What started the decline of the Final Fantasy series?
What started the decline of the Final Fantasy series?
Thomas Cruz
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Xavier Jenkins
X
Adrian Scott
FFVIII and IX.
Easton Gray
Compared to these anons, I'd say it was quite a bit later The string of XIII issues, followed by old FFXIV.
ARR onward has been (and now succeeded in) raising the FF name back up, and that's after XV took another big shit on it.
I'm not even trying to say these are bad, but in most of the public eye they weren't what was expected out of them.
Kayden Murphy
It depends on who you ask, but for me its X. Over the years I've read of people saying the decline started with VII and VIII. I'm sure the people who were major fans of I through VI were unhappy with the drastic changes that occurred between VI and VII.
I don't think SE is capable of making a good FF game anymore, but I am judging them based off of the failure of Fabula Nova Crystalis, XIV (first release, not the current one), and XV. I'm frightened to see how XVI will turn out.
William Harris
Despite what most say it was 7. It mainstreamed the series to normies and changed the focus of the games. I was in Junior high when it launched. I remember. You could say the same with OoT but at least Nintendo recovered
Logan Howard
Excessively long development times and forced sequels.
So around X and XII I suppose even though those particular games are good.
Nolan Ortiz
pic related.
James Morgan
XIII. They wouldn't let that shit go and accept that they made a flop and wasted more time by making 2 slightly better yet still mediocre sequels as damage control.
Nathan Carter
It's fun and it has a good cast, but the writing and voice acting is too stiff and awkward to hit the emotional frequencies the game aims for. I like Tidus for instance but when I think "Obnoxious young blitzball star who slowly comes to suffer for his massive ego" he's not what comes to mind.
Angel Wood
X and XIII.
Christian Young
X, but XII is good so it wasn't exactly a consistent decline.
Asher Lewis
FFXI increasing their lvl cap past 75 and adding soloable content, purposefully ruining the game and SE's main cashcow to try and force people to move to their abortion of FF14 Beta of the first one.
Kayden Mitchell
X-2
Gavin Taylor
Blame the direction. The returning FFX cast sound better in World of Final Fantasy.
Jeremiah Ross
X was the first non-Final Fantasy game.
However the answer can only be either IV (for abandoning videogameyness and freedom and shackling the series to deliberate developer mandated progression), VI (for introducing the cinematic approach and tanking the difficulty), VII (for changing the general setting guidelines), VIII (for being the first one that didn't intend to be fun, but to set all the RPG traditions on fire to redefine the genre brought on by arrogance after having created "The best game ever made" and they were motherfucking Squaresoft at the top of the industry.), IX (for abandoning progress and becoming incestual with the series, trying to only call back to nostalgic glory), X (for letting the cinematic approach to take over), XI [for poisoning genre purity and single player focus (but it kinda could've been ignorable by being an MMO sidestep)], XII (for abandoning turn based systems and franchise priorities such as the characters and story for being a lesser version of a WRPG), XIII (for abandoning player agency) or XV (for abandoning all pretenses at quality control.)
Chase Green
Once Uematsu left like Sakaguchi did, it was over.
John White
8
Oliver Turner
The series was never not declining except for a few outliers
>Good
>Bad
>Good
>Bad
>Alright
>Alright
>Bad
>Bad
>Alright
>Trashx2
>Bad
>Trashx3
>Bad
From a conceptual standpoint 15 could have started the series really becoming good for the first time; but, they botched the execution and it was so bad critically and commercially that they'll be too safe with 16. The only game that is still good today is Tactics.
Christian Hill
Xavier Morris
Ironically, it was FFVII's success. It propped Nomura in a high position at Square, for one thing. And Square milked FFVII's success so much, it totally flanderized the game's characters, and that's why the franchise is now filled with emo-slim-androgynous-jap-style-faggots.
Isaiah Cook
I can agree with this (was 18 when 7 came out)
FF7 was still a good game by series standards, but also introduced all the shit tropes that came to overwhelm the series and to some extent JRPGs in general
- Streamlined combat and most game systems except materia.
- 13 hours of cutscenes with shit-tons of dialog
- Tons of minigames some of which interrupt game progress (dolphin jumping) as well as ultra-grindy shit like Chocobo breeding.
- Emphasis on sex appeal and "coolness" in character designs.
- Some gratuitous combat graphics
Parker Brown
When Sakaguchi left, he took the soul of FF with him. So basically anything after IX. I would argue X is still pretty good, but also the final good one.
Sakaguchi was always against sequels in order to keep FF feeling fresh. So much for that, they didn't wait long after his leave. Not just Nomura to blame for it all though to be fair
Landon Bell
When it stopped being fantasy and switched to sci-fi
Bentley Watson
They stopped ripping off dragon quest
Luke Ward
The Spirits Within. After that debacle the management of new games went to shit.
Adrian Cruz
From an objective point of view, there is no decline. The games, be it single player, MMO, spinoff or mobile still has very good sales. Current XIV expansion is even being praised by most of the media.
What you have to understand is that it's a 3 decades old franchise that's been around for roughly 6 generations: it's only natural that older fans start feeling alienated as time goes on and the franchise starts trinyg to appeal to the newer generations and exploring new originals. What you call a "decline" is mostly your perception, because lots of normies out there are perfectly fine with games like XIII and XV.
If you want more of the same just move on to Dragon Quest. It was clear that Final Fantasy would be the kind of franchise that would try things out since FF7, heck, maybe even FF6.
Austin Price
You're kind of right. Financially the games still do fine. I would argue that the newer FF games suffer from some identity crisis however, in that they keep attempting this weird hybrid of the old and new mechanics, in order to attract both old fans and new folk. I think most old fans have been turned off by, or are slowly giving up hope for what they want to see out of FF. But unless they pull another FF9, in which they cater primarily to old school fans, it seems unlikely we'll see another FF that captured the same spirit many old fans desire.
Nathaniel Jenkins
FF2
Zachary Anderson
so... ff1, then?
Isaac Hall
When the soul left after FFXII.
Spirit Withins might have been a tremendous failure but driving away Sakaguchi has fucked the series.
Angel Hernandez
IX was the last game that any sort of meaningful involvement from Sakaguchi.
Jonathan Perry
VII, and it's because they no longer had anything to hold them back (cartridges) from extending dev time to do more shit. It's been a cancer ever since.
Ryan Davis
>IX started the decline
Faggot.
Adrian Young
You're confusing objective criticism with popularism, which is just another subjective marker.
The only objective fact you bring up is only in reference to sales which has stayed steady or rose over the years for the franchise and thus hasn't declined.
Jack Nguyen
WoFF for not getting a sequel.
youtu.be
Samuel Clark
Peak FF is XI
XII, will give a free pass because development hell... could have been S tier if squeenix didn't ruin it
Decline (and a sharp one at that) is XIII
Chase Price
7
Thomas Morris
The team disbanding after FF2.
Carter Hernandez