What happened to Final Fantasy?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > What happened to Final Fantasy?

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

FF15 looks fun. Do you like fun OP?

FFX-2 is also good.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2016 17:07

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 20:38

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

Daryl Surat posted:

The answer to the question of "what happened to Final Fantasy such that there's such a divide between FF6 and FF7?" is extremely simple: Tetsuya Nomura and Kazushige Nojima. Once these guys got to have say over the story and characters, that was when Final Fantasy changed forever. That's their fingerprints you're seeing from Final Fantasy 7 through 15 which you weren't seeing prior to that because they either didn't work on those games or were just doing artwork. They're also the ones behind Kingdom Hearts. Final Fantasy 7, Advent Children, and Kingdom Hearts are among the single most successful Japanese works in the world, such that everyone just thinks "that's how Japan does things!" But really, it's just these two guys (and well, a legion of people who grew up on their stuff and/or want to copy their success).

I'm going to be very interested to see who precisely buys Final Fantasy 15. It's a game engineered from the ground up to appeal to the sort of fans who create derivative works from established material in which the male characters are romantically/sexually involved with one another. That's a gigantic pastime that has only gotten bigger with the advent of the Internet, but FF 15 just might be taking those hooks so far that it alienates drat near everybody who isn't into that stuff. The Conan O'Brien video is a key example of this. All of those things he found so utterly exasperating are red meat to that audience. Therein lies the gamble: how many of those fans are out there? Final Fantasy 15 has been in development for over a decade now, and the last estimates I heard said that it needs to sell 10 million copies just to break even. That's a lot, seeing as the combined shipped copies of Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns combined was "over 11 million." (No idea how many of those were left unsold.)

Honestly, it's a good thing Final Fantasy XIV is doing so well for them now, because I feel like it's going to be a very difficult thing for 15 to sell that well. But no matter what happens, Nomura and Nojima will remain in charge since Kingdom Hearts is a license to print money and they can always just remake Final Fantasy VII, since the kids who grew up on that are now grown up with kids of their own (that they named Sephiroth).

The gameplay in FF15 looks fun.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 04:16

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

Daryl Surat posted:

"Looks" fun? Can't you just go download the demo and play it yourself, then report back what you liked or didn't like about it?

I mean I played the Japanese Judgment demo already. Not sure how much I was missing out since I can't read any of the menus re: hints, upgrades, etc. I also heard some options were left out of the demo like the Wait mode for combat.

The gameplay in the demo is fun. I guess it's like Kingdom Hearts but more refined. Fighting larger enemies is a blast especially when you are warping around to get better positioning or for dodging their attacks. Defense seems to be pretty important too because if you just mindlessly mash buttons, the enemies will gang up on you and kill you really quick. Parrying is great once you get the timing down.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 05:04

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

OneEightHundred posted:

I meant to say the series' aesthetic, oops.

I don't just mean the character designs, but also the world design, which moved away from the relatively down-to-earth styles of FF6-FF8, which mixed modern themes and heavy industry with a high-fantasy world, and FF9's Victorian influences. Apparently they only kept things simple on PS1 because they had to, thanks to technical limitations. Once those started evaporating, they started making a point of throwing obscene amounts of detail at practically everything, it quickly turned into the series that gave us this:

... and this:

Now it's really easy to tell that you're looking at a Final Fantasy title because everything looks like it was stolen out of some monarch's private collection and all of the monsters are wearing chandeliers.

That airship sucks but that enemy design is :krad:

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 05:29

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

9 is slow and boring. It would improved to a middling game if the combat wasn't slow as gently caress.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 21:29

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

Also actions delaying other actions(or maybe it was just spells?) so everything is queued up and backlogging stuff. This makes things like Regen super powerful because it keeps ticking while all these abilities are slowly animating or queued up to go.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 21:43

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

precision posted:

Is Xenoblade X really that bad? Or just "not as good"?

The exploration is good if you care about that sort of thing(except when monsters pop into your range because of the poo poo draw distance). Combat is ok. The music and story are really bad.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 04:22

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

chumbler posted:

The story comment is understandable, but I can't forgive calling Xenoblade X's music bad.

Counterpoint: the town theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfk-dQceR3Y

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 20:17

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 20:38

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

That poo poo owned. I wish your split personality would throw a sandsubmarine on you.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2016 21:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > What happened to Final Fantasy?