Whether an overworld is good or not depends on the focus of your game. If your game is focused on the story or bespoke tactical encounters, then having an overworld is good because it reduces the amount of time the player has to spend travelling between plot locations and increases the amount of dev time that can be spent making the sectioned off locations you do visit more detailed. If the game is mainly about exploration, then you want a seamless open world so the player has more opportunities to get lost and sidetracked.

>>3956039
That insight is worth it's weight in gold, good sir

>>3956029
Because some JRPG devs have this bizarre mindset that overworld is an abstraction they no longer need and can instead achieve the same end with big open worlds.

>>3956029
I must prefer an open world. The sense of scale just doesn't convey otherwise. The big map world is abstract but it really does give a better sense of scope. it gives a better sense of where you're going as you pass through things you may or may not be ready for. You might pass an island on a ship. See a village on the opposite side of a mountain you can't cross. There's more nooks and crannies. It just conveys the sense of distance better by leaving details blank. A world can be as big as it wants but if I run through three halls it still feels like I'm only around the corner.

>>3956029
>I think there are good arguments to be made for the return of overworld in traditional JRPGs.
How do I know you're not just confused by nostalgia?

>>3956029
Left is so pretty and colorful
Right looks like it has a mute filter on

>>3956029
How does the overworld of the remake work?
Do you walk from town to town seamlessly? Because for me, that'd ruin the immersion since you're just walking from A to B for just 3-5 minutes, and even then another argument is that you're walking or using a chocobo when cars and other vehicles exist (my gripe for open worlds that are set in Fallout and other open world RPGs)
Like you said, the overworld of the original preserves the feeling of adventure and you can simply imagine what really happened as you went from town to town.

>>3956462
They're large zones you teleport between by airship or going through a dungeon (and one canal on the buggy).
After the initial story beats in an area you can unlock a region specific chocobo with a gimmick movement ability (example you get a blue chocobo you can only use in Nibel region that can glide indefinitely as long as it is over water)
I enjoyed the open world segment of 7rb more than the story

>>3956029
I like how FFXII did it. even if crude and kinda crap in execution it's cool how it got bunch of detailed maps like older final fantasies but instead of overworld they're all interconnected.

The color palette of the left is so much easier to read than the right

>>3956494
You should upgrade your Color Literacy Implant.

>>3956029
The problem with FF7 and most classic JRPGs with an overworld map is that you were railroaded following a set path across it for 90% of the game and there was little to find in the way of secrets anyways.

>>3956522
Yes. Ff7 was incredibly linear. It was disappointing. 6 was much better

>>3956494
Agree. Also doesn't mean the left is better.

>>3956029
True Open World > World-Map >>> Interconnected Areas = Fake Open World = Open Areas

btw:
True OW = 100% seamless, what you can see is what you can explore
Fake OW = invisible walls, inherently unaccessible areas, transitions

>>3956817
Huh. So I guess I have a question for you:
If you ever played Paper Mario before, the original one on the N64, what did you think of the game overall?

>>3956488
Yeah they peaked with ff12 it feels so big and real and when you make it to a temple or dungeon the sense of scale just really impacts you

>>3956817
Best open world map - fallout/fallout 2/arcanum style map

>This shit again
There's no "sense of adventure" in the empty and railroaded FF7 overworld, or any FF overworld really, let alone "scope and size".

>>3957302
>There's no "sense of adventure" in the empty and railroaded FF7 overworld
Did you even play the game? The sense of adventure was excellent, especially combined with the music.

>>3957347
NTA, what was it about the game itself that gave you the sense of adventure?

>>3957347
What sense of adventure? You don't even know what an adventure is.
There's nothing to do in the overworld outside of moving in a straight line from point A to point B with the rare optional point C like Fort Condor, you're not allowed to explore anything until the game is over and there's like three or so optional minor locations that you weren't forced to go through previously, and every single FF outside of the first one is like that.

>>3957357
Your facts are wrong. You point is retarded and doesn't fit reality. Embarrassing to be such an obsessed faggot when your premises are such nonsense.
Fort Condor is just the first major optional thing to discover after gaining access to the overworld (which was delayed in FF7 because they wanted to frontload all the then-amazing prerendered CGI backgrounds of Midgar.)

You are just so out of your element it is sad. And it's not like you just have some mild, rational criticisms. For some reason, your failure to understand the point of a JRPG overworld and how it conveys scale of travel just triggers this insane rage.

>>3957384
I like your two paragraphs insisting he's wrong but containing zero actual argument against his point.

>>3957351
>what was it about the game itself that gave you the sense of adventure?
The sense of scale. Your little dude running around the giant overworld, felt massive. As soon as the game opens up after M*dgar and you’re looking at the world map going holy shit there’s gonna be so many places to go this is gonna be a sweet adventure, all these different continents to explore. And the various iterations of the overworld music contribute heavily. The early game music is more friendly, the midgame music is more brooding and mysterious, and the endgame music is ominous and positively drips with doom and ruin.

>>3957389
Having a big world. Noted, thank you.

>>3957384
Facts can't be wrong, which is why you have no argument against them.
>your failure to understand the point of a JRPG overworld
JRPG overworlds were aping Ultima's overworld without either understanding the point or trying to elaborate on it outside of a select number of exceptions you don't even know about.
It's fine to be nostalgic about old conventions, it's not fine to be so irrationally attached to them as to hallucinate completely contradictory arguments such as the supposed sense of scale, which is conveyed just as well if not better in other formats (which is why classic overworlds are extinct nowadays), or the supposed "adventure" that simply does not exist in FF's case.

>>3957397
>the supposed sense of scale, which is conveyed just as well if not better in other formats (which is why classic overworlds are extinct nowadays)
FF10 replacing a pilotable airship with a list menu was clearly a major improvement, am I rite

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>>3957400
Replacing the empty corridors of the overworld with something more visually pleasing and dense, with NPCs to interact with and treasures / sidequests to find was an improvement yes.

They serve the exact same function of being a transitory area between Story Point A and B, but the FFX/XII/XVI method actually has something more than random encounters on a flat green empty carpet. It turns the entire game into a dungeon experience.

>>3957400
It was, it cut down pointless downtime and most importantly budget and dev time which was spent in more important parts of the game.

>>3957400
You are rite.

Bump

>>3957405
>It turns the entire game into a dungeon experience.
That can work and be fun, but it isn't always what people want.

>>3960619
>it isn't always what people want.
Nothing is

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>>3956029
>the original manages to retain a better sense adventure like any good JRPG should
That's the key to overworlds. You flat out cannot represent planets in videogames, they're just way too fucking big. Look at Daggerfall, and even that's "only" the size of Great Britain. So when it comes to choosing just how much smaller you're gonna make the representation, would you rather try and still make it 'realistic' while filling the place with Ubisoft-tier collectables and waste years of dev time adding bushes and detailed rocks everywhere? Or do you go the classic JRPG route of just making the world a representation and your huge avatar runs around it implying days worth of walking? Expedition 33 proved the Overworld system isn't dead, just ignored by big corporations.

