Support NeoGAF

[Mr. Somebody]

Im so glad you made this thread, friend. They have to focus on making ILL things happen on screen

1. MANY MANY incredible spells. Tons of incredible spells. We need our ultimas, flares, and new additions that make the screen fill up with light and weird symbols that look incredible and symmetric.

2. Many Many incredible Summons. Tons of incredible drawn out summons to make me go ouuuuuuuuuuuuuu ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oooooooooooooo. FF13 dissapointed me by not having incredible spells and incredible summons, friends.

3. Many Many special limit Break Like Attacks - FF13 dissapointed me by not having incredible individual attacks for their characters to make me go ouuuuuuuuu ahhhhhhhh ooooooooo. I need my graphical eyecandy in these 3 areas and i need them in abundance.

4. Non Reused enemy assets. We do not need to see the same enemy but in a different color throughout the game. Its lazy and it bothers friends.

5. Enemies have special spells - give some enemies their own special spells that the player doesnt have and can maybe obtain later in the game like FF6.

6. Epic final boss that does increibly ill things.

Good luck square. Dont let me down again. Youve been my friend since Final Fantasy 1.

 

[influentzar]

Better support XIV then.

No MMO, please?

 

[spekkeh]

I don't think you know what either of those terms mean.

Maybe not moe, but Hope's long twirly hair, big eyes, lips and tip-tilted nose sure give him an ultra feminine look.

 

[Jinko]

Sakaguchi hasn't made anything worth caring about sans SE, I don't see why bringing him back would fix anything.

What he has made has been significantly better than what SE have made though.

 

[Skilletor]

What he has made has been significantly better than what SE have made though.

When people say this, I feel like they only focus on consoles. Their handheld output has been fantastic.

Maybe not moe, but Hope's long twirly hair, big eyes, lips and tip-tilted nose sure give him an ultra feminine look.

I don't think he looks ultra feminine. Neither does Snow or Sazh. Or Balthier. Or Basch. Or Tidus. Or Wakka. Or Kimahri. Or Auron. Or or or...

 

[Vashetti]

I forgot. We are getting sequels anyway.

Gotta reuse dem assets

 

[Mr. Somebody]

When people say this, I feel like they only focus on consoles. Their handheld output has been fantastic.

Final Fantasy Adventure on Game boy is a classic.

 

[RMI]

The last time they did this, the franchise lost close to 3 million sales worldwide. Final Fantasy IX was pretty much the worst main selling entry in the west (not counting MMOs) since the SNES days. People don't want Final Fantasy throwbacks. Final Fantasy Dimensions, 4 Heroes of Light, and Bravely Default offered a more retro feel in recent years and none of them exactly set the sales charts on fire.

Amano didn't do the character designs for FF IX.

He did I, II, III, IV, V and VI.

IV and VI both in my opinion have some of the best characters in the entire franchise.

 

[Dvide]

Im so glad you made this thread, friend. They have to focus on making ILL things happen on screen

1. MANY MANY incredible spells. Tons of incredible spells. We need our ultimas, flares, and new additions that make the screen fill up with light and weird symbols that look incredible and symmetric.

2. Many Many incredible Summons. Tons of incredible drawn out summons to make me go ouuuuuuuuuuuuuu ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oooooooooooooo. FF13 dissapointed me by not having incredible spells and incredible summons, friends.

3. Many Many special limit Break Like Attacks - FF13 dissapointed me by not having incredible individual attacks for their characters to make me go ouuuuuuuuu ahhhhhhhh ooooooooo. I need my graphical eyecandy in these 3 areas and i need them in abundance.

4. Non Reused enemy assets. We do not need to see the same enemy but in a different color throughout the game. Its lazy and it bothers friends.

5. Enemies have special spells - give some enemies their own special spells that the player doesnt have and can maybe obtain later in the game like FF6.

6. Epic final boss that does increibly ill things.

Good luck square. Dont let me down again. Youve been my friend since Final Fantasy 1.

BRO FIST.

 

[Jinko]

When people say this, I feel like they only focus on consoles. Their handheld output has been fantastic.

Yea BD looks awesome, DQ9 was good too, what else ?

Remakes don't count.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

How is that Nostalgia ? :S

 

[Midou]

Step 1) Hiroyuki Ito directing with full creative freedom.

Step 2) Release the game.

BAM.

So easy, even Square Enix can do it.

Edit: To go into a bit more detail I guess, it's Ito's 'gameplay first' concept that resonates with me. I'm sure if he did FFXVI it would have a world you can explore with plenty of dungeons and towns, well paced, with a lot of character customization and a great battle system that is more substance than flash. Considering he invented so many of the core FF systems that still are in use today, he is the perfect person to revive the franchise. Preferably with a title closer to FF6/9 as opposed to 7/8 in terms of world.

