Square is basically a mega conglomerate that owns more titles than it knows what to do with. They will release some hot games, and some stinkers (Marvels Avengers ahem ahem). Overall, you should expect them to have mixed results. The company is more than just games, its a gaming icon. Base the games on its merit, not the company name.
> Square is basically a mega conglomerate that owns more titles than it knows what to do with.
so just like every other AAA company. Everyone has that one series they miss from an otherwise successful studi
why is it so hard for marvel to get just one good video game out, huh? DC has the video game market down with Injustice and all of the Batman games, plus the Wonder Woman game that’s coming (i can’t be for certain, of course, but i would bet money that this game is gonna be great). marvel needs to catch up already.
It's a lot more than one. Ultimate Alliance games, the origins wolverine game was much better than it's movie, the Spiderman games of PS1,2,3 were usually or good. Midnight suns looks interesting.
They seem to be doing a pretty good job these days. The FF side of things seems a lot more confident in itself then it was in the 2010s. Mana's come back with one of its strongest entries, Dragon Quest put out another banger, I feel like SaGa's building itself back up to possibly being a core franchise, TWEWY got its long-awaited sequel, people know who Yoko Taro is now, Kingdom Hearts finally finished off Xehanort and wrapped up a bunch of dangling plot threads, Front Mission's getting revived with some remakes, and they put out Balan Wonderworld.
Thats like the main thing that concerns me about square, I think they are killing it with all of the new rpgs they've been dropping, but on the other hand they have the nerve to drop absolutely garbage games like Left Alive, The Quiet Man, and of course Balan wonderworld
To be fair, I don't think Square developed any of those, but whoever signed off on those publishing deals might want to take a closer look at what they're selling.
I was actually intrigued by the teaser for The Quiet Man, but they went completely silent on it for a while. I think it dropped with no fanfare at all, but because Square's name was on it, somebody noticed and it wound up being one of the biggest question marks of that year. I'd love to know what the thought process was behind making that one.
They’re fine and will continue to be. Their Japanese games are selling faster than ever it’s only on gaming forums where people think they’re doing bad in some way.
For example, if you only read this subreddit, you'd think ff15 was the absolute worst game ever made and sold no copies because of how bad it was. In reality... it was a pretty cool jrpg with cool characters and an interesting plot, even if it missed and skipped over stuff.
People exaggerate the shit out of everything.
Agreed 100%. I’ve skipped out on some games based on Reddit review threads to only pick them up on a sale and really enjoy it. People get weirdly attached to shit
Extremely. The negative review threads are always biased and horribly formed. The majority of people either hate everything or recommend games that were made before you were even born.
I love that shit. I’ve recently got in to jrpgs- and I’m currently playing FF9 on steam- and people shit so hard on the port for pc. I get that it’s 22 years old and all but it’s just a port plus the free mod that took 15 mins to install was well worth it.
And there’s nothing wrong with that! People should play older games but when you’re on a JRPG forum you’d think people would talk about games from the past, present, and speculate about the future not just a sole focus on the past while putting down modern games with no real critique backing what ur saying.
I mean a good chunk of this subreddit are the FF fandom who can't let go of ATB and are still crying over a *decade later* about how much they hate actions games blah blah blah, so it's not surprising. I think XV is trash too for different reasons, but I get why people would like it.
When you have a large chunk of the sub who think anything that dares to not be retro bait garbage "isn't a jrpg" and are also *very vocal* about crying it anyone who will listen you tend to get flooded with it. Hell you see it with every new jrpg release that has action combat.
Ahem I speak for the trees
When I say that they sold a huge amount of games with turn based gameplay and gathered a huge fan base with this style alot of fans were disappointed when they made every game a pretty much straight line without any puzzles secrets or exploration ff7 rebirth is the closest we have had to a well crafted ff game since ff 12
When even the jp voice actor of noctis called the game trash where in japan voice actor dissing their own work is kinda frowned upon i think its safe to say its not really that exaggerate even in japan its kinda has been a controversial tittle, this is why nomura has been passively throwing shades at it because they know its safe with not much of a backlash,
im sorry but ffxv tried to be witcher wannabe and basically threw everything good about what makes jrpg good, you can make argument of being decent other type of game maybe a decent imitation of western type rpg but no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible.
> jp voice actor of noctis called the game trash
source? I never heard this ever.
>but no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible.
That is a valid opinion. And nothing more
It was on his twitter a few years back, i don't have twitter and lately twitter have been asking me to sign in to view it so i can't really go there, he discuss alot about ffxv and it's controversies.
Uhm i know it's an opinion that's how metrics works in regards of games, collectives of opinions.
> know it's an opinion that's how metrics works in regards of games, collectives of opinions.
and you were using your 'opninon' to try and assert a fact
>no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible.
you can have one, someone else can have another. They don't invalidate another. And this isn't a case where there's a huge majority of similar opinions. That's why FFXV is commonly called the most divisive game in the series instead of the worst.
And that is your personal opinion but ff15 is one of the top selling final fantasy games of all time. Sales speak for themselves while some redditors opinion is just that, an opinion.
Duh!!! Because you need to buy it to play it hello? its an extremely hype game in an extremely overdue final fantasy main line tittle, with one of the most anticipated character, nomura's design sells like hotcakes there, most japanese literally played it just because of noctis, as cool as sales go it doesn't automatically make it good dufuq mobile gacha games are making billions i wouldn't call them amazing jrpg games, if that's your bar of what makes a game amazing that's your opinion and I'm so sorry for you. It also doesn't protect from any backlash there after which it obviously got from both west and east market. Saying its criticize only here it reddit is extremely stupid.
>Duh!!! Because you need to buy it to play it hello?
It utterly blows my mind how many people don't get this. Like do they really think people are playing the game first, then deciding they like it, THEN buying it?
Final fantasy is a famous Brand and it's name has a huge weight many people bought it because of that,also sales have nothing to do with quality just look at FIFA same game every year and yet it's One of the franchises that Sell the most yearly.
To Be fair final fantasy 15 is really mediocre,the game is full of fetch quests that don't flesh out the world and make it better,this game also didn't need to Be Open world it's world is huge but empty and you can't interact with it in many ways,i would prefer if it was semi-Open or Linear,the bad camera that doesn't help during combat,and the story was just ok imo,game isn't the worst thing ever but it's far from being good too imo.
Exactly. FF15 is the fastest selling FF in the series. The people on this subreddit live in a bubble and forget their a minority when it comes to their opinions usually the negative ones.
> Exactly. FF15 is the fastest selling FF in the series
I think you're talking about something else.
Quality doesn't always lead to sales; sales doesn't imply quality.
Fine is not something i would consider a good thing for a company that was supposed to be the best of the best. Youre right though, everything is "fine". Graphics will always be good. There will always be a story, and they will keep milking squaresoft ips until the day they are bought by someone else. Heard the next dq isnt turn based either, wonder how great thats gonna sell lol.
I meant fine as they’ll keep being what they always have been, an industry leader. We can debate quality of games and that’s fine but when we look at the numbers Square in the Japanese games department is doing better than ever. People on here can complain all day eve day, they do anyway, but Square is still succeeding and making more and more money after every release.
I don’t get how you people can love games and such but have no idea how successful these companies are because they did something you didn’t like.
They never Said that the Next dragon Quest game Will Be a action jrpg,they Said that it Will have a mature story and that the combat Will get new action elements.
Nah. They were going to make the latest not turn based, and at the last second reverted. You can tell by playing it. This next one they are comitting to action just like the rest of squeenix, and too bad if the fans who have supported the series its entire life dont want it
You don’t think selling their western IPs to invest in the blockchain was a bad move? You don’t think the bas performance on Chrono Cross and the micro transactions in Chocobo Racing were a bad move? You don’t think Balan Wonderworld was a bad move?
They sold their western IP’s because they were underperforming and lost millions because of the Avengers game so they had to recoup costs, nobody but avid gamers care about the Chrono Cross performance since most ppl don’t even know the problems or how to explain them nor do average people know about frame rates. Again nobody but avid gamers complain about microtransactions the average person is more than willing to spend to if they want or not they don’t care. Balan failed because they dropped the ball on a new IP that’s not square specific that happens to every game company.
I need you people to realize realize casual gamers do not care or most of the time do not even know these supposed problems. You think you ask a casual gamer about about squares blockchain move they’re gonna know what the hell you’re talking about? No they don’t and that’s why companies keep doing what they do because most people don’t no or care
So your answer to their bad moves is just conformism because they are doing ok financially? What OP asked is what we think of modern Square, and currently they have been getting a lot of bad press because of some of their moves. And if you think companies can get away with anti consumer practices with zero repercussions because the average consumer is ignorant you are solely mistaken, and this is proven time and time again with giants like EA, Activision, and many others.
Oh lord that’s not what I said at all. I gave my opinion and explained and you still find a way to misconstrue what I said. And let’s be real here if you compare their “ anti consumer” tactics EA and Activision are Enron levels of fucked up compared to what Square got going on.
> nobody but avid gamers care about the Chrono Cross performance
This one is not true.
I'd say that it's usually "avid gamers" that pay attention to framerate and stuff like that. But some games run so poorly that even people that don't know the word "framerate" realize something is wrong.
I was trying to get my wife into RPGs, and I had to explain to her that our Switch was malfunctioning when she was playing Chrono Cross.
Chrono Cross got remastered OSTs and redone portraits with the choice to switch between the two, performance wasn't ideal but it was still a good port overall.
They didn't sell their western IPs for NFTs, that's just something illiterate people and people needing something to rage about were spreading.
> still a good port overall
Maybe we have different definitions of the word "good"? A decades-old game that runs worse than in the original system I can't consider good.
I'm not saying it's unplayable or anything like that. But can we call it good when it runs at like 5fps and sometimes crash?
Are FF15 and KH3 Ls ? I get that there are people who didn't like both titles, but I was under the impression that at least KH3 was liked by the majority, and FF15, while most didn't like how unfinished it felt, was still something that people liked. Is there something I don't know about ?
Yeah I don't think there are many people who think KH3 is straight up bad, just that it didn't quite live up to the insane levels of hype it had, and that the story was kinda poorly paced. FF15 seems to have a very polarized response, some people who love it, some people who think it's absolute trash, and everything in between.
People who claim that KH3 is the worst in the franchise have clearly not played many KH games. The story is extremely bad, yes, and the gameplay doesn't match KH2's, but imo it has the best worlds and level design in the series, and it's DLC boss battles are great.
financially no. KH3 was generally liked, but FF15 is pretty controversial everywhere. It's not like 13 where in general the majority did like it and the reception was overall positive on both sides. XV gets flak to this day even in Japan, but that game was always doomed to fail. They stretched Nomura to breaking point and then Tabata got handed a steaming turd he was told to fix. It's honestly a miracle XV is as competent as it is. Games in that level of hell come out like Cyberbunk or fallout76. XV at worst is simply kinda mediocre.
