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What's going on with Square-Enix and the Final Fantasy franchise?
Before I begin my more than angry rant, I would like to say that I've been playing Final Fantasy games since the NES. Although my first was Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI, actually) on SNES, I went back and played them all on their original systems. There are only a handful that I haven't played yet (Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales, some of the remakes and all the mobile phone ones). I would consider myself a complete and shameless Final Fantasy Fan Boy, an FFFB if you will.
I still follow all the news to all the new games and can't wait to play some of them. The sad part is, and not because I'm getting older since I have the mind of a 10 year-old, I'm getting tired of some of the games they are coming out with. I miss the days when Final Fantasy games would come out regularly every two to three years, and they were all of really high quality. Looking at SE's list of upcoming Final Fantasy games (Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Agito, Final Fantasy IV DS) and all the other million games SE's developing, it's easy to see that they lost focus of what Final Fantasy games are about. I admit that most mainline Final Fantasy games are top quality (even though I thought Final Fantasy X was lame, Final Fantasy XII was too hard), but most spin-offs are crap; and there are SO many spinoffs that it creates these huge three or four or five year gaps between the good ones. Take Final Fantasy XIII for example, it is set to release in 2009 in Japan (Editor's Note: Final Fantasy XIII has no confirmed release date), at least a little longer with the regular SE delays and time waiting for the translation and the fact that for some reason they like to release Final Fantasy games in the fall (mostly September), it probably won't be until at least the end of 2010 that we will see the next REAL Final Fantasy game. In the meantime we have to content ourselves with cheap thrills on portable systems.
I'm not saying the portable Final Fantasy gamess are bad, but where is the captivating storyline in Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales, or Final Fantasy III DS? Where are the 40+ hour games the consoles can provide? Where are the nice graphics SE is known for? Will we have to wait until deep into 2010 to satisfy this?
I think ultimately, SE would make more money too if they released REALLY good games regularly instead of just okay games frequently and one good one every four years. If they want to release shameless games, they shouldn't waste the time of the famous Final Fantasy developers, and instead give it to some University of Tokyo grad student to make for extra credit; people will still buy them because it says Square Enix on the bottom right of the cover as that seems to automatically equate to an F-in awesome RPG.
Another gripe I have with SE is the fact that they ditched for the longest time a theme famous in the Final Fantasy world, the futuristic dystopic world with a special emphasis on airships. Instead, we've seen the nice landscape with trees three times in a row with Final Fantasy IX, X and XII. When I started playing Final Fantasy X, I thought it was going back to the urban type theme when I saw Zanarkand, but it blew up right away and we were stuck with ruins and more trees for the rest of the game. The whole medieval theme has been played to death in other RPGs, but rarely will you see one that incorporates an urban landscape with fantasy. It seems like they are going back to these themes in Final Fantasy XIII (I hope they stick with it) but like I said earlier, it won't be for another three or four years, with a lot of castles and dragons in between.
Another theme I would like to see again is the Magi theme of the earlier Final Fantasy games. I am tired of crystals! What happened to villains like Kefka, draining the power of a certain race to make things like Magitek armor.
SE is also renowned for making the Final Fantasy games really long and involving. I was the most disappointed here with Final Fantasy XII, with their MORE THAN AMAZING voice acting and great potential in terms of the storyline, but terrible execution. A game isn't considered long if you have to grind levels for four hours between EACH boss. Not to mention the scarcity of plot elements. I remember playing it, reaching a huge point in the story and then realizing that I have to travel through 75% of the world to get to the king and realizing that he was kidnapped and taken to the place I just came from (also a good reason to bring back airships). Not to mention the ten insanely difficult boss battles I have to overcome on each way. Yeah the game is long, but for the wrong reasons. Final Fantasy VIII was a great example to show how excellent the pacing was; since the enemies follow your own levels, it's not necessary to grind at all (unless you want to get the extras) and the game still lasts at least 40 hours. The reason I play Final Fantasy games is not for the challenge (there are far greater games with challenge out there, like Tetris), I play them for the fantasy.
Finally, the last thing I have to complain about is the versatility of the characters in terms of Job classes: from Final Fantasy VII to Final Fantasy XII, every character was able to do everything, and this takes away from the uniqueness of each character. Remember when Kain was the only one who could jump and Cyan was the only one with sword techs; these things made each character unique and that much more interesting. Now, I have to admit that the Materia, Sphere Grid, and License systems were really well thought out and worked really well, but there was still no uniqueness to the characters. In Final Fantasy VI, everyone was able to learn every spell, but they still each had unique talents (Locke stealing the guard's clothes). This also forced us to make use of all the characters; I find in the more recent Final Fantasy games, you can kinda just build up three characters and completely ignore the rest and still have an awesome team capable of doing absolutely anything!
Needless to say, I am really looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. It looks like someone had their head screwed on straight.
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