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Can Final Fantasy / JRPGs ever reach the sales of the old days again? - A Discussion
- Thread starter Toth
- Start date
Glass Rebel
Member
Am I alone in thinking that Valkyrie Profile seems like one of the few series that could get "big" in the west given the right marketing and budget? I always felt they had a setting and aesthetics that could be very appealing to gamers outside of Japan.
Manmademan
Member
you don't even have to go back that far. They made Deus ex: human revolution only last year. is it a jrpg? no- but it is a solid RPG in every way that counts. How is it the same company is perfectly capable of making a western RPG that doesn't insult the player's intelligence and do so within the budget, but slap "final fantasy" on a game and it's a hot mess.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I'd like a VP3 but I think Tri-Ace won't be making one like ever. Poor Hrist.
I wasn't too fond of how VP2 overall was played out.
Manmademan
Member
I liked VP2. good mechanics, decent story- and it's one of the more gorgeous games on the PS2. (didn't it have progressive scan? I think it did.)
The setting IS well suited to the tastes of western gamers- the norse setting isn't too far off of skyrim, souls, etc- but it would need a reboot. at this point requiring gamers to be familiar with the PS1/PSP game and the PS2 game to understand the backstory is a bit much.
Riposte
Member
I would consider that a future without JRPGs. Which isn't exactly the worst thing that could happen. At some point they begin to look like games that fit in other genres. I would sooner put FFXII and Xenoblade (not to mention FFXI and FFXIV) or at least games wish pushes more in that direction alongside WoW and Dragon Age than previous Final Fantasys or similar games derived from Dragon Quest.
If there is to be a future for JRPGs, then I see The Last Remnant and Final Fantasy XIII being examples of it, with a lot of room to improve.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Tough to say...I think it is true that the tastes of the gaming public have changed a bit but also some of the recent RPG's just aren't as good as the older ones. MMO's are still hugely popular so it shows that people aren't just into the fast food culture of games yet, there is still a market for a long and engaging RPG, they just need to blow people away again, release a game that gives you that magical feeling. While I LOVED XII, last time I was ever enthralled with a FF game was X. Come out with a game that can appeal to everyone, not just Japan. We'll see though, I really miss the good FF games and am saddened to see what the brand is now. Thankfully it's not dead yet.
Different divisions. Different management, team leads, and goals.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
MY PROBLEM wasn't with the game for the most part it was more of the fact that Einherjar didn't have those backstories like they did in the first one which I liked a lot. Instead they generally got a text description which I found to be deplorable.
I think a VP3 is long overdue but I am sure Square pulled them in for more support with other titles.
Their latest game was Frontier's Gate for PSP. Japan only of course.
Necron
Member
It got me thinking - what about not having expensive 3D environments? Not having to control the camera all the time or having it behind the characters?
Or in short: whatever happened to 2D environments?
Going back to them but in HD could increase Square's output dramatically and it gets the job done. Perhaps nobody wants them anymore... and I can understand that.
It won't solve the multiple other problems but it's a first step in reducing costs and higher output. I don't want to experience "the tunnel" that was FF XIII ever again.
It's just a thought...
Or in short: whatever happened to 2D environments?
Going back to them but in HD could increase Square's output dramatically and it gets the job done. Perhaps nobody wants them anymore... and I can understand that.
It won't solve the multiple other problems but it's a first step in reducing costs and higher output. I don't want to experience "the tunnel" that was FF XIII ever again.
It's just a thought...
But that shouldn't mean that games like Bravely Default and Four Heroes of Light don't have their place.
FF12 was exactly what the JRPG needed to start the transition to the new generation. And yet it inexplicably became one of the most divisive FF games. This in spite of a gorgeous, well-conceived world and a less childish story.
Sadly, JRPGs are all going to the 3DS, like Bravely Default. Many will never be localized to the West. I love the 3DS in it's way, but I expect more from RPGs.
Sadly, JRPGs are all going to the 3DS, like Bravely Default. Many will never be localized to the West. I love the 3DS in it's way, but I expect more from RPGs.
Risk Breaker
Member
Well... I know I would be happy if they went back to them. SE would probably want to cram them with detail in every pixel though, instead of using PSX art style for backgrounds, and so it would be almost as much work as 3D I'm afraid.
Manmademan
Member
exactly. so why isn't the division that ISN'T fucking up in charge of the flagship games by now? I understand "corporate culture" yadda yadda but enough is enough.
We're long, long past the point where US+EU eclipses japan in terms of marketshare and influence. Give eidos a shot at final fantasy, and see if you can get western gamers interested in it again.
otherwise we'll see the genre right back where it was during the SNES era- a niche genre with titles that may or may not make it across the pond on the whim of clueless japanese executives- and my finger is pointed firmly at Type-0 here.
oh you know what- that DID piss me off. You're 100% correct here- massive ball drop on square's part.
