Square Enix Financial statement: DT 42m USD DOWN

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Originally Posted by Retropolitans

Correct

https://i.imgur.com/Jt0UCwD.png

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Its been stated numerous times, Yoshi P has been pushing hard to get fresh blood into SE while providing more opportunities for leadership roles or chances toss in ideas. Yes its going to be hit and miss, you can already see that with DT as theres several new leads, but ultimately should help them dislodge from stagnant or traditional.

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Originally Posted by Retropolitans

Correct

https://i.imgur.com/Jt0UCwD.png

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So they'll keep funneling FFXIV money into more failed projects. Not very surprising.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

So they'll keep funneling FFXIV money into more failed projects. Not very surprising.

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Those projects don't have to be failures... But as long as Square keeps going down it's current path, they will be...

One thing that backfired spectacularly was the PS5 exclusivity... But they did say they're going back towards being multi-platform... Next step would be nuking the ethics department, then their company might start to heal.

It's smart for a studio to diversify product offerings, but it should not come at the expense of the flagship product.

I understand that the internal prior leaders of XIV maybe even wanted new experiences with new platforms and forms of storytelling, so it's possible/probable they could have just left the company entirely at some point if they were not offered professional growth.

What should have happened instead, is that XIV's budget should have allowed for:
1. The hire of proven writers that could handle a complex story, not someone who at best had a few short side quest experience;
2. More developers to keep our content schedule as quarterly, not 4 months or more.

XIV is NOT in maintenance mode, and anyone who claims that doesn't understand what that term actually means. But we are experiencing both a stagnation in the lack of creativity, and a regression in the amount of content we are being offered. It flat out feels insulting to the supporters of the flagship product to see the money they spent just being funneled away to products they are not interested in. I'm sure people like me are fine with this - but only if the product I do pay for improves and does not suffer as it has.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

It's smart for a studio to diversify product offerings, but it should not come at the expense of the flagship product.

I understand that the internal prior leaders of XIV maybe even wanted new experiences with new platforms and forms of storytelling, so it's possible/probable they could have just left the company entirely at some point if they were not offered professional growth.

What should have happened instead, is that XIV's budget should have allowed for:
1. The hire of proven writers that could handle a complex story, not someone who at best had a few short side quest experience;
2. More developers to keep our content schedule as quarterly, not 4 months or more.

XIV is NOT in maintenance mode, and anyone who claims that doesn't understand what that term actually means. But we are experiencing both a stagnation in the lack of creativity, and a regression in the amount of content we are being offered. It flat out feels insulting to the supporters of the flagship product to see the money they spent just being funneled away to products they are not interested in. I'm sure people like me are fine with this - but only if the product I do pay for improves and does not suffer as it has.

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it is clearly they reduce the budget compared to ShB and EW

Yoshida has said in the past that he would like to do a new mmo that is pure high fantasy and does not have any sci-fi elements like ffxiv does and since ffxiv is leaning incredibly hard into sci-fi these days, way more than fantasy, it's not surprising he is bored if he is just not a fan of sci-fi. I get it, i am not a fan of sci-fi either and all these things they are adding like modern clothing and now Solution 9, just makes me crinkle my nose up like I smell whats on the bottom of Kiryu's shoes. I would leave xiv in a heartbeat if Yoshida was put in charge of a good purely high fantasy mmo.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

Yoshida has said in the past that he would like to do a new mmo that is pure high fantasy and does not have any sci-fi elements like ffxiv does and since ffxiv is leaning incredibly hard into sci-fi these days, way more than fantasy, it's not surprising he is bored if he is just not a fan of sci-fi. I get it, i am not a fan of sci-fi either and all these things they are adding like modern clothing and now Solution 9, just makes me crinkle my nose up like I smell whats on the bottom of Kiryu's shoes. I would leave xiv in a heartbeat if Yoshida was put in charge of a good purely high fantasy mmo.

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I am ok for a new MMO but I don't think that they are working at one.. probably they are working on NFT small scale project maybe maybe maybe has blockchain technology too that satisfy their boss bad intention

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

I am ok for a new MMO but I don't think that they are working at one.. probably they are working on NFT small scale project maybe maybe maybe has blockchain technology too that satisfy their boss bad intention

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I dont think they are either, but I would be down if they would be

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

it is clearly they reduce the budget compared to ShB and EW

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I don't think they reduced the budget all that much, they just moved everyone who's been doing a really good job onto other less lucrative projects much to the game's detriment...

