Square Enix Admits Final Fantasy XIV Damaged Brand [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

_xeno_ writes "It's taken a year since Final Fantasy XIV launched to what can at best be called unfavorable reviews, but Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada is finally willing to admit that the (still subscription-free) MMO 'greatly damaged' the entire Final Fantasy brand. Despite this damage, Wada said Square Enix will continue to work on 'reviving' the game, with an upcoming patch promising to finally introduce such series staples as chocobos and airships. Even so, there's still no word on the PS3 release, which was delayed until the game was 'fixed,' nor is there any sign that Square Enix feels the game will be worth a subscription fee any time soon."http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fsto ry%2F11%2F09%2F28%2F002250%2FSquare-Enix-Admits-Final-Fantasy-XIV-Damaged-Brand%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfaceb ook) http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (http://twitter.com/home?status=Square+Enix+Admits+Final+Fantasy+XIV+D amaged+Brand%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FpHBqfb)

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[NayusDante]

It's their fault, but they're making it sound like they're somehow not responsible. They're blaming the game itself, and not confessing that they made the game that way.

It's still getting better, but I don't understand how much longer it's going to be in "free post-beta beta" mode and still have people take it seriously. When the subscription finally kicks in, can they convince people to pay for something that's been free for a year and a half?

[portnoyd]

Not an ice cube's chance in hell.

[djshok]

They think 14 is ruining the brand? Have they looked at FF13? It's a f*cking 10 hour walk down a long tunnel with some of the worst characters to ever existing in video gaming history, whilst listening to some of the most inappropriate music. If anything killed the Final Fantasy franchise it was 13.

[Zama]

They think 14 is ruining the brand? Have they looked at FF13? It's a f*cking 10 hour walk down a long tunnel with some of the worst characters to ever existing in video gaming history, whilst listening to some of the most inappropriate music. If anything killed the Final Fantasy franchise it was 13.

This is so true for me :( I managed to beat the game but I might never return to replay it though.

[kupomogli]

They think 14 is ruining the brand? Have they looked at FF13? It's a f*cking 10 hour walk down a long tunnel with some of the worst characters to ever existing in video gaming history, whilst listening to some of the most inappropriate music. If anything killed the Final Fantasy franchise it was 13.

This. The only Final Fantasy game, aside from duplicates I found for cheap, that I sold. I'm never picking up Final Fantasy 13-2 when the gameplay is the same bullshit and the story is probably just as bad. Final Fantasy 13 might look like a diamond, but in reality it's still a piece of coal.

It really makes you wonder if Sakaguchi is the reason the rest of the series was good, or in one case, atleast decent. When he left Matsuno headed FF12 for awhile, and that's probably why it has such amazing concepts, yet after moving over to being a writer and someone else took over directing could be why it has the flaws that it does.

I think that the Final Fantasy series name isn't ruined, but it's clear that none of the newer games hold a candle to the magic of the older titles. The developers need to put much more into gameplay and story first, even if they have to scale back on the graphics.

[kedawa]

Final Fantasy started going downhill after VI.
At this point it's just a cash cow that gives sour milk.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

wake me up when final fantasy versus drops, i dont give a fuck about the series as a whole anymore, havent for a long time, the series started going downhill after ix for me


x was good but wasnt great, its the one that started the whole linear thing
never played x-2 nor do i really care to, same with xi

xii gets a bad wrap but i always liked it, the only thing i can really complain about was the story, it seemed like the overarching premise would be really great, but once im in game its like....who gives a fuck? i had 40 hours into the game before i realized i had no idea wtf was going on or why i should care, balthier and fran were the only likeable characters, but i pretty much loved everything else about the game

xiii.....seriously......just fuck this game, just straight up fuck this game.

edit: "MOMS ARE TOUGH"

[Ludwig]

Wow, those guys are really dumb if they only noticed now that Final Fantasy is fubar'ed, i thought they where just milking it at this point, i didn't even imagine they would think it's any good. What a way to treat your salvation though...

[TonyTheTiger]

I always got the impression that the MMO FFs were seen as separate entities from the other games by most people. So if there's anything FFXIV hurt it's the subsequent FF MMO. Many Square Enix's other games have their own problems (read: Tetsuya Nomura).

