Final Fantasy XIV: The verdict is in, and it's not pretty.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

The combat was fun and quick paced in XIII and required you to be on your toes (no button grinding, that's for sure), but I didn't care much for the whole Commando / Saboteur / Medic role system. I prefer my good ol' Black Mage, Dragoon, etc fantasy motif. I would've liked a more job-based system like IX... But that's just me.

Oh, and I didn't know that about the game concerning the cut content. Makes a lot of sense, because it totally felt cut and pasted. It felt sub-par. I enjoy the Star Ocean series, but it really felt like a Star Ocean game: fun for a while, but totally sub-par on so many levels. Mediocre in every way.

[MDenham]

I know FF11 is an MMO, but everything in it costs real money -- not just the subscription, but everything.

Funny, the only thing I've spent money on with respect to FF11 is:

* The game (including keeping up to date on expansions, mostly - when they started these mini-expansions, I switched to "I'll catch up when I can do so for $15 rather than $30);
* The subscription;
* and a security token for the hell of it.

You don't really have to funnel more money into it than that.  (It's still somewhere around $1600 that I've thrown at it, but I've been playing since April '04.)

[Schala Zeal]

Deleveling is a turn off for me in any MMO.

[ShinGundam]

Boo, although it's 1/14th off topic, I'm interested in your opinion on what was wrong with FFXIII. Auto-battle systems always turn me off in RPGs, but was the scenario writing poor or anything, or was it just the gameplay? I was really shocked at how well FFXII's story was written when I finally checked it out, so I should probably check out FFXIII's cutscenes at some point.

Personally, I like gameplay mechanics for many reasons (e.g. Unusual combat fluidity, combos, juggling, command canceling, ATB canceling ) as well as colorful visuals, presentation and music. The actual problem in XIII isn't linearity but the lack of actual content, when you move from A to B there is nothing to do. Spacing and distance aren't really that important in game like FFXIII or FF series for matter because combat are either a turn-based or Active time battle.

 The Scenario felt cut and pasted because the events only happen in between dungeon.

 

[tushantin]

For those who want to get their thoughts off FFXIV, check THIS out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyMx1YjekBY

[Ema]

Too bad DB Online has yet to have an English release.

On topic, I'm a veteran FFXI player and am currently playing FFXIV. And yes the game has its major flaws. But seriously, FFXI began even worse, we never got to see the horrible FFXI side because the game arrived 2 years later.

The game is slowly but surely getting frequent updates and they are actually listening to the Fan Feedback and are taking them into consideration with each update.

Just give it some time.

[ZealKnight]

If anything check out the music. It's great. Makes me wish FF15 was announced.

[ZealKnight]

I feel like I could write a whole thesis on this subject. I'll write a tiny essay on it instead. =)

I guess this thread was created as a question of Square Enix. "Does this mean that Square realizes they suck now?" That may as well be the title, this or any topic about final fantasy in the modern internet. FF13 and FF14 are victims of Square Enix's biggest threat- Yoichi Wada. Or more specifically, his greed. Final Fantasy 13 had something Square Enix thought of before, Training wheels. You can't control multiple characters. The Story was chopped apart because of "time constraints." It was extremely linear. The lack of grinding. These things were all made purposely to appeal to the western market. I guess it isn't truly the western market, but rather the newcomer market. They believe the majority of gamers they haven't reached are western gamers. How did they try to reach them? Same as always. Training wheels.   http://kotaku.com/5666644/the-nintendo-download-the-worst-final-fantasy/gallery/   Nothing new really, Square Enix just doesn't care as much about their games as much they care about their money. The only counter argument I can think of is, "they are a company. They point of what they do is to make money." However, do you know how much money an average SE employee makes?    http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102678-Square-Enix-Employees-Make-Major-Dough  Yeah. Seriously. I think there was another article on destructiod that said out of every company in japan SE was in the top five. Maybe they care about their money more than they care about their game's fun to keep paying their employees in their happy little lives. Which brings the question Wada has been asking. To save me some time I won't type it out, especially since I found it at Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/5588573/does-final-fantasy-need-a-reboot   Of course more people live in the USA, maybe a more Mass Effect like FF would sell more. It would just neglect the fans of the series that have been following it. So does FF14's rateings mean anything? No, most likely not. Just that they might just reboot the series into Mass Effect. At the very least just don't put training wheels on my games or release them before they are ready(FF14).

