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Kyuu on 20 April 2024
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Kai_Mao said:
curl-6 said:

Yeah staying platform exclusive in a time where not even Sony first party games still are feels like an anachronistic move.

The irony is, Square's actually pretty good with bringing their smaller stuff to a wider audience; they've arguably given the Switch better support than any other big publisher with stuff like Octopath Traveller 1/2, Triangle Strategy, Harvestella, Dragon Quest 11, Diofield Chronicle, Nier Automata, etc, but when it comes to their heavy hitters they're still doing exclusivity deals like it's 2004.

Speaking of anachronisms, I wonder if like this whole FF7 thing would've faired better if it had happened 10-15 years ago on PS3/360 or PS4/XBO; FF7 nostalgia doesn't seem as strong now as it was back then, now that most gamers under 30 never played it and many that did have moved on or aged out.

I think Square missed a really good opportunity to get an original Final Fantasy on Switch. It didn’t necessarily have to be a graphical marvel, but something close to XIII’s graphics would’ve been fine. Think of Final Fantasy’s answer to MHRise. It could’ve been turn based or action turn based like Xenoblade Chronicles. Switch has a user base of over 100 million and has an impressive catalogue of first and third party JRPGs, both old and new.

But alas, if Square still finds being exclusive to Sony with their current FF content would be more beneficial than expanding their audience/platforms, more power to them. At this time, it does not seem like the franchise is finding growth. It’s not dying, but it’s not finding that momentum that it once had from VI-XII. Zelda, considered a long time contemporary to FF, managed to expend its audience even as an exclusive to Nintendo’s platforms. As great as the recent games have been, FF just hasn’t been able to have that breakthrough sales performance this Gen.

Final Fantasy never had a consistent growth though. 7 was its big moment, but ever since, it's been kind of randomly declining and growing. 7 was a significant growth over 6. 8 declined. 9 (a fan favorite) declined much further, X was a significant growth, 11 was comfortably the most successful game in the series but it's an MMO. 12 declined. 13 grew but the sequels (just like X-2) are among the worst selling games in the series. 14 is by far the most successful (but it's also an MMO). 15 saw a growth over 13 and was arguably the 2nd or 3rd most successful offline Final Fantasy, 14 expansions are very successful. So it's all over the place until 7Remake and later, which are declining but haven't been ported yet to Xbox or Nintendo platforms (or even PC in the case of 16 and Rebirth). I think 16 will be the worst selling non-sequel in the HD era when all is said and done, but Rebirth and even Remake have a decent potential for growth even though one is a "Remake" and the other is a "Remake + Sequel".

The short of it is FF never had its BotW or God of War 2018 or Monster Hunter World moment. One could argue that the original FF7 was that moment, but gaming just wasn't as big as it is today. PS1's best sellers didn't sell nearly as much as today's best sellers.

Unfortunately, it'll take several years of consistent quality + a miracle/luck for it to find a growth similar to modern Zelda, or God of War, or Monster Hunter or even Resident Evil. A lot of things are going against it.