Wada: Final Fantasy Needs to 'Move On'

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The Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has discussed his company, it's flagship series and where he sees Final Fantasy going in the future.

In an interview with Edge magazine Wada said: "I believe Final Fantasy XIII is going be something special, and that it’s going to be well received by the audience. But whether we are going to continue to internally create this type of game remains to be seen, because I actually feel that the team that was involved with Final Fantasy XIII should next move on to create and generate some ‘next generation’ forms of play."

So is this the end for the traditional JRPG? Not quite, but Wada does echo other sentiments coming out of the Japanese industry. "Internally and externally I feel there’s an expectation of Square Enix to offer something new," the Squenix President explained. "I really think that the Final Fantasy team could create something completely different, but at the moment they’re strictly catering to the particular audience they have now."

Source: Now Gamer
 
"end of traditional JRPG's"

Oh please, by move on he doesn't mean anything like that. Every FF game has "moved on" from the last one and did something unexpected. Look at how different X and XII or XII and XIII are. They go into every game with a fresh mindset, which is good.
 
Meh, the Japanese market it a fading one, I'm not surprised.

They want to westernise their titles, it's obvious. Wada talks about western games and how SE need western this and western that more than anything else which this seems to tie in with having other developers work on SE titles too. Keyword: Internally.

As long as the quality of games get better I couldn't care less what they do with Final Fantasy.
 
As long as "Final Fantasy" doesn't mean what it says in being Final, I could care less what happens. JRPGs are awesome, though, and I hope they aren't westernized too much as those games tend not to be fun in my opinion.
 
Coming from Wada, this is unsurprising. He and all of Square Enix can see that the Western market is greatly dominant over the Japanese one now. They have to evolve in some way, or fade away. That's why they have focused so much on appealing to western tastes lately.

As long as they don't change Final Fantasy beyond recognition and that the games themselves are of excellent quality, I welcome this especially if it helps SE flourish itself again. Whether or not the Japanese market will also welcome these evolutions we will have to see.

But as for the Dragon Quest franchise- it hardly evolved for decades, yet Japan still loves it immensely. I don't know if SE will want to evolve that as well, which can be a risk if it alienates Japan.
 
i believe established IP's like dragon quest (and to some extent valkyrie profile, if they decide to make another one) will retain recognizable gameplay features and narration. This does seem to tie in with Wada's nudges towards outsourced developers, but if it brings about more innovation and allows the focus to be placed where it should, i'm not against it.
 
Getting Sakaguchi back onboard and stop tossing the franchise back and forth between guys like Kintase and Nomura, is all the "moving on" this franchise really needs :P
 
I see the series taking a more Action RPG stance, almost like Kingdom Hearts. It's possible that they'll make it more of a sandbox, but supposedly they did the opposite of that in FFXIII, so I don't know.

Change isn't necessarily bad. Let's wait to see what this "moving on" is.
 
Coming from the mouth of Wada? It sounds like nothing but bad news to me. I wouldn't trust that guy as far as I can throw him. :mokken:

What future FUBAR's is he going to bestow upon us next? I sense epic fail in SE's future. -__-
 
Truthfully, I don't mind the company trying new things, but I really don't like Wada. To me he seems like he is all about, we want money and that's it. I understand they are business, but when he talks, I get the feeling that he isn't someone who got into the industry because he loves video games.
 
I've said this before, but I like JRPGs because they're JRPGs. I don't care much for this Western appeal stuff because although I'm in the West, I'm not particularly interested in the Western games :ness:

I'm not opposed to change though, but as trxd said, when hasn't an FF game changed from its predecessor?

Hmmm...I think I'm contradicting myself, but I guess to clear it up, I don't mind change, as long as its not Westernized change.

A KH style FF game seems pretty kewl actually, and tactics style FF games were great too, so I think I'm being flexible here if we're talking change Dx
 
I understand completely what you mean. Most western RPG's tend to have weaker stories with characters you dont really care about. They also tend to have the characters seeming very stiff and robotic.

Versus XIII is probably going to be more KH battle styled, which sounds pretty awesome IMO.
 
I have an idea how about team up with Mistwalker SE? It would be a good idea tbh cause Mistwalkers big boss is Sakaguchi etc etc. Final Fantasy moving on eh. If it becomes western I will break something. Final Fantasy is a JRPG not some western piece of crap..... Whats next Neverending Fantasy?
 
Sarah Sisulart said:
I have an idea how about team up with Mistwalker SE? It would be a good idea tbh cause Mistwalkers big boss is Sakaguchi etc etc. Final Fantasy moving on eh. If it becomes western I will break something. Final Fantasy is a JRPG not some western piece of crap..... Whats next Neverending Fantasy?
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I wouldn't, Mistwalker is a very mediocre company. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were big disappointments overall and if the quality of SE games are what they're worried about, teaming up with Mistwalker is going sideways, if not backwards. Sakaguchi isn't what people make him out to be.

They need to be looking at the likes of Level-5, Bethesda, Team ICO, Naughty Dog, Bioware etc if they're looking to go forward. All being said, SE have got themselves into the mess their in so they need to get themselves out of it. To start with, they need to stop wasting money on developing 360 titles, every one of them have been failures in terms of quality, sales and most of the time, both. Stick to Sony and Nintendo where your fanbase is Square-Enix.
 
We believe that they should go multi-platform for good. We seriously can't see why they started making exclusive titles for the 360. Sure, bring your games over. However, don't forget about Nintendo and Sony, they practically made you guys. With that said, most of the 360 titles were average at best.

We just thought we would throw our two cents in.

We still hate Wada though... Bloody wanker.
 
Well I guess your right Ryan but Lost Odyssey is a great game and I like it alot. Sakaguchi is making a new project and he is betting everything on it. It could quite possibly be Lost Odyssey II. But yeah in terms of good companys Mistwalker has developped very few games and some failed pretty bad. Blue Dragon has a great storyline and all but the battle system is horendous xD. Lost Odyssey however has both a great storyline and a great battle system. Level 5 is a great company but I cant see it going with SE tbh
 
Cid Raines said:
Meh, the Japanese market it a fading one, I'm not surprised.

They want to westernise their titles, it's obvious. Wada talks about western games and how SE need western this and western that more than anything else which this seems to tie in with having other developers work on SE titles too. Keyword: Internally.

As long as the quality of games get better I couldn't care less what they do with Final Fantasy.
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Westernising = messing it up !! I dont want westernising :(
Gears of war, modern warfare is more then enough for me, western wise

Dont taint FF :( its sad,,,,,,
 
Cid Raines said:
I wouldn't, Mistwalker is a very mediocre company. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were big disappointments overall and if the quality of SE games are what they're worried about, teaming up with Mistwalker is going sideways, if not backwards. Sakaguchi isn't what people make him out to be.
Click to expand...

I think the quality of Mistwalker's games has more to do with their development model than how good a producer/director Sakaguchi is. Mistwalker doesn't do a lot of work in-house, but instead outsource a lot of development to mediocre developers like Artoon and Feelplus, which is arguably affecting the quality of the product. Of course Sakaguchi is still the one with the final responsibility, but I do think he could do much better if he'd start working full time again and properly oversee the making of his games.
 
I think this is a good thing.

When I was younger, I was very drawn into the JRPG style stories and game style. Now that I'm older, it's takes a more convincingly told story to capture my imagination.

Although the whole 'love triangle' thing going on in FF7 is starting to pull me in, I think that's more down to the nostalgia.

A more western take would bring more realism IMO. I just don't care as much about young teenagers with spiky hair and massive swords saving the world anymore.
 
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