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Ten Years of FFXIII?
IGN is reporting that the next game in the Final Fantasy series will probably be around for quite a while. If Square/Enix has anything to say about it, we'll be playing the FFXIII family of games for the next ten years. "Although speaking with a Nintendo magazine, Hashimoto brought up Final Fantasy XIII as a comparison for Square Enix's decision to expand upon the FFVII storyline through the Compilation project years after the game's original release. 'Different from something like VII, which we expanded upon afterwards, with Fabula Nova Crystallis FFXIII, we've thought about an expansive world setting from the start. Under the idea of wanting everyone to be sucked into the world for 10 years, we're preparing a number of categories.' He likened this approach to films like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings." Chris Kohler took the time to point out that, in the same interview, the Square folks stated they're still not entirely convinced about this whole Virtual Console thing. "We feel that the Japanese game market still requires [physical] media. Also, FF and Dragon Quest are played by a wide range of users, from children to adults, so there are limitations when you consider the problems that we would have with billing systems."
So, is this going to be like a "lots of games in Ivalice" kind of thing that they're doing with FF12 and the newer FFTactics games, or a bunch of spinoffs a la FF7 (of dubious quality)?
I've always been a fan of the game worlds that SquareEnix has been able to craft, even if there are some standards and similarities between all of them. Being able to explore more of the "extra stuff" would hopefully lead to a more developed backstory, making it even more entertaining to play through games multiple times (as long as they actually stay consistent, of course). I just really don't have any interest, though, in playing 10 years worth of melodramatic end-of-world tales... in the same world. Get kind of monotonous, ya know?
"There is no FF7 but FF7"
That is, I don't think any of the Final Fantasy games to come will have the staying power that 7 has had. Making a business strategy around a franchise of a sequel that is still a long ways off doesn't seem to be too bright.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
"Yeah, uh, I want FF XII IV, FF VII VII and FF II XI. Got that?" [ Boom ]
Final fantasy XIII? Ten years of lucky # 13.
The engine keeps getting gutted and turned inside out and remade yet it always remains distinctively Final Fantasy. As far as maintaining a franchise goes, Square's done well to not dilute the ingredients too much. Nothing stands still for too long. But TFA isn't talking about that. It's talking about story.
What I always liked about the Final Fantasy series is that, storywise, it wipes it all clean and starts anew. Some characters keep reappearing on and off in various forms like Cid and Moogles and Dark Mage, but essentially each one is an alternate universe with the same kinds of archetypes. Even though Rydia != Terra != Aeris and so on, they all fit into an archtype of the mysterious female lead. It's always been neat looking through the entire world drawn up and picking out the disillusioned, the rebel, the troublemaker, and so on.
When this nonsense started with FFX-2, it started an age of what amounts to Square being lazy. EACH WORLD depicted was supposed to be large and expansive and deep.
Now instead of being creative for the next ten years they're going to mix things up in the same universe?
Back to the game engine. It gets reworked and Square can get away with it because they trash all the backstory and start anew. How is the coherancy going to work out when you have 10 years (that's, what, 5 games?) in the same universe but 5 different game engines? Maybe they're going to cut that out, too.
What a shame.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Hmmm... I say go for it. If Square-Enix is going to spend millions of dollars with some of the best talent creating the universe for FFXIII, why not exploit it? We see this all the time in science fiction and fantasy, why can't it work for video games? It doesn't mean that every FFXIII game will be good, but how many times have we finished a game and thought, "wow, I really liked those characters/cities/culture/history/bad guys/etc. I would love to play another game in that universe." I would love to play another Chrono game, or another game in the world of Final Fantasy 6. Square gave us a taste of this with FFX-2, and even though the game wasn't your typical Square RPG, it sold gobs because it was a direct sequel to a much loved game.
I know that new ideas and such are grand, but sometimes I just like the old stuff. If I fall in love with the FFXIII world (and can afford a PS3), then I would love more games in that world.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Is there an audience for fighting the same beast over and over again, and watching the same cut scene "magic spell" repeatedly for 10 years?
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Seriously, GTA III came out in, what, 2000? It's 2007 and We're just now getting the next installment after: GTA3, GTA3: Vice City, GTA3: San Andreas, GTA3: Liberty City Stories, GTA3: Vice City Stories...
Nobody has any complaints about that. GTAIV probably won't be any more different from GTAIII than GTAIII was from San Andreas.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The "ineffective" feature is actually the best part of FF1. Adds a bit of tactical depth, rather than the "hit A until you win" battle system of all the other FF games.
