Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIV 'Greatly Damaged' Entire Brand

[Asai]

I would love to see a remastered version of FF6 running on the crystal engine. Same game, but maybe a little extra side content besides like... the Colosseum.

[Kurokikaze]

I would love to see a remastered version of FF6 running on the crystal engine. Same game, but maybe a little extra side content besides like... the Colosseum, Dragons Den, and Soul Shrine

FTFY. Moar is better.

[Datonare]

I've enjoyed every Final Fantasy game that's been released for what it is. I try not to compare it to past titles, because I do believe they try to create a different experience each time; however, that is also one of the things that bug me. I feel as if they are trying to reinvent the wheel with every game. They know what works and what people like, but they seem veer away from it because they've done it before. Perhaps it's because I grew up on those RPGs, but I do think a world map with exploration (and side dungeons with hidden loot/monsters) is a necessity. I still remember finding the hidden island on FF8 and fighting Bahamut, or finding KotR on FF7, etc. and how cool it was from being off of the beaten path. Minigames and extra content like the Flying Saucer from FF7, or the hot and cold game from 9 are also nice additions, especially with the trophy/achievement system.

As far as battle systems go... I am still a fan of turn based, I think FF13's was done very well, especially when you got into some of the harder fights, it was pretty hectic switching classes. I also loved FF12's, that game had a great sense of exploration because it didn't limit you too much on where you could go and combat was seamless and, in my opinion, fun.

[vrumpt]

Personally, I think the ps1 era of Final Fantasy games were the best. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of VII, VIII and IX, which is more than i can say for the ps2 era, but that doesn't mean those were bad, X-2 just left a bad taste in my mouth aside from the battle system. X was my first FF, so it holds some heavy nostalgic value for me but its pretty superb, and X-2 was rightly earned in my eyes. XIII-2, not so much. I was actually pretty surprised that they decided to go with a sequel, while i enjoyed XIII for the most part I didn't think it deserved a sequel. If they were making it to prove they can do Final Fantasy right they should have made XV, not XIII-2. Most people I know didn't enjoy XIII at all, and a lot of them didn't even finish it. I think that hurt the FF name more than XIV did, since a lot of people aren't into MMOs to begin with so they didn't even bother with it.

[Gwynplaine]

The most fundamental aspects to the R.P.G. genre and the reason fans like them are:
A- Character development, increasing your skills, building and progressing to complete your goals within the game.
B- Story. This ties into the other aspect of improving your character or group, you are progressing as characters in skill as well as through events. They tie together well.

Those two things need to be done well. They have to be fun and interesting or the core of your game is stillborn. You can dress it up in flashy pretty art and CG but it will only fool some of the more naive fans and ultimately fizzle.

The greats of the series I would look to for support would be FF6 and FF12. Contrasted with the flashy superficial junk of FF10, and FF13.

Whatever happens just don't try to project what you think a demographic wants and then create for an imaginary clump of people who don't exist. Have a clear vision and present it, and it will be good.

[Cichy]

I think 14 pointed out how out of touch with customers SE really is.
I hope if they continue working on 14 they realize they will have to give us major content updates every 3 months if they plan to charge us.
I dont want to see content poorly implemented like salvage which no one could farm till they fixed it months later, or sea before NMs dropped stones 100% of the time.

[SamanosukeShiva]

What I loved from the Final Fantasy Series were the Adventures and Stories, and lately Square-Enix games have been all story and no adventure. What I mean is, back during the golden age of Final Fantasy, we could basically roam around the world map, exploring, do sidequests and not entirely focusing on the main story, Adventuring, so do speak.

I don't know what went wrong, but I think I can speak for everyone here that the game quality has been steadily dropping ever since Squaresoft became Square-Enix. All the old school RPG like Xenogears was abselutely amazing in storytelling as well as the adventuring aspect. Square-Enix is continuously trying to evolve and keep up with modern RPG but ended up abandoning the qualities we loved from Square in the first place.

Stop trying to change all the time or please the shareholder or whatnot, all I'm saying is, just do what you do and make games that we enjoy playing and you enjoy making.

[Fhloston]

They just need to look at the Tales series (Vesperia specifically) and go with that formula.

Big open worlds, final weapons that had story driven quests behind them, tons of side content, air/sea travel, hidden areas/items on the world map, more of a "fantasy" theme. All these things Vesperia had, but it seemed that the FF series had gotten "too big" for.

[Kitrah]

Despite all the nay sayers, someone is still playing Final Fantasy ELEVEN Online, for it's still up and running.
Nothing would please me more than if SE just upgrades FFXI (to heck with PS2 already!) or keeps all the visual/audio beauty that is FFXIV, but make it play like FFXI.
I can not and will not speak for anyone else, but if FFXIV played like FFXI and had a similiar UI, there'd me at least one willing and dedicated consumer: me.

[Avanarius]

Just go out on a limb since I just jumped into the thread, but how would you guys feel about a final fantasy game that was a genuine co-op experience? I keep thinking of legend of mana, and how much fun I had with the ff9 battle co-op; but staying true to the final fantasy formula, just co-op story and interactions / battle formula.

[Kurokikaze]

Just go out on a limb since I just jumped into the thread, but how would you guys feel about a final fantasy game that was a genuine co-op experience? I keep thinking of legend of mana, and how much fun I had with the ff9 battle co-op; but staying true to the final fantasy formula, just co-op story and interactions / battle formula.

Sweet mother of god I would love me some Co-op. I always played FF4 and 6 with my cousin controlling different characters in battle. But some real coop (online!) would be so fucking badass.

