Square Enix is a ?Complete Failure?

[Flamezdudes]

I don't mind Square Enix really. I don't hate them but i'm not ecstatic about them either, the only things they make that I play or watch are Final Fantasy related and I liked Final Fantasy XIII. XII and XIII-2, not so much, but I can forgive them and see where they go from here. If they ever release Versus XIII and it's good they'll gain a lot of points in my book.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

No wonder they keep making bad games like Capcom dose..........

 

[Nieroshai]

When SE stopped giving a damn about its original fanbase and started trying to 'Madden' FF7...

Well, I'd say that's when it went downhill.

Yeah, with its whole 1 sequel, 1 prequel, and a cell phone game no one remembers. That's a lot of games.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

One thing I will always give them credit for with the FF series is that they don't stagnate. They try to recapture the magic that was 7 in story, but they haven't just been making the same game mechanics over and over again. While experimentation doesn't mean success, the honest attempt should be respected.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

So...
I guess I'm the only one here who liked Human Revolution...
I'll be leaving this thread now.

No sir, you're never the only one. I liked Human Revolution just as much.
Allow me to join you as I slink away from the thread now.

 

[Murmillos]

I've bought more games from Square Enix and Unisoft then from all other publishers combined in the past 3 years..
I think I'm fairly neutral on 2K (they haven't done anything to erk me), Bethesda has been decent too.
Microsoft publishes only a few major games a year. Forza & Halo being their main big flagships.
I buy Rockstar games based on my interest on their games, but over all, they have a high production value.

EA still gets some of my money - but only because they are so big and own so many developers, but with their BioWare Mass Effect series cock-up, no longer will have anything pre-ordered from me again; but at their going rate, they are chasing me away.
Activation has finally got money from me in the longest of years, and that was only because of Skylanders (which was more my wife purchase for the kids -- then my own doing / But I did break down and buy Drobot).

 

[Vivi22]

And lets not forget, Square are the ones who pushed to make Deus Ex more console friendly, effectively ruining Invisible War, with not just it's focus but management problems... as lead designer Harvey Smith has revealed...

What? Square had nothing to do with Invisible War. They didn't even buy Eidos until five years after it was released.

 

[dfphetteplace]

I certainly haven't played all of their games, and I have zero interest in playing Final Fantasy titles, but I enjoy most of the other games I have played from them. I liked Human Revolution and Just Cause 2, and I'm sure that there are others, so I wouldn't call them a complete failure.

 

[daveman247]

They publish really awesome games. Just Cause 2, Quantum Conodrum, Sleeping Dogs, Deus Ex Human Revolution... all awesome! Personally I love them for how quickly they drop the prices for their games

And soon hitman absolution


Most of this could be eidos, but i dont care. ^^^^ these games here are some of my favourites.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Eh, Square-Enix had some good games like Kingdom Hearts 2 and The World Ends with You... but most of their games are... of questionable quality.

...Still wish they'd make Kingdom Hearts 3, though...

 

[daveman247]

Others have mentioned Eidos, so I'll skip that part and mention that I liked it too, but due to deadlines the game was sold incomplete. There are substantially large chunks of the game that were complete, including entire cities, that had to be left out. Usually it's the publisher that imposes demands on deadlines being met, and in this case that would have been SquareEnix. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken here.

If this is true, i bet montreal was one of the cities to be cut. I didnt expect to only be allowed in the news office block :/

Surely it could be added as dlc? They should have gone the route bioshock 2 did, and make a separate story, instead of filling in a slight plot hole which nobody cared about :/

 

[Shirokurou]

They didn't screw up Deus Ex: HR and Tomb Raider and the new Hitman look good.

Also SE publishes the Call of Duty series in Japan (where it's not that hot, but still), so they'll pull through.

And Nomura still has his original spark.

 

[Norrdicus]

Just Cause 2 is the pinnacle of the "blow stuff up" sub-genre. And there's a great big Squeenix logo attached to it. Not everything they do is sub-par.

Actually, even Just Cause 2 could be better. It could have the in-depth demolitions and destruction of Red Faction Guerrilla

More than once have I destroyed many of the walls of an office building with my hammer, then put plastic explosives on the load-bearing parts, blow it up and see it crumble from a distance, then smash a small hole into a huge pipe with the hammer so I can go inside and hide it out

 

[daveman247]

snip

THAT would be awesome, maybe in the next generation ^_^

A sequal to guerilla would be great too, WAS NOT a fan of armogeddon.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

This company's become nothing more than a publisher that occasionally rehashes a game with "Final Fantasy" in the title every now and again. Games like Just Cause and Human Revolution weren't made by Square Enix, guys.

