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FINAL FANTASY Community Thread: XV Mainline Entries and Counting

Natetan

Member
ffiii and ffii remakes both have really great boss music. ffv prob worst.

I also agree about flowers in church> aeris theme.
 

Exentryk

Member
To what extent though? Look how long Versus XIII is taking... expectations have inflated to absurd levels because of it and if he doesn't deliver... well, let's just say the franchise will be in an even worst position in the mindset of fans than it is now.

I'd rather have a game take longer but be great than those mediocre XIII/XIII-2 games.

Nomura is creating a huge open world for the game, which is going to need a lot of asset development. He also mentioned that the game will have airships and will work with the world map in some way. On top of that, he is making those real time controllable cut-scenes, with luminous powered high quality graphics. He also mentioned the difficulty in creating and running those gimmicks, like explosions, Behemoth destroying bridges, etc.

Now I don't know what the exact reasons are for such a long delay. We know XIV has contributed a little, and maybe those KH handheld games took a bit of Nomura's attention, but the other development problems will only come after the game's post mortem, if that.

Anyway, I feel that it will be the next FF worth playing since FFX.

TGS 2012!!!
 

dramatis

Member
I didn't know about NieR, the other two can be considered full console games and I don't understand what has to do with LR the fact that it runs on UE3. It was a bad game (with good points of course) that sold shit, like all the other HD games Square Enix produced in Japan during this generation, outsourced or not.
UE3 means TLR took less time to develop since they didn't have to build an engine for the game, and therefore consumed less resources. Furthermore, if you're going to roll up here and say sales for TLR are shit and then proclaim that sales don't matter down there, don't make this argument.

This is not a race in which the one that sells the most wins. This has all to do with profits, and XIII-2 generated plenty of profits apparently for them. It has been developed in a little less than one year and half, recycling the shit out of XIII, making use of DLCs (that weekly were the top sellers on PSN). Costed way less than XIII, way more less than Versus and XIV and managed to be a key title in their earnings because of this. Something XIV didn't achieve and Versus will have problems achieving. We don't know how much they got with XIII, but I wouldn't be surprised if XIII-2 to them made the same profits without even selling as much, considering the short development time, the recycle of assets ect.

The reason they're willing to make more XIII games is proof already that XIII is a key-title to their present and future success and part of a new found strategy. Plus, we really don't know how much the XIII franchise is damaging the entire IP, we will find an answer when XV will be released one day.

Again, I invite people to see XIII-2 as a replacement for minor-spin offs. In my opinion S-E just realized that developing sequels or prequels to main entries is more successfull than continuing to develop series like Crystal Chronicles or Tactics, thus the reason why they don't announce anymore that many minor spin-offs like few years ago and decided instead to focus on XIII-2 and XIII-3. This is something we should get used to because I'm pretty confident in saying that from now every main entry in this series will be developed as a multiple-episode entry. This is essential to the strenghtning of Final Fantasy like Wada predicted few years ago. Less minor title, more main entries. Better critical reception, better fans' reactions, better sales. It's a winning situation to them, it's a better situation for players.
XIII is going to be tossed out the moment they have XIV up and running and Versus is out. You might want to say the only reason they're developing more XIII titles is to recoup more of initial investment. Kitase said the XIII-3 project started off in a rush; why would that happen if they were already planning for it from XIII-2? Probably because the original plan was to finish XIII-2 with DLC and release Versus, but since Versus wasn't going to make it in time they got 13-3 up and going instead.

Good job running circles in your head convincing yourself that somehow the 13 subfranchise is really important to Square though. They're not pumping the money into minor spinoffs because they were developing new IPs, like Bravely Default, the new Unreal RPG, and the Unity RPG rumored a while back, as well as cellphone games to expand into that market. They're supposed to be porting FF10 to Vita too, but who knows about that. MMOs also require large amounts of resources, so there's no doubt 14 and DQ10 have been consuming a lot. If you're only considering the FF franchise and nothing else, of course you're going to come to your half-baked conclusion as to why no spinoffs have been made or announced.

