All you do is act like a blind FF fan in every thread.

If you read some of the dev interviews they paint a horrible picture of the development for FFXIII. The sheer volume of artwork in the game is astounding and this is because the art team spent years making art assets to the point where large amounts were left out of the final game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30640/Exclusive_Behind_The_Scenes_of__Square_Enixs_Final_Fantasy_XIII.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: GamasutraNews (Gamasutra News)

This article also suggests that the developers didn't have any clear focus of what was going to be in the final game, even at late stages of development. Who knows what different features the teams were toying around with? Even after the trailer (which was a proof of concept) the team didn't have a clear focus of what direction to take the game:

"However, it became clear that, at the time, there were actually very few members who saw the trailer as a representation of what we wanted to achieve with Final Fantasy XIII. This lack of a shared vision became the root of many conflicts that arose later in development."

It was actually only after the demo was released that the team gained an insight into how the final game would be:

"Even at a late stage of development, we did not agree on key elements of the game, which stemmed from the lack of a cohesive vision, the lack of finalized specs, and the remaining problems with communication between departments.

What enabled us to conquer this line of seemingly endless conflicts was the development process for the Final Fantasy XIII demo, which was included in the Japan-only Blu-ray version of the animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete. The demo was not in our original plan, so we had to make adjustments to the overall schedule to accommodate it. Whatever effects creating the demo had on the schedule, once it was complete we realized it was just the panacea we needed."

The article also talks about how trying to develop a universal engine to use accross multiple platforms and multiple games negatively impacted on development and how international player tests came too late for many criticisms of the game to be addressed. All these factors point to a highly inefficient development process for the game and poor leadership/decision making.

I don't think that making a game with the depth of previous Final Fantasy games is impossible, but it is if your development procedure is as inefficient as the development of FFXIII was. I hope the lessons learnt from FFXIII development translate to efficient development of future titles leading to more depth.

ryuzaki57.

the man to blame is Hinirobu Sakaguchi tbh, the commerical failure of The Spirits Within led to the bankrupcry of Squaresoft and led to his departure. since then the person as the head of prouduction team 1 had become Yoshinori Kitase, who contrary to common belief is NOT a qualified game designer. he is in fact a film graduate, who was inspired by things like Star Wars, etc, big theatrical motion picutures.(i have no source for this by the way, but the information is out there).

anyway the problems imo began with FF8, when Sakaguchi took a backseat to development to focus on The Spirits WIthin. Kitase, Nomura, Nojima, (and whoever is a key part of production team 1) focused on telling a more teenage drama, instead of the epic sweeping story. this wasnt necessariy a bad thing, but a lot of people cite Squall and the rest of the cast as poor and the story about time compression, Ultimecia, also poor. but the transition to photo realism and cinematic action was what attracted people to it. and those were great things, but they've taken FF to the depths it has sunk to now.

FF9 was done by a different team, and was meant to draw from the series roots, instead of doing things like FF8 did. they did a great job, but the sales were very weak compared to FF8 & 7. Sakaguchi had more direct involvement this time, despite his comitments to the TSW.

FF10, featured the combined force of Sakaguchi and production team 1, who did a good job at the time. but the title aged badly, with the voice acting and dialogue being key culprits. FF10 did feature excellent gamplay however (imo) and incredible production values.

since then Sakaguchi left, and FF went completely downhill. FF10-2 was the beginning of a nightmare for fans such as myself. we've had remake after remake, sequel after sequel, the FF7 compilation has been nothing but an ego trip for Nomura (imho) and a disasterous FF12.

i've already talked a lot, so i wont go into FF12, but theres no doubt the problem with FF has been the departure of Sakaguchi, and the direction Kitase has taken the series in FF13. his background has significantly reduced the element of gameplay in FF13 in favour of 6 hours of teenage melodrama. this imho is a disaster. and without the marketing they would not have achieved these sales, and this would never have sold 6 million if it didnt have FF on the box, just like every other IP this gen from Sqaure has been met with poor reception.

