>Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu has a long history with Square Enix, but he singles out one moment in the company's history as the worst time. 17 years before it merged with Enix, Uematsu joined Square in 1986 and worked there until 2004. After his departure, he's continued to compose for Square Enix games alongside other music projects, so it's safe to say that he's been affiliated with the company for decades.>On the NOBIYO To Isshoni podcast, Uematsu revealed that "Square collapsed after Sakaguchi left," as translated by Automaton Media and reported by Eurogamer. This refers to a period in the early 2000s, shortly before Square's merger with Enix, when Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi departed the company. Uematsu calls the situation after his departure "awful" and describes his own realization that he "should get away from here" following Sakaguchi's exit.
>>721727749A guy makes one bad movie and then he's ousted from his own company
>>721727749Hasn't square been known to do the most retarded shit right after finding success? And they do it repeatedly.
>>721727924The story behind this movie is so shady, so I am thinking it was a scheme to bankrupt the company
>>721728097They think of themselves as innovators and that may have been true once upon a time. But it's more like they're shooting in the dark than reinventing the wheel with most projects.
>>721727749It was already falling apart in the late 90s, but yeah, once Sakaguchi left, most of the holdouts also left and formed their own companies.
>>721727924Why not make it GameCube exclusive?
>>721728294The company probably relied too much on sakaguchi and drove him like a workhorse until he decided to sabotage everything. That's how it usually works.in businesses.
>>721727749this is literally EXACTLY what I thought the reason was>Spirits Within is such a massive financial flop that it causes the merger with Enix, and knocked Sakaguchi so far down the corporate ladder that he just ended up leaving>immediately after he leaves the projects start getting dumber and dumber, the financial decisions make less sense, and final fantasy gets worse with every subsequent gameI'm still kinda surprised that the company is able to stay afloat, but there must be some sort of gooner or whale fanbase out there that is the only reason they aren't dead yet
>>721728667Brand recognition is the most powerful spell in the world. Everyone knows final fantasy, and if everyone knows it then you should buy it or you're missing out. And if it's bad then the lesser known rpgs MUST be worse because it's final fantasy.
>>721728667It looks like that basically everyone with a head quit while the retards got in charge. Nomura is definitively one of these retards that needs to be told noIf you look at their games, projects, etc. since after Sakaguchi quit, everything got bloated to all fuck, let's create the Fabula Nova Crystallis project and announce 3 billion games for it before they're even made, and it'll have blackjack and hookers! and etc. and it just fucking keeps happening and their AAA projects are ridiculously wasteful and doesn't have a single shred of fucking subtlety in them
>>721729013>hire cc2 who know exactly how to make multi volume games (.hack)>fire them>but keep the tuned up //gu battle system>fuck up everything cc2 laid the ground work for>blame fans
>>721727924He actually left to take responsibility for the disappointing sales of FFX.
>>721727749Everyone knows this. Their new wave of directors and creative teams are terrible. Nomura, YoshiP, Tabata, Asano, all of them. And on top of that, their localization teams have been getting worse and worse.
>>721729013The only real dev left at Square Enix is KawazuFinal Fantasy is kind of dead now but SaGa is in golden age currently
>>721729013I dont know man, I blame the times more than the men. Yea some real elites like fromsoft and Nintendo still sell 30 million. 99.9% of RPGs dont though, no matter how good they are. Yoshi P is the sad future consumers want.
>>721729303Ironically, the smaller projects at Square are probably some of their better projects, while the big ones are an unholy disaster that they should just fuck off and stop makingI wonder how much Sakaguchi is to blame for Spirits Within, because after that they clearly tried making Spirits Within several times after
Look, I love Nobuo Uematsu and his work. Seriously, the guy's a genius and he proves it.But it's not like his experience with the former director Sakaguchi is 100% accurate and universal. Sakaguchi did his job well, but suffered from his own mistakes, too. SQUARE didn't really recover from his mistakes and their own following mistakes, either.And it depends on what "recover" necessarily means to YOU; after all, they still make profit and that's most important to businessmen.Plus, do you know anyone who is 66-years-old and reminiscing about their elite business life in a billion-dollar famous company? Does that 66-year-old sound... detailed?
>>721728667Putting it all on Sakaguchi is stupid and ignored context. During this whole shitshow, Square ousted ITS OWN PRESIDENT for a banker/real estate broker. Their former prez went on to found Alpha Dream.Matsuno left from getting screwed. Takahashi left from getting screwed. Kikuta left because he got screwed. Over two dozen dev studios formed from 1995 to 2008 were Square devs packing up and leaving.
>>721727749Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were great games that had the misfortune of being Xbox exclusives. The both got forgotten because barely anyone especially the Japanese ever played them
>>721729303Tokita is still there but they refuse to give him fuck all because he didn't play office politics.
>>721729963I love how many retards on /v/ never worked for companies before and still blame the fall guys. In this very thread you have fags blaming SEs collapse STILL on Sakaguchi.
>solves random encounters in your path
>>721729990I still consider Lost Odyssey to be the true Final Fantasy 12
>>721729210The fact that Rebirth was so much worse than Remake and all the worst parts of Remake were filler that doesn't match up with the content style shown in CC2 builds says it all. They threw CC2 under the bus to save face over the stupidity of the project internally.
>>721729303>but SaGa is in golden age currentlyHow come every game after RS2 was lackluster then?
>>721730110People still say Enix ruined Square when the merger led to Enix getting gutted while Square continued as normal. It's insane.The Gooch wasn't perfect, and he also wasn't a bumbling retard. His departure was just one of many talented devs getting fucked by the bean counters.
>>721730264That's just like, your opinion dawg
>>721729407Final Fantasy has been complete and utter shit for 20+ years. How is that the times and not the men? The men could have regurgitated Final Fantasy as Final Fantasy and faggots like me would have eaten it up for the last 20 years instead of bitching and complaining about these terrible games with horrible experimental gameplay, and stories, worlds, music, and characters that don't even compare to 25 year old games
Square as a company nearly killed itself with constant retardation until Rad Racer and Final Fantasy saved them. Those successes led to a ton of highly talented kids flocking to the company and making great games. Management only got worse, which led to all that talent fleeing and Square having a mediocre rep among industry people. Now it's mostly tech kids rather than artists who work there, and a combination of out of touch senior staff and terrible business sense is why we're here now.
>>721729210.hack was awful. Single player MMOs are the worst games made. Origins was almost perfect in every way but the .hack combat made it destined for the flop bin of history.
>>721730559Square's been putting out FF-tier games as spinoffs and low budget titles for a lot of that time, too. It's specifically the corporate rot and dipshits in charge that make their big money games shit.
>>721730614You're not wrong, they suck at combat systems. But they're great at cinematography, which is what Square was looking for. FF7 never had "good" gameplay, just very inoffensive and customizable stuff. Going to CC2 made sense.
>>721730559They definitely could have made better games. Im just saying they wouldnt have been in a better position for it. FF14 and gacha mobile would still be the cash cow holding the company afloat.The difference between a good selling RPG and a bad one is 2m sales. Thats what FF14 makes in 2 months.FF11 was the end. After square tasted that every game after was designed to funnel you into their MMO or Gacha were the real money is made. Yoshi P was destined to drive from the start.
Under Sakaguchi they put out games year after year and sometimes multiple releases. They experimented as well (sometimes to their detriment) so they weren't just releasing the same game over and over gain.
>>721730767I just dont get why I cant have a cinematic rollslop. FF16 was so close just to fuck up it up hard 15% in.Its ALWAYS one or the other. Origins ironically comming the closest but still too far away.That said I haven't played Kingdom Hearts 2.
>>721731285Good point. There's that dumb allegory about the photography/ pottery professor. Half the class are graded on quality, other half quantity. The quantity students end up making better art.Making games makes you better at making games. This is my biggest piss off about modern gaming.Everyone says games are too advanced now but GotD Fromsoft still pull it off. I wish more studios followed.Look at this release schedule and they missed tactics. Imagine having that.
>>721731285Part of why he was a good producer is because he pushed hard but refused to be controlling. Tetsuya Takahashi has talked multiple times about how he would get into fights only to get the greenlight when he explained why he cared so much. Sakaguchi realized he was fucking up Chrono Trigger, stepped back and asked younger staff to come in and give it a shot.Dude shouldn't be the only voice in a room, but people are right to give him props. Excellent leadership skills.
>>721730110I wasn't BLAMING Sakaguchi for Square being shit now, if anything I think he was one of the key people who kept that company on-track, and I'm saying that him understandably leaving along with several others who were sick of the bullshit left the company in shambles, but that is tthe fault of all the people who remained and those who took over from the people who left
>>721729230*FFIX
>>721731285I didn't know he tard wrangled Nomura for KH1
Won't he get in trouble for airing dirty laundry?
>>721734596The guy is 66 and most likely set for life.
>>721733857Was he in charge of 8, becuase 8 is what definitely killed 9's sales.
Are you guys gonna read the interview or just make up shit based on what you about square?He specifically mentions that sakaguchi left and no one was in charge, but SE managed to pull its shit together after all
>>721734873We don't read articles here, this is a headline only zone
>>721734596He's said he was composing his FINAL GAME for a decade now.
>>721728667>Spirits Within is such a massive financial flop that it causes the merger with EnixThey were planning the merge before the movie flopped, actually. Enix was even hesitant on the merge after seeing Square fuck itself over after the movie.
>>721734116A lot of people tard wrangled Nomura during KH1's development (too bad nobody does it with modern KH games)I give him props for being a one-man dev team during entire first year of development, but he only did original concept + character & monster designs + storyboards
>>721734116KH1 really did feel like Squaresoft’s last hurrah. It feels so different from every other KH game. I like all the other KH games, but KH1 is something truly special.
>>721735431KH2's combat was good but it was a giant step back in a lot of ways but it was still a fine game. Other KH games are just lazy and have tons of garbage elements
>>721735360Nomura was one of the lead writers of KH1 too, albiet he had Jun Akiyama (the writer of Vagrant Story) helping him out with that.
>>721727749All this proves is that the old guys like Sakaguchi continually ignored teaching the younger staff members and at worst sabotaged their efforts to keep the company dependent.
>>721733857If that's true, then that is fucking retarded because FF9 is one if not the best of all FF games and the only reason it sold "badly" (in comparison to FF7) is that it came out very late for PSX. Some retarded casuals might have skipped it for the visual design, but who the fuck cares what they think?
>>721735561I personally feel like KH2 is vastly overrated nowadays. Yes, the combat mechanics are insanely good, but so many flaws of the game and downgrades from KH1 are overlooked. People obviously like to point out that the level design of KH2 was a massive downgrade, which is true, but there’s also the fact that the writing was significantly worse with a weaker script that had lots of cringe moments, and also the fact that the cutscene direction is absolutely abysmal, which feels odd considering that KH1 has good cutscene direction.I blame speedrunners hyping up the games tech who ignore the fact that the game is so easy that you don’t need to use any of that advanced tech for 90% of the game. These people seem like the just like the superbosses rather than considering the game as a whole.
>>721735934>younger staff membersno a lot of those younger members left and established their own studios leaving only retards like Kitase, Nomura, and Toriyama behind
>>721727749>Square collapsed after Sakaguchi leftYea no fucking shit
>>721727749>tldrPost tits retard.
>>721735934Sakaguchi is an incredibly talented man, but his biggest failing was always that he had a massive ego. You have to be insanely high off of your own fumes to think that pouring millions into The Spirits Within was a good idea.
