Golden Age of Final Fantasy (documentary)

Verena

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Do you agree? Or have a comment on that?
I do so as Square was alone without Enix much better. After the fusion the fall of Ff was unevitable....
 
Sadly I think this is something we may have to just accept,I certainly find myself most fond of these titles - I think t here might be an argument for Final Fantasy IV to be included within this batch but then there is V in-between.

I appreciate the video's core premise - the endearing Final Fantasy's are about character driven stories! Which I am ALL FOR! Each one mentioned has stories which the main characters are at the core of. Sometimes side characters sub-plots are so good that they're more endearing than the main plot - Vivi's existential crisis is a great example. Then there are other examples like VIII, in which most of the party members are redundant past their initial story point, Other than the horrid Orphanage Scene. But even beyond what is one of the worst plot device within any game I've played there is so much more within VIII that I adore and at the core of that is Squall's character driven story.

But what I also love is when FF's dedicate a proper scenario to each character, Barret's story in brining Shinra's power to Corel and his personal conflict with Dyne is a perfect example of this. as a plot device it services in getting the player emotionally involved with the character & to explain their motivation within the story. This structure is key to me and I find FF exceeds most when this happens.

I will say I like XIII more than most, but a lot of obscure terms and story context hidden within documents made the game quite inaccessible - Yet I still appreciated the pacing of the story after XII's lack of progress for most of the game. I will say I did enjoy XIII-2, While I found Serah lacking as main character material, the inclusion of Noel and his lost soul at the end of the world plot appealing. But the best addition was Caius and his tragic motivations. But then there was the 3rd game Lightning Returns and it it just ramped the convolution to a billion. While I liked the world, the game lacked interesting scenario writing. Most of the game required you to do generic side missions. The core premise of the game was just weird, Lightning as this god transferring spirits from a dying world - It's not a terrible Idea and would have made for an excellent separate action game, but as a conclusion to the XIII series it was a misfire. Also, I just hated the concept of the ending.

Then there is XV... It's just a mess of a game, clearly it was in development hell and rushed for release. I actually enjoyed the Kingsglaive & Brotherhood episodes, yet the main game was lacking in interesting scenarios - The back stories could be seen in the anime and the interesting character development moments were locked in DLC (Which wasn't even accessible within launch!). One of the core plot points of the game was to gain power from your ancestors yet this was abandoned as some of them were optional than pivitol which made me feel disjointed from the core experience.

But it isn't just Final Fantasy that was effected, Squaresoft used to make interesting side project throughout the SNES/PS1 era. There titles would be more experimental like Parasite Eves did into horror or The Bouncer's take on the Beat Em Up genre. I feel since the S-E merger that S-E hasn't branched out with other franchises. I will say that they have been slowly getting back to that stance with upcoming games like Star Ocean 6, Valkayrie Elysium & Forspoken - two of these were previously ditch to mobile shovel wear.

Looking to the future, I want Final Fantasy to return to the single game formula, I want to have a new munch of FF games to compare again. Part of the thrill about the FF series is how eahc title brings a whole new world to explore. Maybe one experience doesn't appeal to you, no worries as the next project will offer something new. There has been such little progress in quantity & arguably quality in the FF series within the last 20+ years. I know game development is more demanding these days from the pure scope and graphical fidelity but I feel if S-E put focus onto their mainline titles as one and done projects we can have more adventures to celebrate as a whole.
 
I see your position. I agree also to story telling and living breathing world being the two core elements in which ff excelled during the 90s in the so called golden age. I agree to it that it indeed was a golden age. I like how he discribed it continuously thru the whole documentation. Maybe square lost its mind while making the x2 sequel in j pop style. Maybe they wanted to attract younger people. And after the merger penelooo and vaan only served to indeed appeal to a younger generation. Thats what he said, too. But se lost their high renomee position as it was shown in ff12 and the following ff7 spinoffs acc and crisis core. They werent what we expected of se, former square. We used to live in a breathing living world of Immersion and character story telling, in which they failed after 2001. But i must also say the best i liked ff7. It excelled all ff games, even the others of the golden age. I wouldnt say ffx was in any way better than ff7. Or ff8 and 9.
 
I agree that’s the golden age though I remember struggling to adjust to listening to the voice acting in X and the way they did the world map. I feel like since then the worlds have become stale, the towns and cities don’t feel as alive as they used to be. All I want in a Final Fantasy is good storyline and world to explore, it worked really well back then but they keep trying to change it to appeal to new gamers. Nothing wrong with that but want something for the fans that have been here for a long time.
 
If you've followed Final Fantasy 12 13, 14, and even 15's journey. Each one had conflicting ideas between directors and what Square Enix wanted.

There was always some interference. it was a rough time being a Final Fantasy fan around this time. FF12 got a lot of hate. and i admit the story isn't perfect, but gameplay and freedom was at the scale of a standard FF game.

it was until FF13, 14, and 15 that really grinded my gears. Seeing FF13, and 14 be the way they are due to Director's ego and simply not understanding what FF13 and FF14 needed to be loved overall.

and FF15...boy...i can spend essays writing exactly what went wrong.
 
Golden Age of Final Fantasy my butt.

Sorry, but no. The Golden Age of Final Fantasy is now. Now is the Golden Age because we all met Aerith and Tifa in PS4 technology.

And soon, my brothers and sisters... I will get to meet Rinoa Heartily in PS5 technology.
 
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