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Calvin
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 Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:24 am Post subject: |
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Maybe though, we, as in the demographics that grew up playing Final Fantasy on NES just don't matter anymore. Their games still sell well. maybe this is what the kids are like and identify with these days. So, perhaps wherever Final Fantasy goes, the rest of us will go without it.
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Now that you've said that, it does make quite a bit of sense. For example, Blue's Clues may be a show you enjoy as a kid, but as you get older the product's target demographic isn't going to change--you just sort of grow out of it. In that vain, I can see where FF might be more geared to adolescent gamers rather than the adult gamers that grew up with the earlier games. Maybe the core ideas of Final Fantasy haven't changed that much, and instead it is us who have changed (okay, obviously the gameplay has been wildly different from game to game).
That being said, even as an adult I find myself enjoying the Final Fantasy stand-alone titles still. Hey, if adults can get away with watching Spongebob Squarepants, than its okay for me to like Final Fantasy.
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Himuro
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:56 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe though, we, as in the demographics that grew up playing Final Fantasy on NES just don't matter anymore. Their games still sell well. maybe this is what the kids are like and identify with these days. So, perhaps wherever Final Fantasy goes, the rest of us will go without it. |
FFVII was my first FF and they've now lost me as a target demographic. I just don't "get" FF anymore.
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Falcon Critical
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:47 am Post subject: |
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If you have broadband and a bit of time on your hands, I watched this series of reviews on the entire FF series including all spinoffs that was done by GameTrailers. Its really well done and points out key parts of each FF in the series and why they took directions they did with many of the games.
Final Fantasy Retrospective
Two things I saw there that were certainly interesting, though the first made me cringe.
1) There is a project in place that involves creating as many spinoffs as they can from one nominated FF game (guess what... its FF7 duh) and apparently that 'project' is penciled in to last 10 years... ending on the 20th anniversary of FF7's release. Yep that means there's still a legion of FF7 related games/movies/propaganda yet to come out, and most of you I imagine are pretty disillusioned by the thought of that now.
2) There is another project called 'Ivalice Alliance', which retrospectively covers FF Tactics, FF Tactics Advance, FF Tactics Advance 2, Vagrant Story, FF 12 and I think there's another - but anyway, it seems that they're doing a lot of work in trying to create a timeline and lineup all the games set in Ivalice into a coherent set of stories within a single world. In other words they're trying to Suikoden it. Still they've gone about it all the wrong way, with a bunch of loosely associated games and then trying to force a timeline over top. Still we definitely haven't seen the last of Ivalice either it seems.
The series of review 'movies' I guess could be translated as propaganda, they certainly made me more interested in the series again, I did think the FF11 one dragged on though since I don't play that game but do know how a MMORPG works and releases expansions.
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Demon Eyes Kyo
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:52 am Post subject: |
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I am honestly tired of the Final Fantasy games. It's all the same crap over and over again, but that could be said about any JRPG. I guess I am just tired of turn-based RPGs. But as for Final Fantasy, I am sick and tired of the VII world. It's been stretched out too far and it needs to be just left alone. But if S-E did that, they wouldn't be able to make any money at all! I'm glad that S-E is finally moving onto the world of Ivalice and making new ones, but I hope they don't stretch those too far out either.
But I'm not really concerned with Final Fantasy, I just want to know what systems the future Tales, Suikoden or new IPs are going to.
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Ryu
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:19 am Post subject: |
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Maybe though, we, as in the demographics that grew up playing Final Fantasy on NES just don't matter anymore. Their games still sell well. maybe this is what the kids are like and identify with these days. So, perhaps wherever Final Fantasy goes, the rest of us will go without it.
Now that you've said that, it does make quite a bit of sense. For example, Blue's Clues may be a show you enjoy as a kid, but as you get older the product's target demographic isn't going to change--you just sort of grow out of it. In that vain, I can see where FF might be more geared to adolescent gamers rather than the adult gamers that grew up with the earlier games. Maybe the core ideas of Final Fantasy haven't changed that much, and instead it is us who have changed (okay, obviously the gameplay has been wildly different from game to game).
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The only problem with that theory is the fact that you can actually see that the games themselves have changed. Look at early Final Fantasy games like 5 and 6, both of these had mature, intresting storylines that drove the game. Maybe the only reason the story drove the game is because the graphics were not great. Still look at 7, it still had a mature storyline, at times, and it's graphics were good (for the time) but since 10, i've noticed that the storyline has taken a back seat to the pretty graphics as the games driving element. As i have said before kids today are only intrested in pretty graphics, just ask anyone who comes into a gamestop that is not an old school gamer and ask them if they would buy a game that looked like final fantasy 6 for their PS3, XBOX360, or Wii.
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Timbo
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:34 am Post subject: |
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I think FFVII ruined the Final Fantasy series. This isn't to say that FFVII is a bad game, its my favorite FF actually, but that FFVII had such mass appeal that the target demographic of Final Fantasy games made a huge shift. Slowly but surely the elements of the old games faded away and we were left with what we have now: tons of spin offs to FFVII.
I think what happened to FF is similar to what happened with Star Wars. The first three Star Wars films were great and they made many memorable and cool characters. The series that came out afterwards had to reference these cool characters and be about them, that's why the second trilogy had to throw in Boba Fett and build up his story and Chewbacca and the droids had to make cameos. There could't just be a new set of stories related to the others, because people wanted to see Chewbacca and Boba Fett. Replace the original Star Wars trilogy with FFVII and you get the same thing with Final Fantasy.