[Eaglestrike]

I have greatly enjoyed every single player FF game I have played, and constantly argue that XII and XIII are some of the best games I've played yet. I think there is one simple (but not easy, I suppose) way to "fix" how they're doing XII and XIII and make XV phenomenal again. Make the game engine, make the game world...and give us the entire world again. That really is the major issue. X had shitty characters (which was my main issue) but it was also the start of not being able to actually play the whole map.

In Final Fantasy XII we're told of this big, grand world, but you do the heroes main storyline and THAT IS IT. You do not venture off into Basch's storyline, you do not ever go to areas under the control of the Rozarrian empire. Old FF's had sidestories and other storylines that you either could do, or HAD to do. In FF8, although not my favorite game, you had Laguna that would randomly pop up in there and you had to play as him. I'll be honest, when I played FF8 for the first time, I had no clue what Laguna's point was, at all. Didn't know why he was there. But I also didn't hate him.

In FFXIII they made some effort to fix this by giving us Gran Pulse and the ability to explore it with the full group after the game is over. This was a decent workaround, but still not what it used to be.

Give us back our minigames, give us back world exploration. If you have to do this with DLC, do it, but make at least SOME of the DLC free. For instance in FF12, there could be a Basch backstory arc as DLC, that should be free. But there also could be a 'World War' scenario which basically alters the end of the game, you don't go to stop Vayne (for some reason) and Rozarria and Archadia engage in war. Ashe goes to the Rozarrian capital (allowing us to run all the way there in some backwoods way) to make some form of treaty with them, using the prince as her ticket in to see the emperor. In this time Vayne has used the nethicite to crush the early troops of Rozarria and has moved the battle lines deep into Rozarria land. Ashe says she can get rid of Vayne's trump card and uses this to strike a deal with Rozarria. Ashe then makes another trip in to Archadia, destroys all nethicite mines/machines/stock/etc. and fights with Rozarria to push Archadia back, THEN we go to strike Vayne head-on and defeat him like we did in the original game. All the while giving us all sorts of hunts in Rozarria to do and such. Or hell, maybe this should have been the game to begin with.

My only issue with FF games of late is they seem to be over so quick. While this IS good in some ways, it's nice to not lose 3 consecutive days without sleeping much to a single video game, it's not what I want. I want the game to feel like it takes a long time, and not because of the buttload of cutscenes in it.

Edit: Seeing some of the latest posts: Co-op RPG/Strategy games are going to be so big once some big name finally does them. A Co-op Dragon Age or RPG-style L4D would be so amazing.

[Ddz]

They just need to look at the Tales series (Vesperia specifically) and go with that formula.

Big open worlds, final weapons that had story driven quests behind them, tons of side content, air/sea travel, hidden areas/items on the world map, more of a "fantasy" theme. All these things Vesperia had, but it seemed that the FF series had gotten "too big" for.

I agree. I could not put Vesperia down for 100+ hours of play. If that were an online game (with expansions and content releases), fuck real life lol

[Katlan]

has this thread turned into whats your favorite FF and favorite FF moment? Sure seems that way

Spoiler: show

oh wait, that happens to most of these threads

[Jakson]

+1 for Co-op rpgs and "XIV didn't ruin FFs for me because I know mmo and offline FFs have little in common."

It would be great if the next FF a friend could get on Live or PSN and just drop into your game and control one of the other characters in your party. Maybe even have a whole party of your friends, where the game can scale difficulty based on how many people there are in battle, but will automatically revert when players leave.

[Eaglestrike]

Screw gambits, give me co-op FFXII, amirite?

[Corrderio]

mmo and offline FFs have little in common

This is another thing I'm curious about. Nobody can deny the offline and MMOs are completely different outside of the recurring elements, but they still decided on putting XI/XIV as part of the main franchise. Wouldn't it make sense to have them as their own FF spinoff like Tactics, Mystic Quest, etc?

[Lokus]

^ Name recognition to lure people.

[DragonCloud64]

I think 14 pointed out how out of touch with customers SE really is.
I hope if they continue working on 14 they realize they will have to give us major content updates every 3 months if they plan to charge us.
I dont want to see content poorly implemented like salvage which no one could farm till they fixed it months later, or sea before NMs dropped stones 100% of the time.

I hope they don't do with 14 like they did with 11, aka waiting like 5+ years before they start listening to or taking advice from the playerbase. They are going to need to get the updates rolling to make 14 more playable.

Semi related, I just picked up a new copy of the Japanese version of the 14 collector's edition for about... 14USD. Ouch.

[BWYuko]

"The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged," he said. "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released."

The game in question is unsalvageable. Personally, I don't understand how Wada or anyone else with his hand on the helm has not or cannot grasp -- on the most fundamental level -- what they've systematically and unabashedly done to themselves. The problems began over ten years ago; using the most recent title as a scapegoat for a decade of B- work is insulting. The FF brand has been heavily leaned upon far longer than any company figurehead will ever admit publicly, as they've been relying on other people (namely Disney, Taito, Eidos, Enix, Level 5, Tri-Ace, Matrix Software, etc) to make the brunt of their money for them. The notion that any new Final Fantasy title will be sellable with any current or deceased in-house development strategy is a delusion the company can no longer afford to humor by simply "throwing money at it" or hiring more inexperienced/incapable/incompetent staff. They've been so far up their own assholes for such a long period of time that frankly I'm surprised anyone from the actual company officially addressed any such issues. This doesn't mean they won't rebuild FF14 exactly as they've stipulated. As already mentioned by another poster, the Japanese online community craves another domestic MMO since they could never lower themselves to the level of participating in WoW and another mainstay has not yet arrived to usurp FF11. Call it disgruntled fanboyism if you like, but trying to conduct this kind of business elsewhere, for this long, in the international multimedia and entertainment industries is just absolutely fucking unacceptable.