[Rickstilwell1]

So many RPG series have gown downhill it's not even funny. It's like they are trying too hard to make the genre easier to play. I don't know whether I'll be happy or disappointed when I finally beat all the old RPGs I know about and "catch up" in these long series. It must not be too bad if my ex had enough fun with the PS2 RPGs to do nothing but play them all the time. Then there's the fact there's a ton of older one-off games and series I haven't tried before if I get to some new stuff and don't care for it.

[Ludwig]

It's like they are trying too hard to make the genre easier to play.

Actually that's not that wrong. What they want though is accessibility, what they often do these days (outside of rpgs also) is watering it down. It's about making it accessible, and offering a comfortable learning curve for newbies to catch up while offering challenges for veterans. A good example for doing just that would be Anno 1404 which is complexer than ever but also more accessible than ever. Only series where the old one was always surpassed by the new one, this is about to change though. But yes you are right.

[Emuaust]

I still don't understand the fanboy rants of "everything after VI sucks" it seems elitist to me, I know a lot of people who loved VII throught to IX with myself being included.

My personal opinion, not stated as fact, is that with FFX they started to jump the shark, while X had great visuals, music and a storyline I liked the game just felt like it wasn't an RPG anymore but a "we will hold your hand and walk you through our linear game". XII, while IMO a super impressive RPG it has the most boring and uninteresting cast of characters and story out of al the FF's and wel XIII...

[TonyTheTiger]

FFVII was fine. It's what VII inspired that screwed up the series (or at least a number of entries in it), and by extension other games like Kingdom Hearts.

It's kind of like how back in the 80s there were some gritty, violent comic books that achieved a level of popularity and that ended up inspiring the Rob Liefeld era in the 90s. Same goes for Final Fantasy. FFVII did what it did very well. Except, thanks to flanderization, the series ended up becoming a parody of itself filled with pseudo-philosophical existential nonsense and gaudy bullshit.

I enjoyed FFXII so much because it was a nice break from that.

It's not the gameplay or linearity of the series that bothers me in the least. It's that it's become a cookie cutter Evangelion wannabe.

[JSoup]

This is so true for me :( I managed to beat the game but I might never return to replay it though.

I may never finish it. I was enjoying the game well into the final chapters, aside from realizing that everything up until the end of Chapter 10 felt like a tutorial. I took a break to play other games, returned to 13 and just stared at the screen blankly for five minutes straight before saying to myself 'I really don't want to be bothered.'

I notice I'm doing that with a lot of RPGs these days. I'm more interested in the story, screw the leveling, dungeon crawling and whatever the hell else (except for my sweet, sweet item crafting, love that shit). Show me the piss easy power leveling method so I can get this fail boat sailing.

[kedawa]

I still don't understand the fanboy rants of "everything after VI sucks" it seems elitist to me, I know a lot of people who loved VII throught to IX with myself being included.

My personal opinion, not stated as fact, is that with FFX they started to jump the shark, while X had great visuals, music and a storyline I liked the game just felt like it wasn't an RPG anymore but a "we will hold your hand and walk you through our linear game". XII, while IMO a super impressive RPG it has the most boring and uninteresting cast of characters and story out of al the FF's and wel XIII...
It's not like the PS1 games weren't great games. They just never really surpassed the 16bit games.
After that, though, the series went full retard.

[Edmond Dantes]

It's like they are trying too hard to make the genre easier to play

Is this really the case? I was under the impression that RPGs were constantly adding new bullshit mechanics so they could claim they had depth, when often they just made previously straightforeward tasks pains in the ass (aka the Chrono Cross syndrome)

[kupomogli]

Is this really the case? I was under the impression that RPGs were constantly adding new bullshit mechanics so they could claim they had depth, when often they just made previously straightforeward tasks pains in the ass (aka the Chrono Cross syndrome)

When Final Fantasy 13 recommends that you use auto battle, that's kind of telling you something. Then the fact that it's point A to B the entire game and you may as well be watching a really shitty movie.

[G-Boobie]

Yeah, I thought it was the average of four billion games released every year with the words "Final Fantasy" in the title that did it. Of course, it might have been the constant remakes, ports, and five dollar Square Enix tax on portable versions. We aren't sixteen and full of angst anymore either. While we're at it, zippers, Mass Effect, Persona and Elder Scrolls.

Whatver.

[Nz17]

Many [of] Square Enix's other games have their own problems (read: Tetsuya Nomura).

Quoted for truth. Tetsuya Nomura loves adding buckles and zippers to clothes so much, I wonder if he's ever successfully gotten to the toilet in time.

