179: The Battleship Final Fantasy

[Ray Huling]

The Battleship Final Fantasy

What will Final Fantasy XIII have in common with the Battleship Yamato, Japan's most powerful World War II-era dreadnought? Just like the ship, the game will already be obsolete by the time it comes out. Ray Huling examines the evolution of the Final Fantasy series.

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[GloatingSwine]

Now, I'd agree with your conclusion that the natural destination of the Final Fantasy series (and other JRPGs) is the handheld, but not for pretentious reasons around presentation of it's themes. Dissonance between story and presentation can produce powerful effects, as shown with, say, Valkyria Chronicles, which uses soft lines, pencil shading, and light colours but tells a story of war, loss, and racism. It's very effective, despite the fact that the presentation doesn't fit your expectations for the type of story.

No, the real reasons are twofold. First is that the core gameplay, (which almost inevitably reduces to grind if you want to see all of the content) is far more palatable in a handheld format, where it can be used as a momentary distraction from other things, like travelling, rather than a serious investment where you are tying up a console which could be doing something far more interactive with it's time.

The second, and this is specific to Square, is that they have simply lost their technical edge. Back on the SNES and PS1, Square were kings of technical graphical wizardry, lush backgrounds, great sprites, detailed polygon models, and eye popping CG.

Nowadays, not so much. Even when given competent middleware like the Unreal engine they can't match the efforts of Mistwalker on Lost Odyssey with the same engine a year or so earlier. (even that had some problems with animation, but nothing like The Last Remnant does.)

Final Fantasy XIII's promo shots show that they aren't getting better either. They're poorly framed (mid range shots when closeups would be appropriate, not deciding whether to show off the character details or the backgrounds, etc, and character poses don't look natural.

 

[Apone]

Great article. I've become completely disenfranchised with the series despite how much I adored it in my youth. Though this may be due to growing up and finding different interests and tastes, I do believe it's partly down to Square remaking similar plots, with similar characters all to achieve the same pleasure I've already had.
Average plots, a poor script and an often pointless main character these days don't create the immersion of previous games.

 

[Nikolita]

As a 10+ year Final Fantasy fan, I can see where you're coming from. When I stop to think about it, I can agree that perhaps the series is getting "too big", too over-the-top. And part of me wishes the series would do one big final game and then just end gracefully.

But I also don't agree with a lot of your comments and opinions. FFVII didn't have the best graphics, but it was still capable of telling a very powerful story that many fans (including myself) identify with and love. I've never played FFIV, so I can't comment on that game.

Maybe I'm missing the bulk of your points, which is entirely possible because at the moment I'm running on very little sleep. I'll just say I don't agree with a lot of what you said, and that's just IMHO.

 

[MannPower]

My quick-and-easy comment on this topic is 'Pull the life support.' Or at least, refocus the demographic. A simple story doesn't need to be told in the most convoluted way possible, through the voices of troubled teenaged sensibilities.

 

[Steve Dark]

This may all be true, but even if the age of Final Fantasy is coming to an end I doubt we'll see it's effects for a good while now. There are far too many loyal fans keeping Battleship FF afloat for it to sink any time soon.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

When I first played Final Fantasy IV the game disappointed me completely. There were some high points in the story and clever twists. All together though I felt it was more akin to the Titanic: the grand scale and elegance were spectacular, until it hit the iceberg of incredible dullness. Even in miniature the game failed to make an impression on me.

It might be because I came to the series late and didn't experience the game when it was a shining example of gaming, so I don't have the luxury of rose-tinted glasses that most Final Fantasy fans have, or possibly Golden Sun ruined 2D rpgs for me completely with it's winning charm and incredible storyline, but I didn't feel it Final Fantasy IV made any impact on me whatsoever.

It may be my personal preference to rpg games, but I don't expect a precursor to an mmorpg that focuses on completionism, grinding and a sloppily built structure as an enjoyable experience.

 

[Hithel]

My first experience with FF was with the VII:th installment and just as the article mentions the characters and combat were mediocre at best. BUT the dark plot with its genetic engineering undertones sucked me in and I enjoyed the game.