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>>3960692
There's no intrinsic need to make a planet wide setting so that's a ridiculous point to make.
>Expedition 33 proved the Overworld system isn't dead, just ignored by big corporations.
E33 didn't sell because it had an overworld, nobody fucking cares about the overworld in E33 just like nobody cared about the overworlds of many other JRPGs from recent times that got completely ignored despite the supposed demand of games with overworlds, you people are so comically out of touch with reality it's unreal.

>>3960701
>There's no intrinsic need to make a planet wide setting
Yet 95% of JRPGs do just that.
>>Expedition 33 proved the Overworld system isn't dead, just ignored by big corporations.
>E33 didn't sell because it had an overworld
E33 sold in part because it was a throwback to the golden age of FF and everything that came with it. Overworlds included.
>nobody fucking cares about the overworld in E33
Odd, given how many people over the last year I've seen straight up mentioning it the first time it appears post-Spring Meadows and make use of it with the optional areas and Esquie upgrades.
>you people are so comically out of touch with reality it's unreal
You sound mad.

>>3956029
Overworlds will forever be superior to waste of time sandboxes and/or hallways. My favorite is Skies of Arcadia's.

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>>3960711
>Yet 95% of JRPGs do just that.
No they do not, but I can't expect a faggot that doesn't play games and desperately wants to peddle a narrative with no basis in reality to know.
>E33 sold in part because it was a throwback to the golden age of FF
E33 sold because of MARKETING, nobody cared about a "throwback" of a thing that was regularly offered to the market and was consistently ignored.
How many people bought and played something like Alliance Alive for instance?
Oh right, nobody because nobody actually cares about the "golden age of FF and everything that came with it", people only care about whatever shit is deemed acceptable by the gaming industry and its associated "community" echochambers, which is why E33 actually succeeded while tons of games that offered the same "golden age of FF and everything that came with it." failed.
>You sound mad.
Of course I'm mad, anyone with a good head on their shoulder and actual knowledge and love for the medium would be when they're forced to deal with delusional imbeciles peddling fake narratives.

>>3956029
i prefer maps like in pokemon and trails where there's individual routes connecting all the towns and locations.
for me that makes it feel like more of an adventure and makes the world seem bigger.

>>3960718
>No they do not
But they do.
>but I can't expect a faggot that doesn't play games and desperately wants to peddle a narrative with no basis in reality to know
You still sound mad.
>E33 sold because of MARKETING
Is that why it blew up overnight after, not before release, and most people at the time didn't focus that much on its reveal trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase 2024?
>a thing that was regularly offered to the market
It stopped being offered when the seventh gen of consoles rolled around and games like FFXIII or Tales of Xillia were more worried with cutting corners due to the exponential lengthening of dev times than anything else.
>how many people bought and played a Nintendo 3DS game released in 2018?
However many people were still playing JRPGs on a 7yo handheld console, I presume.
>nobody actually cares about the "golden age of FF and everything that came with it"
Which is why FF has been consistently artistically dead for a quarter of a century and people still go back to the ol' reliables
>Of course I'm mad
I'll accept the concession then.

>>3960718
>No they do not, but I can't expect a faggot that doesn't play games and desperately wants to peddle a narrative with no basis in reality to know.
Lmao
Stopped reading here

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>>3960730
They don't.
Pokemon alone, the biggest and most successful JRPG series out there is not like that.
>Is that why it blew up overnight
It didn't, the game was consistently shilled for months before and after its release.
>It stopped being offered
No it didn't, and you outed yourself on this by specifically mentioning the actual reason why your kind doesn't walk the talk by using FFXIII or Xillia as an example of anything.
What you actually want is brand recognition and production values, you don't actually care about the formula itself because if you did you would have supported the games that offered the formula you supposedly want so much, like again, Alliance Alive.
Tales of Xillia was supposedly bad because people wanted a pointless overworld? How weird that something like Tales of Hearts R sold a fraction of Xillia despite being as classic Tales as it gets. oh but it's the Vita's fault I guess?
FFXIII was bad because it didn't have a pointless overworld (nevermind FFX-XII being the same)? How weird that all the dozens of games with overworlds released at the time were completely ignored, Tales of Vesperia itself sold much less than FFXIII despite having an overworld, how weird that all those NDS JRPGs with overworlds sold so poorly despite having a massive install base.
>However many people were still playing JRPGs on a 7yo handheld console, I presume.
A lot if Pokemon and Nu-Fire Emblem sales are anything to go by.
Not like the recently released remaster did much better either, because again, you faggots don't actually care, you never did.
>Which is why FF has been consistently artistically dead for a quarter of a century
FF is dead because it's an old series of terrible games that sold purely because of aggressive marketing and graphics in a market with zero competition, the series "died" because the moment the market opened up people migrated to better products, overworlds have nothing to do with anything.

>>3960718
>E33 sold because of MARKETING
>>3960730
>>E33 sold because of MARKETING
>Is that why it blew up overnight after, not before release, and most people at the time didn't focus that much on its reveal trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase 2024?
Both of you are wrong, but whatever. Have at it.

Last time FF did a proper world map was Type 0 right?

>>3960755
Yeah.
And both versions bombed by the way.

>>3956029
Why was FVII considered a masterpiece? Even with PS1 limitations that looks like low effort garbage, at least from an aesthetics point of view.

>>3960746
Shhhh I already accepted the concession, you can relax now.

>>3960759
>Why was FVII considered a masterpiece?
You had to be there, I guess

>>3960765
Your canned reply only makes you look even more of a delusional imbecile, but I guess that's all you can do when you're faced with facts you cannot deny.
But hey, no skin off my teeth since I'm not the Final Fantasy faggot pretending to care about overworlds, let alone videogames.

>>3960769
FFaggots don't play anything except FF, they are only barely aware that any other RPG even exists.

>>3960757
the fatal curse of requiring friends to be fun

>>3960797
No? It's a single player RPG with a tacked-on drop-in feature.

>>3956029
>it plays like your standard open world game and lacks the scope and size of the original's world
>retain a better sense adventure like any good JRPG should
Same reason I love them. The genre at large slowly but surely started losing its sovl when the big name vidya switched the gamey overworlds for the more cinematic (or simply budget conscious) hallway traversal like FFX or even worse, giant empty maps with nothing to do like FFXV.

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I don't dislike the integrated open world per say, but I noticed while playing both FFXV and FVII: Rebirth that the localities being visited felt smaller and less densely populated than they should even though I know there was more to do and see than in their predecessors with overworlds. I guess there's a psychological effect of seeing the greater map with the giant player character trampling over it that facilitates the abstraction that I'm in a microcosm of what can be rendered and I suspend disbelief easier.

I had a similar feeling reading the old and de-canonized World of Warcraft RPG sourcebook about how big something like Buccaneer Bay was supposed to be and then compared it to the tiny Caribbean favelas I saw in vanilla WoW.