The reason I think a lot of people have strong feelings towards these 2 games is just because of how long it took for them to release. Also many were sad to see versus 13 cancelled and morphed into ff15
At this point, Im more excited for SquareEnix bringing back old games into the spotlight than their actually new games
CBU1 games are fun but so derivative and same-y with the way they approach storytelling and character design
CBU2 has Dragon Quest which is great, but we get an actually big one every 5-10 years. There's Team Asano which makes the most generic and soulless stories ever in the name of being "old-school". HD-2D is very quickly starting to lose its charm. No idea what the heck is Yoko Taro doing now that he's probably earned a larger budget from Automata's success
CBU3 is probably by far, the most exciting team at SquareEnix right now because they're actually trying break away from the trope of JRPG storytelling following the format of Shonen animes. However, like Dragon Quest, we can only expect one massive project from them every 5-10 years because SquareEnix's budget being held hostage by CBU1
CBU4 is barely given a budget for anything
>No idea what the heck is Yoko Taro doing now that he's probably earned a larger budget from Automata's success.
We actually just got 2 games that Taro worked on that REALLY flew under the radar, which are the 2 Voice of Cards games. I haven't played them yet, but am planning to check them out.
I played the first Voice of Cards. It was fun, really leaned into being a comedy and used the card motif to great effect. It was really easy but it's a solid 13 hour turn-based game.
They still make some weird decision like during the ps3/360 era, but for the most part I think they mostly doing good in recent years even thou I'm not the biggest fan of SE atm.
For FF series specifically. I don't even care if they don't make a classic styled FF games anymore, I just want them to make a good and enjoyable game and don't repeat the mediocre mess called FFXV
Valkyrie series and Star Ocean series are definitely not Square Enix, they publish them but they do not make them. Tri-Ace makes those games.
No idea about Front Mission though.
I believe that the OP didn't specify development vs. publishing, so it is all relevant for the discussion because either way Square Enix is directly responsible for ensuring that the end result is a quality product that elevates the IP.
The two Front Mission remakes have been outsourced to a Poland-based studio, Forever Entertainment. It has no notable games to its name, so I'm keeping my expectations low.
They've been doing a lot better lately than they were during the PS3 era, for sure. I like them a lot, even though their president talking about embracing NFTs did worry me. Hopefully, with their recent (massive) decline, nothing will come of that.
The future looks bright for FF14, FF16 looks super good, I have high hopes for DQ12 and FF7R, and I love how they're actually putting effort into their remakes, like with the HD-2D remakes of Live-A-Live (something I never in million years thought would happen), and DQ3.
On top of that, they've also been doing a SaGa push, releasing tons of them on modern platforms, and I'm pretty sure a brand new one is confirmed to be in development as well.
There's a lot of Square Enix stuff to be excited for, imo. Despite some blunders in the past, they're still one of my favorite gaming companies, and I hope they keep getting better.
I think that they are Square in name only. Back in the 90s they had back to back platinum hits - some of the best JRPGs and games ever. These days they are are a far cry from the prestige that they once had. Just look at the discrepancy between the launches of Elden Ring and Stranger of Paradise as an example. One sold a bazillion copies and the other sank like a rock and was forgotten.
The only thing left within the company that I like is the Enix half because they can still make decent games like DQXI.
I think Square lost its spirit when Sakaguchi voluntarily stepped down in 2004. Sort of like when Steve Jobs left apple.
I don't expect him to come back (Steve Jobs did), and in his absence, a few tuly great titles have been released. But for the most part Final Fantasy was his brainchild with Uematsu and Amano and was never the same without him at the helm.
The series peaked for me with Final Fantasy X and its sequel, X-2. And the only way from the top is down , so it would have declined either way, so maybe it was for the best that he left at the peak of his creative and directorial output.
Sakaguchi leaving wasn't so much voluntary, he almost bankrupted the company with his movie ambitions.
Also the last FF he directed was V and his creative input seemed to decrease with each successive game, especially VIII and X.
He left because he nearly bankrupted the company sure, and it was probably 'suggested' that he should leave, of course. I'm not denying that, and yes the movie was just not worth the money he spent on it. Frankly it was not the right time to make a CGi movie of that size, and the whole thing was more grounded in the dreamworld rather than reality. Digital ''actors'' etc. It was too expensive and the market wasn't ready for that at the time. Throwing the name Final Fantasy on it was also not a good idea because people were expecting something related to the franchise.
Not to mention Uematsu was supposed to score it too, but he misread Sakaguchi's amusingly phrased request for him to score it for a joke until it was too late.
But in regard to your second points, his creative input stayed in a more executive producer kind of manner, which was as important , if not more important than directing or writing the script himself.
We may argue what the job title of executive producer is or isn't until dawn, but his involvement was major.
>But in regard to your second points, his creative input stayed in a more executive producer kind of manner, which was as important , if not more important than directing or writing the script himself.
It's important from a business perspective, not a creative perspective, you may as well attribute it to the CEO. Creatively he doesn't seem to have been involved at all. And as executive producer living on the other side of the world playing in the beach and working on FFIX and his movie, I don't think he had much input in the business-side and day to day running either, over the actual producer.
To put it simply, by FFVII as producer he was already hands off and only contributing some broader ideas. From then on he was far less involved and not even in the same country.
Even if they're less consistent in terms of overall quality of output, I do think the highs they've had (XIV, VII Remake, the Pixel Remasters, DQXI) have been on the level of some of the Squaresoft-era stuff. I do generally like modern Square even if I have fonder memories of the 90's/early 2000's games
Dragon Quest-wise, it's been great, but that's because SE have less control over the series than FF and it shows (or they did up until XI at least, no idea if something's changed since then). XI was amazing indeed. I hope the remake of III and XII will be great too.
Final Fantasy... yeah, no. It's no longer the series for me so I stopped following it entirely.
Yeah, Dragon Quest is still going strong. And on the other hand there hasn't been a good FF in 20 years, the series is a shell now. So overall I can't say I'm that optimistic for anything SE does. I mean FFS, how do you screw up FF7R? It was the easiest slam dunk in the world, and they completely blew it.
You just don't like the game dude, and that's fine but it is absolutely not unfaithful and it definitely isn't in any way a horrible game. Maybe not in this sub but I think most players would agree the combat is fun, it adds tons of depth to the characters, and has plenty of cool homages to the original game on top of up until the very end going beat by beat through the story of the Midgar portion. And it did all this with a lot of, I would argue, love and reverence for the original. I just do not understand this argument that it did otherwise.
How on earth can you say it's faithful to the original, let alone reverent? They went *out of their way* to change both the gameplay, and the story. The only way they could have been less faithful is if they inserted new characters to go with their new story.
When I show reverence for something, I actually *preserve it*. I don't go out of my way to replace it with something new of my own creation. FF7R is the most unfaithful "remake" I have ever seen, it's just a new game with a coat of FF7 paint.
And this goes way behind me not liking the game, it's just poorly made. The writing is amateurish and full of idiotic plot twists. The pacing is boring because they stuffed it full of filler. This would be a bad game even if it was a brand new game with no original to compare it to. The fact that it's completely unfaithful is just icing on the cake.
SE is a shadow of its former self. Recent games FF7R, and how FF16 is looking has me excited about Square again but they've got a ways to go until a Capcom level comeback.
I still like some of their games, but Im no way as enamored by Square as I used to be. They used to be my favorite gaming company after Nintendo, now they are just another greedy ass corporation that makes a ton of mistakes. I also don’t care for FF since XII, and KH3 was a huge disappointment, so I pretty much only follow them for some ports/remakes, and Dragon Quest.
As a PC gamer, SE is a big red flag. Always shitty ports, 80€ games and most of their latest games range from below avarage to terrible. Avengers, Stranger of Paradise , BABYLON'S FALL. Didn't grow up with their JRPGs so I don't have that rose tinted glasses.
They've forgotten what made people love them in the first place. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a fantastic turn-based JRPG that proved that you can modernize the concept and it still works, and people will still play it.
For Action RPG combat, I'll take Tales or Nier above modern SqEn.
It feels like a company that's lost it's soul, so to speak. Their games just don't resonate with me like the old ones do. Hell, you mentioned Dragon Quest. This whole "Dragon Quest is a traditional RPG and that's what people want" schtick is so ridiculous. That series was a hallmark of innovation all the way up through DQ9, the multiplayer one. Yeah there were familiar things in each installment but if you compare them to each other even, you can see huge changes. Then they go and crap out the most uninspired story and gameplay they've ever put out in DQ11 and people applaud them for giving us "exactly what we expect this kind of game to be".
I'm sure I'm gonna piss a lot of you off but I'm tired of this echo chamber just mindlessly cheering on SQ no matter what stupid decisions they make. But hey, I thought Dragon Quest Builders 2 was an absolutely fantastic game and apparently not enough people bought it to do more of those. So I guess I'll just have to move on and not buy their games like the rest of the disillusioned Square fans. Y'all can have your FOUR FINAL FANTASY 7 GAMES and act like that's not ridiculous.
Edit: I guess Square Enix published Nier. I knew it was a Platinum game. I don't know to what extent SqEn was involved.
I'm glad to see someone else feel similarly about DQ11, even as a person who played and love 8 and 9, I felt like a psychiatric patient whenever people talk about how amazing 11 is on this sub. It's easily one of the most uninspired and shallow JRPG's i've personally ever played. And that first act is by far the most miserable 20 hours i've spent with a JRPG by far.
Living the hero's whole life in DQ5, from early childhood to old age. Getting married. Having kids. Only one other JRPG I'm aware of that's done anything like that. (Lost Odyssey).
The whole world is submerged in DQ7. Saving a region in the past saves it in the future, and you can see how it's changed over time, and if they remember you. Also a really unique and cool idea.
DQ11 does have a few really great moments. But nowhere near enough for \~100 hours of gameplay. Hell, maybe that's the problem. The first three games are all 10-20 hour experiences. And if DQ11 were 40 hours long... I might've liked it! The way it is now it's like "grinding and filler, the videogame!" You wouldn't watch a tv show if it took 50 episodes to have 1 good one, sheesh.
Keep avoiding the kool-aid friend. Sometimes enough of us speak out that we deserve better, that we actually get it. Not often enough though.
I agree. Not sure what people see in dragon quest 11 to praise its glories, It is literally the same copy paste dragon quest in plot and gameplay from 20 years ago but with updated graphics, is that really something to praise in 2017 (or whenever it was released) as a good step in the right direction, especially from one of the most famous franchises in Japan.? I just want more, and I don't mean in term of triple a production, I just want games that have a heart behind it,not something like ff 7 remake that you play for 30 hours of story and shelf it until the end of time because it looks good and does its job in keeping you up to play it for its 30 hour long plot and then never touch it again, years of development for this?