They're trying to repair FFXIV not to save the name of Final Fantasy (it's an mmorpg a minority of fans wanted or played), that's just again PR bullshit, they're doing it because FFXI have been essential to them regarding profits, and all the investments went into FFXIV have been 'till now wasted, and they don't have a back-up plan to develop another MMORPG in the next few years. Essentially, Square Enix wants a profitable MMORPG on the market and instead of starting anew the development of a new title in the genre, they decided to repair FFXIV. Not for the good name of FF (again, it's a title most of the fans never gave a fuck about, nor they'll look into it when repaired) but because they want money. FFXI have been the most profitable FF ever, so it sounds just natural for them to try to make some more money out of its sequel.
Don't talk as if you're the only FF fan, because there's no doubt the people who loved XI gave Square much more money than you. Up there you're gloating about how 13-2 was so damn great and profitable, and down here you're stomping on 14 as a title that nobody cares about and Square just wants money from. Well then what is this?
In the mean time two titles have been successfull and essential to S-E to survive: XIII and XIII-2. Not FFXIV, for now not Versus, no Type-0, Kingdom Hearts or any other brand.
The same argument you pose for the continued development of 14 can apply to 13-2: that SE just wants money. If anything, the reason they're pouring so many resources into reviving 14 proves that 14 is the title that is essential to SE, not 13 sequels, which they removed internal developers from and farmed out partially to triace.

The steep dropoff in sales between 13 and 13-2 is definitely a flag about damage to the brand. Consider how sequels to Mass Effect, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, and other new IPs of this generation sold, and then wonder how 13-2 could do so much less than its predecessor. Sure, 13-2 gives them short term profits (I would argue that the profits are not as huge as you imagine). On the long term though, it continues to damage the brand.

Also, this:
Who decided that 6,5 ml+ and 2,0 ml+ are bad sales?
Is rubbish. How many times do people have to correct you so that you would stop fudging 13 and 13-2's numbers? When did 6 million shipped become 6.5 million? When did 'shipped' numbers become 'sales' numbers? How is it that you can so nicely decimalize 13's numbers up to a fake 6.5 but then ignore that 13-2's sales are 1.6 million? And what the hell is with the + when you know sales are lower than you posit?
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
UE3 means TLR took less time to develop since they didn't have to build an engine for the game, and therefore consumed less resources. Furthermore, if you're going to roll up here and say sales for TLR are shit and then proclaim that sales don't matter down there, don't make this argument.

The point was that no titles other than XIII and XIII-2 helped Square Enix making profits lately. Titles like LR took an enourmous amount of time to release and didn't even reach the expectations they set up for them, thus ending those series immediately. One of the reasons why we're not playing LR2 and we're instead having XIII-2. XIII on the other way, made profits. That's why they decided for a XIII-2 soon after. And know what? We're getting more XIII games in the future because... apparently is considered by Square Enix profitable? I really don't understand what's so strange about what I'm saying. If they insist on this franchise is because, obviously, there's something convenient to them for doing so. Though if you prefer to think that M.Toriyama is a crazy god with absolute power and the influence all over the board of producers there, do as you like.

XIII is going to be tossed out the moment they have XIV up and running and Versus is out.

I never said XIII will continue forever.

You might want to say the only reason they're developing more XIII titles is to recoup more of initial investment.

I guess that's also a reason - like for every sequel more or less - but also that making money out of XIII sequels is easier and more convenient than starting from zero with new projects. That's why it'll not be surprising to see FFXV released from the start as a trilogy series. This could be very well what Wada intended years ago when he said he wanted a major FF released every year, the franchise stronger and more compact. That's happening already for what I see. Little by little of course, we're just at the start.

Kitase said the XIII-3 project started off in a rush;

I never heard anything like this. I knew he said the development of the next project just started. "Just started" could also mean that development began shortly after April of this year, when the last DLC for XIII-2 released.