 

[Bulzeeb]

He's a good story teller.

yeah, here is a graphic description

 

[Mr. Somebody]

BRO FIST.

*FIST OF BROS*

I want to keep believing in Square. They've been providing that eyecandy for decades. We just need them to be as dedicated to the spells, summons, attacks as they are to the scenery, story and characters. When i select any spell/summon/special attack from my list i need to feel like im watching lottery balls being pulled out of a basket and i win every time.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Less weeaboo shit and fan service. More mature setting and plot.

Get rid of one dimensional protagonists who seem to have mastered the hair straightener as well as the sword (yes, this actually applies more to all of the male leads over the years).

Open up the games earlier. More open fields, alternative paths, secrets. Get rid of the linearity that plagued XIII. If they can do it and scaling is not a problem, have a world map that can be roamed with a vehicle.

Semi-real time combat like FFXII or the MMOs. I suppose their latest crop of games like XV already has this, but that might also fall into its own trap of too many scripted God of War set pieces. XII's combat was near perfection and even allowed you to skip the monotony in IZJS thanks to the fast-forward and auto play options. Or, you know, design the games better to not ever require that.

Don't be afraid to go back to charming olde worlde cartoon art styles like FFIX's or Bravely Default's (or even Blue Dragon or Dragon Quests) for at least one game. FF used to be more varied than just this pseudo-realistic stuff that's been pushed a lot since VIII.

Bring in better composers. There is definitely a big drop off in music quality since Uematsu went rogue. Not that it's bad, but it's not memorable any more. I need catchy tunes to associate the games with, like for example the Balamb Garden, Fisherman's Horizon and Timber Owl's music for VIII.

 

[Skilletor]

Yea BD looks awesome, DQ9 was good too, what else ?

Remakes don't count.

Are we talking from the time of LO's release?

TWEWY
Dissidias
BbS
Crisis Core
Tactics Advance 2
VP: Covenant of the Plume
Tactics Ogre...yeah, you said no remakes, but I never played the original, and this game is fucking fantastic.
I've never played Type-0, but I hear good things. I really liked the demo.
Final Fantasy 4 warriors of Light
I can't wait for Bravely Default.


I dunno, a bunch of others I'm probably missing because it's been 6-7 years and I wasn't really keeping track.

 

[Fake Charlemagne]

Honestly I'd love it if they refocused their efforts towards character and plot development over visual flare and stylized cutscenes. I never played these games for the style, I played them to be drawn into a story I couldn't hear anywhere else.

 

[Kintaro]

I'm still trying to figure out how Final Fantasy is not relevant. It will always be relevant. The gaming world stops when a new numbered one is announced. Even coming off XIII and XIV's (initial) problems, the world stopped when they renumbered a game they had been working on forever to "XV."

This very forum stopped when the trailer hit. The same people who gnashed their teeth at XIII somehow had hope for XV (even knowing its origins and SE's failing to get it out).

So, yeah, FF is still relevant and always will be. Whether you like the games or not.

 

[Nymphae]

In my opinion they need to focus on the mainline games and make them something special again. I felt like after 9 they got so far up their own asses that they completely forgot what made the FF games special, and just wanted to sell as many damn games as possible.

Really for me it started with Kingdom Hearts. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game and I enjoy that series for what it is, but to me that seemed like the moment Square started playing up the FF fandom for sales. Look how many of your favourite characters are in this game!! It felt really dirty to me, just mashing these totally unrelated characters & plots because, well, it sure will sell. They literally drove me away from a series I loved with too much misguided "fan service". The advent children stuff, all the PSP games with weird names that I completely lost track of, the MMOs (they might be great but I'm not into MMOs), I just haven't been excited for a FF game in a very long time.

I am actually very excited by what I saw of 15 from E3, I hope they've learned from 13 and really nail this one.

 

[The End]

1) Direction: have a plan as to what you want the arc of your game to be, and follow through on it. XIII felt like they had just let their artists create whatever environments they felt like doing and then pasted them together with cutscenes. XIII-2 felt like they had some levels left over and made a game out of them.

2) Writing: Japan produces great films ever year. Those films have screenwriters. Hire them. Have characters that talk like human beings actually talk.

3) Gameplay: One hour tutorial, max. An hour in, I want the freedom to use the battle system how I want. That doesn't mean you can't add more elements later, but I want to feel like I'm actually playing the game at the hour mark.