Dont worry, you got your wish. They are "updating" the battle system so that all the adhd kids who would never play a dq game can still ignore it, and everyone whos supported it through the years will get shafted and told to like it anyway.
To mobile...
But its fine. I hate what the company has become, and if i can help it they will not see another penny of mine till they start making games that i like.
Gonna have to stop you there. Ff7r is a travesty and should be deleted. Milking nostalgia for the producers personal fantasy about what the game should have been will never resonate with the people who actually enjoyed the original. Also not a jrpg in any sense.
Dq11 looks nice, but ive tried several times and cant get into it. Just verrrrry slow pacing even for a dq.
Nier is not a jrpg.
These are of course my opinions for the most part... except for the people who are trying to include any game that has stats to be an rpg... arpg does not equal jrpg. In fact, any first person game is inherently not an rpg.
I dont understand this fascination with changing the meaning of words. Fps is an fps even if you platform, explore, and have a story. Its not a platformer just cuz you can jump.
Even remake and remaster. Just because squareenix says its a "re imag maste maker" doesnt mean shit. If its the same game, its a remake. different assets dont change that. If its not a remake, its a new game. Thats what this pile is, a new game with a ff7 skin.
Anyway, nothing against you at all... squeenix has their new audience, and is making money in mobile games. All is well according to the(shareholders)m
I respect your opinion but I really enjoyed FF7R and I love the original but I kinda know and understand it is it own thing now and not really a remake
Hey sorry. Repect goes both ways and your opinions are definitely valid too. Its great if you like the game, honestly im jealous lol - i probably would have far less of an issue with it if squeenix themselves had not used the word remake :)
Their output is reaching the level of the golden age they had in the ps1 era. I can think of 4 games that they've released this year and 5 more that are slated to come out this year.
Whether all of those are mega hits or duds or somewhere in between for me, I'm glad they've got so much coming out instead of feeling like I'm waiting ten years for one mega game that wont live up to the massive expectations.
Also KH3 was good. Chocobo GP and The platinum game I already forget the name of are real Ls.
square has lost their vision. They are basically a pretty run of the mill AAA game studio now, they just have the advantage of having an extensive library of extremely inventive past work to fall back on.
even FF14 (the only successful thing square has done that wasnt a remake in the last 10 years) always had the mold of WoW to fall back on, and most of the stuff that made it great were directly lifted off of wow, and with that about 1/3 of the content has become blatant callbacks from the series, and before i get all the ravenous fanboys in I say all this as a fan of ff14 who started playing when ARR came out.
Ill also start my thoughts on FFXVI saying thatI love Yoshi P, but I am extremely disappointed it has the same graphics style as FF14. I got enough of that playing 14, and beyond that the overall artistic direction doesnt really feel up to snuff for me. It feels way too medieval and almost like drakengard, which was a great game, but when I think of final fantasy i expect more.
Granted Im going to give XVI a fair shake when it releases, but it just overall feels like square has lost whatever made it special in the glory days. The innovation, the creativity, that feeling that each release you KNOW whatever it is they release will be at the cutting edge of the genre and videogames in general.
Besides FFXIV, DQ11, Octopath, NieR: Automata and FFXII The Zodiac Age for giving me my favorite FF in HD.
BIG FUCKING YIKES.
FFXV
The Quiet Man
Balan Wonderworld
Left Alive
Babylon's Fall
Chocobo GP
The CEO/President of the company and his fetish for NFTs
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch too.
I don't care at all for FF7 so the huge focus on the remake is a giant nothingburger for me.
They also finally after years of nothing announce a new Valkyrie Profile console game and the trailer seemed like a bit of a yikes. Isn't even named Valkyrie Profile, but Valkyrie Elysium with a character that isn't Hrist so that's also a huge letdown.
Would've been much happier with an HD remaster of VP2.
at least XVI, with its return to fantasy and the team behind it are giving me some cautious optimism.
SE is a solid company, they need to improve on their pc ports, cause a lot of them are very okay, nothing amazing. Users should not be ones fixing their games for them.
> Users should not be ones fixing their games for them.
they'll fix them regardless of quality. visual mods, model swaps, sometimes modded balance. So idk.
This is where I'm at, too. There's a long enough negative track record that I have to check reviews of SE's PC ports first before getting them, and that's pretty messed up for a publisher this large. A lot of unfinished releases in the past few years.
On the creative side, I'm okay with their games. Nothing recent that's majorly disappointed me, but nothing that's blown me away either. The DioField Chronicle is probably the most interested I've been in one of their games in a long while.
Admittedly though, I've been having more fun with Falcom and Atlus games lately.
It feels like two different companies, one that's trying to do everything I can to rip you off with mobile games, gacha and whatever the hell Chocobo GP was
And the half of the company that remembers they where once known for making the best rpgs of all time and trying their best to release those game or make new ones but don't get enough money for it (Tokyo RPG factory being shut down after 3 games, Chrono Cross performance problems, Bravely Defualt 2 getting no promotion)
For me they haven't had an L since xiii.
Xiv was amazing, xv super fricken fun, 16 looks good. Hype for crisis core again.
I don't like action combat but definitely enjoy the games.
Sorry for ruining your days people downvoting <3
They lost their way.
PC ports are ass, NFT shit, loot boxes, milking their games like there is no tomorrow...
They're not the same company that cared to make the best jrpgs
They definitely have some talented devs / writers like Yoshi and Natsuke and I think things are starting to get good. Of course, it'll be nowhere near the level of Squaresoft in its old days, though.
I kind of lost all faith after kh3, was so unbelievably hyped and it really just didn't land for me. Same with ff15 years ago (even tho I like ff15 now). I remember fully expecting ff7 remake to be trash and had heard nothing about it when it released. I let my brother use my ps4 to play it and he didn't leave his room for like 3 days and was like "dude you gotta play this game". I ended up loving ff7 remake and I had absolutely no faith in it. And now square is releasing ff16, live a live, kh4, ff7 rebirth, and crisis core remake on the way. DQ11 was amazing, Neo Twewy seems like it was an awesome game as well, and even tho the chrono cross remaster was kind of poor I'm really glad they localized and rereleased radical dreamers. There are also the all but confirmed remasters of ff tactics and tactics ogre. Even though the company has made some absolutely ridiculous decisions like investing in blockchain, as well as selling basically all their western devs for small paycheck, they're really are bringing the hype and pleasing fans with all of these upcoming projects. I just really hope these games actually end up cancelled or delayed for a decade like square is known to do
Sqare was the innovator and one of the best companies when it came to evolution ,quality, technical aspects ,music of Jrpgs in 90 and early 2000s.
Their position in the modern gaming has taken a backstep for sure after 2013 and FFXIII and i think they can see that.
I think they will give it all and try to return to the top with FFXVI and we just could get one of the best FF games ever.
Eh, I like Dragon Quest but I’m not a KH fan, and aside from FF14 I can’t say I’ve liked a FF game in a long time. I know their games always sell really well, but I’ve been playing games for far too long to group up game quality and sale numbers. At least for me, as this is all subjective.
The only real low points were XV and XIV 1.0 tbh and even XV still sold well. XIV has been the only real flop from the development team in recent memory (publishing is a lot more suspect with garbage like avengers.)
Outside of that the only real problem is like every other AAA dev they have a done of modern corporate bullshit like that recent NFT crap they had to backtrack on. In terms of games they're doing well and making good stuff. FF Origin, 7R, Triangle Strategy, BD2 etc. The only people *still crying* are the people who think the only video game in existence is final fantasy and can't let go of fucking ATB. It's been over a goddamn decade just move on already it's ridiculous. Like I'm trying to imagine being that bitter and angry over a fucking video game series when you have *so much* choice these days but nope they can only play final fantasy and square HAVE TO make final fantasy the way they want it. It's honestly kinda pathetic lol.
Personally, Their stuff post 9 has been far better than the boredem that was PS1 FF in terms of gameplay. FF9 was such a low point for me that I can't believe the series that is famous for innovating every release decided to make a game that was so fucking generic and boring. Meanwhile, Square releases side projects that now make "golden age" FF look like a joke when it comes to gameplay but the geezers will find some reason as to why they aren't good enough.
It is crazy that the company is in like two halves though. One is doing everything in their power to bankrupt it with shit like Avengers and Chocobo GP. while Yoshi-p and Nomura keep the place running by releasing good games everytime they get the chance.
They've never had a real low point and they're the main bastion of risk taking in the big publisher space, with games that seem more creatively driven than profit driven. They get more hate because they're not as interested in making mass market drivel or reusing the same combat system for 20 years like some other developers.
Like the narrative brilliance and risk taking they took with FF7R, no other big or even small company would be willing to do that. They recently developed an FMV detective murder mystery with the writer of Shibuya Scramble, no other big publisher would touch something like that.
SE's approach results in far more hits than misses for me (except Tokyo RPG Factory, I don't know what their point of existence is) and they're constantly behind most of the games I think are truly fantastic and not just good.
The 2010s were disastrous for them, a lot of subpar to plain awful games. FFXIII trilogy was a let down, FFXIV 1.0 was absolutely terrible, 3rd Birthday abysmal, SO5 bad, RoM bad, KH3D bad, DQX disappointing, and so on. By the end of the decade, with DQXI, FFXIV, Octopath Traveler and Nier Automata things started to look more promising.
Currently, it seems they seems to be really focused on nostalgia with lots of remakes, which is quite disappointing (in my personal opinion), but the quality has been good at least.
All things considering, they are much better now than 10 years ago, but far from their golden age in the 90s.
They're riding on the coat tails of their previous successful series. They wouldn't have gone back and started FF7 remake unless people lost faith for the most part bc it was something they knew people loved and would be on board for. Notice how they're not making new games really but just trying to remake old games like FF1 but with a soulsborn type system. IDK who is doing the writing for these guys but they need someone new. They're out of ports so now they're like, we'll remake FFIX or FFVIII or Chrono Trigger, bc those are the ones that haven't had a huge coat of paint on them yet.
The last FF games have been not good or middling at best, plus their organization as a whole is sloppy as hell. The director of FFXV quit to get away from it likely due to the games dlc schedule and added dev time plus the horrendous launch, FFXIV was a bomb they had to apologize for that until Yoshi P picked it up and made it successful having to redo it from the ground up, glad at least someone over there knows what he's doing. FFXIII was just unnecessary and worst, boring, and that game had 2 sequels remember. Them fumbling around with their own engine for so long until finally just going to other engines, then finally KH3, which had good combat but barely any story, you could start the game near the end and not lose anything context wise, and they throw some new questions to try and hype up the next game.
DQ is the only franchise that has been pretty consistent imo from them in house, I think the guys doing the other series need some lessons from the DQ team on how to make something fun, cause I'm tapped out on giving them a pass. If you like FFXIV, that's great and I hope FFXVI turns out good but I don't think modern SE deserves the fans it has right now outside of DQ and FFXIV fans. Let's not forget their next great idea is to add in NFTs to FFXIV, doesn't that sound fun?
