Final Fantasy: Officially Burnt Out

I don't think that's how it works Frank. It's not like books where once a story is finished they stop naturally as the author moves on as this is big business and they can just hire new people who will churn out more games even if they are almost identical. The games may be burnt out but they could still make 50 more anyway if they think they will make a few quid.

But the biggest demand from the fans is a remake of FFVII anyway, so if they really wanted to make identical games they could and they'd make an absolute fortune.

These kind of stories basically just give the people who've never liked the franchise in the first place an opportunity to go "I agree, the lazy, money-grabbing bastards. I hope you get AIDs, Square".

EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that their last game was FFXII on the PS2, which many people praise as the best Final Fantasy ever. So after one Final Fantasy that doesn't live up to people's expectations, suddenly the company should just stop making games and pack it in?

Frank wrote:But the biggest demand from the fans is a remake of FFVII anyway, so if they really wanted to make identical games they could and they'd make an absolute fortune.

These kind of stories basically just give the people who've never liked the franchise in the first place an opportunity to go "I agree, the lazy, money-grabbing bastards. I hope you get AIDs, Square".

I wrote a long post to basically say what you did in the first line...

I would also add that would you said can be applied to nearly ally franchises.... the people who always accuse a franchise of not bringing anything new to the table would be the first ones who would lap up a remake of their favourite franchise

I think you're being over defensive as people are just saying they should slow down and maybe not make 3 so similar games all at once.

Peter Crisp wrote:I think you're being over defensive as people are just saying they should slow down and maybe not make 3 so similar games all at once.

If you'd actually looked at them you'd know they're hardly similar. As TheTurnipKing mentioned earlier, the battles are the entire game.

The PS3 exclusive has real time battles, the PSP one is probably a newer version of Crisis Core, and with any luck the XIII-2 will have an evolution of the battle system from XIII.

Mr.Jeff wrote:

Tineash wrote:Blue Dragon, Last Remnant, and Resonance of Fate all have their virtues too.

Not without their virtue sure but you'd hardly rant and rave about them in say, the way that people do about Mass Effect.

Carlos wrote:Unless you're Suzz and his massive PSP import collection you could count every decent RPG released in this country, this gen on one hand. Off the top of my head I can think of Lost Odyssey, Valkyria Chronicles and Tales of Vesperia.

Precisely. Not that last generation was necessarily better but the RPG genre as a whole in Japan is stuck in a stagnant rut of using the same type of storyline and characters over and over again. But then again, they produce them like that because they know it's precisely what will sell to the tastes of their existing customers.

Last gen we had Tales of Symphonia, Paper Mario: TTYD, FFXII, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Persona, Disgaea, KOTOR amongst others. It was much better and innovative.

Drej wrote:I would also add that would you said can be applied to nearly ally franchises.... the people who always accuse a franchise of not bringing anything new to the table would be the first ones who would lap up a remake of their favourite franchise

That's one of the bigger challenges in game development... When do you make something a sequel and when do you cut your game off from the established brand?

I think the problem might really be that they're relying too heavily on the Final Fantasy name to sell their games, rather than letting them stand (or fall) on their own merits. Tying a game to an established brand mitigates some of the risks of a game failing to perform at retail, but it also risks tainting the brand itself if too many lacklustre games are released, and this might actually be what we're seeing. The name "Final Fantasy" is overexposed, and as a result, it doesn't really tell you anything about the game or it's quality anymore.

TheTurnipKing wrote:

Coconut Bob wrote:I'm playing through FFVII again at the moment on my PSP and I'm loving it, random battles are more irritating than ever and feel like a really dated concept but the overall game is just as playable and just as much fun as it ever was.

The battles basically ARE the game. Other than the battles, some shittastic minigames and some ridiculously basic exploration, everything else is just window dressing. Pretty window dressing, I grant, but window dressing nonetheless.

I honestly believe that FF7 could actually have been realised better in traditional media than as a game.

I meant as in the fact they are random. E.g. You're wandering around and then suddenly the screen spins and you're in a battle. I think the actual turn based battle system is fine and enjoyable whilst the Materia system is still for me the best magic system in any FF game I've played. Its just frustrating when you're going somewhere and constantly are being thrown into battles when you just want to get into the story. Can say that about most JRPG's though. Give me real-time battles any day of the week.