CEO: Square Enix Has Become "Weaker Than Expected"

[Sion_Barzahd]

I honestly believe they've gone totally downhill since the merge with Enix.

Enix was, at best, a sub-par RPG developer that only had one ok series, the dragon quest games. When Squaresoft who was at the time my favourite developer, became square enix, i notice a big loss in gameplay greatness.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

my guess is that there's less and less people that plays the Final Fantasy games, since it's follow ups and always the same in a different set.

Truth be told, games are timeless. A good game system is a good game system. It doesn't matter if it's one year from release or TEN years from release. Notice that nobody's rushing to make a sequel to Basketball or Football? That's because games are timeless. Nobody got bored with the FF franchise, it's more that they haven't released a proper follow-on to the series in ten years. Plenty of people, I think, would happily welcome a competently done FF title--that's why so many people on this forum want to pin their hopes on V13.

i guess your right, but still, it's not with hopes that things will be done as the players expect unless they boycott the releases, which is difficult...

 

[NickCaligo42]

The only games besides Final Fantasy titles I actually enjoy from this company nowadays are from the Playstation era. You know, the peak of creativity at old Square Soft and Enix. The period they gave us Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Mana, Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, SaGa Frontier, Vagrant Story, Bushido Blade, Front Mission, Parasite Eve...

Where are these games?

Valkyrie profile got a couple of odd sequels.

Star Ocean got a sequel this generation and it was terrible.

Xenogears was followed up by Xenosaga 1, 2, and 3, and they're all terrible.

Parasite Eve just got a sequel on... 3DS, I think? It's not very good, from what I hear. Same with Front Mission, which has been a handheld franchise for a while. Same with Mana.

The Vagrant Story team, meanwhile, got cannibalized and is now Final Fantasy Team B; the ones responsible, in point of fact, for FF12 and 13--albeit under new management as the original creator of Vagrant Story was forced to resign because of how he ran FF12's production into the ground.

Can't say for the rest of them.

 

[teh_v]

I honestly believe they've gone totally downhill since the merge with Enix.

Enix was, at best, a sub-par RPG developer that only had one ok series, the dragon quest games. When Squaresoft who was at the time my favourite developer, became square enix, i notice a big loss in gameplay greatness.

So I'm not the only one who noticed that. Seems the golden days of SquareEnix was when they were Squaresoft. So I blame Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, for almost bankrupting Squaresoft and forcing them to merge with Enix. Seriously I'm all for some new IP the company needs it but they need to hire better writers and production managers. Pretty graphics are nice but without a good story you have nothing.

 

[Scarecrow]

You want to more money Square Enix? Then here's what you do....make TWEWY 2. I can tell you that more people would buy that then ANY FF game.

 

[coolkirb]

Hmm new Square Ip's sound interesting, though Im personally hopeing they make a godd Wii or 3DS rpg

 

[Swifteye]

I honestly believe they've gone totally downhill since the merge with Enix.

Enix was, at best, a sub-par RPG developer that only had one ok series, the dragon quest games. When Squaresoft who was at the time my favourite developer, became square enix, i notice a big loss in gameplay greatness.

Funny. Enix has made some pretty good non dragon quest games although mergers are known to damage a company for assorted reasons. What Enix does with there games don't related to how final fantasy games have changed. Also we have to account for who they publish and how they handle there business.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Perhaps these titles, combined with its brand new IPs, can help Square Enix make a recovery in the future.

That's more than a little bit overoptimistic I feel.

Their current release titles read like a lineup of everything that put the company where it is now.

I'm of the opinion that Square Enix needs to do something drastic to get them out of the shit they buried themselves in. Releasing the exact same titles that pushed them over the edges of greatness will not cut it.

 

[Ryank1908]

They just need to go back and look at what made FF6-10 great, and perhaps just make a new JRPG IP, keep the solid gameplay with all the modern conveniences, get a SOLID, SIMPLE storyline with characters that are actually likable instead of clawing at these tired old anime character cliches (Oh, a brooding male lead and a young happy-go-lucky girl, I am shocked and surprised.)

Like someone said up top - quality, not quantity, please.

 

[harvz]

hmm, how square enix, owners of final fantasy 7, could make a lot of money...

how about actually re-doing ff7 with better graphics and not make it a ps3 exclusive. you may now feel free to go for a swim in your pool of money.

 

[Innegativeion]

Here's what you do. Put a Kingdom Hearts 3 secret movie at the end of every game you put out. Your games are sold. This is a fact.

Square Enix

This guy.

Hire him.

 

[Strife2GFAQs]

Take my opinion for what it's worth, but I'll mainly focus on the "development" side of Square's properties.

1. Stay away from MMOs: nothing anywhere will come close to matching WoW, so they should have quit while they were ahead and stuck with console, one-player games.

