Would news of a truly final, final fantasy, be something to be happy about or something to feel sadness towards. Throughout its history, final fantasy has given us not only some of the greatest rpg's of all time, from fan favourites such as final fantasy VII to cult classics like final fantasy tactics, and of course what some say is the greatest of them all, final fantasy VI! It has also given us some truly beautiful soundtracks which can still to this day stand strong in any play list. You can't deny the pedigree this franchise has, however, are square Enix capable of continuing this legacy?
Doubt has by in large been put in our heads in regards to this by literally just the actions of square enix themselves, and with every action taken, an almost guaranteed fan reaction follows, this is generally disappointment and frustration! But this should come as no surprise as square enix are not the same beast they were before, as square soft they could seemingly do no wrong, at least that's what I feel if I look back. Even their shift from Nintendo to Sony worked, although not without many fans wondering Wtf was going on, it just demonstrated square knew what they were doing, as final fantasy VII exploded beyond any past installment, seemingly as PlayStation itself started its dominant reign over the games industry. Its almost strange to even think of a final fantasy on the Wii u, many gamers still argue its true home is on PlayStation! Wrong, but that's how successful that affiliation was.
So if we take square softs fantastic library from the SNES, with games such as chrono trigger, romancing saga, seiken densetsu or even bahamuts lagoon amongst many unique IP's and then the transition to Sony, to which they then excelled even further bringing us xenogears, vagrant story and chrono cross along with of course final fantasy, we can literally see nothing but pure fan based focus, they displayed heart and soul, everything was win! We had awesome games, they had the support and great business!
Now, square Enix… one stand out IP from enix, was tri-aces star ocean which was now part of the square catalogue. This was great, but only one star ocean game has been good since, and that was on PS2. Nothing really came of the merge between Enix, and square soft worth mentioning. It stood as only things to come, greed! Square soft were humble in its origins, final fantasy was never supposed to be this huge as it was created as a final game with no true ambition, at least nothing like what it has become. Now, a game like tomb raider selling millions of copies was deemed average, fan demand for the final fantasy VII remake have been largely ignored, teased by PS2 tech demos, and then vaguely mentioned as a possibility if the final fantasy X HD remake sells well… but then shifting its attention to suddenly final fantasy XII, a great game, but its not being pleaded for like VII! I get the impression they don't care, if it takes too much work to rebuild it, then let's just forget it. Let's save it for when we are really in the gutter as we continue down this spiral of failure, this basically is selfish as they will make it then, to save their ass, likely ruining that too…
Now just a quick recap on square Enix's decisions lately. Tomb raider is exclusive to Xbox now, OK fine… but how about the fact ps3 sold more copies of the last instalment… do they have no decision when Microsoft offer them an exclusive pay cheque, even if its just timed. It shits on the PlayStation fan base, not Sony… surely the total income from being multi plat is higher than a fat one off from Microsoft plus exclusive sales on a less popular platform? Answer, yes it is! But when we learn tomb raider is timed on Xbox as an exclusive, the greed will be very evident. I guess its strictly business, but its a business I'm sure millions of its paying customers owning a ps4 should at least be considered… oh wait they are, when the time period on Xbox ends, then they want our money, right! As a gamer I'd buy it, it'd be the definitive version, but still.. This Is one decision they made, I'll get over it, how about adding dlc to a final fantasy game "XIII-2" that should be in the retail version like every other final fantasy game, what next…. Dlc items or weapons?… oh, actually they did that already! Imagine ruby weapon as dlc in FF VII, or the celestial weapons from X being micro transactions, but still visible in game, buy me now… I'm on the disc but I require more money please! Don't get me started on the lack of vision we were demonstrated with the fabula nova concept. E3 2006 was huge, titles co existing within the same world spanning across time, wow… epic potential! Versus looked epic, love it or hate it XIII was a solid game which fell Short of classic calibre, but certainly a worthy 60-80 hours. Agito/type-O are only just getting proper releases for western players, versus is now XV…. Wtf happened! Oh and kingdom hearts obviously decided 1 and 2 were too cool for school and went off smoking too much ### going all crazy on ds, only to sober up and show off kingdom hearts 3, we forgive you…. Please hurry! Btw, birth by sleep was great, rip PSP you beautiful piece of Sony plastic!