They're not pumping the money into minor spinoffs because they were developing new IPs, like Bravely Default, the new Unreal RPG, and the Unity RPG rumored a while back, as well as cellphone games to expand into that market. They're supposed to be porting FF10 to Vita too, but who knows about that. MMOs also require large amounts of resources, so there's no doubt 14 and DQ10 have been consuming a lot. If you're only considering the FF franchise and nothing else, of course you're going to come to your half-baked conclusion as to why no spinoffs have been made or announced.

As if in the previous generation we've been given ONLY FFs spinoffs. Square Enix always produced and developed tons of games in the past and keeps doing that. What's changing is they're plans for the Final Fantasy franchise, like anticipated years ago by Wada. XIII is the key to the future of the series, like it or not.

Don't talk as if you're the only FF fan, because there's no doubt the people who loved XI gave Square much more money than you.[...]

I said that most of the fans of this franchise didn't play FFXI and that's why FFXIV didn't damage the brand at all. The reasons why Square Enix is repairing it is not for repairing the name of FF but just XIV itself, that being the successor to XI and the only mmorpg currently available for them together with DQX, essential for they're online strategy. That's what I was saying.

The steep dropoff in sales between

The steep dropoff was also true for FFX-2, the sequel of the most beloved title in the series together with VII. How you explain that? It's obvious the community of FF is used to see sequels differently from other series' sequels, but that's exactly what has to change for the franchise to live and what they're trying to do. You'll keep seeing more and more sequels or prequels in the next years even if FF will never top those huge numbers again. Though I might imply that contained sales don't mean necessary that these sequels on the long run will not be able to gather more profits than a single standard hit on the market. Afterall, if they manage to sell every year 2 millions of FF with cheap and fast developements, you can figure out for youself that this could be very well a better strategy to them than taking six years to release a 5 million single entry. The franchise could shrink, that's true, but the profits overall could not.


Is rubbish. How many times do people have to correct you so that you would stop fudging 13 and 13-2's numbers? When did 6 million shipped become 6.5 million?

Square Enix numbers and the only official numbers we currently have. The same numbers we use to know how much all the previous entries sold. They're numbers are usually given to investors, thus important for measuring the health of a series. Sold to customers or not, the earnings are the for S-E.

XIII-2 should be around 2 million at the end of the year I guess. It's not important though, the game is already considered a success by Square Enix that's why we're getting more of those. While discussing the total numbers, one should always remember that this is not a race in which the one that sells the most automatically wins, only the one that makes profits wins. Max Payne 3 sold alot, so L.A. Noire... still, they didn't generate profits if I remember correctly. What if XIII-2 gave them better profits than a title like XIII or the incoming Versus XIII? It's possible I guess... even if the total amount of copies sold is way less. The current status of the franchise and its future is not so easy to read as you imply. It's a new strategy for Square Enix which fruits will be counted in the future and not right now.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
This seems like the best place to ask; I hadn't touched a FF since X, until playing 4 Heroes of Light in a whim. It's kind of made me nostalgic for another good, job-based FF, but I'm not sure if there's anything like that in the myriad of spin-offs released in recent years?
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
This seems like the best place to ask; I hadn't touched a FF since X, until playing 4 Heroes of Light in a whim. It's kind of made me nostalgic for another good, job-based FF, but I'm not sure if there's anything like that in the myriad of spin-offs released in recent years?

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2? That's a pretty good entry but I don't know if you like sjRPGs. If you liked 4HoL might be good waiting for Bravely Default at this point.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2? That's a pretty good entry but I don't know if you like sjRPGs. If you liked 4HoL might be good waiting for Bravely Default at this point.

Definitely hyped for Bravely Default, but it doesn't appear to have US release date, let alone Europe. Is FFTA2 more highly regarded than the first? I could never get into it.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
I can't wait for Type-0!!


