Final Fantasy’s Worst Enemy is Itself

After the emergence of Final Fantasy XV, many thought the game that had stumbled out of development limbo resurrected the franchise, where it surpassed over six million units in sales on the day of release, breaking a series record. There is also some stipulation that this ambitious title is not the new flag bearer for the series, but quite the opposite.

Although the series still bears the same theme of the hero’s story, where the hero first discovers themselves, and slowly we are introduced to the antagonist, the hero’s vision, and the hero accepting their fate, Final Fantasy has become what some fear is reality: art created with good intentions gone terribly wrong.

[PhoenixUp]

I just hate how ever since FFXII, Square Enix can't seem to give us a new mainline Final Fantasy title without it suffering some kind of development hell

[Nu]

Copying GTA was the wrong choice. I hope FF 7 stays on a linear path with a great story.

[Canary]

FFXII went through development hell.

The only "mainline" Final Fantasy game Square-Enix produced that did NOT go through development hell was Final Fantasy 11, if you consider it mainline.

The takeaway should be, basically, that Square-Enix has *never* really been able to manage AAA game development.

[PhoenixUp]

@ Nu

Dafuq you talking about? FF is far removed from GTA.

@ Canary

That's why I said ever since FFXII. FFXIV came out on schedule though, but it had to be taken down and extensively reworked in order to become a suitable product.

Square Enix can put out plenty of AAA games on time such as ROTR, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Nier: Automata, World of Final Fantasy, Star Ocean 5, & Just Cause 3 to name recent examples. It's just mainline FF titles that seem to take forever to get produced, as well as numbered KH titles

[theKiller]

the problem with SE and FF series is they wanted to please everyone, then ended up with few pleased. the turn base formula is the best for JRPG, and its what made final fantasy 7-10 to shine. as soon as they let go of the Turn Based attack system, the game went downhill. Aslo, the fact that they tried to westernize the franchise, it lost a lot of its Japanese appeal. just look at persona 5. it reached the peak of JRPG with a turn based system, and without try to change its arts to western style.

Square Enix just screwed up on the successful parts of FF series.

Also, they incomplete games hurt the series. FF7-9 had 3-4 CDs. they were huge in their times. FF10 was a full disk DVD game. the rest were incomplete or short.

SE just lost their ball.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I always remember FF7/8/9/10 feeling huge to me, more recent games not so much (FFXV actually feels small to me, probably because it's wide open spaces with little to no towns or cities).

[andrewsquall]

Exactly. Its quite shocking that in the space of about 5 or 6 years we got FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and FFX, all critically acclaimed FF games great in their own way with over 80 hours of content/memorable music/characters.
Then they take over 8 years to make a single game and there are still the people who get overexcited every single time and the games just turn out mediocre at best.

[alstruck]

Their worst enemy is SquareEnix making bad decisions.. Look what happened to Kh3, where is it? This is almost a dejavu of vs13.. Now they're just milking the franchise until it runs out steam, with no new creativity except Yoko Taro and Tabata's team..

[TricksterArrow]

I think FFXV has great ideas and is a big step in the right direction regarding FFXIII, which, TBH, is not that difficult (FFXIII-2 was already better than XIII). That being said, it's a very flawed game with some major pacing issues, some of it derived from it's unnecessary open world. :T I can still find enjoyment in it though.

[Canary]

Final Fantasy's worst enemy is bloated development budgets, poor direction, and an emphasis on aesthetics over content.

[Elda]

I love the FF franchise.

[andrewsquall]

Haha no it isn't, its modern day Square, the worst enemy of EVERYTHING Final Fantasy related.

[CrimsonWing69]

I think really the only FF i haven't been too keen on was FF13...15 was good, not the best, but rather good. To me, the series apexed on the PS1. Ever since then they've made really baffling design decisions and have never recaptured what made FF so great to begin with. I'm hoping like hell FF7 they will bring it back despite the combat not being traditionally turn based.

I can handle the combat being a hybrid of real-time/turn-based but if they water down the rest of the game I will be extremely bummed out. I feel FF 7 remake is their chance to really figure out what the series needs to be from here on out. 15 was solid for the experimentation it took and for the fact is was going to be a spin-off, but I do not want to see another FF like it.