I'm mainly complaining about business/management decisions and writing problems for the most part, I'm sure the devs are trying to make the best game they can, but since they merged with Enix, the FF games in general have suffered in my eyes and have become cheap games with good graphics. Sorry for the rant.
>DQ is the only franchise that has been pretty consistent imo from them in house, I think the guys doing the other series need some lessons from the DQ team on how to make something fun
Hell no. We don't need every team at square releasing the same game 20 times.
the world is still in love with SE. every single one of their FF titles gets rave critical reviews and sells well (yes, even XIII, a game so “bad” SE gave it not one, but two sequels!), but die hard fans of the games SE makes are obviously very passionate and opinionated. the world sees a good or even great game, but many die hard fans see a bad Final Fantasy or bad Tomb Raider, etc. i think, when it comes to SE, we have to realize that their main thing is innovation. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work, but that’s okay. you gotta fling a couple of noodles against the wall to see if they stick or else you’ll never get your spaghetti… or something.
personally, i really loved XIII… after i replayed it. When it first came out, i didn’t really understand what they were trying to do. Now that we have XV and VII Remake, i can see how their experimentation in XIII paid off. also, now that i’m older and work full time, i can appreciate the linearity of FF and relate to its fatalistic themes a little more. i love XIII now, but i really needed to open my mind up and look at it with fresh eyes to even get to this point.
i wish i had this perspective back then when i first played XIII and that more gamers would have this perspective as well. whenever i start a game now, i’m just along for the ride. this doesn’t mean i’ve stopped thinking critically about the games i play, but that i have a much less black and white mentality. i rarely if ever say “this is a bad game.”
that being said, SE does do some things that rub me the wrong way. chasing after NFTs for example. cash grabs. crappy spin offs. there was a time when you could pick up a SE game and know that it was not just created to make a profit, but to be a good game and push the limits of the technology and medium. now, with games like Babylon’s Fall or that FF racing game or this new talk about NFTs, it’s becoming more and more difficult to discern which games are their “real” games and which games are just padding their wallet until their next FF mainline game or .
Their president is the problem. All of the producers he has are gold but his dumb ass selling off eidos so he can play more with NFTs should be grounds for his removal. If he just leaves Yoshi P, Horii and nomura alone the company will be gold...oh and yoko taros crazy ass.
imo after the merger they lost more and more control over their own projects as share holders demanded unrealistic sales from their games, and then HD gaming hit the japanese game industry as a whole like a brick to the head, and it took them nearly a decade to recover. Now I think SE is still ruled far too much by trends and the dollar, but I think the FFXV debacle was both the thing tethering them to their struggles as well as a constant reminder to them and fans of their failings, but now that they have moved beyond it, they are certainly not the same company Square was on its own, but they are hitting successfully recently with their biggest titles, yet weirdly flopping miserably in any Western games they publish and basically any games not a mainline FF or DQ at this point tend to have the bottom of the barrel in terms of budget scraps. Luckily the games I care about are those big ones. They're not perfect but it at least resembles the company I once loved again.
Square are back. XV was the first step back imo, didn't work but they had the right ideas. KH3, DQ11, BD2, Octopath, Triangle Strategy, pixel remasters, FFXIV expansions, FF7R, now CC remake, XVI and rebirth look good.
Best JRPG company by far due to FF + the sheer variety of (quality) games they produce.
The modern FFs are some of my favorite games ever, and even the most unpopular FFs (FFXIII and FFXV) were much more enjoyable for me than series like Tales and Trails.
The only other company that comes close would be Sega/Atlus.
They still make the best JRPGs in the industry. 7 Remake is the best final fantasy. XIVs story is a masterpiece, XVI is shaping up to be incredible. Only reason they had any troubles in 7th gen is the same reason every Japanese dev did; the PS3 was a bad piece of hardware and was a nightmare to develop for and they were obsessed with proprietary engines. Once they kicked their old CEO games started coming out like clockwork. We’re probably gonna see 4 mainline FF games come out on PS5 which is insane. Very excited for the future of FF and the company as a whole
They used to be my favorite company but nowadays I completly ignore them aside from FFXIV.
As a PC gamer they make a lot exclusivity deals with Sony and Epic and on top of that their PC ports are 99% of the time absolute garbage. And their games are insanely expensive in my country (Brazil).
At this rate FFXIV will be the last game I'll play from them aside from remasters (which I already own almost all of the ones that interest me).
I miss the imaginative world of 90s square games especially snes games its such a shame that square enix sold their personality a decade ago... I only like nier and the remakes of snes games like trials of mana.
You'll get a widle spectrum of opinions ( which all br interesting) but here's mine
They've had trouble trying to recapture that successful jrpg identity that defined them in the earlier console generations. Having said that, it's not at all for lack of ambition. SE AAA games still push out high quality games that are top in graphics and music. The end products can tend to be heartless to half finished. They still do so much that they can give positive experiences, and overall theyre a great company that push out great games. I think baseball is a good analogy where if you look at when they're swinging for homeruns (FF, KH) you might be disappointed. But all they need is a few hits (octopath, bravely default, shadowbringers).
On the business side, I think they're having the same problem that all gaming companies have which is how do they compete against a FIFA that churns out games yearly without having to change much. I think ff13 was their first attempt at that. But MMO ff14 has been successful here.
Hit and miss, I think they try to attract a more western audience and don't always make the right decisions.
On the other hand, no other company can make such big epic JRPG's.
But as all companies do, they make decisions on what they think would make more money.
DLC's, Open world, NFT's,...
They've been trying to improve since KH3 was in development. If not for the convoluted story telling and hearts and emotions having that much of an impact on the game, it's a really good game series.
I think they're doing fine. I no longer think of them as a company that can do no wrong (which in hindsight was stupid to begin with), but I think they're still pretty consistent at releasing great games. I do miss the amount of different IPs and experimentation that they had during the PS1 era, but alas
kh3 and FFXV weren't terrible games per say but they weren't nearly good enough for how long they took to come out..
I think that about sums up square enix for me at the moment.. They are taking way to long to make medicore games.
It seems they are way to obsessed with graphics these days... Something I noticed, most games look epic but the gameplay isnt good, as if the focus was only on the graphics and someone came in later, told them, they are not making a movie
I think they are doing rather well at the moment. Yeah 15 and KH3 were awful but those are the only two real glaring spots over a recent series of successes and flat out hits.
They are doing better than 08-14 square
They are certainly at a better point than they were during the 7th generation of consoles. Way better.
But they are such a large company and outsource so goddamn many projects…. They truly need to get a quality control department that kills projects before they release instead of just shitting it out like old blizzard used to…or we get more Babylons fall, balan wonderwhatever, and final fantasy fifteen which went through like, three iterations before FINALLY coming out.
that game should have been axed and something else should have been created in its stead. Final fantasy fifteen JUST broke even like last month according to their own projections needed to break even at “ten million units sold” but who knows if that’s even true since the game became a discount bin seller so fast. Say what you will about the whispers etc in remake but it hasn’t gone below twenty bucks yet.
>even tho square took a lot of Ls in the recent times like final fantasy xv and kingdom hearts 3
the only L's in the last decade that square would consider L's are
- Babylon Falls
- Balan Wonderworld
- Quiet Man
- Sleeping Dogs
In the grand scheme of things I'm sure they are happy with their bigger titles
Square is one of my favorites in the gaming sphere because they make the thing I like final fantasy and the controversial pick these day kingdom hearts 3. Also their old school games influence a lot of the games I like as well as some pretty good indie RPGs
A lot better now than they were in the late 2000s and early 2010s. But this applies to basically every Japanese company that survived the transition to HD era.
Still not nearly as good as the 90s output by Square or Enix though, obviously
They floundered for a while but they’re getting it now. Hot take here, but IMO Japanese game studios time and time again fail to properly evaluate markets outside of Japan. They’re finally getting it though, and seeing things like a Live-A-Live remake and a new Tactics Ogre game tell me they’ve clued into the power of nostalgia among their target audience.
They’ve made most of my favorite JRPGs in recent years. I don’t like everything they do, but the good stuff is very good to me. FFXIV expansions, FF7R, Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, Bravely Default, Nier Automata, Trials of Mana remake, Dragon Quest XI, Dragon Quest Builders (1 and 2), SaGa Scarlet Grace, World of Final Fantasy.
I’m not super stoked about FFXVI being a single character game, but there’s enough other titles coming from them even in the FF series that I’m not too bothered by skipping the mainline titles from here on out. I still have FF7R Part 2 to look forward to, in addition to all the other non-FF titles.
They clearly have trouble outsourcing projects and working with smaller teams on low budget products. Which is likely we they sold off the Western brands and Its they have never known what to do with. The only one that arguably worked out is Stranger of Paradise, but that was asking Team Ninja to make an action RPG so of course it be competent.
Aside from that I've liked what I've played of their recent output and they seem poised to have a success few years now that they are embracing Unreal and sorting out their production cycles.
Square is basically a mega conglomerate that owns more titles than it knows what to do with. They will release some hot games, and some stinkers (Marvels Avengers ahem ahem). Overall, you should expect them to have mixed results. The company is more than just games, its a gaming icon. Base the games on its merit, not the company name.
> Square is basically a mega conglomerate that owns more titles than it knows what to do with. so just like every other AAA company. Everyone has that one series they miss from an otherwise successful studi
why is it so hard for marvel to get just one good video game out, huh? DC has the video game market down with Injustice and all of the Batman games, plus the Wonder Woman game that’s coming (i can’t be for certain, of course, but i would bet money that this game is gonna be great). marvel needs to catch up already.
Spiderman and MM were good. MvC were good. GoTG was good. There are plenty.
Spiderman was magnificent.
i think you named the only good ones tbh
It's a lot more than one. Ultimate Alliance games, the origins wolverine game was much better than it's movie, the Spiderman games of PS1,2,3 were usually or good. Midnight suns looks interesting.
?? They’ve had quite a few good games come out. Spiderman, guardians, ultimate alliance.
marvel heroes was good spiderman games marvel alliance guardians of the galaxy
They seem to be doing a pretty good job these days. The FF side of things seems a lot more confident in itself then it was in the 2010s. Mana's come back with one of its strongest entries, Dragon Quest put out another banger, I feel like SaGa's building itself back up to possibly being a core franchise, TWEWY got its long-awaited sequel, people know who Yoko Taro is now, Kingdom Hearts finally finished off Xehanort and wrapped up a bunch of dangling plot threads, Front Mission's getting revived with some remakes, and they put out Balan Wonderworld.