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

I am ok for a new MMO but I don't think that they are working at one.. probably they are working on NFT small scale project maybe maybe maybe has blockchain technology too that satisfy their boss bad intention

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They do have an NFT game in the works, it's actually been in the works for like a year now... Symbiogenesis is it's name, and it's likely going to end about as well as every other NFT game project does...

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

Yoshida has said in the past that he would like to do a new mmo that is pure high fantasy and does not have any sci-fi elements like ffxiv does and since ffxiv is leaning incredibly hard into sci-fi these days, way more than fantasy, it's not surprising he is bored if he is just not a fan of sci-fi. I get it, i am not a fan of sci-fi either and all these things they are adding like modern clothing and now Solution 9, just makes me crinkle my nose up like I smell whats on the bottom of Kiryu's shoes. I would leave xiv in a heartbeat if Yoshida was put in charge of a good purely high fantasy mmo.

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I'd love this because hot take or no, I liked it more back pre Shadowbringers when the modern/futuristic elements were isolated to allag/garlemald or silly sidequests/event quests. The game looks almost like Second Life or VR Chat now with clashing designs and clashing settings.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

I don't think they reduced the budget all that much, they just moved everyone who's been doing a really good job onto other less lucrative projects much to the game's detriment...

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their time is part of the budget.. they count employee cost per hour so they 100% reduce the budget when moving talents across organization

High-fantasy or not, if they lose my sub for FFXIV, they'll also lose my sub for FFXI and I have no interest in getting invested in another MMO, NFT or Gatcha game.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

They do have an NFT game in the works, it's actually been in the works for like a year now... Symbiogenesis is it's name, and it's likely going to end about as well as every other NFT game project does...

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I just searched for this junk game it look absolutely horrible.. I would play forspoken rather than this dumb project

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

I don't think they reduced the budget all that much, they just moved everyone who's been doing a really good job onto other less lucrative projects much to the game's detriment...

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I feel that moving release schedules from 3 months to 4+ is an indication the budget - particularly for staff, has decreased. We also seem to now have B and C team talent, with their A-listers spending their time on new projects.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

So they'll keep funneling FFXIV money into more failed projects. Not very surprising.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Those projects don't have to be failures... But as long as Square keeps going down it's current path, they will be...

One thing that backfired spectacularly was the PS5 exclusivity... But they did say they're going back towards being multi-platform... Next step would be nuking the ethics department, then their company might start to heal.

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I'm gonna bite the bullet here: I don't mind if Square funnels money into other games. The issue is for the past several years they have tried to funnel money into WAY TOO MANY games. All you have to do is look at all their live-service mobile games that barely lasted a year or two before getting the axe. There are like dozens of them that seemed to have just been made to get cash fast then scoop. They essentially for the past several years have spread themselves, both employee wise and money wise, too thin trying to do a ton of things all at once and going "This is fine" when it's clearly not fine. It's up to personal debate if you think Endwalker/Dawntrail also suffered from this mindset since Yoshi-P and other devs of 14 worked on 16, and as announced they are working on several projects now. Sure Yoshi-P said they were "small", but that could mean anything. Last thing anyone wants is FF14 to get a sideline because Square wants Yoshi-P and creative studio III to focus on making 3 or 4 or more throwaway live service mobile games for them that'll survive less then a year or two before they get scraped for a few quick bucks. This "Quantity over Quality" mindset they seemed to have pushed themselves into needs to get thrown in the garbage.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

They do have an NFT game in the works, it's actually been in the works for like a year now... Symbiogenesis is it's name, and it's likely going to end about as well as every other NFT game project does...

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Still working on it is indeed correct...well, half correct. It's out. In fact, it "officially" released Last December. Hell, they announced at the beginning of August they're already working on Chapter 3. Even more hell: it'll even be shown off some at the up-coming Tokyo Game Show.

Tweet here: https://x.com/symbiogenesisPR/status...93922033406303

So yeah, Square is absolutely dedicated to this decision.

Not surprising. Endwalker was the wrap up of a ten-year story, everyone knew this expansion good or bad would be a slow burn in preparation for the next big thing so there wasn't as much hype, and Yoshi said his team was going to try new things and some may fail while other ideas may thrive.

