Article on how the next released FF should be...

[Duuude007]

So much i disagree with... but I felt it would be worth sharing with the community of fans.

[source]

Anyone who has been following this blog knows that my love for the Final Fantasy franchise runs deep. It's hard for me to discuss anything even remotely related to video games without coming back to this legendary franchise, one which was provided great stories to gamers for the past quarter century. For a long time, the Final Fantasy name was synonymous with RPGs, effectively popularizing them here in the West long before Baldur's Gate or Morrowind would bring their own fanbases to the genre.

Lately, however, it's a series that has garnered mostly disdain and hatred from its fans, especially with the latest installments, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIV. While I enjoyed FF13, it definitely wasn't the highest caliber game that Square-Enix has ever put out, and many of its problems are indicative of a shift in design philosophy over at S-E that doesn't bode well for the company's future. While they continue to publish stellar games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Sleeping Dogs, their self-developed games seem to be losing the core base of fans that earned them their throne atop the JRPG genre.

However, unlike some, I feel there is still hope for the franchise if they can get their act together and remember what made the SNES and PS1 entries in the franchise so successful. Before the series can evolve into something new that gamers want to play, they need to return to the basics of what made them great and examine how that is different than what they have been doing. I admire the lastest Final Fantasy games for trying to break from the formula and try something new, but they have clearly lost their way in some respects and are in need of a return. Top brass at Square have said that they will not consider releasing a remake of Final Fantasy VII until they create a Final Fantasy that they feel surpasses it, and since they're probably not talking about a remake of Final Fantasy VI, things are going to need to change is nostalgia fiends ever want to perform Omni-slash in glorious HD.

So, without further ado:

Return to Greatness: A Final Fantasy XV Wishlist

Let's get the obvious out of the way first.



"Look, Hope, the next game in the series is going to be an MMO! Maybe people will stop hating on us now!"

OFFLINE ONLY



Stop trying to make Final Fantasy work as an MMO, you guys. Just stop it. The concepts that make Final Fantasy great are completely counter to the community-driven click-a-thon that every MMO eventually devolves into. Nobody is booting up an FF game to do sidequests involving slaying 10 Bite Bugs before returning to your Class Trainer in order to respec your debuffs by hotkeying macros to your-

Okay, you caught me, I don't know MMO jargon because I hate MMORPGs with a burning passion that rages deep within the pit of my soul MMOs are an inferior form of RPG that pervert everything the genre stands for I have better things to do with my money than pay for overpriced subscription fees they're just not my thing. Either way, though, an online game is not the way to create the next great Final Fantasy, even if it's a really tight MMO, the inherent weaknesses of the genre are going to take away from what made the series great.

That's not to say Multiplayer can't be an option. A handful of Final Fantasy games were able to integrate a simplistic kind of multiplayer by having Controller 1 control half of the party while Controller 2 controlled the other. While this is hardly engaging co-op on the same level as Portal 2, it is a way to get the spectator involved that doesn't hamper a single-player experience whatsoever. I would welcome a feature like this into a future FF game.

On to more important points.




"Wait, where are we?"

SUBSTANCE OVER STYLE

Final Fantasy XIII was a very pretty game. In fact, Final Fantasy is a series that has a history of being very pleasing to the eye. Look at any of Yoshitaka Amano's concept art for a Final Fantasy game and you'll understand that artistically, the games have always been of the highest caliber. However, sometimes FFXIII became so wrapped up in its pretty visuals that story and characters would take a backseat, which is something that should never happen in any RPG. It was certainly a great way to flex the PS3 and 360's graphical muscles, but there's something to be said of the calm moments, too. While the Floating Continent and the Esper homeworld in Final Fantasy VI were certainly visually striking, they also had the tiny coal town of Narshe and the idyllic village of South Figaro to contrast it. The planet's core at the end of Final Fantasy VII was a sight to behold, but we also had the stark and featureless Icicle Mountains to help make the world feel fleshed out.

Setting has always been important to the Final Fantasy series, so hopefully Final Fantasy XV will craft a world that is full of both visually stunning locales and the sleepy towns and rugged wilderness that made the settings of previous games so memorable.





Best. Romance. Ever.

CHARACTERS COME FIRST

Final Fantasy wouldn't be the franchise it is today without its characters. From Cecil becoming a Paladin in Final Fantasy IV to Cloud and Tifa confronting their past amidst the Lifestream in Final Fantasy VII to Zidane learning the truth about his existence in Final Fantasy IX, the cast of characters have always been the source of the series' iconic moments. If FF15 can create a diverse and memorable cast of characters of the same level of quality as FF6 or FF9, Square-Enix will have made huge strides in winning back the loyalty of the fans.

