Square Enix Admits Final Fantasy XIV Damaged Brand 234
_xeno_ writes "It's taken a year since Final Fantasy XIV launched to what can at best be called unfavorable reviews, but Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada is finally willing to admit that the (still subscription-free) MMO 'greatly damaged' the entire Final Fantasy brand. Despite this damage, Wada said Square Enix will continue to work on 'reviving' the game, with an upcoming patch promising to finally introduce such series staples as chocobos and airships. Even so, there's still no word on the PS3 release, which was delayed until the game was 'fixed,' nor is there any sign that Square Enix feels the game will be worth a subscription fee any time soon."
Never considered the MMOs part of FF (Score:5, Funny)
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9 definitely had its redeeming qualities. Heck, even 8 was a pretty good game, but the problem is that neither of them even came close to reproducing the magic that went into 7. Now I'm just convinced that Square got lucky with 7 and that was just a fluke--a one-off occurrence that will never be repeated in the series. It's been more than 10 years so we should all just accept that fact and move on.
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9 definitely had its redeeming qualities. Heck, even 8 was a pretty good game, but the problem is that neither of them even came close to reproducing the magic that went into 7. Now I'm just convinced that Square got lucky with 7 and that was just a fluke--a one-off occurrence that will never be repeated in the series. It's been more than 10 years so we should all just accept that fact and move on.
I think 9, 7, and 6 were the best in the series. I think part of it is how well the battle system is done in each game, along with the quality of the music/story. 8 was nice and pretty, but the battle system (which was so easy to break) was just not enjoyable over time. I liked 10 but then if you wanted all your characters to gain xp you had to switch them all out every battle, which was so annoying. 9, 7, and 6 had good battle engines for their time and that really makes all the difference for me at least.
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I pretty much agree though, I have to say, 13 had potential. I payed it for...actually about 13 hours before I gave up "waiting for the tutorial to end". I am used to FF being pretty linear for the first 10 hours or so...but...when I realized there would be no opening up of the world, no towns....
I liked the battle system, I would have rocked a game based on it...but...not a gratuitous battle system game.
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So stop being an old fogey.
I've enjoyed everyone of the non-online ones. Some were better than others, but I finished and had fun with them all.
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Edited For Clarity.
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I must be an *ancient* fogey, because I've never even played a FF game. Something about playing a Japanese hermaphrodite who spouts poorly-translated dialogue just never seemed very appealing to me.
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Re:Never considered the MMOs part of FF (Score:5, Insightful)
FF11 and FF14 never seemed like they were FF games in the first place, so they didn't tarnish my perception of the brand, at least as far as I'm aware. On the other hand, FFX, FFX-2, FF12, and FF13...
Hey now FFX was a good game and I'm pretty sure the sequel was just some lame fan fiction that people mistook for a real release.
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How can you even call it fan fiction when there wasn't any nudity involved?
Where's Lulu? (Score:2)
Well, any fiction this fan would have made certainly would have included Lulu and her busty goth goodness. :3
You can have the other girls.
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I liked FF12 (Score:2)
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FF11 and FF14 never seemed like they were FF games in the first place, so they didn't tarnish my perception of the brand, at least as far as I'm aware. On the other hand, FFX, FFX-2, FF12, and FF13...
FF10 was ok. FFX-2 was amazing. If you took the story tongue in cheek (like it was clearly meant to be), the battle engine and gameplay was just plain fun.
FF12 was a bit too politically heavy, but it was fun having what amounted to a FF Sandbox game.
FF13 was just shit, however. Interesting battle system, but the current executives at Square Enix must have a VERY low opinion of gamers to think that they had to dumb the rest of the game down to that level.
I'm worried that the same stupidity has their hands
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I appreciate how well done FF12 was, but they somehow made it as dull as sand. It felt like a particularly boring MMORPG with no other players. I appreciate how high the production values are on it, but somehow the fun got left out.
The online FF's, 11 and 14, don't even seem like they should be considered to be part of the same series.
