Most probably can’t access this, but I thought the man gave a good enough argument that It’d be worth posting here;
[quote=““Damion, in the SomethingAwful games forum””]
I am by nature an optimist, but Mr. Uematsu’s leaving and the other events of late have colored my view of things. The departure of Nobuo Uematsu marks what I think is the horrible end of Final Fantasy. There are a ton of examples. S-E has let this series fall into obscurity with a rush of low-value, sure to be high-selling, fringe sequels, but the actual number games have hit decline.
After X, they decided to scrap everything that was learned about the medium for a game and create an MMORPG. A massive MMORPG, to be sure, and not a shabby one, but I don’t want an MMORPG, I want a good old RPG.
From all indications, FFXII will, instead of heading back to basics, stray from the formula even further, becoming Vagrant Story with a 12 at the end of the game name.
In addition to this, they have just lost the #2 reason that Final Fantasy has been the definitive name in roleplaying games for the last 16 years. Nobuo Uematsu, the man responsible for some of what has been called the best soundtracks in any medium for a long time, and has proved his flexibility, squeezing sounds that were supposedly impossible from equipment that is now substandard.
The new format games, and the loss of The Composer, aren’t the only reason why the name of Final Fantasy has faltered. How else, you wonder? I can explain further.
Yoshitaka Amano
He made beautiful, awe-inspiring character designs for the birth and rise to fame of Final Fantasy, but as soon as FF made it to the PlayStation, they replaced him with Tetsuya Nomura, who made well-worn anime style drawings that gave birth to the laughable jokes about hair size and sword size. When they DID bring him back for FFIX, they took his ideas and ran him back through Nomura, who made his creations horrific child-midgets. Nomura is only spared here because of the changes to the character designs of Vivi and Quina, which were REALLY off the wall. Look at the first game Amano is back for, and the character designs are the weakest points in the game! Looks like Nomura was there to stay.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
There is a metric ton of reasons that this movie was never a suitable offering for the first FF movie. First off, it was made by Americans. Under the lead of Square USA (I admit, Hironobu Sakaguchi did almost everything he could to salvage this, and he included a few key things that pluck the heartstrings of fans everywhere) this movie became more Starship Troopers than Final Fantasy. There’s a ton of horrible story points that break almost every rule that FF games have established over the years.
The most incriminating piece of evidence was at the very end: the Square Pictures logo. It was a simple “Square Pictures” in plain font, placed in the foreground of a plain square. Very visually punny. But very far from any move Squaresoft would have ever made.
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy, prior to this release, never made a direct sequel to a console game. We expected this, therefore, to be a meaningful and intelligent return to one of the first stories that wasn’t concievibly closed-ended.
“Give Yunie back her Garment Grid!”
Boy, were we wrong. This game marked the beginning of S-E’s descent into Cash-Cowery. They invented a whole new out-of-context character merely so they could have a 3 member party composed completely of attractive, young, and, depending on how you decided to do battle, barely dressed women. Way to kill all the good in FFX.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles
Nintendo fired us for making an intelligent Mario game! We flipped them off and made Sony into the largest console maker in the business, flaunting the horror stories of Nintendo’s horrible relationship with third parties! What’s the most intelligent thing to do?
I guess it’s come running back to Nintendo simply to make more money.
Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Nothing more than mass-market reasons for everyone to buy more games. A third-person shooter. An unknown portable game of a tired, tired, line of FFVII spinoffs. A CELL-PHONE GAME, for chrissakes. Note that I’m not saying anything about Advent Children, because it looks half decent. Only time can tell.
inal Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls and Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in Itadeki Street Special
The former is a $30 remake of another $30 remake. The latter is the best thing these two huge companies could make of what was meant to be the reason for the merger that was meant to merge the best minds in the RPG field, but turned out to be just a quest for more money.
With the news of Uematsu leaving Square, I am going to sadly abandon my hope that somewhere, somehow, they will make a game that returns to the basics that were established by the first 10 games, and the first 13 years of the Final Fantasy dynasty.
It’s a sad day.
[/quote]
Personally I think he’s wrong. FF will continue regardless, and eventually the cash-cowing effect of the Enix merger will wear off and things will return to normal. For a given value of normal.