Once again, all Nomura did in the FF games was do the character designs. He has had nothing to do with anything else in the series until now (with Final Fantasy Versus XIII).

In terms of sale for Final Fantasy XIII, it first time Final Fantasy not released on leading home console in the generation, hence lower sales potential. Although PS2 have smaller install base when FFX release, all fans on the one console, not divided.

Furthermore, in Nihon this especially the case where PS3 and even Wii lack the popularity of PS2; also population is ageing reducing the audience size; more handheld gaming as people desire to help avoid otaku stereotype. Hence much of the Final Fantasy audience has moved exclusively to handhelds. Thus the success of PSP Final Fantasy. In Square-Enix wanted to maximise sales in Nihon, Final Fantasy XIII would have done best on handhelds, although this would have destroyed the brand in the west due to the western lust for HD graphics. Hence Square-Enix's dilemma.

I do not say critical reception has had no influence, however. Critical reception has decreased with FFXIII and FFXIV in the west and has negatively impacted sales in the west. I do not believe any damage to critical reception and thus sales is evident in Nihon, where MMO gaming is not mainstream. But western tastes have certainly seem to as far as I am aware changed greatly recently to a desire for more open RPG , whereas Japanese interests have not followed this change; most here like gameplay to be a immediate and direct consequence of story all the time in Final Fantasy.

As far as my knowledge in my age group (13), the consensus here with my friends is FFXIII is an excellent Final Fantasy. I believe it is regarded as excellent across the whole audience here. Many even say here that it is the best Final Fantasy ever. I am aware the Final Fantasy western audience is much older on average, which causes the divided opinions between east and west over the character personalities.

Thus it seems only western audience consensus give FFXIII mixed reception.

I have always considered for a long time that the main numbered series titles have been used recently to maintain the "quality" image of the brand, so that smaller budget handheld games that will sell much better in relation to their budgets with the "quality" brand recognition driving sales and leading to overall success for Square Enix.

I would only consider Final Fantasy to be on the verge of collapse if a non-MMO numbered Final Fantasy received the critical reception and sales of FFXIV. With FFXIV they will get away with it as most people here have no exposure to MMO gaming or even computer "gaming" to that end besides visual novels. Also I have no doubt that FFXIV will eventually become at least the second most successful Final Fantasy for Square Enix considering the eventual subscription fees, huge fanbase from FFXI and FFXI being by far the most financially successful Final Fantasy worldwide in the series.

I also do not believe Square Enix would ever release a non-MMO numbered Final Fantasy in the state of FFXIV, due to non-MMO game needing to be content-complete at launch date. Moreover, there is huge exposure to the gameplay to the mainstream public in recent non-MMO Final Fantasy as disk demo versions seem to have become a standard here for the series. If backlash were to come, thus, it would come before the game was released, giving the opportunity for a massice delay. Hence I believe that the only way Final Fantasy can die is a long, slow, steady decline in sales over a large number of numbered games in the series, falling below the high budget (so I guess about 3 million in the recent future). I believe Final Fantasy will be strong for a long time to come.

Momura san did wright the Original Story for FFVII and  Nomura san and  Nojima san did colabrate on FFVIII story.

@A203D

Sorry if look like I was starting an argument earlier

btw FFVIII is based on visual novel/Dating Sims and smiler Manga and Anime series to try and expand the Japanese FF and JRPG fanbase by appealing to people in Japan that liked that type Anime and Manga but were not big into RPGs. 

also FFX-2 was also aimed primarily at a very specific section of the FF Fanbase in Japan not the general FF Fanbase as well as again trying to expand the FF Fanbase to by appealing again to a very Anime and Manga Fanbase that is why FFX-2 has a Cutie Honey theme wich is a Manga and Anime series by Nagai Go san one of the only Magical girls also known as mahou shoujo Manga and Anime series amed at guys primarily because it had a lot more fan service then normal for that type of manga/Anime.

also as I stated in another post I had a lot of friends that gave up on FF with FFVII because they sore that FFVII was a lot more Anime then they liked and that made them hate the FF series forever after that.