GI - "When I talk about the glory days of Japanese RPGs, or how companies “just don’t make them like they used to,” what I’m really saying is that I miss Square. During the original PlayStation era, the company was the unquestioned master of role-playing, building a following of loyal devotees by releasing a string of amazing and successful games. Regardless of what you think about the company today, Square was absolutely on fire at the turn of the millennium."
For those unfamiliar with Square Enix's golden age, formerly Squaresoft, it took place between 1997 and 2002 and brought a slew of titles that were a complete hit with fans and critics and Square Enix wants that era back.
That's a bold statement, especially when the author mentions Chocobo GP and Babylon's fall after saying "here's the great titles that the company has planned", to each their own I guess
The golden age for SquareEnix was when they were called Squaresoft the moment Enix got added to the name the golden age died out. Squaresoft was producing great games and memorable JRPG's left right and center NES, SNES, PS1, and parts of the PS2 libraries show the golden age of Squaresoft.
Id like to see them return tonthe golden age as well. My playstation needs some suped up graphical turn based jrpgs. Enough of action rpg action rpg being shoved down are throats. I know you dont like it dont buy it. Ive honored that for the most part. Ff13 eh ff15 eh. I did dip into ff7 remake but i had to.
I dont know if im alone or not but id like to think most of us that played the original wanted something more like the original gameplay wise in ff7 remake then the action rpg we got. I will add im on chapter 17 at the end of that chapter i believe but i cant help but think what couldve been
The title is wrong. People want that golden age to come back. Today's Square is in low budget spitting age living off of ff14 whales.
Kazuko Shibuya held a panel and a live drawing at Japan Expo 2019, revealing neat details on Square's early days and Final Fantasy's history.
There's been some debate as to whether or not Square-Enix is as good as either of the parent companies were. Find out why!
I can't take this author seriously when he/she can't even recall the quality games that Square Enix have released in their 14 years of existence.
"The next two FFs were FFXI and FFX-2, which, yes, we still can’t believe got released."
What dafuq are you even saying? FFXI released in 2002, before the merger. Plus the idea of an MMORPG game set in the Final Fantasy series was conceived by Hironobu Sakaguchi(the franchise's creator) himself. And FFXI was a quality game, so it's even more absurd to try to unnecessarily criticize it to fit an agenda.
FFX-2 was also developed and released in Japan before the merger, so idk why you're calling that out. Do you even research?
FFXII is the first mainline title that was in development after the merger, and it's in fact as the author says "pretty good." That alone further invalidates this entire articles' point. Not to mention that DQVIII was released after the merger and it's one of the best in the franchise.
And it's pretty convenient how Square Enix's purchase of Eidos never gets brought up. They've handled the Tomb Raider franchise better than Eidos did.
My issue with them is not releasing some games on disc in other markets, I am setsuna. Also the remake/remaster of secret of mana will probably also not receive a disc version outside of japan.
It's definitely not been the same company ever since they merged but they also lost of a bunch of key developers and people on staff. Also they have this crazy notion that classic game design is utter trash so instead of giving fans what they want they keep experimenting with the format and screwing it up.
Man oh man the glory days of JRPG..What happened?
Hironobu Sakaguchi is pressured to leave and everything goes to sh!t...That guy was their Steve Jobs.
@mario19 : I don't see it that way. Final Fantasy is what popularized JRPGs for the west. Not no Persona or Dragon's Quest.
They were on fire, and they still are, commercially.
I was talking to Square Enix's PR manager during the last E3 and he told me that FFXIII, as slammed as it may have been by critics, was the most profitable games SE ever did in the franchise. That is why they released three.
He told me that the focus for the next games would be the new generation of gamers that don't necessarily know about the classics, mostly because they were in greater numbers, and that the character construction they would go after would be "more like Justin Bieber, directed at teens" than FFVII or FFXII, basically because it made so much more sense from a sales standpoint.
I told him they were raping the franchise, and that Final Fantasy didn't get to that level by exploiting teenage urges. He agreed. Then he showed me a FF8 necklace he had at all times, even before working at Square Enix. We got booze.
I came here for the Auron love - I was disappointed.