2. The reason XII and XIII failed were that they forgot how to add variety. Look at all the side missions or minigames from VI-X. It was the closest Square ever came to what is considered a sanbox game today. What passed for "sidequests" in the last two games were "secret boss fights." Forgive me, but I don't want to spend 2-3 hours fighting some secret pile of garbage when I've spent the past 30 doing the same thing. Blitzball, Gold Saucer, Triple Triad. The old games had those and it masked the grind. XII and XIII were nothing but grind.

3. Speaking of grind, what is with their insistance on keeping the ATB system? XII had a nice idea with the on-field monsters, but they blew it when they integrated the "wait your turn" crap. X was turn based, fast paced, and fun. Star Ocean was hack and slash, real time, and fun. XII was neither and shear boredom. When fighting is all there is, make it fast. You can cut down the "60 hour epic" into "10 hour jaunt" really easily. If you want a game that should set the tone for any RPG moving forward, look at Ys Chronicles for the PSP. The main character is lightning fast, doing nothing but bumping into people. It's like if Sonic the Hedgehog were in an RPG. All I'm saying is that if Square wants to impress me, do away with ATB and choose a faster battle option. That way, if fighting is all there is, at least it will be done in a hurry.

4. For any game moving forward, or even any remake, utilize the same mantra. Random encounters and ATB should be phased out of existence, and there's no better way to do that then remake the old games so they don't exist. Lufia II DS managed to eliminate random encounters in favor of a hack and slash mechanic, and it was a refreshing experience. My utter hatred of random encounters has led to my refusal to finish III and IV DS, Mimana Iyar Chronicles, and even the vague reference to that disgusting and decrepit gaming mechanic leads to an instant dismissal. The guys who made Chrono Trigger back in 95 realized they suck, so why can't Square go back and repair that mistake with the old FF games?

5. Do not focus an entire story arc on whiny teenagers; nothing encapsulated my experience of XIII more than Hope's denial and ineptitude. Maybe it's because I'm nearing 30 and an eternal optimist/realist, but Hope is just a fat sack of whiny, hopeless, depressing, cowardly crap. He sat there on his ass moping about his mom, then he sits there moping some more because the main character (like any sane person) left him there to die. Next time Square pulls this "coming of age drama" piss with inept characters, they should give us the option to let them and their story arc die, Heavy Rain style.

Most of my gripes can be settled by eliminating ATB/random encounters and giving us access to free-roaming characters. Like I said before, RPGs these days are sold on the belief that they are "long, epic journeys." The fact is they are bloated from the immense time it takes to finish just one of their 50,000 battles. The cutscenes and story in XIII were only 6-7 hours. Had they taken the Ys approach, it would have slimmed the game from 60 to 15 hours. Imagine how hilarious it would be if Lightning simply ran around stabbing people at super sonic speed (intentionally avoided the pun). Trim the fat from the bloated corpse of RPG gameplay, and you will make a believer out of me.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

5 new IPs in the future? Color me intrigued. Hope they pull through.

 

[FinalFreak16]

I can tell you right now. Final Fantasy XIII-2. Cancel that.

Your probably right that it wont be that great but financially it would be a bad idea to cancel the project. The engine is already built and the game is simply using new or previously unused content. That means less time and money making the game and since its FF they will likely sell a lot of copies. Easy money. Same as any sequel to be fair.

I'm not saying its right. But with a loss of 148mil they have to make some money somehow.

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

Ahem.

Fire Toriyama, Man's a fucking hack.

Tell Nomura he isn't allowed to draw until he goes back to the work he did for FF5/6/7 For those wondering Monster Design/Sprite AKA Chibi design/Character Design, but the characters looked normal.

Matsuno still there from Tactics Ogre? Let him write his huge epic war fantasy, dude loves that shit and he's good at it.

FFXIII? Sucked. FFXII? Rocked. Focus on what made XII bad, and change it (Wait your turn combat even when it's free roam, the poorly paced story, the lack of mini-games outside of hunts. And not equally distributing your character development which left Ashe and Vaan as the only two who GOT any) Also

This looks ridiculous

This looks awesome

NEXT Start releasing games in OTHER GENRE'S see Dissidia? That was a step in the right fucking direction. These can be low-key, Downloadable bite sized games like SHMUPs, The Tower Defense game you already have, Airship Racing, Multiplayer RTS game, you can think of stuff.

When your thinking about the next FF to make? look at what Versus and Type-0 is doing. Versus is intresting because we've never seen that setting be used effectivly by ANYONE but Atlus, and Atlus is a fucking master of the Urban Fantasy/Modern Times with Magic game. with Type-0 you get a chance to use SeeD but ya know.

Not shit.

How abotu an RPG that's based on the 'Hollow Earth' theory where a Charming Con-Artist and a Badass female Knight are sent to one anothers worlds and half way through the game their respective parties meet up and kick the shit out of evil.

Look at Kingdom Hearts/ Versus. See that fast paced action gameplay? make that a bit more varied and merge that with the tactical options of an RPG game (hard but not impossible, and well worth the effort)

Weapon Variety is not a bad thing! Swords should NOT automatically be the strongest weapons!

No more MMOs, it just... no.

Characters Development does not mean "I have a problem, Waaaah danger, yay now were all best friends" Have I mentioned how much I hate FFXIII? NEXT Character Development is NOT Character Exposition.

Here is Character Development: Our brash hero with too much anger calms down as the game progresses, keeping the hot streak he has but becoming analytical to better serve the party. As such the people around him treat him with more respect.

Here is Character Exposition: STOP THIS SENSELESS FIGHTING! I AM A PACIFIST! IGNORE THAT I HAVE THOUSANDS OF DEAD ENEMIES TO MY NAME!

Or This: I'm actually mysterious and a prick because daddy didn't love me (Here's looking at you Balthier)

Don't give your characters quirks that we the player will hate. If he has to be stupid, make him FUNNY stupid and NOT the guy who's story you're playing. Pacifist Characters are ALWAYS A BAD IDEA AS PLAYABLE CHARACTERS! I really don't need to explain that one. Think of a pacifist in gameing, and think of how grating they are to listen to as they shiv more monsters. At the same time the badass MANLY gruff millitsary stereotype prevelant in Western gaming is also not the way to go.

You want to create characters, say you do have a young hero since you love them so much. Well then do a Tidus but with none of the angst that Tidus had. Young soldier thrust onto the battlefield in a time of war, his older compatriots serve as his mentor. He's humble and knows his place.

Also DESTINY SUCKS, if you tell me "You're the chosen one" I will go out of my way to NOT use them.

Finally, all that dead air when your wandering fields and fighting monsters? use that to develop the characters. Have talk topics that unlock every time you do an action.

Example as your escaping from the Doomed Hometown(Tm) The older party members urge the young hero onwards in escape all thrrough out the scene, have them shout out that enemies are in the way and other things on the surroundings. Set the atmosphere but develop them as well.

Then after your first fight once you've escaped and rest your characters will talk over the campfire about what to do now etc.

Give them certain observations to fixed encounters, like you enter an area and marvel at a mountain range, then you get close to it and it's actually a giant dragon and your party starts spazzing out as you run/fight. Have that one science guy go "Why do we even have a square cube law if nothing is going to obey it?"

 

[Faerillis]

I know it would be a "cheap" (perhaps not monetarily) but Square Enix could probably pull in a ton of cash with one simple move... Graphical updates of old Final Fantasies.

I'm sorry but who doesn't want to see what FF7s weapon bosses and the summons with modern graphics? FF5 remade /drool! While not FF, Chrono Trigger would be amazing. It's hardly a new idea but they would really only have to redesign the engines for the mini-games (ie Fort Condor).

Also, stay the hell away from MMOs. WoW is great if you like RPGs and since FF systems aren't that different from WoW you just aren't going to do well against WoW so stop pouring resources into it. Personally I'm not fond of Dissidia but that was a big hit and us fanboys, we kind of like crossovers.

 

[teh_v]

5. Do not focus an entire story arc on whiny teenagers; nothing encapsulated my experience of XIII more than Hope's denial and ineptitude. Maybe it's because I'm nearing 30 and an eternal optimist/realist, but Hope is just a fat sack of whiny, hopeless, depressing, cowardly crap. He sat there on his ass moping about his mom, then he sits there moping some more because the main character (like any sane person) left him there to die. Next time Square pulls this "coming of age drama" piss with inept characters, they should give us the option to let them and their story arc die, Heavy Rain style.

This is one i agree with most. We grew up with the final fantasy but now most of the people that love final fantasy and other squaresoft game are in their 20's build some char. that reflect this. Whinny coming to age stories have been done to death. Let's see something like a middle aged knight who is on a quest to save his lands or leading a rebellion against his king that has gone mad or maybe start off as a bounty hunter/mercenary who been sent to a new land /war torn land what ever. Just this I'm 16 year old and people are dieing around me but I don't want to kill anyone shit has got to go. This may be off topic but Gundam this rant is also for you.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Make KH3 or a new KH game without requiring every console ever made to hear the damn story, make a relatively unchanged HD true-to-the-original remake of FFVI/VII/VIII, maybe do the same for Secret of Mana, team up with Nintendo to bring Super Mario RPG 2, or something, and stop making MMOs. They just don't work for you. New IP's sound good, do that too, just make sure they're IP's people want to play. TWEWY was good. Go with things like that.