Hajime Tabata on struggles of Final Fantasy

pingo

Final Fantasy has lost a lot of its recognition and good will over the years. When the movie came out in 2000 and was a disaster, Sakaguchi left, and the FF IP was never the same again.

Final Fantasy X and XI are both considered success games, but X-2 was not. Final Fantasy 12 was helmed by the legendary designer Matsuno, but was removed halfway through production due to internal disputes. It is in this era we begin seeing a lot of cracks in Square-Enixs identity. 
When Final Fantasy 12 is finally released the game is forward thinking and very different. It unique takes MMO elements like its combat systems and branches it out. But the game also suffers from an identity crisis which is felt in the final game. It ended being a game with a mature political storyline, but featured weak characters that never really came into its own. Impressive art direction, a different direction with the music and splendid voice acting, just wasn't enough to make it a landmark like earlier entries. 


Final Fantasy 13 and its two sequels is the low bro Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy 13 Versus is the Kingdom Hearts esque action RPG, and the one, almost 10 years later is now coming out as Final Fantasy 15. 

13 itself was visually splended, featured a great turn based combat system, but lacked soul, was incredible linear, constrictive and barely felt like an RPG. The 13 games also has the worst story of the entire series. It is a series of games that completely lost their way. Final Fantasy used to be known for its story. It was know to be games that were worth playing just for the plot. These games are disasterous. 


Final Fantasy XIV as we all know, was terrible and was fated to die before it came out. By itself it was the biggest MMO screwup to date. If there is any MMO success stories that are worth telling it has to be about XIVs revival by Yoshidas hand. They did the ultimate thing, and somehow managed to turn XIV into a good game.


During all these years 15 has been in production, and here is a interview of Tabata talking about taking over the role from Nomura. Tabata talks about the Japanese game studios having failed in the HD era, and the sorry state of Final Fantasy and how they have to reboot their entire corporate structure. 
I sincerely hope that Final Fantasy 15 will be a success, and that it is not over for Japanese Game makers and high quality AAA production games; http://www.siliconera.com/2016/03/31/hajime-tabata-making-team-challenging-hd-era-final-fantasy-xv/#rRxR10KHdtKduVRb.99

ElRenmazuo

Some people be like "I hate final fantasy 12s combat" and then later some of those same people be like "I love Xenoblades combat".  Hypocrites.

12 had a good overall story and great english voice acting especially the sky pirate guy Balthier and his partner.  And I loved the fact that it stopped with the whole blurry screen thing every few seconds to transition into battle.

And it was great to be in a world designed after final fantasy tactics.

Colt47

The trouble is that the current bunch working on Final Fantasy games seem to continuously miss what made Final Fantasy games good.  The early games of the SNES era had amazing artwork for the enemies that we ran into.  The PS1 era introduced early animation, 3d combat, and took a lot of risks with character design.  Seriously, Tifa Lockheart was wearing some seriously skimp clothes and there were some interesting moments like the cross dressing section.  Final Fantasy IX went back and did a more exaggerated style while being a homage to older titles.  Final Fantasy XI took quite a bit of inspiration from Wizard of Oz style character makeup and technique, whether intentionally or not.

Everything in the PS3 generation has felt like they went generic, with little variance between the different games in how they draw up the models and characters.  They just kept moving towards a more realistic look instead of stylizing or doing anything invigorating.  I've seen the same thing happen in a lot of anime and other media over there, including the manga industry.

ElRenmazuo

Colt47 said:

 Tifa Lockheart was wearing some seriously skimp clothes and there were some interesting moments like the cross dressing section.

same guy that designed most of the characters in older final fantasy, especially 7, designed the characters in FFXV which is Nomura.  hes probably the main reason why XV has a modern theme like 7 did.

Cid FFXV

Roin

FF 11 and FF 14 2.0 (ARR) are the only two good things S-E has produced for FF numbered series since FF10. And they are friggin MMORPG's. That is sad. They've lost touch with their fanbase.  FF15 is just another step in their downward spiral. They don't even know who they are trying to appeal to anymore. FF15 looks more like a Star Ocean or Kingdom Hearts game then a FF. Game didn't even start out as a numbered FF. It was a side project they later rebranded into a numbered FF.  Just shows how much talent has left the company over the years going as far back as Hironobu Sakaguchi's departure.

FF12 was shit.
FF13 was more shit.
FF15 is and will be another helping of shit.

FF11, FF14, and FF:BE will be the only Square games that see money from me.  That other shit they can keep, until they pull their collective heads out of their asses and make real a FF game again.

Dagon13

Your assessment rings pretty true for me.  I've loved every FF I've touched up to 9, from there it's been very touch and go.  I wouldn't consider any of them bad games but there definitely seemed to be a shift of vision somewhere in there, to the point that I'm not really even looking forward to 15.

I will however, buy a PS4 just to play the 7 remake.  Chances are that it will make or break whether I ever buy another final fantasy again.

pingo

Roin said:

FF 11 and FF 14 2.0 (ARR) are the only two good things S-E has produced for FF numbered series since FF10. And they are friggin MMORPG's. That is sad. They've lost touch with their fanbase.  FF15 is just another step in their downward spiral. They don't even know who they are trying to appeal to anymore. FF15 looks more like a Star Ocean or Kingdom Hearts game then a FF. Game didn't even start out as a numbered FF. It was a side product they later rebranded into a numbered FF. 