>>721736126>I personally feel like KH2 is vastly overrated nowadaysNah the combat really is that fun. No one makes games that play like KH so there's nothing to fill that niche
>>721735680No he wasn'tHe was never a writer for KH games until DaysKH1 was done by:>Nojima (he's always hit or miss)>Akiyama (literally begged Nomura to work on KH because he's a massive Disney fan, at least entire Tarzan world was written by him - too bad Matsuno called him back for FFXII and then he never worked on KH series ever again after being stuck in Versus mines)>Watanabe (another hit or miss guy - did fantastic work with Yuna in FFX but then he's also behind FFXIII trilogy's story)And then Nobumoto (screenwriter for Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy) tard wrangled those three to deliver on Disney-like story with FF characters.CoM was written by Watanabe, KH2 was written by Nojima.And only starting from Days did Nomura took the reigns and wrote most of the script for all following games (although he does get assistance from other writers sometimes).
>>721735360>>721735431>>721735561Reminder that it was Sakaguchi who convinced Nomura to make the story more complex, as he thought it would fail if it didn't. The first game would have just ended with Dragon Maleficient or Chernabog. Every Ansem, Org XIII, Nobody shit you see, you can thank Sakaguchi for it.
>>721729303Ito is the guy who made all the gameplay of the good games, they just don't let him make anything.
>>721727749AKSHUALLY It was definitely this.
>>721736354But the game is joke-tier easy even on Critical, so you only get to get the full mileage out of the combat system when you fight the post-game superbosses. It’s literally a case of “it gets good 20 hours in”.
>>721736496Ansem was cool. Org XIII was fine in KH2. Everything after that holy shit it's so fucking bad
>>721736754>But the game is joke-tier easy even on Criticalit's fun.>so you only get to get the full mileage out of the combat system when you fight the post-game superbosses.if every boss fight was like that it would be a chore to play. Kh1 is easy as well so don't where you're trying to go with this
>>721727924I didn't think Spirits Within was a bad movie
>>721736439>He was never a writer for KH games until DaysDays was so bad. At least I know why now>And only starting from Days did Nomura took the reigns and wrote most of the script for all following games (although he does get assistance from other writers sometimes).Makes sense. Only Nomura could come up with "Xehanort can spy on you if you have an X on your clothes"
>The X-Blade some call it Kai but no matterNo one else ever calls it Kai after this scene
>>721736886>Kh1 is easy as wellYeah, but not “none of the story bosses are even remotely challenging except Demyx and Xaldin” level easy.
Sakaguchi completely mogged FFXVI with a no budget mobile game.
>>721727749We need someone to post more videos of Tifa snapping necks with her legs, that was really hot.
>>721737091I've heard that Nomura is IRL friends with Sakurai and Kojima, but I was never able to confirm it (so it's probably a lie)Even then, he is obsessed with making fancy trailers and then subverting the expectations with retarded twists - almost like Kojima. That one dialogue between Xehanort and Eraqus in Land of Departure about X-Blade was featured in few trailers but those never had in-game subs, so everyone assumed they're talking about Keyblade. Fast forward to game's release and you get this dumb Kai thing that only exists to fuck with people who watched the trailers.
>>721737007I do wonder how Nomura comes up with have these crazy plot points that he comes up with in the later games.I’m assuming it’s because he tries to canonically explain everything, so he bends over backwards to try and retroactively make sure the stories of his games don’t contradict earlier games.
>>721736126A lot of the mob encounter design is worse, and gets copy pasted more often.Great boss fights, though.>>721736496Ansem as he existed in KH1 was just a stock Square villain ala Culex and helped make the Disney x Square angle feel more substantial.
>>721729963>Their former prez went on to found Alpha Dream.It's crazy how many companies came out of Square, and all of them released good games. The Mario & Luigi series are the best Mario RPGs by a long shot.
>>721737681Nomura IS friends with Kojima. They’ve taken pictures together, and they’ve likely influenced eachother. Hence why KH is basically Metal Gear: Disney edition.
>>721737923>all of them released good gamesNo. Some of those devs sucked. You just don't know about them because they released bad games and died.
>>721727749Because without THE GOOCH square is nothing. He was the Shogun and the devs where his Samurais. That's how the japs work.
>>721737916Ansem is basically Ultimecia from FFVIII, except with Sephiroth’s appearance. He even does the same “possess people and manipulate others while operating from the shadows” tactic that Ultimecia does.
>>721727924>badgtfo normie
>>721729963>Matsuno left from getting screwed.Matsuno's story will always be the craziest SE story to me. Dude had half his team leave to join Sakaguchi at Mistwalker, then he just refused to work for months, had a nervous breakdown and then just left SE. Didn't even take a vacation to recuperate, just wanted to disappear from there.
>>721737696>I do wonder how Nomura comes up with have these crazy plot points that he comes up with in the later games.He only thinks one game ahead, but I'm too lazy to look up through 500+ interviews to find the exact one where he says it. Should be somewhere among early 2010s ones.His mood for plot changes all the time based on media he consumes - during late 00s he really liked armored shit with capes so he designed Keyblade Armor for KH2 secret ending and later on made that Batman figure. Nowadays he's into Norse mythology so you get all that Norse shit in mobile KH games. Same with his preference in design - his 00s were all about belts and zippers while nowadays he's all about plaid.>I’m assuming it’s because he tries to canonically explain everythingNah, he doesn't. You can poke through plotholes as early as KH1 (so not even the earliest KH written by other people is safe from plotholes) and some of them are never explained and probably never will.>so he bends over backwards to try and retroactively make sure the stories of his games don’t contradict earlier games.Once again, not really - a lot of times he just drops the old plotlines and pretends they never happened. See that DDD cutscene as example where Axel meets with Zexion and both are chill to see each other:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcc5A8rd7X4...even though Axel told Riku Replica to choke Zexion to death right in front of him during CoM:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7aA58YQCsE
>>721738634Didn't he break down during FF12 too? Maybe he just fucking hates working with a team
>>721727924Sad that this movie is better than most garbage made today.
>>721727924The ironic part is that it wasn't even bad.
>>721736567you do not mess with coomers and loyal fans that love their fanservice simple as
>>721727924It genuinely destroyed Squaresoft. That, combined with FF8 being worse than FF7 by a lot.
>>721728294That is retarded. It's a bad movie.
>>721739428It was hyped as a revolutionary, game changing movie that would change the way films were made forever, so when it just turned out to be a mid sci-fi movie, the disappointment was immeasurable. There are plenty pieces of media that are alright in their own right, but are judged harshly because they had to live up to impossible expectations. Ironically, KH3 was one of those pieces of media.
>>7217396808 was still one of the best selling PS1 games of all time, and was generally well received despite some people having quibbles with it.“FF is dead” discourse didn’t really enter full swing until after 10.
>>721730179I finally got back to playing it recently, I'm enjoying the 2nd half but dimengeon starts feeling like a slog eventually, granted as I finally get the gang back together and have better offensive options to target weaknesses it might go back to being cool.That said the targeting really likes to fuck with you.>oh you should by all means be able to draw a curve to hit 6 enemies fuck you here's 2 the others just don't count lmao
>>721728667Square lives on the ashes of the FF7(90's) eraFF8 didn't even sell that well
>>721739130Officially, he left for "health reasons", but it was also reported that he refused to work until Square resolved the issue of everyone leaving to follow Sakaguchi.
>>721739967The sales of the next two games suffered because of FF8
>>721739967>“FF is dead” discourse didn’t really enter full swing until after 10.I'd argue it didn't really start until 13. That's when "FF is dead" really started and FF never recovered
>>721727749>when Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi departed the company. Uematsu calls the situation after his departure "awful" and describes his own realization that he "should get away from here" following Sakaguchi's exit.Actually>Everyone knew shit was about to go south around 2000 and people were leaving before sakaguchi ever did.>Gooch's movie was going over-budget >They had no true money making IPs besides FF at the time.>Relying mainly on Playstation and getting into a petty fight with Nintendo left Square unprepared for Gen 6. The increased amount of dev. manpower and time meant more money was going to be needed. FF and some lesser selling properties weren't going to cut it.>Enix merger was in discussions because of this as both companies faced the same issue.***Gooch's movie bombs***>everyone panics>merger talks are on hold, Enix doesn't want to join forces with the toxic dumpster fire.>gooch fired, movie studio shut down, more staff leaveUematsu likes to rewrite history because he's still loyal but sakaguchi killed Square with Spirits Within. It took Sony buying stocks and the success of XI, X and KH1 to dig them out of the hole the movie put them in and for the merger to go through.
>>721740091>FF8 didn't even sell that wellIt outsold 7 and is still one of the best selling FF games to this day. 9 was the one that underperformed.
>>721727749Uematsu-sama, squaresoft made the most genre defining games till this day in record speed and your score for those games will forever be remembered. I thank and applaud you for everything you have done.
>>721740251>is still one of the best selling FF games to this dayX surpassed it. FF8 only well initally because of FF7 hype
>>721728667SAKAGUCHI HAD A FUCKING 3D CG STUDIO BUILT IN HAWAII, WHERE IT'S EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE TO LIVE AND RUN THINGS, EVEN IN CALIFORNIA.
>>721739725It's not about the quality of the movie, it's about huge investments into CGI movies production
>>721740181>Relying mainly on Playstation and getting into a petty fight with Nintendo left Square unprepared for Gen 6.tendie spotted. Gamecube was a joke very few people owned>>721740338>it's about huge investments into CGI movies productionbut Squeenix has been going all in moviegames for decades. So it wasn't a wasted investment
>>721739130That explains why he was never able to achieve anything huge outside of Square>wrote a plot for MadWorld (I guess it's okay but seeing that he wasn't asked to return for Anarchy Reigns probably says something)>worked on that one 3DS game with Level-5>that one failed Kickstarter (with original dev selling the rights and then going out of business and the second dev working only on licensed games and having no experience in making games of such caliber)And that's basically it - the rest is>two fucking Tactics Ogre remakes (and in both cases it was Hiroshi Minagawa, another ex-Quest dev who didn't have a meltdown and who stayed in the Square during all these years, who arranged everything for remakes and got Matsuno on the board by persuading Square to accept Matsuno's conditions)>scenario for Terra Battle (was asked by Sakaguchi)>scenarios for FFXIV (was asked by YoshiP)>the upcoming FFT remake
>>721727924>named Final Fantasy for the brand recognition this in of itself tanked the film. They were too afraid to brand it as an original IP but people went in with completely different expectations
>>721740164Tbf, the 7th gen was a rough era for JRPGs. The western market dominated back then and made Japan their bitch, which meant that traditional JRPGs were no longer popular. Pretty much every JRPG struggled because they either didn’t evolve or they tried too hard to capture a western audience.
>>721727749woah thats HUGE news. nobody could have predicted that answer. thats crazy.
>>721740450>tendie spotted. Gamecube was a joke very few people ownedSquare was not on their handheld platforms either, lil bro. They didn't start negotiations to bring FF back to nintendo until after gooch was fired.
>>721729990It’s been on my backlog since 2008 or whenever it released lol. One day I’ll play it but realistically I probably won’t
Reminder Remake and Rebirth sold well, reminder you lost.
>>721740450>but Squeenix has been going all in moviegames for decades. So it wasn't a wasted investmentThey created american studio Square Pictures and it was closed after the flop, Blitzkrieg on Hollywood failed miserably
>>721740450Square may have pioneered movie games in a sense, but believing you could take on Hollywood just because you made a few successful cinematic JRPGs is next level delusion. Guchi let the success of FFs 6, 7 and 8 go to his head.
>>721727749literally everybody knows that.
>>721740953>Guchihe was just a fall guy. Everyone in Square was in love with the idea
>>721741107I’m sure lots of people were at fault, but he certainly didn’t try to talk people down.The fact remains that it’s absolutely mindboggling that anyone could think that making a handful of successful games means that you’d be able to make one of the most expensive movies ever made and have it pay off. It’s not even the same medium.
