Square is the only one to blame for the situation FF faces today. If instead of working for seven+ years on dozens of games they concentrated in making one or two great game in three years cicles, they would be in a better situation.

!Square Enix has admitted that the Final Fantasy brand is "damaged" and it now needs to work on restoring faith.!

Oh, thank God!

The publisher blames it all on Final Fantasy XIV, the ill-fated MMO venture that didn't quite work as intended.

...no,that's not it at all!

The name is damaged, but I can't say I don't enjoy the games.

My thoughts exactly Jim. Square Enix probably should have realised this somewhere near when they began to need excel tables to explain their numbering systems and continuity to anyone not in their wank-and-file department.

"When did you start to realize that Final Fantasy was pissing all over itself like a four-year-old at a Yo Gabba Gabba dance party?"

From Final Fantasy XII. XIII and XIV could have been so much better.
Like I said else where, Lost Odyssey and End of Eternity are my Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XII respectively.

Yeah, pretty sure it was when SquareEnix (because it was after the merger) started treating the franchise like a cash cow, rather than just focusing on making great RPGs. Probably around the time they started losing all the talent that went on to form Mistwalker, too.

The fact that "The Four Heroes of Light", a game that's only ostensibly a Final Fantasy at all is the best FF game in years should tell you something.

For me it was just in the last installation of Final Fantasy XIII. I have enjoyed all the other versions of such up until this point in mixed amounts. I realized a long time ago Square-Enix has a wierd habit of trying to reinvent itself with each new release. I think it is good since it breathes some fresh air into the series. The problem I think was in the characters became more and more one dimensional as the series progressed. The fact that the story was presented poorly in the last one is what finally did it for me. I really want to feel more love for the series as it was one of my first RPG games series that I enjoyed.

For me I will probably look at buying the next one after it comes out. Square-Enix has managed to damage my confidence in them enough to move them off my preorder list for the Final Fantasy series.

They are the one who damaged it. Too many spin offs. I wouldn't be surprised if KH will suffer the same fate.

When did you start to realize that Final Fantasy was pissing all over itself like a four-year-old at a Yo Gabba Gabba dance party?

When X-2 came out, probably.

Not nearly as damaged as Silent Hill.

Final Fantasy lost its soul when Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu left the party; and Square became an ugly brand machine.

[When did you start to realize that Final Fantasy was pissing all over itself like a four-year-old at a Yo Gabba Gabba dance party?]

I think you lost everyone on that one, windbag. You hang out in some weird places.

I don't always post...but when I do, it's for stuff like this.

FF:AC was an amazing undertaking. It did slightly sour Cloud in my book, but I still consider it an amazing creation and a worthy addition to the canon. Now as for FF8...you can bitch about emo pretty boys all you want, but the gameplay in 8 and the story were easily some of the best in the history of the series. I dare you to tell me you didn't sit there, challenging Zell's mother until you stripped that bitch of her power cards and then ran train on that mini game for hours.

For me the downfall of the series started with all of this Duodecim bullshit and irreverent spin offs.

Slapping the name of the core franchise onto MMOs was what did it for me. I'm sure the games were great, but they're not really FF games--If they had called it FF Online (in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics was FF, but not part of the core franchise) I would have been fine.

FF12 was hard to get into, I'm told it's great after 8 hours, but I could never make it that far. And that's probably when I finally stopped caring.

Ff died at 13 for me.

Loved em till that pile of shit.

I stopped caring after 7, which didn't really consume me the way 6 did.

Bigger picture: Square Enix is damaged.

I would say that Final Fantasy X was the starting point. Don't get me wrong, I love FFX, but that was when the starting point when they took out the explorable world maps and started turning the main characters into whiny androgynous pussy bitches.

Well I can't say making an MMO that penalizing players for playing it a lot, focused on antiqued gameplay concepts and mechanics, and a complete flop for nearly all of it's intended selling points helped the series, but truth be known the FF name was shot for awhile now.

Lose the gender questionable character design, ditch the hyper realistic CGI flavor graphics for say a interesting art style, evolve you game play mechanics in ways that don't have mr scratching my head on what the hell I'm leveling up, and make you games have an interesting plot, then (and ONLY then) we can talk about reviving your good name Square Enix.

