When Did the Final Fantasy Series "Jump the Shark"?

[Nz17]

I would say March - April 2003, those being the months when Final Fantasy X-2 was released and when Enix acquired Square.

[bb_hood]

I think everything after Final Fantasy 7 is just "nothing special", and are games I really dont care for.
Final Fantasy 8 was the beginning of the decline, the games became way too 'story based' and included too many long drawn-out dialogue scenes.

[celerystalker]

Yeah, I think for me it started with 7, but overall I'd say 11 was where the series started really losing fans. Having a numbered entry be an MMORPG changed what the series name meant too much. Before that, you mostly knew what you were getting into, but at that point we weren't talking about traditional JRPGs anymore, and Final Fantasy had been the face of the genre in the west to that point.

I agree quite a bit about 8 starting negative trends. The games started to focus on the characters' feelings more instead of the struggle in their world. It's like the newer Star Wars movies. I wasn't even curious about 10 year old Anakin, and certainly didn't need a whole movie about him. I would have preferred a focus on the clone wars and the rushed rise of the empire, whose infrastructure seems to have grown impossibly quickly in the time alotted. Similarly, if I don't get into the character of a whiner like Squall and the game is built so much around him and his person, I stop caring.

[kupomogli]

Final Fantasy 8, then 10 and beyond. Final Fantasy 9 was good so not included. Final Fantasy 10-2 while having a bad story has amazing gameplay. Final Fantasy 12 has amazing everything except for gameplay.

After losing Sakaguchi they brought Matsuno to do the work on Final Fantasy 12 and from what I've played, everything other than what I feel was awful progression unless you trial and error on that license board when learning skills is amazing. If they fixed the issues with Final Fantasy 12 then it probably would have been the greatest JRPG of all time, but the gameplay drags because of its flaws and after seeing a full list of the license board, it's because of a poor design decision that I could probably get past if I replay it and use a filled out license board as a guide. Maybe they did fix it with Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Job System version.

[ZeroCool]

After the jump to PS2, I stopped caring. I loved the PS ones especially 9. I couldn't get into X. I like XIII from what Ive played. I need to beat Odin one day.:snipersmile:

[Tanooki]

Jumped it at 7, and then jumped the shark, then killed it with its frickin laser beam with 8. Up until 7 there were some general set terms, patterns and designs the franchise stood on and stood for -- you could go into it and have a certain expectation how things in general would work. No it wasn't as copy paste common as Dragon Quest has stuck to, but it was fairly uniform. They decided to jump to big personality, big movies, big animations on anything, convoluted boyband looking people and weird plots with some good moments here and there. With 7 forward it more or less gave up being what FF was and did its own thing with each release after uniquely. Other than your staple enemies, magic names, items and stuff I find the name is more of a crutch to sell a disassociated game to the fans of the franchise. Not saying that's bad, but it's more like slapping a name on the box to sell something by old reputation alone.

[mailman187666]

I think X was the last one I really loved. Once they announced XI being an MMO, I could kind of tell things were starting to change. Once 12 came out, I wasn't very happy with how much they had changed things. It wasn't a bad game, but it didn't feel like a FF game to me. The FF XIII trilogy is not bad either, but I prefer 4-10 over those. I am still looking forward to how well XV turns out though.

Edit: I feel as though Bravely Default is what Final Fantasy should be

[Tanooki]

That last part there I agree with entirely. Bravely Default is Final Fantasy, the Final Fantasy they shouldn't have strayed from.

[BlastProcessing402]

Yeah, I think for me it started with 7, but overall I'd say 11 was where the series started really losing fans. Having a numbered entry be an MMORPG changed what the series name meant too much.

Yeah, 7 wasn't my favorite, but 11 is where they really jumped. Frickin online shouldn't have been a numbered entry! And now there are TWO numbered online games... Get bent, squeenix, and take your FF13 garbage with you too.

[Jorpho]

It seems plenty of people liked XII.

I hear there's a patch to play the International Zodiac Job System version in English; it's a version with some engine tweaks that was only released in Japan.

[sidewinderl]

The two most ridiculously overused themes in the Final Fantasy series are amnesia and orphans. So the game with mass orphan amnesia is irrefutably the game where FF jumped the shark. That, of course, would be 8.

