REBUTTAL TO: The Year the Magic Died
I think Mr. Kleinman's reaction to Square games may be colored just a bit by nostalgia.
Let's face it - RPGs are by nature not the most creative of beasts. There were no real innovations from FF4 straight through FF9 as far as gameplay went. Sure, graphics and music had an overhaul, and the story got a bit more complicated, but generally speaking if you'd played FF4, you could pick up FF7 or FF9 and play it without a hitch. In fact FFX was the most innovative title of the lot in my opinion - that's not necessarily good, but it is creative. And FFCC is being touted as the most brilliant multiplayer game we've seen in a long time.
I personally think FFX-2 was a fun little game, and was never meant to be more than that. The gameplay was interesting and fast-paced, and while I could certainly have used more variety in story (and I do agree with many points Mr. Kleinman made about the game), I still never found myself so disgusted by it that I stopped playing. I also think that Mr. Kleinman is missing a crucial point about FFX-2, and that's that stuff like J-Pop and shoujo is far more popular in Japan than here, and (from what I understand) in Japan it isn't something to be ashamed of, as it is in North America. SE most probably didn't realize how alienated much of its English-speaking audiences would be by the game. The game was meant to reward SE's fans, much as FF9 was, and the ending, for example, was meant to reflect that.
As for Sword of Mana, I personally never really enjoyed or finished any of the Seiken Densetsu series, but I did get pretty far in this one. I fail to see how it's any worse than the SNES or PSX games in the series, none of which had particularly interesting plots.
FFTA also has a pretty large showing of fans, if you consider that it's meant to be played as a handheld game - i.e. pick it up for an hour, put it down again. It does its job remarkably well, I feel. Just because it wasn't what you expected doesn't mean it's not a quality game.
I also quite enjoyed KH, even though I did feel a few pangs of loss for the game that could have been. But I was happy with the game I got, being somewhat of a Disney fan as well as an FF fan. Of course the game wasn't perfect, but who can look a company in the eye and demand perfection? It was an experiment and, in my opinion, a generally successful one. Anyway, KH2 looks to be far darker and more story-centric than the first, and will almost certainly improve on the battle system, so Mr. Kleinman may be pleasantly surprised on that count.
Did Square come out with any groundbreaking games in 2003? No. But there are many years where they didn't. I think FFXII, for one, looks very promising as a return to the values Mr. Kleinman espouses. If he's looking for creativity, FFCC pushes the envelope. And don't forget that SE also put out Star Ocean 3 this year - I'm not quite sure whether Mr. Kleinman would consider that part of Square's values or not. In any case, let's not judge Square by a single "down" year, hmm? They're not stupid. Sales for this year were nowhere near what they're used to. We've already spoken via our pockets, which means that Square will most probably come up with more innovation and deeper games. Give them a chance until then.
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