>>3960746
Overworlds are just one aspect of a game. There can be millions of reasons why certain games succeed or fail regardless if they try to bring back the "classic" experience. Like how another anon above pointed out that E33 became succcessful thanks to marketing. However for the purposes of this thread, the discussion is about pros and cons of overworlds compared to other types of world design (like sandboxes).
>because of aggressive marketing
FF is dead because it stopped having cutting edge presentations. Believe it or not but there was plenty of competition in the console RPG space back in the 80s and 90s just like there is today yet FF thrived back then but declined now. One only has to look at the latest title, FF16 to see why. Its a highly derivative wannabe GoT dark fantasy with uninspired visuals, lackluster music and story. The gameplay being yet another mediocre take on action RPG doesn't help matters either so it can't even make it up with gameplay.
>>3960759
>Why was FVII considered a masterpiece?
Babby's first RPG. You underestimate how popular the PS1 was as for many Americans, FFVII was the premier JRPG. Hell, it was the first FF released in Europe.

>>3957389
/thread

>>3961183
>Babby's first RPG. You underestimate how popular the PS1 was as for many Americans, FFVII was the premier JRPG. Hell, it was the first FF released in Europe.
I guess so. I just don't understand how the devs could look at that and say "yeah, it's good, let's ship it". The prerendered backgrounds however are great

Monitoring thread for negative 7R posts to set straight with objective statements.

DQ8 had the perfect fusion of corridor world and 16bit esque overworld

>>3961316
>I guess so. I just don't understand how the devs could look at that and say "yeah, it's good, let's ship it"
You have to be 18 to post here

>>3961183
>FF is dead because it stopped having cutting edge presentations.
It never stopped, everyone else simply caught up with Square during the mid to late 00's so the field was evened big time.
It's why they started to seriously reconsider how the games actually played because they were aware they couldn't coast on graphical power and pretty cutscenes anymore since everyone could do it and many could do it even better than them, they finally realized FF's biggest weakness is that it didn't really have any unique formula to sell to people, which is what lead to the rise of other JRPG series like Persona which could finally market itself as an actual novelty in the genre that would sell well despite looking like garbage compared to FF.
>Its a highly derivative wannabe GoT dark fantasy with uninspired visuals, lackluster music and story.
FF as a whole is highly derivative, it built itself on being derivative and by tapping into whatever was popular at the moment.
Where's the unique visuals and aesthetic in the NES FF games? It's as generic fantasy as it gets, look at the SNES games and it's the same, FF4 and 5 didn't even look that good for the time and the casts and worlds were awfully mundane and uninteresting compared to the much more varied offering of games of the time like BoF2, RS2 or SMT, FF4 in particular really did not even try to hide the Star Wars influence, it even had a literal Death Star boss.
Look a bit forward and it's not different either, FF7 capitalized on the anime boom of the time, FFX was the umpteenth game with the notorious 00's tropical beach/archipelago aesthetic which you can find in so many games of the time like fucking Sonic Adventure or PSO, so this theory of yours just doesn't have any ground to stand on.

For some reason you FF people are terrified to admit that the series never fixed the issues it always had from day 1, every flaw you can find in modern FF can be found in your precious "golden age" titles as well.

>>3961402
So are you telling us to see these flaws in the old games and dislike those too or to ignore the flaws in the new games and like them regardless?

>>3961402
>>Its a highly derivative wannabe GoT dark fantasy with uninspired visuals, lackluster music and story.
>FF as a whole is highly derivative, it built itself on being derivative and by tapping into whatever was popular at the moment.
Not that anon, nor am I taking part in this argument really

But you guys did get me thinking about how much FF16 shares similarities with earlier titles in the series. Final Fantasy, but more mature and darker tones.

>>3960718
The people who bought E33 largely don't even play JRPGs or know it's a genre.

>>3961428
Are you basing that on any kind of fact or is it something that you believe is true because you'd like it to be? Please don't just cite a tweet you don't like as proof.

>>3961434
Are you that out of touch? Of course you are. Here you are on a niche board for people who play video games.

>>3961420
Having some shred of coherency and honesty would be nice, yes, or you stop littering multiple boards with your hypocritical bullshit and keep it to yourself which would be much appreciated given how you eagerly show the very same unwarranted contempt towards other IPs for some reason.
If you criticize FF16 for being "highly derivative wannabe GoT dark fantasy with uninspired visuals" while glazing older FF games that were openly stealing from multiple sources like AD&D, Miyazaki movies or Star Wars you're gonna raise eyebrows.
Do you think FF1/2 invented shit like flying castles? Fuck no, it's taken directly from AD&D, go look up Krynn's flying fortresses, airships are just a reskinned flying carpet from Ultima, FF2's Dreadnought is lifted directly from Nausicaa, 95% of the fucking FF1 bestiary is literally lifted entirely from AD&D, FF4 is not only a shameless rehash of FF2, it's shamelessly referencing the classic Star Wars trilogy, we can go on and on with this shit, not even the most supposedly iconic stuff like the white/black/red mage paradigm is original, it was stolen from Dragon Lance.
Nobody has an issue if you like those old "golden age" games, you can like whatever you want, people start having issues when you whine about new games doing the same exact shit you glaze old games for doing, and we all know why you're doing this, because outside of having poor media literacy and a bad case of hypocrisy you have thick nostalgia goggles firmly glued to your cranium, which by the way applies to this whole pointless diatribe about overworlds too but I already wasted enough words on this and why it's a ridiculous stance to take the moment you try to justify it with pseudo-appeals to very shaky design theory instead of simply saying you liked the format and want more (while punctually refusing to buy or even acknowledge games that have it).
>>3961425
There's certainly some visual and thematic throwbacks to the classic games, yes.

>>3961447
>people
That's a weird way to spell "I".

>>3961402
>Where's the unique visuals and aesthetic in the NES FF games?
The original FF was famed for having great graphics relative to the simpler looking Dragon Quest. Lots of little visual flourishes and detail which signified higher production values. It wasn't necessarily original in aesthetics but it showed what the NES was capable of which later entries all improved upon. Then you add in top notch music and a novel time travel twist and its easy to see why FF was successful in the first place, it was ahead of the curve. The SNES FF games took things to an even greater level and featured epic plots involving ensemble casts, orchestral like music, and excellent sprite art/tilesets. FF6's opera scene speaks for itself, there was hardly anything like it at the time.
>like BoF2, RS2 or SMT,
None of those games achieved the same level of success or were as fondly remembered. In fact, all those titles came out AFTER FF4 had set the standard for console RPGs. And no, it wasn't because FF had some huge marketing push when it wasn't even a household name in the late 80s and early-mid 90s, that would only happen with FFVII which saw a massive campaign by Sony.