[Nz17]

The two most ridiculously overused themes in the Final Fantasy series are amnesia and orphans. So the game with mass orphan amnesia is irrefutably the game where FF jumped the shark. That, of course, would be 8.

LOL ^ This is quoted for truth. ^

[Tanooki]

FF8 that one I couldn't put more than 10-15min on at a store display where someone had left it in game ready to go. The gameplay, the mechanics, the item/magic handling all of it just sucked and that's not even getting into the story elements being ripped on already here in the posts above. FF9 was always to me the best PS1 FF game because it was like a humble Japanese deep bowing apology for doing stupid crap after jumping ship from Nintendo as that one went back to the franchise roots and did it well.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

For me it was around ffx/x2


A lot got lost in the transition to the ps2, and they've never really recovered.

[SpaceHarrier]

Final Fantasy II

I mean c'mon.. you don't make a sequel to a game called Final Fantasy. It's the last one, and that's final!

[Tanooki]

^^oooh. I see what you did there. Well played.

(And not only that FF2 jumped the shark by killing the 'RPG' style experience system and making it a 'usage' system to get gains which was so popular it was dead and buried with FF3.)

[sfchakan]

FF7/FF8 didn't feel like Final Fantasy games to me. FF9 was pretty decent.

[kupomogli]

^^oooh. I see what you did there. Well played.

(And not only that FF2 jumped the shark by killing the 'RPG' style experience system and making it a 'usage' system to get gains which was so popular it was dead and buried with FF3.)

Well, technically it wasn't dead at FF3. It just spun off into SaGa instead.

[Tanooki]

I think I heard that before but I've never played Saga. The closest were the rebranded Saga (FF Legend) games a long time ago. I know it came back on the DS/3DS in Japan remastered but we got hosed out of that being localized for whatever reason.

[sidewinderl]

Technically it came back in 8, but you were punished for usage instead of rewarded. And actually I guess you could say materia brought it back before that.

I have a pretty contrarian view of 9. It was a shameless Dragonball ripoff that was drowned in Disney paint and buried in enough terrible fan service to make JJ Abrams take notes. 9 couldn't top 8, but it was still an amnesia and orphan fire sale. I also believe that it may have been the first FF game to give the player amnesia. Some of the characters are so forgettable that one time I saw a diehard FF9 fan say, "Amarant who?" Amarant is even among the party characters displayed on the cover art and people still can't remember him.

I did like the skill system, though.

[sfchakan]

Well, I know I never used him in general situations. Perhaps other people chose to do the same.

[Tanooki]

That's a unique take. I often find those who started with Nintendo are hit and miss on 7, more than not hate 8 and 9 is a thank you/apology for the last 2 going off the rails and restoring the 4-6 type games in 3D. FF9 was always the apology to me and I've played it like 3x over the years and it never bothered me like the others.

[celerystalker]

I think the obvious and most important message here is that while we all have our opinions on when it happened, almost everyone agrees that it did happen, and that's the really damning thing. Final Fantasy is a series that people will defend their favorites to the end, and lament the entries they hate vocally. However, very few people are happy about where things are headed. I don't see a large contingent of even passive apologists. Square should recognize this as a crossroads; do they want to try and bring the passionate fanbase back into the fold, or do they want to go after an all-new audience?

[Haoie]

Will XV be a return to form? Probably lot but it'll sell like hotcakes anyway!

[kupomogli]

15 definitely isn't a return. Hearing about and watching the gameplay it looks pretty crappy. The graphics look amazing, that's about it.

[Tanooki]

Celery they're all about new gamers, that's been obvious for a long time. No offense to the PS1 kids of the era, but they did it to you too and that's really when it started. Before hand they weren't so much about mass market, they had a general formula they more or less stuck to. With FF7 and games after they went mass market, mass media, Sony pumped the shit out of that one so it would sell like digital crack and it did. That game they were appealing not to FF fans as much as the 'NAME' and to what gamers of that period were all hot for -- movies, huge effects, 3D, the steam punkish kind of look 7 and 8 had ...9 was a total anomaly. Then with the PS2 those games again played this time to the 'emotion engine' bringing a better level of reality, life, detail to things while still going for the new modern flash and flair. PS3 -- FF13 and friends again is the same damn thing. Back with Nintendo they kind of played to the system strengths with the series sure, but not so blatantly to delay games for long periods to move a crap ton of copies of the game on the level they did with Sony. Sure I was picking on FF7 but in the larger scope using celery's post there, that's really when it jumped off from sticking to what was into what is hot, trendy and popular in effects, style and visual for a modern game at whatever expense (crystal engine, mass delays.) FF15 will do this looking at it, it definitely looks it from seeing that at FF13, and even the combat is seamless from moving around the map as they said, and if you can see it you can pretty much go there too, FF13 while long draw and pretty you saw far more than where you could go.