DT's MSQ wasn't great, sure. They tried something different, and it received a mixed reception, people liked some things about DT and disliked others. I hope they learned from this and the next time they try something new it works because in Endwalker people were getting bored with the game, Yoshi acknowledged people were getting bored which means their sub numbers likely reflected that sentiment.

Putting it another way, WoW had Shadowlands which tanked so badly it forced their team to re-evaluate their approach to the game. Their next xpac was nothing like Shadowlands and the game recovered, resulting in their audience getting to enjoy a great new experience. While DT is nowhere near as bad as Shadowlands, it is hurting SE, and if SE learns from this they may be able to build off what did / did not work and make us something great in a couple patches or by the next xpac. Here's hoping.

To clarify, the issue isn't spending the money from XIV on other games. It's not paying enough attention to XIV. It's letting a mixed bag like Dawntrail slip out the door at a crucial time. It's appropriating the staff that made XIV good or great and replacing them with unproven rookies.

Reinvesting profits into other projects is an important part of business. Starving the goose to feed the calf on the other hand is a good way to wind up broke. Hopefully they figure this out before the fallout hits.

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Originally Posted by lolnotacat

I worked at another game company that did this pre-pandemic. Our CEO went as hard as he could with blockchain projects despite having 0 longterm plans for profitability utilizing them. We suspect he planned on getting dudebros onboard to invest because "blockchain bro" and "crypto bro" and trying to figure out monetization later. We had multiple very successful mobile games which were each pulling in over $1m revenue daily and all that money was being dumped into failed crypto projects. To keep the projects going, he pretty much demanded players be milked for every last cent they had, causing them to eventually all quit within a few short months. The stupid blockchain stuff didn't stop until he was finally ousted by the board, but by then the damage had been done.

As far as Square goes, my guess is that they have some people in management that initially directed the company towards NFTs and other stupid projects and are so heavily invested in them, they refuse to change course because it would be their heads/jobs on the chopping block. So they'd rather run the ship onto the reefs, get canned and (probably) get some sort of golden parachute.

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So many mobile games are overworked, overthought, overgraphical pieces of junk that aren't any fun to play and don't do anything new or interesting. I get bored after 5 levels. The new Monster Hunter Now is a prime example.

In the meantime, I'm playing a Chinese grinder called Fitness RPG from an actual indie game studio that feels like if someone took FF1's core battle design, wrote a new story for it, hooked it up to Fitbit/Apple Watch, and let 'er rip. It's a freemium game that isn't in your face. The ads are voluntary and unobtrusive. I've enjoyed it so much that I've actually sent them $10 for their little monthly "battle pass" a couple of times. Did I mention you level grind your characters by walking? It's the most fun I've had with a mobile game since Pokémon Go first came out in 2016.

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

Not surprising. Endwalker was the wrap up of a ten-year story, everyone knew this expansion good or bad would be a slow burn in preparation for the next big thing so there wasn't as much hype, and Yoshi said his team was going to try new things and some may fail while other ideas may thrive.

DT's MSQ wasn't great, sure. They tried something different, and it received a mixed reception, people liked some things about DT and disliked others. I hope they learned from this and the next time they try something new it works because in Endwalker people were getting bored with the game, Yoshi acknowledged people were getting bored which means their sub numbers likely reflected that sentiment.

Putting it another way, WoW had Shadowlands which tanked so badly it forced their team to re-evaluate their approach to the game. Their next xpac was nothing like Shadowlands and the game recovered, resulting in their audience getting to enjoy a great new experience. While DT is nowhere near as bad as Shadowlands, it is hurting SE, and if SE learns from this they may be able to build off what did / did not work and make us something great in a couple patches or by the next xpac. Here's hoping.

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Yeah they tried new things like how summoner behemoth now become solar behemoth..
for real what did they change?
increase damage received by 10%?
new animation?

they didn't add anything to the table it is just a nightmare version of FFXIV
if you tell me how they can ruin FFXIV before DT release I wouldn't thought it could be this bad

The Pelupelu bargaining system was new. It was pointless, but it was new.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

The Pelupelu bargaining system was new. It was pointless, but it was new.

