Wired: Final Fantasy Isn’t Dying. It’s Already Dead

FourMyle said:
The modern FF games brought many different systems to complement the "press x' gameplay. By press x I mean 99% of the battles can be blown through by either Attacking or selecting your most current/powerful spell meaning that very little thought is actually required of the player.
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I for one am glad they are trying a new action style gameplay. (especially after auto battle XIII) I have been doing press x gameplay for 20 years now.

I also don't understand the complains about the uncharted style cinematic gameplay. RPG's have always been focused on story, so why not make it more fun by putting you in the cinematics. Also don't expect the whole game to be like that, let's remember it's an open world with many sidequests. such cinematics are probably saved for epic events in the main story.
 
As far as I'm concerned Final Fantasy is still the premier JRPG despite what people are constantly complaining about with the series.
 
X was fantastic. X-2 wasn't a very good Final Fantasy game, but a good jrpg nonetheless. I've never played XI, but I hear it was very good. XII is a modern take on a dated genre. I really thought the Square Enix was pushing jrpgs forward with XII. The future looked bright. I wouldn't date Final Fantasy's decline back to a decade ago. Some of you may not like X or XII, but it's hard to deny that they are solid gaming experiencing that keep the spirit of Final Fantasy alive.

If the series is dying, it all started with XIII. Consider the years of delays. The empty promise. The hype. In the end, we got a game that is not only distant from the Final Fantasy series, but distant from jrpgs. in general. Hell, it's a stretch to even call that piece of shit a game. The battles play themselves, and it took linearity to an unprecedented level. Ever since then it's been downhill. It goes without saying that the trilogy of XIII games and XVI were all failures.

That said, I think there is a sliver of hope for the series. Square Enix at least recognized that XVI sucked. XV is literally the series' last hope. Square was known for pushing the jrpg genre forward, and all they've done lately is pushed it back. Though XV looks very, very different from the turn-based style of the past, I'll give them a shot to make it work. If it fails, then yes, Final Fantasy is quite dead.
 
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin? The brand has plenty of power with consumers, just not the old guard fans.
 
Final Fantasy brand name is still one of the strongest in the JRPG circle, even if Square Enix is considered a joke.

I mean what would be the most selling JRPG franchise now?

It's still Final Fantasy.

Even if people slam on it, I think FFXV has a pretty good chance at being success.
 
GT Vespene said:
The mere fact this thread exists should be evidence enough that the franchise has fallen off the deep end. Anyone here defending this brand is either a blatant fanboy or a cosplayer.
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Insulting vast groups of people really helps to get your points across and doesn't at all make you look silly.
 
DaBuddaDa said:
Goto and Toriyama were talking about Lightning's cup size and jiggle because they were asked about it in that interview. They didn't bring it up.

Chris also states: "But if in 2013 this is what a Q&A session about Final Fantasy has become, then any claim that the series once had something approaching mainstream respectability done gone and caught the train out of town." He's using one interview and casting a very wide judgement about the franchise because of it. Meanwhile, there are literally dozens of perfectly normal, non-boob-centric interviews about Lightning Returns, Final Fantasy XIV, XV, etc.

Concludes with: "At this point, it’s tough to see a path back to relevance for Final Fantasy, if the caretakers of the series are spending their creative cycles thinking about the particulars of breast physics." Yes, I'm sure all they are thinking about are breast physics. They go into work every day, work 12 hour days and do nothing but think about breast physics. Give me a break.

This is a poorly thought out, inaccurate hit piece based on someone who got all flustered a dev dare talk about sexuality of the characters in his video game when asked about it. I expect way more from Chris.
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I think you're entirely incorrect. Kohler stated what he thought, and if you check the final fantasy thread on GAF a lot of it revolved around how obsessed Toriyama is with Lighting and how he's hurting the series because of it. This isn't a one off conversation.