Seriously though, I know it's almost guaranteed Bravely Default's coming out here (even if they hopefully change the name for Greece). I'm just saying it might be a ways off, despite closer international release dates between the US and EU these days.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Definitely hyped for Bravely Default, but it doesn't appear to have US release date, let alone Europe. Is FFTA2 more highly regarded than the first? I could never get into it.

If you didn't like FFTAdvance probably you're not going to enjoy FFTA2 either. It's still a very good game though. Another game with jobs I forgot to mention it's Final Fantasy IIIr on DS/PSP, but maybe you already played that.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
If you didn't like FFTAdvance probably you're not going to enjoy FFTA2 either. It's still a very good game though. Another game with jobs I forgot to mention it's Final Fantasy IIIr on DS/PSP, but maybe you already played that.

Was looking for something 'new', but I suppose the remake overhauls enough of the game to be pretty much a new game. I'll give a shot, thanks!
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Just skimmed, but Perfo, did you really think TLR was bad?

It's a very fun game, especially the PC version which apparently improved on the 360 version a lot. I've only played the PC version but it's one of my favourite games of the generation. Soundtrack is awesome too. >.>

I don't think sales numbers dictate how good a game is supposed to be. It's about how many people feel about it after they've played it. A game can sell well, but the reception of players (not critics alone, as I feel players' opinions matter more) is what matters the most, and it can differ from what the sales dictate.

Anyway. I hate how the Olympics proper are over and now I have to go back to playing video games and studying for finals.

OQrgm.png
32A5h.png


I miss stuff like this. FF needs to take more cues from Mother.

khgor.png
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I'm willing to give that Mother 4 a chance even if it's a fangame and won't have Itoi's writing skills. -_-

I love simplicity in design. As long as there's an abundance of colour and an excellent use of a colour palette while injecting some good humour without taking itself so damn seriously and inserting dramarama everywhere, I'm happy.

I dunno about you guys but I want to fight streetlamps and backhoes.

Not sure if I like the UI much though. It looks like it takes up too much room. Ehhh... I still love how the Mother series look, though. You don't need a ton of fancy cutscenes and long dialogue scenes to express a narrative.

Back on-topic, though: even Final Fantasy VII didn't take itself super-seriously until the compilation.

Final Fantasy VII let you fight this cool dude:

Yb1c6.png
wT35y.png
 

Mario007

Member
I'm willing to give that Mother 4 a chance even if it's a fangame and won't have Itoi's writing skills. -_-

I love simplicity in design. As long as there's an abundance of colour and an excellent use of a colour palette while injecting some good humour without taking itself so damn seriously and inserting dramarama everywhere, I'm happy.

I dunno about you guys but I want to fight streetlamps and backhoes.


Not sure if I like the UI much though. It looks like it takes up too much room. Ehhh... I still love how the Mother series look, though. You don't need a ton of fancy cutscenes and long dialogue scenes to express a narrative.

Back on-topic, though: even Final Fantasy VII didn't take itself super-seriously until the compilation.

Final Fantasy VII let you fight this cool dude:

Yb1c6.png
wT35y.png

I wouldn't really take a design of a monster as an indication of whether the game took itself too seriously. Now Cloud being almost raped by Don Corneo or being given the choice to go on a date with Barret would be much better examples :p
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I wouldn't really take a design of a monster as an indication of whether the game took itself too seriously. Now Cloud being almost raped by Don Corneo or being given the choice to go on a date with Barret would be much better examples :p
I almost forgot I wasn't posting in the Sonic community thread (because half the time we joke about everything), but what I meant was that I liked that almost every facet of Final Fantasy VII had a joke aspect, right down to the enemies. I didn't explicitly state it, sorry.

Actually, now that you bring it up, the Wall Market sequence is one of my favourite parts of the game. Even choosing the stairs instead of busting into the Shinra Building brought some funny stuff with it. You wouldn't think the stairs are eventful, but they are, because:


Barret is awesome.

"Will you stop acting like a retard and climb?!"

