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The Final Days of Final Fantasy

Posted by Zonk on from the i-like-ffxi dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Could the Final Fantasy series have finally come to an end? About.com's Adrien-Luc Sanders thinks so in his article The Final Days of Final Fantasy. I'm sure many people here remember Final Fantasy VII and how it helped Sony win the console market away from Nintendo. The article contends that Final Fantasy's glory days are over, that with the release of Final Fantasy X-2, the underwhelming EverQuest clone Final Fantasy XI, and the much-delayed Final Fantasy XII (finally confirmed for a 2006 US release), we've effectively seen the end of Final Fantasy. Is it time for Square-Enix to give up on Final Fantasy?"

8 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Might not hurt... by th3space · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I, like many others, I'm sure, have enjoyed many hundreds (possibly thousands) of hours of Final Fantasy over the years...replaying them time and time again. However - and this is barely arguable - it's all been downhill ever since FFVI. I would like to see SqareEnix branch out and truly deliver on the innovation that should have been bourne out of their union...but, as with the Star Wars franchise, I'm sure they will continue to go back to the little black box that gives them two dollars for ever quarter they put in.

    --
    "How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
    1. Re:Might not hurt... by WayneTheGoblin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As one who has likewise been playing Final Fantasy games for quite some time, might I make an observation? Although many are split on the quality of the games Squaresoft / Square-Enix has produced, can you deny that they have sold well? How many people who have played the games, can deny that they saw FF:The Spirits Within. Even if they didn't like it, many saw it anyway. These same people are likely drooling at the prospect of seeing Advent Children. I also don't really put much stock in death predictions, particularly not of this subject matter. I point to the profitability of the franchise and the potential to make games released under the title of Final Fantasy in various different genres, as is already being promised as companion titles to Advent Children. I think as long as Square-Enix makes it, players will play it.

      --
      I refuse to engage in a duel of wits with the unarmed.
    2. Re:Might not hurt... by RootsLINUX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      However - and this is barely arguable - it's all been downhill ever since FFVI.

      I concur. In my opinion, FFVI and Chrono Trigger (among other notable SNES titles) were the apex of RPG gaming. Now it seems to me like game producers (especially at S-E) are putting less and less empathsis on the story and gameplay, instead opting to always try to be the RPG with the "next-generation" graphics in order to further capatilize on their already erroding franchise. I so appall this game design mentality that I starting creating my own RPG game akin to FFVI, what I still consider to be the best RPG ever. Sometimes you must take a few steps backwards in order to move forward again. I hope someone at S-E realizes this before it is too late to save Final Fantasy (or what remains of it).

      --
      Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
    3. Re:Might not hurt... by KillShill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "There has been quite a lot good things done with the series since VI: the addition of CGI did much to potray the worlds of FF"

      that's what imagination is for.

      granted i know 99.9% of the gaming population has none but come on, you have to develop it sooner or later...

      and god, how the mini-games suck. i want to play the game, not a game in the game that is time consuming, boring and frankly a waste of development time.

      hell even FF 6 partly sucked because they started making it into a digital soap opera but the gameplay was still there... somewhat.

      the PS generation helped to cement craptastic games into the mainstream.

      moving to cd based media didn't help at all.. it only made FMV's waste time they could be developing a better game and deplete their small budgets. not to mention the insane load times. and they didn't help push down the price of games. so basically it was a big step backwards.

      --
      Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
  2. Final fantsz more of a colection by FidelCatsro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Final Fantasy can not realy end , its non sequential and the games are just difrent RPGs with a commen evolving system.
    I am not a major FF fan but i do enjoy the games , honestly its just a small dip which hapens to anything long running .

    I never take Death reports/predictions in the Tech industry to seriously.

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
  3. Nonsense article by RogueyWon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's an interesting debate to be had about the future of the franchise, but sadly, this won't be the article to spark it off.

    The author's main problem is that he didn't like FFXI or FFX-2. As far as I'm concerned, that's his problem. Far from being a failure, FFXI still has a commanding position in terms of the size of its user-base. Last I saw, it was only behind WoW and the Korean MMORPGs (for which figures should be treated with a degree of caution due to the methodology used to count players there). Indeed, before the release of WoW, it had been the biggest MMORPG played outside of Korea for quite a while. User figures have been steady for a long time, with the release of WoW not making any significant dent. In the highly competative, dog-eat-dog world of MMORPG publishing, I'd call that a resounding success, rather than a harbinger of doom.

    FFX-2 has always been contraversial among Final Fantasy fans. I'll admit that it's never been my favorite installment in the series (this would be FFX - and yes, I've played the whole "main" series, including FF6). However, this isn't to say it's without merit. In many ways, it's a return to more traditional gameplay, with a much steeper difficulty curve than other recent games in the series and a job-based character system. If you approach it without expecting it to be "more of the same" from FFX, then it's actually a very good RPG. A lot of tormented, gothy Final Fantasy fans felt they had to dislike FFX-2 out of principle, because it's actually quite upbeat. Personally, I'm secure enough that I can play a game like this without it making me "doubt my masculinity" (author's words).

    The most significant issue the author raises, in my view, is the wait for FFXII. This has certainly been longer than I expected. However, I think this is largely a reflection of the fact that development times and costs have risen, to match customer expectations. When you completely rework your graphical engine, combat system and game world for each installment of your series, you can't be expected to stick to a Madden-style production schedule. At any rate, I'll reserve judgement on FFXII until I can actually play it.

  4. Summary: He don't like FFX-2 by Jormundgard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    His whole argument is that he didn't like Final Fantasy X-2, and therefore Final Fantasy Is Dead.

    And golly gosh, what is the reason? It must be Enix because the merger happened around the time that FFX-2 sucked. You want some real evidence? Come on, he's busy trying to make a point here!

    But maybe this is just the current state of affairs for Video Game Op-Ed.

  5. Spaghetti Sauce Symdrome and FF by sdhankin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've had a similar conversation with dozens of people of all ages. The question? What's the best spaghetti sauce you've ever had?

    Many talk about various restaurants they've been to as having the second best. But the best is always the sauce their Mom made. Why?

    Because it was the first they encountered, and it defined what spaghetti sauce was for them. All others fell short in one way or another.

    FF fans are like that. "FFn is the best FF. After that, they series fell apart. FFn+1 and FFn+2 were crap. None of them are any good any more."

    I suspect that, for the vast majority of these speakers, FFn was the first FF they played. All others will be compared to FFn, but come up short because they were different in many ways from FFn. And that's a good thing - I'd hate to think SE won't try anything new or different for FFXII because they'd never ever be better than FFn.

    Give it up, folks. FFn isn't the ultimate FF. What appeals to you doesn't necessarily appeal to me. The next FF, and the one after that, will be very different from what came before, and from each other. Personally, that's why I like the series.