the types of RPG's we like have also changed. We like realism over magic and fairy tales, with some tight clothes and tits.
We don't care if our fake-real-world has magic in it like Bioshock, or Mass Effect as long as the world is dark, and mature enough, and has some tits. Not that some of us don't still like JRPG's, or will play them. We just tend to like 'North American' RPG's more. We would consider them to be vastly 'better' as a whole, Which makes sense.
Maybe part of the only reason why we liked Final fantasy so much as kids is because it was one of the only options at the time to play a game, and see girls in tight clothes with big tits - or if there were other options, they all looked like Final Fantasy anyhow.
Plus if your friend plays a game, as a kid - you want to play it to then be able to talk about it and share the experience - and back in the day everyone knew someone who played those games and would lend it to you. Now those people play Mass Effect and Call of Doody.

I really do still like the series though, and I'm currently playing through 12 again - and I'm noticing so many different things this time through that are making this a lot deeper than I originally thought it was. Plus turning off those goofy coloured action lines and film grain, with turning the attack gauge speed to maximum are making the game so stupidly fluid and nice to just sit back and watch. I don't use gambits much, though. For little tedious things that occur all the time, I do [or if it's late at night and I just want to sit back, smoke a joint and watch how beautifully successful these characters I've designed fight on their own] - but I typically like to control the battles oldschool-style, every action for every character every time - which is easily possible in this game. Playing it that way and just switching the character you're controlling simply for perspective is pretty cool. It feels (to me) like I'm playing an old FF game, because of those things.

blah blah blah blah blah.

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

My opinion: FF13 is a great game, but it's not final fantasy.

After FFX Square lost their minds. Ok, FFXI deserves the name "Final Fantasy" more then 12, 13, and 14 combined.. but that was the first step in them destroying the series.

They should have stuck to the turn based fighting systems. FFX had the right idea as far as how things should progress into 3D. Yes, FFX wasn't met with the most praise ever, and people had their issues with that.. but FFX was at least consistent with what the series was.

Yeah, thinking inside the box might cause a slow decline of the series, but it's not like there's any competing turn based RPGs out there... And FFXIII's biggest downfall is that it IS a 'Final Fantasy' game, and with that name comes expectations that the last 4 games haven't lived up to. They could have made games like 12 and 13 into their own series or spin off.

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

You know, I actually thought the main problem with FFXIII was that they tried to make it too much like Mass Effect.

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

FF13 is my biggest disappointment ever with games. God damn it had potential. Although a good game I thought, it really wasn't a Final Fantasy game. The world they created was utterly beautiful and begged to be explored. I yearn for the days of the world map, and the airships. Why did they ever think it was good to do away with these? I like FFX and FFXII well enough without world maps, but they could be something really special on a new generation of hardware. Lost Odyssey tried a bit of world mapping, and it mostly kicked ass.

I don't know what they could do to get it back on a better track. Maybe release Versus XIII, although at this point it feels like that game is a myth and could never live up to impossible expectations.

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

I think the disappointing thing with final Fantasy 13 is the disconnect that happened between the creators and the people who wanted to play it.

The creators wanted to write and tell a beautiful story, in a beautiful world that fully utilizes the PS3's visual capabilities. They wanted to tell a story. They didn't want to create a Final Fantasy game the way most people wanted one. We heard of the game and thought "I can't wait to explore an awesome world that they create. I wonder what sweet technology gimmick will be there this time.", and they thought "I can't wait to let all of the fans watch this world and story unfold. It's going to be beautiful and blow their minds."


I saw that disconnect again when they made the sequel. The reason they thought of making a sequel was because fans of the game wanted another game to 'expand on the character of Lightning.' Essentially saying "We like this chick, she reminds us of Cloud with some boobs. Let us play as her in a new, better game, with more freedom."

So the creators heard "Expand Lightning's character" and thought "Great, now we can tell an even deeper story about this character!"


Or maybe they had all just recently played MGS4 and thought "let's do that."

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

Actually what happened is they ran out of money for the project and time. They spent like 3 years developing the Crystal engine for the game, and almost no time with the characters and story. Which is why we ended up with the silly cookie cutter game with gorgeous graphics and stuff, but a silly story and silly characters. There was a big article on IGN about this very topic with 13. They had all these things planned and then they just had to scrap what they were doing and rework the game in a year because it took so long to develop the crystal engine. All they had worked on for an overworld was what you saw in Chapter 11. It was a horrible horrible attempt at a game because they ran out of time and they had to sell something to make up for the production cost of developing the crystal engine. There were a lot of interviews before that where they tried to play it off as being linear to help the player learn the new complex(right) battle system of 13, but that was just silly. So finally a few months after the game was a flop pretty much, there was another interview and I'll be damned if I can find it, but it was fucking good.

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

On a related note, I almost want to get FF13-2 now because of this DLC

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

Why did the crystal engine take so long to create? o_O

I mean, isn't it just the system from FFX except pulled out into a 3D format?

Re: "Fixing" Final Fantasy
 

He's not talking about the levelling system, he's talking about the game engine...