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FF12 originally had either Basch (the soldier who gets screwed over before the game) or Balthier (middle aged sky pirate with the furry bunnygirl in a spygirl outfit sidekick -- aka, Han Solo and a disturbingly sexy Chewwie) as the main characters, depending on which version of the story you read. Then the director (Yasumi Matsuno) had a nervous breakdown from working conditions at Square Enix and they replaced him with the guy who did the SaGa games (Akitoshi Kawazu). Around the same time, the "Belts, Be
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Obviously it's all a matter of opinion, but they were all* IMO pretty decent strictly from a gameplay standpoint, and X held up relatively well in terms of story. I thought IX was crap and XII was mediocre at best, but XIII and (surprisingly) X-2 I found quite fun to play - in fact I'd quite recommend X-2 as a game with excellent mechanics, provided you ignore the fact that it somehow got Final Fantasy in its title.
*I haven't played either of the MMOs so can't opine on them
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That's a good point, the MMOs really are different games.
But as "members of the title", I think 11 did more harm to the brand than 14. I *could* enjoy 14 if I didn't foucs on the things I tend to focus on. I couldn't enjoy 11 past level 18 or 19.
And, yes, FF13 probably tarnished the brand more than anything else.
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I loved I, IV, VI, VII, IX, and X. I'm still working on XIII, and haven't bothered with the MMO ones -- I have no interest in MMOs.
I've been saying for years: if someone came out with a game with a story as engaging as say, FF VI or FF VII or Earthbound, I wouldn't care if it were still in 16 bit graphics. I still break out the Earthbound and FF VI occasionally to re-play because they were great games with great story lines.
Graphics are nice and all, but I'll take gameplay and story line any day of the week over them.
I have high hopes for FF XIII-2, if only because they publicly labeled it as wanting to "fix" FFXIII's mistakes. They even named some of the worst offenders with the game: railroad plot, and too much focus on the story rather than the characters (they also talked about governance issues, but I can't speak to that). I just hope they also work on dialogue, too; I don't know if all that sounded better in Japanese, but the English translation was some of the corniest, cheesiest drivel I've ever heard. The chara
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Agreed for 10 and 12, but 13?
I could have taped the controller down and beaten 13. In fact I did at one point - IT ADVANCED ME THROUGH OVER 2 HOURS OF THAT THING.
FF10 and 12 were great.
FF13 was a movie, and a shitty one at that, in which I had to press "continue" every now and then.
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I agree. I liked 10 and 12 - especially 12.
12 was the primary reason I bought a PS2 and I have no regrets. I used the PS2 for not much else to be honest.
However, 13 was a major reason for upgrading to a PS3 - while I don't regret the PS3, I would if it weren't for its media playback capabilities. FF13 was a MASSIVE disappointment.
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Forget about it not being "Final Fantasy." If you can literally tape the "UP" button down and have a drinking bird hitting X occasionally and get that far into the game with no interaction at all, it's not a "game". It's a movie.
And it wasn't very enjoyable at all. It would have been better as an actual movie without the pretext of pretending that I'm actually playing it.
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Agreed. There was filler battles with no need for them at all. I probably could have enjoyed it more if it was just cut scene to cut scene instead of actually giving me corridors with random enemies to run into. Throw in the occasional boss fight. Hey, it worked for Xenosaga.
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The corridors add to the feeling of being led on by some undefinable scheme. The static pace and nonexistent room for deviation are the characters' unescapable fate.
That's the most elaborate excuse for yet-another-fucking-on-rails-Japanese-RPG I've ever heard. You, sir, must be a stand-up philosopher.
In a similar vein, I would like to point out that all those wooden crates in my favorite FPS represent the boxed-in lives we all lead.
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you have to look at it (and everything actually) for what it is and not what you want it to be.
I've never played any FF games and don't have any intention of trying them anytime soon - but after a 12 part series, you're going to be buying the next release for more-of-the-same, not for some art-house experience. You would expect some additions and changes, but if it's enough to turn the majority of the fan base off (as your comment seems to suggest), what's the point?
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I have no problem with Square trying different things. I bought Vagrant Story when it came out precisely because it wasn't an FF game (if I played any of them I'd want to start at number 1, even though yes I know the stories usually aren't related). Also the battle system in it was more interesting to me than the FF one.