Yup- those games look nice in stills on the internet, but gameplay has moved so far past that point it would be completely unpalatable to today's gamer. Great if you want to relive your preteen years, bad if you want to keep the genre from dying an ignoble death. and yes, prerendering everything in HD would likely be so much work there would be little benefit. Oddly enough, FFXIII-2 had no "tunnels" in gameplay- that game was wide open. the "tunnel" was the result of bad design decisions and management, not technology.
I tell you why, it's borderline racist, but it's probably a grain of truth in it.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMMcd6-D4x8
How many Asian names do you see in that list? Do you think SE executives that have prided themselves on their Japanese franchise are going to let a western studio develop it?
nope.jpg
Hmm.. how did Blue Dragon do? I never got the chance to follow the series because it was a 360 exclusive
I think FF VII, was just released during the right time and the merger of Square and Enix impacted the situation in a negative way. The hardcore gamers at that time was accustomed to the Squaresoft style of gameplay.
Manmademan
Member
they actually WERE in the process of having GRIN develop a final fantasy spin off, but that project fell apart. Footage of it showed up on GAF at one point, but it was very early.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
It didn't look like FF says Square.
Regardless there is some serious mis-allocation of capital and talent.
Unwillingness or inability to adapt to changing conditions is the #1 reason businesses die.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Ito should be leading the helm and Tabata should be given a chance. His games though few and far between get better each time.
Manmademan
Member
hey, I agree with you completely. Final fantasy (and to a larger extent JRPGs as a whole) simply can't keep going on as they have been and expect to thrive. Anime is dead in the west. deal with it. Japanese gamers are no longer a driving force in the console space. deal with it. or you can pretend that it's still 1997 and none of this is happening to you, and go out of business.
The fact that square in particular seems to have horrific management problems that turn their flagship series into a clusterfuck of epic proportions is just the icing on the cake.
They honestly just need to find the people who wrote Secret of Evermore and give them a buttload of money.
And no this isn't a joke post! Final Fantasy's stories and worlds have gotten so ridiculous (I played through to the last boss of XIII and I have no idea what the fuck happened in that game) that it's impossible to even talk about them.
They need a grounded story; think Chronicles of Narnia or some shit. Just stop making games where the plot is something like:
"Xaravu, you have been chosen to step through the Crystalight Gates while the Orbs of Heaven turn through Dimension T while Xeromaxus reigns unholy fire from Cyber Glamx realm."
^Fuck that shit.
And no this isn't a joke post! Final Fantasy's stories and worlds have gotten so ridiculous (I played through to the last boss of XIII and I have no idea what the fuck happened in that game) that it's impossible to even talk about them.
They need a grounded story; think Chronicles of Narnia or some shit. Just stop making games where the plot is something like:
"Xaravu, you have been chosen to step through the Crystalight Gates while the Orbs of Heaven turn through Dimension T while Xeromaxus reigns unholy fire from Cyber Glamx realm."
^Fuck that shit.
What are you talking about? The Creation trilogy was made by Quintet, a company that's ceased to exist a long time ago.
Square Enix IS Enix after it absorbed Square's studios and received a name change. With so many internal studios under its belt (in both east and west), SE's never going back to the days when Enix exclusively outsourced all its game development to outside studios, and games like the Creation trilogy will likely never see a sequel.
Manmademan
Member
uh...
Ok, I get where you're going. this is a common complaint of mine as well- JRPGs are typically like playing through bad anime. Given the amount of GOOD source material one can use as inspiration, that's inexcusable. Fantasy and Science fiction are going through a goddamned renaissance in the west and it's a missed opportunity. But at this point I'll happily settle for something that isn't "plucky teens hop on their airship and save the world."
Does enix still hold the rights to those games? They probably do- but at this point gaming has changed so much that a "spiritual sequel" to soul blazer would probably end up looking like darksiders. does anyone really want this?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Too many have been doing so already. Reread the two posts again.
Manmademan
Member
so, you have nothing then. good to know.
its an RPG by a japanese developer in a style meant to appeal to western gamers, as the souls games are. I woudn't call it a JRPG, but it is a decent effort by a japanese developer to tune their games to a changing market- which we aren't seeing ANY of right now.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Final Fantasy BERSERK would be cool.
Manmademan
Member
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
FF BERSERK story would be even better. Not just a visual feel.
Manmademan
Member
I just wanted an excuse to post that image- I get where you're coming from. More material in that line would be a great thing. It's a damn shame someone screwed up the Game of Thrones RPG- that series has some potential.