Even Enix, the side of the merger I'd be more likely to defend, is doing the same thing, but with "Final Fantasy" replaced by "Dragon Quest", albeit at a much, much lesser rate.

 

[RN7]

I liked FFX, and FXIII. FX-2 was ok, and I never bothered with XIII-2. I wouldn't call Square Enix a "complete failure", but their latest content has been somewhat lackluster. I'm waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3 to pass final judgment.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Square-Enix
Or, "Squeenix", as I call them.
Finally crashed and burned did they?

It's a painful relationship between me and Square; having grown up playing their classic RPGs, seen their more ambitious work when it was new, and then...to see them merge with a dying Enix, and descend into exploitation and mediocrity (with the occasional dose of stunning incompetence).

I still count some of their early games as favorites (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics, FF6), but it's clear to me that they have no more ambition or competence.
Been clear to me for years, really.

I have been saying SE has been crap since the merger, pretty much since right after the merger.

I was "late" to that party, and didn't start calling Squeenix crap until after I saw Advent Children. Good grief I felt dirty and stupid just watching that.

Post-merger Square has had precisely ONE big hit with me (both developed and published games), and that's Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Well, ok, War of the Lions was fucking amazing save for the inexplicable gameplay slowdown, but that was a remake of a brilliant game.

The rest of their hits with me are...meh.
-Crisis Core had great moments, but was overall bland and combat was very boring.
-Radiata Stories had so many problems...it looked cheap and ugly, the combat was clunky as hell, and it's painfully short. However, the branched story line and blunt satire of RPG tropes at least made it memorable.

On the other hand...
-Dirge of Cerberus: When the game isn't broken, it's boring. When it isn't boring, it's insanity. And at no point is it ever good. The story is convoluted, terrible, and plays like a fanfic.

-Mindjack: The most incompetent shooter I've seen (and played) since Daikatana.
That's up against over a solid decade of contenders.
It's a D-grade shooter trapped in a AAA body. (the CG cutscenes and audio are not quite up to Squeenix's standards, but they're definitely not bargain-basement either).

It was also final proof that Squeenix wasn't paying much attention to the properties it was financing. Now, I'm all for the publisher not meddling in the affairs of its developers, but this was a situation where someone should have stepped back and went "Holy shit this is awful."

 

[kyogen]

"Complete failure" is pointless hyperbole. It's a volatile industry in a tough economy, and S-E needs to update its work-flow processes as well as its design philosophy. That much has been obvious for quite awhile, and such problems are hardly unique to S-E. The company will probably never be the undisputed top dog of the Japanese games industry again, but the market doesn't really encourage that kind of single-company dominance right now in any case.

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

Need a minute to stop twitching from the bloke who said FFIX was forgettable... Shame on you, sir.

In my book, they aren't a complete failure, not by a long shot. But this isn't to say they've not made some eyebrow raising decisions lately. I've actually enjoyed just about every Final Fantasy they've released, but some are definitely streets ahead of the others. I thought XIII was a good game. Was it what I want / expect of the FF series? Well not really, no. Do I think it warrants two sequels? No. Do I wish, really really wish, they'd pull their finger out and do something with Versus because that showed glimmers of awesome? Dear God, yes.

Personally I enjoy turn based combat, so don't want them to stop with this and the JRPG style. there are those of us out there who think it's great. But then I also got a huge kick out of Mass Effect and Uncharted and things, so let's not stick the blinkers on. There's room for both types of game in this world, scrapping one is not going to solve all the problems.

At the moment it feels like they've got too many things on the go at once, so nothing is getting the attention it needs. Hopefully they'll take on board some of the honest, constructive criticism from the latest releases and get their act together a bit.

Capcha: Fairy Godmother. Maybe that's what we need?

 

[j0frenzy]

So I've let this mull about in my head for most of the day trying to think of how to respond. I do definitely think that Square-Enix is objectively less respected than where either studio was prior to the merger, but I don't think it is the merger's fault entirely. No Japanese developer really weathered the transition to the most recent console generation well. Add to that their focus genre, the JRPG, also haven't weathered the transition well. It is hard to stay on top when the market shifts away from you.
Additionally, I think we tend to forget their accomplishments in light of their Final Fantasy missteps. They still brought us the 2 Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced games, The World End With You, Dissidia, most of the Kingdom Hearts series and what were allegedly some good Wiiware games (according to some people I know).
That isn't to say Final Fantasy 12 and 13 didn't have missteps, they keep teasing us with HD remakes of their most remembered games, and they don't get the app store market by charging well north of $10 in a $0.99 market.
I will admit to having shifted away from Square-Enix since the merger, but that had a lot to do with a shifting taste in games as opposed a full decline in quality. Personally, I think they are doing alright though I wouldn't mind seeing a shift in their design philosophy.