My point is that if they are going to try something different, they should do it under another name than FF, rather than destroy their "brand" or people's enjoyment of the series. If their i
Stability and Performance Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't just "Stability and Performance Issues" that caused the game to suck so bad.
It was, well, everything.
A map that wouldn't show you where things you wanted to find were
A bizarre bazaar and shop system
No real story or major quest line (that I could find at least, in the week or so I spent playing it)
A UI that was designed for consoles - which is ironic since it never launched on the PS3.
Sloow animations on the menus. You have to hit menu (and wait for all the elements to slide in) then click on the submenu, and wait for all the elements to slide in and then click on "map" (instead of just being able to hit 'm' or whatever).
Class system didn't make any sense.
I dunno, there were other things I can remember really hating about the game, but it's been a year and I've tried to black out that part of my memory as best I can.
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It wasn't just "Stability and Performance Issues" that caused the game to suck so bad.
Yeah, I'm not sure why they went with that in the article. It's why I included the link to the earlier Slashdot story. I mean, there were performance and stability issues (I guess) but they weren't what killed the game.
It was things like XP rewards (called SP) being awarded at random that did it. Every time you did an action (like attack a monster) there was something like a 10% chance you'd gain XP. This made leveling horrible. It turns out that a Skinner box has the opposite effect if you're more likely t
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Sloow animations on the menus. You have to hit menu (and wait for all the elements to slide in) then click on the submenu, and wait for all the elements to slide in and then click on "map" (instead of just being able to hit 'm' or whatever).
If you find those menus bad, try to play Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Well, actually playing it wasn't bad...I break into a cold sweat everytime I have to open *any* kind of menu or overlay screen.
It was a very Japanese game (Score:2)
The Japanese have a different attitude towards gaming, or at least it appears to us that way. Insane hardmode seems to be done not through AI but by explaining nothing at all. They also don't tend to do PC gaming.
Having all the configuration outside the game, in a seperate program that doesn't even start up automatically for a first time config... what year is this again? That was the days of DOS. In 2011, PC gamers expect something better.
Especially in a game where tuning your config is so damned important
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As a US beta tester we complained considerably and were of course ignored as 'silly north americans' who didn't know how to play a 'real game'... Of course since part of us could in fact never finish downloading a 4 GB 'patch' during beta (it eventually timed out for quite alot of people), some of us could only complain anyways...
All that said, I love the FF settings (usually), but FF7 & FF8 for PC should have long ago proved they cannot handle a PC game... Which is ironic since I can run both in emulat
Re:I just don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Rumor had it that they outsourced development to China. Chocobos were, for a while, horsebirds [sankakucomplex.com], but this was later corrected to "chocopo" [sankakucomplex.com]. (Ads on the linked site NSFW).
Better yet, the collector's edition included a tumbler [sankakucomplex.com] which could be "damaged" by "items including salt and solid materials, carbonated beverages, milk or other dairy beverages, fruit juices, etc." Not sure how that made it through QC.
Then again, Sankaku Complex just really doesn't like China, so it's possible Squeenix just dun goofed. Perhaps after (more than) 14 final fantasies, this [dropbox.com] was their game design. Anyone who knew for sure what happened met seppuku.
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The problem is (Score:5, Insightful)
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I disagree, FF 1 thru 7 and still classics, it is when they changed and "innovated" that they went downhill.
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I think the main problem is that design leaves too little to the imagination.
This, combined with much longer game-play and not much better stories means that things need to be drawn out for far too long.
In the older games, the character design needed to be minimal and thus you didn't notice how bloody silly it looked in the mind of the designers.
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I disagree, they are classics and therefore still amazing to this day, and continue to show up on best games of all time lists.
You don't need nostalgia to play them today and enjoy them more then most new games.
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You're just stuck in the past. There's no doubt a kid similar to you when you were a kid, enjoying today's games just as much as you enjoyed them, who will say the same thing as he gets older. Every generation does this. What makes you think your generation was special?