[Trebuchet]

Mystic Quest wasn't dreadful. It just wasn't challenging. At all. It's difficulty was similar to watching a tutorial.
If you were bored enough, it's a decent enough emulation. I'd never, EVER buy it though.

[ShinGundam]

I feel like I could write a whole thesis on this subject. I'll write a tiny essay on it instead. =)

I guess this thread was created as a question of Square Enix. "Does this mean that Square realizes they suck now?" That may as well be the title, this or any topic about final fantasy in the modern internet. FF13 and FF14 are victims of Square Enix's biggest threat- Yoichi Wada. Or more specifically, his greed. Final Fantasy 13 had something Square Enix thought of before, Training wheels. You can't control multiple characters. The Story was chopped apart because of "time constraints." It was extremely linear. The lack of grinding. These things were all made purposely to appeal to the western market. I guess it isn't truly the western market, but rather the newcomer market. They believe the majority of gamers they haven't reached are western gamers. How did they try to reach them? Same as always. Training wheels.   http://kotaku.com/5666644/the-nintendo-download-the-worst-final-fantasy/gallery/   Nothing new really, Square Enix just doesn't care as much about their games as much they care about their money. The only counter argument I can think of is, "they are a company. They point of what they do is to make money." However, do you know how much money an average SE employee makes?    http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102678-Square-Enix-Employees-Make-Major-Dough  Yeah. Seriously. I think there was another article on destructiod that said out of every company in japan SE was in the top five. Maybe they care about their money more than they care about their game's fun to keep paying their employees in their happy little lives. Which brings the question Wada has been asking. To save me some time I won't type it out, especially since I found it at Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/5588573/does-final-fantasy-need-a-reboot   Of course more people live in the USA, maybe a more Mass Effect like FF would sell more. It would just neglect the fans of the series that have been following it. So does FF14's rateings mean anything? No, most likely not. Just that they might just reboot the series into Mass Effect. At the very least just don't put training wheels on my games or release them before they are ready(FF14).

So much drama in this post, Any first generation FF in console get streamlined while it might be so excessive nowadays but that because they're  hard to make. Probably some of the hardest and time-consuming. Also, People need to stop using these terrible blogs like Kotaku as a way to justify hate to FF.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Interesting article, albeit too short.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/112/1128522p1.html

[ZealKnight]

So much drama in this post, Any first generation FF in console get streamlined while it might be so excessive nowadays but that because they're  hard to make. Probably some of the hardest and time-consuming. Also, People need to stop using these terrible blogs like Kotaku as a way to justify hate to FF.

I'd usually agree with this, but like I said in that post already: I don't care. In 13 They released it pretty well actually. I was pleasantly surprised by how early it came out. But I thought it was perhaps too early after a bit into the game, there was nothing but pretty graphics and a great system of battle. Then I got the worse news: It had more but cut it. So let's say the games do take a long time to make. Who cares? That's fine, but when they release their product it better be good. It obviously took them less time than they made it seem, if they truly cut "enough for a second game." (SE's words, not kotaku) So you're argument kinda is invalid since I addressed that. They took out a lot of the game because they wanted to appeal to an international market. They wanted to keep it short, simple, and great. They just made it short.

Also I didn't take fact from Kotaku. Only that there were similarities between Mystic Quest and FF13's development. Which were observations I made and Kotaku only reported about mystic quest. You could find that anywhere. I can't tell your tone because this is text, but still don't look down on me for misunderstandings. And if you don't hate SE then you're not a true Chrono fan. Yeah, I said it.