Some of the less publicly accepted entries in the series have often been criticized for their weak cast (because really, who doesn't love complaining about Squall or Snow?) but building an ensemble with strong relationships, engaging backstories, and vibrant personalities can automatically win the favor of the player, even if the narrative of the story goes off in ways that might not otherwise be acceptable. If any game other than FF4 had featured the team riding a mechanical whale to the moon in order to defeat the protagonist's evil Half-MoonPerson brother, gamers would have flipped tables, but they were invested enough in Cecil and company's journey that they went right along with it.

Square-Enix, if you give us a protagonist who goes through personal growth as a result of the journey, learns something valuable about his/herself, proves to be an inspiring leader so it makes sense that the others would follow him/her, and manages to do all of this without ever resulting to extensive whining or d-baggery, you will have another Terra or Cloud on your hands. Surround them with likable characters with their own backstories that are touching without ever intruding or dominating the main story, and gamers will be able to enjoy an ensemble cast of the same quality as that of FF6 or FF9. It has been proven possible before, it can happen again.

Now, onto gameplay.



I'm suddenly getting that "Kid in a Candy Store" feeling.

ADDICTIVE CHARACTER PROGRESSION

Give us a character progression system that makes us want to keep playing. That's the cornerstone of every RPG. I kept playing FF6 because I wanted my party to master the spells that the Espers they had equipped were teaching them. I spent hours fighting in Legend of the Dragoon trying to perfect every character's Addition so that I could become an unstoppable force of martial prowess on the battlefield. I'm currently tearing through Persona 3 trying to fuse up the strongest Persona I can.

If FF15 can create a battle system as addictive and customizable as Espers, Materia, or the License Board, gameplay will be no concern. Perhaps a return to something resembling the Job Class system is in order, or maybe someone at Square has a completely different idea, but the keys to a good FF battle system are simple rules that are easy to learn, but take a great deal of time to truly become powerful enough to fully exploit.

Ideally, FF15 will strike the balance between player customization and character individuality, something that in my opinion was perfected in Final Fantasy 6. If each character has abilities that only they can bring to the table, but the player is also free to customize their characters in a multitude of ways, it will help the player feel like the choices of their party matters while also feeling the freedom to create their own fighting style.





Wark wark, mothaf***as

ETC.

Some other small things that aren't of upmost importance, but are still necessary to get that Final Fantasy flavor.

•Respect the franchise's history. Cid, Biggs, and Wedge are required names, and the more small nods you can give to previous games, the better.
•Stop trying to re-invent how equipment works. Every time it just ends up more trouble than it's worth.
•Sidequests, and lots of them, but make sure the incentive for doing them is worth the effort.
•Apparently people actually liked the card games in FF8 and FF9. I was never fond of them, but if it'll make people happy and is never required for the main story, feel free to put it in.
•Riding Chocobos is a must. In fact, a Chocobo Cavalier party member would be pretty sweet. Just an idea.
•We need a powerful villain. Kefka, Sephiroth, and Kuja all stole the show whenever they appeared, give us a villain that we love to hate just like those guys.
•Keep the ATB battle system. As cool and interesting as 12 and 13's battle systems were, a return to basics wouldn't hurt the franchise.
•Keep the narrative simple. Nobody is here for Metal Gear Solid plots.
•Bring back the Victory Fanfare, the Prelude song, and the Crystal theme. These musical cues are part of what makes Final Fantasy great.
What do you guys think? Anything I left out? Do you think these guidelines could make another great Final Fantasy game? Let me know in the comments below.

[Yrusama]

SPOILER WARNING! My post contains some spoilers about previous FFs.
Most of what he described also matches XIII's description, ironically. I think my biggest agreements with this are:

• The need for area contrast. All areas should be beautifully crafted, but we need mundane areas to contrast the stylized disco raves at endgame. XIV seems to be doing well enough about this, but as an MMO it needs fairly basic towns.
• The need for more FF themes and allusions. XIII had a lot of subtle ones, like the Fal'Cie are all named with FF allusions in mind, but when you take away ALL of the iconic songs (except the Chocobo Them), and make Moogles an afterthought, it makes it easy to forget that it's FF. The Main Theme is a proud anthem that practically inspires patriotism among fans - even FFVIII included it, in spite of its stylistic contrast from almost everything before it. XIII didn't have any of that, and Theatrhythm makes it very clear how drastically different XIII and XII are musically from the rest of the series. XIV is doing a wonderful job of this.
• A good villain is necessary. I can't think of one villain in FFXIII that I really gave a damn about. The evil Pope guy was only cool in his transformed state, but I forgot all about him between his scenes. In fact I had to struggle to remember he even existed, whereas Kefka, Ultimecia, Exdeath, and Seymour all come to mind immediately when you think of their corresponding games, and that's not to mention the ever-popular Sephiroth. XIV has Gaius Van Baelsar, and Nael Van Darnus before him, so I think we have it covered

So yeah. This person is blind if they don't see how much of what they listed are present in XIII.