>>3961402
>Star Wars influence
FF was far from the first or last game to be influenced by Star Wars, which was straight up the biggest media franchise at the time. You might as well criticise FF for being influenced by DnD which is silly.
>the anime boom of the time
No, because once again it comes down the quality of presentation that the 3D FFs were showing off that almost no other RPG had. Compare FFVII to Wild Arms 1 or Suikoden, there is a stark difference in visual/audio. Bringing up FFX is even more of a lopsided comparison because there was no other RPG that looked as good as it at release. Whereas FFX was offering detailed facial expressions, full voice acting and highly detailed levels, other RPGs were doing the bare minimum. You don't even need to use Sonic Adventure or PSO, Chrono Cross (released just two years before FFX) is also an RPG that has a similar aesthetics involving tropical, dreamlike locations.

See this CGI sequence for example:

https://youtu.be/4umidcc_8rU?si=0MoCnfx328NuIOvX

There are a lot of details in here that exist not because the scene demands it, but because the artists apparently love pushing themselves. There is a lot of really advanced water physics, lighting effects, reflective surfaces, and other time-consuming rendering challenges. The shots zoom in close so we can see the drops of water on someone’s face and the texture of someone’s clothing, and then the camera pulls back to show us the entire city. We have motion-captured people, light refraction, non-Newtonian liquid surfaces and dense crowds. And all of this work was put into a single location that isn’t going to appear in any later CGI scenes. This showcase of technical and artistic effort feels almost decadent. Frankly, even the GTA games or Elder Scrolls look cheaper than this. This was the level FF was operating at all the way until the 2010s. People went to FF for expecting top notch graphics, music and memorable characters, which the new games don't offer.

>>3961447
You wrote a big post but only said "yes" to a question with two choices.
Do you want us to dislike the old games, or to like the new games while ignoring the flaws?

>>3961447
>If you criticize FF16 for being "highly derivative wannabe GoT dark fantasy
That was me who said that and I still stand by it. The argument was never that FF was some wholly original series of RPGs, but rather it was a series of games that took tried and true ideas and fleshed them out and brought them to their potential. Dragon Quest has 3 party members? Final Fantasy introduces 4 playable members with selectable classes. Dragon Quest introduced the job system? Final Fantasy 3 takes it and does a more flexible version, and so on. Meanwhile look at FF16. Did it improve upon anything or gave an interesting twist to its formula? No, therefore it is uninspired because it has nothing to offer that other RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 or even the Witcher 3 don't already have. And speaking of Star Wars earlier, that is another great (non-Vidya) example. There was literally nothing original about the first film, Lucas ripped off loads of other films and artists like Kurosawa shamelessly but it made up for it with ground breaking spectacular effects, excellent music, and a well executed plot and characters. Sometimes that is all a work really needs, strong execution than worrying about trying to be original or unique.
>when you whine about new games doing the same exact shit you glaze old games for doing
People "whine" about the state of Final Fantasy, not about other RPGs. There are numerous RPGs today that continued FF's previous mantle with great success like Xenoblade, Persona, and of course, E33 which shows how FF lost its way when other games are doing what it did but better.

>>3961508
>It wasn't necessarily original in aesthetics
So you're agreeing with me, it was just about graphics and not art.
>its easy to see why FF was successful in the first place
Because of the graphics, sure, and because admittedly the only competition it had at the time was Dragon Quest, which still largely outsold FF by the way.
>The SNES FF games took things to an even greater level and featured epic plots involving ensemble casts, orchestral like music, and excellent sprite art/tilesets
I don't think you've played many SNES games, and DQ already was THE JRPG with orchestral music, FF music was largely prog rock.
>None of those games achieved the same level of success
Two out of three of those games never left Japan so this is an exceedingly stupid point to make, SMT and Romancing SaGa 2 are both beloved games that received tons of additional side material like manga, drama CDs, remakes or theater plays so claiming that they didn't achieve the same level of success is myopic at best and incredibly dishonest at worst.
To say FF wasn't a household name before FFVII while also dissing other games that weren't even localized outside of Japan is wholly idiotic, the gameboy SaGa games got renamed to Final Fantasy Legend outside of Japan precisely because FF was already a household name.
>FF was far from the first or last game to be influenced by Star Wars, which was straight up the biggest media franchise at the time.
So how is it that it's bad when FF16 is influenced by some of the biggest media franchise of its time but it's cool when FF4 does it?
>No, because once again it comes down the quality of presentation that the 3D FFs were showing off
So outside of being wrong, you're still agreeing that FF was always about graphics.
>which the new games don't offer.
Except they do, outside of the memorable characters the series never had I guess, FF16 has inarguably some of the best graphics in modern gaming, this is an objective, non negotiable fact.

>>3961520
>Dragon Quest has 3 party members? Final Fantasy introduces 4
>Meanwhile look at FF16. Did it improve upon anything or gave an interesting twist to its formula?
FF16 should have done 5 party members

>>3961520
>The argument was never that FF was some wholly original series of RPGs,
No, that was precisely your argument.
Trying to weasel away with
>but achtually I meant that old FF "improved" upon what they were copying
is both dishonest and retarded because you're purposedly limiting yourself to Dragon Quest when it comes to FF1 by conveniently putting aside games like Wizardry or Ultima 4/5 which were also games that FF1 was ripping off while adding others to FF16, so no it doesn't work that way.
>Dragon Quest introduced the job system? Final Fantasy 3 takes it and does a more flexible version
What the fuck was more flexible in FF3, the game that not only forces you to switch to certain classes but also punishes you for doing so?
It's the complete opposite of being more flexible, especially because unlike DQ3 and even the first FF it's also linear as fuck, if anything it's a direct downgrade.
>Did it improve upon anything or gave an interesting twist to its formula?
What did FF1 improve upon Ultima 4/5?
Nothing, it's a wholly inferior and casualized game in terms of mechanics, narrative and roleplaying.
FF has always been a casual series with no ambitions regarding its design depth, it was consistently mogged by its sister series to the point that they had to shoot it in a dark alley to maintain the corporate narrative, you can't whine about FF16 supposedly not improving upon anything or giving interesting twists to a formula that never existed to begin with, FF has no formula other than copying whatever is popular at the moment, which FF16 still does by your own admission, FF was never about improving outside of arguably the very first game, it was about graphics.
>There are numerous RPGs today that continued FF's previous mantle with great success like Xenoblade, Persona, and of course, E33
None of those games outside of MAYBE E33 have ANYTHING to do with what FF did AND they sold a fraction of the copies, stop hallucinating nonsense.

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>>3961402
Forgot to point out
>It never stopped, everyone else simply caught up with Square during the mid to late 00's so the field was evened big time
I disagree with this strongly. FF13 quite clearly continued Square's lead as it was easily the best looking JRPG of its generation. Its contemporaries like Resonance of Fate, Last Remnant, Trails, Valkyrie Chronicles and Tales of did not catch up to it on a purely technical level. Even Persona 5, a late PS3 game, had borderline PS2 level character models compared to 13.