>>721728667>I'm still kinda surprised that the company is able to stay afloat, but there must be some sort of gooner or whale fanbase out there that is the only reason they aren't dead yetThey're in the position of having MMO money so they never need to change. Also people buy SE's remakes/remasters even though they seem to be universally dogshit. For instance IDK who Ivalice Chronicles is supposed to be for, everyone interested in FFT is emulating the original on Duckstation or WotL on PPSSPP and IC seems to have a strange mix of stuff from the 2 games that lacks appeal to people who want to play either version of the game and it's releasing on the heels of LUCT which came with stuff like UI updates for PC. The pixel remasters are lacking content from previous re-releases and we can even go back to the DS remakes which were OK but rife with balance issues.Like an earlier guy said, they live on brand recognition. FF has been bad for way longer than it was ever good.
>>721740629Atlus maintained success in that time by not even putting a rat in that race. They just stuck to 6th gen consoles and handhelds.
>>721741414it was just prime boomer optimism of having a totally amazing foolproof idea that somehow completely fell flatit's a shame it was such a humongous fuckup to the point of exploding the company though (this came closer to killing prime square than any of the modern fuckups did to killing squeenix)
>>721737316Yeah, the next ff game needs execution moves
i quit on this boss when i was 7 or 8 because it was too hard. how much of the game was left?
>>721741552We're getting close to being able to replace X with XII on that pic.
>>721742502Not much? Aside from some side stuff you were pretty close to the end iirc.
>>7217425023-4 hours if you just wanna finish the story. Around 10 hours if you want ultimate weapons/aeons.
>>721727924it flopped i think, but it wasnt bad, i enjoyed watching it, even my boomer mother back in the day found the visuals eerie and fascinating.
>>721742502In terms of main story?>fight on airship against arms, legs and head of Sin>Seymour fight #3 inside Sin>fight against dad inside Sin>Aeons and a bug but who cares, those fights were impossible to loseLike 2-3 hours of content at most, way more if you consider side content and optional bosses
>>721727749square peaked with this, or chrono trigger, or xenogears.
>>721743035ff6/xeno/ff9 is the trifecta
it is a genuine shame what happened to square cause they made SHITLOADS of great RPGs for the SNES, ps1, and so on.
>>721741552>FF has been bad for way longer than it was ever good.If you take out the gaps between releases, no not even close lol. If we were talking about Square at large sure, but>the good FFs got butchered international releases or none at all>still there's like six that matter and fans have been split over them since the dawn of AOL
>>721741552Im so old.
>>721743161better to enjoy old games than new slop games not 1/10th as good.>square was so good they had literally over 10 different good RPG franchises
>>721728294>>721736997>>721738610>>721739335While the technical aspects can and should be lauded, the rest of it was literally just a science fiction snuff film with the Final Fantasy title slapped slapped on it.
>>721743035It’s impressive and ambitious for a game that came out in 1994, but there are way too many pointless party members that don’t get enough development. Plus, there’s all the asset reuse and the fact the balancing is wack.
>>721743598I was mad cause it was more "Starcraft" than it was "Final Fantasy".
>>721728323The issue here is that they don't really innovate that much. Most of their games are either derivative AAA slop (avengers, forspoken, FF XV and XVI) or good yet somewhat bland attempts at reproducing the good stuff they made back in the 90s (team asano games, remakes). The only somewhat unique games they've made in the last decade as far I remember are NEO TWEWY, Voice of Cards and Kingdom Hearts III, and even then, that last one is unique in the sense that it is a confusing mishmash that could have easily been designed by a fucking alien with severe mental retardation. So, yeah, Nomura.
>>721743685the Basilisk anime had less of a kill count than that shit, it was ridiculous.
Before the merger:>The Bouncer>Parasite Eve>Bushido Blade >Oh, and here's some mother fucking Final Fantasy games too, you adoring fans!After the Merger:>Final Fantasy >Final Fantasy Into Darkness>Final Fantasy Electric Boogaloo>Final Fantasy FUCKING BUY THIS SHIT YOU STUPID FANS>Gomennassai...please...we even have Final Fantasy Afterbirth! With Ubisoft Towers!>Final Fantasy Eleventy Thousand and 26. Please Look Forward to it.
>>721744382How does a franchise manage to be so bloated and overmilked, yet also make me feel like they haven't released anything of note for like 20 years? Is this how Fallout fans have felt since New Vegas came out?
I haven’t played any Square IPs aside from FF and KH. What other ones are worth playing, aside from those two?
>>721744382>Final fantasy: We're sick of making this fucking series but we need the money so buy it! >Final Fantasy: MORE FUCKING MMO SHIT >Final Fantasy: Fake Final Fantasy edition>Final Fantasy: The only decent Final Fantasy and it wasn't even made by SE edition
>>721745090The World Ends With You, Bravely Default, SaGa, Octopath Traveller, Nier, Dragon Quest, Mana.
>>721745231You mean Stranger of Paradise?
>>721745408Yes
>>721740898>reminder you lost.I didn't lose. I wanted those game to do well and i throughly enjoyed them.
pretty sure when amano dies it'll be tolkien only style onwards
>>721745408jack's game unironically > ff7 remake
>>721727749Square was never a good companythere once a time they were technically ahead of everyone with all cutting edge stuff . But that era was only last half a decade.Now almost AAA company can do the same if not better.
>>721730210it's basically FFX but without the retarded guide-selling stuff
>>721727749>as translated by Automaton Media and reported by Eurogamer>then stolen by us and rewritten by AICompetition in gaming journalist industry must be tough
>>721734716>8 is what definitely killed 9's salesCan you definitively prove this? Why did FFXV sell so much when FFXIII was panned for being a hallway simulator?
>>721745858>Was never a good company>They were better than their competion for half a decadeBased retard. Come on, now talk about how Chrono Trigger is actually a bad game because *insert vaguely intellectual sounding reason used to hide contrarianism*. You already posted the redditfrog, it's inevitable.
>>721745858They did make some great games, although I’ll admit that most of them were greater than the sum of their parts. Having Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura as composers on their projects was also a huge asset, as those two are genuine all time geniuses on the level of Beethoven when it comes to music. That helped a lot when it came to conveying the mood and tone of their games.
>>721745090Neir Automata is a shity incredibly repetitive ARPG that might be the best game I have ever played. DQ11 is everything everyone wanted from modern FF, except more cartoony.
>>721743035I liked 5 more and IMO 6 is where FF started to decline. People blame FF7 for kicking off FF's movie game era but it arguably started with 6.
>>721746165No, but there is an intresting pattern in launch numbers >>721731718
>>721736010>it came out very late for PSXSo did Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, over a year after FF9 in fact, and it's the 6th best selling PS1 game compared to FF9's 16th place
Losy Odyssey final boss theme timehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vbsI9xFuo8
>>721746697I haven't followed this argument at all but I can not express what a unstoppable hyperbolic force Harry Potter was at the time. Harry Potter everything flied of the shelves.
>>721746558I think the fact that 6 was more movie-like is exactly what impressed people about it back in the day. Even nowadays, it feels incredibly cinematic, and those cinematic elements mostly hold up. Can’t say I a huge fan of scenes like the Gesthal versus Kefka fight, which are just glorified cutscenes disguised as automated turn based battles though.7 and 8’s cinematic elements are even more impressive (especially 8’s).
It's crazy to think how Square was pumping out crazy new IPs every month or so that were doing something new and unique from late SNES to early PS2 and then immediately died after Sakaguchi left and they never recovered.
>>721743684I hated world of ruinis cool that it gives you more freedom to do whatever you want but you lose all the cool character interactions and dialogue of the first half as a resultthat's the reason why I didn't like Octopath Traveler that much either...
>>721734716He didn't make 8. Actually, he hated the direction square was taking with FF.He disliked how square was turning FF into realistic crap, leaving the fantasy, medieval, chibby characters in favor of more realistic characters in modern, futuristic worlds.FF9 was an attempt to go back to its roots, an anti FF8.It failed because FF8 sucked major dick and killed the interest people had for FF
>>721746663Which means what exactly? JRPG exists as a term for a reason, you didn't hear about American kids skipping school to buy the newest "Dragon Warrior" games.
>>721746904>I can not express what a unstoppable hyperbolic force Harry Potter was at the timeand yet two Final Fantasy games still outsold it, never mind the two Gran Turismo games as well as Tekken 3
>>7217470218 did really well though and was well recieved despite people having some complaints. 8’s cast is also more iconic than 9’s. And anyway, 8 was just continuing and evolving the aesthetic direction that 6 and 7 established. If Sakaguchi hated sci-fi so much, he wouldn’t have made FF7 dystopian sci-fi.
>>721727749>make kino at Square>founds his own studio after leaving>make nothing but mobile trash and fade into irrelevanceWhat causes this?
>>721728667The reason they're still around is because their financial woes are blown completely out of proportion. They're one of the few studios who have actually been outputting a healthy amount of old and new games every year for many years. They also invest into other platforms like Light Novel, manga and anime which give them considerable amount of money
>>721747415He did make Lost Odessey though, which is often considered an underrated hidden gem.
>>721747415I guess he just burned out after Lost Odyssey. Now, he just wants daddy SE to give him some change money, so he sucks them off despite everything they did to him.
>>721747415>>721747495Terra Battle was also popular
>>721747647>last storywhy did he release it on the fucking Wii?
>>721747021>FF8 sucked major dick and killed the interest people had for FFWhich is why most FF games released after FF9 had more in common with 8 than it and sold more than 9?
>>721747323>8’s cast is also as equally uniconic as 9’s.ftfyThough to be fair Im sure lightning ranks near the top so who knows what value that actually has.
>>721746978They're still pumping out new IPs. They're just not mega hits because the markets they target are oversaturated since the landscape of small scale games has grown.Remember the Diofield Chronicle? Triangle Strategy? I Am Setsuna? Various Daylight? Oninaki? Lost Sphear? That new action RPG they announced this year?
>>721730559I just want more 4 niggas in a row games that are of FF quality and not things like the new Trails remake where they charge $60 for a ps3 looking title... modern FF games have all the production value behind them but none of the fuckin fun
>>721747610He's apparently wanting to make a "Dark Fantasy" as his final game (possibly steering a Fantasian sequel to dark fantasy, but maybe something brand new?)I've no idea what a Sakaguchi dark fantasy game would look like.
>>721746907Those are fair points, my current opinions are with the gift of hindsight. That said, I do remember playing FFT and thinking FF would go that direction and being disappointed that it didn't, even at the time. It's not like I didn't enjoy the games though, I enjoyed FF up to and including X at which point I just moved on to other stuff. I've never played 8, never avoided it but it's one of those things I somehow ended up never playing.
>>721747964
>>721747415You just described most of boomer nip developers>leaves his former company after working in it for n years>founds his own studio after leaving or moves into another already formed studio (alternatively, goes to Kickstarter and tries to pitch a project using his name)>makes nothing worthy of mention or some outright failures that can't compare to his games from former companyAnd sure, some nip devs actually manage to succeed in new environment, but most fail to relieve their former glory
>>721747803The same could be asked of why he released Lost Odyssey on the fucking Xbox when the JRPG crowd has always been on Sony and Nintendo consoles.
>>721747964To be fair, Lightning has the advantage of 1) Square Enix shilling her for like a whole decade2) Not having that much competition1 to 3 has nondescript characters. Bartz is likable but forgettable, Shantotto isn't that relevant for most of XI, Vaan was literally made to be an spectator of the "Ashe and Balthier" show and most current fans haven't actually played the older games.
>>721748249He didn't get along with Kutaragi
>>721748249Microsoft offered his company a shit ton of money to release on their platform.Similar to why Square Enix released the 7 Remake games first on the Playstation (the first one, for like a year and a half before showing up on anything else) rather than multi-platform from the start.Bad in the long run for their games. But... money up front.
>>721747647Where's my fucking PC ports you gook.
>>721747647>lost odyssey>blue dragon>last story fantasianthat's a whole bunch of mediocre titles that you just listed off.
>>721746165FF7 was literally baby's first RPG for millions, people wanted FF7 part 2, they got FF8 which was very polarizing due the junction system and experimental shit it did.FF7 was an impossible follow up, a non FF example would State of Emergency from Rockstar, it was following up GTA 3 so it had nearly endless GTA comparisons when it was anything but.