Later I turned to FFVIII basically hoping for an even better experience. What I got was the biggest grind I had ever encountered (the junction system). As well as one of the least believable, least likeable main characters I can recall. I believe Squall is such a social misfit in order to cater to the equally socially misfit otaku crowd which probably could relate to his personality.

I did play FFIX as well and while Zidane was a far more likeable character the same grind and deja vú feeling was there. Just the fact that you can't skip the summoning scenes is moronic by itself.

So, I'm hoping that FFXIII will bomb, being a parody of itself and the series already before release. Not because I have any animosity towards JRPGs but because I would rather see the enormous resources of SquareEnix being used on something more worthwhile.

 

[Blissfully Ignorant]

While I find your article to bring up some excellent points, your use of metaphor is... very weird. Maybe I don't have the what feels like a requisite fandom in Anime or Japanese naval history... but I just can't draw the parallels you make in your writing.

First and foremost: could you really say the Yamato was outmoded and obsolete? The Yamato was sunk. The fate of an obsolete ship ends in a far different fashion: scuttled, memorialized, maybe converted into a tourist attraction. Look at the USS Midway, for example, which is now a floating museum permanently anchored about 50 miles from where I live. Is death at the hands of American air forces a fate that awaits an obsolete ship? You assert that the Yamato was obsolete before it even left the drydock -- as if it were fated to be nothing more than a sacrifical goat with a four-year lifespan.

But I digress. I'm not sure the miniaturization you speak of is what the FF series needs. I have a GBA SP and the Final Fantasy I/II cart and... it steel feels like Final Fantasy. These primitive games don't feel any more natural just because they're in the palm of my hand. Sure, the text is smaller. Sure, I can fold the thing up and stick it in my pocket. But it still feels just like the FF roms I fire up in ZSNES on my xbox. I can agree that they don't feel right anymore on a traditional console setup, but I'm not sure that this is because the original FF games on GBA/DS were "meant to be".

Your "bigger guns to deliver small pleasures" argument is interesting, though again it's kind of awkward when framed against the fate of the Yamato. That statement could be inferred about anything subject to the unyielding march of technological progress: video games, movies, computer processors, cars, and even business itself. Unless you can convince people to stop innovating and gamers to stop caring, the "bigger guns" will always be necessary even if all it means is staying competitive.

My first taste of Final Fantasy was FF7. Yours was much earlier -- so I'm sure there are some differences in opinion related to that. You knock on some of FF's features, though, like its a bad thing. What's wrong with overproduced cutscenes? You'd take crappy in-game cinematics (or even worse, pre-rendered in-game cinematics) over Square's breathtaking CG video? Hell, Square without the mindblowing CG wouldn't be Square at all. They'd be just another JRPG developer, lost and forgotten amongst indifferent American game buyers. And that grind stuff -- well, all you have to do is look at the Asian MMO market to see that, for whatever reason, they eat that shit up. A lot of us in the 'States do too...just look at anyone with a max level toon in Lineage II or Everquest.

Anyways, this post is long enough. I enjoyed your article, though I can't say I agree with your arguments. It was an elightening read, regardless... just please avoid the awkward imagery!

Thanks!

Tom

 

[ultimasupersaiyan]

I'm a HUGE fan of the Final Fantasy series and have to admit that FFX was the last good Final Fantasy. Also it was probably the last Final Fantasy Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on but I can't confirm that. The series is now concerntraiting on a western audience with the looks and style of gameplay and personally I think the story of FFXII sucked bad... and that's why I play most games. I found FFXII the worst in the number series of Final Fantasy because of it's MMO battle system and it's boring story. I've finished every number Final Fantasy except FFXII because it's story was too boring for me and without a decent story, RPGs are useless. Final Fantasy in my opinion is dead and I doubt FFXIII will improve what they screwed up with. I personally think that Square-Enix should axe the series or give it to Mistwalker because they're whipping a dead horse, which had a few of stand out numbered Final Fantasys(which were FFIV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII and FFX). Final Fantasy now is only good for graphical upgrage remakes and nothing else and that's a shame since I loved Final Fantasy so much in the past. I'll still buy FFXIII just in case they improve on the mistakes of FFXII but if this one sucks too, then I'm just going to wait for remakes of the ones that didn't suck. Also If you want a JRPG that makes you feel for the characters and has great story play Lost Odyssey because that game story is fantasic and it should be considering Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on it. Also being in Australia I had to wait for the older Final Fantasys to get here and I'm probably one of the few Australian gamers that liked the 2D Final Fantasys and that's because it came out too late and these days most gamers want pretty graphics instead of great story telling and game depth, but I shouldn't really say that as a JRPG fan because it's too one sided of me.