Fact is, there will be a third game in the 13 series, a block of games that have, for the most part, been publicly laughed at. Final Fantasy used to be THE premier RPG series and now no one gives a fuck. The conversation on breast physics is a symptom of the problem that FF is facing in terms of being relevant during the modern age. Square has basically gone out of its way to ignore it's fanbase, and seems to be horrible managed at the resource level. They've essentially wrecked a cash cow that had both popular and critical support.

And I think this is indicative of the problems square is facing as a whole. No kingdom hearts this generation was a huge problem. Final Fantasy XIII versus being final fantasy XV etc. The only good output Square has had has been on the handheld front. They're doing some really stupid things on the business side, and it's cost the Final Fantasy franchise its luster and it's relevance.
 
Zophar said:
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin? The brand has plenty of power with consumers, just not the old guard fans.
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Absolutely not. SE was saying they were hoping to sell 6 million copies in Japan alone and that ended up being the global number.
 
I want to say "thank you captain obvious" to the article writer, but he's 15 years late on this. FF has been dead ever since the abomination that is FF8 came out, the last worthy (and incidentally, the best) FF was FFTactics, and that's almost three generations of consoles ago.

Fuck off nowadays Final Fantasy.
 
GT Vespene said:
The mere fact this thread exists should be evidence enough that the franchise has fallen off the deep end. Anyone here defending this brand is either a blatant fanboy or a cosplayer.

I used to LOVE Square games. Alas, nothing lasts forever and I'm not going to defend some perverted this J-pop fan service garbage.

"Well if you don't like it, don't play."

I haven't since XII. Couldn't stand to finish VIII. Gave up on X-2 and didn't bother with the XIIIs after playing the first 6 hours.
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Very mature. Keep painting with that wide brush. I'm not even a fan of FFXII,XIII, or XIV, but your comment is extremely childish and condescending. There's nothing wrong with holding out hope that the franchise could get back on it's feet. I think even the most diehard fan in this thread will agree that Final Fantasy has fallen out of popularity (at least in the west) and has struggled a lot this generation, to the point of issuing public apologies.


On a completely different note: I'm very worried, due to the XIII trilogy's lukewarm/negative reception and the complete failure that was FFXIV 1.0, sales for FFXV will really suffer across the board.
 
Zophar said:
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin? The brand has plenty of power with consumers, just not the old guard fans.
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Don't think so.

But many of the sales were due to "Wow Next Gen Final Fantasy, day one!"

Now it's more like "Wow Next gen Final Fantasy, tread carefully"

But we will see.
 
GT Vespene said:
The mere fact this thread exists should be evidence enough that the franchise has fallen off the deep end. Anyone here defending this brand is either a blatant fanboy or a cosplayer.
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Surrounding yourself with an echo chamber focusing on bad things creates false realities, just like listening about people getting murdered on the news everyday, except on steroids. You either keep the internet-machine in perspective or you don't.
 
Alright can someone clear this up in regards to XV? The E3 trailer was pretty much all target renders and the gameplay trailer was pretty much all realtime? Is this correct?
 
Inorigo said:
Absolutely not. SE was saying they were hoping to sell 6 million copies in Japan alone and that ended up being the global number.
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To be fair, that's still really decent.

I think Final Fantasy is far from dead, but I also think there was a time when it was more relevant both to core gamers and to the mainstream, and now it's strictly within the JRPG niche.
 
Zophar said:
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin? The brand has plenty of power with consumers, just not the old guard fans.
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Even if it was, it wouldn't necessarily indicate the current reception/quality of the brand.
 
Jarmel said:
Alright can someone clear this up in regards to XV? The E3 trailer was pretty much all target renders and the gameplay trailer was pretty much all realtime? Is this correct?
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Correct. People are just insulted that SE would release a target render-y video like they did at E3, after how that backfired with FFXIII.
 
Morrigan Targaryen said:
I want to say "thank you captain obvious" to the article writer, but he's 15 years late on this. FF has been dead ever since the abomination that is FF8 came out, the last worthy (and incidentally, the best) FF was FFTactics, and that's almost three generations of consoles ago.