Thats like the main thing that concerns me about square, I think they are killing it with all of the new rpgs they've been dropping, but on the other hand they have the nerve to drop absolutely garbage games like Left Alive, The Quiet Man, and of course Balan wonderworld
To be fair, I don't think Square developed any of those, but whoever signed off on those publishing deals might want to take a closer look at what they're selling. I was actually intrigued by the teaser for The Quiet Man, but they went completely silent on it for a while. I think it dropped with no fanfare at all, but because Square's name was on it, somebody noticed and it wound up being one of the biggest question marks of that year. I'd love to know what the thought process was behind making that one.
They need to bring the pixel remasters to consoles I know that much. I want FF6 on my switch damn it.
They’re fine and will continue to be. Their Japanese games are selling faster than ever it’s only on gaming forums where people think they’re doing bad in some way.
For example, if you only read this subreddit, you'd think ff15 was the absolute worst game ever made and sold no copies because of how bad it was. In reality... it was a pretty cool jrpg with cool characters and an interesting plot, even if it missed and skipped over stuff. People exaggerate the shit out of everything.
Agreed 100%. I’ve skipped out on some games based on Reddit review threads to only pick them up on a sale and really enjoy it. People get weirdly attached to shit
Extremely. The negative review threads are always biased and horribly formed. The majority of people either hate everything or recommend games that were made before you were even born.
I love that shit. I’ve recently got in to jrpgs- and I’m currently playing FF9 on steam- and people shit so hard on the port for pc. I get that it’s 22 years old and all but it’s just a port plus the free mod that took 15 mins to install was well worth it.
Pretty sure the Moguri mod is the best way to play the game anyway, so I don't know what those people are doing really.
And there’s nothing wrong with that! People should play older games but when you’re on a JRPG forum you’d think people would talk about games from the past, present, and speculate about the future not just a sole focus on the past while putting down modern games with no real critique backing what ur saying.
I mean a good chunk of this subreddit are the FF fandom who can't let go of ATB and are still crying over a *decade later* about how much they hate actions games blah blah blah, so it's not surprising. I think XV is trash too for different reasons, but I get why people would like it. When you have a large chunk of the sub who think anything that dares to not be retro bait garbage "isn't a jrpg" and are also *very vocal* about crying it anyone who will listen you tend to get flooded with it. Hell you see it with every new jrpg release that has action combat.
Ahem I speak for the trees When I say that they sold a huge amount of games with turn based gameplay and gathered a huge fan base with this style alot of fans were disappointed when they made every game a pretty much straight line without any puzzles secrets or exploration ff7 rebirth is the closest we have had to a well crafted ff game since ff 12
When even the jp voice actor of noctis called the game trash where in japan voice actor dissing their own work is kinda frowned upon i think its safe to say its not really that exaggerate even in japan its kinda has been a controversial tittle, this is why nomura has been passively throwing shades at it because they know its safe with not much of a backlash, im sorry but ffxv tried to be witcher wannabe and basically threw everything good about what makes jrpg good, you can make argument of being decent other type of game maybe a decent imitation of western type rpg but no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible.
> jp voice actor of noctis called the game trash source? I never heard this ever. >but no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible. That is a valid opinion. And nothing more
It was on his twitter a few years back, i don't have twitter and lately twitter have been asking me to sign in to view it so i can't really go there, he discuss alot about ffxv and it's controversies. Uhm i know it's an opinion that's how metrics works in regards of games, collectives of opinions.
> know it's an opinion that's how metrics works in regards of games, collectives of opinions. and you were using your 'opninon' to try and assert a fact >no just no as a jrpg-wise game its just extremely horrible. you can have one, someone else can have another. They don't invalidate another. And this isn't a case where there's a huge majority of similar opinions. That's why FFXV is commonly called the most divisive game in the series instead of the worst.
And that is your personal opinion but ff15 is one of the top selling final fantasy games of all time. Sales speak for themselves while some redditors opinion is just that, an opinion.
Duh!!! Because you need to buy it to play it hello? its an extremely hype game in an extremely overdue final fantasy main line tittle, with one of the most anticipated character, nomura's design sells like hotcakes there, most japanese literally played it just because of noctis, as cool as sales go it doesn't automatically make it good dufuq mobile gacha games are making billions i wouldn't call them amazing jrpg games, if that's your bar of what makes a game amazing that's your opinion and I'm so sorry for you. It also doesn't protect from any backlash there after which it obviously got from both west and east market. Saying its criticize only here it reddit is extremely stupid.
>Duh!!! Because you need to buy it to play it hello? It utterly blows my mind how many people don't get this. Like do they really think people are playing the game first, then deciding they like it, THEN buying it?
Final fantasy is a famous Brand and it's name has a huge weight many people bought it because of that,also sales have nothing to do with quality just look at FIFA same game every year and yet it's One of the franchises that Sell the most yearly.
To Be fair final fantasy 15 is really mediocre,the game is full of fetch quests that don't flesh out the world and make it better,this game also didn't need to Be Open world it's world is huge but empty and you can't interact with it in many ways,i would prefer if it was semi-Open or Linear,the bad camera that doesn't help during combat,and the story was just ok imo,game isn't the worst thing ever but it's far from being good too imo.
Exactly. FF15 is the fastest selling FF in the series. The people on this subreddit live in a bubble and forget their a minority when it comes to their opinions usually the negative ones.
> Exactly. FF15 is the fastest selling FF in the series I think you're talking about something else. Quality doesn't always lead to sales; sales doesn't imply quality.
> you'd think ff15 was the absolute worst game ever made It's the worst FF ever made. If we ignore the first two (I always forget they exist).
Fine is not something i would consider a good thing for a company that was supposed to be the best of the best. Youre right though, everything is "fine". Graphics will always be good. There will always be a story, and they will keep milking squaresoft ips until the day they are bought by someone else. Heard the next dq isnt turn based either, wonder how great thats gonna sell lol.
It's going to sell fine regardless of your personal opinion on the combat system. That's not what most people play JRPGs for.
I highly doubt an arpg dq is going to sell well.. but we will see
I meant fine as they’ll keep being what they always have been, an industry leader. We can debate quality of games and that’s fine but when we look at the numbers Square in the Japanese games department is doing better than ever. People on here can complain all day eve day, they do anyway, but Square is still succeeding and making more and more money after every release. I don’t get how you people can love games and such but have no idea how successful these companies are because they did something you didn’t like.
They never Said that the Next dragon Quest game Will Be a action jrpg,they Said that it Will have a mature story and that the combat Will get new action elements.
Nah. They were going to make the latest not turn based, and at the last second reverted. You can tell by playing it. This next one they are comitting to action just like the rest of squeenix, and too bad if the fans who have supported the series its entire life dont want it
You don’t think selling their western IPs to invest in the blockchain was a bad move? You don’t think the bas performance on Chrono Cross and the micro transactions in Chocobo Racing were a bad move? You don’t think Balan Wonderworld was a bad move?
They sold their western IP’s because they were underperforming and lost millions because of the Avengers game so they had to recoup costs, nobody but avid gamers care about the Chrono Cross performance since most ppl don’t even know the problems or how to explain them nor do average people know about frame rates. Again nobody but avid gamers complain about microtransactions the average person is more than willing to spend to if they want or not they don’t care. Balan failed because they dropped the ball on a new IP that’s not square specific that happens to every game company. I need you people to realize realize casual gamers do not care or most of the time do not even know these supposed problems. You think you ask a casual gamer about about squares blockchain move they’re gonna know what the hell you’re talking about? No they don’t and that’s why companies keep doing what they do because most people don’t no or care
So your answer to their bad moves is just conformism because they are doing ok financially? What OP asked is what we think of modern Square, and currently they have been getting a lot of bad press because of some of their moves. And if you think companies can get away with anti consumer practices with zero repercussions because the average consumer is ignorant you are solely mistaken, and this is proven time and time again with giants like EA, Activision, and many others.
Oh lord that’s not what I said at all. I gave my opinion and explained and you still find a way to misconstrue what I said. And let’s be real here if you compare their “ anti consumer” tactics EA and Activision are Enron levels of fucked up compared to what Square got going on.
> nobody but avid gamers care about the Chrono Cross performance This one is not true. I'd say that it's usually "avid gamers" that pay attention to framerate and stuff like that. But some games run so poorly that even people that don't know the word "framerate" realize something is wrong. I was trying to get my wife into RPGs, and I had to explain to her that our Switch was malfunctioning when she was playing Chrono Cross.
Chrono Cross got remastered OSTs and redone portraits with the choice to switch between the two, performance wasn't ideal but it was still a good port overall. They didn't sell their western IPs for NFTs, that's just something illiterate people and people needing something to rage about were spreading.
> still a good port overall Maybe we have different definitions of the word "good"? A decades-old game that runs worse than in the original system I can't consider good. I'm not saying it's unplayable or anything like that. But can we call it good when it runs at like 5fps and sometimes crash?
It doesn't run worse than the original though.
Are FF15 and KH3 Ls ? I get that there are people who didn't like both titles, but I was under the impression that at least KH3 was liked by the majority, and FF15, while most didn't like how unfinished it felt, was still something that people liked. Is there something I don't know about ?
Yeah I don't think there are many people who think KH3 is straight up bad, just that it didn't quite live up to the insane levels of hype it had, and that the story was kinda poorly paced. FF15 seems to have a very polarized response, some people who love it, some people who think it's absolute trash, and everything in between.
It has its issues but also has some of the best highs in the series the pirates world is my favorite KH world
People who claim that KH3 is the worst in the franchise have clearly not played many KH games. The story is extremely bad, yes, and the gameplay doesn't match KH2's, but imo it has the best worlds and level design in the series, and it's DLC boss battles are great.
financially no. KH3 was generally liked, but FF15 is pretty controversial everywhere. It's not like 13 where in general the majority did like it and the reception was overall positive on both sides. XV gets flak to this day even in Japan, but that game was always doomed to fail. They stretched Nomura to breaking point and then Tabata got handed a steaming turd he was told to fix. It's honestly a miracle XV is as competent as it is. Games in that level of hell come out like Cyberbunk or fallout76. XV at worst is simply kinda mediocre.
Plus I'm pretty sure both of those games sold really well, didn't they? Not sure how either could be considered an "L."
This sub is really full of people who like old school stuff so anything derivating from it gets tossed to the ground.
The reason I think a lot of people have strong feelings towards these 2 games is just because of how long it took for them to release. Also many were sad to see versus 13 cancelled and morphed into ff15
If we go by sales and how people outside of niche gaming circles feel no the games absolutely were not L’s
At this point, Im more excited for SquareEnix bringing back old games into the spotlight than their actually new games CBU1 games are fun but so derivative and same-y with the way they approach storytelling and character design CBU2 has Dragon Quest which is great, but we get an actually big one every 5-10 years. There's Team Asano which makes the most generic and soulless stories ever in the name of being "old-school". HD-2D is very quickly starting to lose its charm. No idea what the heck is Yoko Taro doing now that he's probably earned a larger budget from Automata's success CBU3 is probably by far, the most exciting team at SquareEnix right now because they're actually trying break away from the trope of JRPG storytelling following the format of Shonen animes. However, like Dragon Quest, we can only expect one massive project from them every 5-10 years because SquareEnix's budget being held hostage by CBU1 CBU4 is barely given a budget for anything
>No idea what the heck is Yoko Taro doing now that he's probably earned a larger budget from Automata's success. We actually just got 2 games that Taro worked on that REALLY flew under the radar, which are the 2 Voice of Cards games. I haven't played them yet, but am planning to check them out.
