sigh
I am one of those that is thinking that Squeenix is going down hill. XIII, while interesting and actually had a decent story, lacked in the storyTELLING. In medias res with no exposition was simply not a good way to convey their message. Personally, I think Square should look to the past for their new games. JRPGs are always story and character driven, not open-ended character creation engines like Western RPGs. That's their market, that should never change.
When FFVI was release, we saw that instead of solely fantastical medievalism like the previous games, Square set their game in early industrial revolution with a central theme being progress in technology versus a more natural and magical world. VII saw that technology had won and then VIII dropped the ball by being to sci-fi and not enough fantasy (and REALLY uninteresting characters, imo). So What was the next game on the docket? FFIX, a freaking awesome throwback to their classical game stylings.
I'm not saying that the setting can't be futuristic or technological, but that with each new iteration of the series, Square seems is refining and refining until it's unrecognizable from what many of us loved about the early games...you know, the games that made them a successful company and made it so that a release of a new Final Fantasy was cause to close the banks and government buildings in Japan.
An accessible, compelling story with easy to use combat. Better characterization, or at least characters we don't want to let be anal-raped by a Bomb.
Hell, they should just follow Dragon Quest/Warrior's model, and not change a single damn thing.
I am one of those that is thinking that Squeenix is going down hill. XIII, while interesting and actually had a decent story, lacked in the storyTELLING. In medias res with no exposition was simply not a good way to convey their message. Personally, I think Square should look to the past for their new games. JRPGs are always story and character driven, not open-ended character creation engines like Western RPGs. That's their market, that should never change.
When FFVI was release, we saw that instead of solely fantastical medievalism like the previous games, Square set their game in early industrial revolution with a central theme being progress in technology versus a more natural and magical world. VII saw that technology had won and then VIII dropped the ball by being to sci-fi and not enough fantasy (and REALLY uninteresting characters, imo). So What was the next game on the docket? FFIX, a freaking awesome throwback to their classical game stylings.
I'm not saying that the setting can't be futuristic or technological, but that with each new iteration of the series, Square seems is refining and refining until it's unrecognizable from what many of us loved about the early games...you know, the games that made them a successful company and made it so that a release of a new Final Fantasy was cause to close the banks and government buildings in Japan.
An accessible, compelling story with easy to use combat. Better characterization, or at least characters we don't want to let be anal-raped by a Bomb.
Hell, they should just follow Dragon Quest/Warrior's model, and not change a single damn thing.
