1. How is it not new if it does something new to the franchise? I dont know or care about FF11, but to say it has degraded the franchise is absurd, it was well revieved by the online community and it did well financially. I cant deny that it was a good buisness move by Square Enix.

2. FF8 had the same problems that proliferlated into FF10, 10-2, Advent Children et al. Thats why FF13 had problems. Thats why the Parasite Eve reboot sunk. The developers are at fault.

I'm curious if you take out the action scenes from Advent Children, what would you be left with?

Advent Children is non-sensical and the characters have been changed from their original counterparts from FF7 into sterotypes. Cloud is turned into Squall. Someone like Barret who is a father and an interesting character in FF7, is turned into the comic relief black guy who has to be saved by the 'ultimate hero' who has to save the world, yet dosent really care. Its a cliche invested nightmare. As is FF8. Hence why that time compresssion story is so bullshit. Hence why the characters are awful. The dialogue and the voice acting are also very poor quality: "Hey how you been". "Dilly dally, shilly shally". Who is writing this material? Why is the delivey of dialogue poor?

3. Fine 8/10 is a stellar review score. Lets hope GTA5 etc, all get 8/10 scores, because now we know that 8/10 review scores are the pinnicle of excellence. Anything above that is not worth playing!

4. FF13-2s director seems to think that he made parts of FF13-2 to respond to the problems of FF13, which he discusses:

http://www.ggsgamer.com/2012/02/13/qa-with-final-fantasy-xiii-2s-director-motomu-toriyama/

Yochi Wada seems to think that while some people 'value FF13 highly, some people are not very happy with it'.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5892/square_enix_in_2010_president_.php

Yochi Wada has also spoken about the FF franchise being greatly damaged, I think FF13 and FF14 have both contributed to the damage.

5. The entire Japanese gaming industry is not in decline. The handheld market is immensely successful in Japan, with games like Pokemon finding success in even the western market. Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter et al, seem to disgree with your notion that the 'entire' Japanese game industry is in decline. Its obvious the decline is in the Japanese console market, not the handheld market.

6. Yeah I'm not sure if those are 'all' great games... I mean Catherine, Valkyrie Chronicles, Demon Souls, El Shaddai were excellent games. They shouldve sold more copies. But I think the problem is more deep rooted than that... What if Final Fantasy has damamged more than just the franchise, what if Final Fantasy has damaged the reputation of Japanese games here in the west? What if the reasons Japanese RPGs are not as successful as WRPGs here in the west is because Final Fantasy has damaged that genre of gaming?

Those damn boring vocals really ruin everything for me. But even without them, Terra's theme or Celes's theme (and many others) have these melodies beat hands down.

hey man. LP

It might be true, but it's not such a good sign for the genre in the first place if the state of that genre relies on 1 franchise. imo.
It's like saying grunge is dead when kurt cobain shot himself.

oh wait... idk what's going on here. hmm.

Lol, yeah. I think the problem is that games like Gran Turismo 5, Resident Evil 5 and FF13 have all underrepresented the Japanese console market this gen.

Whenever someone says something bad about Japanese games, I think its those games that come first to mind.

Like at E3 (it wasnt E3 but a gameshow event), when that guy Fez told a Japanese developer on the show floor that Japanese games suck. I think what he said was completely wrong. But I cant deny the first thing I thought of when he said that were those three games. I think its big Japanese brands like that which have seriously under represented their console market.

However, I also think that the afformentioned games were excellent, and its a shame that its not those games that represent their console industry.

I disagree OP.

FFX had great music, legendary & classic.

FFX-2 had music that suited the games atmosphere. It's like me saying Elfmans Batman music PWNS Zimmers...it may from a pure melodic point of view but it wouldn't suit Nolans Batman at all so there's no point in criticizing it because it matches the mood & setting that it's serving. 

FFXII had meh music BUT it suited the games atmosphere. However even at it's worst like someone said the music was better than 90% of stuff in that given time.

FFXIII had amazing music...the more I listen the the soundtrack to more of a masterpiece it seems. The main theme is slightly added to many soundtracks creates an overlying theme. The only problem is repetition here, lack of variety...which was added in the sequels soundtrack but didn't lead to necessarily good things.

FFXIII-2 had meh music if we look at the games standalone album. But once again I can name no better soundtrack this year simply because the standout themes hand down beat anything else, but this one had so baaad music. Some themes in the game didn't suit the scene or the place...they just didn't and this is why I find it harder to forgive poor music in this game unlike the one in FFX-2. The best location suiting themes I can remember in this game were actually from FFXIII... (when it rains in archlytte steppe the gapra whitewood song playing was my favorite music environmental placement or whenever memories of happier days played...but that wasn't FFXIII-2's music...it was FFXIII's). 

Masashi Hamauzu & Uematsu must once again collaborate for FFXV.

 For the third time you have no clue what you are talking about.

You tried to degrade an impressive number of 4 Final Fantasy titles in an attempt to make some vague point about the developers.

It's more than obvious you didn't know XIII had an average of 80%.  

In the interview Toriyama says nothing about how XIII-2 was supposedly made to address the problems in XIII.  Yes, I can read.

Yoichi Wada spoke specifically about XIV when he said it "greatly damaged Final Fantasy brand". You have stubbornly misquoted them both for the second time.

Mentioning a bunch of Nintendo titles doesn't mean anything about the Japanese gaming industry. Pokemon is doing well, no shit Sherlock ! Dragon Quest X is not out yet and Monster Hunter is doing well in Japan.