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they are still JRPGs
It's true that the genre has done few changes to the formula. I recently picked up a few JRPGs after not having played any of them in a few years. I still had some fun playing them. There's a few design decisions gameplay-wise sometimes that really frustrate me (not having control over your party-members, insisting on a terrible skill-up system, ...), and sometimes these games tend to feel like a chore to play through near the end. Some people will complain about the storylines, but to be honest, if you're
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Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade are the two most WRPG-like JRPGs out there. They're like a perfect middle ground between story and exploration. Both of them are very critically acclaimed, too. You should give them a try sometime! This generation has been filled with mostly good-ish RPGs but few truly great ones, aside from Xenoblade/The Last Story/Monster Hunter Tri, and ironically those were released on the Wii, the system that "hardcore" gamers shun all the time.
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Funny really, since Gary Gygax made only the slightest of nods towards Tolkien fans, and D&D was never particularly good at emulating Middle Earth (far too much magic for one thing).
Original D&D was much more designed to emulate the sword and sorcery genre typified by the works of Leiber, Howard, and Moorcock. The game has changed a lot over the years, and while it still has elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, and goblins, (the halflings do not in any way resemble hobbits any more), it really has very lit
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Mass effect is barely even in the category of "RPG." Although the quest system is pretty good, the equipment and skills were lacking. No, what OP (I suspect) is talking about is games more like The Witcher (1&2, especially 1), KOTOR (going back a ways), Oblivion (kinda), even Dragon Age or the soon to be released Diablo III. None of those games can be played by sitting something on the controller and walking away which is what can be done with some of the new ones (I think this [vgcats.com] sums it up nicely).
The
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"Also, neither Magicka nor Torchlight were very good RPGs, no idea why you chose those as examples"
Yes they are good games because
1) They focus on the fun
2) They get that RPG's require a good combat and/or loot system
3) Story and cinematics aren't relied upon for critical acclaim (which most western RPG's do rely on).
The great thing about diablo 1 + 2 was the challenging monsters and the phat loot. All western RPG's have done is bring hollywood to games. Mass effect minus the audio/video and story - the
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1) How much fun is clicking mindlessly?
2) Clicking mindlessly is a good combat system?
3) Agreed!
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Play more classic western RPGs. You will not win an SSI Gold Box RPG by button mashing.
I swear, it's like you people have no culture at all.
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
The parent is not flamebait. There is a very serious lack of good deep western RPGs. If you haven't played games like Champion's of Krynn, then you don't know what you're missing.
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It depends on how you define the term RPG in relation to computers and computer games, (rather than P&P etc. - (since, no, they're not used the same way to represent the same thing)).
Computer RPGs were invented as a way to capture the pen and paper RPG experience. Any computer RPG that doesn't contain elements that you would find in a pen and paper RPG is not actually an RPG at all.
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You act like Western RPGs don't predate JRPGs. They do, and have been out innovating them for decades. It's only in the past 10 years that western RPGs have begun to suck as much as JRPGs.
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I know as much, I enjoyed Might and Magic 2 more than any other mortal in this planet has enjoyed, but I find most western RPGs to be quite samey, as JRPGs are. The custom character systems take quite a bit from the experience since dialogue tends to be washed up to accommodate your choices. And always the same stock high fantasy races. I can only take so many "by the book" orcs and elves before getting bored of them.
And despite popular acclaim, I couldn't get into mass effect. Throw me a freaking final bos
Yeah I'm sure it wasn't 13+ sequels. (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Yeah I'm sure it wasn't 13+ sequels."
It wasn't the sequels that did them in, it was that each game in the series progressively was getting worse because game development kept getting more expensive and difficult (shinier graphics = more time and money). So final fantasy went from being decent games developers could spend time to polish (last one being roughly FF7, but even FF7 you can notice declines in quality from earlier games) to stories wrapped in garbage gameplay.
Japanese developers have not dealt w
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Something that irked me was lack of continuation. After so many sequels you'd kind of like to see some of the same faces instead of having to readjust to everyone all over again. Dirge of Cerberus was kind of a nice spinoff like that IMHO.