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Crimson_Angel
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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I absolutely love the series, except for a couple. Final Fantasy V just flat out sucked, the story was kind of dull, and I did get near the end, but by then I wasn't even interested in beating it. Alot of people say that the original is best, but I hated the very first one. It bored the crap out of me. After a few hours I couldn't even take it anymore. Total dullness if you ask me...Final Fantasy VII I did love alot, but it wasn't my favorite. The story can be a little confusing, and I love that now, but to the twelve year old I was when I first beat it, some of the things in the story just weren't clear to me.
I'd have to say, over all, that X is my favorite out of them all. The characters have a great depth to their personalities, and the storyline is nothing short of genius. X-2 really wasn't all that great, I just did it for the ending, and that made it worth it. I'll never play it all through again, though.
I liked the battle system change they did in XII. It was a nice change, and I love the way you can just run up to whatever you want and start fighting it :twisted: Awesome. Overall I liked the game, and the story was good and all, but it could have been better. I know alot of people hate Final Fantasy VIII, but I actually loved that one. It's my second favorite, after Final Fantasy X. Besides the junction system, which I really hated, the rest of the game was great.
I could probably go on for hours, but I'll stop talking now....At least you know that Suikoden isn't my only passion :*laugh*:
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Ujitsuna
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| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:09 am Post subject: |
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| Timbo wrote: |
| I think FFVII ruined the Final Fantasy series. This isn't to say that FFVII is a bad game, its my favorite FF actually, but that FFVII had such mass appeal that the target demographic of Final Fantasy games made a huge shift. Slowly but surely the elements of the old games faded away and we were left with what we have now: tons of spin offs to FFVII. |
I don't agree, I think that Final Fantasy VII was the best thing to happen to the series. VII and IX although not as good proved Squaresoft knew what they were doing. It's when they made the jump onto the Playstation 2 that things started to get dissapointing. |
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fuji
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:12 am Post subject: |
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| Ryu wrote: |
The only problem with that theory is the fact that you can actually see that the games themselves have changed. Look at early Final Fantasy games like 5 and 6, both of these had mature, intresting storylines that drove the game. |
If anything, that re-inforces it. The kids these days are the demographic that Square is targetting... not the kids from the NES/SNES days. Back then, we loved the character driven stories. Now, as you said, pretty graphics sells and maybe that's what their target audience likes, so that's where their development time is spent.
A game typically has X amount of development ... units (a measurement of time, money, man power, etc). If more is spent on graphics to appeal to their target audience, then less is spent on places like story, characterization...
FFVII was the best thing to happen to the series and the worst thing at the same time. On one hand, it was a very interesting story they created, but it also led to what has become the repetitive "features" in every FF game for the next decade and a half. I guess, what I'm saying is I agree wtih Timbo.
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Hawk Thanatos
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:49 am Post subject: |
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Meh, I'm not too worried about the Final Fantasy series. Sure Square-Enix isn't what it used to be, and Final Fantasy XII sucked major ass but you can't expect every game to be great (*cough* Suikoden IV *cough*).
Any of you who honestly think that the SNES era Final Fantasies had more character development than Final Fantasy X are out of your minds though. |
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eXistence of Fly
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:52 am Post subject: |
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| fuji wrote: |
If anything, that re-inforces it. The kids these days are the demographic that Square is targetting... not the kids from the NES/SNES days. Back then, we loved the character driven stories. Now, as you said, pretty graphics sells and maybe that's what their target audience likes, so that's where their development time is spent.
A game typically has X amount of development ... units (a measurement of time, money, man power, etc). If more is spent on graphics to appeal to their target audience, then less is spent on places like story, characterization...
FFVII was the best thing to happen to the series and the worst thing at the same time. On one hand, it was a very interesting story they created, but it also led to what has become the repetitive "features" in every FF game for the next decade and a half. I guess, what I'm saying is I agree wtih Timbo. |
In that same vein though fans should be "turned off" on average from the PS1 to PS2 switch (FFIX - X) since it was a "change in demographic" from adamant story telling with pretty graphics to pretty graphics with a bit of "oh shit" for a story. Likewise with that the seeming sandboxed "we can't be arsed making an rpg here" FFXII would also then turn people off since it was more what you'd expect from a PC RPG / MMO rather than a console series. Of course those who then left would be offset by those who then joined the series, but predominantly the shift as far as user base goes really only replaced from "bit era" (S/NES as you claim), and we haven't seen such large numbers of "flip flopping" with each subsequent shift, so that can't really be such a large factor with why the series is as it is now.
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Ryu
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:31 am Post subject: |
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Did no one else realize that the battle system in Final Fantasy X111 was just a crappy rip off of Kingdom Hearts' battle system. I hated the battle system of Final Fantasy 13 (and you can throw in any game with that kind of battle system, like Star Ocean. But when i play Star Ocean I expect it, no so with FF) All i am saying is that i would not be supprised if Final Fantasy turns into an Action/RPG game like Kingdom Hearts but final fantasy 14 or 15.
On kind of the same topic, there are very few true blue RPGs coming out now adays, everything is an Action/Adventure game with RPG elements, a.k.a. a level up system that has little to no effect on the game. I could count the actual number of RPGs on my hands and i can count the actual number of good RPGs with just one hand.
But I can not say i blame Square-Enix, for they are first and foremost a business. and their only goal is to make money. but like most of the gaming industry, they think we are all a bunch of "ADD twelve year olds who go comatose if we don't shoot someone in the head every thirty seconds." (borrowed that little gem from theescapist:zero punctuation, google that shit it's great)
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