What ruined Final Fantasy?

[Julius Seeker]

Over the years the series has seen evolution. These advancements would often carry over to later games in the franchise, sometimes having a permanent stay.

Positives evolution that occurred:

FF1 - Amazing music, some of the best 8-bit audio ever. This would remain a staple of the series as long as Uematsu was on board.
FF1 - Steam-tech additions. The existence of industrial-style technology of a past civilization is one of the major staples of the series. Between FF4 and FF8, the games would increasingly move towards a contemporary level of Steam and Cyber technology.
FF2 - Characters gained uniqueness, this wasn't a standard until FF4, but getting away from generic characters was a massive improvement.
FF3 - Chocobos and Moogles
FF4 - ATB system replaces turn-based system.
FF4 - Villains with a good side, lasts to this day.
FF6 - Steam Punk elements and setting.
FF6 - Lowering the emphasis on grinding significantly, this peaked in FF8.
FF6 - Heavier customization of characters - which advanced from here to peak in FF8.
FF7 - pre-rendered graphics.
FF7 - Lots of side-content - FF7 was the first to really do this with the Chocobo breeding and arcade. FF8 had lots of side quests/stories, card game, and even side towns. FFX added Blitzball, FF12 the hunt quests.
FF8 - Realistic character proportions.
FFX - Voice acting.
FF12 - Auto-battle.
FF12 - introduction of seamless battle encounters.

When did things begin to go wrong?

FF7 - Load times - Just remake the damn game WITHOUT them! For a platform that isn't PC. While FF7 was the worst for this, the series has maintained them ever since.
FF9 - Fewer towns, had been increasing in size and number until FF8, and FF9 marks the first major reduction. While FF12 was more town heavy than FFX, the general direction has been to shrink their emphasis, FF13 had no towns at all!
FF9 - A greater emphasis on grinding than any FF game since the NES, at the time. This continued to grow with FF12 and FF13 having the player spend significantly longer portions of time in battles than FF6, FF7, or FF8.
FFX - Removing the world map in favour of open world made the entire world feel like one big linear dungeon. This was worst in FF13.
FFX - huge sprawling 3D environments really slowed the pacing of the games. FF12 and FF13 were even worse.
FFX - Increase length of battle time. This could be a symptom of 3D, but FFX and later FF games had significantly longer battles than previous FF games.
FFX - Losing Uematsu for music. The first thing that made FF great was now gone.
FF11 - MMO - some people might like this, but these MMO games are the reason why we have only had 3 real FF games in the last 12 years, instead of 5 or 6 real FF games - and maybe even an FF7 remake. This Square influenced style also ruined Dragon Quest X too.
FF13 - Huge reduction in side-content, reversing one the best additions of the PSX era.

As a game, FF13 may have been the height of some of the really bad trends of the FF series that really served to slow down the pace and reduce the amount of satisfying content, but all of those trends really began with FF9 and FFX, and hit heavier extremes in FF12 and FF13. FF13 is the first game where stuff continued to go wrong, and nothing really went right. Sure, graphically it saw a huge cosmetic improvement - but flashy graphics tend to only impress me for a limited amount of time before I get used to them - and then I always enjoy the charm of older graphics, including FF1's 8-bit sprites.

FF15 so far has improved graphics from FF13, but I don't even think it is enough to be impressive beyond the first few minutes. It is not that much better looking than FF13. Hopefully FF15 improves in some ways, but so far it just looks like more flash.

[Blotus]

Just in response to the thread title:

Tetsuya Nomura.

He's a big part of why I lost interest. I hate his art style and how much control he has in SE in general.

And I hate whoever decided to drive Matsuno away and subsequently retool FF12 with Vaan as main character instead of Basch(sp?).

And I hate whoever is responsible for the main direction of FF13.

Okay, I don't really hate anyone there or any of these things, I'm just tired and cranky.


FF9 - A greater emphasis on grinding than any FF game since the NES

I've never found grinding to be a real issue in any FF game, or Ni No Kuni (described by many as grindy). Just don't run from enemies and do side quests and you'll be fine.

[Zeus]

I don't ever recall grinding in FF9. That game was great

[Eric]

Just in response to the thread title:

Tetsuya Nomura.

He's a big part of why I lost interest. I hate his art style and how much control he has in SE in general.

And I hate whoever decided to drive Matsuno away and subsequently retool FF12 with Vaan as main character instead of Basch(sp?).

And I hate whoever is responsible for the main direction of FF13.

Okay, I don't really hate anyone there or any of these things, I'm just tired and cranky.


FF9 - A greater emphasis on grinding than any FF game since the NES

I've never found grinding to be a real issue in any FF game, or Ni No Kuni (described by many as grindy). Just don't run from enemies and do side quests and you'll be fine.

I like most of the games Nomura has directed and I don't really have an issue with his character design.

I do however take issue with how a lot of these characters we're supposed to like are written(Spoiler, BADLY), but that's really not his fault. See: Toriyama's obsession with Lightning. Nomura goes way back to FFVI where he had input on the char designs even then, you're saying from FFVI->FFXIII you didn't like how any of the chars were designed?

I haven't played a game that Nomura has directed that I didn't like....(Yet) and I hope that trend continues with FFXV.

I don't ever recall grinding in FF9. That game was stupid, fucking Super Saiyan Zidane

And Seek I don't think it's fair to say that the "grind" returned in FF9. In FF7 you had to grind materia levels, hell I think there were bonus sockets on some weapons with bad stats to help you grind, and grinding them to max level took some time. In FF8 you had to grind junction stuff, and let's not forget how broken and boring this system was, it was impossible not to be overpowered lol.

