RageBot said: No, what you fail to realise is that the ENTIRE SERIES is in decline, and that, UNLIKE MARIO, the difference between 2D FF and 3D FF is.. just that, the GRAPHIC ENGINE. It seems like, for some reason, you can't make a difference between 2D gameplay, and 2D graphics, 2D and 3D FFs PLAY THE SAME, THE DIFFERENCE IS IN THE GRAPHIC ENGINE. Please, do explain to me how changing the graphic engine, ALONE, will help the series recover in the west, where the series got big in the first place BECAUSE OF IT'S SUPERIOR GRAPHICS. Oh and - How old are you?

Okay simmer down, buck.

The 2D games all had more of a focus on plot and story, personally I think 3D graphics comes with the burden that every installment has to have hugely cutting-edge graphics and cinematic-scope and this often comes at the cost of less attention paid to gameplay and story.

I think the route 3D FF is on is self-destructive. My original comment was just a through-away comparison to the other big-topic of discussion, NSMBW. It wasn't a research statement for a treatise. There's no need to be so exciteable and over-aggitated about this.

And guess what? I still would like to see a new 2D FF on a Nintendo console. Go figure.

I just wanted to hear your reasoning for this, since I wanted to know why you thought that 2D FF will be/sell better than a 3D FF.

mrstickball said: Speaking on a 2D Final Fantasy: It'd be real cool if Square Enix went the Mega Man 9 route and did make a downloadable Final Fantasy for WW/XBLA/PSN

>:(

http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=32318&region=All

RageBot said: I just wanted to hear your reasoning for this, since I wanted to know why you thought that 2D FF will be/sell better than a 3D FF.

Actually, I'll give you a reason why: The Final Fantasy series explosion with the intro of 3-D at FF7 was not due to the switch. It was due to the fact that Sony put a huge marketing machine behind it worldwide. As fwap mentioned already, the pretty graphics of 7 pulled in new players, and they had to keep pushing the graphics to keep some of these new people. Unfortunately, the focus shifted from gameplay and story to graphics. The depth, the intrigue, the hookpin, if you will, that kept people playing before 7 was gone, replaced with pretty pictures. And, since 7, the only thing that FF has really had to offer that was top-notch was graphics. Graphics alone aren't going to keep people buying your game, and thus, the decline of the FF series.

So why would 2-D be good? If you can't use graphics to sell a game, you have to fall back on the old ways that you sold them- gameplay and/or story; these were things that prior FFs exceled at. There will be many of the old graphics fans buying the first one of this style because of the name alone. They will initially dismiss it for being "ugly." But some will keep going. And they will see what made a FF of yesteryear. I imagine that the first one would have a weird sales curve, something akin to FF5, even, as word gets out that the focus went back to where it should have been all along.

But, but... the old Nintendo 2-D games didn't sell! True, but how many fewer systems were sold in Japan at this time? If you line up the number of systems made and adjust as a percentage the game sales, suddenly you have sales matching the better 3-D games. (This low system count I also think is part of what is keeping the downturn with FF13, rather than the boost 10 saw.) I do think that if you bring back what made the old FF games so memorable, and had to use actual words, story, and sprite animation (C'mon, who has played FF6 and doesn't remember the Opera House?) to sell the game, sales would rebound. Coupling this with the cheaper development costs would only cause skyrocketing profit for SE.

However, I don't see them returning to these days. FF has become their "Ooh, look what we can do!" for graphics. And as long as they ignore the other parts of a game, or what made people like so many of the FFs of the past, sales will only continue to decline.

silverlunar777 said: mrstickball said: Speaking on a 2D Final Fantasy: It'd be real cool if Square Enix went the Mega Man 9 route and did make a downloadable Final Fantasy for WW/XBLA/PSN >:( http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=32318&region=All

I said the Mega Man 9 route - make an actual numbered Final Fantasy and not an offshoot from an old Final Fantasy.

And for the record, FFIV:TAY sold over 3 million copies worldwide. So Square has had some success with the throwback 2D format.

dunno001 said: RageBot said: I just wanted to hear your reasoning for this, since I wanted to know why you thought that 2D FF will be/sell better than a 3D FF. Actually, I'll give you a reason why: The Final Fantasy series explosion with the intro of 3-D at FF7 was not due to the switch. It was due to the fact that Sony put a huge marketing machine behind it worldwide. As fwap mentioned already, the pretty graphics of 7 pulled in new players, and they had to keep pushing the graphics to keep some of these new people. Unfortunately, the focus shifted from gameplay and story to graphics. No, that's actually wrong, the focus didn't shift "from" story, since the stories of FF 7-10 far eclipse those of 1-6 (of which only 6 had a really remarkable story), and, to tell you the truth, my favorite battle system in the franchise is still the one from FFX-2, in which ATB was at it's peak, by being *really* active time. The depth, the intrigue, the hookpin, if you will, that kept people playing before 7 was gone, replaced with pretty pictures. And, since 7, the only thing that FF has really had to offer that was top-notch was graphics. Graphics alone aren't going to keep people buying your game, and thus, the decline of the FF series. And if that's true, than why do so many JRPG lovers, who their favorite games are based solely around the story (my fav JRPG is Xenogears, WRPG is Deus Ex) still prefer the 3D FFs? Because of the story, duh. So why would 2-D be good? If you can't use graphics to sell a game, you have to fall back on the old ways that you sold them- gameplay and/or story; these were things that prior FFs exceled at. There will be many of the old graphics fans buying the first one of this style because of the name alone. They will initially dismiss it for being "ugly." But some will keep going. And they will see what made a FF of yesteryear. I imagine that the first one would have a weird sales curve, something akin to FF5, even, as word gets out that the focus went back to where it should have been all along. And why would being in 2D make the gameplay different? You see, you get exactly to my point, 2D and 3D in FF does not, in any way, shape or form, hamper the gameplay, in what way is the gameplay in FF9 different that the one in FF4? The way you get abilities, and that just because Square chose to do the gameplay different, FF4's system could work perfectly well in a 2D FF, and the opposite with FF9 But, but... the old Nintendo 2-D games didn't sell! True, but how many fewer systems were sold in Japan at this time? If you line up the number of systems made and adjust as a percentage the game sales, suddenly you have sales matching the better 3-D games. (This low system count I also think is part of what is keeping the downturn with FF13, rather than the boost 10 saw.) I do think that if you bring back what made the old FF games so memorable, and had to use actual words, story, and sprite animation (C'mon, who has played FF6 and doesn't remember the Opera House?) to sell the game, sales would rebound. Coupling this with the cheaper development costs would only cause skyrocketing profit for SE. I wasn't talking, at any point, about the sales in Japan, but about the sales in the west :) However, I don't see them returning to these days. FF has become their "Ooh, look what we can do!" for graphics. And as long as they ignore the other parts of a game, or what made people like so many of the FFs of the past, sales will only continue to decline.

