Swan Song of Vana'diel; ~Why I Won't Play the Mobile Native App~

[Aquilah]

It's profit to expense ratio. Mobile apps are extremely cheap to make, a fraction of the cost of a console / PC game. Mobile apps also hit the largest target market since Apple and Google have pretty much standardized the entire cellphone industry, you can write the game for one platform and it's available to everyone. If Nintendo makes a console, they need to compete with every other console maker for market share that also is competing with mobile since people don't like carrying multiple devices with them. So from their point of view, it's cheaper and has an order of magnitude larger consumer audience. If if their games don't sell well and are cheap, they are virtually guaranteed to make a profit on them by virtue of having exclusive access to brands. The only Zelda, Metroid, Mario or other Nintendo brand games going to be made would be by them with a profit for them.

SE is seeing this trend and hoping on board. The game quality is going to be crap, expect bad graphics on a small screen that you need to squint to really see. It's going to have minimal development effort, as compared to a standard AAA title, but it will be so cheap to make and enough people will buy "just because" that SE will make profits of it. This is the trend in gaming now, massive amounts of cheap games that people play for a few months the toss away to buy something else. Games have become wallmart commodities and it's a race to the bottom for big developers. I foresee another gaming market crash in the next five to six years as this massive rush to mobile dilutes the market with enough clones and cheap knock offs that users just stop buying.

This is dismissing everything Square Enix has been doing to try and raise the bar of quality for mobiles. Their ports aren't perfect, but they're all console and hand-held quality games on mobile. Not to mention Final Fantasy Dimensions, Mobius and others.

You're right in that garbage is seriously diluting the mobile market right now. I can understand being hesitant about FFXI mobile's quality given the mobile trend, but Square Enix has done enough good to give me hope that they're going to handle this with care, not just throw it away for a cheap knock-off.

I'll remain optimistic until they give me a reason not to be.

[saevel]

heir ports aren't perfect, but they're all console and hand-held quality games on mobile.

They are crap, I have them and the GBA / DS versions are far superior. The mobile ports were thrown together with minimal attention given, the characters feel very much like they are just floating.

This is dismissing everything Square Enix has been doing to try and raise the bar of quality for mobiles.

They aren't, SE's mobile games are pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a mobile game. I have both an Samsung Galaxy S5 and an Nvidia shield and SE's FF's are extremely mediocre. For long periods they didn't even have controller support until they did an update to support Android TV, which consequently didn't apply to Dimensions, Chrono Trigger and a few others.

[Seillan]

They are crap, I have them and the GBA / DS versions are far superior. The mobile ports were thrown together with minimal attention given, the characters feel very much like they are just floating.



They aren't, SE's mobile games are pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a mobile game. I have both an Samsung Galaxy S5 and an Nvidia shield and SE's FF's are extremely mediocre. For long periods they didn't even have controller support until they did an update to support Android TV, which consequently didn't apply to Dimensions, Chrono Trigger and a few others.

I've got to agree with this too. If you guys are referring to the mobile FF iterations that I'm thinking of, they look god awful from what I've seen. The graphics reminded me of those cheap Korean mmos from the mid-to-late 90s. Even the SNES versions put them to shame, imo.

[Aquilah]

I thought Final Fantasy IV DS' mobile port was fine, as was Secret of Mana, The Worlds Ends With You, Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy Dimensions was a fine follow-up to FF5, with one of the deepest variations of the job system yet. A lack of controller support (for phones, no less) is frustrating, but come oooon. Look at the board we're on. FFXI has one of the worst UIs out there in all of MMORPGs. I'd think that would warrant a little slack on the touch UI (nevermind that the touch UIs are still usable on their own merits).

Since this just boils down to straight-up opposing viewpoints on satisfaction with a product, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[saevel]

I've got to agree with this too. If you guys are referring to the mobile FF iterations that I'm thinking of, they look god awful from what I've seen. The graphics reminded me of those cheap Korean mmos from the mid-to-late 90s. Even the SNES versions put them to shame, imo.

Yeah it's just awful, looks like an 8th grader did it in their spare time. Take FFVI for example, it looks like the sprites were hastily done and then just splattered onto the backgrounds, the result being that they look cartoonish and misplaced.

[Makenshi]

Currently playing 5 on mobile and its fine. Haven't tried any others though.

[Talaya]

im personally really sad for the "end" of FFXI, there is so much they can do and personally i hate FFXIV, sure the graphics are lovely, its a pretty game, but in some ways, thats all it is.
i miss the way the game was, skill was key, HNM-ing was fun, the community was strong.
But, i do still love the game as it is now, id love another expansion, more jobs, more story lines.
dont let this game die, dont let it just end.

i played since the EU release in 04, i love this game as much as i did then, its a shame many players migrated, i did play both betas of FFXIV, i even played the alpha of XIV and it was fun to start.... then you hit end game and its just boring "grind these instances to get this thing to get this piece of armour because no one will invite you to do this unless you have the best armour", to be frank, its a real load of tosh that just naffed me off to no end, so i quit, screw that game.
"but FFXI is the same" .... not really, not when you really think about it, there is so much more to this game than gear, so much more than just being the highest igearedlevelpersonthingy. Content from Pre-abyssea was deffinately not like that, niddy at 3am? GUYS WAKE UP AND GET TO CAMP!, Tank tiamat for 7 hours because your LS members are asleeeep!!! panic mode activated, those were the days ; u
as silly as that sounds, and as stupid as that is to other people, gosh it was fun!

what i love most was the community and the community is still great even now, doing stuff with friends and making new friends is the best, this game does have a lot of life in it and it can have so much more if SE actually tried.

also il never be able to use this app, windows phones suck and im on pay as you go, sooo that went out the window real fast.