Why did Final Fantasy stop being the king of JRPGs?

They desperately tried to move away from being JRPGs.

>>712515147 (OP)
when they became ashamed of being jrpgs with 15 and 16
though 13 being really shit didn't help them

>>712515147 (OP)
after 11

>>712515273
They were still king of jrpgs with ff13. There wasn't much competition.

>>712515147 (OP)
It never was

they were the king of jrpgs because they had massive marketing budgets for their time
but then their marketing budgets were surpassed by western AAA games, so there was no longer anything notable about final fantasy

persona 3 and 4 blew them out of the water and 13 floundered. they simply never recovered while persona just got better and better and more popular

>>712515147 (OP)
A bunch of factors honestly. Modern era game production making game releases slow, The SquareEnix merger that no doubt caused the people working on it to muddle the idea of what Final Fantasy was, the fast advancement of tech that drastically changed what it meant to push things like graphics which also feeds into the first issue.
Numbered MMOs that really don't fit in with what FF was before. XII was divisive at best and the single player games past that were just different kinds of bad, even if one could find redeeming features in them.

FFXIII was the beginning of the end for Final Fantasy as a console selling flagship franchise

>>712515147 (OP)
Final Fantasy has a real identity crisis nowadays.

>>712515147 (OP)
FF16 went too far away from jrpg. Squeenix stuck in the past. They still think that western slopeegee is the shit like back in witcher and mass effect days. And they are trying to turn FF into similar bullshit.

>>712515223
Fpbp /thread nothing to discuss

>>712515147 (OP)
Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu left Square after Spirits Within bombed.

>>712515147 (OP)
They stopped innovating and started copying trends in other games, only 5 years too late.

>>712515147 (OP)
After FF13, they lost their identity. It's sad.

>>712515147 (OP)
it started chasing trends rather than setting them after X

>>712515910
persona peaked with 4 but it did get infinitely more popular with 5

Turning away from its roots and taking forever to make a game are the main reasons I'd say. XII is a PS2 game and since then we only got 4 new numbered games, one of which is an MMO. So if you ignore that, it's basically just one game per generation.

>>712515147 (OP)
It stopped being final good after 10 where 10 was just okay. Everything after that was below average and forgettable to downright abysmal.

>>712515696
Lost Odyssey blows ff13 out of the water

>>712515147 (OP)
People keep bringing them and comparing every new jrpg to FF, it's obvious it hasn't been replaced yet

>>712515147 (OP)
mishandling of 12 being released way to late on the PS2's life span and with little fanfare. Real shame since Ivalice is the best setting in the franchise
13 being THE game to truly modernize the franchise for the HD generation but ending up as a wet fart, yet Square kept trying to push it with 2 sequels
Then during the 3ds era they just decided to stop making spin-off games in the same frequency they did in previous generations. Maybe they were trying to give prestige back to the brand or something
15 being stuck in development hell and switching directors, scope, and even universe. Despite the mess of the development they still betted on the world of 15 being the next big thing giving it all these spin-offs and dlc before the game even came out.
16 being a lower key game with a much smaller marketing campaign for it

>>712518037
Tell me what's being compared to ff16?

>>712515147 (OP)
12 was dogshit.
13 had 3 mid games
15 was dogshit
16 was mid

>>712518184
I don't mean it like that
I mean it as people still bringing FF over and over while jrpgs like SaGa or DQ still exists
You won't see expedition 33 being compared to metaphor, but compared to FF, even shitty ones like 16

>>712515147 (OP)
After Spirits Within

>>712515147 (OP)
Their old games still are, at most Exp33 manager to be close to a modern FF

I liked Rebirth

>>712518160
12 was such a waste, the director fucked off and left half a story done

>>712518286
>I don't mean it like that
>You won't see expedition 33 being compared to metaphor, but compared to FF, even shitty ones like 16
What did he mean it like?

>>712518424
You see people making comparisons and forcing rivalry between similar games. I have yet to see expedition 33 being compared to metaphor or any other jrpg
Why not Expedition 33 vs DQ11? Or smtv?

>>712518393
I liked Rebirth until I finished it, and upon reflection, realized a lot of things I didn't like about it.

>>712518402
that faggot matsuno always has a meltdown and quits.

>>712518402
to be fair ff13 is like the only FF post ff10 that felt like it got full funding.

>>712515147 (OP)
I still enjoyed 12, 13-2, LR, SoP, Remake and Rebirth
If anything they should stop dividing old games in 3 games.
Use rebirth system for a new game with new stories (no ps5 exclusive shit) and more people would join

Because they insist on spending a trillion dollars on each game's budget so you can look at lightning's armpits better instead of accepting the fact that only millennials care about JRPGs
>but muh purse owner and exp 33
they aren't console movers like FF7 was back then and still are still relatively niche compared to actual mainstream like fortnite

>>712518523
Almost all SE games feel underbudget nowadays.

>>712515147 (OP)
FF16 is unironically a game I feel is too good for this place, if that makes sense.

>>712518508
It's why I dislike him. Imagine wasting such a huge world, characters like that. They even seemed to abandon ideas that only exists in promos now. At least 13 had the linear idea already decided.

>>712518612
I don't think jrpgs are THAT big anymore. Gachas are eating their niche

>>712518631
It's side content and pacing are horrendous. They literally didn't have enough content to flesh out a 30 hour game.

Spirits Within
>what was that?
X-2
>okay what the actual fuck is going on in there
Compilation
>open up the goddamn door
XII
>that's it, i'm unscrewing the doorknob
XIII
>OH GOD (here)

>>712515147 (OP)
All their recent games enter dev hell and are tossed out as unfinished shit after starting over for the 10th time.

>>712518696
Nta but that's what happens when you focus on ONE character instead of a full party. Imagine recruiting the others, controlling them, seeing banters, rivalry, etc
More like the combat what failed it was that you can't just focus 50 hours on ONE character.
A character can be a lot better if this one interacts with others. Add that plus multiplatform and 16 would have done a lot better

>>712518696
I disagree, I even read the Thousand Tomes all the way through. It oozes soul. There’s a lot of good stuff there, this is the first game since The Witcher 3 that made me care about side characters and the slice of the world they inhabited.

>>712515902
They could have it easier than ever these days since most AAA games look ugly as shit now.

>>712518780
That ONE character was better written, better acted, and more interesting than the entire brocade in XV, all the cast in XIII, and 99% of the cast in XII. FF hasn’t had an excellent party since X.

>>712518804
I'm not saying there wasn't good stuff in there, there definitely is. However, once you beat Garuda the pacing falls off a cliff and turns into you spending 2-3 hours doing filler content to get to the next cool set piece.
At least Rebirth lets you skip most of that stuff.
Plus, as the other anon said. Character building is pretty slim.

>>712515147 (OP)
when they put this trannylover in charge

>>712518906
Even switch 2 removed the gender
Nip boomers just fear the backslash

>>712518483
Because nobody cares about those. People want CHARACTERS and TELENOVELA, so persona will always be more popular than smt, and FF (when done well) will always be more interesting to look at than DQ

Why does nobody cares about Fantasian

ff 15 with its stupid YOU NEED TO BUY EVERY MEDIA TO UNDERSTAND THE STORY with its okay movie , dog shit novels, dogshit anime, dogshit mobile novels, etc was the death of square enix.

>>712519015
DQ is extremely generic and only survives off brand recognition.
I don't know why people jerk it off so much.

Can we talk about how unironically 15 is a complete tragedy? I actually liked certain aspects of the game.

>>712519105
Because it IS so generic. Every other series tries to reinvent itself and half of them flounder in the attempt. FF is the perfect example where many people dislike the changes to the battle system. Being a turn based JRPG has become a novelty by now.

>>712515147 (OP)
They improve visually but the sense of fantasy adventure is just gone...

>>712515147 (OP)
The tipping point was exactly here.
Square so desperately tried not only to legitimize JRPGs as being something more than what they were, but pushed so hard for these to become the "prestige genre" of the gaming sphere. Shit was unironically over at this point because Final Fantasy went from a niche series to being "famous for being famous" overnight. Even non-RPG players would tell you about Final Fantasy and how great it was despite never having played the games - if they did, they were lucky to make it all the way out of Midgar in 7, or past the Dollet mission in 8.
FF became a household name because Square TOLD YOU it was a household name, and from there it tried, and tried, and tried to live up to the fake image it had sold the gaming world until it simply could not anymore.

>>712519246
I'm not even really talking about gameplay. Just story, characters, worldbuilding.

>>712518894
I disagree about Rebirth, I dropped it at Gongaga. It became so preoccupied with providing side content to the point the main story took a back seat to the mini games, side quests, and humor. I also found the combat to be a noticeable step down from Remake, with some questionable design decisions thrown in (why is dodging required for Cloud to initiate aerial combos?) that contributed to some frustrations. It was like Kingdom of Amalur: I loved it every time I booted it up, and then one day - without warning - I just became so sick of it that I didn’t want to even consider playing it.

>>712519298
>Final Fantasy went from a niche series

>>712519298
No, it was because it was that good

>>712519298
What FF did different was to give better presentation and immersion. People have more fun if they care about a character.
Music being actually good instead of generic safe jrpg music also helped a lot. There was passion behind

>>712519105
Because it's no nonsense. It was the first, it does it's job, no wax wings, zero bullshit, done. Next. XII is shaping up to be quite dire, though.

>>712519437
so what you're saying is that they should bring back uematsu

>>712518483
That anon was implying nobody compares their rpg to 16 because its an action game with very little resemblance to the vast majority of rpgs.

>>712519105
I actually can't stand the "traditional" JRPG aesthetic like DQ or tales or ys or whatever, the settings for these are so painfully generic
which is why I only tolerate atlus games (not purse owner garbage) for a JRPG fix these days because they actually involve modern environments and stories

>>712518906
He's kind of right. elden ring does well.

>>712519437
>what ff did different
Anon, JRPGs had already demonstrated remarkable artistic maturity around this time.
>Chrono Trigger's time travel narrative
>FFVI's ensemble character development
>Phantasy Star IV's sophisticated sci-fi story
FFVII holds up arguably worse than any of these games, but it sold because Square repackaged the existing maturity of the genre for mass consumption and forced this idea upon the market that JRPGs were now the "Hollywood" of video games.
It's all smoke and mirror bullshit.

>>712519308
DQXI's cast really wasn't that generic outside of the silent protagonist. They only really didn't have many personal issues.
But my answer regarding story and worldbuilding remains the same. At the very least DQ still has a world to traverse and explore. And even if it's generic, it works. Which can't be said about some other games that try something new but just fuck it up like Tales of Arise.

>>712515147 (OP)
>shift to action RPG when the west made better action RPG games generally speaking
>huge and long development times; went from an FF game every year or couple years, to an FF game every several years, to almost a decade between numbered titles
>horrific mismanagement and a complete lack of knowing what the customer wants anymore
>tons of JRPGs churned out because of Final Fantasy, and while the genre has burned itself out a fair bit, a lot of those games from slop shovelware to waifu dating sim shit and so forth come out more frequently, filling the gaps in for a lot of people
>indie games also trying to make their own spiritual successors even if nothing has the budget of Final Fantasy itself
>when the games DO come out they're still filled with more than just action RPG problems, like 15's empty and pointless open world, 16's empty and pointless open regions with dogshit sidequesting, and 7R's boring and monotonous open regions
>in hindsight open game design in general by trying to make characters ditch a world map or linear game design (probably because of the bitching about ff13's linearity) effectively have taped on pointless open world shit to all the games now
Everything they've done to cause Final Fantasy to lose relevancy was their own fault.

>>712519834
Well, the Tales of series has been floundering since the ps3

>>712519834
I enjoyed ToA more than DQXI. As soon as Act 3 started I dropped it, it was too much.

>>712519920
Good for you, but I enjoyed DQXI a lot more than ToA. It pisses me off how they fucked up every single part of the game that isn't graphics.

>>712519974
You didn’t like the cast?

>>712515147 (OP)
>XIII tunnel game with lead obsessed with his self made MC wife
>XV undid the edgy VII tier aesthetic people wanted from the concept and gave gay boyband story with cancelled DLC, shoving story in movie and books
>XIV turned FF into a WoWclone, bent the knees to the LGBT and became a hive of tranny shit filled with secondaries
>XVI undid turn based or anything even close to the original formula and since it was made by the XIV big names it added canonical gay shit and trans shit

>>712519886
>Tales of series
I keep seeing those games coming out & reflexively want to try them because I like jrpgs but I played that pirate themed one & bounced off it so hard it gave me whiplash.

>>712515147 (OP)
All I ask from Final Fantasy is to create a cast of main characters I can care about for better or worse. I didn't really like the cast of Final Fantasy 10 but I can understand some of their dilemmas like Wakka's racism or or Tidus having issues with his family verbal abuse. But then Square Enix got the bright idea of making...

Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 12
Final Fantasy 13
Final Fantasy 14
Final Fantasy 15
Final Fantasy 16

I don't give a FUCK about any of the characters in this string of shitty games and when I don't care I will STOP following the series. And MMOs are a shitty way to EVER tell a story by the way. Fuck. The only thing that gets me angrier is that while Final Fantasy has lost its luster its replacement is even more cancerous, Persona. Final Fantasy is losing to Shitty Waifu Bait for shut in social outcast otaku LOSERS! I would sooner play a fucking Sonic game over that trash.

And that's the crux of it, no one tries to make characters that are thematically engaging and potentially interesting. This is also why I'm not excited for the new Suikoden game by Konami I just feel nothing its generic medieval fantasy RPG fare. This genre has become a stagnant fart when it comes to its foundation of storytelling. RPGs have become so awful that you are bound to see a better story in the new Grand Theft Auto.

>>712515731
/thread

>>712520131
it has maybe two good games to its name
Symphonia and Vesperia
Nothing else is worth playing

>>712519632
>he's kind of right
>uses Elden Ring which was a game that was just expanding upon its predecessors formula and closer to WRPGs means he was right
You're such a retard holy fucking shit. Elden Ring didnt go from a TBG to ARPG like FF did because it was chasing trends, it stayed as much as it did to its prior souls games and to its studio's identity you fucking retard.

>>712520239
>maybe two good games to its name
>symphonia
LOL. LMAO

>>712520296
even if you don't like it, it has the best reputation by fans in the series

I wonder what's stopping them from doing shit like Dimensions with the Pixel Remaster basis they've still got fresh from the Unity pile
Like, they seriously can just have a small team not even packing the budget of HD-2D games use that code to proceed to try their hand at a classic style FF game, no voice acting needed. Do they have absolutely no confidence in that shit?

>>712519875
>>shift to action RPG when the west made better action RPG games generally speaking

Well this is incorrect. The best action games are from Japan's Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry series. The best Action RPGs are actually Kingdom Hearts games and ironically enough Square Enix never successfully transplanted the successful formula of Kingdom Hearts onto ANYTHING else not an original series much less Final Fantasy.

So there. The west makes shit. The only thing the west has to be proud of is Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto and maybe if you think its worth it Mortal Kombat but the west makes shit by and large.

>>712520343
Triangle strategy and Octopath Traveler sold like shit and that's basically what those were.

>>712515147 (OP)
>FFX breaks records, brings in tons of new fans, becomes a mandatory purchase for PS2 owners worldwide
>they follow it up with... an online only MMO that requires an expensive hard drive expansion for your console and a decent internet connection that over 75% of the planet didn't have at that point
>and a half assed sequel full of reused assets and inferior everything else, after not having ever made a direct sequel to any mainline title until that point
Most everyone could read the writing on the walls and said fuck it, which is why so many people didn't give FFXII a chance (including me) until a decade after the series was buried.

>>712520446
The team wouldn't be getting projects every couple of years if they were total stinkers, anon. And even then, "Not Final Fantasy" would never sell well as the source material inspiration. Seemingly.

>>712520032
>Alphen is mr good guy without any edge. He makes Lloyd look like a realist cause at least he doesn't try to talk into the crazy lunatic. Also since the skits don't really have any banter, he hardly shows another side
>Shionne takes forever to warm up to the party at which point you're already in the last stretch of the game cause it's short as fuck compared to other Tales games
>Law becomes nothing except the butt of the joke many times
>Rinwell is similarly racist as Genis but without the internal conflict or moral anchor. She also loves old remains of her culture like Raine, but unfortunately for her the game doesn't have any of that past her introduction, so it's quickly forgotten
>Dohalim is the only good character by not only feeling conflicted with some drama in his backstory, but also giving some insight into the opposing side
>Kisara also just lacks character to work out
No, I don't like it. In general the game lacks good skits and a good story to flesh them out. They easily take the moral high ground by being against slavery and racism. And conflicts are easily solved cause the antagonists have no brains.

>>712515147 (OP)
I feel like we've been over this a billion times. Square Enix, that's it, end of thread

>>712515971
>as a console selling flagship franchise
you're mixing many different things. the problem was execs decided to stop making games for players since it was decided that people who don't like video games were to become the new target demographic. ff just followed suit and started delivering action rpg moviegames.

>>712520239
Given one of its best games is apparently the one that I was talking about I guess I was right to steer clear of them.

>>712520606
The best way to make games for players is to intentionally make Final Fantasy go back to being PS1 graphics this way only truly hardcore gamers will stay interested in the brand. Especially for the gameplay and story as limitations will force these to either be good or fail. What's that? You want to see the FMV with the pretty visuals you got to beat the game.

We need to get rid of high end graphics for stupid normies. And I mean for every single genre in the industry. This is the only way gaming will have its soul back. The problem is try and convince corporate heads to do this.

>>712520686
Now I'm just confused which of the two you consider pirate themed. I assumed you were talking about Berseria.

>>712519750
Sorry, not interested in your Nintendo vs console contrarianism bullshit anon

>>712520686
Vesperia? Yeah then probably. You have to be pretty into JRPGs in general to stomach some of the lesser series like that.
Ys and Star Ocean are hard to get through too

>>712520686
Vesperia isn't really pirate-themed. In fact the closest you get is Legendia and that's only because it's got a lot of ocean motifs more than anything. You sure you're not thinking strictly of the pirate kid?

>>712515273
They should try another mainline game like 16 but make it more like SoP

XV.

Square really needs to take the atlus/game freak route and just create like a couple hundred creature assets to reuse for the next 20 years
instead of spending a billion dollars every game modelling the pubes of a chocobo every time

>>712515147 (OP)
Square Enix for some reason doesn't know how to play their cards well.
They could perfectly use star ocean for action jrpg and improve the awful models to be more liked (for example, Persona is weeb BUT the characters design has appeal both Japan and worldwide)
Then make FF turn based or weird turn based, and don't make it exclusive. Hell it doesn't even need to be long.
Absolute stop listening to consulting mafia, I'm pretty sure these mafias are made for Japanese products to flop and make them cheaper to buy. It's not a coincidence Namco also got its own Forspoken too.
Use SaGa, DQ for AA turn based games
>Western pandering
The saddest part is that SE actually had POPULAR western ips under them (Hitman, which sold like 15 millions iirc, Deus ex, Tomb Raider...) and they sold them for peanuts kek.
They could also try to remake Drakengard and give it to SoP makers, give 2B outfit to every fucking character, even the dragon
See RE success? Well try to bring Parasite Eve back
Even Konami is trying to crawl back. SE had the ips and the potential but their boomers did a lot of damage.
They also released tons of AA games TOGETHER AND WITHOUT MARKETING.
It really is a fucking disaster in their direction, but a smart leader could literally make gold with SE

>>712521129
That's because Atlus uses Anime Graphics. And those types of games have a huge negative stigma for being junk in the industry.

Square Enix always fancied itself as a rich company so they don't do anime visuals at most anime stylings like the original artwork of Final Fantasy 7 but you will NEVER see a Final Fantasy game that looks like Tales Of, Suikoden, or Breath of Fire. Too cheap and tacky which is what Atlus symbolizes. Atlus may be trending now but they will run out of luck and no one will give a fuck about them in due time. Even now I'm seeing some people complain about Persona's Joker being in Sonic Racing. People are starting to somewhat tire a bit of this shit.

People talk about Persona but I actually think they are autosabotaging themselves by making main games release every 10 years because they need shitty spin offs
P4R doesn't even look that good and feels redundant, they could have tried to bring P1/2 back in some form

>>712515147 (OP)
Every single new rpg is still being compared to FF so it probably didn’t, which is impressive when the quality has been lacking for 18 years.

>>712515147 (OP)
I have a feeling the next FF will have turn based combat and a parry system.

>>712521393
the Persona devs are creatively dead anyway going off Metaphor

They stopped being turn based romance stories

>>712521347
It works with cycles. Expedition 33 worked because it used realistic graphics. FF, like RE, use more realistic models instead of anime style. I also think Persona is shooting themselves in the foot by delaying games for spin offs and remakes of games that already looked cute in their original form. Do you seriously need to move the camera in P4R when the original had nice views with a comfy fixed camera angle? It's like with the supposed FF9R, making camera 3d would make it lose its appeal when the game was designed to look in a certain way.
Besides western journos used to trash on every weeb game and that scared people away.
S-E should aim at 40 hours games at the moment, and fire any consultation tranny shit that just damages their reputation (see guilty gear with Bridget)

>>712521347
>That's because Atlus uses Anime Graphics. And those types of games have a huge negative stigma for being junk in the industry.
Nah man that's not even what he's talking about. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne specifically future-proofed the series for a long while by making a ton of monster assets, not even inherently anime-styled, that could have polygons added and animations changed but served as the basis for the franchise since. With all the footwork done, they could then keep slapping more new and unique monsters per game afterwards on top. When you're thinking anime style, you're thinking of the characters themselves rather than the monsters besides shit like Jack Frost.

>>712515147 (OP)
it didnt FF7 rebirth is the best jrpg i have played since dq8

Why? Because Square fucked up FF12 way too much. That's the real anwser. FF12 was one of the original dev hell games, production started in 2000 right after FFIX was released and they had no idea what do to with the game. 6 years of development were 3 of those years the game was intented to be an MMO just like 11. Square wanted to move forward with Final Fantasy as an MMO franchise but something happened along the way and they fucked up big time. Everything after 12 is them trying to get in line again and thinkering where to move forward with the franchise. After 12 it was mistakes over and over.
>13 was a failure
>13 versus was killed along the way
>14 initial release was a piece of shit
>Kingdom Hearts 3 dev hell
It took them almost 10 years to recover from the release of FF12. By 2015 before FF15 released Square was a shell of their former self, and started the panic mode of "what the fuck do we do now?" So they were forced to make the safest move possible, remake their highest acclaimed game FF7.
We are now in 2025, 20 years after the release of Final Fantasy 12 and Square still doesn't know what to do with the franchise, if it wasn't for FF14 and FF7R they would be dead a long time ago. They lost their place in the market only because of their mistakes.

>>712521569
>It works with cycles
Exactly. Just like how now grifters find funny to mock FF in the future they may jump onto the FF is good ship if that gives them views
Just look at all those newfags pretending they were always silent hill fans with SH2R

>>712520536
>Alphen is cool
>Shionne and Kasara are hot
>Rinwell is cute
>Dohalim is based
Yep it’s kino

>>712521539
>wearing black panties under a white dress
What's their thought process?

>>712520818
>>712520856
>>712520858
Its vesparia, I bought the game definitive edition on clearance & played for a few hours & it was torturous.
I just say pirate because the only thing I remember about it is the girl with the tricorn hat with an anchor on it saluting on the cover.

>>712521347
they deleted him because he spoke the truth

>>712521639
Aren't mmos outdated? Gacha makes everything more approachable for normies these days, no subscription shit and plenty of fags play f2p or at most spend few
I think they were making FFXIV gacha or some shit in china

>>712515147 (OP)
Every game since ff13 has tried to be "Advent Children the game" including the new kingdom hearts game

>>712521820
KH is dead, they should just let Nomura make his verum rex aka totally not versus 13 game
Millennials moved on now, zoomers don't want to play 20 KH games to understand KH4 complicated plot, Disney lost its appeal, etc, so just recycle KH combat for a new ip, it's pretty obvious Nomura doesn't give a shit about Sora or KH plot anymore

>>712521393
They will never remake P1/P2 because it doesn't have shitty visual novel dating sims that all these faggots only care about
The most you can hope for is basically SMT6 after they make their retard bucks with p4r

>>712521918
KH4 will 100% be a soft reset that only occasionally makes callbacks to the previous games.
Sora, Riku, and Kairi will be the only characters with significant presence. Well them and the disney shit.

>>712521920
That's retarded. People love to learn about previous games of a known ip. Just lookt at how many normies bought FF pixel collection to understand FF origins better
Hell they could also add some romance shit or at least just make them different from P3-5. The story is there, it's the combat that's mostly a pain in the ass.
I think chinks said they would add p1/2 characters if they got enough demand in p5x kek

>>712515147 (OP)
When gamers developed self-esteem issues and game industry cattered to it. Suddenly everything has to be about "le skill expression" so that every game has to serve as platform to make "hardest difficulty 100% no damage speedrun" or "game MAD combo" videos. I dont care that you're having fun better than me. Not everything has to be a dick measuring contest.

>>712521920
>They will never remake P1/P2 because it doesn't have shitty visual novel dating sims that all these faggots only care about
They have the opportunity to do the funniest thing and retroactively throw in dating sim bullshit and fuck up the entire Tatsuya/Maya plot.

>>712521920
P2 does have the visual novel dating sim shit, just in an extremely truncated form.
A remake could easily fix that

>>712522018
But that's the worst of both worlds. Zoomers won't get those callbacks.
Literally just make a new ip for zoomers and alpha gen.

>>712522090
New IPs are too much of a gamble for big retard shareholders. They like their recognizable IPs

>>712522154
Sure but then we got things like Expedition 33 or Persona which became more popular than smt
Sometimes you need to risk and shareholders are soulless cuck men

>>712518612
>>712518679
Its more that RPGs and JRPGs in particular aligned closely with the sphere of Nerdy Culture Video Games appealed to early on with their roots in Classic Nerd Shit like Tabletop Games.
The issue is that the demographic of "people who would like to play a Traditional JRPG" was fully captured by the 6th gen, and the generalized hobby growth past that point was in areas that did have any interest in JRPGs.
Which in turn caused Suits to abandon the Genre over the 7th gen like many others for not being as exponentially profitable as Shooters which were the primary market expansion at the time.
Pic Rel is a shitty mockup of what I mean

>>712522241
Ain't no way Sandfall won't get bought by some bigger player now.

>>712521539
Gonna need you define what you mean by romance because I can think of several that either lack romance or didn't have a real focus on it that are good and three that had more of a focus on romance that were bad, good and decent-ish in that specific order.

>>712521918
You are right and wrong about some things you said. But about Kingdom Hearts...

Kingdom Hearts as a series was handled by a bunch of hacks who grabbed a seemingly simply concept and made it a convoluted mess and worse one that always ends on a habitual CLIFFHANGER!!!

That is a horrible way to construct anything. A comics? A movie? A series? A gaming series in this case. Now its such a long lasting convoluted abomination that by default its difficult to market the series EVEN if you sell the Kingdom Hearts All in One Collection. And keep in mind the All in One Collection does NOT include everything that you need to understand every subplot of Kingdom Hearts.

Kingdom Hearts could have been one of those timeless series you can always recommend even nowadays you still convince a new gamer to play something like Devil May Cry 3 or Metal Gear Solid 3 its easy. Kingdom Hearts? Even if you play the first game in the timeline its such a fucking mess from the get go that you will be rendered confused and if you don't click with it you won't go for the sequels. And the gameplay overall is somewhat shoddy and inconsistent. And all this because Nojima and Nomura decided to be hacks.

If Kingdom Hearts had tight handling on how its constructed it would still be considered a beloved gaming series. Too bad they allowed many bad ideas, like scattering the whole fucking series to different handhelds which objectively confused the ENTIRE costumer base and worse those handheld games are indeed important to the main console sequels. I just can't.

And I think Kingdom Hearts 4 is headed to be a MAJOR failure for Square Enix. I just don't see a world where that bloated sequel ends up a success especially since its the BEGINNING to a new story arc so it HAS to end on another cliffhanger by default. And Nomura and Nojima still don't care about how much they are tanking Kingdom Hearts.

>>712522241
Persona had to use the SMT brand for years before it surpassed SMT
Expedition 33 is a miracle of AA and there are ALREADY articles and people online seething at it for giving AAA "a bad rap"
Yes Shareholders are soulless cuck men, but they also have a stranglehold on the companies and they're forced to comply.
You will never get 90s "lets give this weird auteur millions because I liked his pitch" ever again.
I know it sounds gay, but 'late stage capitalism' is a thing and most big media companies have become completely blind to anything that doesn't look nice on a graph or sales meeting

>>712515147 (OP)
Squaresoft good
Square Enix bad
bad management caused them to waste insane amounts of money, split up their best development teams, go for low effort remasters, etc.
it's been over for 20 years

>>712522389
If I were a Square Enix boss I would do a live stream explaining every complaint against those hacks and have them humiliated out of the industry so no one hires them and then fire them. Forget the Japanese traidition I would give them an All American YOU ARE FIRED FOR GROSS INCOMPETENCE!

And you know what? I would also do this to Toriyama and Kitase. Right now if I were a boss at Square Enix I would be grabbing these wrinkled old men and start weeding them out. Even if they have legit original ideas I would put heavy rules on them, one of them is "Budget is limited so no your brilliant idea is NOT going to have PS5 graphics or voice acting! You don't like this? Well there's the fucking door." And then out of spite I would explain all their failings as employees to make sure their Go Fund Me attempts end up in failure like Inafune.

I would definitively give these hacks the treatment they deserve. I don't care how many years you remain at a company if your ideas are bloated Money Black Holes I want you castigated.

>>712522503
fuck you we're keeping Nomura until he finishes FF7R 3

>>712522371
*Didn't have any interest

>>712522371
Yeah the JRPG market never disappeared, it's just that the relative demand for one has been hit a long time ago minus outliers like persona or whatever
yet square has this weird ego thing that can't accept a smaller dedicated audience and still thinks they are this juggernaut of the game industry, when in reality more people know about tifa from porn than her actual game

>>712515147 (OP)
AFTER 10

11 players are fake fans. they only like MMOslop

>>712522641
when they added Clive to Tekken, most people just wondered who that even is.

>>712522389
It's why making Verum Rex aka Versus 13 would be smarter. But SE has some autistic hatred boner towards Nomura
>Stole resources from his game to make more Lightning games despite 13 shitty popularity
>Shadowdropped Neo TWEWY the same week as fucking Persona 5
>Refuse to port first game for the rest of the platforms
>Announced Nomura was working on FF7r without him even knowing about it KEK
>Verum 13? Too bad, let's make Forspoken and go back to your chain chair with Sora
It's so funny seeing him making young Sephiroth similar to Noctis too.
If I were Nintendo or Microsoft I would recruit Nomura and make totally Versus 13 to spite on SE

>>712522641
that disgusts me on a fundamental level. I just can't understand it at all. I mean, how can they jerk off to my wife without even playing her game?

>>712522701
I saw the streaming, total silence kek, if it was Tifa people would have clapped, fuck Harada being a spiteful contrarian hack

>>712522018
Well not really. If you pay attention Kingdom Hearts 4 is already off to a rocky beginning. The character Strelitzia is going to be important and she was introduced in the mobile games. And maybe Xehanort the main villain of the previous multiple games is going to play an active role in the new story. So its not Simple and Clean excuse the pun. Kingdom Hearts really is constructed like this intentionally.

And about Disney they ran out of GOOD films. What does Disney have to fuel Kingdom Hearts? The shitty Pixar movies of modern day? Shitty movies like Zootopia and Raya? Or how about those soulless live action remakes, don't care if those make money they are shit. And I especially hate that one movie Maleficent about how an evil bitch is innocent while the good guys are all criminals. That's revolting. Disney has nothing that will help sell future Kingdom Hearts games.

>>712522389
Disney will finish its "Live Action Kingdom Hearts Movie" just in time for KH4 thus bosting tis sales, trust the plan. /s
>>712522503
The issue with getting rid of Nomura is that he is The Guy in the Japanese RPG sphere everyone from multiple companies can rely on to help out in some form or another alongside him above all being a good solider for SquareEnix.
Square likes him, Disney likes him, and even other companies like Monolithsoft like him because he is always willing to both help and take orders.
KH these days is just as much a reward for Nomura doing everything asked of him as it is a major IP.

>>712515147 (OP)
Square Enix is being hard carried by ff14 and Tifa boobs merch

>>712522701
I actually play clive in tekken and he's actually fun but I don't blame people never hearing of him
I had more fun playing 15 mins with him in training mode than my entire 40+ hours of FF16

>>712515147 (OP)
Enix, shareholder tier corpo influence which includes but not limited to modern trends like open world, action combat, and "hyper realistic while lazily attempting to still feel like a anime" art direction
It will never get better

>>712522040
>When gamers developed self-esteem issues and game industry cattered to it.
Yeah that's what happened, males aren't at all competitive by their very nature, if they didn't have self esteem issues they'd be holding hands & uplifting each other with kind words.

>>712522641
Even if Square was willing to accept being humble its still a massive company with shareholders that expect exponential profit so there is no would in which they could of been content with just making JRPGs to the established market.

>>712522857
Your getting Star Wars

>>712522641
Is it even an option though? This big budget impressive looking game is what made them truly big with FF7, it became part of the core of what FF is. If they revert to some lower budget thing it’ll also be met with resistence.

>>712522712
The problem is that Nomura has his own flaws the man does not like working cheap. For Nomura's major ideas he does love a rich budget.

And that's why he stays at Square Enix I suspect. Nomura knows that if he goes to Nintendo to Konami to Capcom and starts saying "I need a budget that is richer than a Hideo Kojima production" he's going to be laughed up especially by the veteran employees who have already climbed the ladder like Aonuma for example. You can't walk in to a new employer and make requests like that. Nomura is not a cheap man. Every single game he works on that isn't merely artwork is always a heavy bloated budget type.

And this is what Nomura wants for Versus he always planned and envisioned that game to be a major investment of money. He won't make it with PS1 graphics or even PS2 graphics. He wants the real money directly from the coffers.

>>712522389
>And I think Kingdom Hearts 4 is headed to be a MAJOR failure for Square Enix. I just don't see a world where that bloated sequel ends up a success

This. Kingdom Hearts has always sold less than Final Fantasy brand wise. And if Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth had according to Square Enix, disappointing sales. Then that means Kingdom Hearts 4 is going to sell quite poorly.

>>712523173
They could pull an overwatch
It initially had a big budget you could see in the cinematics and in-game but when blizzard shot themselves in the foot with OW2 and people lost interest they had to scale it down
the cinematics got shittier and emotes/victory animations got extremely scuffed because the game just doesn't make the money anymore
people obviously noticed the budget cuts but the game still makes money and square needed to learn how to do this shit a long time ago

>>712523596
But can they do that while keeping the shareholders happy and confident in the company?

peak with viii then fell off a cliff

Final Fantasy X killed the franchise. It wasn't just where the 'downhill' started. It was the complete downfall, the disaster itself.

final fantasy 6

>>712515147 (OP)
They made FF12

>>712527157
I agree, X left a standard to high for any game after to follow it up, and so Square abandoned Traditional JRPG gameplay after.

>>712517639
12 is just star wars and they've been making fantasy star wars since 2

>>712527845
Final Fantasy 2 may have had an empire but it wasn't really much of Star Wars. If anything the game was a huge insult to Christianity since the Emperor destroyed the Christian God and Satan during the final dungeon.

>>712515147 (OP)
Trying to cater to the west.

>>712517302
>Spirits Within
what a shitload of fuck, what were they thinking?

>>712515910
Lol

>It's always FF vs DQ/Pedona/PSO/Tales/ChronoTrigger but never Breath of Fire
BoF bros... it's so over...
Not even BoF4 on GoG saved our IP

>>712515971
I would say the beginning of the end was them starting to make sequels, spinoffs, and MMOs of the mainline FF games. FF games had a sort of prestige to them before that. FFXIII was more like the nail in the coffin.

>>712532253
so that's when they started chasing trends instead of setting them, right?

>>712522040
mentally ill

>>712521539
FFX is the only title that fits that description

>>712515147 (OP)
action games sell better than turn-based

FF was only relevant on the PS1. pre-PS1 it was barely distinguishable from dragon quest, and post-PS1 it went in the wrong direction.

People will say that XII was the beginning of the end, but XIII is the real tipping point. XII is certainly an acquired taste, but at least it has a lot of depth and a great world to explore and doesn't hold your hand.

XIII is 90% on rails and even then they still make you play through a 4 hour tutorial where you can do nothing but basic attack with different characters. Gran Pulse was just "ok" once you got there but the entire game should have been like that. The combat system is actively trash as well (How do you even use Snow's class? No, seriously it doesn't even fucking work.). It is also the title where the budget / development went spiraling way out of control.

I can't find the quote at the moment, but someone at SE stated that they would love to remake FFVI but they said they would need like 5 years and a huge budget to do so for some reason. They don't even understand who buys / plays their own games anymore.

>>712532253
FFXI is the only reason that SE is still around in the present era. The game printed money and was a huge success. I would even argue that FFXI is the most "FF" game of all and has an incredible story. FFXIV on the other hand was barely saved from disaster and once it had done so it has leaned way too hard into being a social simulator as opposed to a game with social elements like FFXI. Current FFXIV is deplorable.

>>712515147 (OP)
13
They tried to force the lightning in a bottle they stumbled on with 7 and made the most boring fucking trash imaginable.
A complete waste of tech and time.

>>712515147 (OP)
When they made 13 into 3 games

>>712519298
7 is the logical progression of 6, following a trend that has existed since 4. FF5 is the most obvious example of this, being literally just FF3 again but with a stageplay script attached.

>>712515147 (OP)
Everything after 10 was crap and then they went for the action combat meme and made it even worse