 

[GloatingSwine]

First and foremost: could you really say the Yamato was outmoded and obsolete? The Yamato was sunk. The fate of an obsolete ship ends in a far different fashion: scuttled, memorialized, maybe converted into a tourist attraction. Look at the USS Midway, for example, which is now a floating museum permanently anchored about 50 miles from where I live. Is death at the hands of American air forces a fate that awaits an obsolete ship? You assert that the Yamato was obsolete before it even left the drydock -- as if it were fated to be nothing more than a sacrifical goat with a four-year lifespan.

Basically, yes. The Yamato was obsolete before she launched. Her air defense suite was horribly inadequate to the task of protecting her from air attack, and the twenty five mile range of her guns was impressive for a battleship, but not compared to the hundred mile range of carrier air power, which was repeatedly proven to be the defining element of naval warfare by the raids on Taranto and Pearl Harbour, and the battle of Midway.

The age of the big ship with big guns as queen of the sea was over before Yamato even launched, and her sinking by pure air attacks (along with that of her sister ship, the Musashi) drives that point home.

 

[Druffmaul]

I know I'm an anomaly among the FF fanbase; I've been playing RPGs since 1980, when AD&D had first become a bit of a fad at my elementary school. My first FF was FFIV in 1992, but it seems like I'm the only FF fan in the world who played it first but doesn't consider it to be the best in the series, or even count it as a personal favorite. The fact is, I wouldn't even put it in my Top 5 FFs. It was FFVI that made me fall in love with Final Fantasy, which also happened to be when Sakaguchi essentially handed the reins over to Kitase. FFVI was the turning point, but FFVII was the real transformation of the series, and I see FFVII, FFVIII and FFX almost as a sort of loose trilogy. Someone earlier said "FFX was the last good FF." Well, it was the last Kitase FF. For those who thought FFVII, FFVIII and FFX all had a certain something that has been lacking in FFX-2, FFXI and FFXII, take heart- Kitase is overseeing FFXIII, so hopefully it will be a return to form... obsolete as it may be.

 

[windfish]

When I first played Final Fantasy IV the game disappointed me completely. There were some high points in the story and clever twists. All together though I felt it was more akin to the Titanic: the grand scale and elegance were spectacular, until it hit the iceberg of incredible dullness. Even in miniature the game failed to make an impression on me.

It might be because I came to the series late and didn't experience the game when it was a shining example of gaming, so I don't have the luxury of rose-tinted glasses that most Final Fantasy fans have, or possibly Golden Sun ruined 2D rpgs for me completely with it's winning charm and incredible storyline, but I didn't feel it Final Fantasy IV made any impact on me whatsoever.

It may be my personal preference to rpg games, but I don't expect a precursor to an mmorpg that focuses on completionism, grinding and a sloppily built structure as an enjoyable experience.

I also played Golden Sun before I played any of the older RPGs, and then I played Final Fantasy VI. It was OK, but I kept missing Golden Sun's (and the Lost Age) colorful simplicity and pure fun. You don't need to Grind, but you can if you want. The game's sheer beauty, simple yet elegant story (not Pulitzer material, but better than FFVI or Dragon Warrior) and the fact that even the most menial RPG tasks were made completely fun put together a package that FFVI couldn't compete with, and I don't really want to be disappointed again. Game storylines should be simple and motivating. Gameplay should be ALWAYS fun, not mostly-fun-except-when-you-need-to-grind, or find item-drops, or somehow get to the end of a dungeon without hitting a random encounter every two steps.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Interesting analogy and I agree that they excel on the handhelds but...I'm not sure you can just lightly declare the entire series is "dreck" and "Saturday Morning Cartoon" fare when millions of people like them. If constant grinding was the chief appeal of the game that wouldn't explain the wide demographic of men and women who like the series. Nor can you just chuck out the plot when statistically about 1/4 of gamers (based on the XEO Design survey from a few years back) care about the plot with almost no concern about the game play or grinding.