>>721746697It was actually because FFX was revealed before IX was released and overshadowed in every way
>>721727924It would have been a smash hit if it included more “Bing Bing wahoo” references. I remember being so confused how they didn’t allude to video games at all.
>>721748412True, kek. Vaan is by far the most forgettable protagonist since Firion who most players could probably describe better. Such a weird direction to go.
>>721748693Thats some of but FF8s first disc may have been the top of the whole franchise. Its the fact it had no follow through.Id love to know from actual insiders what happened and why disk 1 is so different from 2-4. The story just gets schizophrenic.
>>721748693It does suck that 8 got the short end of the stick like that, because it did a lot of cool things and I feel the game is made more interesting by being so experimental. It also has some of my favourite aesthetics in any vidya ever.As you say though, comparisons to 7 were unavoidable, even though the game wasn’t even trying to be like 7 aside from the most superficial elements. Even worse is how 8 gets largely ignored by modern Square aside from the 2019 remaster, even though Squall is up there with Cloud as one of the franchise’s most iconic characters.
>>721748869>Remake>rebirth>SoP>NEO>Paranormasight
>>721740495I just love his work.
>>721749030IMO, the only really messy parts of the plot are in Disc 3. Esthar is easily the worst part of the game, redeemed mostly by the space stuff and the Ragnarok scenes.The real answer is that FFVIII was rushed due to Square juggling so many projects and resources being taken away by the Sprits Within. VIII is similar to Xenogears in a lot of ways: a flawed masterpiece that was kneecapped by limited resources and tight deadlines.
>>721748647Last Story is great but it was one of the last games released on Wii
>>721748693All you did was explain how FF8 -possibly- sold more copies than it deserved to. In contrast it sounds like FF9 simply couldn't get people to care about it.
>>721749374>Sprits WithinAnd now we come full circle. What a clusterfuck.
>>721749062>even though Squall is up there with Cloud as one of the franchise’s most iconic characters.this is only because of Kingdom Hearts. It has nothing to do with FF8
>>721749374The game was supposed to be 50% Squall and 50% Laguna culminating which makes much more sense in it's themes of Squall maturing into a leader and the general theme of legacy. Would have liked to play that version
>>721749542>talk about owning yourself anonWait until you find out you're in the minority lol
>>721741552>For instance IDK who Ivalice Chronicles is supposed to be for, everyone interested in FFT is emulating the original on Duckstation or WotL on PPSSPP and IC seems to have a strange mix of stuff from the 2 games that lacks appeal to people who want to play either version of the game and it's releasing on the heels of LUCT which came with stuff like UI updates for PC.I'm going to buy Ivalice Chronicles, and I'm not even totally sure why. I'm largely against remakes and remasters and try to avoid them like crazy. I waited six months for them to drop Denuvo from the DQ3 2D-HD remake and was glad I didn't pay money for that shit.Ivalice Chronicles seems to be a potentially better version of the PS1 version of the game, and with mods, might make it the definitive version to play. I dislike War of the Lions and I dislike most of the fan romhacks of the PS1 version because they oftentimes lose the spirit of the game because they simply found it too easy because they played it two dozen times. I guess I'm getting Ivalice Chronicles because it might be the best way to play the PS1 version of the game because you can pick and choose mods to your liking. Maybe it's an act of protest against the FFHacktics community, although, The Lion War is okay, even though I have some minor complaints about it.I also have more money than I know what to do with, so I'm willing to pay a shit company money for a cashgrab on what might literally be my favorite game of all time.
>>721748694People still owned PS1s and likely at an exponentially higher rate than PS2s. Anyone who cared about FF would have bought both unless one of those games simply didn't appeal to them and continued not to even after release.
>>721748873The closest thing Vaan (and anyone besides Balthier lol) ever gets resembling a memorable character moment is that short scene in which he asks Fran her age. I like XII, and the story by itself is kind of interesting, but everyone besides the funny leading man and maybe vayne is dull as dirt.
>>721727749He wasted a ton of money making a stupid movie.Still people continued to buy the games.FFXIII killed the good name of the brand,
>>721749618Perfection, no notes.
>>721749801>what makes you think i give a fuck?You tell me.>go fuck offSorry lil bro, this isn't the safe space you wish it was.
>>721749615Well, most current fallout fans think 4 and the tv show are good, and they are wrong. Same with most "gamers" in general, who think Cyberpunk is a good game.
>>721749708The PS2 sold gangbusters. The problem with FFX being shown before FFIX was that X looked like a graphical evolution of VII and VIII while IX veered into cartoon aninals territory. If played for the graphics and presentation X would completely mog IX.
>>721749708>>721749708>People still owned PS1s and likely at an exponentially higher rate than PS2sHow old are you? PS2 was the best selling console ever. Outselling the PS1 by a whoping 60m. Last I heard the switch 2 is at 1/6 that number.
>>721750141>they are wrongIn your opinion.
>>721730210I'm so beyond hoping for another good Final Fantasy game that I've moved on to hoping for a Lost Odyssey 2.
>>721749718>Hot sweaty Vierra Bunny sex!
>>721749582It did feel weird that when Squall and Laguna finally met, Laguna was just so casual about the whole dream transfer thing, and the elephant in the room of Squall being Laguna’s son just wasn’t addressed. I do feel like during Disc 3, the Laguna segments get shorter and shorter, which screams “cut content” to me. The segment of him exploring the Lunatic Pandora in Disc 1 is easily the longest and most fleshed out Laguna segment. Discs 1 and 2 feel like they have a lot of breathing room and are able to take their time to flesh things out, but then once you hit Esthar in Disc 3, the plot goes on fast forward. I will say that Disc 4 is incredible though. Even if it is just Adel + Ultimecia’s Castle.
>>721728667>massive financial flop that it causes the merger with EnixPAUSES the merger, anon. It didn't cause the merger. This is extremely, vitally important. The merger was in talks since around 2000 or before. The movie's flop caused the merger to be delayed, due to the risks associated. It wasn't until Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts were both massive financial successes and Squaresoft was solvent again that the merger was then put through.
>>721727749>Uematsu revealed that "Square collapsed after Sakaguchi left,"Revealed kek, we've known about it for as long as it happened. I guess it's nice to have ""official"" confirmation? In other news, water is wet.
I hope FF takes a page from SaGa EB combat. Turn based combat perfection trapped in budget project.
>>721750243First 15% of FF16 was my dream game. Rebirth was also a ton of fun. It would be foolish to put faith in them but they have all the parts now. Its at least plausible in a way it never was a decade ago.
>>721750181>The PS2 sold gangbustersHow many people owned a PS2 vs PS1s when FFX finally released?
>>721750614Is emerald beyond good? I haven't played any SaGa game and I was planning to play romancing 2.
>>721750191>PS2 was the best selling console eversee >>721750693
>>721750718I love it but it's a SaGa game that clearly had a $100 budget. If you can find it on sale it's worth trying.
>>721731285>final fantasy 7, 8, 9, 10 in a four year periodImagine any studio having that kind of output today
>>721750181>>721750191Here's some additional context about PS1 vs PS2 sales around the time of FF9 and FFX's launches
>>721750693Probably around 10 million FFX was a system seller. FFIX wasn't as it got overshadowed by FFX
>>721741552Fixed pic for you. 20 years ago is now closer to 2006 than it is 2001. You're getting old, anon.
>>721748081Octopath and Bravely fill the classic FF niche decently though.
>>721751231FFVII was the best selling FF title on its cknsole and released while the PS1 was in its infancy. That's what you call a system seller.
>>721749249I was with him as well until FFXIILike, I have no idea who caused the game to be so awful (Matsuno "retired" only a year prior to game's release and Kawazu was there only for a year, and even then both of them have similar tastes in fucking up their games with some retarded design choices) when the potential for a mainline FF with Ivalice was so great. And I'm not even talking about Gambit system (I just didn't use it and played the game manually), it's more about the story and gameplay.>Matsuno makes a story around Yugoslavian wars (Tactics Ogre), War of the Roses (FFT), and a mystery story where the answer to main question doesn't exist (Vagrant Story)>also Matsuno - makes a story designed around two twin brothers, one is good and one is evil (also there are some references to Ancient Rome but I can barely count them)>main cast is the most useless one I've seen in the series, I think even FF6 and FF8 parties achieved more than two street rats, Han Solo who traded Chewbacca for a Playboy bunny, MacGuffin queen and the good twin brother - FFXII's story is carried HARD by NPCs who actually do all the important stuff and decisions (fucking Ashe failing to fucking CHOOSE at the top of Pharos is just the epitome of her MacGuffin status)>Judges were wasted and I couldn't give a damn about Vane>License board was awful and unfun, I heard IZJS fixed it but I couldn't bother to spend another 200-300+ hours to confirm>Espers were fucking useless, I think I only used Belias at the start and then normal enemies kept killing them in few hits before they could do anything of worth>same for Quickenings - they were nice at the start of the game but they were just "damage" think and I stopped using them at all once I got decent magic>Bazaar system is awful, funny how FFTA2 fixed it and made it logical and non-retarded>fuck the Great Crystal's dungeon design, if I wanted to replay Wizardry IV I'd just do so
>>721727924Square made a lot of stinker movies on the side. Spirits Within inexplicably had a budget for more money than actually exists in the world.
>>721751234>Probably around 10 millionNow how many PS1 were sold by then? Keep in mind that in >>721751231 Sony had sold 100 million by 2005 which would be a little under 10 million sold every year>FFX was a system sellerQuestionable. GT3: A-Spec released about 3 months before FFX and ended up with over twice the sales
>>721728667The company stays afloat because they are one of leading companies in manga and anime industry. They also publish books in Japan. Immediately after final fantasy movie flop, they earned millions by producing Full Metal Alchemist anime through 2000s.Some of the manga/anime franchises published by Square Enix: Full Metal Alchemist, Soul Eater, A Certain Magical Index, Kakegurui, Reincarnated as a Slime, Goblin Slayer, Black Butler, My Happy Marriage, Yamada and 7 Witches, Watamote
>>721752003The wii sold even more than the PS1 while and it was filled with cheap games no one remembers. Install base doesn't mean much when the audience wants to play something else. The switch has the same problem.>GTAYou can have more than one system seller. GTA and FF cater to different audiences
>>721727749long history? more like song history lmao gottem
>>721751231Thats intresting, wonder why? Must of been a third world thing.
>>721751542Zodiac version does gives you x2 and x4 speed options which are a huge quality of life improvement as the base game was just way too slow. I can't imagine playing that game without the gambits though,no wonder you hated it. Setting up your characters and letting the combat play itself is makes the whole thing just go way smoother and the game is clearly designed around itFF12 wasn't my favorite ever but I played for 100 hours and I definitely enjoyed it.
>>721747964>Sakurai considered Bartz for Smash but was worried nobody would know who he wasI'll die mad about this.
>>721752549He was right tho
>>721752281>The wii sold even more than the PS1 while and it was filled with cheap games no one remembersSo FF9 is even worse than Wii shovelware, got it>Install base doesn't mean much when the audience wants to play something elseYou don't understand what the argument is about. People claim FF9 was a victim of circumstances but all you're doing is proving it simply couldn't hold its own on its own merit.
>>721727924Anon, that's all it takes to ruin a creators career whether its videogames or movies.
>>721743598it has the same theme as FF7
>>721752003Not that guy and I don't really care about IX's sales, but gee, I wonder why a vanilla ass normie racing game sold more than a JRPG, truly a mystery for the ages. VII was the exception, not the rule buddy>>721752606Look I love Cloud, but Terra makes so much sense. VI actually came out on a Nintendo console for once.
>>721752549Thats fucking bullshit! Especially as they probably added FE character #27. I now want a Firion addition. Make him weak but have a sword that absorbs health.
