Then you need to work for them.

First of all, the quality of their products is up to interpretation. Frankly, from where I'm sitting I see millions of people that wanted to see the earlier games get remakes and millions more that were satisfied with FF games in the last 10 years. A lot of people loved FFX, especially. So to say they haven't made anything good in ten years is untrue.

And the reason why they haven't been cranking out solid gold for the last few years is because it is difficult and expensive to make great games. So much so, that they used the last 4-5 years putting out cheap products so that they coudl actually afford to make FF13. If FF13 fails, it may be the end of the series as we know it. Or the end period. SE isn't exactly in great financial shape as it is, after all.

Hoping for FF13 to fail is to hope SE fails. The only lesson it will teach them is to stick to remakes and portable games, since they have been making money off of those.

The names tell me plenty.  None of them were the visionaries behind the NES-SNES games.  The versions of the games Twesterm see's as good.  The ones that did work on them had mostly minor roles.

The only one you could really make an argument about is Kitase... and even so only with Chrono Trigger where his role is more minor then it seems since CT was produced differently.

Believe me I was a Square Fanboy from NES through PS1 era.  Though after FF7 sucked I stopped buying their Final Fantasy games... the rest of the games SE made on the PS1 were pretty good.

Well aside from Chrono Cross too.

So yeah.... you don't know what your talking about.

You...you didn't even buy Tactics? Or Final Fantasy IX?!

Oh, and they had other crappy PS1 games: Bushido Blade II, some Chocobo racing game, Legend of Mana, probably a few more besides. Otherwise, I agree with you.

I bought Tactics.  Tactics was excellent.

I didn't think it was up to Matsuno's previous work with the Ogre Series and Tactics Ogre series... but I actually bought Tactics twice.

Then again I bought FF7 3 or 4 times and I hate 7.

Front Mission 3 ruled though.

Didn't buy FF9.   Haven't even played it.  After 8.. and finding the only fun or interesting thing in it was Triple Triad... I skipped until 12.

I keep hearing good things about 9 so i plan to pick it up eventually but i just haven't gotten around to it.

As for the other bad games... I probably just stopped paying less attention honestly.  Until I got my hands on Final Fantasy Tactics and Front Mission 3 I was absolutely distraught and angry at the company because the PS1 was the first system i bought with my own money... specifically for FF7 and it was just so... bad storywise in comparison.

FF9 is a great game everyone should buy it¡¡. well all FF are great jejeje. at least for me.

It's not the loss of fantasy that makes me dislike VII and VIII.

I just think the story and gameplay both took a step back... and honestly even the graphics.  I'd take good looking 2D over bad looking 3D.

Honestly there wasn't anything I liked better in 7 and 8 then 4-6.  Heck there was stuff i liked better in 1 and 3 then 7 and 8.

I mean... Front Mission 3 is one of my favorite games of all time... and it's made by square and there is zero "fantasy" in it.  Your just running around shooting and smashing into mechs with your own mechs.

You should definitely pick IX up at some point: it's a breath of fresh air in the series, post VII. Good plot and game mechanics, but mostly it's the fantastic characters that will hook you. Honestly, it's one of the best RPGs I've played, and I went in thinking it was going to be crap. I still replay it at least once a year...it hasn't lost its charm.

I agree that Tactics wasn't as great as the Ogre games, but then what is?

And strangely enough, I also bought a PlayStation for FF VII, and hated the damned game. The plot is piss-poor, the characters all get on my nerves, the mechanics weren't exactly stellar...It almost soured me on the whole system, until someone introduced me to some of the better games, so I kept it. Good thing, too, or I'd have missed out on several classics.

Shoot, I'm rambling now, aren't I?

Hey Kasz, what elements did you enjoy in the Final Fantasy games you liked?

Wow, a rant about square enix and I missed the party. This totally sucks, since I love ranting about them.