It was the mid-late 2010s when other companies caught up to FF, and not necessarily because those other games suddenly leap frogged FF but rather it was FF itself saw its artistry decline. The first cracks were seen with FF15 which only looked okay and offered a mediocre presentation that did not justify its long development time. However when the FFVII remake came out and everyone saw the lack of polish, hamfisted fanservice, and poor direction, that was when FF lost its luster. The fact that the FFVII Remake needed a rerelease says it all. And now we have FF16 which somehow looks worse than the 14+ year old FF13.

Whether its in gameplay, artstyle, music ect all other RPGs have been moving forward while FF has only been going backwards. Meanwhile FF's sister series, Dragon Quest and SaGa are still going strong because they never lost their main appeal.

>>3961516
He's saying it's hypocritical to like old FF but not new FF. Which is very retarded, I know, but that's literally what he thinks.
Of course, if he actually believed that, he'd tell others it's hypocritical to like new FF and not old FF too, but he'd never do that. His logic only goes one way.

>>3961539
You're out of your mind if you think FF16 looks worse than FF13, the texture quality alone is worlds apart
>Meanwhile FF's sister series, Dragon Quest and SaGa are still going strong because they never lost their main appeal.
Yep, you're clearly a delusional, self hating FF fan who's just living in a bubble and peddling fanfiction to validate your own delusions, so let me set a couple of things straight yet again:

Dragon Quest is bleeding fans and relevance just like FF and XI was a pretty divise game, fans are also complaining constantly about being stuck in remaster hell and Square Enix giving third rate treatment to the series, with the death of both Toriyama and Sugiyama longtime fans and SE alike have serious doubts about the future of the series which are amplified by XII being still stuck in dev hell with zero news after five years from its original announcement.
Sure, it's still selling well but it's far from being the monolith it used to be and its aging fanbase isn't being replaced by younger people exactly like FF, the difference is that unlike FF it's a series that had a real formula, stuck with it and never fell for the graphix rat race.

SaGa has been nearly killed and struggling with player retention for decades, which is why no entry ever since the PS1 days managed to get past the 1 million copy hurdle, in fact it's a miracle if they even get to 400K copies nowadays, not even the much shilled RS2 remake managed to do that and that's also a controversial remake that many criticized for radical changes to the formula and the original game's.
Its current lifetime sales are less than one tenth of what FF sold and its average sales per modern title are around 100K, so no, it's not going strong, the only reason it's even alive is because Kawazu didn't resign and makes poverty budget games that can make profit off 20K copies and survive off a small but fiercely loyal userbase, games your kind also loves to look down upon for that very reason.

>>3961553
Please don't project your mental illness on me.
Coherency isn't a one way street like you believe, and you're not really fit to talk about logic when you clearly have no grasp of it.

>>3961561
But you think people are hypocrites if they like old FF and dislike new FF. You wrote a big rant that boils down to exact that.
Now write another deflection post instead of a rebuttal.

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>>3961568
>But you think people are hypocrites if they like old FF and dislike new FF.
No, I wrote that you can't whine about new Final Fantasy games doing the same exact things that you praise old Final Fantasy games for doing, the flaws people accuse new Final Fantasy games of having, such as copying other successful IPs or having shallow game design are things that the series always had, which is why it's stupid criticism.
So if you dislike FF16 for having supposedly "uninspired" visuals because it's "copying GoT" or something you can't in all honesty turn around and prop up FF4 or something when it did the same exact thing but with Star Wars, AD&D, classic anime/manga or whatever else, and guess what? The opposite is also true because again, coherency is NOT a one way street, you can't say that you dislike old FF for being derivative while liking new, equally derivative FF.
You CAN say what you actually think however, which is that FF16 is lame and gay shit for zoomers because GoT is lame and gay shit for zoomers and that FF4 is based and redpilled because Star Wars/AD&D are based and redpilled or whatever, but that has nothing to do with FF ripping off other IPs or not, something that again, it always did.
Tt has everything to do with your personal bias which, as questionable as it may be, is an entirely legitimate argument, which is what you should be actually doing rather than desperately trying to take some moral or ideological high ground.

Unfortunately you FF faggots are retarded, illiterate and intellectually dishonest so you pointlessly try to engage in sophistry with your betters hoping they will trip up in your provocatory, incoherent bullshit and various lies.

>>3961532
>not art.
Art and graphics are intertwined. People like Amano and Nomura helped define the style and visual design of the series. Also, its not only visuals but music and story.
>many SNES games,
Of the ones I played I would say Seiken Densetsu 3, Romancing Saga 2, and Chrono Trigger matched what FF was doing from a presentation standpoint. Dragon Quest was/is very bare and Falcom's rpgs were more focused on gameplay than pure spectacle. But exceptions don't automatically invalidate FF's achievements in the audiovisual department.
>never left Japan
Then why even bring them up as "offerings" in the first place? The SaGa and SMT games have seen plenty of sequels and rereleases that reached international territories and they still remained niche outside of their home country. That is the difference, FF managed to penetrate markets around the world and was thus instrumental in bringing JRPGs into popularity, and it was thanks to the elements mentioned before.
>that received tons of additional side material
Anon, every notable JRPG series worth its salt has those. FF is a fucking media juggernaut with two massively successful MMORPGs and multiple feature length films. Just recently it had a successful crossover with Magic the Gathering for example.
>To say FF wasn't a household name
In Japan, sure. In America it certainly wasn't as only three FFs reached the U.S (FFI, FFIV, FFVI). At best FF was a modest success in western territories and mind you FF didn't even exist in Europe until 1997. FFVII alone outsold the previous six games.
>when FF16 is influenced
Because FF4 had more to offer beyond its base influences and homages. FF4 sought to make storytelling in JRPGs deeper and more personal. Whether it succeeded on that or not is a different matter but the point is that FF16 had no such sincere ambitions, it only sought to make FF look "mature" by aping off of popular dark fantasy shows and modern WRPGs while awkwardly still being stuck in its FF framework.

>>3961532
>you're still agreeing that FF was always about graphics.
It was always about *presentation* so yes graphics play a huge role.
>FF16 has inarguably some of the best graphics in modern gaming, this is an objective, non negotiable fact.
Hahaha, no. Not only did FF16 not get very many game awards for visuals (mostly nominations), the graphics itself wasn't even consistent. Some scenes looked great while others looked straight out of low budget WRPGs with stiff animations and lip syncs, and surprise surprise, those were issues that the FFVII remake suffered from too. To claim FF16 has some of the best graphics in modern gaming would imply its comparable to something like Cyberpunk 2077 which is still used as a graphical benchmark.

