THIS: whether anyone likes it or not, Matsuno never would've done this.

Edit: i'm sorry darth, didnt mean to be so hard, but i used to love FF, and after FF12 i was willing to believe in SE again, after all the spin offs, all the sequels, i thought this was it, but i just dont like the direction they've gone in inspiring the game from Call of Duty, or Lost, its completely unecessary to spend so much time and money promoting mediocure song, when i think Matusno knew what he was doing.

{facepalm}

That is called marketing. Its got nothing to do with what Matsuno would have or wouldn't have done.

Inspired from COD/LOST..yeah suuuuure it was.......FF13 is more similar to FF10 than either of those  in terms of its structure and surprise surprise the same team made both games. Its pretty obvious where the structure of FF13 is "inspired" from......as a FF fan this should have been obvious to you.

You are taking their hype interviews too seriously and the marketing too......do you understand marketing?

Many FF's have had songs in their commercials......

You are getting pissed off because the games was marketed with the Leona Lewis song? Thats a bit silly and not related at all to "Matsuno knew what he was doing"......how is the 2 even related to eachother?

You sound very confused.

eh, you guys have been arguing over the same thing. forver.

I mean, If you thought Square getting in the way of Matsuno hurt Final Fantasy XII, then I don't know why you'd want another one that way. Square would probably just get in the way again. (If this actually happened. ofcourse his bosses are always going to question if what matsuno is doing is correct for profitibility etc... its Square's Biggest franchise, that's their job").

And if you thought FFXII was good, then I don't see why 13 is that big of deal, because it was made by the Final Fantasy X team, which XIII is similar to Final Fantasy X (My favorite final fantasy) so it makes sense. It wasn't made by Ito or anything.  I mean FF8 wasn't made by the people that made FF9. It's not like this series has ever really followed a pattern, ever.

I mean, if I wanted to be nonsensical, like some of the arguments above (not mentioning who)... I could argue that Matsuno hurt Final Fantasy... because Ito the co-director from the start... (The one that replaced matsuno was hiroshi minagawa not Ito). And Ito's 2 Previous Final Fantasy's was co-FF6, and FF9... and he was the triple triad director in FF8... (zomg best minigame ever :D), I liked all of those more than 12. But at the same time, I loved Vagrant story as much as 6,9, lolz, and tactics ogre like final fantasy >_>. But that isn't accounting for the whole situation, for each of the games.

Or you could argue that changing directors hurt it. Or you could argue that minagawa hurt it. Or you could argue it's a masterpiece. Opinions really. based on reallky skimpy details about what happened during the process of  development of 12

Edit
*@ darth and A320D, Keep in mind I'm not arguing ito>matsuno, or matsuno>ito. I'm just trying, to stating, that it's difficult to make an argument of who or what circumstances would have made each game better. The games are as they are. Well unless you get the international version >_>

I'd prefer Matsuno works on non-final fantasy projects with or w/o square, because imo they were a lot better than his FF projects... anyways, such as vagrant story, and the original tactics ogre. With Final Fantasy, he has to put imo unecessary references to past FF titles when his universe does not need it.

I confused myself with this paragraph, so if some things are contradictory I'll fix it... but I tried to make a point and end up going in circles.

Yeah i deleted my comment, thelifatree is right, we've argued about this too much, no one here cares about this anymore, and tbh i dont care any more, i bet you dont either!!

yeah your right, we argue about this too much, we should just be glad their making more of them, hopefully Matsuno will return to making great games one day!

@bolded

yeah sure it does....that sounds ridiculous, re-read it yourself.

Leona Lewis represents no philosophy....especially because she isn't your usual cheap slutty singer.....she is actually self made and won X-Factor unlike other singers right now relying on other things.

How do you know Matsuno doesn't concern hismelf with that? Your proof

You have already shown your blind love towards Matsuno in the other thread where you claimed (and others not just you) EVERYTHING good about FF12 is from MAtsuno.....everything bad is from people after he left.......lol thats hilarious, especially when Hiroyuki ITO is better than matsuno like thelifatree stated.

