Final Fantasy's first mistake was Mystic Quest on the SNES. ;) Though I kind of enjoyed that game back in the day. Their second mistake wasn't being too Western, but quite the oposite, becoming to Japanese anime/manga like. VII was the first to start in this direction. VIII and IX weren't pulled back a little, then from X on it became overly too Japanese.

Let me clarify. Younger and more anoying teenage/pre teen characters, convoluted stories(Complex can be good, but they are too convoluted now), lacking the magic of expolration and interesting villians.

My biggest compaint with XIII, Lost Odyssey did this as well, is thier choice of Voice cast for the Western version of the game. It is accepted or even considered cute to have a whiney voiced "cute" pre-teen girl in Japanese media, but in the West most people find it just anoying. I for one can't stand it. Vanille's voice drove me mad and is one of the reasons I didn't complete the game. When a company localises something from Japan they need to come up with a good solution for these characters to not sound like fingernails drawn across a chalkboard.

Take my coments with a grain of salt if you became a fan of FF post VII. I still hold FF IV as my favorite wiht VI coming in as a close second. So I have a different opinion on what makes a FF game than those newer to the series. I also loved Lost Odyssey, despite it's big problems (long loading times, an anoying little girl, etc.)

No, just no.

Whether you were joking or not I don't care. What I said was "...the game was worked on as a PS3 exclusive for NEARLY all of it's development process."

Starting development as a PS2 game really doesn't matter since it would have, at that time, been a PS2 exclusive before moving to a PS3 exclusive before right at the end getting ported to 360. If anything it's further proof that the 360 had nothing to do with the fanboy complaints of FF13 because the 360 wasn't on the market when the game was outlined.

Your right about why it was moved to multiplatform. At this point in the industry it's just plain stupid for 3rd parties to make exclusive games without deals with the platform holders. FFversus13 should be multiplatform as well, and I expect it will be. Once a dev has a multiplatform engine, making an exclusive is like refusing money.

The problem is much bigger than Final Fantasy brand, if you have been following SE this gen you'd know that SE as a whole is drown with problems. bad business decisions, lack of vision and focusing on short term profits .

SE, you reap what you sow. let's hope they learn from it.

No Square themselves ruined it. The 360 has literally nothing to do with it.

Firstly 13 was designed and mostly built LONG before a 360 version was being planned or made. The 360 simply got a port of the PS3 version. Whereas FF13-2 was designed for both and most fans seem to think that is an improvement.

The biggest common problem between 13 and 13-2 is bad writing and characters. Something that has no relation to platform but rather Square's bad creative directors.

13 also had the problem of pacing and linearity. Something completely unrelated to platform. As evidenced by the fact Vesperia, Star Ocean, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey all managed to be more classical Jrpgs.

Get rid of Watanabe, Toriyama and Hamauzu or bust them down to roles where they have FAR less control. That will help massively.

Oh and more evidence the 360 had nothing to do with it. FF14 was even worse than 13 and 13-2 and that has no 360 version. In fact on gamerankings ff14 is the lowest rated game with final fantasy in the name.

FF7 was good. At the time, it was "Quite possibly the greatest game ever made" (that's what it said on the back of the case--and I believed it!). FF8 was a let down. FF9 was an improvement in a lot of ways. FFX was great. That was it. FFX in 2001. Final Fantasy hasn't been a good series since. Of course, the Xbox did come out in 2001.....

I didn't believe that there were people that were genuinely angry that SE made FFXIII multiplat, but now I've realised that was very much the case - if people are still slightly blaming MS 6 years later, imagine how angry they would have been when it was announced o.o

after 13-2 I'm gonna say no.

I don't think so. The latest Final Fantasys have damaged Final Fantasy.

No, SE is fully responsible in the decline of the FF brand. They made the design decisions, not MS, and the game would had been the same even without a 360 version.