>>3961535
>precisely your argument.
Where was I explicitly arguing that FF was highly original/unique? I made myself clear from the beginning >>3961508 that I was talking about polish and execution, and followed it up with another explanation with the Star Wars comparison.
>like Wizardry or Ultima 4/5
Those aren't console RPGs you dope. Why would I compare FF to CRPGs instead of its more immediate and relevant contemporary, DQ? And besides, even if we really want to compare it with Wizardry and Ultima, FF1 successfully translated their gameplay into a console format, arguably even better than what DQ did.
>more flexible in FF3,
It allowed more dynamic switching and had more jobs in general to experiment with. That said it was still pretty primitive and wasn't as deep as DQ3's implementation. FFV was definitely much better in that regard.
>it's a wholly inferior
Outside of series like fucking SaGa and Etrian Odyssey, not many console JRPGs reaches the level of depth/freedom in gameplay that Ultima/Wizardry offers. The "formula" in question I am talking about is obviously the one established by Dragon Quest. And the funny thing is, there is still a more favorable comparison between FF1 and classic CRPGs than there is between FF16 and modern CRPGs.
>casual series
And so it is. Good thing we aren't strictly talking about gameplay and instead about the things FF actually succeeded in aka its only merits (graphics/music/story). Don't try to steer this conversation in a different direction or pretend that the console RPG space doesn't exist.
>FF has no formula
Define "no formula". Because the way most people see it, FF is effectively an anthology series that encompasses various styles for artists to explore whatever they want. That is why FF1 and FF10 can be both so different yet distinctly FF. You could say its inconsistent but that is what allowed the birth of other series like SaGa and Kingdom Hearts. FF16 only copies, but doesn't inspire or create.

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>>3961535
>have ANYTHING to do with what FF did
Are you being obtuse on purpose? Not only did Xenoblade literally had multiple former Square developers/artists working on it, but like FF12, it was an open world JRPG featuring auto attack based combat system with lots of party customization. Like FF12, even the cast/setting spoke in British accents.
>>3961555
>the texture quality alone is worlds apart
FF16 aesthetically is a mess. looking like a literal parody of the late-00s' brown, bloom and blur memes. No depth, no contrast, no colors, and some of the most unimaginative environments in the series. Of course it will look technically better with its higher resolution and textures but that doesn't mean it looks more pleasing.
>Dragon Quest is bleeding fans and relevance just like FF and XI was a pretty divise game,
XI is literally the best selling DQ of all time and gave the series an even bigger exposure in the west than VIII did. Whether or not the newest game will be good is a separate topic but the series is still in a much better position than FF is and you admit the series is still selling well.
>SaGa has been nearly killed and struggling with player retention for decades,
Is that why it saw two mainline entries within the past 8 years, multiple remasters and a remake? Oh right, another thing you are dead wrong about. SaGa is in a better position than it was in the post PS2 era, and thanks to its successful gacha spinoff, it has enough money to continue doing what it does. You talk about low sales but evidently enough, Square thinks the series sells well enough to continue getting new entries because unlike modern FF, the series doesn't have inflated budgets.
>>3961589
>are things that the series always had,
Once again, either you are missing the forest for the trees or just arguing for the sake of it. If you cannot understand the importance of execution then you have little fundamental understanding of the medium.

>>3961671
>Art and graphics are intertwined
Sure, and the only claim to fame for FF there was Ishii's idea of the side view battle UI.
>Of the ones I played
Okay, thank you for confirming that you do not play much at all, coincidentially they're also all Square games, nothing about BoF2, Tactics Ogre, Illusion of Gaia...not even other good looking Square games like Romancing SaGa 3 or Rudra no Hihou.
>Then why even bring them up as "offerings" in the first place?
Because we're living in 2026? Hello?
>FF managed to penetrate markets around the world
Oh god that's what I've been saying since the very beginning, and it's not that it managed, Square execs deliberately kneecapped every other IPs they had including SaGa, their first actual million seller, to prop up Final Fantasy, it wasn't a fortuitous natural phenomenon, it was a deliberate, suicidal short term strategy enacted in a severely uncompetitive (partially by design I might add) market, FF didn't succeed because of its supposed elements or quality thereof, it got a short spot in the sun because for a good decade there was literally no competition to be had outside of Japan, and the moment the competition showed up it rapidly crumbled to no one's surprise.
>every notable JRPG series worth its salt has those.
No they fucking don't.
>FF is a fucking media juggernaut
...but it somehow wasn't a household name until FF7 despite already having racked in multiple mainline games, multiple spinoffs, novels, an animated movie...
>In America it certainly wasn't as only three FFs reached the U.S (FFI, FFIV, FFVI)
Are you retarded? What was the competition in America back then? Protip: None, there's a reason FF4 and 6 are so fellated by my own shitty, crusty millennial generation, same with Chrono Trigger, they absolutely were household names, largely because the pickings were slim to begin with as you yourself just said.

>>3961882
>Because FF4 had more to offer beyond its base influences and homages.
No it didn't, it's a fucking rehash of FF2 without any of the grit and pathos for god's sake, every death outside of Tellah is a fucking cartoon fake out of the original deaths of the FF2 party members it's rehashing, Kain's ridiculous series of betrayals is even more embarrassing, Dragon Quest 4 already focused on character driven narrative ON THE FUCKING NES, there was nothing ambitious about FF4, Tengai Makyou 2 came out barely half a year after it and completely destroys it at its own game, same goes for Dragon Quest V.
>Where was I explicitly arguing that FF was highly original/unique?
The moment you ragged on FF16 for being derivative and "not having sincere ambitions" while propping up FF4 despite being even more derivative as it's a fucking rehash of a previous FF game that somehow manages to have worse narrative despite being its only focus.
>Those aren't console RPGs you dope
Oh I must have dreamt those NES ports, I guess? How come it's fine to compare FF16 to BG3 by the way? Double standards much?
>FF1 successfully translated their gameplay into a console format
Fuck no it didn't, they don't even play remotely alike.
>It allowed more dynamic switching
FF3 LITERALLY PUNISHES YOU FOR SWITCHING JOBS, DESPITE HAVING FORCED STORY SWITCHES, more dynamic my ass.
>there is still a more favorable comparison between FF1 and classic CRPGs than there is between FF16 and modern CRPGs.
No there fucking isn't, holy shit go play actual classic CRPGs, Ultima 4/5 came out years before FF1 and they fucking obliterate it, something like Pool of Radiance is light years ahead of FF1, nevermind things like Dungeon Master, the gap is still the exact same, FF16 is literally just The Witcher 3 but linear and with better combat.
> its only merits (graphics/music/story)
You mean the grossly overrated "merits" that only people with cursory knowledge of the genre consider? Yeah, it's still the very same

>>3961883
>Define "no formula"
I don't need to, you already did it yourself, it's an "anthology" series (whatever that actually means) with no unifying philosophy or direction, as you yourself said something for a bunch of people picked on the spot to do whatever they want, which by definition means it has no identity.
>That is why FF1 and FF10 can be both so different yet distinctly FF.
My ass they are "distinctly" FF, FF1 and 10 have nothing in common outside of the brand name and some spell names that are also completely different in gameplay terms.
>but that is what allowed the birth of other series like SaGa and Kingdom Hearts.
SaGa (and SD) was literally born out of one of the series' creators fucking off and doing his own thing because of a crucial disagreement with Sakaguchi, it wasn't "allowed", it was a fracture where one of the fathers of the series politely told the pencil pushers to go fuck themselves forever, at least until they got on their knees and begged him to come back to save FFXII.
Kingdom Hearts was a joint corporate project casually peddled during a random elevator conversation, it has nothing to do with FF outside of the cameos which are the same kind of soulless marketing as Ehrgeiz', if there's one franchise KH is indebted to is Mana as it took plenty of inspiration from Legend of Mana.
>Not only did Xenoblade literally had multiple former Square developers/artists working on it
What does that even fucking mean?
Sacnoth also had multiple Square developers/Artists, Takahashi was a fucking Falcom employee before he was a Square employee you colossal dipshit.
Are Chulip or MOON RPG "taking SaGa's mantle" because Yoshiro Kimura worked with Kawazu on the Romancing SaGa games?
Why the fuck do you retards try to make your shitty franchise live vicariously through completely unrelated games?