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That wasn't a "System", just some UI Stuff/Text floating about to give the impression of it being more than it is.

Just release an 'alternative Wuk Lamat' voice pack for $4.99 on the mogstation that completely redubs all their lines and they will soon have record profits again.

https://youtu.be/dWnKLexByM4?si=MkauL7eL0-u3Ph8D

It is just a complete mess company

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

DT's MSQ wasn't great, sure. They tried something different, and it received a mixed reception, people liked some things about DT and disliked others.

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See, I don't really feel like they even tried something different with the MSQ at all. It was just poorly written on multiple levels. They didn't alter the structure of the MSQ, how the narrative was done wasn't different, nor did they innovate with quest mechanics. The only single "new" quest type was inspecting the steles at the start of the expansion, and then they didn't explore or expound on that with the rest of the MSQ whatsoever. If they at least did things wildly different, but it didn't work out, I would at least give kudos for trying. But this was not only more of the same, it was just plain lazy. It felt like no one read the script or gave feedback on the story.

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

Putting it another way, WoW had Shadowlands which tanked so badly it forced their team to re-evaluate their approach to the game. Their next xpac was nothing like Shadowlands and the game recovered, resulting in their audience getting to enjoy a great new experience. While DT is nowhere near as bad as Shadowlands, it is hurting SE, and if SE learns from this they may be able to build off what did / did not work and make us something great in a couple patches or by the next xpac. Here's hoping.

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With how very little CBU3 innovates, that is a big "IF". Going from Diadem 1.0 to Diadem 2.0, relatively few changes. Not a huge leap in gameplay from Diadem 2.0 to Eureka. Slowly added more complexity and gameplay options with various Logograms in Pyros and more in Hydatos. And then when BSF dropped, it's like they took the lessons they learned in Eureka, stripped them down to the basics and took the tiniest of baby steps forwards with Lost Actions.

I mean, PotD, HoH, and EO are near identical. Other than 3 pomanders being floor clears, PotD and HoH are literally just a palete swap. EO added 3 near useless pomanders that really don't change gameplay or add anything interesting. Added Dread Beasts that 9/10 you ignore. Other than minor balancing changes EO is also just a palette swap of both PotD and HoH. It's literally the same content, re-released twice again.

I'm not sure if CBU3 has the capacity to actually learn and do something drastically different to shake it up.

FFXVI wasn't a surprise, unfortunately, but I'm still surprised that 7 Rebirth didn't meet expectations... I thought that one was a safe bet, but perhaps continuing the whole remake/reimagining is biting them in the ass and people aren't interested? I do wonder what would've happened had they done an actual remake where they just modernized the graphics. It also probably doesn't help that SE is locked into PS5 timed exclusivity; they would've done far better multiplatform with 7 Rebirth. I'm assuming they're still locked into that deal with the 3rd game, but I wouldn't be surprised if subsequent games aren't exclusive to try and recoup their losses.

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Originally Posted by Gaddes

FFXVI wasn't a surprise, unfortunately, but I'm still surprised that 7 Rebirth didn't meet expectations... I thought that one was a safe bet, but perhaps continuing the whole remake/reimagining is biting them in the ass and people aren't interested? I do wonder what would've happened had they done an actual remake where they just modernized the graphics. It also probably doesn't help that SE is locked into PS5 timed exclusivity; they would've done far better multiplatform with 7 Rebirth. I'm assuming they're still locked into that deal with the 3rd game, but I wouldn't be surprised if subsequent games aren't exclusive to try and recoup their losses.

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Honestly, it’s not all that surprising when you think about it.

Aside from the PS5 exclusivity, there’s a whole mix of factors at play. First, you’ve got the nostalgia crowd—some of them probably bailed because they weren’t happy with the direction Remake was taking compared to the original FF7. Then there’s the regular players who might’ve checked out after the first entry, either because it didn’t hold their interest or they decided to wait for a discount before picking it up. And then, of course, there are people like me, who either aren’t super interested or are just waiting for the full trilogy to drop before diving in.

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Originally Posted by Gaddes

FFXVI wasn't a surprise, unfortunately, but I'm still surprised that 7 Rebirth didn't meet expectations... I thought that one was a safe bet, but perhaps continuing the whole remake/reimagining is biting them in the ass and people aren't interested?