>>721752436and you'd think a cheapo system with a reduced price game would be the perfect selling point for a game like FF9 which was supposedly crippled by FF8, FFX and the PS2 but more likely people simply weren't interested in it.
>>721752780Yea, I was thinking now do Madden.
>>721752606Shut up. Shut your whore mouth.To be fair Cloud is better known but Bartz was actually on a goddamn Nintendo system and 5 is well regarded among fans as having the best job system of the mainline games. There would've been so much potential.
>>721752780>I wonder why a vanilla ass normie racing game sold more than a JRPG, truly a mystery for the agesThat was posted in response to the claim that FFX was a system seller. Which game do you think sold more systems?
>>721752913I loved FF9, put it in my top 3. I can't imagine how I never noticed its literal 15 second random battle load times. Thats an unplayable game today.
>>721739967>8 was still one of the best selling PS1 games of all timeGames usually sell because of PR or what came before it. In this case FFVIII was piggybacking of the critical success of FFVII, which was most Westerners first Final Fantasy and weren't familiar with how each game is an entirely different world with different mechanics. I remember being hyped for FFVIII and got it at EB Games in mid September, came home, and was just utterly puzzled with all the bad decisions they made with the game, though I was blown away by the CGI cutscenes, even if it was borderline uncanny in its focus of realism. And I wasn't even new to the franchise. I had played FFVI (III) before that on the SNES so I was one of the few who that the franchise changes its gameplay mechanics.
>>721752913Argie zoomer here, most people I knew at the time owned a chipped PS2, not 1. Anyone older than my generation as far a I know owned either a bootleg famicom or a bootleg sega genesis.>>721753053I mean, yeah, it sold less than Gran Turismo. I still think it was a system seller, in the same way Bloodborne is a PS4 system seller despite most normies only really playing GTA V, COD and FIFA on it
>>721752212>they are one of leading companies in manga and anime industry. >Full Metal Alchemist, Soul Eater, A Certain Magical Index, Kakegurui, Reincarnated as a Slime, Goblin Slayer...NGL this has got to be one of the most basic bitch slop anime lists I've ever seen.
>>721753385>one of the most basic bitch slop anime lists I've ever seen.Exactly
>>721752935If they were gonna use characters from the games that appeared on Nintendo consoles I argue Cecil, Rosa and Kain from FF4 would be the best choices. FF4 had memorable characters and one of the better storylines for being an early entry in the series
>>721752606I love FFV, and all of the SNES games, but damn is this the truth. And I know some will say "Well, if thats the case then why did Sakurai put a bunch of literal who Fire Emblem characters into the game?" And that ultimately comes down to how likely that opinion was influenced by what SquareEnix would say, and they'd say "Nobody in the West outside of weirdo autistics online know who the fuck Bartz is"
>>721753385Basic bitch slop is what prints money.
The Spirits Within and its consequences have been a disaster for square-enix
>>721753385Look, I mostly agree, but if Full Metal Alchemist of all things is "slop" then it seems the whole medium su->Steins;Gate pic>probably thinks SG is actually goodOhhhh, okay, I see. Let me guess, your other favorite anime are Fate, Elfen Lied and Higurashi.
>>721739130>>721740495I think FF12 development made him sick of dealing with higher ups with no game design/making knowledge who would come in and demand changes on a whim. Such as changing the main character from Basch to Vaan. Sakaguchi was also no longer there to vouch for ideas to the other higher ups or give advice. FFT was originally like ogre battle until Sakaguchi told him to make it more like tactics ogre.He seems cool to work on projects if they give him his desired creation space. If FFT 2 gets the green light I wouldn't be too surprised if he ends up writing the story and maybe having an influence on the game mechanics.
>>721753512pretty much. normies only know cloud and sephiroth
>>721739967>>721753079Reminder Devil May Cry 3 sold less than DMC2, by triple the amount.One is regarded as the best DMC to date while the other is regarded as the absolute worst.So yes FF8 was dogshit compared to 7
>>721753385I noticed you didn't say they were bad though.
>>721728294Nomura actually put commentary in this in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Eraqus is an anagram for Swuare. Its Sakaguchi. And he fucked up raising his students/surrogate children and tried to murder his surrogate son and everyone had to deal with the fallout.
>>721752609No FF9 sold well it just didn't sell as well as 7, 8 or 10 and is now fondly remembered and even preferred. The circumstance was that X was revealed before causing people to overlook it when at the time graphics and presentation were marketed by system manufacturers and good looking games were even given preference by them
>>721753512This, when it comes to popular FF characters the only ones people could name. Like actual normalfags ones, are FF7 ones
I don't understand how Square Enix can make so many financial blunders and not face any consequences. Do the shareholders not care? Square's quarterly report could be summarized as "we killed the golden goose, oopsies", yet nothing happened. Maybe it's Japanese culture, because in America shareholders would demand some sort of change, even a PROMISE of change. But Square Enix does not promise change.
>>721753304>most people I knew at the time owned a chipped PS2, not 1How many millions of people do you personally know and can prove owned a chipped PS2 between 2000 and 2001? Do you even know how many PS1s were in circulation in the world at that time?>I still think it was a system sellerInstead of presuming anything how about proving your argument with data rather than making vague anecdotal claims? Or do you think a console selling 6.37 million consoles is a notable high watermark when that console ended up selling over 160 million total?
>>721753385Thank you.>>721753779>Elfen Lied Guilty pleasure, along with Dandan.
>>721753474Counterpoint: 4 was good but I liked 5 better so I want Bartz. That said, I do think Kain could be pretty cool. It's been years since I've played Smash so I might be wrong but I don't think there's a spear character and it could be neat to have a heavy character with OK horizontal movement but a crazy high jump and some options for slamming back into the ground. His final smash could be betraying everyone 5 times in 10 seconds.
>>721750650you mean after cids departure?I agree that it takes a while to pick itself up, but as the uncle joined it became very nice again, by the end of the game I had tears on my eyes.You should give it another try it was all in all a at least 8/10 for mealso it felt so refreshingly european, it was my favorite game fatasy setting of the last decade
>>721728667>and knocked Sakaguchi so far down the corporate ladder that he just ended up leavingIn Japan you can't outright fire someone. So what they'll do is place you in a spot in the company where you're shunned and shamed by being confined to a pretend job like Milton in Office Space until you leave. And in Japan, that type of treatment is the worst form embarrassment if you stuck around. >I'm still kinda surprised that the company is able to stay afloat,SquareEnix was very close to death once again in the early 2010's which resulted them in buying Eidos to help them through one critical fiscal year (2013 I believe). FFXIV on the other hand has played an important role of making them money and its one of their only solid games.>Be some sort of gooner or whale fanbase Final Fantasy VII fanbase eats slop by the gallons with how accepting they are of the Remake trilogy.
>>721754218Oh for sure, I just saw you wondering about how this was affected by the third world and decided to mention my experience. And besides, not like it changes anything, third worlders didn't buy either the PS2 to play FF, most of them just played PES and shit. God of War at most.
>>721754409why is squenix always on the verge of bankruptcy?
>>721727924>bad movieBullshit.It is an awesome movie. Just not a Final Fantasy one.Has more fucking emotional maturity and intelligence than 90% of them since 2010. The only reason I never paid it attention was because I was a dumb retarded kid when I watched it last before giving it a rewatch about 2 years, and naturally missed on all substance as a kid.
>>721754028Those anime are bad. I thought that goes without saying.
>>721754085>FF9 sold well it just didn't sell as well as 7, 8 or 10which is why it's considered a let down>The circumstance was that X was revealed before causing people to overlook itAgain, you'd have a much better argument if people who cared about FF in general didn't have to wait nearly a year for FFX to come out. The greatest hits release (i.e. reduced price) of the game was out in November of 2000, around 4 months before the PS2 was even released, 7 months before FFX was released and I'm supposed to believe that people who cared about FF "just" wanted to play FFX instead because of the circumstances rather than what FF9 itself brought to the table? If so then it's on you to actually prove that.
>>721755013Popularity doesn't equal bad howeverbeit
>>721753996Yep. Everyone was expecting DMC2 to be DMC1 and were entirely obliviously of the disastrous development cycle it had (being developed at sametime as DMC1 by a different team) which ultimately impacted the sales of DMC3
>>721755013Let me guess, you are the kind of guy who shits on EVA and thinks Ideon is actually good.
>>721754693>I just saw you wondering about how this was affected by the third world and decided to mention my experienceKey words: your experience. I notice you didn't answer my questions so I'll take that as you conceding the point.
>>721755073People spam threads on /v/ for months to a year due to hype from announcements. And games often get buried due to hype for other games.
>>721754984Final Fantasy XIV was a massive disaster at launch since it was outsourced and only through a hail mary complete remake of the game did it save it. Making an entirely new game from scratch for free would only be done if a company in question was very desperate. But thankfully for SE, that gamble paid off.
>>721755249I mean, sure, but again, NTA.
>>721755073Already spelled it out in previous posts. X was an evultion of VII and VIIIs presentation style with much greater fidelity. IX veered off course. It doesn't help that C was announced months before IX's release.
>>721755270And? What does that have to do with proving what happened in 2000-2001, years before 4chan even existed?
>>721727749He's not wrong. There was a noticable shift in the quality of story-telling after FFX. Modern Square-Enix doesn't even give a fuck about its Japanese roots and culture, and wants to make games that western trannies approve of.
>>721755408So your response wasn't even topical? Thanks for vindicating me further.
>>721755428If you agree that FF9 failed on its own merits then there is no argument here
>>721755573I'm just saying I'm not the guy you were originally discussing with. Is such a concept really that hard to grasp, considering we are currently on an anonymous image board?
>>721755817No it succeeded by all metrics. It didn't do as well because there was an alternative from the same company.
>>721752549is bartz from V
>>721755001>It is an awesome movie.Have you been taking your medication?
>>721754085FF9 didn't sell as much because it came out right when the PS2 launched, it had an aesthetic that didn't necessarily appeal to the masses in either Japan or the West, didn't have that 'edge' factor that something like a villain Sephiroth did for 12 year old boys oozing puberty where as Kuja was seen as very flamboyantly gay looking, and was effected by FFVIII's letdown of those who played FFVII, nor was it given an insane PR push by Sony like FFVIII had.
>>7217554742chan forums and word of mouth existed.
>>721755846>'m not the guy you were originally discussing withThis doesn't matter when I was asking you to post data showing your experience was more than just yours. Me claiming that everyone I knew didn't care about FF9 doesn't mean there weren't millions of people who did. Anecdotal claims mean nothing unless you can back them up with data.
>>721756053also a better ff came out like 8 months later
>>721755995>it succeeded by all metricsWhich is why we have FF games similar to 9 being made rather than 7, 8 or X. Oh wait-
>>721756036>a movie with no needless scenes, tight writing, proper pacing, good acting, emotional writing, which doesn't spoonfeed and expresses a lot through tonality and visual storytelling because it comes from before the time of anon who lives in a pill culture where everything needs to be drawn for retardsYeah, it's an awesome film. Try again.
>>721756053>Kuja was very flamboyantly gay lookingftfy
>>721756078So why didn't that word of mouth translate into better sales for FF9?
Well Squaresoft may be dead but Squeenix has a bunch of upcoming stuff to keep me occupied for the rest of the year.
>>721746697Selling 5,5 million copies is not bad at all. It was a great game and sold really well. Just not nearly as well as FF7 and FF8; but FF8 sold well only because of FF7 and when people lost hope with FF8 they ignored FF9.
>>721755084I already like popular anime. S; G and TTGL are some of my absolute favorites. But anime needs good characters to be good, otherwise it's shit.
>>721752709herp derp
>>721756143I would say a far more mainstream appealing game that took advantage of the new Gen 6 hardware came out and didn't suffer from prior gen hardware limitations. Though subjectively I think FFIX is a far more compelling game then Teedus hallway simulator.