 

[Perfo]

Toriyama is definitely staying in S-E. The management likes him, Kitase likes him, and he apparently handles his teams well. He's not going anywhere, and I'll be shocked if he isn't involved in another FF game in the future.
.

I'm glad to hear this, because you know... I'm one of the few around here that consider Toriyama a capable director in the current Square Enix. He just needs a better writer than Watanabe and a new FF/Lore to work with at this time, clearly XIII series is getting old right now and he needs to work on something more refreshing for the next generation. I wonder if he'll play some role in FFXVI or not, because I don't think there's anyone else willing to take his spot with Nomura/Tabata busy with their own projects.

 

[Midou]

because I don't think there's anyone else willing to take his spot with Nomura/Tabata busy with their own projects.

Don't see why Ito coulden't take it on, with 6,9 and 12 in his portfolio, 2 of which are the most respected FFs, he is the most likely to bring the series back to former glory. He doesn't seem to be working on much at the moment.

 

[brandnew]

Dropping the Final Fantasy name might help a bit. The only thing the name does is allow the use of moogles or chocobos, but at the cost of inviting comparisons to "god-tier" rpgs like FFVI or VII. They can make the same games, just stop calling them Final Fantasy and maybe people would be a little more fair.

Spoiler

I know this will never happen and is not a good marketing decision, but I still think the Final Fantasy name does more harm than good.

This doesn't mean I think FFXIII would be any better with a different name. Game was still pretty lame.

 

[Mandoric]

There are five or six distinct styles within the series, each one having its own adherents being hated by everyone else. Or, put another way, the longterm Final Fantasy fan has sub-20% odds of thinking anything but "I guess this entry is OK for what it is", and the newcomer has near-zero odds of getting a unanimous "try it" from his friends.

There are two potential solutions to support everyone:
a) Keep the pace of release, not necessarily development, extremely high. This worked through the '90s, but at this point I think there are too many niches that have to be catered to to feasibly keep an FF for everyone on the market at once.

b) Go back to spinning off distinct subseries for particular design philosophies the SaGa/Mana way. This was tried recently with Type-0 and BDFF, but the western death of handhelds seems to have torpedoed that; the FNC project was a similar attempt, but was planned with the assumption that players would love the lore enough to leave their comfort zones, which seems silly given that the problem is that their love for the overarching FF lore isn't enough to make them do so.

The problem with this, of course, is that we're well over the AAA-culture event horizon that FF helped to create and it's near-impossible to convince people to try either a spinoff, a new franchise, or a full-budget sequel to a new franchise that launched with realistic expectations.

So what's left is the third solution:
Standardize on the one or two options that make the most money relative to dev time (these are "fabulous cutscene parade" and "group-focused mmo"), and push those. Lots of the fanbase will be mad, but in terms of sales you're still fine. Plus, by keeping your name out there, you can easily pick off fans of the other options by offering nods to their tastes.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

• Make sure FFXV doesn't suck.
• Make a new FF like FFVI through FFX but with modern, cutting edge visuals.
• Never attempt anything like XIII or XII ever again.

 

[butman]

- A MAN as main character, and QUIET too. (Fuck Lighting and fuck Tidus voice)
- Badass Summons like FF VI VII VIII
- Big and free exploring World map, no on-rails crap like X
- Limit Breaks!
- Chocobos and Moogles. (classic ones) They should be like always, just like slimes on DQ.
- A present day FF it could be great, a little sick from Medieval, Steampunk and Cyberpunk shit.
- Turn based combat ROCKS!

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Honestly,
Matsuno.....

Look, FF really began to lose its soul when it went after the "ZOMG cutscenes and graphics." Yup, including FFVII.

Utterly ridiculous.

I've been with this series since FFII SNES (FFIV) and I couldn't disagree more.


The series just needs some stability, organization, and some young talent.
They need some new minds to come in and freshen things up.

 

[Gintoki313]

Make it less embarrassing.

Seriously, what is this suppose to be?

A video game character? A woman? A robot? I'm struggling here.

Wow. It looks like she's wearing a half cut-off trench coat, a Yuffie reference shield (Yuffie's shield was connected to her shoulder like this one), black underwear, and with a crap ton of pointy armor. It looks like just a huge cluster of clothes with armor. I think FF needs to take a hint from Dark Souls on cool armor, I'm simply astonished at some of the armor in that game. You know armor is good in a game if you make it an objective just to seek out armor for your character to wear.

Also the simplistic armor of past FF's were good too. Cloud, Squall, Auron, and Tidus looked good enough and they were all barely even wearing armor. Just cool casual (lots of belts) clothes.

