Sony lets Square Enix go

[EclecticGroove]

I just don't see it happening. MS would never let anyone else handle the Xbox division of nay country without being 100% in charge of the company. Nintendo would never put themselves in that position without being entirely owned either. So long as they are autonomous I don't see them doing anything but making their own stuff. And the moment they are owned by anyone, MS, Sony, Apple, Google, whatever... that's pretty much the moment they are going to slide down a path they likely won't ever come back from.

Now, in an ideal world... yes, I think they could do some awesome things. Make a handheld that works with the Xbone for instance. I think with MS's infrastructure and resources they could do some AMAZING things.
They could be a dedicated handheld division for them as well as a game studio. They could even bring a lot to the table for the WinMo phones and the MS tablet market.

To be back on topic, the same thing could be true of Square/enix as well in some ways. But I just don't see it happening. Any company investing in them that deeply is likely to have some problems figuring out what they want them to do.

Churning out increasingly more movie like FF games obviously isn't winning them more market, but their MMO games seem to be a bit better received. Likewise many of their handheld games go over pretty well.

[KitsuneNight]

^ thats because their handheld games dont pretend to be movies

square has always pretentions fo being a movie maker and what they really want to be is a movie studio

[SegaSonic91]

Meh, I hate Square-Enix, although I should not even mention Enix. They died the day they "merged". They were only ever a publisher really, but their games had a unique feel compared to Square. Once they joined, that was all gone. I wish they would fuck off that moron that does all those fucking horrible character designs! Every time I see them I want to punch something, yuck! Worse thing is that everyone had to copy that awful style.

Sony have been screwed by Square for years now so no wonder they are dumping the stock. Even that crappy looking "PS3 exclusive" FFXIII VS" crap is now multi-plat. I don't believe that game should have a numbered title. But they killed the series even more with all those shitty XIII games so I guess it no longer matters. FFVI was the peak if the series for me. I liked IX and wish they would do a REAL FF game again. I wish the Japanese game industry would go back and make proper JRPGs but I guess it will never happen. Square even managed to ruin Dragon Quest.

[NeoVamp]

The jump to HD gaming has not been a good one for RPG's, all that extra detail..

all those extra polygons.. all wasted on belts and zippers.

[gamevet]

^ thats because their handheld games dont pretend to be movies

square has always pretentions fo being a movie maker and what they really want to be is a movie studio

All of those cut-scenes are what drove the masses to FFVII. Square pretty much became like Michael Jackson, after he released Thriller...too enamoured with itself to realize they were becoming the joke of the industry and not listening to anyone telling them what's wrong with what they are doing.

[EclecticGroove]

Must be a sidekick, the sword is too small, and he looks too masculine to be a male lead character, and not slutty or "pure" looking enough to be one of the female leads.

[KitsuneNight]

maybe after the massive critical backlash of ff 13 the first time in years they actually got some serious backlash square might be willing to listen more now

doubt it tough

[Knuckle Duster]

Square Enix needs to get rid of Motomu Toriyama. Problem solved.

[EclecticGroove]

I don't know... I mean, people gave them crap about 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 (not counting 11 since it's not the same animal), but they still cheerily went out and bought the next game in the series, and generally the overall consensus on those games was (more or less) positive.

13 is pretty much the one everyone agrees is pretty, but sucks. The only praise I ever really see for it is the battle system, which some people apparently really liked. But characters? Plot? Overall gameplay? Not many have anything better to say than "not entirely offensive". Rampant mediocrity mingled with great visuals and a better than average combat system don't exactly inspire much loyalty.

So it's possible this time they might do better.... they sort of committed to that weird multi game thing with ffxiii however... but they can't get away from the characters and setting fast enough for me. I'm hoping their next core FF game is something I can legitimately look forward to, but I've stopped really looking for anything FF related years ago.

[KitsuneNight]

ff 14 was also a flop
they came back and redid it and relaunched it but the orginal ff 14 was a flop

lets see fi they can do better with 15 though personally i doubt it

[Knuckle Duster]

Motomu Toriyama is the man responsible for: X-2, XIII, XIII-2, Dissidia 1 & 2, Lightning Returns XIII-3, The 3rd Birthday. Everything that fucking sucked about Final Fantasy and Square Enix for the past decade.

He's worse for the company than if they were to let Akitoshi Kawazu run rampant with pretentious SaGa games, that make no sense and are impossible to follow.


14 was awful. 14ARR is awesome.

[EclecticGroove]

I don't count the MMO's as "part" of the ff series, and it's annoying that they put them in the same series. They need to be their own thing. So to me FF XI and XIV aren't the same thing.

Versus/XV looks pretty as hell, but the gameplay doesn't inspire me with much confidence that it's going to be a good RPG... it looks more like Bayonetta than an RPG game.

I don't mind that kind of shift, but I wish they would have different teams and game series for this kind of thing. Sometimes you want an RPG to be more traditional to just sink your teeth into.

[KitsuneNight]

to be honest the jrpg genere is dead to me

its all the same with grinding and boring whiny teen protagonist centered dull melodramatic plots that revolve around saving the world ( again ) with overlong cut scenes and almost not there gameplay

if i want an rpg ill play the likes fo oblivion or skyrim or fallout 3 some game where there is an actual role to play

[EclecticGroove]

to be honest the jrpg genere is dead to me

its all the same with grinding and boring whiny teen protagonist centered dull melodramatic plots that revolve around saving the world ( again ) with overlong cut scenes and almost not there gameplay

if i want an rpg ill play the likes fo oblivion or skyrim or fallout 3 some game where there is an actual role to play

The skyrim games and their ilk fill a very different niche for RPG's than the traditional JRPG games. It's like playing Daytona USA vs Mario Kart. They are both racing games, but they are very different from each other. I wouldn't play one to "scratch the itch" to play the other.

The Tales series has generally held up better than the FF games has from a gameplay standpoint. You don't need to grind much unless you are OCD about it or aiming for a particular achievement or some such.

JRPG=grindfest doesn't have to be true if done well... and the other stuff you mentioned is all the excess junk that seems to have been getting saddled on top of the games over the years. The move to full spoken dialog certainly doesn't help when they have some jarringly bad VA's on top of silly or just plain bad dialog... The "save the world" thing is a cliche, but I can live with it when done reasonably well.

[Knuckle Duster]

I still haven't played a traditional JRPG better than what Level 5 and Square Enix gave us in Dragon Quest VIII, almost a decade ago.