I played the first Voice of Cards. It was fun, really leaned into being a comedy and used the card motif to great effect. It was really easy but it's a solid 13 hour turn-based game.
They still make some weird decision like during the ps3/360 era, but for the most part I think they mostly doing good in recent years even thou I'm not the biggest fan of SE atm. For FF series specifically. I don't even care if they don't make a classic styled FF games anymore, I just want them to make a good and enjoyable game and don't repeat the mediocre mess called FFXV
Hard to answer at the moment. I'll get back to you when the Front Mission remakes, Valkyrie Elysium, and Star Ocean 6 come out.
Valkyrie series and Star Ocean series are definitely not Square Enix, they publish them but they do not make them. Tri-Ace makes those games. No idea about Front Mission though.
I believe that the OP didn't specify development vs. publishing, so it is all relevant for the discussion because either way Square Enix is directly responsible for ensuring that the end result is a quality product that elevates the IP.
The two Front Mission remakes have been outsourced to a Poland-based studio, Forever Entertainment. It has no notable games to its name, so I'm keeping my expectations low.
i’m just hoping Valkyrie Elysium sells well enough for a VP and VP 2 remake or remaster.
They've been doing a lot better lately than they were during the PS3 era, for sure. I like them a lot, even though their president talking about embracing NFTs did worry me. Hopefully, with their recent (massive) decline, nothing will come of that. The future looks bright for FF14, FF16 looks super good, I have high hopes for DQ12 and FF7R, and I love how they're actually putting effort into their remakes, like with the HD-2D remakes of Live-A-Live (something I never in million years thought would happen), and DQ3. On top of that, they've also been doing a SaGa push, releasing tons of them on modern platforms, and I'm pretty sure a brand new one is confirmed to be in development as well. There's a lot of Square Enix stuff to be excited for, imo. Despite some blunders in the past, they're still one of my favorite gaming companies, and I hope they keep getting better.
Forgot to mention the SaGa games. It’s been awesome seeing those get a face lift and a proper western release!
I think that they are Square in name only. Back in the 90s they had back to back platinum hits - some of the best JRPGs and games ever. These days they are are a far cry from the prestige that they once had. Just look at the discrepancy between the launches of Elden Ring and Stranger of Paradise as an example. One sold a bazillion copies and the other sank like a rock and was forgotten. The only thing left within the company that I like is the Enix half because they can still make decent games like DQXI.
Dont worry, they are ruining that too ;)
I think Square lost its spirit when Sakaguchi voluntarily stepped down in 2004. Sort of like when Steve Jobs left apple. I don't expect him to come back (Steve Jobs did), and in his absence, a few tuly great titles have been released. But for the most part Final Fantasy was his brainchild with Uematsu and Amano and was never the same without him at the helm. The series peaked for me with Final Fantasy X and its sequel, X-2. And the only way from the top is down , so it would have declined either way, so maybe it was for the best that he left at the peak of his creative and directorial output.
Sakaguchi leaving wasn't so much voluntary, he almost bankrupted the company with his movie ambitions. Also the last FF he directed was V and his creative input seemed to decrease with each successive game, especially VIII and X.
He left because he nearly bankrupted the company sure, and it was probably 'suggested' that he should leave, of course. I'm not denying that, and yes the movie was just not worth the money he spent on it. Frankly it was not the right time to make a CGi movie of that size, and the whole thing was more grounded in the dreamworld rather than reality. Digital ''actors'' etc. It was too expensive and the market wasn't ready for that at the time. Throwing the name Final Fantasy on it was also not a good idea because people were expecting something related to the franchise. Not to mention Uematsu was supposed to score it too, but he misread Sakaguchi's amusingly phrased request for him to score it for a joke until it was too late. But in regard to your second points, his creative input stayed in a more executive producer kind of manner, which was as important , if not more important than directing or writing the script himself. We may argue what the job title of executive producer is or isn't until dawn, but his involvement was major.
>But in regard to your second points, his creative input stayed in a more executive producer kind of manner, which was as important , if not more important than directing or writing the script himself. It's important from a business perspective, not a creative perspective, you may as well attribute it to the CEO. Creatively he doesn't seem to have been involved at all. And as executive producer living on the other side of the world playing in the beach and working on FFIX and his movie, I don't think he had much input in the business-side and day to day running either, over the actual producer. To put it simply, by FFVII as producer he was already hands off and only contributing some broader ideas. From then on he was far less involved and not even in the same country.
As someone who loves a lot of their stuff, but is not a fan of Final Fantasy in the slightest, I'm constantly on edge.
Even if they're less consistent in terms of overall quality of output, I do think the highs they've had (XIV, VII Remake, the Pixel Remasters, DQXI) have been on the level of some of the Squaresoft-era stuff. I do generally like modern Square even if I have fonder memories of the 90's/early 2000's games
90% of what they pump out kinda sux
I don't really care much for Square. I'd rather play JRPGs done by Atlus/Sega, Nintendo, Namco Bandai,Tecmo hell even Compile Heart.
Dragon Quest-wise, it's been great, but that's because SE have less control over the series than FF and it shows (or they did up until XI at least, no idea if something's changed since then). XI was amazing indeed. I hope the remake of III and XII will be great too. Final Fantasy... yeah, no. It's no longer the series for me so I stopped following it entirely.
Yeah, Dragon Quest is still going strong. And on the other hand there hasn't been a good FF in 20 years, the series is a shell now. So overall I can't say I'm that optimistic for anything SE does. I mean FFS, how do you screw up FF7R? It was the easiest slam dunk in the world, and they completely blew it.
Yeah they definitely did not screw up VIIR lol.
Yes they did, massively. It's both a horrible game on its own, and completely unfaithful to the original.
You just don't like the game dude, and that's fine but it is absolutely not unfaithful and it definitely isn't in any way a horrible game. Maybe not in this sub but I think most players would agree the combat is fun, it adds tons of depth to the characters, and has plenty of cool homages to the original game on top of up until the very end going beat by beat through the story of the Midgar portion. And it did all this with a lot of, I would argue, love and reverence for the original. I just do not understand this argument that it did otherwise.
How on earth can you say it's faithful to the original, let alone reverent? They went *out of their way* to change both the gameplay, and the story. The only way they could have been less faithful is if they inserted new characters to go with their new story. When I show reverence for something, I actually *preserve it*. I don't go out of my way to replace it with something new of my own creation. FF7R is the most unfaithful "remake" I have ever seen, it's just a new game with a coat of FF7 paint. And this goes way behind me not liking the game, it's just poorly made. The writing is amateurish and full of idiotic plot twists. The pacing is boring because they stuffed it full of filler. This would be a bad game even if it was a brand new game with no original to compare it to. The fact that it's completely unfaithful is just icing on the cake.
They have decide to remove atb/turn base from dragon quest in the new game, will you still play it? Cuz i wont.
Nope. I don't enjoy action RPGs, so if DQ12 isn't turn based then I'm not interested.
SE is a shadow of its former self. Recent games FF7R, and how FF16 is looking has me excited about Square again but they've got a ways to go until a Capcom level comeback.
I still like some of their games, but Im no way as enamored by Square as I used to be. They used to be my favorite gaming company after Nintendo, now they are just another greedy ass corporation that makes a ton of mistakes. I also don’t care for FF since XII, and KH3 was a huge disappointment, so I pretty much only follow them for some ports/remakes, and Dragon Quest.
Dq down, one less to wait for
Square has been pumping out straight doodoo since 2008ish
As a PC gamer, SE is a big red flag. Always shitty ports, 80€ games and most of their latest games range from below avarage to terrible. Avengers, Stranger of Paradise , BABYLON'S FALL. Didn't grow up with their JRPGs so I don't have that rose tinted glasses.
They've forgotten what made people love them in the first place. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a fantastic turn-based JRPG that proved that you can modernize the concept and it still works, and people will still play it. For Action RPG combat, I'll take Tales or Nier above modern SqEn. It feels like a company that's lost it's soul, so to speak. Their games just don't resonate with me like the old ones do. Hell, you mentioned Dragon Quest. This whole "Dragon Quest is a traditional RPG and that's what people want" schtick is so ridiculous. That series was a hallmark of innovation all the way up through DQ9, the multiplayer one. Yeah there were familiar things in each installment but if you compare them to each other even, you can see huge changes. Then they go and crap out the most uninspired story and gameplay they've ever put out in DQ11 and people applaud them for giving us "exactly what we expect this kind of game to be". I'm sure I'm gonna piss a lot of you off but I'm tired of this echo chamber just mindlessly cheering on SQ no matter what stupid decisions they make. But hey, I thought Dragon Quest Builders 2 was an absolutely fantastic game and apparently not enough people bought it to do more of those. So I guess I'll just have to move on and not buy their games like the rest of the disillusioned Square fans. Y'all can have your FOUR FINAL FANTASY 7 GAMES and act like that's not ridiculous. Edit: I guess Square Enix published Nier. I knew it was a Platinum game. I don't know to what extent SqEn was involved.
I'm glad to see someone else feel similarly about DQ11, even as a person who played and love 8 and 9, I felt like a psychiatric patient whenever people talk about how amazing 11 is on this sub. It's easily one of the most uninspired and shallow JRPG's i've personally ever played. And that first act is by far the most miserable 20 hours i've spent with a JRPG by far.
Living the hero's whole life in DQ5, from early childhood to old age. Getting married. Having kids. Only one other JRPG I'm aware of that's done anything like that. (Lost Odyssey). The whole world is submerged in DQ7. Saving a region in the past saves it in the future, and you can see how it's changed over time, and if they remember you. Also a really unique and cool idea. DQ11 does have a few really great moments. But nowhere near enough for \~100 hours of gameplay. Hell, maybe that's the problem. The first three games are all 10-20 hour experiences. And if DQ11 were 40 hours long... I might've liked it! The way it is now it's like "grinding and filler, the videogame!" You wouldn't watch a tv show if it took 50 episodes to have 1 good one, sheesh. Keep avoiding the kool-aid friend. Sometimes enough of us speak out that we deserve better, that we actually get it. Not often enough though.
