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What Square Enix says makes Final Fantasy

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12.01.2012 3:10am

Inquisitor
Jericholic V2.0

Spidey said:

I'd say pre FF12, FF was about a gang of likeable heroes who goes on an epic quest against evil.
FF12 and on, FF is about a gang of heroes you want to burn in hell who go on an epic quest against either someone you don't remember or their own angst.

This might be the most true statement ever.

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12.01.2012 5:22am

shooter_mcgavin
Registered Member

The worst you can say about FF12's characters is that you felt indiffrent towards them, there really isn't anything that makes them annoying or hateable.

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12.01.2012 2:43pm

Old Juan
filled with hate

shooter_mcgavin said:

The worst you can say about FF12's characters is that you felt indiffrent towards them, there really isn't anything that makes them annoying or hateable.

I'd largely agree with this, even Van and Penelo aren't that bad when compared to annoying cast of XIII on the whole. FFXII was really tragic because it had the makings and potential to really be the best FF but fell short.

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12.01.2012 3:01pm

Shadow
Comes and goes like the wind...

I felt with FFXII the main issue was the world was developed more than the characters, that game seemed to really be a lot more about the over arching conflict in the universe they created, rather than anything going on with the people you were playing as.

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12.01.2012 6:50pm

Spidey
So Sigh Ety

shooter_mcgavin said:

The worst you can say about FF12's characters is that you felt indiffrent towards them, there really isn't anything that makes them annoying or hateable.

yeah, i agree

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12.01.2012 6:51pm

Old Juan
filled with hate

Shadow said:

I felt with FFXII the main issue was the world was developed more than the characters, that game seemed to really be a lot more about the over arching conflict in the universe they created, rather than anything going on with the people you were playing as.

That and even when it came to the over arching conflict we only saw very small snippits of it at best. The material and the ideas for a truly great game were there, had the Square of the late 80's and 90's worked on this title....it would probaby be regarded as best FF ever.

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12.03.2012 8:58am

Soul Hunter
Ambitious but rubbish
Administrator

In retrospect, has anyone considered that maybe we have less tolerance for the newer FF characters because we grew up?

(Having said it that way makes growing up sound somewhat bad. But if it's true and maturity means never being able to appreciate FF again, then fuck growing up)

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12.03.2012 11:05am

Mavilu
Yep, still gaming

Nah, it's not me (or most of us), Square simply lost their touch.
I'm still enjoying classical JRPGs immensely, as long as they are good, of course and the latest FFs... aren't good.

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12.03.2012 11:17am

Enkidoh
Time Travelling White Mage

I have to agree with Mav SH - SE's tendency for petulant teen protagonists was only a rather recent phenonemon anyway. I mean, even FFVII's main cast were mostly in their early to mid twenties, with just Yuffie an annoying teen (unless you count Red XIII's emotional age, given the fact Bugenhagen mentioned he was essentially a teenager in human terms).

Sadly the teen leads idea only really started with FFVIII (and no, this isn't a FFVIII bagging post - I loved that game emmensely even despite it's issues), and just kind of stuck with the series from then on. Never mind the fact that a sustantial section of the gaming community is past the teen age group, SE just seems hellbent of keeping that corner of the market by appealling to them with stupid Zack Effronesque/Bieber clones for main characters.

Of course that doesn't mean I will never enjoy another FF game because of that, but it does dampen the experience somewhat when the main protagonist just whines about how hungry they are or constantly goes off into emo tirades about how much they hate their father.

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12.03.2012 5:02pm

Soul Hunter
Ambitious but rubbish
Administrator

You guys have a point, it's all about marketing and the target audience now. So it's not really us becoming mature with our tastes, it's Square deliberately molding their characters with chronic lack of maturity. Which is ironic in a way since it takes depth of thinking to appreciate good RPGs and yet they're fashioning their product to go after kids who don't have that.

This is what happens when corporate business plans take precedence over passion and enthusiasm.

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12.04.2012 12:24pm

Shadow
Comes and goes like the wind...

Soul Hunter said:

You guys have a point, it's all about marketing and the target audience now. So it's not really us becoming mature with our tastes, it's Square deliberately molding their characters with chronic lack of maturity. Which is ironic in a way since it takes depth of thinking to appreciate good RPGs and yet they're fashioning their product to go after kids who don't have that.

This is what happens when corporate business plans take precedence over passion and enthusiasm.

I always bring up the point, that with Final Fantasy VI there is such a great variety of characters that you're bound to end up liking or relating to at least ONE of them. So the average person might play FFVI and might not really be playing through the story to see what happens with Terra, but rather their own favorite character in the game. Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy XII both had some good (older more mature) characters like Auron, Basche etc. that I did enjoy following to the end.

So I don't necessarily think whomever the main character is marketed to really makes or breaks the game. With XIII I probably ended up finding Lightning to be the most likable character, but disliked the game on its own merits.

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12.05.2012 12:00am

Mavilu
Yep, still gaming

Excellent point, hence all the complaint about the whiny pretty boys et al.
What sense is there in playing a game (to follow the story) if the characters are unlikable.

I personally have no problem following the story of young people even, I see them as the young people I could have as sons and daughters or nephews and nieces and I follow theirs stories as such; I love Garnet so much because I see her as a child I'd like to protect, to give an example but the latter characters are all wrong; they are young and have problems, but they come off as weaklings full of angst, rather than young and green, the kind I would rather give a "talk to" and who wants to follow those ones?.
See, in The Last Story, which I'm playing right now, I don't know how young anybody is, but they are obvioulsy young, nevertheless, they are nice, they have ambitions, things to hide, sorrows, insecurities, they are falling in love and all that is done well, without histrionics, well, there is one "I don't want to be aloooone!" moment, but it was a burst in a moment of fear, I can let I pass.
Why can't Square see that?.

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12.05.2012 4:32am

Spidey
So Sigh Ety

Yeah, I play a ton of jRPGs still, catching up on a ton, and I usually enjoy the characters, adult or kid. It's not really who they are but how they are presented that is the problem with latest Square games. I've actually enjoyed some of my favorite jRPGs in the past year - Radiant Historia, Xenoblade, and loving the hell out of Lost Odyssey now.

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12.07.2012 1:43am

SuperSquall
Shortening His Posts

Re: "We hate FF because we got old":
Bullshit. I like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Adventure Time. These are 'for children' but have artistic merit that kids simply don't fully appreciate. When I was a kid I liked the Super Mario cartoon and probably would've liked it more than ATLA, but in retrospect it is shit and ATLA is still some of the greatest television of all time.

Final Fantasy used to have that artistic merit, and in my mind *that* is what defined Final Fantasy. Usually it involves saving the world, magic, summoning, exploration, travelling, likeable characters and so on but the whole bit of quality that defined it was a *good* story that had some substance to it. The list Squeenix gave would be virtually identical for Dragon Quest except maybe we'd swap Summoning with Slimes.

The point was that while DQ was good escapism and nostalgia Final Fantasy was supposed to have some gravitas. Aerith dying meant something - I can't say the same thing about Serah's temporary crystallization.

shooter_mcgavin said:

The worst you can say about FF12's characters is that you felt indiffrent towards them, there really isn't anything that makes them annoying or hateable.

Apparently we met a different Vaan, but Balthier was still awesome.

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12.07.2012 11:19pm

Spidey
So Sigh Ety

If Serah died instead of being crystalized I'd probably like FF13. That would have been freakin awesome!! Characters would be forced to grow the fuck up at the very beginning.

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