The last 'tingle down the spine'?

[Prince Doza]

I'm posting this because I've just completed FF tactics, the last FF game (so far) that I needed to complete the whole FF franchise. And (no spoilers) what an ending! Real 'hair standing up on the back of your neck' stuff.

Then I got to thinking that the last FF game that had that had that effect on me was FF7 years ago. FF9 is the e exception because of Vivi. Although I love every title since, I can't help feeling that S-E has gone down the route of flashy viruals over mature storylines and characters since FF9 (I'm excluding emo FF8).

So my question is, has Square-Enix decided that good visual effects take precedence over good stories?

 

[Starships]

Well Final Fantasy 13 wasn't that great, but there's still the future. FF 13 VS hasn't come out yet, and there's still FF 15. Just because there's one failure doesn't mean that the rest of the series will fail. Disliking FF X and XII is up to opinion, so you can't really say that they did bad, when somebody else will think that they're the best Final Fantasies ever.

 

[MasterVivi]

I loved ffxiii so it would have to be that.. the vanille and sazh scene..^ and disliking 13 is just as much an opnion as disliking x and xii lol..

 

[Jquestionmark]

While how much anyone likes a FF game is entirely opinion, it's possible to take some level of objectivity (well, that's arguable, but that's a discussion for another place/time) when assessing a plot and the storytelling used to convey it. Going with that idea, I think Doza may be on to something.

7 was the first title I played by myself (I never had a nes or snes, so the prior entries were group experiences), and I enjoyed it. The spin-offs felt like a bitter grasp for money, since it's well known that 7 is very popular in a wide sense, compared with older games with more solid stories and characters (such as 4 or 6). The spin-offs brought nothing to the table, and really just seemed to be alternate-universe fan-fics. They brought in a whole host of ideas that didn't seem to make a lot of sense in light of the original game (Silent Hill games do a good job of referencing previous games, using seeds already sown; the 7 set just grasped at random bits and tried to pull itself together from that - the bits were very clearly never meant to be expanded on, and it just feels awkward when they tried).

8 and 9 had their own flaws and merits, but I have to tip my hat to 8 for a brilliant setting, and characters that occasionally shone. 9 seemed to do pretty much everything right, and my main complaint (surprise, un-hinted at final villain that seems fully unrelated to the story) is certainly a throw-back to older titles, so I'll cut them some slack.

10 is where it started to fall apart. This is where the flash looked to go beyond the story. It was exciting to finally have a game with voice acting until the voice acting was actually heard. I would have been much happier reading the dialogue than suffering through some of the screeching emitted from my television. The characters were no longer enjoyable and interesting (or at least had a good excuse for being whiny or emo) and just came across as stereotypes. The plot, well, that was just a joke. It's hard to think highly of a plot where you play as an imaginary boy from imaginationland that has to fight a giant space whale (and your imaginary father from imaginationland too) only to get inside and find out that all along god was just a giant space tick.

10-2 had a plot that was not only bad, the characters (even further descended into stereotypes) made the game downright insulting. I won't pretend I finished it, because when Rikku said "Oh poopie" I got up, turned off my ps2, removed the disc, and never looked back.

11 and 14 are MMOs, so intricacy in story is traded off for grinding to encourage monthly fee paying. 14 is especially insulting to Squeenix fans, having just renamed the races and given them a graphical update, instead of putting in some effort to make new and interesting races.

The 13 franchising from early on looks to just be an attempt to recapture the financial success of the spin-offs to 7. I have yet to hear a single person tell me that the story of 13 is great - the only thing I've heard about it from friends that have already tried it is "well, the first 20 hours are terrible, but then it gets really amazing."

Sorry, I drifted a little there. Point is, story has certainly been slipping in exchange for visuals. Sadly, if I want interesting plots with brilliant twists and turns and characters that really draw me in, I'm not going to look to the FF series anymore. It's sad, but the storytelling magic that Sqeenix had for the longest time seems to have vanished into thin air.

 

[DarkShadow]

The only reason people don't like FFXIII is because mainly of the gameplay and linearity ..........But to me FFXIII was definately a great story,there probably was some bad strory-telling especially in the early game when they expect you to know what going on and I had too rely on the datalog with whats happening in the story,but other than that it was good.............Also the people who say there is bad story-telling,just don't pay attention this game has been critiscized for having too many cutscenes and whenever a cutscene occurs your updated with whats going on......So overall I think people rather prefer having good gameplay than story or visuals........However I just prefer the story over anything,that what RPG games are for.