They won't change what they're doing, it hurts them, but it helps them if they can stand the losses until the release of the series hits. Then they can milk that engine for a generation with spinoffs, sequels, or even other projects.

[celerystalker]

I agree that they're about new gamers, but with their financial issues people keep talking about it seems like it should be decision time. Whatever is most profitable, I get it, but what they're doing doesn't seem to be working for anyone like they really want. New consumers probably are the future, honestly... but they have to at least do a better job appealing to them. As much aa I prefer my old style, I kind of doubt us old hats would financially support it well. We were the ones barely buying 40,000 copy print runs, and Final Fantasy selling less than 2 million anymore is a bust in the west.

[Tanooki]

Yup. You see what I found myself doing the last generation was kind of reconciling the fact that Final Fantasy itself, the traditional game is long dead with 9 being the exception. I decided to look at them not as games that really are Final Fantasy and instead a brand to just sell a story where they'll do whatever they damn well please good or bad. I came to that with FF10, and I jokingly called it Phinal Phantasystar X (ex, not 10.) It reminded me with the outside, inside caves, and tech junk that was splattered all over PSO on the Dreamcast more than any FF title. If I had looked at 10 like an actual FF game I would have been disappointed, probably pissed off. From that game forward I just bough the games if I liked how they looked and if the story would perhaps keep me busy, but if it looked weak in combat/leveling design or story I ignored it. The MMO that hit with 11 and then again with 14 cemented that with me my feelings on how to look at it...a name in use, not really a FF game, just shared certain bits. I really did like FF13 a lot, never had the time with an infant/toddler to finish it or even play the other two (which I will on Steam-PC when I can, easier on a laptop.) That game is no FF title other than some shared item/spell names and little else, same can be said of Type0 or FF15 for what we know of it.

The amusing flip side, and I know I'm not alone as I've seen it a LOT, especially with old Nintendo fans/owners of the 80s/earlier 90s -- Bravely Default was a renamed Final Fantasy game. It plays, looks and has so much style that mixes FF4-6 and 9, you have to wonder why the hell they just didn't give it the FF name. I see that game (series in Japan so far) as where FF went to.

[Nz17]

I guess if you want an RPG that is like a traditional FF, there is Bravely Second to look forward to playing; and if you want an RPG that is like an action game such as Final Fantasy Type-0, there is Final Fantasy Explorers to look forward to playing.

Personally, I am excited for Final Fantasy Explorers because it combines my preferred type of gaming (action) with Final Fantasy traditions (character classes à la FF5, traditional character appearances à la early FF's and FFT [meaning none of that "buckles, belts, and black colors" crap which that bastard Tetsuya Nomura pushes], on-screen HP damage counters, summons, et cetera)... and it is on a Nintendo platform, the 3DS!

[kupomogli]

I was excited about Final Fantasy Explorers at first because it's pretty much Final Phantasy Online(get it?) but after watching gameplay of I'm no longer interested as the game is clearly another cash grab. Just look up gameplay videos of the game. People wouldn't give this game a second glance except it's called Final Fantasy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hmV6i4jofFg#t=449

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ITYLjs_a2M&feature=player_detailpage#t=167

[Tanooki]

Final Fantasy Explorers, Xenoblade, and if it comes Bravely Second are on my 2015 3DS/New3DS watch list. Xeno I never got on Wii due to my being turned off by the hardware and having a kid around as I knew I'd never put a dent into it, but on a portable I could.

NZ17 seems to think alike to how I am thinking of FF Explorers. It's RPG FF feel but more action and Type0 I definitely want on PS4 and I actually really loved FF13 which was pretty ramped up with the action too.

[Gameguy]

Whenever this happened.


http://i58.tinypic.com/33w75f8.jpg

[SpaceHarrier]

Whenever this happened.