X was an interesting break of mold for the series since it was so anti-romantic. Religion is false and piety is the false path and the mechanists were, oddly enough, the good guys. VII's anti-corporate message resonated nicely with the late 90's themes of marching against the World Bank and Sweatshop scandals. The insecurity of identity seemed to have an inadvertent connection with the materia system's destroying anything unique about each of the characters.

The Final Fantasy games have always been about creating a sophisticated method for delivering a grand, goofy soap opera. Yeah there's a ton of side quests, but given how easy the game is unless you challenge yourself personally...I can't help but think of them as scraps for gamers while the game itself contends with making the story delivery as fluid as possible.

I'm not really sure how XIII is going to do in the current climate with so many new gamers entering the culture...but I'd be surprised if the series' ability to deliver melodrama decreased in demand.

 

[ccesarano]

Firstly, all of the information Gloating Swine mentioned about the battleship Yamato should have been in this article. All I knew is that, when it was commissioned, it was ambitious, but when it was finished it was already obsolete (interestingly enough, this happens often in the gameplay of Master of Orion 2. Maybe an article should be written on that?). The article should have covered WHY it was obsolete. What it was going up against and wasn't ready for. As it was, this information was missing.

In the end, your core message is a good one. Unfortunately, your purpose is drowned in so much personal opinion that the overall message is lost and now there's too much desire to argue with your opinion rather than with your point.

Final Fantasy 4 does not have a great story, no. However, let us also consider the time it came out. While there were plenty of games coming out with pretty deep stories, a lot of them were mostly deep based on the medium they were encompassed in (take Myst for example). Final Fantasy 4 comes along, and all of a sudden it not only has a story, it has a completely cinematic experience. It opens up like a Hollywood movie with an epic score, with characters exchanging dialogue as they might in a film. Was the dialogue written expertly? No. Was the story absolutely ground breaking? Far from it. The story was cliched and read as if it were written by a middle school student.

The game was still ground breaking for what it presented. Even when you consider a lot of the Lucas Arts adventures from the early 90's and their stories, most of them were comedic. Final Fantasy 4 wasn't the first game to have a story, but it took itself seriously. While it wasn't the first one to take itself seriously, it also managed to do it cinematically. It paved the way for games to provide simple, yet still serious, cinematic experiences.

Unfortunately, as time passed, the assumption that Final Fantasy continued to be ground breaking continued. Somehow there became an assumption that JRPG's involved the deepest, greatest stories. This is, in fact, completely false.

Granted, a lot of the flaws you pointed out are actually part of a cultural barrier. Why are all the heroes teenagers whining about being heroes? Well, the Japanese wonder why our heroes are all middle-aged men that talk little or say nothing. While we think Gordon Freeman being an MIT scientist saving the world instead of the oft-criticized muscle bound soldier such as Marcus Fenix is a positive step in creativity, the Japanese look at him as just a silent doll with a generic American face. It all depends on the culture and what their goals are in narration.

As it is, I will admit that I have found new enjoyment in JRPG's in the DS. One of my favorite on the system is Contact, published by Atlus a couple of years ago and probably hard to find at this point. One of my favorite points is that the game is actually not very long, too. I'm tired of 40-80 hour games. I love how Final Fantasy 4 and Chrono Trigger are both roughly 20 hours, including the side quests. Any grinding I need to do, I can do it at my job.

The DS is a good place for JRPG's, since often enough their gameplay is more simple than the budget a console game may require (or major retail PC game). It is also a good place since it isn't always a system where you are competing for time to go from title for title. I know I can spend three months on a DS game and not care, but on console I have trouble spending two weeks before I want to move onto another title.

I also feel that Final Fantasy isn't keeping up with the generations, though they at least try to have good gameplay. Final Fantasy X, the last one I played, was fun despite a tedious story. In the end, I feel Final Fantasy moving to the DS is fitting, just as Dragon Quest shifting to the smaller platform was. I just feel the article got caught up in criticizing a game instead of embellishing the point it should.

 

[I Mav I]

I'm glad im not the only one in the world who thought FFXII sucked...but the rest i have loved so im not giving up on FFXIII just yet

But i cant agree with you on saying Final Fantasy cant make a good story...because FFVII made far too much of a massive impression on me to not be...