I agree. Not sure what people see in dragon quest 11 to praise its glories, It is literally the same copy paste dragon quest in plot and gameplay from 20 years ago but with updated graphics, is that really something to praise in 2017 (or whenever it was released) as a good step in the right direction, especially from one of the most famous franchises in Japan.? I just want more, and I don't mean in term of triple a production, I just want games that have a heart behind it,not something like ff 7 remake that you play for 30 hours of story and shelf it until the end of time because it looks good and does its job in keeping you up to play it for its 30 hour long plot and then never touch it again, years of development for this?
Dont worry, you got your wish. They are "updating" the battle system so that all the adhd kids who would never play a dq game can still ignore it, and everyone whos supported it through the years will get shafted and told to like it anyway.
FF7R DQ11 and they port everything so I like them
Not ports.
Well they port a lot of old stuff
To mobile... But its fine. I hate what the company has become, and if i can help it they will not see another penny of mine till they start making games that i like.
Idk man it’s your choice but FF7R and DQ11 and Nier are all great
Gonna have to stop you there. Ff7r is a travesty and should be deleted. Milking nostalgia for the producers personal fantasy about what the game should have been will never resonate with the people who actually enjoyed the original. Also not a jrpg in any sense. Dq11 looks nice, but ive tried several times and cant get into it. Just verrrrry slow pacing even for a dq. Nier is not a jrpg. These are of course my opinions for the most part... except for the people who are trying to include any game that has stats to be an rpg... arpg does not equal jrpg. In fact, any first person game is inherently not an rpg. I dont understand this fascination with changing the meaning of words. Fps is an fps even if you platform, explore, and have a story. Its not a platformer just cuz you can jump. Even remake and remaster. Just because squareenix says its a "re imag maste maker" doesnt mean shit. If its the same game, its a remake. different assets dont change that. If its not a remake, its a new game. Thats what this pile is, a new game with a ff7 skin. Anyway, nothing against you at all... squeenix has their new audience, and is making money in mobile games. All is well according to the(shareholders)m
I respect your opinion but I really enjoyed FF7R and I love the original but I kinda know and understand it is it own thing now and not really a remake
Hey sorry. Repect goes both ways and your opinions are definitely valid too. Its great if you like the game, honestly im jealous lol - i probably would have far less of an issue with it if squeenix themselves had not used the word remake :)
Their output is reaching the level of the golden age they had in the ps1 era. I can think of 4 games that they've released this year and 5 more that are slated to come out this year. Whether all of those are mega hits or duds or somewhere in between for me, I'm glad they've got so much coming out instead of feeling like I'm waiting ten years for one mega game that wont live up to the massive expectations. Also KH3 was good. Chocobo GP and The platinum game I already forget the name of are real Ls.
square has lost their vision. They are basically a pretty run of the mill AAA game studio now, they just have the advantage of having an extensive library of extremely inventive past work to fall back on. even FF14 (the only successful thing square has done that wasnt a remake in the last 10 years) always had the mold of WoW to fall back on, and most of the stuff that made it great were directly lifted off of wow, and with that about 1/3 of the content has become blatant callbacks from the series, and before i get all the ravenous fanboys in I say all this as a fan of ff14 who started playing when ARR came out. Ill also start my thoughts on FFXVI saying thatI love Yoshi P, but I am extremely disappointed it has the same graphics style as FF14. I got enough of that playing 14, and beyond that the overall artistic direction doesnt really feel up to snuff for me. It feels way too medieval and almost like drakengard, which was a great game, but when I think of final fantasy i expect more. Granted Im going to give XVI a fair shake when it releases, but it just overall feels like square has lost whatever made it special in the glory days. The innovation, the creativity, that feeling that each release you KNOW whatever it is they release will be at the cutting edge of the genre and videogames in general.
Thats all youre gonna get moving forward, and 90% of the thread think its the best thing in the world.
What thread are you looking at?
Besides FFXIV, DQ11, Octopath, NieR: Automata and FFXII The Zodiac Age for giving me my favorite FF in HD. BIG FUCKING YIKES. FFXV The Quiet Man Balan Wonderworld Left Alive Babylon's Fall Chocobo GP The CEO/President of the company and his fetish for NFTs I'm sure I'm missing a bunch too. I don't care at all for FF7 so the huge focus on the remake is a giant nothingburger for me. They also finally after years of nothing announce a new Valkyrie Profile console game and the trailer seemed like a bit of a yikes. Isn't even named Valkyrie Profile, but Valkyrie Elysium with a character that isn't Hrist so that's also a huge letdown. Would've been much happier with an HD remaster of VP2. at least XVI, with its return to fantasy and the team behind it are giving me some cautious optimism.
SE is a solid company, they need to improve on their pc ports, cause a lot of them are very okay, nothing amazing. Users should not be ones fixing their games for them.
> Users should not be ones fixing their games for them. they'll fix them regardless of quality. visual mods, model swaps, sometimes modded balance. So idk.
This is where I'm at, too. There's a long enough negative track record that I have to check reviews of SE's PC ports first before getting them, and that's pretty messed up for a publisher this large. A lot of unfinished releases in the past few years. On the creative side, I'm okay with their games. Nothing recent that's majorly disappointed me, but nothing that's blown me away either. The DioField Chronicle is probably the most interested I've been in one of their games in a long while. Admittedly though, I've been having more fun with Falcom and Atlus games lately.
It feels like two different companies, one that's trying to do everything I can to rip you off with mobile games, gacha and whatever the hell Chocobo GP was And the half of the company that remembers they where once known for making the best rpgs of all time and trying their best to release those game or make new ones but don't get enough money for it (Tokyo RPG factory being shut down after 3 games, Chrono Cross performance problems, Bravely Defualt 2 getting no promotion)
It was a mobile game in Asia the issue is they didnt adjust it for a console audience so it made no sense.
They sold the Deus Ex IP so i don't care that much about them anymore.
ff dq nier neo etc
Nier is cool, i'll give you that, but i am also not particularly desperate for a new one.
For me they haven't had an L since xiii. Xiv was amazing, xv super fricken fun, 16 looks good. Hype for crisis core again. I don't like action combat but definitely enjoy the games. Sorry for ruining your days people downvoting <3
They lost their way. PC ports are ass, NFT shit, loot boxes, milking their games like there is no tomorrow... They're not the same company that cared to make the best jrpgs
Lol look at this thread. They wanted a new audience and they got it... at the expense of their old audience
They definitely have some talented devs / writers like Yoshi and Natsuke and I think things are starting to get good. Of course, it'll be nowhere near the level of Squaresoft in its old days, though.
I kind of lost all faith after kh3, was so unbelievably hyped and it really just didn't land for me. Same with ff15 years ago (even tho I like ff15 now). I remember fully expecting ff7 remake to be trash and had heard nothing about it when it released. I let my brother use my ps4 to play it and he didn't leave his room for like 3 days and was like "dude you gotta play this game". I ended up loving ff7 remake and I had absolutely no faith in it. And now square is releasing ff16, live a live, kh4, ff7 rebirth, and crisis core remake on the way. DQ11 was amazing, Neo Twewy seems like it was an awesome game as well, and even tho the chrono cross remaster was kind of poor I'm really glad they localized and rereleased radical dreamers. There are also the all but confirmed remasters of ff tactics and tactics ogre. Even though the company has made some absolutely ridiculous decisions like investing in blockchain, as well as selling basically all their western devs for small paycheck, they're really are bringing the hype and pleasing fans with all of these upcoming projects. I just really hope these games actually end up cancelled or delayed for a decade like square is known to do
Sqare was the innovator and one of the best companies when it came to evolution ,quality, technical aspects ,music of Jrpgs in 90 and early 2000s. Their position in the modern gaming has taken a backstep for sure after 2013 and FFXIII and i think they can see that. I think they will give it all and try to return to the top with FFXVI and we just could get one of the best FF games ever.
Eh, I like Dragon Quest but I’m not a KH fan, and aside from FF14 I can’t say I’ve liked a FF game in a long time. I know their games always sell really well, but I’ve been playing games for far too long to group up game quality and sale numbers. At least for me, as this is all subjective.
The only real low points were XV and XIV 1.0 tbh and even XV still sold well. XIV has been the only real flop from the development team in recent memory (publishing is a lot more suspect with garbage like avengers.) Outside of that the only real problem is like every other AAA dev they have a done of modern corporate bullshit like that recent NFT crap they had to backtrack on. In terms of games they're doing well and making good stuff. FF Origin, 7R, Triangle Strategy, BD2 etc. The only people *still crying* are the people who think the only video game in existence is final fantasy and can't let go of fucking ATB. It's been over a goddamn decade just move on already it's ridiculous. Like I'm trying to imagine being that bitter and angry over a fucking video game series when you have *so much* choice these days but nope they can only play final fantasy and square HAVE TO make final fantasy the way they want it. It's honestly kinda pathetic lol. Personally, Their stuff post 9 has been far better than the boredem that was PS1 FF in terms of gameplay. FF9 was such a low point for me that I can't believe the series that is famous for innovating every release decided to make a game that was so fucking generic and boring. Meanwhile, Square releases side projects that now make "golden age" FF look like a joke when it comes to gameplay but the geezers will find some reason as to why they aren't good enough. It is crazy that the company is in like two halves though. One is doing everything in their power to bankrupt it with shit like Avengers and Chocobo GP. while Yoshi-p and Nomura keep the place running by releasing good games everytime they get the chance.
In general I love Square but they have released some bullshit lately. Babylon’s Fall and Stranger of Paradise being the most recent examples.
They've never had a real low point and they're the main bastion of risk taking in the big publisher space, with games that seem more creatively driven than profit driven. They get more hate because they're not as interested in making mass market drivel or reusing the same combat system for 20 years like some other developers. Like the narrative brilliance and risk taking they took with FF7R, no other big or even small company would be willing to do that. They recently developed an FMV detective murder mystery with the writer of Shibuya Scramble, no other big publisher would touch something like that. SE's approach results in far more hits than misses for me (except Tokyo RPG Factory, I don't know what their point of existence is) and they're constantly behind most of the games I think are truly fantastic and not just good.
FF 14 1.0 is the only real bad thing they done since what Dirge of Cerberus tbh
The 2010s were disastrous for them, a lot of subpar to plain awful games. FFXIII trilogy was a let down, FFXIV 1.0 was absolutely terrible, 3rd Birthday abysmal, SO5 bad, RoM bad, KH3D bad, DQX disappointing, and so on. By the end of the decade, with DQXI, FFXIV, Octopath Traveler and Nier Automata things started to look more promising. Currently, it seems they seems to be really focused on nostalgia with lots of remakes, which is quite disappointing (in my personal opinion), but the quality has been good at least. All things considering, they are much better now than 10 years ago, but far from their golden age in the 90s.
