Is Final Fantasy On The Verge Of Collapse?

[Mad55]

Alphachris said:

twesterm said:

That's why I say they're on the verge of collapse.  The Final Fantasy series is a joke.  Other than looking pretty and decent music, they have nothing going for them.  I'm sorry, but if you want me to spend more than 60 hours on a game it better be fun, it better have interesting characters, and it better have a good story.  FFXIII had none of those things.

So that's the yes.  I say no also because for some reason people keep buying the games.  I admit I bought FFXIII (used) and FFXIV (because FFXI) but there's almost no chance of me buying FFXV whatever it is.

It is funny. For me FF XIII was my best gaming experience this generation so far. I had very much fun, it had very interesting characters and it had a real deep story in my opinion. To be honest, it is one of only a few games that actually have characters with their own morals and a story to speak about nowadays.

Look at this quote from wikipedia:

"Final Fantasy XIII was rated at 39/40 from the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, with three reviewers giving the maximum 10/10 and one reviewer giving 9/10.[96] Dengeki praised the game for the battle system, stating that the battles are by far the most exciting in the series, and concluded Final Fantasy XIII deserved a score of 120, and that 100 would not be enough.[103] The game was voted as the second best game of 2009 in Dengeki Online's reader poll,[104] and in January 2010, was voted the best game ever in Famitsu's reader poll.[105]"

So it got very good critics as well and is regarded a very good game in Japan. It good good reviews here in europe too, but there very pretty harsh critics, too. But just seeing this bad critics and proclaim the downfall of the whole series while it got so many praise at the same time is pretty one-sided.

FF is still the most important JRPG franchise in my opinion. Square-Enix is putting very much work in their games and they take their time for each entry. There is no risk of getting yearly sequels that start to feel like the same game over and over again. Every FF plays different than the last one. With FF X the storylines started to get more serious and mature (mature in the sense of dealing with morally challenging themes and not just brutality and violence) and I really like that development.

There are franchises like Monster Hunter or Pokemon, that sell higher numbers on handhelds, but I do not regard them as better JRPGS. Pokemon is more like a subgenre for me, because there is no worthwhile focus on an overall storyline or characters. Just gameplay and a lot of monstern to catch and train. Monster Hunter also lacks the overall focus on characters and story and it is more like an action game. I do not think that these games are true substitutes for the experience that FF delivers.

FF always delivered on story and character develepment. It is not just the fact of having a story and character backstories... it is also about characters having their own morals and  you can see how the individual characters are struggling. You can reflect the characters with your own morals and the game is gaining far more depth than most of the western games. FF X had the strong themes of religion vs. technical progress, blind faith vs. critical thinking, selfsacrifice in favor of many others, etc. Those scenes with Yuna felt so intense because you could understand her point of view. The whole game tried to make you feel the world so that when the major plot twists arises you can see it through the eyes of the various characters.

Also the WRPGs I have played so far totally failed to deliver. Oblivion was absolutely the worst RPG that I have played so far. I stayed away from it in the beginning but after it got so much praise I bought the "game of the year edition" and decided to give it a try. That game was not fun (in fact I was bored the whole 30 hours that I had put into it), it had bland characters (and no "main character" at all) and the main story was totally boring too. It felt more like an Action-Adventure with rpg-elements.

Borderlands was also a well recieved shooter/Rpg-Hybrid. It suffered from the same problems and was boring as well. The story was so bad and the characters were simply there with no actual development. It was almost a pure Egoshooter with some rpg-elements. The second "game of the year edition" game that I fell for.

I bought Dragon Age alongside with Oblivion in December 09 and still couldn't convince me to try it. Maybe I will try it after I finally finish White Knight Chronicles. I can't make a statement about it now, but I am somehow expecting it to be mediocre, too. But maybe this one can some fun, anyway. I have not written it off totally.

Mass Effect 2 is coming and I do not know what to do with it. It got great praise, but it looks more  like a shooter with RPG-elements. I have read some reviews and the actual main quest should be rather weak and last like 5-6 hours. The focus lies on recruiting and doing the characters sidequests....I am tempted to buy it, but I already got heavily dissappointed by heavily praised western-RPG games twice before and I just don't like shooters that much.

I just wanted to point out that WRPGs are not really a substitute to actual story- and characterdriven JRPGS.  As much as I dislike WRPG I have to admit that they are made to suit a different gaming taste. So they are not bad per se, I just don't like them. But the US/UK also have to admit that in its core FF 13 was a great game and it got much praise around the world and it had a strong impact with many core JRPG-Fans.

But in the end those discussions are totally useless. There simply are people who hate on anything that some people can deeply appreciate.

 

yea it seemed like twesterm was giving his opinion. but he made it sound factual for some reason lol.