FFVIII lets you inflict status effects with a train and summon the devil. It has a few batshit people in its main crew, but you have people cramping their legs because they're afraid of talking to girls.
FFIX has a bunch of quirky stuff from callbacks to funny dialogue to everything about Steiner.
FFV is all about poking fun at everything.
And at least, even though I don't care for it much anymore, FF4 finds a way to be funny in terms of NPC dialogue / spells you can cast. Final Fantasy VI is similar in that way, and it has the added benefit of more character animations to express stuff adequately.

I miss that a lot.
 

Gravijah

Member
speaking of enemy design, i really think the enemies in XIII are oozing with charm. especially the robots.

sometimes i just watch them walk around.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Man, I wish I could feel the same way. I felt a lot of them were kinda uninteresting. Most of the enemies I liked were the Undying enemies and the Ahriman-like ones.

The Boxed Phalanx enemies were lol, though.

ldr7t.png


I HAVE A FROWNY FACE AND A MOUSTACHE ON ME.
 

Gravijah

Member
FFXIII does horror creatures better than RE5/6 does.


but seriously, there's just something about them. they might not be the most interesting designs in the world, but how they come together from the animation, to the sounds, to the way they look, there's just tons of charm.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Oh, yes, definitely. But I don't want horror creatures to fight all the time. :(

I'll give you the Hoplite enemies, though. They like to whirrrrrr their heads and do the robot when they walk around.

I want dudes like this:

 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Just skimmed, but Perfo, did you really think TLR was bad?

People are misunderstanding me here, I was not speaking of the quality of those games but simply of capacity of Square Enix to put out successfull HD products (considering costs of dev., time of dev., sales and profits). While failing with almost every other attempts, FFXIII and XIII-2 marked a success and thus they'll keep being part of a new strategy, the strenghtning of FFs franchise (annual release, DLCs, fast dev. cycles ect.) and the focus on few more IPs combined with it.

Btw, I didn't enjoy TLR much, it had some cool ideas but was too focus on the battles than anything else and so ended to bore me. I loved NieR though, even it if was an imperfect creation it was very inspired.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Haha, I feel a little out-of-place sometimes because I don't often play games for the story anymore. Can't really get into them unless they pique my interest (ex: politics, social justice, warfare), play to my emotions (Nier, Mother 3), or are funny/pokes fun at themselves (Persona 4, Mother 1/2/3). Visual novels are a different breed, though.

I'm more interested in games for their battle systems and their ability systems now. I ended up liking TLR's system a lot (and I think that could be partially attributed to the Turbo Mode and bunch of other things in the PC version).

Professor Beef said:
...That's an EYE on the Ragtime Mouse's head?!
It'd be a weird-lookin' hat.
 
So, after a failed attempt to play through FFVI Advance earlier this year, I decided to try it again, only this time, I decided to use music restoration patch, along with the patch that adjusts the colors to be more in line with the SNES version.

It's really great to finally play through a version of VI Advance without the grating music.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
When they have Sakimoto compose for FF games, they should say, "Hey, Sakimoto-san. Compose for this like you would for your shmups. It would be pretty cool, man." And then Sakimoto would compose some cool stuff like this and this.

Or it could be like Gauntlet IV or Azure Way. Or heck, his Romeo x Juliet soundtrack was very good and one of my favourite works from him.

Better yet, Yuzo Koshiro could finally compose for an FF game and all would be right in the world.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
More themes like that and I'd probably be there with everyone else praising FF music to high heavens. Most of those shmup themes already sound like JRPG tracks!
 
Definitely hyped for Bravely Default, but it doesn't appear to have US release date, let alone Europe. Is FFTA2 more highly regarded than the first? I could never get into it.

I just looked up this game's trailer. WOW.. Character art style is cute like with FFIX, environment too - its soo charming, the soundtrack is amazing, story does seem pretty interesting. I'm considering on getting a 3DS bc of this game..


At 3:14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPK0yclgAsk
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
It looks like the game that'll justify the 3DS to me, if it fixes 4 Heroes Of Light's mistakes- apart from the silly 'one save slot' thing, I haven't really heard anything bad about it after the several thousand demos that appear to have come out on the japanese eShop.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I desire a Bravely Default localization a lot, and that's why I haven't paid much attention to it.