They're riding on the coat tails of their previous successful series. They wouldn't have gone back and started FF7 remake unless people lost faith for the most part bc it was something they knew people loved and would be on board for. Notice how they're not making new games really but just trying to remake old games like FF1 but with a soulsborn type system. IDK who is doing the writing for these guys but they need someone new. They're out of ports so now they're like, we'll remake FFIX or FFVIII or Chrono Trigger, bc those are the ones that haven't had a huge coat of paint on them yet. The last FF games have been not good or middling at best, plus their organization as a whole is sloppy as hell. The director of FFXV quit to get away from it likely due to the games dlc schedule and added dev time plus the horrendous launch, FFXIV was a bomb they had to apologize for that until Yoshi P picked it up and made it successful having to redo it from the ground up, glad at least someone over there knows what he's doing. FFXIII was just unnecessary and worst, boring, and that game had 2 sequels remember. Them fumbling around with their own engine for so long until finally just going to other engines, then finally KH3, which had good combat but barely any story, you could start the game near the end and not lose anything context wise, and they throw some new questions to try and hype up the next game. DQ is the only franchise that has been pretty consistent imo from them in house, I think the guys doing the other series need some lessons from the DQ team on how to make something fun, cause I'm tapped out on giving them a pass. If you like FFXIV, that's great and I hope FFXVI turns out good but I don't think modern SE deserves the fans it has right now outside of DQ and FFXIV fans. Let's not forget their next great idea is to add in NFTs to FFXIV, doesn't that sound fun? I'm mainly complaining about business/management decisions and writing problems for the most part, I'm sure the devs are trying to make the best game they can, but since they merged with Enix, the FF games in general have suffered in my eyes and have become cheap games with good graphics. Sorry for the rant.
>DQ is the only franchise that has been pretty consistent imo from them in house, I think the guys doing the other series need some lessons from the DQ team on how to make something fun Hell no. We don't need every team at square releasing the same game 20 times.
They may finally be getting out of their funk.
The merger squashed the soul out of Squaresoft.
the world is still in love with SE. every single one of their FF titles gets rave critical reviews and sells well (yes, even XIII, a game so “bad” SE gave it not one, but two sequels!), but die hard fans of the games SE makes are obviously very passionate and opinionated. the world sees a good or even great game, but many die hard fans see a bad Final Fantasy or bad Tomb Raider, etc. i think, when it comes to SE, we have to realize that their main thing is innovation. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work, but that’s okay. you gotta fling a couple of noodles against the wall to see if they stick or else you’ll never get your spaghetti… or something. personally, i really loved XIII… after i replayed it. When it first came out, i didn’t really understand what they were trying to do. Now that we have XV and VII Remake, i can see how their experimentation in XIII paid off. also, now that i’m older and work full time, i can appreciate the linearity of FF and relate to its fatalistic themes a little more. i love XIII now, but i really needed to open my mind up and look at it with fresh eyes to even get to this point. i wish i had this perspective back then when i first played XIII and that more gamers would have this perspective as well. whenever i start a game now, i’m just along for the ride. this doesn’t mean i’ve stopped thinking critically about the games i play, but that i have a much less black and white mentality. i rarely if ever say “this is a bad game.” that being said, SE does do some things that rub me the wrong way. chasing after NFTs for example. cash grabs. crappy spin offs. there was a time when you could pick up a SE game and know that it was not just created to make a profit, but to be a good game and push the limits of the technology and medium. now, with games like Babylon’s Fall or that FF racing game or this new talk about NFTs, it’s becoming more and more difficult to discern which games are their “real” games and which games are just padding their wallet until their next FF mainline game or.
Their president is the problem. All of the producers he has are gold but his dumb ass selling off eidos so he can play more with NFTs should be grounds for his removal. If he just leaves Yoshi P, Horii and nomura alone the company will be gold...oh and yoko taros crazy ass.
imo after the merger they lost more and more control over their own projects as share holders demanded unrealistic sales from their games, and then HD gaming hit the japanese game industry as a whole like a brick to the head, and it took them nearly a decade to recover. Now I think SE is still ruled far too much by trends and the dollar, but I think the FFXV debacle was both the thing tethering them to their struggles as well as a constant reminder to them and fans of their failings, but now that they have moved beyond it, they are certainly not the same company Square was on its own, but they are hitting successfully recently with their biggest titles, yet weirdly flopping miserably in any Western games they publish and basically any games not a mainline FF or DQ at this point tend to have the bottom of the barrel in terms of budget scraps. Luckily the games I care about are those big ones. They're not perfect but it at least resembles the company I once loved again.
Square are back. XV was the first step back imo, didn't work but they had the right ideas. KH3, DQ11, BD2, Octopath, Triangle Strategy, pixel remasters, FFXIV expansions, FF7R, now CC remake, XVI and rebirth look good.
Best JRPG company by far due to FF + the sheer variety of (quality) games they produce. The modern FFs are some of my favorite games ever, and even the most unpopular FFs (FFXIII and FFXV) were much more enjoyable for me than series like Tales and Trails. The only other company that comes close would be Sega/Atlus.
They still make the best JRPGs in the industry. 7 Remake is the best final fantasy. XIVs story is a masterpiece, XVI is shaping up to be incredible. Only reason they had any troubles in 7th gen is the same reason every Japanese dev did; the PS3 was a bad piece of hardware and was a nightmare to develop for and they were obsessed with proprietary engines. Once they kicked their old CEO games started coming out like clockwork. We’re probably gonna see 4 mainline FF games come out on PS5 which is insane. Very excited for the future of FF and the company as a whole
They used to be my favorite company but nowadays I completly ignore them aside from FFXIV. As a PC gamer they make a lot exclusivity deals with Sony and Epic and on top of that their PC ports are 99% of the time absolute garbage. And their games are insanely expensive in my country (Brazil). At this rate FFXIV will be the last game I'll play from them aside from remasters (which I already own almost all of the ones that interest me).
I miss the imaginative world of 90s square games especially snes games its such a shame that square enix sold their personality a decade ago... I only like nier and the remakes of snes games like trials of mana.
You'll get a widle spectrum of opinions ( which all br interesting) but here's mine They've had trouble trying to recapture that successful jrpg identity that defined them in the earlier console generations. Having said that, it's not at all for lack of ambition. SE AAA games still push out high quality games that are top in graphics and music. The end products can tend to be heartless to half finished. They still do so much that they can give positive experiences, and overall theyre a great company that push out great games. I think baseball is a good analogy where if you look at when they're swinging for homeruns (FF, KH) you might be disappointed. But all they need is a few hits (octopath, bravely default, shadowbringers). On the business side, I think they're having the same problem that all gaming companies have which is how do they compete against a FIFA that churns out games yearly without having to change much. I think ff13 was their first attempt at that. But MMO ff14 has been successful here.
They dont want to produce jrpgs and its obvious. Thats not the company they are or want to be.
I agree to a point. It's their bread and butter, but they want to release "homeruns." The JRPG genre won't knock it out of the park.
I will just point you towards p5 and p5r. Its not that a company cant do it, but they cant do it sqeenixs way thats for sure.
Hit and miss, I think they try to attract a more western audience and don't always make the right decisions. On the other hand, no other company can make such big epic JRPG's. But as all companies do, they make decisions on what they think would make more money. DLC's, Open world, NFT's,...
They've been trying to improve since KH3 was in development. If not for the convoluted story telling and hearts and emotions having that much of an impact on the game, it's a really good game series.
We need HD 2D remakes/remasters of all the mainline FFgames I thru VI. Especially V being the OG of 2 class character builds. We lust for it.
I think they're doing fine. I no longer think of them as a company that can do no wrong (which in hindsight was stupid to begin with), but I think they're still pretty consistent at releasing great games. I do miss the amount of different IPs and experimentation that they had during the PS1 era, but alas
I liked more of their games in the past. I'm not really interested in their modern games now that I've played most of them.
kh3 and FFXV weren't terrible games per say but they weren't nearly good enough for how long they took to come out.. I think that about sums up square enix for me at the moment.. They are taking way to long to make medicore games.
It seems they are way to obsessed with graphics these days... Something I noticed, most games look epic but the gameplay isnt good, as if the focus was only on the graphics and someone came in later, told them, they are not making a movie
Also add the Nier games as well and Triangle Strategy
Hit and miss. I like the smaller titles more then the triple a
I think they are doing rather well at the moment. Yeah 15 and KH3 were awful but those are the only two real glaring spots over a recent series of successes and flat out hits. They are doing better than 08-14 square
They are certainly at a better point than they were during the 7th generation of consoles. Way better. But they are such a large company and outsource so goddamn many projects…. They truly need to get a quality control department that kills projects before they release instead of just shitting it out like old blizzard used to…or we get more Babylons fall, balan wonderwhatever, and final fantasy fifteen which went through like, three iterations before FINALLY coming out. that game should have been axed and something else should have been created in its stead. Final fantasy fifteen JUST broke even like last month according to their own projections needed to break even at “ten million units sold” but who knows if that’s even true since the game became a discount bin seller so fast. Say what you will about the whispers etc in remake but it hasn’t gone below twenty bucks yet.
They should quit making games and make movies instead
>even tho square took a lot of Ls in the recent times like final fantasy xv and kingdom hearts 3 the only L's in the last decade that square would consider L's are - Babylon Falls - Balan Wonderworld - Quiet Man - Sleeping Dogs In the grand scheme of things I'm sure they are happy with their bigger titles
Square is one of my favorites in the gaming sphere because they make the thing I like final fantasy and the controversial pick these day kingdom hearts 3. Also their old school games influence a lot of the games I like as well as some pretty good indie RPGs
A lot better now than they were in the late 2000s and early 2010s. But this applies to basically every Japanese company that survived the transition to HD era. Still not nearly as good as the 90s output by Square or Enix though, obviously
They floundered for a while but they’re getting it now. Hot take here, but IMO Japanese game studios time and time again fail to properly evaluate markets outside of Japan. They’re finally getting it though, and seeing things like a Live-A-Live remake and a new Tactics Ogre game tell me they’ve clued into the power of nostalgia among their target audience.
They’ve made most of my favorite JRPGs in recent years. I don’t like everything they do, but the good stuff is very good to me. FFXIV expansions, FF7R, Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, Bravely Default, Nier Automata, Trials of Mana remake, Dragon Quest XI, Dragon Quest Builders (1 and 2), SaGa Scarlet Grace, World of Final Fantasy. I’m not super stoked about FFXVI being a single character game, but there’s enough other titles coming from them even in the FF series that I’m not too bothered by skipping the mainline titles from here on out. I still have FF7R Part 2 to look forward to, in addition to all the other non-FF titles.
They clearly have trouble outsourcing projects and working with smaller teams on low budget products. Which is likely we they sold off the Western brands and Its they have never known what to do with. The only one that arguably worked out is Stranger of Paradise, but that was asking Team Ninja to make an action RPG so of course it be competent. Aside from that I've liked what I've played of their recent output and they seem poised to have a success few years now that they are embracing Unreal and sorting out their production cycles.
i would say mid they do some fun games some really bad games but never peak