Now, it seems like you missed it, BUT YOU AGREE WITH ME.

The problem with new FFs are the gameplay, which strays too much from the formula that pepole want in a FF games, and the plots, that are getting boring and redundant (which i'm sure I just spelled wrong).

HOWEVER.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that what hampers the story and gameplay is the graphics, what hampers them is, in my opinion, sadly, SE's wish to "westernize" their games, by making their battle system more and more similar to WRPGs and MMOs, while straying far from the systems that made their games popular.
And about the plots - There was a standard decline in the quality of plots in all RPGs from every subgenre since the PS1 era, that reached it peak in Xenogears (and supposedly, PS:T for the PC), just like the general downgrade in the level of music in RPGs, the old creators simply run out of steam (Compare Koji Kondo's early work in SF2 and Secret of Mana to the KH series for example) and it seems like no one can really replace them.

Japan, buy more FFXIII >:(
I just checked the other FF sales, so it's not doing is bad is others lead me to believe;)

Go NSMBW!!!!

Where the heck are those hardware numbers?!

>No, that's actually wrong, the focus didn't shift "from" story, since the stories of FF 7-10 far eclipse those of 1-6 (of which only 6 had a really remarkable story), and, to tell you the truth, my favorite battle system in the franchise is still the one from FFX-2, in which ATB was at it's peak, by being *really* active time.
Sorry, but it's not wrong. The best story in any FF game to me is 6. Note how the wording is opinional- an opinion can not be wrong. As for battle systems, the core system from 4-10 are all the same to me, it's the little things that differenciate them. 9 wasn't a bad system, though I would still prefer 6.

>And if that's true, than why do so many JRPG lovers, who their favorite games are based solely around the story (my fav JRPG is Xenogears, WRPG is Deus Ex) still prefer the 3D FFs?
Because of the story, duh.
Nostalgia, duh. (In other words, don't get condescending.) What's my favorite JRPG? Persona 4; and that has nothing to do with FF. Restricting my self to the FF series, it's 5, followed by 6. 5's story isn't the greatest, but it's the gameplay that makes me addicted to it. And not every FF fan even prefers only the 3D ones, as you suggest. Note how many people are pleased at FF6 being out 7 in the IGN ranking thread.

>And why would being in 2D make the gameplay different?
Technically, it shouldn't. But it does, because of where the resources are devoted. When you are spending more of the budget on graphics, you either have to blindly increase the budget, or, to keep costs in check, cut from another area. Blindly letting games budgets spiral is not a good way to run a business, so cuts happen. These cuts were in gameplay and story. Sure, the new ideas still come out, but they're not properly fleshed out the way they are in the older ones.

>I wasn't talking, at any point, about the sales in Japan, but about the sales in the west
Then you are also off-topic for this thread, which is about Famitsu Japanese sales. I'm looking at the Japanese sales for the FF series, and trying to surmise why they've been trending downward.

>Don't fool yourself into thinking that what hampers the story and gameplay is the graphics, what hampers them is, in my opinion, sadly, SE's wish to "westernize" their games, by making their battle system more and more similar to WRPGs and MMOs, while straying far from the systems that made their games popular.
A desire to westernize games isn't the only thing that causes games to go downhill. While it's a smaller and less vocal group, there are some people who prefer the 2-D Zelda games. My personal reason for this is the move to 3-D made the games too easy. But that is derails from the topic.

>And about the plots - There was a standard decline in the quality of plots in all RPGs from every subgenre since the PS1 era, that reached it peak in Xenogears (and supposedly, PS:T for the PC), just like the general downgrade in the level of music in RPGs, the old creators simply run out of steam.
Again, nope. The ones who were doing FF, sure, I'll agree with you on. But the downfall of that has made me realize that not everyone else had done so. The Tales series has been fairly stable, the Persona games have been amazing, and a few new games have had interesting ideas, even S-E themselves with TWEWY. So it's possible to keep going...

Majin-Tenshinhan said: jarrod said: Majin-Tenshinhan said: Nice to see that Layton is holding up, maybe the downward trend the series has been on for the first three games (in Japan) is about to end.  What?  The games have sold progressively better?  Layton 4's actually the first to have a weaker debut than the last, but I'm hoping it has longer legs thanks to the London Life mode. Uh, they've sold progressively worse. Screw openings, lifetime sales are what matters.

You can't compare lifetimes though, since we don't have the top 500 for 2009 yet.  If you compare charted sales (ie: the only metric we have for a like vs like comparison) then Layton 3 > Layton 2 > Layton 1.  

Layton 4 is lagging 3 though, but it's still on par with 2.