FFXII is infuriating for me because it's a broken/dropped Matsuno vision. Things were made worse for me when I read online that Vann and Panelo weren't ever meant to be characters, like, at all. Game could have been 100x cooler if Matsuno had full reign over the project. But, nope, game wouldn't sell nearly as well if it didn't have shallow, pretty boy guys & gals, right? So disappointed with humanity. -_-
Champomade
Member
Personally, I would happily settle for an airship and not some stupid menus asking me which place (I can't even say town given the recent output) I want to go to
Manmademan
Member
FFXII is indicative of the same problem we've been talking about- Japanese devs being so resistant to change that they HAVE to insert teenage protagonists and anime tropes into everything, because they're convinced it won't sell otherwise.
NIER is an even better example. the main character was replaced by a teenager on the JP PS3 release (looking for his "sister" the entire game) whereas in every other region he was a 40 year old man looking for his daughter.
it's not the airship or lack thereof that's the problem, but the lack of diverse themes. "plucky teenagers save the world" could be the plot to any of oh...two or three dozen JRPGs, even ones where it makes literally no sense, like suikoden I, II, and V.
meltingparappa
Member
Since Sony owns the Demons Souls ip, they should let Square develop Demons Soul 2.
After the bitter tears have dried, it would be a fascinating (potential trainwreck of a) game that at least takes Square out of its comfort zone.
After the bitter tears have dried, it would be a fascinating (potential trainwreck of a) game that at least takes Square out of its comfort zone.
Sure, but unlikely. It isn't a quality issue--not that S-E's been pumping out an unblemished line of quality, but their best titles, even as judged by modern critics, were never the great sellers to begin with.
The problem is market positioning.
First, they need a big advertising push, and to be the center of a platform-holder's holiday season. This is not even remotely going to happen as long as CoD continues to sell more on some platforms each Christmas than FF7 did in its first half-decade.
Second, they need good buzz. This is extremely difficult for two reasons:
a) It's a lot harder to get writers in the office or give them access to staff when doing so involves a transPacific flight and an interpreter.
b) Most players and critics have complained long and loud about how archaic the entire JRPG experience is, and how they're unhappy that it's still stuck in the same place it was when they were teens.
This has little to do with objective measure, much to do with subjective, and isn't going to go away until they age away and are replaced with people unhappy that TES 8 and 9 are just more of the same with a new coat of paint.
Third, like any entertainment product they need to speak to the buyer.
Many visual and narrative choices are a hard sell because they're too "animu" and "wacky jappy". Spoiler: Mainstream Japanese audiences agree. This isn't an East-West culture gap until you dig down to animism and wizard-king instead of warrior-king, and even then both are hallmarks of Japanese culture but also of the Germanic and Celtic pre-Christian cultures that so much Western fantasy draws from.
Most of the serious expectation gaps are based on what pop culture someone consumed as an adolescent; someone who was 10-20 for FF7 and Pokemon grew up in a design and writing milieu that included almost exclusively Japanese video games, plus Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon on TV. That familiarity with Japanese game and comic-derived design and writing simply doesn't exist today.
There have been attempts to change this, but they've been for the most part commercial failures. While I love Matsuno's taste for deep political drama, it's even further away from the recent mainstream western power-fantasy fad than half-assed Bildungsroman; Vaan is a scrawny, weak little boy for far longer than Americans are used to playing as one these days, but even Ramza's "victory" is an unmitigated loss. Nier bombaed, in significant part due to Western markets being wary of things Japan makes "just for them".
The problem is market positioning.
First, they need a big advertising push, and to be the center of a platform-holder's holiday season. This is not even remotely going to happen as long as CoD continues to sell more on some platforms each Christmas than FF7 did in its first half-decade.
Second, they need good buzz. This is extremely difficult for two reasons:
a) It's a lot harder to get writers in the office or give them access to staff when doing so involves a transPacific flight and an interpreter.
b) Most players and critics have complained long and loud about how archaic the entire JRPG experience is, and how they're unhappy that it's still stuck in the same place it was when they were teens.
This has little to do with objective measure, much to do with subjective, and isn't going to go away until they age away and are replaced with people unhappy that TES 8 and 9 are just more of the same with a new coat of paint.
Third, like any entertainment product they need to speak to the buyer.
Many visual and narrative choices are a hard sell because they're too "animu" and "wacky jappy". Spoiler: Mainstream Japanese audiences agree. This isn't an East-West culture gap until you dig down to animism and wizard-king instead of warrior-king, and even then both are hallmarks of Japanese culture but also of the Germanic and Celtic pre-Christian cultures that so much Western fantasy draws from.