FF12 was shit.
FF13 was more shit.
FF15 is and will be another helping of shit.

FF11, FF14, and FF:BE will be the only Square games that see money from me.  That other shit they can keep, until they pull their collective heads out of their asses and make real a FF game again.

FF12 was not shit. The only ones who would say something like that are purists who only seeks to keep FF back in the age of SD. 

In that sense Final Fantasys own community is sometimes its own worst enemy. FF13 was them trying to bring it back to the roots, and you know what? It was an utter disaster. It was the mark of someone who tried to design games in 1995 with graphics from 2013. 

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Colt47

Final Fantasy XII was fine.  It had a different strength and weakness than other Final Fantasy games before it largely due to the troubles behind the development is all.  XIII was an overhyped disaster that spun into a trilogy and just barely redeemed itself with some mediocre sequels.  Bravely default was an alright apology to some extent despite it's own flaws.

Dakeru

Colt47 said:

The early games of the SNES era had amazing artwork for the enemies that we ran into.

I played FF6 again not too long ago and the light and shadow effects when you stroll around in the woods with Sabin, Cyan and Shadow still looked very nice.
Some of the SNES games aged rather well.

I guess good style has never been a matter of console capacity.

Phaserlight

pingo said:

Final Fantasy has lost a lot of its recognition and good will over the years. When the movie came out in 2000 and was a disaster, Sakaguchi left, and the FF IP was never the same again.

Am I the only one that loved FF: The Spirits Within?

Anyway, FF6 is epic; ranked by IGN as the #1 RPG of all time.  I also enjoyed what I played of FF8.  Following the development of FF15 with interest.

Ghavrigg

Phaserlight said:

pingo said:

Final Fantasy has lost a lot of its recognition and good will over the years. When the movie came out in 2000 and was a disaster, Sakaguchi left, and the FF IP was never the same again.

Am I the only one that loved FF: The Spirits Within?

Anyway, FF6 is epic; ranked by IGN as the #1 RPG of all time.  I also enjoyed what I played of FF8.  Following the development of FF15 with interest.

I'm gonna have to go with "yes" on that one. The movie was so terribly disappointing, and I saw it in theaters as a teen, and later received it as a Christmas present, but I never even unwrapped the plastic on it and just kinda threw it in a corner. lol

Otherwise, yes, FF6 is epic, and at least FF8's story was decent, even though I didn't much care for the battle system in the game.

Bloodaxes

It's always amusing when people bash FF 12. They seem to miss the point that it was targeted at people that enjoyed the combat of Vagrant Story in the world/era of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Albeit the combat is not as detailed as in Vagrant Story (You can attack each specific limb and give them status effects), it's still quite similar.

filmoret

FF12 was one of the top 5 imo.  I liked its open world and combat style.  FF8 was the biggest fail.  FF13 wasnt horrible but it also wasn't great either.  Their problem is they never followed a central story.  Instead they used a central world with separate stories.  Don't get me wrong the series itself is wonderful just probably would been much better if they linked them all together with a strong story.

Bloodaxes

I'm thinking on giving a try on the 13th series.

I finished FF 8 last month and it was indeed bad (Fuck their card game too!! So many stupid rules) but I wanted to finish it. FF9 is still my favorite one from them all.

pingo

Phaserlight said:

pingo said:

Final Fantasy has lost a lot of its recognition and good will over the years. When the movie came out in 2000 and was a disaster, Sakaguchi left, and the FF IP was never the same again.

Am I the only one that loved FF: The Spirits Within?

Anyway, FF6 is epic; ranked by IGN as the #1 RPG of all time.  I also enjoyed what I played of FF8.  Following the development of FF15 with interest.

I barely remember the film TBH. I remember seeing it with friends and none of us seemed to have been excited after it was over!

Tiamat64

I liked Final Fantasy 12, although not as much as 6 and 7.  I guess it's around the same tier as 10 and better than 8 and 9 for me.

13 though.... ew.

Anyways, do you still only control one person ever in Final Fantasy XV or has that changed?  I haven't been keeping up with it very much.  But controlling only one character in what looked like an action RPG last I checked kinda makes me wonder why they didn't make the game a spin-off series instead, what with every other Final Fantasy game in existance always consisting of party play (besides the MMOs, which are a different genre for obvious reasons) and always being a non-action RPG.

As a final fantasy lover, it's hard for me to even see FFXV as a Final Fantasy main-series game rather than a Final Fantasy spin-off.  Unless something's changed about it (hard for me to pay attention to it when I don't care about it for reasons stated above)

Bloodaxes

As much as people keep on clamoring it, turned based combat is not as widely popular anymore as some may think.

In the past? sure. Now more people prefer the action combat and that is why final fantasy is adapting.

Colt47

Final Fantasy XV looks to have a kingdom hearts-esque combat system from what I've seen.  I haven't gotten the chance yet to sit down and play the demo, but I'll probably give it a shot tonight to see how the game is.  They give a free DLC for completing the demo involving carbuncle so they are trying their hardest to get people into the game at least.