The only good design I've seen in the FF13 series was Noel, Sazh, and sort of Snow. Everyone else's clothes were pretty forgettable to me. As you can tell I'm not har to please when it comes to costume designs. FF14's character designs are looking absolutely amazing though, so props to that indeed.

 

[Mandoric]

The series just needs some stability, organization, and some young talent.
They need some new minds to come in and freshen things up.

"Stability" and "new minds freshening things up" are pretty much polar opposites, aren't they?

 

[Kincaido]

Let me control a party of 3 or 4 with a turn based battle system plz

 

[Vidpixel]

Improved character interactions that don't seem so forced and the elimination of the text-driven tutorials and completely simplistic level design that plagued FFXIII.

 

[Sword Familiar]

Bring back the Gooch. Bring back turn-based. Bring back medieval setting. Don't ape western rpg philosophies.

Stop trying so hard.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

- A MAN as main character, and QUIET too. (Fuck Lighting and fuck Tidus voice)

No, because either qualities do not guarantee a good character.

I hope XIII's lackluster success doesn't deter them from going with a female lead again. Heck, it's the main reason I keep buying those games.

Improved character interactions that don't seem so forced and the elimination of the text-driven tutorials and completely simplistic level design that plagued FFXIII.

Oh yes. What we've seen of XV looks promising. And since they're taking a page out of Naughty Dog's book, how about going with fully acted cutscenes? Less of those expensive, flashy CGI cutscenes that do nothing to further the story or characters.

 

[Sulik2]

Open world, choices and quality RPG systems that reflect the last 10 years of progress in the games industry. No more terrible anime cliche characters either.

 

[sublimit]

I wonder if he'll play some role in FFXVI or not, because I don't think there's anyone else willing to take his spot with Nomura/Tabata busy with their own projects.

Akitoshi Kawazu and Hiroyuki Ito are much better choices than Toriyama.

 

[hellmonkey]

Take the best parts of ff7 and ff10 and slap em together.

1. Turn based combat please
2. Random encounters
3. I LOVED the materia system- Being able to make any character do anything gave you total customizability and replayability
4. Open world
5. Deep, rich story and character development
6. Substance of over style-Id much rather have good graphics and an epic story than epic graphics and a meh story
7. Tifa-Just... OMG. The AC version of her, yes please.
8. No A for awesome combat - I think turn based fixes that, but the auto everything combat in 13 was just painful.
9. Random rare/super rare powerful drops- My only beef with FF is that the weapons/armor always scale with progress. Theres no chance for getting some OP gear early to mid game, and by late game you don't need it.

 

[kswiston]

Amano didn't do the character designs for FF IX.

He did I, II, III, IV, V and VI.

IV and VI both in my opinion have some of the best characters in the entire franchise.

I'm pretty sure the original character art for FFIX's main cast was his. That's what was being released when the game was announced.

 

[Forceatowulf]

They need to evolve with their audience. The original FF games were targeted to younger groups, but those younger groups are comprised of grown ass men and women now. Appealing to J-pop loving teens is not going to get you anywhere, Square. Sorry.

Adapt or die...

 

[Perfo]

Don't see why Ito coulden't take it on, with 6,9 and 12 in his portfolio, 2 of which are the most respected FFs, he is the most likely to bring the series back to former glory. He doesn't seem to be working on much at the moment.

Itou is on his way to leave the company imho. I think he is yet another director in S-E that doesn't like to stay behind big huge projects and find more confort in small games. He is behind All The Bravest afterall and that trading card game of few years ago. He'll go Matsuno/Sakaguchi's way in the end, developing indies for iOS and co. For as much as people like to hate on Toriyama, he is of the few directors that managed to release three big AAA games for S-E JP in this gen at a decent pace and with good results as far as profits were considered. He is more a resource than people can think of as duckroll implied.

 

[Dog food is delicious]

How long has it been since they were really relevant, outside of Japan?

I personally think the Western market has passed them by and they CAN'T get it back.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Itou is on his way to leave the company imho.

Keep him on Mobile games and it could turn out that way.

If it was up to me I'd tell all the great people to abandon ship and float on over to Monolith or Mistwalker.

 

[Drakhart_91]

Take the best parts of ff7 and ff10 and slap em together.

1. Turn based combat please
2. Random encounters
3. I LOVED the materia system- Being able to make any character do anything gave you total customizability and replayability
4. Open world
5. Deep, rich story and character development
6. Substance of over style-Id much rather have good graphics and an epic story than epic graphics and a meh story
7. Tifa-Just... OMG. The AC version of her, yes please.
8. No A for awesome combat - I think turn based fixes that, but the auto everything combat in 13 was just painful.
9. Random rare/super rare powerful drops- My only beef with FF is that the weapons/armor always scale with progress. Theres no chance for getting some OP gear early to mid game, and by late game you don't need it.