Fuck off nowadays Final Fantasy.
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MOST Final Fantasy fans enjoyed final Fantasy VIII, IX and X, just read any review site like amazon. So unfortunately your wrong.
 
The series needed to DIE so that it could be REBORN with XV. I welcome the death if it means a Nomura-blessed phoenix will rise from the ashes.
 
Rich Black American said:
As far as I'm concerned Final Fantasy is still the premier JRPG despite what people are constantly complaining about with the series.
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Some people have a sick obsession over this series and end up completely twisting and falsifying the state of the industry.

It makes no sense to talk about he "fall" of Square Enix without mentioning the dire state of the japanese gaming industry. As a megaten/atlus fan I never got a glimpes of an HD rpg title. Dark Souls, a behemoth of a game and my personal favourite of this gen ended up being outsold by a mere recycled outsourced spin-off that was XIII-2.

It's the fanboys that are crazed about the fall of the brand.
 
Morrigan Targaryen said:
I want to say "thank you captain obvious" to the article writer, but he's 15 years late on this. FF has been dead ever since the abomination that is FF8 came out, the last worthy (and incidentally, the best) FF was FFTactics, and that's almost three generations of consoles ago.

Fuck off nowadays Final Fantasy.
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Final Fantasy was dead for YOU, when VIII came out. For most, it was another successful and popular entry. It's complete ignorance to act as if the franchise died when the 3D FF's happened when they're what made the brand as big as it is.
 
Persona86 said:
I for one am glad they are trying a new action style gameplay. (especially after auto battle XIII) I have been doing press x gameplay for 20 years now.

I also don't understand the complains about the uncharted style cinematic gameplay. RPG's have always been focused on story, so why not make it more fun by putting you in the cinematics. Also don't expect the whole game to be like that, let's remember it's an open world with many sidequests. such cinematics are probably saved for epic events in the main story.
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Yeah it would be a valid complaint if the entire game was like that but so far it seems that the majority of the gameplay will be action RPG instead of cinematic uncharted-like.
 
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin? The brand has plenty of power with consumers, just not the old guard fans.
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Not even close, FF7 on the ps1 cleared massive units like in the 8-10 million range. FF8 alone cleared something insane like 15 million worldwide back in the day. It was a massive hit in terms of sales
 
DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Much ado about nothing.

FF XII was a milestone.
FF Crisis Core was a great prequel.
Advent Children was a great sequel.
Dissidia was a brilliant idea.
FF XIII broke out of dead cliches.
FF XIII-2 was fairly good.

...And all of them were actually very successful. Some of you have a sick obsession.
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lol
 
No evidence has been put forward from these kinds of articles to suggest that SquareEnix is going to retire the franchise in the near future (typically the result of dying), doing so would be asinine considering the numbers that the brand's properties still puts up. They then turn around and put the older games on some kind of untouchable pedestal using relative scale to phase out their flaws, it's almost selective ignorance.
 
I said as much in a couple of the Lightning (dramatic pause) RETURNS threads a month ago or so. A fair number of people were like "stop trying to make Lightning happen, it's not going to happen" and other laments. You may not agree with the sentiment (and you're entitled to) but they have a point as well.

As far as gameplay is concerned there doesn't seem to be anything new or innovative coming out of SE anymore and it's been like that for this whole generation. Nostalgia is being milked dry, re-hashes are being regularly re-fried, and at the center of it all is Lightning who has become a symbol of saturation and stagnation both.

Lightning is getting a promotion when she returns. She's going to be an angelic force that speaks to God. I wish them the best of luck with that.
 
It's accurate to say that "Final Fantasy", the 90's franchise, is dead, in the sense that very few fans of those games (including me) have any interest in what the franchise has become.

It's equally accurate to say that "Final Fantasy", the 00's franchise, is going strong and healthy. We tend to forget that many gamers got acquainted with Final Fantasy this way, and for them, this is "Final Fantasy".
 