>>3961884
>but like FF12, it was an open world JRPG featuring auto attack based combat system with lots of party customization.
Bro...I just can't with this retardation.
First off FF11 alone was already that, secondly Xenoblade has no fucking customization to speak of especially compared to FFXII, lastly Takahashi left Square way before FFXII was even a thing and worked on the Xenosaga trilogy which again, had nothing to do with FF and was just a continuation of Gears.
If you have to make a point about british accent in a dub you're beyond saving.
>No depth, no contrast, no colors, and some of the most unimaginative environments in the series.
Ah you are definitely that retard from that one thread on /v/, I had some sort of deja-vu but now it's impossible to ignore.
You're the retard who thinks only oversaturated dogshit with nonsensical baroque-isms is valid art design despite FF16 being way more in line with classic FF than the PS1 to PS3 era games, and of course like the schizo you are now you agree that it is indeed technically better but you come up with some completely arbitrary caveat to attempt to save face.
>XI is literally the best selling DQ of all time and gave the series an even bigger exposure in the west than VIII did.
And...what exactly did that translate to?
More new games? No, XII is stuck in dev hell and we only got a bunch of half assed remakes.
Fresh blood in terms of userbase? All public polls and feedback point out that this isn't the case at all.
Higher budget for remakes?
Fuck no, and the remakes aren't even that successful and are widely criticized because again, the people who buy them are 90% old fans, not young people.
FFXV is also one of the top selling FF by a wide margin and it's not even close, but what did it actually achieve?
What did all the millions of subscriptions in FFXIV achieve? It's the most lucrative and successful FF game after all!

>>3961886
>but the series is still in a much better position than FF is
Not really.
The series lives off as a third rate citizen with pseudo AA budgets and anemic development, FF is (even with all the mismanagement) the more lucrative series, by design mind you.
And again, with Horii being the only surviving key member and close to retirement the series is in a really bad position right now, because unlike FF it has an actual identity, and everyone knows that when Horii will be gone there will be a big moment of truth when it comes to the series' survival.
>Is that why it saw two mainline entries within the past 8 years, multiple remasters and a remake?
Bitch, there was a gap of nearly FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS between Unlimited SaGa and Scarlet Grace and both SSG and EB are zero budget games that sold barely 200K each and were funded entirely by whatever fraction of the gacha profit isn't syphoned away to make more FF, the RS2 remake was taken off Kawazu's hands entirely and given to a bunch of incompetent idiots who turned it into a pseudo Octopath game.
The series survives purely because they couldn't bully Kawazu out of the company like they did with tons of other people like Ishii.
For the records: SE thought abhorrent dogshit like fucking Left Alive, The Quiet man or Forspoken deserved more budget, staff and advertisement than their historical second JRPG pillar, and you come here and say to people that Square thinks "the series sells well enough to continue getting new entries" when they tried to kill it since its very inception and nearly TWO FUCKING DECADES passed between mainline games.
In what universe is SaGa of all things better off than Final Fantasy when FF15 alone sold more copies than the entire fucking SaGa series' lifetime sales?
You're not only completely delusional about your own shitty franchise, you hallucinate shit about other franchises to make it look like you're somehow the victims, this is why I barely even come to this graveyard of a board.

>>3956029
Overworlds will always be better than the awful alternative.

>>3961882
>the only claim to fame for FF there was Ishii's idea of the side view battle UI.
And character designs, and environments, and creatures, you know, the things FF is famous for.
>Okay, thank you for confirming that
You asked, I answered. It doesn't change what I said about what FF did. Compared to most the RPGs mentioned here, FF was a step above in story and visuals.
>Because we're living in 2026? Hello?
Therefore its irrelevant if those games were formerly Japan only. There have been plenty of sequels and rereleases.
>Square execs deliberately kneecapped every other IPs they has
Nice schizo theory. Not only were Square not the only RPG developers, but FF had the spotlight for a good 20+ years before sputtering out. Square gave plenty of chances to their other games but none had the success FF had therefore, in a logical move, they poured more resources and time into their most successful series, like any fucking company would. Complaining that Square "kneecapped" their other games because they wanted to focus on their top seller is sheer lunacy.
>No they fucking don't
Yeah, they do.
>already having racked in multiple mainline games, multiple spinoffs, novels, an animated movie
No because at the end of the day, each NES/SNES FF game that was released in the states sold less than a fucking million. That is paltry compared to juggernauts like Zelda and Mario.
>What was the competition in America back then?
How naive are you? Final Fantasy wasn't strictly competing against with other RPGs only, it was competing against every other game too, including the aformentioned Zelda and Mario. It took until FFVII (in a more competitive space no less) to become a top seller comparable to the biggest game franchises of the time.
>so fellated by my own shitty, crusty millennial
You mean by nerds? Who gives a shit, the average millennial is much more likely to suck off or mention FFVII, even normalfag ones who may never have played an RPG before.

>>3962901
>No it didn't, it's a fucking rehash of FF2
How the hell is it a rehash? They are literally almost nothing alike in plot and characters.
>every death
The fake outs do suck but at the end of the day, your average FF4 character still had more depth and layers as characters than many other JRPG characters at the time. The main conflict centering around the protagonist having an inner turmoil is infintely more compelling than the usual generic stop the empire/villain with paper thin characters and motives. FF4 had to sacrifice player freedom and some of the RPG elements of the previous games for the sake of telling a coherent narrative.
>it's a fucking rehash
Goddamn you love being facetious. A game that had the advantage of 32 years of technological progress and hindsight has a better narrative than an old ass SNES RPG? Good job wise ass. But you want to know why that doesn't matter? Because everything is RELATIVE. FF4 boasted a much stronger story for its time whereas FF16 is generic, boring trite that doesn't even compete within the same breath of other narrative focused games today.
>Oh I must have dreamt
Ah yes because we all know CRPGs inherently stop being CRPGs once they get ported to consoles.
>it's fine to compare FF16 to BG3
For their story? Absolutely. I never compared their gameplay.
>Fuck no it didn't
For Wizardry, it most certainly did but DQ did most of the heavy lifting for it anyways.
>FF3 LITERALLY
That penalty doesn't change the fact that you can freely switch. For that fact alone is it more flexible. Even better, there are versions of the game now that remove the penalty so you can switch with little consequences.
>just The Witcher 3
That isn't a CRPG, you nitwit. FF16 is so far divorced from any sort of traditional CRPG beyond aesthetics that it makes FF1 look faithful to classic CRPGs by comparison.
>You mean the grossly overrated
Yes we get it you hate storyfaggotry but that is not relevant to why FF succeeded and later declined.

