Back in 2006, I wasn’t a videogame journalist yet. At that point, the PS3 wasn’t even out yet, and when it did come out, it was far too expensive for me to consider buying one. I mean, I was just a broke college student.
But one day, I casually walked into a GameStop and saw the trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Yes, this was the trailer that had debuted at 2006’s E3.
Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu discusses the dropping player count of Final Fantasy XIV and the numerous projects of YoshiP.
Looks like Square Enix is self-aware but still stuck in place, they see the player drop and apologize for the bugs, but nothing really changes. Shame, FFXIV used to be the gold standard
My entire free company has stopped playing. The writing has consistently gotten worse and the content is sparse and lacking; unless you are a hardcore player there's very little for you to do. They are over-catering to the people who will grind three+ times a week on a single fight for multiple months when the playerbase by large doesn't want that sort of content. Square needs to dedicate more resources to the game instead of wasting them on mobile and other live service slop.
The biggest factor for me is the way they butchered job design over the years , the casualization and over simplification really hurt a good chunk of enjoyment I used to have . Jobs lost any form of complexity and just became " press glowing button" DDR style for fighting where the gameplay loop is a about the 2 minute burst window . They removed most DoTS, timer mechanics , cast times, pets, RNG ect and all around homogenized everything . When you try and can cater to everyone ... you cater to no one .
TNS: Expedition 33 was the wake-up call Square Enix needed, telling it turn-based RPGs are still popular, but that shouldn't have been the case.
True, but if it does get it through their thick skulls, then that works.
Although, the Dragon Quest 1 + 2 HD remakes will be turn-based and (the worst kept secret) Final Fantasy IX remake should be turn-based I would imagine. Let's see if any newer games go turn-based too.
While it is true that Sqaure Enix has moved away from turn based games compared to how they were in the past, there is a good reason for it.
Older gamers will know this but during the ps2 era, we were flooded with turned based games from Japanese studios and this created a form of fatigue back then going into the next generation.
When Square released FF13, they received heavy criticism for making the game turned based like every other FF game and not doing enough to innovate. This is why they made FF15, FF7 Remake and FF16 have real time combat. It gave the series a fresh spin and has brought in new fans to the series.
I personally would be happy with either turned based FF or the real-time combat version we see today.
Only need to look at their own game DQ 11 approaching 10 million to show there's a market. And that's not as big of a name as FF
Another article about Expedition 33 and Square Enix and turn-based games? This is starting to sound like propaganda.
The game didn't sell because it's a turn-based game; it sold and is enjoyed because it's a really freaking good game that released completed at a good price without gamer drama attached to it. No Mtx, no wait-until-it's-patched, minimal bloat, a self-contained story, no multiplatform BS. Just a solid original game that absolutely nails what it intended to do.
Maybe try actually listening to the fans who have supported the series for decades. This habit of ignoring your core audience just to chase people who were never interested in Final Fantasy in the first place makes no sense. And when that approach fails, doubling down on it is beyond baffling.
The battle system has never been the main reason non-FF or non-JRPG players stayed away. Gutting the series’ identity to chase a broader market doesn’t attract new players. It just alienates the loyal ones.
Keep going down this road and we’ll end up with Final Fantasy Fortnite abomination or a F2P Battle Royale game.. Oh wait…
YoshiP, the director and producer of Final Fantasy 14, has apologised for the state of the game at the time of writing.
Do you not see this happening during development? Like, why are we apologizing after the fact instead of stopping it during development?
I was unhappy with DT and have spent far less time in it than any other expansion but it's things like this that makes me respect Yoshi P. It's rare for such a high profile developer to be so candid in his assessment on a live game.
You know....I feel that Versus XIII DID get canceled and it's being developed as FFXV. It's too high budget of a project to just flat out cancel and it's been so anticipated through the years. It probably won't get that mature rating it was supposed to get due to becoming a mainstream FF game.
Another thing to note is that Versus XIII was supposedly going to include a giant world like the older and more traditional FF games....which is something that "FFXV" is rumored to have.
Then there is the part where the rumors mentioned that FFXV started getting worked on shortly after XIII released.....which was around the time that SE mentioned Versus XIII development went into full throttle.
With that said, I'm sure that FFXV aka Versus XIII will be announced later this year and get released next year since they supposedly want to shorten development cycles.
They made FF13-3 instead. lol. way to go to make fans angry, SE
Please no more FF13 spinoffs FF13-2 was more than enough. Square just concentrate on Versus
If FFv13 is cancelled it will have been a huge waste of time and is the result of very bad decisions and bad management. I really don't know what's going on over in SE but they had better sort it out or the Final Fantasy brand is gonna be dead pretty soon.
The game is still being made it's just ffxv now they literally just changed the name.People are saying all this canceled stuff just for hits I assure you the game is intact just under a new name and release schedule.