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I wasn't at all interested. Not because FFVII was a bad game, I really enjoyed my playthroughs of the og ffvii. But man am I tired of being beaten over the head with these characters. If there is something general Final Fantasy related you can bet that it will include Cloud and Sephiroth at the very minimum, if not more of the cast and it's just gotten to the point where I started to hate the game and characters years before the remake was a thing. There are so many other characters from so many other games they could use, but its always the emo, twink McOvercompensatingwithabigsword and his buddy, mommy issues McOvercompensatingwithabigsword. So when the remake was announced I was already at the point of not caring. Then add PS exclusivity to the mix and I extra don't care. I am at the point where if a game comes out as a console exclusive, it just goes immediately off my radar no matter how good of reviews it gets.

The remake makes sense on paper to be the first remake, but man am I tired of these characters and I am sure I am not the only one with FFVII burnout. Now if they remade 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, hell even 1, I would be choo choo all over the hype train.

I would have been interested in a FFVII remake since the original version we got was quite shoddily localized.

But I wasn't interested in multidimension, multitimeline reimagining. And I was always going to wait for the game to be complete.

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

Financial statement here:

https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...4q4outline.pdf

“FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrail” marked the start
of a new scenario for the sub-segment and that that is our first post-pandemic expansion pack release, we will need to monitor
trends there closely, but we expect to see a stable trend in the sub-segment’s profits.

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Buckle up, guys! We're entering rationing mode.
Scratch that "Will Spare no expense"

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

Not surprising. Endwalker was the wrap up of a ten-year story, everyone knew this expansion good or bad would be a slow burn in preparation for the next big thing so there wasn't as much hype, and Yoshi said his team was going to try new things and some may fail while other ideas may thrive.

DT's MSQ wasn't great, sure. They tried something different, and it received a mixed reception, people liked some things about DT and disliked others. I hope they learned from this and the next time they try something new it works because in Endwalker people were getting bored with the game, Yoshi acknowledged people were getting bored which means their sub numbers likely reflected that sentiment.

Putting it another way, WoW had Shadowlands which tanked so badly it forced their team to re-evaluate their approach to the game. Their next xpac was nothing like Shadowlands and the game recovered, resulting in their audience getting to enjoy a great new experience. While DT is nowhere near as bad as Shadowlands, it is hurting SE, and if SE learns from this they may be able to build off what did / did not work and make us something great in a couple patches or by the next xpac. Here's hoping.

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You know the data linked in the OP's post is from before DT, right? No clue why he included DT at all unless it's either dishonest bait or someone who ran with a story they liked without bothering to check if it made any sense. DT is doing fine. Active playerbase numbers show it has the same retention as every other expansion, with 3-4 times the playerbase of the HW/SB era and about 50% higher than ShB. A month after DT's release, the playerbase was the highest ever except for the release month of DT itself and the brief super-spike we saw a few years back from the "WoW exodus."

Lemme first preface this by saying I think Yoshi P is "one of the good ones" when it comes to higher ups at SE and him having a more prominent role in the company is probably a good thing on the whole. But boy does it sure suck for FF14 fans.

That said, I think these financials demonstrate a failing in Endwalker's patch content approach, given the timing of the report. DT came out just barely before the new financial year began (like, 2 or 3 days?). We won't really know how it affected the company's bottom line until a year from now.
I'm all for calling out the failures of DT where it's deserved, but we don't have the facts to make a financial case yet.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

All the side content in DT so far has been much better than the MSQ... As much as complaining about wuk seems overboard, she is just a terrible character all around... Yaana in her 5 minutes of screentime in the Arcadion storyline has shown more emotion and given more reason to care about her than wuk did in like 10 hours of MSQ...

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This is true. I broke up the MSQ by doing all the side quests in each zone and I think I had an overall better experience than a few of my mates.

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Originally Posted by CamuiKushi

This is true. I broke up the MSQ by doing all the side quests in each zone and I think I had an overall better experience than a few of my mates.

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I did this as well, but if anything it made the lackluster MSQ stand out even more for me. The side quests weren't amazing, but I felt like the writers behind them were really trying to tell a story about the world and the people in it in the short time they had to do so far more than anything happening in the MSQ.

