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

x3sphere said:
I too got caught up in the hype and blindly purchased 13, really regretted it. Won't happen again.
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Another thing. Some people (you ?) are dead set on making it seem like FF XIII had some RE 6 reception or something. In the real world (outside niche forums) the reviews were really good

Again not defending anything... just... logic.
 
I think this would have been a timely article a year ago.

Right now, it feels like Square is turning the ship around. Do you know how many people I saw in real life were jazzed as hell about the FFXV trailer? Non-nerds I mean.
 
I would not say it is dead, since the franchise still has sales potential, but I will say this:

There was a time when FF was filled with the innocence of a kids movie from the 80s.

Nowdays, FF is a J-Idol simulator.


Until SE realizes this, FF will keep becoming more and more irrelevant.
 
Also I'm quite sure 8 never outsold 7. Your range for 7 is probably in the right ballpark though.
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Yeah you are right, I just looked it up again. The 15 million was from accidentally adding the japanese and euro market numbers to the base sales.

FF8 outsold 7 in terms of outselling it faster 3 months in, but lifetime 7 still surpassed it. Rankings wise 7 and 8 are still the best two selling FF's to date according to Squares data at about 8-10 mil each
 
Alfredo said:
I've ignored everything FFXIII-related after the original game, and I thought that game was alright, despite not finishing
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That was basically my opinion as I played it at first (though I did push myself a bit to finish it). I still don't have a ton of hatred for FFXIII it self, it's more like the fact that it became an in-cohesive trilogy and the only mainline, offline FF we got this entire generation, when even last gen we managed 2, and 3 before that. This gen is also much longer than previous generations, so that rubs the salt in the wound greatly.
 
Meccanical said:
The Last Story wasn't good.
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It was better than the Final Fantasies put out this generation.

Green Mamba said:
I'm not really looking forward to FFXV either, but it doesn't actually take place in XIII's universe, though I don't really blame you for not knowing. How SE has handled and explained their Fabula Nova Crystalis abortion of a concept has been less than favorable.

I still can't believe we're sitting in the grasp of FNC's vile tentacles.

And I agree on your first point, but be prepared for someone to post a picture of Amano concept art of the pretty boy main characters from the first six because apparently that's exactly the same thing as the FFXV characters being actual fashion models.
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Huh, well at least that's a positive. I still don't get this FNC stuff, but I guess it's the tendency for some of these companies to make big gestures and name everything, especially things that don't need to be named.
 
Well I agree that the series is dead but I don't agree that it began at FF X. FF XII was superb and the way forward for the series. In fact it's easy to pinpoint where the series went to sh*t: Final Fantasy XIII.
 
Wazzy said:
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.
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lol. "You don't like something I like, you're ignorant"? I'm not talking about sales, but quality, and the two are not correlated.

Persona86 said:
MOST Final Fantasy fans enjoyed final Fantasy VIII, IX and X, just read any review site like amazon. So unfortunately your wrong.
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*you're
 
Persona86 said:
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.
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Yea, I definitely expect the TGS video to be "Exploration First Look (TGS 2013)", similar to how the debuted the gameplay. The focus of the E3 trailer was clearly to give it that action feel, to appeal to the western audience. And from the looks of all forms of social platforms. It definitely did its job. I've never seen so many "I've never played a FF before, but can I jump into this one without playing the earlier ones?" before. TGS has to appeal to the traditional RPG crowd, so I expect to see more of this vast open world that Nomura keeps hyping.

If I don't see exploration at TGS, I'd be really disappointed.
 
Why did FFXIII get two sequels, when it's the most poorly-received Final Fantasy... ever? The previous sequel FF was already kind of divisive, why did they think it would save the mess that XIII was? How many years have they wasted on this?
 
Aizu_Itsuko said:
I would not say it is dead, since the franchise still has sales potential, but I will say this:

There was a time when FF was filled with the innocence of a kids movie from the 80s.
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Sounds to me the ones who DO want that back are...kids from the 80s who want their childhood back.
 
Final Fantasy has failed to bring in newcomers to its franchise. So what's left is the older generation of gamers who fondly remember Final Fantasy from its SNES - or more likely - PSX days. Hence the dwindling sales.

We all hate it when publishers mess with their franchises (and often ruin them) by trying to make them appeal to a younger demographic, but sometimes there is no other way to keep a franchise alive, but to take that risk.
 
I guess it really is possible to 'grow out of Final Fantasy.'

Over the last few weeks I've began to come to terms with what shit Final Fantasy and Square-Enix have become. At this point I am totally ready to disregard them completely as a shitty troll company that feeds off the nostalgia of what used to be a great franchise. Final Fantasy is next in line to be buried in the SE graveyard where many of their great IPs lie.