 

[GloatingSwine]

Final Fantasy 4 does not have a great story, no. However, let us also consider the time it came out. While there were plenty of games coming out with pretty deep stories, a lot of them were mostly deep based on the medium they were encompassed in (take Myst for example). Final Fantasy 4 comes along, and all of a sudden it not only has a story, it has a completely cinematic experience. It opens up like a Hollywood movie with an epic score, with characters exchanging dialogue as they might in a film. Was the dialogue written expertly? No. Was the story absolutely ground breaking? Far from it. The story was cliched and read as if it were written by a middle school student.

It's also important to consider the medium it was released on. Final Fantasy IV squeezes it's entire story, battle engine, graphics, and sound into one measly megabyte.

It's not going to be War and Peace.

 

[Erana]

Final Fantasy should stick to what it does best: Create a somewhat believable fantasy world, and have a fun battle system to allow you to impact it.

 

[Clemenstation]

"FFIV has such risible convolutions because these betrayals and deaths and family ties justify the constant rotation of the party roster. They vary gameplay. It's one thing to face down challenges with a Dark Knight and a Dragoon; it's something quite different with a Paladin, two kid magicians and an old wizard. The plot serves merely to explain why the player has one set of options rather than another."

I think this is salient. Recent Final Fantasy games have pretty much destroyed the link between narrative and gameplay, with all characters able to learn all skills/abilities. Party makeup ceases to have any real meaning because everything is customizable to the point where the arrival or departure of a character never hits you where it hurts - in the battle sequences.

Chrono Trigger was great because party choice impacted the type of elemental damage you could do, and because of the team-up combo techs you could do. You chose a team primarily to deal with the enemies at hand, and were rewarded for / reminded of that choice because each character would weigh in with personalized dialog at key story segments. Chrono Cross was a horrible middling mess because there were a billion characters that didn't play any significant, individual role (aside from having different stereotypical 'accents').

When play (battle) and story are casually disconnected, the whole thing feels like a giant discombobulated waste of time.

 

[Brodden]

His reference to the Yamato was regarding how the entire concept of a battleship in the late stages of WWII was obsolete. At the beginning of the war aircraft carriers were consider support chips to the battleships and that idea fizzled about mid 1941 when the Bismarck sank to the hands of the HMS Hood on a 'lucky'shot that crippled her. Aircraft carriers in particular in the Pacific where what fleets and armadas were built around. I really enjoyed this article.
With other Square successes the decide to keep the Final Fantasy series going? Chrono Trigger was by far a better game then any and all of the Final Fantasy's for the SNES.
I suppose the success of FF is the reliability, you know exactly what you're getting, A story that you wish was done by now and if you do the sidequests almost no real ambition to use that final weapon or skill on the Final boss because you know what's going to happen anyways. Except for X-Death... geez you serious?
I enjoyed FF IV and VI. VII was long and really didn't care about any PC outside of Avalanche. Cloud Berret and Tifa where all you needed with their final limits so powerful anyways (Props to Cid and Highwind too.) At least when in VI you would see Celes and Sabin meet early in the new world. It wasn't the Loche and Terra show the whole time.
XII there is no real attachment to any of the players. I would switch out a player indefinitely if they were missing some guy too often and never use them again. Essentially I would use the guys who didn't piss me off. Who cares really, there was no difference in the players aside from a few stats here and there between levels, and the finishers/limits were bad, really bad. Sure you're able to throw some damage but I personally never saw them, I was too busy hitting the combo buttons below to hit harder and harder.
If Square didn't release their own or have Prima make walkthroughs for the game I guarantee that most things we take for granted like the Ruby Weapon in FFVII and the Crystal sword in IV. Random chance if talking to the right people or opening the right chests through out the game removes replayability.
Make it fun again with some customization. FFx was trying that with the sphere grid I think, but regardless once you had keys to go in other players grids who would want Lulu?s stuff? She the only one who can equip her final weapon wo she's the only who makes sense to have the spells effectively.
That it... enough talking this should count for 12 posts sorry for all who read all of it, I feel like I owe you guys something. I'm open to suggestions.