dystopia said:
Wagram said:
dystopia said:
Wagram said:
dystopia said:
Pretty good article there, and it's right in almost every way. As someone who grew up with Final Fantasy, the current situation the franchise is in is very sad. Frankly, I wish it would just go away at this point, which is hard to say, seeing as how much I loved FF when it was in it's prime. The fact of the matter is, most of the people who made FF special are no long with Square, and that paired with the extreme oversaturation of the franchise is what has ruined it.
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I also grew up with the franchise but I don't feel the same way as you do.
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I don't see how anyone that grew up with the early releases, and the PS1 releases could see the same magic in current Final Fantasy's. The changes in direction of the series has changed what FF is at it's core. For me FFX is where it started to go wrong. For one, the game featured in my opinion poor writing, specifically dialog, and the voice acting didn't help. In terms of gameplay it still was a very good game, but it was the beginning of the end for me.
FFXI, don't get me started on that. FFXII doesn't come off as FF to me at all, it's much more in tune with Vagrant Story, in terms of art style, mood, setting, and game mechanics. And don't get me wrong, Vagrant Story is a wonderful game, but it's not FF and the overall change in the combat mechanics from that point on has all but ruined what FF is to me.
And then there are all the spin-offs, it's getting out of hand. The oversaturation of the franchise is a real problem, and it is alienating a lot of previous fans like myself. The writing in these spin-offs, and lately even the main series titles (Aside from FFXII which was alright) has been awful, it's shallow and at a maturity level. clearly aimed at teenagers.
I probably will never look at FF the same way as I once did, and that's a shame because from the time I first played a Final Fantasy (FFVI) I was hooked, but they have forgotten where they came from, exiled their most important game designers, and basically creatively put all of their franchises in the hands of a few people, people like Tetsuya Nomura, whose game concepts are best left for childern.
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I'm not afraid of change in a series. I tend to enjoy a more cinematic experience anyways.
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Final Fantasy was always cinematic in a sense. Especially from the PS1 era onwards. The difference is at the core principles of gameplay. The overall change in the combat system from FFX onward. And even those I guess I could deal with. For me the most troubling problem is the writing, which I just find to be so so bad. The writing was never great, but the ability to craft an compelling narrative was there before, and now it's just not. The dialog was never outstanding, but it too has gotten worse.
Perhaps it's the current popular culture trends in Japan, and I understand many people find it compelling, but I want something more mature. The article this thread is built around is right that the tropes used in most of Square's series have failed to evolve, and they constantly fall into the same narrative traps. The sad part is, while many Western developed RPGs have begun to mature, the gameplay in them is a complete turn of for me in most cases, so I have found myself at a point where both Eastern and Western developed RPGs no longer capture me in some aspect, be it story and design or gameplay. It's not a fun place to be.
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