Hey, remember when Al Bhed was the in-thing and "translators" were popping up everywhere?


(Several years after the fact, but still.)
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
...Oh, damn, now I recognise it. I am ashamed, dishonored, shot myself in the foot etc. Greatest RPG featuring Charles Barkley of all time.
 
so, i took a risk on a cheap copy of final fantasy: 4 heroes of light & i'm quite enjoying it to be honest. i went in knowing a few of the flaws so nothing is really surprising me negatively. anyway, when you die, your main punishment is losing a few gems, right? otherwise there's nothing stopping you from grinding away, is that correct?
also, i'm thinking of picking up final fantasy tactics advance 2. i used to own this but never got that far into it. what're people's opinions of the game?
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
i went in knowing a few of the flaws so nothing is really surprising me negatively. anyway, when you die, your main punishment is losing a few gems, right? otherwise there's nothing stopping you from grinding away, is that correct?

Well, gems are you main method of advancement (job 'levels', equipment upgrading) but it's all you lose, yeah- losing half your diamonds though would suck.
 

Ultratech

Member
so, i took a risk on a cheap copy of final fantasy: 4 heroes of light & i'm quite enjoying it to be honest. i went in knowing a few of the flaws so nothing is really surprising me negatively. anyway, when you die, your main punishment is losing a few gems, right? otherwise there's nothing stopping you from grinding away, is that correct?
also, i'm thinking of picking up final fantasy tactics advance 2. i used to own this but never got that far into it. what're people's opinions of the game?

Yeah, you lose half your gems if your party dies. Luckily, this is prevented by having somebody as a Freelancer (their special ability prevents that from happening).

Something to be aware of though: Once you hit the 2nd half of the game, (it'll be VERY obvious when this occurs), enemies will start to level with you, so you'll want to avoid over-leveling or enemies will start to wreck you if you're ill-prepared.

Not every Crown is useful and many are very gimmicky. But leveling up "good" Crowns will help a lot in progressing. Sadly, leveling a Crown for somebody won't upgrade it for everyone else, so be aware of that.

FFTA2 is alright. Gameplay-wise, it's better than than FFTA, but the story still isn't anything special. (And despite fixing some things, you can still break the game with certain job combos.)
 
Yeah, you lose half your gems if your party dies. Luckily, this is prevented by having somebody as a Freelancer (their special ability prevents that from happening).

Something to be aware of though: Once you hit the 2nd half of the game, (it'll be VERY obvious when this occurs), enemies will start to level with you, so you'll want to avoid over-leveling or enemies will start to wreck you if you're ill-prepared.

so having just one person as a freelancer stops the entire party from dropping their gems? that's good, i'll keep that in mind.
didn't know about the second half, thanks! i hate when enemies level with your team. i'm sure it's good to provide a constant challenge to some but i love strengthening & leveling up & then destroying easier foes. ah well!

FFTA2 is alright. Gameplay-wise, it's better than than FFTA, but the story still isn't anything special. (And despite fixing some things, you can still break the game with certain job combos.)

as long as the gameplay's there. glad the judges/law-breaking has been toned down.
 

Bladenic

Member
Just wanted to say that FFX-2 did not see the same level of dropped sales as XIII-2. In fact didn't X-2 sell like 5 million copies? Yeah, you can bet that it made a hella lot more money than 13-2.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I dunno what I'd consider my top 3 FFs right now. I don't know, really.

Maybe FFV, FFX-2, and FFIX at the moment. It'll change the next time the question's put forth, I'm sure.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Just wanted to say that FFX-2 did not see the same level of dropped sales as XIII-2. In fact didn't X-2 sell like 5 million copies? Yeah, you can bet that it made a hella lot more money than 13-2.

US sales:
X-2 - 1.6 million
XIII-2 - 450K
 
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