>>3962902
>no unifying philosophy or direction
Except it fucking did, we just went over it. FF was envisioned as a series of highly polished RPGs featuring steller visuals, music and memorable characters. And yes, that is a vision because it required the developers to both hone and foster that type of talent and focus on spectacle over the mechanical nuance of its contemparies since they certainly felt that they couldn't compete directly against DQ at its own game. There is a reason Sakaguchi chose Kitase to succeed him, not because Kitase knew anything about game design, but because his background was in film and writing.
>FF1 and 10 have nothing in common
The vision and philosophy mentioned above ties them together. Stop looking at the surface level details look deeper into their design and purpose. As a good example of what I mean look at Zelda. The original Legend of Zelda and Breath of the Wild are fundamentally different games but they share the core ideological idea of freedom.
>because of a crucial disagreement with Sakaguchi
Are you just now only discovering that new works of media or art can be born from creative disagreements? This isn't a slight against FF whatsoever, its a testament to how important it was that it enabled talent like Kawazu and Ishii to realize what their passions were and leave to make their own stuff. It fucking happens all the time everywhere. Capcom for example had countless creators leave to form their companies or make their games. Square itself birthed companies made up of former employees like Monolith and Mistwalker. Instead of spiting FF, we should be glad that both FF and SaGa could exist seperately.
>peddled during a random elevator conversation
As the story goes but you are forgetting one crucial fact: it was literally helmed by the main Final Fantasy artist, Nomura, and its immediately apparent that the same zany FF style is present in KH albeit in a much more ludicrous degree.

>>3962903
>What does that even fucking mean?
It means exactly what it means. Multiple former Square veterans working on new RPGs which in the case of Xenoblade, meant they were able to channel what made FF successful, hence the overlap between both those fanbases. And Takahashi only worked at Falcom for only a few years while he stayed with Square for about a decade.
>try to make your shitty franchise live vicariously through completely unrelated games?
No one needs to do that because FF's legacy and influence speaks for itself. Games like Xenoblade, Persona ect while distinct and different each tried to fill the space FF left.
>First off FF11 alone was already that
That is a fucking MMORPG for crying out loud, not a single player RPG.
>lastly Takahashi left Square way before FFXII was even a thing
Because as we all know, no one is allowed to be influenced by their old workplace.
>If you have to make a point about british accent in a dub
Its what many people experienced therefore its relevant to the public perception of both games.
>Ah you are definitely that retard from
Who? I'm not your boogeyman, schizo.
>oversaturated dogshit with nonsensical
Stop being a tasteless philistine, almost nothing about FF16 looks visually interesting, it looks the same as any other high fantasy dreck churned out by the daily. FF6-FF12 featured creative, stunning environments that never resorted to colorless muck and post processing filled eye cancer. And FF16 wishes it could be as memorable as the classic FFs.
>completely arbitrary caveat
Appealing visuals isn't arbitrary whatsoever, stop with this bad faith argument. High level technical graphics is one thing, but composition and direction is far more important.
>No, XII is stuck in dev hell
It was announced back in only 2021, that is hardly dev hell. Game development will always have its hardships (especially with the deaths of key figures) but that doesn't equate to a decade of radio silence like other titles went through.

>>3962904
>FFXV is also one of the top selling FF
So we are going to memory hole its absolutely shitshow of a development history now? No amount of sales could make up for the sheer disappointment fans felt. Its sole accomplishment is damaging trust with the Final Fantasy series.
>millions of subscriptions
Being the most successful MMORPG and BTFOing WoW at its own game.
>more lucrative series
Because its still a massive media empire at the end of the day but the mainline games themselves have been slipping off the edge recently. Square had long since declared the FFVII remake's and FF16's sales disappointing. Between the declining sales figures, the fandom being more divided than it has ever been, and series' identity crisis, its insane to say DQ is worse off when DQ fundamentally never saw any major overall sales declines or perceived quality dip.
>Horii being the only
As if countless other series didn't see similar dilemmas. If Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, GTA ect would continue on without their original creators then DQ stands a good chance too. And I'm not a believer of one person or a few being the sole reason that a series can remain good. Games are always a collaborative effort.
>gap of nearly FIFTEEN
Why did you ignore me saying "post PS2 era"? I already acknowledged that massive gap between US and SG. That late 2000s to early-mid 2010s was practically a dark age for Final Fantasy as well so no surprise that SaGa was getting shafted too.
>zero budget games
In other words, SaGafags got two titles considered masterpieces while FFags got stuck with shitty piecemeal remakes, amazing.
>couldn't bully Kawazu
The series survives because it still makes profit. You know, I'm getting really tired of these half baked narratives involving Kawazu being some sort of underdog. Oh they begged him to save FF12, oh the evil Square executives are "bullies" (lol). This kind of rhetoric is only possible from the truly delusional individuals who have no idea how corporations work.

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>>3962906
>when they tried to kill it since its very inception and nearly TWO FUCKING DECADES
More babble filled narratives. Why of course, the series that has been around since the fucking 80s has been the target of Square since the beginning! I bet you could make a good movie with such an outlandish idea.
>FF15 alone sold more copies than the entire fucking SaGa series' lifetime sales?
I noticed this conversation has shifted greatly towards the discussion of sales figures which isn't fully representative of how well a series truly is doing. Throughout this whole thread I've emphasized over and over that FF's key traits and appeals, the ones NOT related to sales or financial success hinges on its qualities as a game and piece of media. And those qualities as mentioned many times before have declined drastically which thusly hurts the series in a way that not even low budgets or sales could do. Oh sure, its still selling well but so fucking what? The Simpsons is also still watched and is still a media empire but that show is long past its prime. That is the path FF is heading towards right now, a zombification phase where it will continue free falling towards the disasterous point where it completely loses its appeal to its fans and instead becomes artificially kept alive out of cynical financial gain. By comparison, SaGa and practically any other RPG series is in a much better position since their integrity isn't being actively erased.
>make it look like you're somehow the victims
L M A O says the fag who made up that corporate narrative. A 30+ year witch hunt against SaGa? Not even FF can be that dramatic.
>this is why I barely even come to this graveyard of a board
What a coincidence, I barely come here too and I see its still infected by /v/ tier fanboy delusions and schizos like you.

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>3961671
>3961675
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This is a bot.