Since the days of the SNES, Squaresoft and Enix have been putting out some of the most memorable JRPG’s in gaming history. Since 2001, these companies have merged into one gaming force, Square Enix, unfortunately for their games, the quality hasn’t survived the transition.

What happened? Their past games include the Final Fantasy series, the Chrono series, the Dragon Quest series, the Star Ocean series, and more. Games like Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger are the epitome of RPG success. They are what JRPG fans want when it comes to the cream of the crop. Though since the merger and since Square Enix got rid of Final Fantasy creator Hironubo Sakaguchi, their games have not had anywhere near the success of their SNES and Playstation 1 games.

 Quality has been dropping since Final Fantasy X Final Fantasy X is considered by many to be one of the best Final Fantasy games and JRPG’s in gaming history, but since then Square Enix has slowly but surely gotten worse with each game. This is very evident in how they’ve handled their biggest franchise, Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI, and Final Fantasy XII is easily the worst run in the franchises history. All the games have been been clouded in mediocrity, and many fans are getting fed up with this. It’s gotten even worse this generation Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean 4, and The Last Remnant were all released within the last year, and all of them were mediocre at best. None of these games pushed the JRPG-genre like their games in the past.

 Some blame this to Square Enix being “greedy” and releasing games on consoles that they are unfamiliar to. They have yet to release a PS3 Square Enix game this generation, and have yet to release the next-gen Final Fantasy. They continue to push out PSP games and games for consoles such as the Wii/360. All the 360 games have been mediocre, the Wii games are either ports or crappy 2nd hand games, and while the PSP games are decent most would like to have games like Crisis Core and Dissidia on a home console. Ever since Sakaguchi and Uematsu left… Squre Enix games have not felt the same. Even Lost Odyssey felt more like an old-school classic Squaresoft/Enix game than the stuff Square Enix has produced the past couple of years. They are putting out products to make money, and not to create great games.

 This is obvious in how they’ve changed their buisness strategies over time. Hopefully with Final Fantasy XIII being a year away they can change their current trend and turn it around. Gamers also have Final Fantasy XIII Versus and a new Kingdom Hearts to look forward to in the future. Hopefully they stop ignoring what made them great, and worry about making great games, and not just broadening their audience.

I agree...the old Square and Enix >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> SquareEnix.

One of the reasons I heard was because some of the top guys who worked at Square during the 4th and 5th generations (SNES/PS1) left shortly after the merger.

While many will endlessly debate the quality of Final Fantasy XII, neither Infinite Undiscovery nor Star Ocean 4 are "actual" Square Enix games. The Last Remnant was mainly criticized for technical problems but has a fairly progressive battle system, as far as I understand it.

@OP- Where you a Lurker until recently? lol...

On Topic- Agreed.

what exactly is a lurker?

Like Rare, Square is just a name. I expect Final Fantasy 13 to rock, but for a real FF styled game, get Lost Odyssey. I plug that game every chance I get!

Lurking on a forum means actively reading the forum without ever actually posting to it. A lurker is someone who does this.

Lurking is not a bad thing. In fact, many forums encourage new users to lurk for a while before starting to post, so they can get a feel for the board's culture and jargon and such.

I am not even going to bother getting into this discussion as we have it every week with the exact same comments from the exact same people.

 I'd just like to ask how Star Ocean 2, Radiata Stories and SaGa games "pushed the genre forward".

Personally I feel Squares quality started to dip with Final Fantasy VII. Before that point, even bad Square titles were better than what most of their competitors could come up with.

Star Ocean was an Enix IP developed by Tri-Ace so I'm not sure how those games even come into play on this topic. Infinite Undiscovery is a Microsoft IP developed by Tri-Ace. Square Enix co-published to game. So that is another game that has nothing to do with the topic. The Last Remnant has one of the best turn based battles systems in years. The PC version proves what I thought about the game all along. It excellent game marred by technical issues on 360. The PC version of TLR takes away those issues as well makes some improvements.

SO2 was the first JRPG(in the West) to have item creation, two choices of protagonists, multiple endings, and Private Actions all in one games