>>721756171That's because modern SE wants to pander to western gamers under a belief that they want realism. They don't give a crap that anime is the main form of cartoons on the planet now, and people want the distinctly Japanese style. They got realism stuck in their heads while they act like the next DQ game isn't worth getting out this century.
>>721756171And they flopped>>721756243Because word of mouth favored the game with the better graphics and the system set to release around its release date
>>721727749They deliberately fucked square over so enix could absorb them.
>>721756205>it comes from before the time of anonI rented it at Blockbuster when it came out.
>>721756368SE wanted to pander to Western gamers since the late 80's. For 8 years they were trying desperately hard to become a hit in the West until they moved over to Playstation. FFVII would've been a financial failure if the game didn't do well in the West due to its insanely large budget at the time, that couldn't be simply held up by Japanese sales alone.
>>721756537And now you need pills to remember what good movie making with tight scripts and emotion used to be like because you only know garbage targeted at Indians and Chinks now.Maybe start rewatching, assuming you ever grew up as a person and developed a new perspective through which to see the same movies from old days. Development seems lost on some of you.
>>721756850>Maybe start rewatchingI did, I want to say about a year or so ago. It's still not a good movie. It won't be a good movie next year either.
>>721753834>FFT 2I don't know if i want to push my luck and wish for FFT2, i'll just count my blessings with the FFT port.
>>721756850Anon, the movie was a snoozefest. It didn't help that so many action esque science fiction movies came out during that time period that blew it out of the water. I get what Sakaguchi was trying to do and i admire his ambitions and risks, which were the reason why Square was a powerhouse in that period, but the movie just stunk balls for its writing.
>>721757014Or it's a good movie unless you are developmentally stuck in your teens and just look to Michael Bay as your bog standards, since you have no grasp of well written characters with great and consistent dynamics complemented by great acting and consistent facial and bodylanguage animation. Since, you know, you never developed and grew up as a Human being.
>>721756307>Selling 5,5 million copies is not bad at allBut isn't as good as selling over 9 or 10 million, which is the point and why we don't see FF9 style mainline FF games anymore.>FF8 sold well only because of FF7How many 4chan FF9 memes can you think of? I can think of a bunch for FF8: Selphie Balamb pasta, R=U, TRAINS, tfw no GF, Squall being emo/a pretty cool guy. It seems to have way more cultural impact here than 9 does.
>>721753834>changed the main character from basch to vaanNever happened. The first two advertised characters for 12 were Vaan and Ashe on top of Matsuno, Ultimania and the guy who finished 12 for Matsuno saying that Vaan wasnt a last minute addition.What ACTUALLY happened was that Vaan used to be an older person but eventually morphed into the teen that we know now. Basch was always someone else.
>>721742502>too hardFFX had an easy "I win" button and it was just to give your summons overdrives beforehand and keep dishing them out one by one against a boss.
>>721727749It's easy to see when they collapsed. Just play FF7 and take note of how bad the game falls apart the second you leave midgar.
>>721756368What you're essentially arguing for is for FF to become Fortnite, at which point FF doesn't even need to exist.
>>721756341dont give a fuck the game ended up selling 20mil copies9 will never do that
>>721757318>I can think of a bunch for FF8: Selphie Balamb pasta, R=UR=U isn't a meme as much as it's a single schizo who goes into any FFVIII thread or creates one to blast his insanity everywhere and unfortunately made a name for himself.Of course FFVII fans tend to for whatever reason attract very strange people, one of them being you.
>>721757318>How many FF9 memes can you think of?None, because people don't make memes of sacred games. FF9 has a lot more memorable lines of dialogue than FF8, though.
>>721757252>Anon, the movie was a snoozefest.2001: A Space Odyssey is a snoozefest to me, but it's still a great movie due to technique, direction, and artistic aim.Two separate things.
>>721757318>why we don't see FF9 style mainline FF games anymore.franchise could use one by now, the "realistic" thing has gotten incredibly stale
>>721751542I will forever hate FFXII. I will never EVER understand how anyone even remotely enjoys a single facet of this game. It's as if the developers, writers, programmers, battle designers all came together with a singular purpose to make this game AS BORING AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY. >Overarching story and the events the cast of characters are involved in are just...there. Things...transpire, the party observes these banal goings on, and then they proceed to the next area. NOTHING FUCKING INTERESTING HAPPENS. No interesting interactions of any kind between the characters, no developments of any note (at least not up to the point where I quit the game because of how utterly boring it became)>Characters themselves are about as nuanced and fun as courting a 17th century Quaker. They had the gall to rip off Han Solo and Chewbacca, but couldn't even do that right! At least Luke Skywalker became a motherfucking Jedi at the end of his arc! Where is the catharsis for these character developments? Oh, that's right. There are no character developments! There are no character progressions! It's all static!>Combat actively discourages you from engaging with it. If I wanted to learn how to code and program, I'd go to college for that and find a job that pays in kind. I do not want to watch the combat play itself. I want to play the game that I paid for. >"b-but, you can manually control the characters, anon!">Yeah, and be 100X less efficient in combat doing so. It's clear the game doesn't want you doing that, especially for the later bosses, where you'll just get destroyed if you don't have gambits set up>Vaan. He's a protagonist. Apparently. I must have missed the memo. >The summons. Why? For what purpose do they serve? Must have missed that memo tooTo this day I have not actually reached the end of this game. I still haven't seen the ending or even reached the final boss. Because I keep getting so utterly bored with it all that I quit.
>>721757293>it's a good movie unless you are developmentally stuck in your teensI first saw it when I was 10.
>>721757581Because it came out on the PS2 within a year of its launch and not at the very last year. And that sales number includes both X and X-2 along with the remasters. The actual number for FFX's sales on the PS2 is 8.5 million.
>>721756397FFXIII has sold over 9.6 million copies and over 19.2 million copies total over it's trilogy. FFXV has sold over 10.2 million.>word of mouth favored the game with the better graphicsyou don't need word of mouth for that>and the system set to release around its release datewhich was about 7 months after FF9 released and it would take a further 3 more months for FFX to release. Why would "FF fans" sit around for almost a year when there's a FF game they could play then and there?
>>721757739>whataboutismSpace Odyssey had a massive cultural impact on cinema. Spirits Within did not.
>>721727749the nortubel of game music composers
>>721754085As much as I despise the Junction system, I still vastly prefer FF8 to FF9 to this day. I consider FF9 to be the worst out of the Trifecta. Poorly paced, entirely frontloaded, summons are worthless, magic system sucks, party members are doled out to the player in such a manner that a top-heavy freighter in the middle of a hurricane that is about 5 minutes away from capsizing did a better job distributing its shit than that.
>>721753772Spirits Within was a disaster for Squaresoft. For Square Enix it was Advent Children. A successful movie, but a disaster of a different kind for the future direction of the company.
>>721739680FF8 is the best selling PS1 game lmfao
>>721757614Are you saying there's only one person bringing it up and is samefagging every response? That's the only way I could see it not constituting as a around here and that would be on you to prove.>FFVII fans tend to for whatever reason attract very strange peopleit is the most popular game so it makes sense that it would cast a wide net
>>721758446Accurate. AC really set the trajectory for SE's FF. Ever since it has always been the aim to have a game be like it.
>>721758446Yep.AC was the start of the end.
I saw that movie in a theater with my dad and i could tell it wasn't final fantasy. Truth comes out of the mouths of children.
>>721758546see: >>721753079It sold well due to the massive success of FFVII and the PR machine of Sony in 99 (pitting it against the Dreamcast launch)
>>721743598That's not what snuff film means
>>721757627>people don't make memes of sacred games
>>721757956They tried with WoFF and Bravely Default but you guys mostly ignored them
>>721757318Most memes of FFVIII are poking fun at the writing
>>721727924all they had to do was not call it final fantasy. on its own the movie isnt particularly bad, and for the time it was AMAZING cgi. but everyone went into the movie expecting final fantasy... and they received none of it.
>>721758841>it sold well due [headcanon]cope
>>721759127post image file examples
>>721758667>Youtube grifter sees lunatics online talking about schizo theories>decides to make a video about it to make money off of itOh you sure showed me>it is the most popular gameExcept it isn't. Its Remastered barely hit above 1.3 million. Meanwhile the FFX remaster hit above 6 million.Sales do not equate to popularity, especially when your games sales were entirely reliant on the goodwill of the prior title in the series.
>>721758879People giving the person who made this comic infinite shit will forever be a cherished memory.
>>721759386see:>>721753996
>>721759090let's try a bigger budget game for once
>>721759386Retard
>>721759401that pic is older than most people on this board rn
>>721759420>Oh you sure showed meI didn't bring it up, just explaining why there'd be crazies in the largest fanbase of a series>Except it isn'tre-read what I quoted
>>721758879>snoy meme
>>721759541Why? Isn't the point that the games should take a different approach?
>>721727749thought this was a tifa thread
>>721727749Cool, thats exactly what I thought he'd say when I read the headline. Its fucking tragic man, Sakaguchi was one of the big storytellers in vidya and had so many ideas about how to bring more theatrical elements into the medium. Early squaresoft was such a motley crew of nobodies - Uematsu didnt even have a significant background in music, he was self taught. But they were all united by their love of movies - especially star wars. Naturally, after FF7's enormous success, the core crew wanted to take a crack at movies with the spirits within and it was Sakaguchi's dream to direct a feature length motion picture. It was just a series of terrible, terrible logistical choices that made that movie so insanely expensive. The final product wasnt that bad, if a few different choices were made, they could have just walked away with a mediocre attempt at cinema and mild hit on the company's finances - but at least they could say they tried. But no, the investors would not let Sakaguchi stay after spirits within, even after contributing so much before that one big mistake. There is no telling what final fantasy would look like now if Sakaguchi didnt leave
>>721748796There was a character named Cid and he lived in a ship. Is that not reference enough for you?
>>721759761visually, that doesn't mean it should be relegated to being mobile tier shitff9 was a high ass budget game and looked as good as ff8 and both were standouts on the platform, but it went for a unique style and ff can use that again to bring in some variety for onceespecially after dry as fuck ff16's world
>>721759401Can't right now but the iconic "whatever" meme sums up people's feelings on the game pretty much
>>721760171I'm not sure what you're arguing for if you want to go back to a FF9 style aesthetic but still want a high budget. There's no need to spend a lot if you're not chasing modern cutting edge graphics.
>>721758040>I will never EVER understand how anyone even remotely enjoys a single facet of this gameThe aesthetic isn't bad and the idea of bigger, more open and interconnected areas without random encounters is good. Everything else sucks.
dumb fuckin' japs can't help but bow and allow dementia-riddled olds to ruin everything, if their culture wasn't doomed they'd slaughter everyone over the age of 40 and start fresh
>>721760226>no image fileyeah I figured as much
>>721760657The memes simply aren't keeping around, anon.
The problem the whole "if you want old school FF play Bravely Default" thing (apart from the fact that most modern classic throwback PRGs are kind of terrible) is that people can't really agree what old school FF was. Was it 1-9? 1-6? 1-2? Personally I only really care about the PS1 titles. In fact when I think of JRPGs it's primarily the PS1 era where they shined the most as far as I'm concerned. And those kind of games aren't being made anymore. And they haven't been in a very long time. I think this is the reason why Expedition 33 did so well. It's the first one in a very long time that really did that PS1 style of JRPG with an old school overworld map, a story that's more than crystals and demon kings, has four niggas in a row combat (even if marred with parryslop) with modern graphics.
>>721760702Aren't worth *
>>721727924Aki Ross is so hot though.
>>721760739I've heard BF is like FFV, which is my favorite. But I hate handheld games and have literally never played a handheld sequel or spiritual successor that was a worthy followup to classic console games.