Most of the serious expectation gaps are based on what pop culture someone consumed as an adolescent; someone who was 10-20 for FF7 and Pokemon grew up in a design and writing milieu that included almost exclusively Japanese video games, plus Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon on TV. That familiarity with Japanese game and comic-derived design and writing simply doesn't exist today.
There have been attempts to change this, but they've been for the most part commercial failures. While I love Matsuno's taste for deep political drama, it's even further away from the recent mainstream western power-fantasy fad than half-assed Bildungsroman; Vaan is a scrawny, weak little boy for far longer than Americans are used to playing as one these days, but even Ramza's "victory" is an unmitigated loss. Nier bombaed, in significant part due to Western markets being wary of things Japan makes "just for them".
CielTynave
Member
ZombiePlatypus
Member
FF has sold less and less because SE has completely ruined that series. With that said, I do think that RPGs can sell again like they used to during the PS1 and PS2 days. It's not like most RPG fans moved on to dudebro CoD games. I'd say there's very little crossover between the demographics of both those genres.
RPGs are not selling as much anymore because RPG fans are not being catered to like they used to.
I can totally get behind this.
RPGs are not selling as much anymore because RPG fans are not being catered to like they used to.
It got me thinking - what about not having expensive 3D environments? Not having to control the camera all the time or having it behind the characters?
Or in short: whatever happened to 2D environments?
Going back to them but in HD could increase Square's output dramatically and it gets the job done. Perhaps nobody wants them anymore... and I can understand that.
It won't solve the multiple other problems but it's a first step in reducing costs and higher output. I don't want to experience "the tunnel" that was FF XIII ever again.
It's just a thought...
I can totally get behind this.
meltingparappa
Member
Such a bizarre and dangerous move to international pandering, but in this instance SE LA was RIGHT.
I wonder how much it cost to make such a dramatic change to the game.
Risk Breaker
Member
But Papa Nier is best Nier anyway, doesn't really matter which one came first, they still chose the young one (worse one) for Japan.
Manmademan
Member
I couldn't remember which one came first- but the problem is still the same. Japan is still inserting teenage protagonists into it's games while the tastes of gamers in the rest of the world have moved on.
when told that teenage protagonist will make the game totally unsellable overseas, the response there was to make two different versions of the game, rather than release something without plucky teens in it for japan.
And as a guy with a sister AND a daughter having played nier, having the character
wreck the world and doom humanity
can't imagine why sony would hand the IP to a worse studio than their in house ones.
meltingparappa
Member
Makes about as much sense as Nintendo having Square develop the recent Mario sports games.
And would probably work about as well. :\
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Japan has their cliche teenagers as main character due to their whole culture and overall traditional values.
Manmademan
Member
But considering that doing that makes your games unsellable overseas (the market which is expanding), and the japanese console market is shrinking by the minute- why do you continue to tool your expensive multimillion dollar flagship games to a shrinking segment of the market?
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Beats the banana's out of me. Maybe they want their franchise's to die? They did say that XIII was for a different audience.
Karsticles
Member
I'm all about this. 3D environments don't provide anything 2D ones don't. When I played FFXIII and went through any area, I looked around and thought "holy crap, they spent so much time on this and I'm just going to walk by it once". It was cool, but a waste of development time. I don't care about being able to move a camera around, the scenery is just as beautiful when I can't.
Manmademan
Member
Whoever said that was a damned liar. XIII was for the exact same audience as every other game they've made. Same nonsensical plot and nonsense protagonists (outside of sazh, who was pretty awesome.)
The only one that's noticeably different was XII, and they very nearly screwed that one up.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
The whole problem with XII was that it wasn't following Matsuno's vision so he cried and went home.
Possibly the same audience with XIII but XIII-2 was moreso directed the the XIII audience and XIII-3(LR) seems to be a game for Toriyama more then anyone else IMO.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I rarely like japanese games that try to cater to western audiences (probably because my interests are not in line with most western gamers). Even if it isn't cost effective for them, games that don't try to cater to international audiences are a huge boon for me.
After all, I play Japanese games because they're nothing like western games. If I wanted games with western sensibilities, I'd play more western games.
There's something to be said for retaining a cultural identity even when the game heads overseas. I can't stand the idea that everything needs to be bent and contorted to fit the western image. It creates homogeny, of which the gaming industry already has too much. The Japanese have already been brainwashed into thinking their cultural identity is worthless, and they need to be more like us to succeed in the industry. What an awful message we send to the rest of the world.
Meccanical
Member
I'm all for a creator following his heart and staying true to his vision.
But Toriyama's vision is all fucked up and I don't want that shit anymore.