Final Fantasy XI is still going after an incredible 11 years on the market, is still receiving expansions and still charging a monthly fee.

This is why SE have gone to all the expense of rebuilding FFXIV.

Regarding the "death" of the series, hmmm no mention of FFXII which whether you like it or not remains a genuinely unique and boldly experimental title.

Also, placing spin-offs and sequels on the same level as main numbered entries is somewhat disingenuous, as they never have the sort of budgets and hence sales performance requirements as their parents.
 
Final Fantasy, in terms of quality, pretty much died when Sakaguchi left. The fact that they haven't put Ito in charge of the series means that SE could not give two shits.
 
That1BlackGuy said:
I'm" baffled what "old school" Final Fantasy fans want from this franchise other than "making it like the old FFs" whatever that means. Seems to be a conflicting opinion around every corner and every new game released is the worst FF ever.
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I, for one, would like the exact opposite of the FF offerings for consoles this gen
 
FourMyle said:
Yeah it would be a valid complaint if the entire game was like that but so far it seems that the majority of the gameplay will be action RPG instead of cinematic uncharted-like.
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Yeah it was simply the focus of the trailer, that won't be the whole game.
I know I'm stating the obvious, but some comments I've read in the past act like this is the case lol.



I truly hope the next TGS trailer focuses more on exploration, towns etc

That always gets fans excited and will probably shut up some of the doomsayers.
 
ADPolice said:
Not even close, FF7 on the ps2 cleared massive units like in the 8-10 million range. FF8 alone cleared something insane like 15 million worldwide back in the day. It was a massive hit in terms of sales
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PS1.

Also I'm quite sure 8 never outsold 7. Your range for 7 is probably in the right ballpark though.
 
I'm sorry to hear the series is now dead and the game is ruined because a female character in it has breasts of a particular size.

I enjoyed FF13, or thought I did at least. Now that its mentioned though, there were probably breasts in that game too, so maybe I did not enjoy the gameplay and it was actually bad. Could be the breasts were modest enough that it was still a good game? Will have to check that out.
 
Dantis said:
To be fair, that's still really decent.

I think Final Fantasy is far from dead, but I also think there was a time when it was more relevant both to core gamers and to the mainstream, and now it's strictly within the JRPG niche.
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Can't imagine the next entry will top it though. I'm expecting much lower numbers to be honest.

There was a lot of hype driving FF13 as it was the first entry for HD platforms. Many ended up disappointed. I think the brand took a hard hit.

I too got caught up in the hype and blindly purchased 13, really regretted it. Won't happen again.
 
Weltall Zero said:
It's accurate to say that "Final Fantasy", the 90's franchise, is dead, in the sense that very few fans of those games (including me) have any interest in what the franchise has become.

It's equally accurate to say that "Final Fantasy", the 00's franchise, is going strong and healthy. We tend to forget that many gamers got acquainted with Final Fantasy this way, and for them, this is "Final Fantasy".
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Yeah it's kind of crazy to think that FFX was 12 years ago now, and many fans would have started with it.

I started with renting FF4 and FF6 way back when, though I guess first one I got super into was FF7.

I was okay with the series changing the way it did in the 00s, FFX was okay and I loved FFXII, but I feel FFXIII was the first one I could not accept as a Final Fantasy and forced myself to finish.
 
Midou said:
Yeah it's kind of crazy to think that FFX was 12 years ago now, and many fans would have started with it.

I started with renting FF4 and FF6 way back when, though I guess first one I got super into was FF7.
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What I'm afraid of is XIII becoming what IV, VII and X were to generations of gamers.
 
I've ignored everything FFXIII-related after the original game, and I thought that game was alright, despite not finishing (quit at the last dungeon 'cause I became distracted by Deadly Premonition).

Are people not excited for XV? Supposedly, it's gonna ditch the world and characters of XIII and start anew (which is what Final Fantasy should do)... unless its ties as "Versus XIII" really do relate it to the XIII universe in some way. I don't know. That Fabula Nova Crystallis thing was confusing.
 
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