Final Fantasy isn't dead, it's a cancer patient in critical condition.
 
DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Another thing. Some people (you ?) are dead set on making it seem like FF XIII had some RE 6 reception or something. In the real world (outside niche forums) the reviews were really good

Again not defending anything... just... logic.
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And what exactly do good reviews have to do with anything? If I recall Dragon Age 2 also reviewed well. Bizarrely enough many review sites claimed FF XIII-2 was better than the original but scored it lower. Review scores are meaningless.
 
I was a huge fanboy for the longest time.. But Chris Kohler definitely called it. I had always thought X-2 was the tipping point too. Soon afterward, sequel upon sequel, and the only main game since then that wasn't bad was XII, and that had already been in the works for how many years.

FF is dead, and I don't even care.
 
Monty Mole said:
Final Fantasy has failed to bring in newcomers to its franchise. So what's left is the older generation of gamers who fondly remember Final Fantasy from its SNES - or more likely - PSX days. Hence the dwindling sales.

We all hate it when publishers mess with their franchises (and often ruin them) by trying to make them appeal to a younger demographic, but sometimes there is no other way to keep a franchise alive, but to take that risk.
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Which sales are dwindling? XIII brought in plenty of new fans.
 
It's a shame I liked the battle system in 13 but really couldn't give a crap about the actual plot. After the final boss battle stuff happened couldn't tell you and I didn't care. But that said when you had the right characters and moves setup for a battle it was so much fun to chain those combos together.
 
IvorB said:
Well I agree that the series is dead but I don't agree that it began at FF X. FF XII was superb and the way forward for the series. In fact it's easy to pinpoint where the series went to sh*t: Final Fantasy XIII.
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FFXII's battle system did more to turn me off of Final Fantasy than anything else in the series.

Come to think of it my entire gaming circle tuned out at FFXII.
 
DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Another thing. Some people (you ?) are dead set on making it seem like FF XIII had some RE 6 reception or something. In the real world (outside niche forums) the reviews were really good

Again not defending anything... just... logic.
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It was the worst reviewed Final Fantasy mainline since the NES days. I'm all for saying FFXIII sold well, and gets unnecessary "worst game evar!!" criticism, but fact is it falls short of most titles in recent memory.
 
IvorB said:
And what exactly do good reviews have to do with anything? If I recall Dragon Age 2 also reviewed well. Bizarrely enough many review sites claimed FF XIII-2 was better than the original but scored it lower. Review scores are meaningless.
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I am obviously referring to how Capcom accepted how bad reviews affected RE 6 sales.
So good reviews have to do with sales and making the hype argument mute.
 
spoony_faint0nkxi.gif
 
Good God Square needs to stop numbering this series.

The fact that they are still sticking the roman numeral on there after 15 games is bad enough, but Final Fantasy XIII-2? C'mon. That's nonsense. What the hell does that even mean. I can't wait until they start numbering the sub-sub-sequels. I want to see a Final Fantasy XIII-2...2. Really they should just reboot the entire series. I realize that they change around the characters and settings, but that's not enough to save the series at this point. Square needs to go back to the drawing board, reassess what made FF great back in the 16-bit era, and rebuild the entire franchise from the ground up. Go dark for a few years. Tone down the pathos. Overhaul the art. Come back with a next gen title that reestablishes the brand, and simply call the game "Final Fantasy."

But especially the numbers. Even the most diehard apologists know, in their heart of hearts, that the number thing has become absurd. Even Police Academy stopped at seven.
 
KoopaTheCasual said:
It was the worst reviewed Final Fantasy mainline since the NES days. I'm all for saying FFXIII sold well, and gets unnecessary "worst game evar!!" criticism, but fact is it falls short of most titles in recent memory.
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Not by any great margin. It has an 8/10 score average..defending logic again.

Meccanical said:
SMT is the shittiest series ever.
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Not really, Persona 3 and 4 did as good or better than many rpgs.
 
Morrigan Targaryen said:
lol. "You don't like something I like, you're ignorant"? I'm not talking about sales, but quality, and the two are not correlated.
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Yup, that's exactly what I said. How about you don't put words in my mouth?

You can dislike VIII all you want, saying it killed the franchise is being disingenuous. It's one of the most popular entries and is still loved by many fans.
 
ITT:
If there's anything, in gaming, people like more than Final Fantasy, is hating Final Fantasy.
Shrug.
 
Wazzy said:
Yup, that's exactly what I said. How about you don't put words in my mouth?