[Don]

Storywise, I'd say the downfall of FF is the 'Evangelion effect', namely having your story that starts a loser as the lead character. It sort of worked for Evangelion but it really didn't work for anything else besides Final Fantasy 7, and it's probably a bad thing that it actually worked in FF7. They never quite understood that Cloud worked as a loser because he actually had some serious issues, and that he really was able to overcome them and become a decent guy. With the exception of FF9, none of the lead characters from FF8 to FF12 are guys you want to be associated if you're somehow transported to their world. Squall is a jerk who has no idea how to lead. Tidus is some kind of ultra newbie. Nobody cares about Vaan. Lightning is someone who thinks she's totally awesome but nobody actually liked except for whoever came up with the character.

I mean there's nothing wrong with your hero having problems, but if you're not sure, someone like Zidane is at least pretty hard to screw up. He's basically a Goku ripoff and at least Goku is a solid character that nobody will be offended by his presence. Note that Zidane and Vaan aren't the same. Zidane might be a kid but for whatever reason the story says he's beating all these guys up and he can even turn into a Super Saiyan, and just like nobody had problem with Goku saving the world as a kid, you can live with Zidane saving the world because the story said so. Vaan? The story tells you that he's totally irrelevent. Nobody even cares what he has to say in the story itself. It's kind of sad that FF9 had the second best main character in the PSX or later era, and I hated FF9, but Zidane wins by the virtue of not being patently offensive compared to the rest.

I think they're also too ambitious with some of the combat systems. I know they're trying to get some kind of choreography look but it just didn't accomplish what they thought they were accomplishing.

[Julius Seeker]

Final Fantasy 9




I didn't really touch a great deal plot details or artistic approaches because I don't think that any of it is particularly bad; I felt FF13 had plenty of beautiful locations, and strong character design all around. I also didn't think any of the characters are really losers, except for maybe Hope in FF13. I feel like Square usually has strong main characters, the only ones I didn't like were Vaan and Zidane; I found them both shallow, boring, and uninspired.

I suppose, with music, I technically did take something that could be approached subjectively and made the claim that the loss of Uematsu marked a decline; I am guessing some might argue that the audio direction in later FF games is better...

The only huge artistic misstep I felt was what was done with Advent Children. I think if they remade FF7 in open world FF13 style, it would be a massive failure. Art, I think it's one of those things that's as subjective as a taste preference between oysters and snails.


On grinding: FF6, 7, and 8 have a variety of directions you can take with character advancement; you can grind out everything in these games, but you really don't have to. FF9, on the otherhand, was a straight linear grind akin to FF4. Although FF9 wasn't the worst game in the series for grinding - I find FFX, 12, and 13 worse - FF9 did begin to mark a greater emphasis on grinding out levels than any of the other FF games since FF4 - this much is extraordinarily clear by the time you get to the Lifa tree, the number of battles that pad out the game is noticeably higher than the last few FF games. FFX had a high encounter rate too in its later phases, but FF9's battle transitions take 12 seconds as opposed to FFX's 5, and FF9's battles are slower than FFX's.

[Eric]

Storywise, I'd say the downfall of FF is the 'Evangelion effect', namely having your story that starts a loser as the lead character. It sort of worked for Evangelion but it really didn't work for anything else besides Final Fantasy 7, and it's probably a bad thing that it actually worked in FF7. They never quite understood that Cloud worked as a loser because he actually had some serious issues, and that he really was able to overcome them and become a decent guy. With the exception of FF9, none of the lead characters from FF8 to FF12 are guys you want to be associated if you're somehow transported to their world. Squall is a jerk who has no idea how to lead. Tidus is some kind of ultra newbie. Nobody cares about Vaan. Lightning is someone who thinks she's totally awesome but nobody actually liked except for whoever came up with the character.

I mean there's nothing wrong with your hero having problems, but if you're not sure, someone like Zidane is at least pretty hard to screw up. He's basically a Goku ripoff and at least Goku is a solid character that nobody will be offended by his presence. Note that Zidane and Vaan aren't the same. Zidane might be a kid but for whatever reason the story says he's beating all these guys up and he can even turn into a Super Saiyan, and just like nobody had problem with Goku saving the world as a kid, you can live with Zidane saving the world because the story said so. Vaan? The story tells you that he's totally irrelevent. Nobody even cares what he has to say in the story itself. It's kind of sad that FF9 had the second best main character in the PSX or later era, and I hated FF9, but Zidane wins by the virtue of not being patently offensive compared to the rest.

Spot on with the character analysis.

I think they're also too ambitious with some of the combat systems. I know they're trying to get some kind of choreography look but it just didn't accomplish what they thought they were accomplishing.

This is because of Advent Children. People saw the Tech Demo of FFVII for the PS3, then they saw Advent Children and it was like "Zomg, I want my Final Fantasy to look like THAT", and they've been chasing that dream ever since.

FFXV looks like it's the first one to actually follow through on it, and it seems to be doing it by completely abandoning the ATB system. It gives you enough freedom in combat to move around making it more like a Tales game, but it also looks like it gives you a massive setting to play around in from the trailers. Something FFXIII really really fucking lacked and I hated was when my sentinel would stand right next to my fucking medic and they'd both get AE nuked and the medic would die, was just shitty design not to give full control while creating this illusion of "cinematic gameplay", it's bad when you have to exploit the game's combat system and cast certain spells to force lighting or whoever to step backwards when they case to get proper positioning.

[Julius Seeker]

It would be nice if FF15 was a return to a highly progressive series that was both high on substance and style. I just hope Square realizes their mistakes with the series.

Although I know FF15's character art won't be helping BL's problem with the series =P