@the article

I know about that article and again its BS hyping.....they were trying to link FF13 to a popular TV series and a game. And I have seen Lost....you probably mean the 13 days are influenced from it, so what they were awesome.

It's disappointing XII hasn't sold more.  I've only play X, XII, XIII, and Crisis Core, but it's easily my favorite of the bunch.

On the whole I enjoyed XIII.  The graphics were great and the battle system was downright awesome, but it had quite a few issues:

• Pacing: The earlier areas in the game were individually far too long.  Padding a level by placing one similar stretch of hallway/catwalk full of enemies after another is not how you make a robust and content-filled game.  It turns the game into a forced grindfest, and to then brag about this by claiming your game is full of tens of hours of content is absurd.  Exploring Gran Pulse was awesome, though.

• Enemy variety:  Most of the enemies were awesome, but quite a few didn't work with the battle system at all.  Enemies like the heavy machinery and just about everything in Orphan's Cradle had way too much health/defense and way too low attack.  Such encounters turned an otherwise fast paced and exciting battle system into the epitome of tedium.

• Narrative:  The plot was unnecessarily convoluted and confusing, and the game's incredibly long and elaborate cutscenes did little to explain what the hell was going on.  The datalogs were far more informative, presenting the current situation in a clear and easy to understand manner, yet you weren't even forced to read them.

• Characterization:  The cast in this game were incredibly unrealistic and often downright absurd.  I could never get a good grasp on what was motivating these people.  They never seemed to have any realistic reasons for taking the actions they were taking (or saying what they were saying, making cutscenes downright cringeworthy at times).  It seemed all their decisions were grounded in emotion, emotions that more often than not didn't seem to fit the situation.  Like Lightning getting pissy all the time for little reason at all.  The characters in general acted rather unnatural.

However, the awesome battle system, the artstyle/presentation, and the entire Gran Pulse section more than made up for these problems.  On the whole I'd recommend the game to any fan of JRPGs.

I consider XII to be the superior game in almost all respects, though, save the battle system and artstyle.  I prefer XIII's more fantastical approach to its visuals.

And I agree with the general point A203D is making in regards to the two game's stories.

I wasnt going to continue this, but also in regards to thelifatree's post; the philiosphy of FF13 is based on Yoshinori Kitase's development style. the reason FF13 has so many cutscenes is because Kitase is NOT a qualified game desginer, hes actully a qualified film graduate. FF13 took so long to develop because of this, because of the amount of time it took to produce the motion capture for the 6 hours of cutscenes with the crystal tools game engine. gameplay has come second to cutscenes.

leonia lewis was paid to market the game, everyone thinks that video of her playing the game is awful. its just production team 1's style to draw on non gaming influences, like Lost and put them into the game, trying to make the game appeal to people who like those things, but actully dont work that well as gameplay elements. this is what i'm talking about!!

Final Fantasy 13 was never made for you, you were always going to buy it, they made the game to appeal to new western fans who like things like Lost, or Call of Duty, or Leonia Lewis. even Kitase has said that it can't be defined as a role playing game. this is what i dont agree with.

13 days were okay, you shouldve been able to play through them, all you do is watch them, and they just repeat the same plot points all the time, Lighting's hormones, Snow and Serah, and Hope's mum, it the same thing regurgitated.

Appereciate your post, its a shame neither games have reached the success of their predecessors. however in FF12's case, i think the reason is because its a very hard game and thus inacessible to newcomers and general gamers. FF13 is probabily better for getting in new players.

XIII is one of the hardest games in the series. Don't get me wrong - I LIKED that about it. The combat system is great, the difficulty is great. But can you imagine one of these retarded Leona Lewis-listening CoD fans actually beating demon Pope? I can't.

And seriously, Leona Lewis????? I still have no idea why she's in FF. You'd think a company as large as Squenix would understand that western gamers don't like shitty pop stars in their games.