XII was the breaking point point for me...after playing them for over a decade...I remember playing that one in undergrad and turning to my friend and going, 'Why the hell am I still doing this?' That was pretty much it for me in terms of Final Fantasy. And judging by everything that's come out since, I don't really feel like I've missed too much.

I had a very brief love affair with JRPGs. It started with FFV7 and Suikoden. It felt so different and original (I know, late to the party.... my gaming history is Vic20/C64/Amiga/PC so the Japanese influence on the industry passed me by).

It ended a year later with FF8 when I realized that Japanese games where at least as formulaic as "western" games. They were just following a formula I was unfamiliar with.

Anyway, I don't envy their position. The "they should go back to their roots" and the "they must innovate more" groups seem to be about the same size and equally passionate, so they get hated on no matter what they do.

For me it was XI. If they wanted to make a FF MMO; fine. But don't pretend it's a game in the main series. I mean, FF Tactics wasn't called Final Fantasy VIII for a reason.

After that, the main series just seemed to stray more and more away from its roots.

At least they can admit it as their fanboys still can't. It's going to take more than Leona Lewis during the credits to save it.

It's certainly true, at least in part. SE has been taking considerable strides to make FFXIV a playable game, and it's getting reasonably close to that point. I'm glad to see that, at least.

Haha! And THEY'RE the ones that damaged it! It is no one's fault but their own! XIII was a HUGE disappointment and XIV should not even be spoken of because it is like only half way completed in development right now. XII was AWESOME and my own personal favorite FF since VI, but they have seriously fucked up the brand and will have to do MAJOR work before they even consider releasing a new one. (I don't count FFvsXIII in any of this because it seems to be such a huge departure from the series and despite the long development appears to be hitting all the right notes with fans and journalists.)

FF 8 was a warning. FF 11 wasn't a FF game at all. FF 12 was the embodiment of FF 8's warning. 13 and 14 have just shown that 12's all encompassing awfulness was not a fluke.

At 7 for me. Also Yo Gabba Gabba dance parties kick ass. DJ Lance, I love you.

This is a shit article Jim. "The publisher blames it all on FFXIV." Really? He was asked a question about FFXIV. Jesus fuck.

This is from andriasang, which everyone copied. And andriasang got it from Sponichi in Japanese.

"At a Tokyo press conference today, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada fielded a few questions about the company's online plans for its two biggest Japan-developed franchises, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy."

Nowhere did he say that the brand is damaged now, and we blame it all on XIV. I swear, gaming news now is like a gigantic game of "telephone."

roflmao

FF definitely didn't die after VII, if it did then how could Final Fantasy IX, the best in the series, be produced?

Now MAYBE the series started to die after that, maybe. I don't know, I have yet to play anything after IX due to lack of interest (though I will probably play XIII soon).

I just shit my pants in laughter. They're only NOW realizing they have a problem?

Sadly I think this is a series that is destined for niche territory like the rest of jrpgs out there rather than the big AAA title they tend to view it as. Thats just where JRPGs are going this generation.

They need to stop slapping the name on MMOs and weird sequels. We don't need an HD remake of FFX and FFXIII-2 is looking really shitty with the more trailers we keep on getting (time travel? really?.)

Its a series that could use a reboot.

Yeah, I'd say it was right around Dirge of Cerberus that [i]Final Fantasy starting pooping its bed.

Final Fantasy started going downhill once XI came out, there has yet to be a true full installment after X. XI, XII, and XII, while they may be fun and enjoyable to some, they are nowhere near as good as the classics like IV, VI, and IX.

XIII was a trainwreck. That has to be the dullest game in the entire series, and that mess it called a combat system.it felt like a quick time event repeated at nausea with little to no depth whatsoever.

I had liked every ff up until 13. So yeah the series needs a bit of redeeming. But its not unsalvageable.

"but the gameplay in 8 and the story were easily some of the best in the history of the series."

Strongly disagree.

"FF12 was hard to get into, I'm told it's great after 8 hours, but I could never make it that far. And that's probably when I finally stopped caring."