 Here's what you did, you got cocky and without thinking spewed out "If this is winning, I'd hate to see what losing is."

The Japanese gaming industry is losing. And like it or not, Final Fantasy XIII got out winning.

What if you have been talking out of your ass this entire time ?  That's it, I'm done.

I liked FFXIII's music...

1. "It's more than obvious you didn't know XIII had an average of 80%."

Even if I didnt know that, its irrelevant. This is still not a suberb review score.

These are Toriyama's words if you bothered to read the interview:

"In FFXIII-2 we have completely done away with the linear gameplay of the original that received such a mixed reception, and come up with the concept of making the whole experience player driven, allowing the player to proceed freely through the game at their own pace. The gameplay revolves around the freedom of jumping between many different times and places; allowing for casual play by just following the main story to its conclusion, while also offering content to satisfy core gamers with multiple side quests, deep challenges and numerous things to collect."

I dont know about you, but it seems crystal clear that he came in with the intention to improve things from FF13. This isnt the only interview. There are numerious others with the producer Yoshinori Kitase who discusses the same thing.

Yochi Wada's words are that "While some people value FF13 highly there are some who are not very happy with it".

Where have I misquoted them? The CEO has admitted that some fans are not very happy with FF13. And in my opinion hes being modest!

2. These are your words: "Mentioning a bunch of Nintendo titles doesn't mean anything about the Japanese gaming industry."

And these are your words as well:  "What on earth does skyrim has to do with anything conserning the slowly dying japanese gaming industry ?"

As I've already explained the Japanese game industry is clearly not dying. Sales of games like Pokemon, Dragon Quest 9 (Dragon Quest 10 isnt out yet, and its not a handheld title either), Super Mario et al, its obvious that the handheld market is bigger than the console market in Japan. There are other games I could list, there are sales numbers I could cite, but I dont need to do that on this website. The point is the Japanese gaming industry is clearly not dying. And the Nintendo home console and the PS3 are actully doing pretty well in Japan at the moment. Its clearly not dying.

I'm not sure where you want me to go with this? What was you point about the Japanese gaming industry dying?

3. Based on everything I've seen and based on my own personal opinion. Damn straight, this is not winning. If you feel that FF13 has won, then thats good for you, but its clear that in the eyes of the developers, in the eyes of the CEO, in the eyes of many, many fans, FF13 has not won. And ultimately its the fans who have lost.

4. I know your done, theres nothing you can do to change reality; so your only option is to act as if its your choice to walk away as you've 'won' something. Well done, it worked, FF13 has won because you managed to 'expose' me talking out of my ass, without addressing any of my points! Epic win. Lets hope FF13-3 is equally as good, so you can win again.

You misquoted him when you tried to put XIII in the same bag with XIV when he said "greatly damaged Final Fantasy brand". point 1

About the "...not very happy with it..." quote, I thought it was self explanatory. I, myself, never said it was the perfect game. Square should strive for excellence. But you naively tried to put the two quotes together trying to equate XIII's quote "...not very happy with it..." to XIV's quote "greatly damaged Final Fantasy brand".point 2

Yoichi is not a 17 year old socialising on twitter, he is the president of a big company and he choses his words carefully. Do the same.

About Toriyama, what he said was in responce to a question about Diablo3 and Skyrim and how XIII-2 was relevant to that kind of gaming. XIII-2 didn't try to fix XIII but be something completely different "the concept of making the whole experience player driven" whereas XIII's concept was to be completely story driven. I think I have mentioned X-2 and X a couple of times as examples of Square never repeating itself. Taking things out of context is not far from misquoting. point 3.

your market analysis is laughable. honestly no offence.

How can I have misquoted Yochi Wada when I linked you to his quote. You chose not to read it.

We can go back to your original point where you try to blame everything on FF11 and FF14, but theres not point bringing that up again.

Based on Yochi Wada's words in previous interviews, my personal opinion is that he thinks FF13 has damaged the franchise. He dosent use those words exactly, but he does admit that some people are not very happy with FF13. And thats just what I can remember, half the bullshit hes said since then appears to be some type of damage control.

It dosent matter what the question is, Toriyama explicity cites FF13's gameplay as having a mixed reception (I'm not going to use the word linear, because everyone is sick to death of that word by now). And this is just ONE interview. What if I was to link to all the interviews with Yoshinori Kitase as well. Theres no consipiracy here. FF13-2 was partly designed to account FF13s mixed reception.

"In FFXIII-2 we have completely done away with the linear gameplay of the original that received such a mixed reception, and come up with the concept of making the whole experience player driven, allowing the player to proceed freely through the game at their own pace."

What have I taken out of context here, these are Toriyama's exact words. Do want more evidence?

What was wrong with my market analysis? Was it the fact that you tried to damn the entire Japanese gaming industry, and then found out that Japan sells handhelds too, lol!

You should do some more research, you'll find out that the Final Fantasy franchise has been a mess since Hinorobu Sakaguchi left the series. These problems Sqaure Enix are having are down to incomptient developers abusing the IP with games like Dirge of Cerberus, et al. I suppose its not just Sqaure Enix, other Japanese developers like Capcom are having the same problems. Hence why some people consider the Japanese game market in decline. However if we look at games like Catherine, Dark Souls, Valkryie Chronicles, et al (and I've deliberitly missed out Nintendo) we can see its not a decline in quality. Its a decline in commercial success.

We can specualte on what the reasons for that is. But my personal opinion is that the Japanese games are misreprested here in the west. And yes, I think FF13 has greatly damaged the reputation of the series here in the west.