Ah, Dirge of Cerberus, turning the techno/steam punkish themed world of FF7 into a 13 year old girl's emo/goth drama fantasy... a relatively fun game, pity they tried to give it a story in anyway related to FF7 or call it Final Fantasy game to begin with. Pity the only game Square/Sony ever bothered putting more than 3 dollars towards voice acting was FFXII. God forbid we have the option to play the game in the original japanese with subtitles if they're not going to take the english voice acting seriously.

Perhaps some of the FF7 spin-offs will be good, they sure look good, but too bad I don't have a cell phone to play the majority of them on. I'm sure all of the ones on PSP will be awesome too assuming they're ever released in the next ten years...

Also, why leave any part of the original FF7 back story to the graces of player interpretation or flashbacks when you can just whore it out by giving it its own game. Thanks Square, thanks. I mean what next? A Side Scrolling Platformer to explain how Cait Sith's body and Mog doll were manufactured? A lifestyle game for the DS where you play Hojo as a college student learning chemistry with the Stylus? A Puzzle Fighting game to explain how Tifa got her first training bra (or better yet an explanation as to why they chose to downgrade her breast size in the new games, those dickless cowards)?

vizunary said: You should check out XII, grinding isn't as necessary or difficult as it was before. I didn't like X, but whatever. If you mean games like: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Also known as: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7, Crisis Core: FFVII, Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core See All 7 Images Described as an action RPG, this game becomes the fourth entry in the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" project which includes Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII for mobile, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children for DVD and Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus for PS2. FFVII: Crisis Core allows you to play Zack, Cloud's counter-part from FFVII and this game's hero. Of course Aerith, Cloud, and Sephiroth make appearences as well. Battle in real-time and come face-to-face with such legendary summons as Ifrit and Bahamut.   Then bring em on, I don't mind at all.

 Interesting suggestion on XII, although to be honest, since I am aware of it as a MMO style with If...then... style option, I am really not interested. As both a MMO reminds me too much of grinding and a CS student on that simple setting (I can probably rig a bot to play through the game given proper interface)

  In addition, this is by no means an attempt to flame, so excuse me if I offend, I think we'd see the Crisis Core gameplay more closely before going too hyper over it. While the game look great (which FF hasn't been for it's time), and the gameplay looks interesting, it's too quick to make judgement before we actually get it. Although, I too, do hope that it's good, and the story interesting.

Crystal chronicles spin-off series FTW!!!...   I'm hoping the Wii and DS versions sell a million Ww... That'd be good! And btw: That 'spin-off' from FF is about to become a solely standing series for Nintendo platforms. Based on the FF series and selling on the brand name!

AND: FF crisis core is sure looking good! 333Mhz?!

This is definitely the funniest paragraph ever.  Partially because it's true.  I think they downgraded the breast size for money issues... animating those with some DOA physics for FFVII:AC probably would have broke the movie budget :P

Anyway, Square keeps releasing remakes of their old games because they're reminders to the consumers that their games used to be good.  It seems like they fired the writers and replaced them with animators.  Now FF games seem like they're just movies where you hit the X button once in a while and walk from bad plot point A to undisclosed location in the general direction of B.  What ever happened to spoony bards?

Final Fantasy XII = emo/goth? You've lost me. Final Fantasy XII seemed like a tropical game, in my opinion. Are you just talking about Vaan's design? If that's the case, that's a flawed way of looking at the game as the story is event driven (as opposed to character driven). And it's arguable whether Vaan is the main character.

I thought Final Fantasy XII was great, one of the best games they've made since... ever! Seamless transition from exploration to battle was a great addition. While the gambit system was hated by many, I felt it added a lot to the game and I certainly hope next-gen RPG's use a more advanced form of the system. The license grid is excellent in that you were allowed to develop your characters how you wanted them. In a lot of other games, you have little to no input into how the developed, you just earn the exp. I also enjoyed the political story and am very happy they didn't focus on character development as much.

I think SE took a good number of risks with Final Fantasy XII, which is part of why I like the game so much. I believe this is because the game was (originally) developed by Yasumi Matsuno, who is an excellent game developer (he did Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics, too). He's no longer with Square Enix. 

I hope Mystwalker forces Square Enix out of stagnation this generation. For the genre's sake. I was hoping Atlus would be able to break into the RPG mainstream last gen and give SE a run for their money, but they simply weren't big enough. They're definitely good enough, though, but unfortunately, being good enough simply isn't enough. If it was, Square Enix would have (literally) blown up the day SMT: Nocturne was released.

Emo/Goth?!... That is... Really funny. And Really wrong!... Emo's are depressing, people who cut emselves and who hate the world. FF 12 isn't. It's more pseudo tropicaly orientated... or something.

I thought FF8 actually had a compelling plot with some particularly awesome scenes; it was the awful gameplay mechanics that made it nearly unplayable.

As for the title of this thread, actually, if you look at the graph, the black line isn't sloping downward -- it's actually flat.  That means Squeenix isn't sacrificing originals, they're churning them out at exactly the same rate.  They're just ALSO churning out lots of remakes and spinoffs.  I think this is just a natural evolution of a company with a highly well-known series.  We don't get a new mainstream Mario platforming game every year, either, but Mario is featured in hundreds of games.

I wouldn't call it emo or goth, just teenage angst and drama. That what is really killing series, all this imagery and character designs are just made to appeal to teenage kids, not gamers. It's a drama fest.