Nope. Still terrible.



"XII was the breaking point point for me...after playing them for over a decade...I remember playing that one in undergrad and turning to my friend and going, 'Why the hell am I still doing this?' That was pretty much it for me in terms of Final Fantasy. And judging by everything that's come out since, I don't really feel like I've missed too much."

This is my same exact experience. I was actually very excited about 12. I even have a collector's edition.
Jesus, it was so God awful. That was the last straw for me. Honestly, say what you want about X-2, but at least it had a fun battle system and a good version of the jobs system. FF 12 wasn't as obviously obnoxious, but everything about it was just mediocre and soulless. There was no substance to that piece of shit. I still don't understand the reviews. Did these people play the same FF 12 that I did?

Oh fuck you, Jim Sterling! Final Fantasy VII is the best in the series, by far. What followed was a string of classics in VIII, IX and X. Square was on a roll in the late 90's and early 00's with games like Xenogears, Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story. it wasn't until the abortion that was FFXI that they truly began to go on a downward spiral they have yet to recover from.

FFVIII was a glimpse in to what was happening. FFIX was an attempt by Squaresoft at fixing what they did wrong in FFVIII and it succeeded. However, they started devolving their flagship series with FFX with the removal of world maps and imposing a drastic level of linearity in their titles.

FFXI was an mmo, but it proved they really had no clue how to approach that style of game.

FFXII was just "OK" for me. The story was interesting, but they took a hammer to the game-play and broke the battle system to the point where I couldn't enjoy it.

Then by the time FFXIII came around they had completely forgot what made their games truly great and ended up making a 60-hour dungeon crawler that moved in only one direction, but not one that pointed you towards anything that could be remotely called "fun"

Also, fuck Hope and his stupid mopey self.

XIII...

FFX and X2 were terrible and the games continued to decline after that. What a letdown after FF9, which was possibly the best game in the series...

I really dont get where the hate for FF comes from. I have actually enjoyed most of the games, including XIII. You guys do realize you criticize a game for changing, while you then actually criticize other games for not fucking changing?? Seriously, you need to get your shit straight.

To expand on my previous thoughts- At some point down the line (it's probably debatable when), SE stopped trying to rely on, and maintain, a pedigree of making well-crafted and compelling RPG experiences. They realized they could make plenty of money by simply relying on a fanbase dedicated to buying anything with the brand name and a bit of fanservice. Hence the deluge of sequels all of a sudden. Or games that are really just extensions of their bad-ass looking trailers. Or whatever the hell is going on with the Kingdom Hearts series. They don't need to make their games great in order to make money off them anymore. And somewhere down the line, they decided that was enough for them.

I'm really surprised by all the FF 9 love. I don't hate it by any means, but it's nowhere near FF 4, 5, 6, or 7 to me. Although it didn't really feel like FF, I even prefer X to IX.

I'd say it started with Dirge of Cerberus. That was a pretty crappy game. And the same thing has been happening to the Kingdom Hearts series. Who are they making games for now? Do they even know? This FF stuff keeps getting weirder but less compelling.

X-2

nuff said

I can tell you the exact moment. It was when I first watched this cutscene in ff8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNg7pwqIVf4

The seeds had been planted but the series didn't completely go to shit until ff12 (which was a truly, truly awful game).

I don't think Square's problems with Final Fantasy can be pointed at any one game in the series, especially not a masterpiece of its time that alot of folks love to hate like FF7. Lately it seems that ruining the reputations of their most beloved series' seems to be what Square does best. Just look at Front Mission and Parasite Eve.

It's hard to say where Square jumped the shark. Personally, I blame their merger with Enix since that's where I thought things inexorably started to change, but it's probably a little more complicated than that.

After the first Final Fantasy, the series just went downhill fast.

*evil laughter*

FFVIII was blah, FFIV was kinda good, FFX was crap and the rest since then have all been worse.

The name "Final Fantasy" is severely damaged and FFXIII-2 is not going to help repair it's image.

It all started with FFX... After that there were successes, but the failures were far more prevalent.

Come back to us Final Fantasy; we miss you.