>>721760702I would argue doubly so for FF9, if there were any that is
>>721735934bullshit, old square wasn't afraid to let small teams try different things. the psx was a hotbed of innovation for them, and sakaguchi wasn't heading all those projects by a long shit
>>721758174Xiii sold due to marketing. The game's legacy is poisonous to the company these days while IX is cherished. 5.5 million fans bought 9. It's the other 4 million that are fair weather and would rather sit it out.
>>721730264You sound like a faggot that only played the shitty demake. You don't even know what RS2 is because Revenge of the 7 has more in common with Octopath Traveler.
>>721760948There are. There's that scene of Zidane touching garnet's butt.
>>721760459what is there not to get? a game can have high level presentation and detail but be visually unique & stylized, lower budget games like bravely won't reach the same appeallook at what cancelling 9 remake cost them last year, it wouldn't be cheap, but might bring a bit more life into the franchisethey're never afraid to experiment with the systems and gameplay, yet visual style has become stagnant
>>721736320dude anticipated cgi being used extensively to make whole realistically rendered movies, and square were known wizards of 3d and FMV as showcased by their games.square conceivably could have been an IML-tier company and gotten in on those movie buxi don't think he was wrongbut i think spirits within is a weak movie and the realism-focused 3d tech needed some more time to mature.
>>721761138>Xiii sold due to marketingDo you have data to back that up? Why are the best estimates of FF7 Rebirth's sales between 2 and 3 million?
>>721730571>Square as a company nearly killed itself with constant retardation until Rad Racer and Final Fantasy saved them.it's kinda funny how kids these days don't know that square had an established history of completely bungling themselves long before spirits within, also rad racer was the first game kawazu worked on after joining, as a graphic designer, and final fantasy was the second, as a battle planner, and then makai toushi saga was their first game to sell a million copiesdude has the midas touch and they just don't really seem to utilize him except for to bail them out when their projects start falling apart in development (legend of mana, ff12, probably the bouncer too)
I wish I lived in a world where shit didn't go down. I would be nice to have an FF with an engrossing story and eye melting graphics.
>>721761313So 1 (one) (singular) meme? Because the game's protagonist sexually harassed a 16 year old female character?
>>721734116imagine having to tardwrangle nomura
>>721761349>a game can have high level presentation and detail but be visually unique & stylizedsuch as?
>>721761542XIII had a huge marketing campaign. You wouldn't know unless you were a bab. Still birth killed it's own momentum by ruining the story of tbe original
>>721753996Oh yeah, bitch. Well Joe from Game Sack played them all and insists DMC2 is the best and absolutely slam dunks on every other DMC game.
>>721761756There's more. Just look them up.
>>721761932>XIII had a huge marketing campaignAre you saying FF7 Rebirth didn't? Again I'd like to see some data so I know you aren't just making up claims
>>721754409Did any OG FF7 fans even play it? 7 sold like 16 million while rebirth sold 2 million or some shit.
>>721762005I've never seen those posted here, feel free to show us if they have
>>721755301Chinal Chontajii 14 was hillariously filled with Chinese terms like "horsebird" for coocooboos.
>>721762054Microsoft paid out the ass for marketing a d even created a XIII themed 360 for one. There was also a lot of cross promotion with merchn like enegu drinks and fashion brands. Stillbirth had the stigma of being retarded while no one knew how XIII would end up being
>>721743598>science fiction snuff filmdo you just say words based on vibe?
>>721761846such as what?
>>721762262>Microsoft paid out the ass for marketingSo you must have some data to prove this claim, right? Never mind that whatever they paid they sold less than half of what the PS3 did.
>>721748135Don't say that. Mighty No. 9 was better than nothing, wasn't it. I'd call that a success.
>>721762445you tell me lmao
>>721762767never played it, but MM9 shat all over it i can already tell you
>>721762114I bought the first FF7R game and I'll never, ever buy another Nomura game after having played that and KH3.
>>721745090tobal 2, brave fencer musashi, racing lagoon, front mission 1 (the super famicom original version, or its expanded ds port), threads of fate, secret of evermore, xenogears, alcahest ("hurr durr its hal" nope, square funded the development when hal ran out of money, and they published it, they own the ip)that's all i can think of off the top of my head that i've actually played, besides that, people seem to like vagrant story
>>721762692Because the audience for it was not on the XBOX especially in Japan. Elsewhere it did okay. It was Microsoft's attempt at garnering the Japanese audience amd getting their foot in the door but that obviously failed
>>721762909>brave fencer musashi,My nigger
>>721762928>the audience for it was not on the XBOXit's almost as if it doesn't matter what the marketing budget is if there isn't a market for something
>>721750718it's great, but it's not for casuals, stick with rs2 demake since its not a saga game and it was made for casuals like you who don't even like rpgs
>>721750718If you play RS2, get the remaster, not the remake. Revenge of the 7 plays absolutely nothing like any SaGa game.
>>721762909>racing lagoonI feel like the Japanese must think a lagoon is way cooler than it actually is for all of the games that use the word.
>>721763117It literally sold fine on the 360 outside of Japan around 40% sales in fact. The audience wasn't there and Microsoft brought it on in order to lure people into getting the console. It obviously worked to some extent but their goal of getting Japs to buy XBOX failed horribly
>>721727924A movie that almost bankrupted the company. lmao
>>721760739>And those kind of games aren't being made anymorethey never stopped being made, you're just a retard
>>721763394>It literally sold fine on the 360Is that what MS wanted, to have "sold fine" when the PS3 was selling more than double despite a claim that MS was adding money to the marketing budget? Why didn't MS just pump their near unlimited resources into keeping FF on their platform if marketing budget = sales?
>>721750614Seeing as how much Emerald Beyond filtered the JP players with its combat, this will never happen lolNot being able to heal really fucks with the usual jrpg player
>>721763604Because after a certain point more money doesn't mean more games in people's homes outside of giving it away. But you can't really tell until after the game releases. XBOX made a huge deal out of getting FF for the first time and paid for a lot of advetisements
>>721763879Which reinforces my point that a marketing budget does not guarantee sales, especially if people aren't interested in the product being sold. Still would love to see the data you're basing your claims off of.
>>721763854most rpg players don't even like rpgs, they just like the pretty flashing lights and colors and goonfuel and sounds within them, they're just in it for the spectacle, they suffer through the gameplay the entird way just to do soyou ever heard "i'd drag my nuts through 3 miles of broken glass to catch a whiff of her pussy odor" type nigger shit? that's the kind of nigger retard shit that most rpg players unironically do
>>721764135You'd have to look through their financials for that year. I'm going off of being part of the hype train.Some marketing is still superior to no marketing when it comes to earning sales. REBIRTH had to deal with the anti-marketing of how bad the story in REMAKE ended up being
>>721764976>You'd have to look through their financials for that yearI'm not the one making claims about them
>>721730210Final Fantasy 11*
>>721761362This picture is beautiful
>>721742124atlus got bought by fucking sega kek.
It was never Spirits Within that sunk Sakaguchi, it was delaying FFX, which caused Square's earnings to go into the red for the first time. All the shareholders freaked out and replaced him with his long-time rival.
>>721728562https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWkvyeAu0E
>>721753779Elfen Lied was fucking awesome even though it's objectively retarded.
>>721766547Might be the single most retarded thing I've ever seen. Higurashi was good though. Fate is inbetween.
>>721760027>There is no telling what final fantasy would look like now if Sakaguchi didnt leaveFor one thing we wouldn't have sequels for their games, which he was against.
>>721759401name?
>>721767192He wasn’t wrong, there hasn’t been a single good FF sequel
>>721757318Having memes doesn't imply a positive nor negative connotation for the quality of the game. There's countless memes revolving around the CDI Zelda games, that doesn't mean they're actually good. How dense are you?Pic related: FFXIII is an overall rather shit game with a nonsensical plot that requires reading glossaries to understand the terms being used. But it still has plenty of reaction images tied to it in use.
>>721727924I enjoyed the movie enough, but literally everyone was expecting swords and sorcery from a Final Fantasy movie, not machine guns and glowing world goo.>BUT MUH LIFESTREAMDoesn't matter. It wasn't Final Fantasy.
>>721727924He also made the shitty Animatrix short
>>721765184I am and there's evidence readily available you're not lazy. Everything I've said is verifiable
>>721738645>His mood for plot changes all the time based on media he consumesBefore he got his ass kicked out of the project he was trying to make 13Versus a fuckin musical because we watched les Miserables. The dudes a twat.
>>721748135Thats most game devs in a nutshell. Plenty of examples for Western devs who hit the same snag once leaving the company that made them. Because surprise surprise, videogames are a collective endeavor.Take a look at John Romero, the moment he left is the moment there was nothing to balance out his negative traits (Carmack). Meanwhile ID lacked that spark of imagination and risk and just made the same shit over and over.
>>721767443>Having memes doesn't imply a positive nor negative connotation for the quality of the gameCorrect. What it does do however is show that people care about the game on more than just a surface level. FF9 seems to lack that here.>FFXIII is an overall rather shit game with a nonsensical plot that requires reading glossaries to understand the terms being used. But it still has plenty of reaction images tied to it in useprove it
>>721728667Japan's major studios struggled massively with 7th gen consoles, and they only marginally recovered since, obviously Japan isn't the leader of the industry like 6th gen and earlier. Squeenix made plenty of awful decisions ever since the merge was completed, but the rest of Japan gaming rarely did any better until the latter half 2010s
>>721766264This is probably the best Mega64 sketch and I hadn't even seen it before.
I actually think FF7R3 will be a huge success that elevates the trilogy but they need to put absolutely everything into it's marketing, similar to how they did with the original FF7.
>>721760027>>721767192Obviously FF11-FF16 would be much, much better if Sakaguchi hadn't left. I mean, let's imagine Sakaguchi left after FFV. Then we get FFVI to FFX of much lower quality, unless the Tactics guy or Xenogears guy steps up.
>>721767620>there's evidence readily available>Everything I've said is verifiableSo post it. Onus for providing proof of something is on whoever made the claim.
>>721746165How many years apart were 13 and 15 compared to 8 and 9? Dipshit.
>>721768031Xister you can spend less time googling it than you do seething about it on 4chan. https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/pfadui/final_fantasy_xiii_ad_in_los_angeles_e3_2009/
>>721768025FFXI was Sakaguchi's idea after he played Everquest. Infact he instructed his staff to play the game with some getting super hooked to it which helped create the basis for FFXI. Should've been called Final Fantasy Online though.But that's another example of Sakaguchi willing to take risks and expand the company's horizon.
>>721768101Did people forget that they called FFXIII a hallway simulator? Considering you didn't call me out on that I'd say they didn't. In any case that just reinforces my point that FF games are mostly judged on their own merits rather than the game that comes before them.
>>721727924He made the foolish decision to work with hollywood.
>meme competition postingIs this some new absurd variant of sales posting? What the fuck am I even reading
>>721768378Not him, but what you're failing to understand is that much of the West was unaware of that notion that each FF was its own thing. FFVII was for the vast majority, their very first FF. Before that, it had a niche audience on the SNES but never was able to truly get a hold of the US market.
>>7217684198fags are mentally unwell. They're the ugly duckling of the franchise.
>>721768239How much more did FFXVI sell over FF9 again?https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comments/146qu1j/ff16_billboard_ad_in_los_angeles_x_spotify/
>>721768541my first ff was the final fantasy legend
>>721768680>game released 14 years after xiii tarnished its reputation It would have sold less than stillbirth without all that marketing
>>721768641I think the majority of them are just contrarians who think that identifying with the shit game gives them a misguided sense of hipster legitimacy.
>>721758738>>721758695At least AC gave FF7 an actual EPILOGUE or catharsis that the game was so glaringly lacking. I like to view AC as one big apology for the actual gutter trash "Ending" we got to the OG. And yes, I hated that shit way back in 97 when I first played it too. Don't (You) me.
>>721768945Post an ancient 90s blogpost of you saying the ending was trash or hold your peace.