LOL please tell me there is a dragoon in whatever remake this is (or is it the guy standing forward there?)

[Nz17]

Well Gameguy, you get points for being literal.


LOL please tell me there is a dragoon in whatever remake this is (or is it the guy standing forward there?)

He is a dragoon, and I believe this is the PSP/Wii remake of FFIV.

[Tanooki]

That looks like Final Fantasy 1 on Android/IOS to me. Warrior, Ninja, Monk, and Red Mage.

[kupomogli]

Yeah, that's Final Fantasy on Android/PSP. The games look good except for the character sprites.
Final Fantasy 2 on PSP

http://i.neoseeker.com/p/Games/PSP/Role-Playing/Fantasy/final_fantasy_ii_anniversary_edition_profilelarge. jpg

Final Fantasy 4 on PSP

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120123103406/finalfantasy/images/1/10/FF4PSP_Enemy_Ability_Beak.png

Final Fantasy 5 on Android

http://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ffvios04_thumb.jpg

Final Fantasy 6 on Android

http://wimages.vr-zone.net/2014/01/androffvi02.jpg

[BHvrd]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Ehrgeiz_Pal.jpg

[kupomogli]

Ehrgeiz is one of the greatest fighters ever made.

[Damien_Da]

In my opinion it was around X. I personally enjoyed all of the PS1 releases. X just seemed meh... wasn't a fan of the sphere grid system.

[o.pwuaioc]

There were no sharks to be jumped. They just got progressively worse until their swan song (FF9). SNES was the peak of the series, with FF2 the worst of the early games.

[kupomogli]

There were no sharks to be jumped. They just got progressively worse until their swan song (FF9). SNES was the peak of the series, with FF3 the worst of the early games.

Fixed. FF2 is one of the worst, sure, but FF3 is such garbage in comparison.

[Tanooki]

I think that would depend on which FF3 you did (Famicom or the DS-DS ported to mobile, etc platforms.) I've never played the Famicom release so you could be right, but the remaster giving the characters names, stories and personalities is pretty nice.

[Rickstilwell1]

I think that would depend on which FF3 you did (Famicom or the DS-DS ported to mobile, etc platforms.) I've never played the Famicom release so you could be right, but the remaster giving the characters names, stories and personalities is pretty nice.

I don't know I greatly prefer the original III to the original I and II. If you played the remakes of I and II then yes III for NES will look like crap, but if we're talking about original releases here III is so much better and was the first in the series to introduce the Godsend that is auto-retargeting.

[kupomogli]

Final Fantasy 3 on the NES and the DS both are a massive grind. The first and second actually had a reasonable difficulty without too much grinding required. Pair that with the extremely slow speed at which battles progress and Final Fantasy 3 is just a massive annoyance. The job class system was pretty garbage as well. Once you've received a new set of job classes, you usually switched to the next class as it was almost always a better version of something you received earlier in the game, but not only that, you were actually forced to use specific classes as you progressed and if you didn't use the exact classes the game wanted you to, you wouldn't be able to progress. After playing FF13 and FF13-2, it's no longer my least favorite in the series, but before that series released it was the worst imo.

[Tanooki]

Good point rick and that's for damn certain with the auto-target as that was just plain awful fighters in a party would see a target die and just go 'whatever' and pick their nose instead of hitting something else that's attacking them. I always hated that.

I've never played more than an hour of FF3 Famicom translated, but I put down most of the DS recreation of it and I found it pretty enjoyable and nicely designed.


kupo I've head people like you say that before but I honestly will never comprehend how someone would find FF1 on the NES not a colossal slow and painful grindfest almost from the beginning. Maybe it's the party I use with the fighter, b and w wizards and the thief(or monk) but it would take so damn long to buy those stupid spells and gear because of the crappy little drop value of GP from fights. I welcomed the recreation on the PS1/GBA era because they upped those values and removed that lame limited turn magic system too. I found FF3 the least grindy, not by much but I do, but I also am not all wacked out needing to level up each job class either especially to the max so maybe that's why. FF2 on Famicom was bad having to beat on yourself or only do this or that to raise stats due to no XP system, and FF1 just had an awful payout on everything. Funny you should rip on FF13. It may be linear, but I really dig that game and got into the story on it, but I haven't tried FF13-2 yet, but I will once there's a deep enough cut steam sale on it.