No.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

- A MAN as main character, and QUIET too. (Fuck Lighting and fuck Tidus voice)
- Badass Summons like FF VI VII VIII
- Big and free exploring World map, no on-rails crap like X
- Limit Breaks!
- Chocobos and Moogles. (classic ones) They should be like always, just like slimes on DQ.
- A present day FF it could be great, a little sick from Medieval, Steampunk and Cyberpunk shit.
- Turn based combat ROCKS!

This man understands yall. Its you. Give yourself a hand like applause. We need that incredible visual combat ON TOP of an epic story. We cant focus on one over the other because fanboys will not be happy if either is lacking. They gotta get back to making the combat insane so everytime i unleash a spell i put the controller down in my living room and imitate the buildup of damage like an orchestra conductor in my living room.

I remember in ff7 using Omni slash on Sephiroth i literally was slashing with the controller in my hand. Thats how good it felt to use that limit break. In ff13 i didnt feel this way ONCE because everything was juts average.

 

[Toxi]

It needs to keep marketing to a wider audience. Getting stuck in the niche will kill Final Fantasy.

Gameplay style doesn't really matter as much as presentation here. Even though Final Fantasy XV doesn't look too exciting for me, there's no denying that the presentation is much more coherent and grounded than XIII's, and that's probably a good strategy when people often think of JRPGs in stereotypes. Emphasize marketing that is interesting to someone who has never played a Final Fantasy game; you already have the audience that buys Final Fantasy, now you need the audience that doesn't care.

Also, get some real writers. I don't mean scenario writers, I mean dialogue writers. Character dialogue in Final Fantasy really needs to step up its A game, because it defines the party dynamic that makes Final Fantasy unique among most mainstream games. It doesn't matter how interesting or creative the scenario is, it's the character interaction that people will remember. Final Fantasy XV looks like it's both succeeding and failing on this front; the party interaction will be focused on and they have a definite idea of what they want, but they also lack the variation that makes interesting parties in video games. People don't remember the Kaidens and Ashleys (To bring up another mainstream party game), they remember the Wrexes and Mordins.

 

[hellmonkey]

No.

Why not? Having all the enemies in plain view makes it a bit stale. I don't mind them being there, but having some random encounters sprinkled in mixes it up a bit. It also makes farming/grinding easier if you want to level up.

 

[taybul]

Aside from the technical aspects that I'm sure have been discussed, what I'd like to see most is Nobuo Uematsu doing the score for the games again. I feel like the music really gave life to the games.

 

[ctothej]

1) Direction: have a plan as to what you want the arc of your game to be, and follow through on it. XIII felt like they had just let their artists create whatever environments they felt like doing and then pasted them together with cutscenes. XIII-2 felt like they had some levels left over and made a game out of them.

2) Writing: Japan produces great films ever year. Those films have screenwriters. Hire them. Have characters that talk like human beings actually talk.

3) Gameplay: One hour tutorial, max. An hour in, I want the freedom to use the battle system how I want. That doesn't mean you can't add more elements later, but I want to feel like I'm actually playing the game at the hour mark.

I think this gets at the root of the problem. Better direction and storytelling would quiet most of the naysayers.

 

[DR2K]

I still think they should cancel 13-3 before it does any more damage to the brand.

 

[MagiusNecros]

I think this gets at the root of the problem. Better direction and storytelling would quiet most of the naysayers.

Better management of resources, assets, and not being shortsighted also helps too. Putting your best on the bench while giving the guy who can't "pitch" free reign isn't the best idea.

I still think they should cancel 13-3 before it does any more damage to the brand.

Front Mission. Toriyama'd.

Parasite Eve. Toriyama'd.

Final Fantasy is just the next thing on the Franchise Killer's To-Do List to make the transition to mobile only games.

 

[kurbaan]

Sakaguchi hasn't made anything worth caring about sans SE, I don't see why bringing him back would fix anything.
.

He made The Last Story which us better than anything square has put out in the last generation.

 

[Jinko]

The series just needs some stability, organization, and some young talent.
They need some new minds to come in and freshen things up.

The constant change and re-imaging of core game system is what has been ruining the franchise for a while now. (at least IMO)

I duno why they can't just follow the true and tested old school mechanics and make a new game if they want to experiment with realtime and semi realtime battle.