The final fantasy RPG model is an evolutionary dead end. The problem isn't so much what these type of RPGs are, but rather what they aren't: a game. I like the idea of playing a game that has a deep story line but it has to present some kind of challenge as well. 'Combat' is merely rote memorization and the 'secrets' are just a ploy to get you to shell out an extra 20 bucks for the strategy guide.
These sort of RPGs give video games a bad name. An RPG can be done well. Ultima Online is perhaps the finest example in my book. Combat had dynamics even if it was horribly unbalanced (only a handful of viable skill/stat combinations) and the economies were real in a way that nobody who has followed has been able to replicate (which was what I thought made the game a faithful rpg).
World of Warcraft, despite its massive shortcomings, is also light years ahead of this style of game. Player versus player and raid combat introduce dynamics that something like Final Fantasy can never hope to replicate. Now I disagree with the premises that raiding and pvp were designed with in warcraft but they are good ideas and do have a future. Namely - more isn't harder, and that goes both with respect to personnel requirements and time investment.
Final fantasy is simply the spiritual successor to Dragon Quest, and we all know how 'great' of a 'game' that is.
To point, though, it isn't surprising that they're going to continue to milk their greatest success. They're taking a page out of a novelist's book. The wheel of time is a shining example of this mentality.
On the other end of the spectrum there is Oblivion, which in my book is just as big of a piece of shit as Final fantasy is.
The game feels incomplete because in a game that is supposed to be about taking back the reigns of history and put it in the hands of man, you spend your time almost exclusively fighting 10 species of Malboros or cats. In a game that supposed to focus on politics and struggle between men, the main hero's party somehow manages to stay out of it completely and become some kind of pest exterminators instead.
The FF's are a little different than your normal series. They are all (until now, apparently) entirely different games with entirely different settings. Each game is a brand new experience, nd are driven by their plot and battle system.
The main difference in all of the games is usually how you learn your techniques. For instance:
FF1 has set jobs
FF4 has jobs that you can change
FF7 has Materia that you equip to use abilities
FF8 has a finite supply of spells that you collect from certain spots on the map.
FF9 has you learning abilities by using weapons and armor for a while
FF10 has the Sphere Grid
FF12 has the License board
The characters all usually fall into four categories:
- Caster (Black)
- Healer (White)
- Fighter ("Main Tank")
- Support (Abilities)
The way each game is set up, in terms of learning abilities, slightly alters the gameplay. They also all have different forms of super-attacks. Usually you fill up some kind of bar through damage taken, magic, and various other rules. They results of these special attacks are different in each game, and sometimes require a mini-game like challenge to make them more powerful.
Because they all have different settings and characters, they do not get dull and the game is kept fresh. They have high-quality, borderline (if not) epic stories that can really draw you in. They way everything works out is like a great movie that's 40 hours long. But they are not movie games (Xenosaga...) and the battles and gameplay in between are often exciting enough to hold you over. There is certain level of strategy needed (mostly in boss battles) because Square makes the enemies (mostly bosses) so unique. Each boss (usually) requires a different strategy.
Because they are all different, you should not think of them as sequels, but more of a continuation of an idea. That idea being incredible story-telling combined with fun gameplay, that (recently) pushes the envelope in terms of console graphical power. They look pretty and do it in style.
I hope that explained a little bit.
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I'm not sure if I like this idea. The fact that the worlds are ever-changing is a big draw for FF. You never know what to expect next in terms of story, or (to a lesser extent) gameplay. sticking with the same universe for an entire decade seems like a bad idea. I don't want FF to morph into all the other RPGs by loosing the unique worlds it brings with each game.
THANK YOU.
That sums it up exactly. I've -tried- to like it. The auto-battle seems even intrigues me, as a programmer. But really you fight from place to place for no apparent reason and get a little cutscene when you get there. Because they were trying to focus on everyone, instead of the main character, the cutscenes are too generic and the few that DO have a main character have a different one each time.
I like having more than 1 main character. FF8 was a great example of this. You'd switch back and forth between their stories and learn each a bit at a time. But move that to 6 characters (I don't even remember how many were in 12 now... How sad) and you end up with such a tiny slice of each that it's pointless.
FF12's biggest failing was immersion. I never felt like I was there with any of the characters and I certainly didn't care about what happened to any of the characters. Even the soccer-dork in FFX was more interesting to me.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM