Are you satisfied with the modern direction of the Final Fantasy series?

[mark1982]

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To those of you that consider yourselves fans of the Final Fantasy series, are you enjoying the direction Square Enix has taken with the series over the years?

There are several factors that have changed with each installment. What has affected you the most - Style of narrative, art direction, or the game design?


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I seem to have lost interest with the series as each new installment comes to light... The last FF game I enjoyed was 12, which was released on the PS2 back in 2006. The character and environments still drew me in - Characters like Balthier, Fran and Basch were all interesting characters with that wonderful fantasy aspect.
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The previous installments of Final Fantasy titles I hold very dear to my heart as they are some of my favorite games. To be honest FF7 was the first 3D JRPG I played and that game simply took my breath away with countless sneaky late school nights playing to see what unfolds next. Or FF9 that is just simply filled with charm, I still remember smiling when Vivi would clumsily stumble off somewhere during a dire situation.
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I was introduced to the FF series on the SNES, and the 2D games is what started it all, timeless classics.

I started feeling distant with the series ever since FF13, I did play the games but I just didn't feel the charm anymore.. And now moving forward to their latest installment with FF15, to me everything just feels "edgy" as if they are trying to please a certain demographic. I have FF15 ( Deluxe Edition too ) but I can't seem to muster up the urge or motivation to play further after playing it with a friend for the first 8 hours or so. Just didn't click with me, and that is unfortunate because I really loved the series.

I am hoping Square Enix returns to their roots with a beautiful charm-filled game with fantasy bursting from its seams.

Unfortunately FF went from this:

      to this --->

For me anyway. Maybe one day I'll continue playing FF15 and it will change my entire perspective, have to keep positive 

What about you guys. Still hold the series as one of the greats or has it fallen from grace?

[hexen]

I lost interest in the main series after FF10. I'm not a fan of the action combat and having limited control over party members. Of course, now I don't have the patience many traditional RPGs, so even the classics would be harder for me to return to. Last time I played one was FF8 about a year ago where I finally made an almost perfect file, which I had intended to do since... uh... the early 2000's... at least I finally did it...!

Regardless of my opinion now, I have nothing but praise for the pre-12 (11 was an MMO, right...?) games which I think each did something unique and interesting for the genre and I enjoyed them immensely growing up.

[burningdoom]

PS2 and beyond, I've ignored the series. It all just felt very emo to me at that point. And that's just not my bag.

But the gameplay I've seen of FF15 has me reconsidering. It still has that emo look to it, no doubt, but the real-time combat and open-world has me intrigued regardless.

[pizzasafari]

No no no no and no. Final Fantasy has been dead to me from X-2/11 onwards, it's not Final Fantasy anymore. They forgot what made the games amazing and think all they have to do to make a good Final Fantasy game is make its characters as skinny and boring as possible and shove in a convoluted plot with no substance.
They were one of the first companies to arbitrarily decide out of nowhere that no-one likes turn-based/ATB combat anymore and their games have suffered for it. I used to be so distraught over FF's death but I don't even care anymore.
And the spinoffs are just insulting, everything they've done with FF7 has spat on everything that made it great and Dissidia proved they have no idea who their characters even are. The FF7 remake can suck my dick too, it's just gonna be another pool of saliva on FF7's grave.
Square was king, Square Enix is a shell of its former self.

FF 5-10 I'll always hold up as some of the best games ever but Persona is my Final Fantasy now.

Edit: Also I'll defend random encounters to my dying breath. They made it easier to enjoy the scenery rather than having it littered with big-ass monsters you have to focus all your attention on. Fight me everyone.

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm 100% on board with the ideas of Final Fantasy 15, it's just a horribly flawed game due to its disastrous development.  I'd love to see them take this big open world setup they created and start from the beginning with the characters and story in mind, maybe go with a FF9/12 sort of fantasy feel rather than the more modern feeling setup they have with it.

So in general, I don't like where Final Fantasy is at the moment due to a mixed bag FF game, but I could like where it's going if Square Enix can figure out how to actually make a good proper FF game, but unfortunately they are still gonna pump out underwhelming DLC for FFXV for awhile that likely adds little to the main games experience.  It's funny how soured on the game right now, when it was one of my favorites of 2016, even with all the faults, as I had a good time, but all of the big DLC they release was either really flawed or felt pointless to the story.

[shfan]

Square was king, Square Enix is a shell of its former self.

Agreed, on SNES/GB/PS1 Square were absolutely fantastic, but once they hit the PS2 era it just... went.

Weird timing on this topic - I've just picked out FF8/9 out of my collection (along with their strategy guides) as it's finally struck me that I don't actually like them, at all, and never will. Well, with FF8 I knew that already, I hate it on every level, FF9 just petered out, got a lot of the way through then lost interest. So they're going.

FF7 was a standout game for me at the time, as it was to many folk, I was in my teens and this was like a HUGE modern classic with a soundtrack to melt for. After that.. I made several runs at FF8 just because I couldn't get my head around how much I disliked it and FF9, well you know the story. FFX had the same effect on me as 8, FFX-2 was just.. blegh. That was it, no more FF for me, haven't tried XII or any other modern one. My mourning's done, so many series have fallen by the wayside it's not like it's a surprise that Final Fantasy is there with them.

[kamikazekeeg]

FF7 was also that for me as it was my first FF game.  FF8 got boring pretty fast as I barely made it past the first disc and I never really gave FF9 a shot.  FFX I basically beat (technically didn't beat the final boss, but I lost my save) and enjoyed for the most part and then only dabbled in the series till FF15, when I dumped like over a 150 hours into the base game.  Never played 1-6.

[vivigamer]

Short answer NO.

Final Fantasy XV was a trainwreck of a game, there is no escaping that - It is one of my least favourite in the series as of now due to how it was handled. It suffered from what a lot of series have this gen in moddifying a game to fit a sandbox style of world. The problem is that you jsut have a vast area with nothingness and no focus on a well paced story - Unpopular Opininon: Say what you like about Final Fantasy XIII and its coridoor enviornments as least it had a well paced story, mroe so than Final Fantasy XII too. I'm not one of them people who says this was a dissapointment for a gaem that was 10 years in dfevelopment, its clear the project was holded and basically restarted from 2013 onwards but even as a 2-3 year game the results were underwhelming - One instance being that the quest for Noctis to visit the Royal Tomsb was redundant, you didn't even have to visit all of them to gain the power needed for the final battle, where if you compare that to Final Fantasy X's Aeon Pilgramige its just a joke. I also was not a fan of the combat, I have no issues with Action combat in JRPGs - NieR is an excellent example of this. but the combat was quite un-inspiring, especially how summons were basically a failsafe.

What Do i Want From a New Final Fantasy?:
I think looking forward to Final Fantasy XVI it needs to focus on the Fantasy side more, XV's Lifelike/Western approach in style jsut branched too far away from the series this time. I want to see more fun designs put into the characters or the world with different races of being - Like how Final Fantasy IX had Fish People in suits or Hippo Maids I want to see a world that isn't just focus on humans.

Also, I want to see proper towns an locations, FFXV only had one main town which was okay but still a bit bland, beyond that it was mostly car parks and garages... It just wasn't an exciting environment to explore and travel in. i want to be filled with majestic awe when I arrive at a new area and feel the characters sense of excitment - Like how Tidus looks on over Luca from the ship docking in Final Fantasy X. I like it when in a JRPG you arrive at a new area say, Dali Village in FFIX & you enter the village and then you get involved in it's own story/situation but that story relates to the characters and has outcomes to progress the Main plot - Something in my experience of Dragon Quest which never happened, which had isolated stories within the town andt the main story progresed outside that.

Story is key to me, if I can get involved with an adventure with characters i'm invested with I am usually happy,  don't mind where the combat goes either way but hope it has a good method for Leveling up and Progression. I just don't want to have an open world where the story is poorly paced - Final Fantasy XII was guilty of this too, I remember scrolling through landscape after landscape with no story progression, even after reaching towns in hope that somethign woudl changet he course of the game only to stroll through with nothing.

The joke is that I talk about a Final Fantasy XVI, but they're not even done with XV yet, they're still releasing another Season Pass with content to span throughout 2019... this is a 2016 game too...

[pizzasafari]

I don't think there's any point in hoping for anything from future Final Fantasy games, it's obvious the heart isn't there anymore and they're just making Final Fantasy games because for some reason it makes them money. It pretty much began with 10, if you look into the story of its development Square started making big changes to the way they made games because of the money they lost from Spirits Within and the development studio basically became a dictatorship, people were being told exactly what to make, no-one got to put in the creativity that made the older games so great. IIRC that's the reason Uematsu left the company, because he didn't like being told exactly what music to make. Sakaguchi left sometime around then too so I'd guess it might have been for the same reason, then with the two of them gone the series was pretty much doomed. 10 still somehow ended up good but after that it just nosedived and it's become completely soulless. Final Fantasy is dead but more amazing JRPGs have come in to take its place, but nothing seems to scratch the same itch Final Fantasy always did.

Edit: Which reminds me, I haven't said, just in case anyone missing Final Fantasy doesn't know the developer Mistwalker is basically a continuation of the good version of Square (Sakaguchi and Uematsu are two of the key members) and they made Lost Odyssey which in my eyes is the true Final Fantasy XI. If you love Final Fantasy and you haven't played Lost Odyssey you really really really need to. Blue Dragon is kind of reminiscent of the FF 3/5, The Last Story I really didn't enjoy but other people seemed to like it, but it had a FF12-esque battle system which I hated.

[mark1982]

A lot of great responses in this thread and I'm glad we are all more or less on the same page on the FF series 

Edit: Also I'll defend random encounters to my dying breath. They made it easier to enjoy the scenery rather than having it littered with big-ass monsters you have to focus all your attention on. Fight me everyone.

I too prefer random encounters in JRPGs, just makes everything more organized with more control over party members. Action combat seems to add in the whole "flash" factor but I found it a complete mess at times with a lack of control over the party... However some JRPGs do a decent job with action based combat, I just felt it didn't sit right with the FF series.

What Do i Want From a New Final Fantasy?:
I think looking forward to Final Fantasy XVI it needs to focus on the Fantasy side more, XV's Lifelike/Western approach in style jsut branched too far away from the series this time. I want to see more fun designs put into the characters or the world with different races of being - Like how Final Fantasy IX had Fish People in suits or Hippo Maids I want to see a world that isn't just focus on humans.

I couldn't agree more, the whole Fantasy side of the latest installments just seem to be missing...

I would like to see more elaborate towns in exotic locations with different races as you mentioned. For me this is what brings out the whole "charm" for the series.

Edit: Which reminds me, I haven't said, just in case anyone missing Final Fantasy doesn't know the developer Mistwalker is basically a continuation of the good version of Square (Sakaguchi and Uematsu are two of the key members) and they made Lost Odyssey which in my eyes is the true Final Fantasy XI. If you love Final Fantasy and you haven't played Lost Odyssey you really really really need to. Blue Dragon is kind of reminiscent of the FF 3/5, The Last Story I really didn't enjoy but other people seemed to like it, but it had a FF12-esque battle system which I hated.

To be honest during this era of JPRGs I was losing hope already on what the future held for this genre.

Then when all seemed lost, a gem was released... on an unlikely console to have JRPGs, the Xbox 360 released Lost Odyssey. This game reminded me again on why I love JRPGs, and I couldn't agree more, if anybody is fan of the FF series of old, please do check out this game. Filled with a slew of different emotions and a real tear jerker too. Lost Odyssey is probably my favorite JRPG of this modern generation, such a good game.

[hoshichiri]

You know what I've always loved about Final Fantasy- EVERY Final Fantasy? They aren't interconnected. So you don't have to love the series at all- you can hate part of it or damn near all of it, it won't hurt your enjoyment of the ones you like becuase no game truly affects another. Hell, considering the success of Octopath Traveler, maybe they will go full on old-school turn-based fantasy realm for 16- there's nothing officially stopping them, after all!

Anyway, of what I've played:

Final Fantasy- it's an 8 bit RPG. A good one, fun monsters & well balanced and all, but primitive as all get-out these days.

Final Fantasy 3- haven't finished it, and don't really remember it. *shrugs*

Final Fantasy 4: SPOONY BARD! Also didn't finish it, my brother sold his super nintendo before I was done.

Final Fantasy 7: My first fully played game in the series, one of my first playstation games, I was blown away by the sheer scope of this game. I genuinely don't know if I'd play it again today though- I never really latched on to the characters or the story, most of my current admiration is borne of nostalgia.

Final Fantasy 8- Yeah, the story here wasn't great... but dammit, I really loved the characters in this one! I played the ever-lovin' crap out of this, right up to farming on the heaven/hell islands to try and max my stats. Easily the most time I've put on one save file in the series.

Final Fantasy 9- Not a fan, but not the game's fault. When I played this, I was the last one in amongst my friend group, so every day was a bombardment of 'where are you? No, you have to get to here so we can talk about it! I don't care if you want to grind for items/levels, I need to talk about the thing that happens!'. Getting screamed at constantly to either speed-run or have every major plot point spoiled sours one experience quite a bit. I actually deleted my save file, hoping it would encourage me to try again & play at my own pace, but no- the game just makes me mad now. *sigh*


Final Fantasy 10- One of my favorites. Great cast, great story- one of the friends above dumped a major spoiler on me & kinda ruined the endgame, but at least I was close enough to the reveal to not be completely put off. Also, one of the weirdest final bosses ever- simultaneously annoying & creative.

Final Fantasy X-2- Meh. Barbie's Adventures in Spira. Honestly just felt weird- I don't remember if I finished this or not...

Final Fantasy 12- My Absolute Favorite, hands down! I love the entire cast, I love the setting, I love the more intimate scope of the story, I just love all of it. It's not without its flaws- the first time I tried explaining Basch's background to someone I had a full mental stop when I realized I'd just unironically said 'it was his evil twin'. But I give the game credit for being so subtle about it I didn't notice in-game. I also did enjoy the gambit system- it was nice to lazily grind & just enjoy the animations instead of focusing in on stats & moves & timing. Happily re-played the Zodiac Age re-release on PS4, and honestly considering buying it again for the Switch.

Final Fantasy 13- Meh. The characters are ok, the story is actually pretty good, and I didn't mind the corridors... I did mind not getting full control of my party till a good 20 hours in, and good LORD the endgame was long! I think after 12 though, Id've been dissapointed by pretty much anything.

What do I want from the series in the future? Beats me- I suppose a good story, and some form of novelty. I like it when games do something I haven't seen before. But like I said, the nice thing about Final Fantasy is they all get to be so different- it's always fun to see what they try next!

[pizzasafari]

Ooo! I want to do what hoshichiri did! That looks fun! I'm just gonna indulge myself here, don't mind me. But I'm gonna do a twist and put them in the order I played them! Here's my self-indulgent Final Fantasy timeline!

8 - My all-time favourite game, this game is really special to me and was such a massive part of my childhood. It's not necessarily any one particular thing about the game I love, it's just the feeling it gives me. I mean don't get me wrong I could go on all day about the individual things I love about it as well as of course, but it's the main thing for me. As cheesy as it sounds it's not just a game to me, it feels like it's part of me.

[In this interim I see a trailer for FF9 on a demo disc and shit every brick imaginable, it never occured to me before that there were other games in the series. FF8 is already my favourite thing in the world at this point and I want nothing more in the world than to play FF9 holy god I was desperate. I didn't finally play it until years and years later though. I remember once I saw it on a shop aisle while my mum did our weekly shopping and I spent the full hour or so she was shopping stood there staring at it and wishing I could have it.]
[Around this time I also watched Spirits Within and had absolutely no idea what I'm watching, it wasn't Final Fantasy to me at all. And I wasn't wrong!]

6 - This one confused me when I first played it cause I was a kid and had never played a 16-bit game before and it didn't feel anything like FF8. I was expecting something like FF8 and needless to say this is nothing like 8. I didn't like it when I first played it but I played it again when I was much older and loved it. One of my favourite twists in any game story too, Kefka is a bamf. Never finished it though, I got to the world of ruin then got distracted by something else. I'm gonna finish it someday though. Fifth-favourite!

10 - Technically the third one I played as the PS1 version of FF6 comes with a FF10 demo disc - I really liked what I played of the demo, I didn't get the full game until much later but I really really like it. It's a really easy game to pick up and replay.  The characters could've done with a lot more focus though. Fourth-favourite!

[I watch Advent Children for the first time around this time because I was a very dumb kid, had absolutely no idea what I was watching, decided to withhold judgement until someday playing FF7 as I should have done to begin with]

9 - Love it, you can't go wrong with 9. Some of the best characters in the series and easily the most gripping story. Not my favourite world in the series though, half of the world being barren wasteland makes it feel a bit lifeless, but in the grand scheme of things that's just a nitpick. Awesome game. Second-favourite!

12 - Hate it. Everything about it made me so sad when I first played it and now it makes me angry. This was the point when Square Enix gave everything that made FF amazing the finger. I've pretty much already said everything I have to say about 12 and post-10 FF as a whole above. Never finished it and I doubt I will. Least favourite!

[Played non-demo 10 here and loved it as I said]

7 - When I played this I found it a bit hard to get into as I didn't understand what was going on at all and I don't think it's controversial to say it really hasn't aged all that well, and I didn't like at all how abrupt the ending was. And generally the atmosphere of the game was (and still is tbh) a bit too murky for me. But after watching The Completionist's series on it I came to appreciate what it is that makes FF7 great and it's helped me see it in a new light, and I consider it my third-favourite now!

[I watch Advent Children again and HATED it]

11 - Aside from the fact that it was post-10 I knew at this time that I didn't care for any MMOs that weren't WoW, so I played it for about 5 minutes, saw it had FF12's combat, got bored and uninstalled it.

3 - I played the DS version of this which I went into with low expectations since it was a Square Enix remake (FURY!) and I don't generally enjoy playing games on DS, and I got exactly what I expected. Not a fan. Didn't get far into it.

4 - I know a lot of people really like 4 but this one has aged a bit too poorly for me, it feels really stiff and murky to me. I couldn't really get into it. Sorry. Never finished it. I'm planning to give it another go someday though.

5 - I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one, I'd heard pretty much nothing about it before I played it so I assumed it wasn't going to be anything special but after playing FF4 which disappointed me a bit this felt like such a breath of fresh air, it felt so much better to play. Really great vibes, the story and characters are a bit simplistic but that's okay, this one makes up for it in gameplay and general game feel. The job system in this is so much fun. I never managed to finish it though, I got pretty far and got distracted by something else, but I'm planning to finish it someday. Sixth-favourite!

2 - I was always really intrigued by this one because I already knew about the Emperor and he sounded like a really cool villain, but my god this one is a slog. I really didn't enjoy it much at all. I tried to pull through it but it turned out that because of emulation problems if you play the Origins version on PS3 the game stops working completely from a certain early point, but from the sounds of things I'm not really missing much. I could play it on my PS2 or WonderSwan but I probably won't.

1 - This was really interesting to play, it feels so so so different from the later games. I enjoyed it a bit, but it's not really the sort of game I can really stick with so I didn't get far. Glad I tried it though, it was great to experience.

13 - Uhhh... so as you can probably imagine from what I've said (and I'd heard lots of bad things about it) I went into this with the lowest expectations imaginable, and because my expectations were so low... I didn't hate it as much as I expected? I really liked seeing a version of ATB come back and aesthetically the game is gorgeous, not to mention the music. But that's not to say I like the game, it's awful. I just want to give it credit for those aspects, because seeing my hopes for a return to traditional combat ripped away with 15 broke me. But yeah, the story makes no sense, the characters are terrible, I hated every one of them except for maybe Sazh and Vanille, and Fang was just boring so I couldn't hate or like her. I actually got really far though, right to the final dungeon, then the difficulty spike just made me give up. I ain't grinding for this game. And I don't think I need to talk about the corridors. This isn't a Final Fantasy game any more than 12 is. Well okay, maybe a little bit more. But not much.

X-2 - I WANT TO DIE

[ferraroso]

I have a huge problem in accepting Final Fantasy XV’s esthetics and premisse... in a time like this, when subjects such as gender equality and ethinic representativity have finally started to be addressed in video games, having a entrance in this series in which all the four main characters are white males driving an Audi in the wilderness seems to me as something outdated and out of place in the contemporary world.
I’m not saying that the game is bad though... I didn’t even try it... and the main reason why I didn’t play it is, because of what all that I’ve said above, it was unable to appeal to me...

[kamikazekeeg]

I have a huge problem in accepting Final Fantasy XV’s esthetics and premisse... in a time like this, when subjects such as gender equality and ethinic representativity have finally started to be addressed in video games, having a entrance in this series in which all the four main characters are white males driving an Audi in the wilderness seems to me as something outdated and out of place in the contemporary world.
I’m not saying that the game is bad though... I didn’t even try it... and the main reason why I didn’t play it is, because of what all that I’ve said above, it was unable to appeal to me...

I liked the crew for the most part, they are used mostly well, but you aren't wrong.  In a series known for having a pretty widespread cast of main characters, to change to a focus like they did and then having the supporting cast be poorly utilized, it creates a setup that isn't overly engaging.  Like we went from Final Fantasy 7 with its crazy cast of everything ranging from a former soldier, to a vampire, to a bubbly thief, and a genetically engineered creature, to 4 privileged dudes in a car.  It's why I'm hoping the next main release utilizes the open world game setup, but pushes for a better and varied cast of characters and story built around it.

[oldgamerz]

I wounder which Final Fantasy game will actually be The Final Fantasy game

I never actually played a Final Fantasy video game. But I am just not that interested in any of those often over priced ($40 used) turn based JRPG'S in my opinion. I'd rather play Pokemon. However I do have 2 or 3 Final Fantasy games in my collection and they didn't cost me barely anything. in fact that is the only reason why I have them

I am surprised nobody else is complaining about the PS1 Final Fantasy games and how much people are charging people to buy those games

I just never was that interested in any Final Fantasy game