"Just... seven... more... buckles! Oh God, nine zippers? What was I thinking?!"

[Edmond Dantes]

Then the fact that it's point A to B the entire game and you may as well be watching a really shitty movie.

The "shitty movie" part I noticed as soon as I put in the FF12 disc. As I told a friend later, "it's like they made the game after spending a week at a theater watching any and all relatively recent fantasy movies, another week reading American fantasy novels, and then finally another week playing their own damn games."

Granted Square has always had an obsession with American cinema (as the endless Star Wars references make manifest) but that was just overdoing it.

Just so nobody thinks I'm actually a fan, the reason I had an FF12 disc is because I found the collector's edition in the Steelbook case for ten bucks, and figured that sometime in the future I'll be able to use it as tradebait to get something I really want. Preferably something related to the SNES.

[Peonpiate]

Free to play or not, I tried the game at release and it was god awful, there are bad MMO's out there, and then there is FF14 sitting atop that throne...And like the saying goes, first impressions are everything. A year later and I still dont want to try it again. Also its a MMO, MMO's if they flop early are almost always going to be duds for as long as they are supported. Square would be better off pulling the plug on 14 at this point in time.

:deadhorse:


Edit, also the Playonline logon system is bad. I played on PC, and it is obvious they copy/pasted the UI from the consoles to the PC. It comes across bad.

[Rickstilwell1]

Is this really the case? I was under the impression that RPGs were constantly adding new bullshit mechanics so they could claim they had depth, when often they just made previously straightforeward tasks pains in the ass (aka the Chrono Cross syndrome)

I'm mainly talking dungeon design here. Take FFII for the NES which had passable nooks and crannies holding treasure chests and even has dungeons with doors leading to empty rooms with nothing but stronger random monsters in them acting as a trap for picking the wrong door. Compare that to newer games where the maps are a straight line. It takes away some excitement and challenge.

One of the big things that I like about Beyond the Beyond on PS1 is the puzzle solving in some dungeons. Not a lot of RPGs use that anymore. Even Suikoden II had some small dungeon puzzles but III didn't seem to have any.

Speaking of puzzle heavy, that makes me wish Alundra's sequel didn't throw the original character in the dump and go to something completely unrelated. Otherwise it would probably have still been getting sequels to this day and trying to upstage Zelda.

[TonyTheTiger]

The "shitty movie" part I noticed as soon as I put in the FF12 disc. As I told a friend later, "it's like they made the game after spending a week at a theater watching any and all relatively recent fantasy movies, another week reading American fantasy novels, and then finally another week playing their own damn games."

Granted Square has always had an obsession with American cinema (as the endless Star Wars references make manifest) but that was just overdoing it.

Just so nobody thinks I'm actually a fan, the reason I had an FF12 disc is because I found the collector's edition in the Steelbook case for ten bucks, and figured that sometime in the future I'll be able to use it as tradebait to get something I really want. Preferably something related to the SNES.

I love FFXII but even I half expected Vaan to burst into "One jump ahead of the breadline! One step ahead of the sword!"


I'm mainly talking dungeon design here. Take FFII for the NES which had passable nooks and crannies holding treasure chests and even has dungeons with doors leading to empty rooms with nothing but stronger random monsters in them acting as a trap for picking the wrong door. Compare that to newer games where the maps are a straight line. It takes away some excitement and challenge.

I don't consider that challenge. I consider that a waste of my valuable time when I'm led to a dead end with random battles all over the place. As simplistic and possibly annoying the straight lines can be, the time sink dungeons of yesteryear were terribad, too.

[portnoyd]

FFII is a really bad example. This is a game where you had to grind for hours, including beat on your own characters, just to leave the first town.

[TonyTheTiger]

I just wish they'd have a bit more self-awareness when they're writing these things. There's nothing wrong with telling a predictable story. I generally don't get tired of "save the princess" kind of stuff. What does bother me, though, are predictable stories that think they aren't. Simplistic stories that think they're deep.

It's pretty obvious that they've been giving us the same archetypes over and over again. We're guaranteed a Vanille, for instance. That's...fine, actually. I'm a huge Mega Man fan so what would it say about me if I start ranting about FF being repetitive? But the difference is that while Mega Man knows what it is, Final Fantasy apparently does not.