You can dislike VIII all you want, saying it killed the franchise is being disingenuous. It's one of the most popular entries and is still loved by many fans.
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I just laughed out loud. What in god's name would make you think was VIII was popular?

I would guess maybe 10-20% of the people that bought it liked it.
 
Zophar said:
Isn't Final Fantasy XIII the best selling entry in the series after FF7 by significant margin?
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Road said:
Speaking of Final Fantasy, I just found this Mainichi Shinbun article about the series 25 years that has the following worldwide shipments for the games:

Code: 
I        2.5    (FC, WSC, PS, PSP)
II       1.6    (FC, WSC, PS, PSP)
III      3.7    (FC, NDS)
IV       4.3    (SFC, PS, WSC, GBA, NDS, PSP)
V        3.1    (SFC, PS, GBA)
VI       3.9    (SFC, PS, GBA)
VII      9.9    (PS, PC)
VIII     8.6    (PS, PC)
IX       5.4    (PS)
X        8.5    (PS2)
XII      6.1    (PS2)
XIII     6.6    (PS3, X360)

XI       0.6    (PS2, PC, X360)
XIII-2   3.0    (PS3, X360)

million units.

(It doesn't have 10-2, but the last number I saw for it was 5.2 million.)
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.
 
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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My mistake. Either way, point stands. That's still very respectable for the series.

edit: The above confirms that, IMO.
 
Monty Mole said:
Final Fantasy has failed to bring in newcomers to its franchise. So what's left is the older generation of gamers who fondly remember Final Fantasy from its SNES - or more likely - PSX days. Hence the dwindling sales.

We all hate it when publishers mess with their franchises (and often ruin them) by trying to make them appeal to a younger demographic, but sometimes there is no other way to keep a franchise alive, but to take that risk.
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I think you're right. But here's the irony: FF is currently targeting a Japanese youth demographic. And that very specific shounen style is what's turning off new players like overseas youth - who aren't Japanese, and are no longer a generation of anime fetishists. To be more appealing to western youth... I think it ironically has to mature a bit.

XV looks a step in the right direction... if I were 12 I'd think that were cool. Less so some of the stuff I've seen in XIII-2 and Lightning Returns.
 
DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Not defending anything. Link me and correct me.
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From Wikipedia:

Final Fantasy XII received universally high review scores, and earned numerous "Game of the Year" awards in various categories from noted video game publications. Selling more than two million copies in Japan, it became the fourth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of 2006 worldwide. As of March 2007, over 5.2 million copies of the game have been shipped worldwide.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XII
 
DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Not by any great margin. It has an 8/10 score average..defending logic again.

.
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Yea... don't see how you're disagreeing with me? I'm just saying you're waving around sales numbers as a claim to fame, when most of those are built off a hype of "new final fantasy of the next gen!" It did ok, all things considered, but lets not get carried away, shall we?
 
Final Fantasy X-2 was the seed of this. I LOVED Final Fantasy X, and the idea I could go back to Spira, see what life was like after Sin, and all that, was very appealing to me. Throw in the fact that Tidus might be alive, and I was in. Then I got to the part on the mountain where for no apparent reason Yuna, Pain, and Rikku decide to get in bikinis and splash each other literally made me turn off the game. I haven't played it since.

XII came out, and despite its flaws felt like it was an attempt to get the series back on track.

Then the whole 13 fiasco happened and that was it for me. I've always appreciated Square's visuals but I felt they always backed it up with gameplay. For the most part, the people who made Sqaure games incredible have all departed. Or at least that's how it seems.

I hope 15 is good but it's astonishing to me that square didn't abort this fabula nova crystalwhateverthefuck plan once the backlash to XIII happened. XIV then bombed and XIII-versus is now 15. That means they've been working on that game for over 7 years. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON OVER THERE?! The whole series has become a disaster and it's a shame because FF used to be the premier RPG series and now it's practically a joke that revolves around tie ins and breast physics.
 
IvorB said:
Mmmm... I don't think so. Reception how?
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Actually it did. FFXII is liked more on GAF but overall people did not like it as much. It was a drastic change which made the gameplay offline MMO and the Character/ story were easily forgettable.

But it wasn't worse than FF13 because FF12 was still a good game 13 was just bad.

I think thats another reason for the series decline. Fans haven't gotten a proper Final Fantasy game since FFX. FFXI was online, FFXII was an offline mmo drastic gameplay changes (still a good game and the theme and setting was on the right track), and then finally when FF13 looked like it was back to glory it was the worst of all.

Then we got one whole console generation of shitty sequels.
 
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