For example, there's some pretty good side quests in Solution 9 that demonstrate far better than the MSQ did that this place is NOT the happy idyllic future city Sphene wants us to believe it is. Quests that go into people suffering from degenerative disease with little to no access to healthcare, homeless citizens digging through the trash for food because Zoraal Ja has been tanking the economy, people getting mugged for their spare soul cells, an undertaker haunted by the face of a man he took in that we investigate and reveal was his own father that he had forgotten, interesting stuff that gives more of that darker, more mature feel I had been so desperately craving by that point in the story.

...And then I would go back to the MSQ where Wuk Lamat is trying to be best friends with Sphene and preaching to us about how we need to understand and respect the Alexandrian's dystopian culture. -_-

Wuk, I cleared out every side quest in this zone. This place is MESSED UP and these people are NOT having a good time. Also I went and actually talked with and helped a bunch of them as opposed to just simping over their teenage robot queen, so maybe I know more about this place than you do, hm?

Yeah, I was super frustrated by that point.

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Anyway, back to the financial statement point of the thread. It's fine for Square-Enix to want to invest FFXIV money into other projects, that's a pretty normal business thing to do. It would just be nice if they, y'know, invested that time and money into cool things that don't suck instead of whatever the hell they've been putting out the last few years. And why did CS3 have to make FFXVI? It absolutely hurt the content and quality of Endwalker, and for what? Why is the FFXIV unit working on all these other projects now after being the FFXIV exclusive team for years? That really doesn't make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

You know the data linked in the OP's post is from before DT, right? No clue why he included DT at all unless it's either dishonest bait or someone who ran with a story they liked without bothering to check if it made any sense. DT is doing fine. Active playerbase numbers show it has the same retention as every other expansion, with 3-4 times the playerbase of the HW/SB era and about 50% higher than ShB. A month after DT's release, the playerbase was the highest ever except for the release month of DT itself and the brief super-spike we saw a few years back from the "WoW exodus."

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This is just me being nitpicky but, the player base does not equal retention. Retention means you know it's the same players returning and not possibly new ones.

That dip is to be expected between expacs. People checking out other games, taking a break before Dawntrail, and other reasons, but that report isn't the nothing burger that people are making it out to be.

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Originally Posted by 2024 4th Quarter Report

The Games for Smart Devices/PC Browser sub-segment
posted net sales of ¥101.5 billion (down ¥12.1 billion YoY)
and operating income of ¥14.2 billion (down ¥2.0 billion).
Although multiple new titles were released in FY2024/3, they
were unable to offset the decline in earnings from existing
titles that have aged.

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Now you combine it with what Yoshi P said in that article from Famitsu that's been linked in this thread and you can kinda put the puzzle together. Mobile games are Squenix's true golden hen not XiV like so many people here think.

Sometimes it feels like CS3 is getting pulled every which direction that is not XiV because of how positive a lot of people are about them(some even supporting games just because they are on it). If they do start developing newer mobile games I hope that they leave CS3 alone.

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

Honestly, it’s not all that surprising when you think about it.

Aside from the PS5 exclusivity, there’s a whole mix of factors at play. First, you’ve got the nostalgia crowd—some of them probably bailed because they weren’t happy with the direction Remake was taking compared to the original FF7. Then there’s the regular players who might’ve checked out after the first entry, either because it didn’t hold their interest or they decided to wait for a discount before picking it up. And then, of course, there are people like me, who either aren’t super interested or are just waiting for the full trilogy to drop before diving in.

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To add on to this, sequels for mainline games never sell as much as the original. While Rebirth is just Calm up to the temple of Ancients, it was still split and made into its own thing which satisfies the criteria. They also shot themselves in the foot by not also releasing it for PlayStation 4 where Remake was but Squenix just loves abandoning old consoles that are still popular.

Personally? The VII Remake fundamentally misunderstood the setting, tone, and characters of the original and oh so desperately wanted to leave it's own stamp on the VII name. Nomura was so obsessed with Nomurafying it that he didn't care about making it true to the original. I'm also not to pleased with the middle finger that is the whispered...but I'll refrain. I'd be here all day tearing the game down if I let my mind wander.

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Originally Posted by CamuiKushi

This is true. I broke up the MSQ by doing all the side quests in each zone and I think I had an overall better experience than a few of my mates.

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Generally this is what I do as well, I do every single side quest before moving on to the next area and I had a really fun time.