It's like the series went through this prima donna phase after FFVII and never got out of it, only taking a much appreciated break for FFXII. FFI-FFVI were all repetitive, too. There were common notes that they all hit, a "routine" so to speak. FFVII wasn't that different, either. VI and VII threw in more steampunk/cyberpunk/dystopian stuff in the mix but not a whole lot changed. FFVII just tried a bit harder with it's introspective approach, the characters relationships, Cloud's mysterious history, meaning of life kinda stuff, etc. That was all pretty subdued, though, if you think about it. Play FFVII again and then play or watch any of the more current FFVII related stuff. You'll notice a glaring difference in scripting. Cloud's personality is not even remotely the same.

It seems like after FFVII, with perhaps it's slightly more convoluted plot and dramatic notes, the writers all ran hog wild with "we're deep, we're philosophical" and churned out more of the same but with layers of bullshit on top for good measure. They Evangelioned the hell out of Final Fantasy and that makes me mad.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Final Fantasy and Sonic sitting in a tree, S-U-C-K-I-N-G

[Ludwig]

I came across this and thought about you guys, maybe some of you find it interesting. :)
http://www.cheatcc.com/extra/whatif_finalfantasywentbacktoitsroots.html

[TonyTheTiger]

That article is a victim of Square Enix's revisionism, too. FFVII wasn't angsty in the least. FFVIII arguably wasn't either. Squall wasn't emo so much as he was just a douchebag. But even granting FFVIII, Cloud in FFVII was actually very proactive. His subsequent characterization in everything since FFVII is damn near unrecognizable.

[JSoup]

I came across this and thought about you guys, maybe some of you find it interesting. :)
http://www.cheatcc.com/extra/whatif_finalfantasywentbacktoitsroots.html

Please don't encourage people to visit that thief's site.

[substantial_snake]

Spending a ridiculous amount of time and money on largely mediocre spinnoffs, prequels, and sequels has damaged the brand in the West more then FFXIV.

Its a small think but Final Fantasy hasn't been the same for me since they stopped using a real world map. Everything just tends to feel smaller and less expansive, I don't feel like I am really saving the world in the latest installments.

[dystopian]

If you ask me, Lost Odyssey is where Final Fantasy SHOULD be going. That was a damn well-written game, and the Thousand Years of Dreams short story sections are extremely poetic. If you like intelligent stories and truly interesting philosophical underpinnings, I think Lost Odyssey makes it quite clear that Sakaguchi was the real soul behind the good FF's.

[old man]

Did anyone else play the FFII (IV) remake for the NDS? I thought it was really good even if Cecil was kind of a wus. We need more FF like that.

[swlovinist]

Here is my very basic overview of what I think about the Final Fantasy brand:

Some early ones were good(I played many hours of my youth on US Final Fantasy I, II, & III)

Final Fantasy VII is the reason I bought my Playstation

The others that followed it tried to capture the magic of VII and did not live up to their hype.

Final Fantasy X was pretty good, but after that the lines got blurry

Rehash, Remakes, and the occasional original idea came out. There were some great gems, but it is hard to care when there has been so many final fantasy games in the last five years. While there were some great games, there were some terrible ones as well.

This franchise reminds me of how Capcom used to treat Mega Man.

At some point, all the sequels, remakes, and side stories just dont even matter.

[NayusDante]

If you ask me, Lost Odyssey is where Final Fantasy SHOULD be going. That was a damn well-written game, and the Thousand Years of Dreams short story sections are extremely poetic. If you like intelligent stories and truly interesting philosophical underpinnings, I think Lost Odyssey makes it quite clear that Sakaguchi was the real soul behind the good FF's.

This is where I stand as well. Lost Odyssey was what FFX should have been.

If Mistwalker had the kind of budget and engine development resources that Squenix does, there would be a serious competitor for FF. Even if the production values aren't in the same league, I enjoyed LO a lot more than FFX, XII, or XIII.

[Gamevet]

When Final Fantasy 13 recommends that you use auto battle, that's kind of telling you something. Then the fact that it's point A to B the entire game and you may as well be watching a really shitty movie.

Yeah, the linear levels weren't that great, but my biggest problem with XIII was using paradigm shifts during battle. It was a total pain.

[TonyTheTiger]

Lost Odyssey did everything right, I think. Even the random battle encounter rate was low enough but the battles themselves interesting enough to make it all smooth as hell. And it's pretty obvious right down to the naming conventions (Sed?) that it was the "alternate" Final Fantasy and yet turned out even better.