Something else that kills me with the FF series now is how friggin long it takes to play. I'm pretty sure I got up to roughly 200+ hours in FF12 and finally said "fuck this noise". FF8 I think may have been around 80 and that pushing it. There was actually a /. article on
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I'm kinda with you. I don't have nearly as much time to play these stupid long games as I once did, and even back in my pre-career years, I still rarely finished any RPG because they were too damned long.
What I do like is the (recent?) trend of a game that you can beat once, and if you feel like it, you can play through it again with all your gear to reach an even higher level, collect doodads you may have missed, or explore alternate questlines. Borderlands comes to mind, as does Mass Effect. You can "b
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Thanks for the tip. Now if I ever could find a free weekend again.... ;)
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Just from memory, you've got the 14 numbered games, X-2 and XIII-2, three Tactics titles (Tactics, Advanced, and A2), Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, the three game Legends series for the Gameboy, the three VII spin-offs, the Dissidia fighters (2 of them) + another fighter with a different name that I forget.
That's 30 right there. I'm sure there are more. That's more games than there are in the Madden series!
Ehrgeiz (Score:2)
No Chocobos and Airstrips? OF COURSE! (Score:2)
How many would still play Asheron's Call 3? (Score:3)
However AC1 died when AC2 came out. AC2 was flawed in many major ways such as armor didn't work very well, and fighting in a group is much more profitable, especially with a tactician. People went from AC1 to AC2 and when AC2 flopped, people didn't flood back to AC1.
So AC2 hurt the franchise far worse than if it was never released at all. Still, I think people are not sour on Asheron Call series. I bet if they'd release an AC3 similar to AC1, but with several basic things fixed, they'd be set.
Sadly this probably will never be since they made LOTRO, and forgot what made AC1 awesome, and adopted WOW game design laziness.
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I'd jump into a revamped AC1 with updated graphics.
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Still, I think people are not sour on Asheron Call series. I bet if they'd release an AC3 similar to AC1, but with several basic things fixed, they'd be set.
Would people play AC3 if it felt like a mash-up of Asheron's Call, Assassin's Creed, Armored Core, and Animal Crossing?
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Only if one of the classes you could play was an Anonymous Coward :)
Completely Enix's fault (Score:3)
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I think I have to agree with this. Although, I think XII was pretty decent; given its style, though, I think it was done by the teams involved with Tactics and Vagrant Story which were, if I recall correctly, before the merger.
XIII reminds me of Xenosaga II and III, which both destroyed the awesome Xenosaga (I) with its crazy linear gameplay and "narrative" loading screens.(Seriously - the story should come out during gameplay, not a loading screen!)
So, yes; while I purchased XIII, I think that's probably i
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Final Fantasy XII is tied with X on Metacritic as the #2 Final Fantasy game of all time. The only bad-scoring FF and DQ title to be released since the merger was FFXIV. A little more evidence on your part would be nice because your claim doesn't exactly fit with reality. Sure you have the right to dislike these games, I'm not contesting that, but when pretty much all of the critics liked the game, maybe you're approaching it from the wrong angle.
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I agree with this. If anything, I think Enix helped stave off Square's stagnation for a little while, rather than the other way around.
At this point... (Score:2)
No it didnt (Score:2)
Lets be honest: mostly no one ever accepted the MMOs as official Final Fantasy games despite them being numbered. Yes, the game is horrible, and likely many will never again touch a SquareEnix MMO ever again (I gave them too much credit expecting them to not be capable of doing worse than FFXI again.)
But the Final Fantasy brand HAS been damaged big time and it had little to do with XIV. It was the horrendous XIII that had those honors. I think to this day I have not met a single Final Fantasy fan (in person
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At least from a commercial perspective, XI is not bad at all, being still in operation and (partially) developed. Having played it for about 7 years, I would add that it was not that bad despite clearly a very unrewarding set up. In particular, the main scenario (and even more in particular the Chains of Promathia expansion) are well worth the FF name.
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Not quite (Score:2)
You know what harmed the brand? Final Fantasy XI, XII, XIII AND XIV. Changing the basic formula of "you control a party and its actions in battles" and going with completely linear game play and odd online experiences killed Final Fantasy. X was the last game that embraced the Final Fantasy brand, since then its been throwing crap at the wall hoping it will stick. These games are Final Fantasy in name only, the magic, the SOUL is gone. Long gone.