>>721758872Fuck you, you know what I meant. It was still a film that got off on killing off its characters. Death porn, misery porn, whatever the fuck you want to call it. If there isn't a classification or word for it in the English lexicon, then there needs to be one. A dumb pointless movie with no themes, no deeper meaning, no reaffirmation, no catharsis, not even an underlying message for the leftists to latch onto. Just a dumb, misery-laden science fiction film kills off 95% of its cast and then...ends. I'd sooner binge watch Grave of the Fireflies 100 times over than rewatch that dreck.
>>721768541Unless you post data that proves that sentiment specifically led to FF9's lackluster sales I'm just going to assume it's cope. It's literally as simply as you backing up any kind of claim you make.
>>721747964I'd sooner die than accept some Tarutaru abomination as the canonical MC of FFXI.
>>721768945huh, I liked the FF7 ending. Hated AC
>>721769229Best I can offer is the wall scroll of that OG art that I still have to this day. You know the one I'm talking about. With the entire cast of characters lined up vertically, with Sephiroth in the background, then Aeris.
>>721736997(You)i remember it was the shit when i was little
>>721768825see >>721758174It's funny how all these FF games tarnished FF's reputation but later games still sold 9+ million copies. There's clearly more to it than just "good games suffering because previous games sucked".
>>721769603Acceptable terms.
>>721727749I like that he and Sakaguchi stayed friends, and would apparently have bar nights where they drank and talked about what it would've been like if the games kept using SD sprites all the way up to FFX. Reminds me there's that Fantasian: Neo Dimension game, is that any good?
>>721769624FF is a dead franchise and few people care about especially after the Remake fiasco. People have moved on. Even FFXIV is bleeding players
>>721753385>Talking about slop anime while posting Steins;ShitPot meet kettle.
>>721769867Now that I can agree with
>>721769828This right here is the one fatal flaw with Sakaguchi. He became so obsessed with the "style" that he failed to realize that you need more than that to deliver a successful game. The series can have whatever style it wants, as long as it progresses or evolves alongside the audience. Chibi models is all well and good, but if you keep delivering "gameplay" like in FF9's (not necessarily talking about turn-based, Persona 5 did it while still executing it in a way that felt fresh) you're going to have a bad time. Lost Odyssey, while a good game, still suffered from this. Not saying the likes of Nomura are automatically better, (he has his own set of problems) but Sakaguchi got way too caught up in the superficial. The aesthetics. Meanwhile, Nomura mayhap needs to focus a bit MORE on the aesthetics (read: censorship and character design). Looking at you Tifa.
>>721727749>shortly before Square's merger with EnixWHOA NO ONESAWTHAT ONECOMINGNO ONE
>>721768835I wish this were the case and I'm sure there are some who join in emulating the actions of schizos, but you'd be amazed just how many are indeed genuine with their thought processes.>>>/vrpg/3833270Take a look at the madness of your average FFVIII schizo in this very thread
>>721727749>"Square collapsed after Sakaguchi left,"I've been saying this fucking same thing for yeeears
>>721770821But what have you actually done about it?
>>721771368Not buy any Square games and watch as they slowly go under.
>dead franchisemeanwhile your shitty jrpg will never get an mmo, only gacha slop
>and watch as they slowly go under.retard
>>721727924Aki was sex and we DESERVE SFMs of her fucking dogs and horses.
>>721727749>when Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi departed the company.Oh, so that's why FF has been absolute dog shit for the past 20 years. It all makes sense now and retroactively justifies my loss of interest in the franchise around that time.
>>721736754>But the game is joke-tier easy even on Criticalyou're 30 years old basically every game should be joke tier easy to you
>>721771509>I didn't buy Ivalice Chronicles so SE only made a couple of billion dollars this year>Soon they'll have to bend the knee
>>721772058And they are, with every year that goes by.
>>721772372I haven't bought any of their shit since FF13. That was the last straw for me.
>>721771987It debute with power creep and xiv eas still popular at the time. Your pic is literally one of XIV's more populsr characters
>>721768945>FF7 ending>gutter trashBut a fucking movie about three Sephiroth look-alikes in latex on motorcycles that leads to anime fight with Sephiroth from KH1 on ruined Shinra building is a GOOD ending? Or a made-up depressed Cloud just for AC who stops being depressed at the end is the ending you're talking about?OG endng was good because>Cloud beat Sephiroth fair and square, 1vs1, no items, no materia, Final Destination - Sephiroth was BTFO so hard he fucking exploded from butthurt of being beaten by someone like Cloud AGAIN>main party achieved pretty much everything they could in their circumstances (except maybe not delivering Black Materia to Sephiroth), and fucking Rufus (aka Shinra) of all people helped them in achieving that - it was truly a group effort of many people that ruined Jenova's and Sephiroth's plans>dead girlfriend backed up everyone not just by casting Holy (a thing only she could do) in advance but also using the Lifestream to counter Meteor>the consequences are seen through Nanaki who survives, lives for centuries, gets a few kids and shows that planet is fine and TIME HEALS, even the fucking Midgar where the ground (even far away from the city) is almost lifeless due to all Mako being sucked out from beneath is now green from all the wildlife growing on its ruinsNot every FF gets a Dragon Quest ending where you watch characters throwing a party, going back to ordinary life in their hometown and maybe going on new adventures - some mainline FF titles like VII and X do it differently.
>>721772195he's saying what we're all thinking
>>721772587Can you explain to me why Cloud having a relapse is supposed to be bad writing? It's a real thing. And it's not like it's done without awareness, there's a whole scene dedicated to Tifa calling Cloud out for it.
>>721772470>13 was the last straw
>>721767950The switch to HD console development was the worst thing to happen to games in general. Far fewer small budget passion project experimental games and more shitty bloated movie games. Thank God for indies.
>>721772818dropping dead from an aneurism happens too, but if you write that in your story you're a retard.
Wasn't Hironobu Sakaguchi just a producer after FF6? he is not the reason behind the success of FF7 to 10 and had nothing to do with FF11, his spirts within movie was his first attempt at directing ever since the SNES days with FF6. I don't think him leaving the company was what caused all the problems.
>>721774551who cares what you think
>>721772818His entire story arc in FFVII is a fucking identity crisisAnd then guess what, it culminates with him going into vegetative state and Tifa getting him out of it.And then he gets unfucked, remembers who he truly was (without schizo stuff he and others made up) and what were his real achievements (HE was the one who dealt with legendary SOLDIER while being a fucking no-name grunt, HE was the one who followed Tifa and tried to save her when she fell). And then he gets over all of it and MOVES ON, LIKE HOLY FUCK HE DIDN'T THINK ABOUT ZACK AND AERITH EVERY FIVE SECONDS. Everything after OG FFVII is a mistake, starting from AC and ending with that pseudo-sequel-remake.
>>721774641Fuck you what i think is very important
>>721774670i remember dirge of cerberus being pretty cool when i was a kid. i don't really remember it
>>721740181>Gooch killed Square>When the rot was seeping in nearly a decade before he left and Square Execs were the ones scaring talent off and making overinflated budgets for gamesUh huh.
They all got big heads and paid for it, even now. They consistently stated that "no one" wanted turn based RPGs anymore and then a bunch of french nobodies made E33 and it blew up, to the point where SE invited them over for a little chat. I remember Nomura saying that they didn't want the FF7 remake to turn based because the high quality models would look silly in a turn based game, so instead it's a pseudo kingdom hearts-ish pseudo action RPG remix shit. It also means they have to spend quadruple the amount of time in development on top the tradition square enix 6-8 base dev time. They currently desperately chase trends and fail at it, and I assume a lot of their money is made by publishing stuff domestically in japan like anime and manga and other games because their own projects always fail.
>>721774551>Wasn't Hironobu Sakaguchi just a producer after FF6?Yeah that's why the games shifted more towards being "cinematic" instead of being good games.
>>721742124Yeah, and they got bought out by Index corp, nearly died, got bought by Sega, and their workforce has slowly been rotting.Last really strong game they released that wasn't fucked in some way was Etrian Odyssey 5, nearly 10 years ago.
Final Fantasy XI is the best square soft/square enix game and the only one i liked.
>>721774945God you just know some bean counter is seething about it.
>>721773647Can confirm that Josh Whedon is retarded.
>>721768945If you think FF7 needed an epilogue you missed the point. FF7 was always about the planet and how small humanity is, that selfish individuals can come together and find enough common ground to protect their world is what FF7 was about at its core and it stays razor focused on that theme throughout, everything from the beginning to the end was about the life of the planet, not just Cloud, Barret or Tifa, these characters matter but they matter less in the scope of the greater planet that the ending focuses on, people like Shinra and Sephiroth don't consider the life of the planet meaningful as long as they can keep living without it and the original ending is basically telling us the planet is safe from people like them and Nanaki is keeping guard over their legacy while Midgar lays in ruins, which is symbolically a massive defeat for people that wanted to be immortal at the expense of the planet.I'm also saying the sequels all basically miss the point of the original, that everything after the original doesn't matter because it's all contained thematically in a single message.
All Japanese games became shit after the start of the HDMI era, FF12 had it's own problems and everyone knows it's history and what happened. Western devs became the leader of the industry but in the past 20 years ago Japanese devs were the leaders, FF had the best graphics in the Y2K era.
It feels like JRPGs are entering another low these past couple years. Anything notable was underwhelming or personaslop. Shit sucks man
>>721774945Rebirth took 4 years to make. E33 took 7 years and needed chinese funding.
>>721768012Why do you believe this? I want hopium
>>721729303>Final Fantasy is kind of dead now but SaGa is in golden age currentlyYour welcome SaGafags
>>721768012No, Rebirth sales were lower than Remake, clearly there are less people interested in a third game.
FF16 was embarrassing, Yoshi-p is trash, FF14 was only popular because it copied WoW but with FF skin.
>>721775246The ending also adds important significance to cloud seeing Aerith in the lifestream,>I think I'm beginning to understand.>What?>An answer from the planet... the promised land>I think I can meet her... there.>Yeah, let's go meet her.Cloud is essentially seeing himself as a smaller part in a greater cycle and he's accepting his mortality at this point, both as a means of being together with Aerith again and understanding her sacrifice to protect the planet.That as holy is protecting earth and we see Aerith in the lifestream we cut to how 500 years have passed where they've essentially won and they're all together in the lifestream while Nanaki is raising his progeny to be there if something like this happens again.FF7 was a game about a greater cosmic threat being protected by another cosmic force within the planet and through that humanity becomes small but crucial and valuable.
>>721775998Rebirth is part 2 of 3 and reused a fuckton of assets from the inordinately expensive FF7 Remake. Nice try.
>>721776113Just a feeling, I really liked Rebirth. I was in the camp of "not playing them until the trilogy is complete" but caved and recently played through the 2.I think there is a lot of people who are waiting like that. I also think that it's a much easier sell for the company.The wider market are probably confused about what the series actually is... Remake? Part 1? etc.A bundled set will be much more attractive.My only fear is that Remake wasn't the strongest opener and Rebirth is like an 80 hour game so that might be a hard pill to swallow all at once for the prize of completion.
>>721776391The ambiguity of whether man survived but the certainty that Shinra ceased to be was also extremely important.
>>721776268Sequels are always going to have lower sales. Rebirth and 3 will continue to drive sales of Remake. I didn't buy remake until this year on special
>>721776563>from the inordinately expensive FF7 RemakeWhich they made back on merch sales alone, let alone the actual sales or the gacha.
FFX is the best FF.
>>721740091just like eberything else from japan: cars, food, what else? they haent done shit for DECADES. their economy is fucking garbage so is their boomer population. they are fucked
Name one good Japanese game that came out in the last 10 years that isn't Souls shit
>>721777791Rebirth
>>721727924It was such a great movie, too.Me and all my friends went to watch it. I can't believe nobody else did.
