See Games Differently
Now you can get the top stories from Kotaku delivered to your inbox. Enter your email below.
By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Seen at Square Enix’s Final Fantasy party at PAX last week: these posters, complete with game names, dates, and monikers describing each era of the iconic RPG series.
As you can see, even Square Enix has some strong notions about when they got things right. (Although Final Fantasy VI should clearly be part of the Golden Age too.)
That’s because we the players fill in the emotions and subtext with our minds, consciously or not. It doesn’t depend on voice acting to convey those.
I think the fact that they had 4 all new final fantasy games come out in consecutive years in 1999-2002 shows how dysfunctional they are now as a developer.
The development cycle for games is a lot longer now though (for quality titles that it) and not the machine wash we get from EA and Activision.
you don’t think it’s because developing was easier back on those platforms. plus it was different groups between 8 and 9 making them.
The golden age sure will be missed. 🙁
Here’s for hoping the future will be so bright I’ll need to wear shades.
At the moment a I’m just squinting a little and I’m not even sure why.
They should take the hint and stop making their games linear, and bring back the damm world map
With a linear plot though having the ability to stop off at other towns or areas and do nothing. Only really gives you the illusion of freedom.
Why are people so caught up on an illusion within an illusion which is a game.
But only two of their Final Fantasy games were linear (one of which allowed you to backtrack and had townz, so fans forgave it). Have you only played FFX and FFXIII?
XIV probably has more fans than XIII
Doubtful.
This goes to show why they are not doing things right now. The true golden era started in the late days of SNES (FFVI, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Seiken Densetsu 3) and ended with their last offerings for the Playstation 1 (Chrono Cross, FFIX.) FFX was already a sharp decline and no game in the PS2 (or 3) can compare to those.
As long as they consider the PS2 titles part of the “golden era” they won’t go anywhere. They must disregard most of the bad ideas and vices from the PS2 era and see what they can learn from the SNES era.
+1
They really should be looking back at the games they made on the SNES and PS1 and try to bring some of that magic back to there current games.
X was amazing, and I can’t wait for it to come out in HD.
It will be hard for them to go back to ideas that were done so well over 10 or so games, I guess they feel they have to “move on” with new ideas .. but the old ideas are iconic and fun, you just can’t match them.
FFX was a solid game. Even though it was more linear then those before and droped the world map it’s story made up for it along with it’s fun combat and one of the better stat systems in a final fantasy the sphere grid was epic.
With FFX’s story, the linearity made sense. It had a much more focused story than other games and it would be difficult to tell that story effectively in a more open world. Still, it would have been nice to have bigger towns/locations to explore but it’s understandable. Oh and it has my favorite battle system.
Agreed. Although I don’t think it was that linear, not in the way FFXIII was. It had a world map for starters, even if you couldn’t navigate it in the old-school way. And there was plenty of value in revisiting areas later in the game and exploring the edges of the world instead of sticking to the path – like finding Yojimbo’s cave, or wandering off the path in the Thunder Plains for items, or the Monster Arena in the Calm Lands. Don’t know why everyone hated it so much. Maybe the purely turn-based battle system drove people off after several games of active-time battle?
They stopped being good after 10. I personally loved FF11 online, but I don’t see that as a true “Final Fantasy game”. Also, I miss Squaresoft. T-Ta
If it has likeable characters, enjoyable story lines and memorable music, I think it earns a right to be part of the FF series.
In no way can I address all that I have to say, given my somewhat biased opinion….
I would like to submit a contentious opinion. “As much as SE has changed it’s staff, so has the fan base.”
Before everyone flames me, please, listen. I started playing SE games when Secret Of Mana came out in Australia. This was a time when Chrono Trigger and FF VI were available as Import-only carts., never mind anything else. This Is what I had to induct myself to JRPGs, if I wanted a SNES-related experience.
This trend continued throughout the PS1 heyday. Anyone remember Xenogears? Especially us Aussies. We STILL do not have a legal way to obtain this quality title. What I am trying to get at is…. only since FFVII have we received anything approaching a steady jrpg supply. Ask anyone here what Tactics Ogre, FFT, FF2, FF3, Even titles like Brave Fencer Musashi and Chrono Cross. We got royally screwed. If you were to ask the average person what theses were, you get the reply; the stuff we Aussies dids not get. We still really haven’t.
But What I want to talk abut is the current JRPG gaming culture. Back in ’96, we were glad to get something, anything, whether it be some FF, Shining Force, or some other related franchise.We never stated “This is what they have released, this is what they should release next. This last game they released sucks unholy crap.” We as gamers have become incredibly self-indulgent. We say FFXIII sucks, or FFXIII-2 sucks, but can only offer reasons that confound people in the movie industry, such as “linear gameplay” If these Games were released as cinematic entities in their own right, most of them would have been praised as being an advancement in the entertainment industry. But a game that offers the same values gets an almost universal rejection notice. Why Is this? Games and movies by far claim the largest market share of the entertainment industry. It cannot be said that repetitive mechanics or plot devices hurt the genre. One has only to look at the FPS genre across multiple platforms to see that entertainment is not easily constricted by a single genre One needs to consider market pressures. Could you for instance market the “Manhunt” game by Rockstar as a valid form of entertainment? I suspect that the number of yeses would put paid to what is socially acceptable. I realise I am getting far afield here. I just wanted to say that I enjoy playing FFXIII and FXIII-2, because they are part of a whole, not because I feel that a gaming company shouls be spending dollars on what I want them to make. Seriously? When did we start doing that? We were happy whenever a FF came out that we could play. This self-entitled way of thinking has to go. I’m painfully aware that there are some glaring logical holes in my arguments, I will correct them, time permitting. I have a job to go to. I hope to digress further on this topic. And bejaysus, I hope I can talk straight after a 15 hour day and a whole bottle of Wild Turkey,…..
More like ever since FFX. We were still missing out on stuff well after FFVII – in fact the games you cite, like Xenogears or Chrono Cross were all released after FFVII and still didn’t get a go in PAL. It wasn’t until the PS2 era that we started getting the majority of JRPGs here (and even then, there’s many we missed out on – eg Tales of Legendia, Suikoden 3, Xenosaga I and III…)
Leave a Reply