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Oh yeah. Airships. That'll fix it. (Score:2)
I hear they're also going to apply lipstick to all the game's pig models.
lipstick on a flying pig? (Score:2)
I hear they are turning the pigs into airships.
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A chocobo is a giant chicken that you can ride.
Re:What the hell is a "chocobos"? (Score:5, Informative)
Chocobos are a species of giant, normally flightless bird sort of like ostriches or large chickens, that have basically appeared in one form or another in every Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy II (and now XIV should have them too). They are most often used as mounts, but some have magical abilities as well. One example of their appearance is in Final Fantasy VII, where the party has to capture a chocobo which they can ride across a swamp inhabited by a swift and deadly serpent monster. Crossing the swamp on foot without getting attacked by the serpent is all but impossible, and the serpent is too powerful to be defeated at the levels your characters are when they reach that point, but mounted on a chocobo your party can move fast enough to escape the serpent and reach the caves beyond.
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I don't know if you're kidding or what, but that's hardly a spoiler. I didn't even remember that part of the game until I read that post, so how significant could it really be?
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Crossing the swamp on foot without getting attacked by the serpent is all but impossible
I've managed to get past the Midgarsormr in FF7 without a chocobo. It's just timing and a lot of luck.
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and the serpent is too powerful to be defeated at the levels your characters are when they reach that point, but mounted on a chocobo your party can move fast enough to escape the serpent and reach the caves beyond.
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Same here... I've always been a powerleveler.
When I replayed a few of these games more recently, I actually tried to move through without overleveling and it was like a whole new game... sometime a character would actually die fighting a boss, for example. :)
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Actually the Mythril Mines, after the swamp, is a great place to powerlevel. Enemies in groups, easily killed with Matra Magic, to boost your kill counts for Limit breaks. You can also steal Ethers from the Ark Dragons. Put Aeris in your party with her limit level at 2 for Fury Brand....so you can use your Limit Breaks more (and learn the second one of each level faster) You can also buy "Hyper" at Fort Condor, and get Yuffie in the forest.
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They're something in the Final Fantasy Game Series. If you knew about Final Fantasy, you'd know what Chocobos are; so my question to you is: If you are so clearly disinterested in the Final Fantasy series of games, why are you wasting your time reading about it? Clearly your time is so valuable to you that you can't even spare the 0.18 seconds to Google it.
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FFXII is basically a single-player MMO. The engine and game mechanics seem to be borrowed from XI, and the big side quests are all tedious monster hunting. I found the story to be substandard, partly because there wasn't much to it, and partly because every story event was separated by hours of grinding the aforementioned side quests.
Reviews can be very misleading. Metal Gear Solid 4 gets 4.5 stars on Amazon, but I have literally seen high school students write, direct, and act better than those cut scenes.
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Yes, yes, and yes?
Comparing Rift to the abortion that is FFXIV is laughably ridiculous. XIV is one of the worst games to come out in years, and has taken a year of work post-launch to get up to the level of "poor".
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It depends on who you ask. I remember when the first one came out. For most of my friends and family who have played those earlier ones, 7 killed the series.
However, for my younger brother and others I know for whom 7 was the first experience with the series, it made the series.
For the people who didn't think 7 killed it, 9 was the pinnacle and 10 killed it.
For me, I liked 10 and 10-2. I also liked 12 because it was different. (I've never played 11 or any other MMO.)
13 is a steaming pile. I played it. And p
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GP == the OP of another thread I read :)
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Annoyingly stupid minigames built on an unresponsive RPG walkabout engine ? Yep. I hated FFX to death for that dumb chocobo race thing near the Monster Arena... the one where you had to catch balloons or something. I mean, What In The Tentacled Fuck Son ? This isn't a driving game, it's an RPG. Give me a list of actions and I'll choose one. "Action: Skip stupid minigame" *click*
Some people find these Japanese elements cute and quirky. I find them, well, brain-damaged. Japanese culture is just a wei