Edit: on second thought, most of the villains I listed were present in Dissidia, which makes them so memorable. Seymour was a good villain, too (even if you hate his voice, at least he's memorable), as was Caius Ballad, and both would make fine additions to Dissidia. That should be the means for how they come up with FF villains: how well would they fit in Dissidia. The only exception in Dissidia's cast is Cloud of Darkness from FF3: she may be the manifestation of Light's conceptual antipode, but Xande is a villain with much more character.
A villain should, at a glance, be on par with the playable cast, maybe slightly stronger or older. Dysley was an old man, a politician, and later a god. None of that looks even close to any of the FFXIII cast. There's a reason I kept thinking of Cid Raines as XIII's main villain - even though he's only temporarily an enemy, he's a l'Cie just like the playable party. Gaius Van Baelsar in XIII may be a major military force for the Empire, but he's clearly no less human than any of us adventurers.

[Nuinn]

White Raven = memorable villain of 1.0 which gave a lot of us many frustrations on hard mode, as well as so much joy for finally robbing him of his precious earrings＼(｀0´)／

MMORPGs can be a great form of RPG, but it relies a lot on the group of people you're playing with. I get the feeling the author of the article is just focusing on the NPC and single player experience in a MMORPG leading him to hate, with a burning passion, everything MMORPG related, which in term kinda undermines his credibility on other points.

To sum it up, the tone of the article seemed like an old person reminiscing about the good old days, which is fine, if you can realize that the times are changing and nothing can stand still trapped in time.

[Kallera]

White Raven = memorable villain of 1.0 which gave a lot of us many frustrations on hard mode, as well as so much joy for finally robbing him of his precious earrings＼(｀0´)／

MMORPGs can be a great form of RPG, but it relies a lot on the group of people you're playing with. I get the feeling the author of the article is just focusing on the NPC and single player experience in a MMORPG leading him to hate, with a burning passion, everything MMORPG related, which in term kinda undermines his credibility on other points.

To sum it up, the tone of the article seemed like an old person reminiscing about the good old days, which is fine, if you can realize that the times are changing and nothing can stand still trapped in time.

Yeah, in several points he seems to be reduced to. "Make me like it." With no specifics, no realization that good villains come from good characters, which come from getting the player involved and invested in the setting.. His "excessive whining or douchebaggery" can be another's "character development", it's not like unlikely heroes don't exist. And really, how many Clouds can you get away with before it becomes stale too? His bias for MMORPGS certainly do not help his case. If he loves the story so much, shouldn't it carry no matter what form it takes as a game?

It sounds lot a lot of hot air, to be honest.

[Pandemonium]

I think some of you are missing the point, the blog author is not criticising FFXIV - He is saying that he dislikes MMOs in general, and that he wants the next FF series to return to a single player, offline RPG.

I think the blog author's problem with MMORPGs is that you can never truly occupy the "Main Hero" slot, as you are forever competing or relying on others within the game, and I think the most important issue is that the story never actually resolves, there is no ending, there is always another twist or adventure, to enable expansion after expansion. I get his point, and feel it too in some cases. It is very highly unlikely that FFXV will be an MMO, but if there were an FF fan poll asking "Should FFXV be an MMO or Offline RPG?" I would vote the latter, and welcome a game which returned FF back to form.

Don't get me wrong, I am still an avid FFXI player, and will be fully immersed in FFXIV, but this fellow is calling for the next instalment of the Final Fantasy Series to be an offline RPG, something that cannot be spoiled by some snotty little 12 year old who has played longer than you, and keep stealing your monsters, or camping your NMs, or undercutting your hard made crafting wares. Personally I think MMOs are great, I love them, but I can definitely see how they are certainly not everyone's preferred genre of entertainment, especially with all the problems inherent in their formula (in game economy affects play, trolls abundant, need an always on connection, extra costs in terms of sub fees or premium items... the list goes on). In short, MMOs are not his thing, and we can't punish him for that.

Everyone has their favourite FF game (mine was of course VII, with VIII very close behind - ooh, controversial?!) but we aren't here to debate that. The blog author is trying to call out for the next instalment to bring back the classic things which many of us came to recognise as standard features in an FF game, many of them he has listed, though I’m sure we can all think of an added few things too. XII and then XIII were just the latest in the series which had taken a sharp turn from the familiar formula. I personally enjoyed them, and liked the interesting new changes, but again I would prefer something that went back to the original roots of the FF series and started to revise, reopen and re-explore some of the winning concepts which made the FF franchise so very popular in the first place!