So have you confidence in square Enix? Do they care for final fantasy anymore, like they used to? They have branched out, away from a focus in jrpg. Sure we have deus ex, hitman, tomb raider, sleeping dogs to name a few IP's… but they only publish them… they have no hand in creating them, are they capable of creating titles which will be future classics? A realm reborn contradicts these views, as it is awesome and feels like a final fantasy which proves there are still capable hands within square. This article exists purely as I have hope, a bit like a failing relationship worth fighting for! Some good, just mostly bad! After final fantasy XII I said let's see how XIII goes, after XIII I then appreciated XII more and regard it as one of my favorites. However, now it really does come down to the decisions they make with XV! Will they have confidence in themselves. Or just give in to current trends which don't age well and lack character? Time will tell I suppose, but I hope its a game which will restore faith in the franchise and square Enix themselves!
Next up, how to fix final fantasy! And many of the answers have already featured in past titles. I'll save that for another blog, I think I've rambled on! Prove me wrong square, make final fantasy XV and kingdom hearts 3 be epic!
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
With Japan having a shrinking console market ATM. It's apparent for Squeenix that when it comes to FFXV there's a lot of pressure riding on their shoulders. The reason as i see it why they haven't shown us a bunch of trailers of FFXV is because they have in a way learned from their mistakes when it came to releasing a bunch of FFXIII trailers at practically every conference and hyping up the game beyond comparision. FFXIV a Realm Reborn shows that YES Square still has potential and as "Hironobu Sakaguchi" creator of Final Fantasy once said it's "Hiroyuki Ito" that can save Final Fantasy.
First and foremost while FFXIII was pretty good I felt that the linearity ruined the atmosphere of the game for me. Regardless though i beat the game. When FFXIII-2 came out in Japan it was outsold by competitor Namco Bandai who released "Tales of Xillia" one of the most underappreciated games of last gen. Overall I feel that FFXIII should have IMO ended with the first game cause the ending was a happy one and that's how it should have stayed. Then SE should have focused on Versus XIII, and then they wouldn't be in this particular mess that they got themselves into. I'm aware that I constantly compare the FFXIII trilogy to recent Namco Tales releases. However with the Lightning Saga having more sequels ruined the mood for most gamers in the long run. If anything SE has to Show FFXV at TGS this year or face the fact that they are losing more of their own fanbase by the year due to extensive dissapointments. It's also very clear that having Motomu Toriyama as Producer, and or Director of a Final Fantasy game truly ruins the greatness of the Franchise as a whole. Sure i understand that SE has been implementing changes into each FF title for the most part, but there's something about Motomu Toriyama that puts me in a sour mood. Personally I think he did a better job as an event planner like back then when he did Event planning for games like Bahamut Lagoon and whatnot.
If no FFXV showing at TGS this year then at least I get to look forward to Bandai Namco's "Tales of Zestiria"
Well here is to hope of having Final Fantasy XV not totally sucking.
First of all, i'm not even a fan of the action approach to their latest games. If i wanted an action approach, then i would be playing Tales games instead.
Squeenix is still having trouble with adapting to the HD age, and the evidence is in the last generation. Focusing more on pretty graphics in cutscenes, instead of a nice blend with story, gameplay and open world as well.
I'm not sure what's happening at Squeenix, honestly, and Capcom is suffering from similar issues. It's like they intentionally attempt to create games to dislike.
Honestly say what you want/have your pre-conceived thoughts about MMO's, but FFXIV is a true FF through and through. I don't define FF's by its combat style. True turn-based (FFI-III/X) ATB (FFIV-IX) action (FFXI, XII, XIV) and tactical (FFT) are all still FF's. I have my doubts that FFXV won't be very FF-ish. I feel like if they were launching that game without an FF title then no one would be like "dude that's a Final Fantasy!" At least in FFXIV, you have Black Mages casting Ice III on Ifrit...THAT'S obviously Final Fantasy.