[Nuinn]

Mhm, I do agree with you, Pandemonium, for the most part. The thing to remember, though, is that unfortunately the times are different. To be more precise, average attention span is much lower than it used to be back in the 2d FF day, and when FFVII exploded and made us moist down below. I don't think many are willing to dedicate as much time and patience to explore a rich world with a somewhat slow folding story as we in general could back then. Everything is moving faster now, the input of information and shiny things that capture our attention is pretty much making the most go all over the place when it comes to games. And "most" = what is in the end important to game companies because it equals $$$. That's why we have DLC, in a way. Cause the core game takes less time to develop and publish and those of us willing to spend more time (and money) playing it will gladly pick up additional content. Doesn't mean I like it, but I don't really see it changing to how it was (besides the people behind some of those beloved games are not 100% the same, both in numbers or in quality as they themselves change, have other priorities, personal lives and all that influences any of us on the job).

[rant]

The other thing is, I do have an issue with people slamming FFXI and FFXIV for "taking up the space" in the FF line of titles. Too often I feel like they're actually complaining about not wanting to miss on a numbered FF title, but are not willing (or just don't like) to play the MMO version. Or, in other words, I feel like they're just crying cause there's a break in the streak of games that they didn't experience causing them to be OCD about it. And there's like 12 FF titles besides those 2 MMO ones that they can play with! D: not counting all the spin-offs or remastered versions.

[/rant]

[jwang]

Give me another Kefka! Van Darnus was damn good, but not quite there on the "creep" scale on scary. Kefka however... now there was someone to be feared. Insane, looks like a clown, even when you put him down he got contingencies in place, and actually SUCCEEDED in destroying the world and became a godlike being because of it. Plus, mass genocide of the espers and all that. He's like the Joker crossed with Xanatos (of Gargoyle fame). Give us someone we will just love to hate, simply because of how he's scripted rather than how challenging the fight is.

[Shougun]

Nunin: I dont think the demand for old school / "hardcore" games has gone down just because of the players, I think devs are forgetting how because the financiers who have almost never cared about video games themselves hate hearing devs talk about developing niche games vs "games everyone can buy". (and games are more expensive to make now)

$$$ vs $$ XD


I agree to why they probably hate FF MMO's being numbered, "I've got to play and beat every FF... WHAT THE AN MMO!?"

lol! With FFXIV out we will get a few single player games shortly (so long as FFXIV does well)

I like the fact that Yoshida wants to make FFXIV a homage game, like FFIX was. Still dont think how the bard jumped into the Ranger/Archer line is very FF though (Edward Bard smashing notes would have been way better (I M O)) XD.

I'd love to see a main villain like that as well Jwang, not only in personalities but also in persistency. Combating and, or, at least knowing the main Villain early on.

Cant remember where but I'm pretty sure Yoshida said Nael was gone, fully. So maybe not him but I'd like to see at least someone be a main stage villain for a while - even if you dont know they are the villain till later.

[finiteHP]

I personally have to agree with a lot of what he said, except for a few things.

The most important is his hatred of the FF MMOs. Personally I consider Chains of Promathia in XI (unfortunately I never completed Treasures of Aht Urhgan or Wings of the Goddess because I could never find enough people willing to do them) and the Dalamud storyline in XIV some of the best storylines in a Final Fantasy. But I understand not liking them. They're not for everyone. Heck, the only two MMOs I've really liked are FFXI and XIV. But he phrases his dislike in way that makes MMOs the root of all the problems with the industry.

Second is this quote: "Square-Enix, if you give us a protagonist who goes through personal growth as a result of the journey, learns something valuable about his/herself, proves to be an inspiring leader so it makes sense that the others would follow him/her, and manages to do all of this without ever resulting to extensive whining or d-baggery, you will have another Terra or Cloud on your hands." I agree about whiny protagonists. I am getting tired of them too. They seem to infest the JRPG genre at the moment. But I must remember Cloud differently than he does. I remember Cloud being extremely whiny especially in the middle parts of the game. That's the main reason why I dislike him and Squall so much.

The least important is his contention that bad Final Fantasies are a new thing. Everyone's opinion on this is different. Some hate XII. Some like it. Personally I think the worst numbered FFs (ignoring -2s) are VIII, VII, and XIII with VI, IX, and XII being the best. The series isn't dying just because you don't like the latest game you're willing to try.

[Nuinn]

You're right Shogun, there's also the financiers and whatnot involved. That's why we're seeing a lot of the small indie games which have more "soul" than the big AAA titles, since they have more freedom to make something out of love first and for money second.

The thing about villains, Nael Van Darnus in particular. . . . You gotta remember that the current dev team had to scrape him up between fixing 1.0 as much as possible and working on ARR basically from ground up. In that respect I think they did a damn fine job at making him memorable. I hope we get at least one badass female villain in ARR :3

EDIT: 666th post @___@ I'm ready, my Master!