You are now the Boss !

[Starships]

Many fans believe that Final Fantasy has gone downhill since FFX or FF XII. Squareenix has contacted you, paid for your tickets to Japan and they want you to fix, improve and change the Final Fantasy series and games for the better !

So sit down on your boss chair, grab out some paper and get ready to fire some staff and wake up at early times while drinking dry and bitter coffee because they want you to improve the Final Fantasy games ! So new bossu of the Final Fantasy series ! What would you do, to try and fix things ?

I would :


Firstly no more Final Fantasy XIII. After Lightning Returns it's gone. Over and done with. Move on time ! No Final Fantasy XIII-3.9 Lighting Returns 2 ! Bullshit, because screw that bullshit.

- Make sure that FF XV and KH 3 are solid games and keep a eye on them and make sure that they come out before 2017. Any later than that would just be annoying and stupid.

- Bring out FF XII HD. Even though I don't really like or enjoy FF XII it would make some fans happy and fans happy = good.

- Remake FF VI and put it on the 3DS and keep it close to the original and respect the original format.

- Remake FF VII and put it on the ps4 and again like FF 6 keep it close to the original. No Advent Children or Crisis Core bullshit.

- Get ready to remake FF VIII and FF IX for future PS4 titles.

- Make FF 16. Make sure that it has a good story, good soundtrack, good non-linear map, good characters, no cheesy leona Lewis bullshit. Ger rid of the chapter bullshit that X-2 started. Bring back the FF X battle system and sphere grid.

- Make FF17 a online game.

- Make a spin- off Final Fantasy that follows the FF XII huge open world design and has a open battle feel and see how well that sells compared to FF 16 and see what the people and fans want and desire and then follow that for FF18.

- No more cellphone Bullshit.

- Slip a glass of red wine while doing a evil laugh.

 

[Linnaete]

This is my kind of thread. Prepare to be amazed by my brilliance.

+ Remaster Final Fantasy XII. The International Zodiac Job Edition one that is exclusive to Japan at the moment. If you need a second game to throw in there to get around Sony's policies of having more than one game for an HD re-release package, then throw in FF Tactics with glorious HD sprites if you have to. I'm not really sure what you can do with Revenant Wings as it is, besides pointlessly remaking it, so I'm not too sure about that.

+ Let's not remake FFVII. I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but if I'm at the head of the company, I will also be very hesitant in doing this remake UNLESS I am absolutely sure that a) it is properly budgeted, b) properly overseen, which would involve a significant reshuffling of the company's teams and members, c) ANY desires to link it further with the Compilation games kept as subtle as possible if they HAVE to be there. No more needless contortions of the lore either. In fact, I will have so little faith in my own company to get that right, I probably won't even give them the greenlight. Do it wrong, and I may sink the company.

+ If mobile games are as profitable as the financial reports suggest, then why drop support for iOS and Android at the drop of a hat? What FF fans want don't necessarily corroborate with reality. The key is to keep support for mobile platforms, but in a way that it doesn't piss off loyal fans who are firmly on the console and handheld fronts. Continue outsourcing mobile projects to external studios, and ensure that they are DECENT mobile games in the vein of the Chaos Rings series, and NOT consumer-hating, wallet-grabbing pieces of crap like Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. At the same time I will stop the talks of "console-quality" games for mobile, because frankly, the real strength of an iOS game is NOT how console-like it is, but how EFFECTIVELY it takes advantage of a touchscreen control scheme. Without that taken into consideration, a "console-quality" iOS game may simply play like shit.

+ On a similar note, do you know where you can find touchscreens AND the capabilities for a true "console-quality" game? The Vita and 3DS. The Vita may be the trickier of the two, as developers have often be timid in making games for it, but someone has to try and get the ball rolling. How about, say, a Dragon Quest game for the Vita, so at least in Japan it shifts several tens of thousands of more units? Then how about, ooh, I dunno, Final Fantasy Type-0 remastered a bit for the Vita, taking advantage of the second analogue stick, and localising it for the filthy baka gaijin westerners?

+ If we're going to go down the "Lightning Saga" (ugh...) route for FFXV, fine, but at least do it better. Must we tie a "Saga" down to a single character, especially when under the flurry of steel, there is not much going for them? Have a coherent vision for any "Versus epic" that Nomura has talked about, rather than the sloppy mess that the FFXIII trilogy has become. They have attempted to explain that the Lightning Saga was conceived from Day 1, which is such bullshit that I can't even fathom who would believe that. Nomura has to learn from this if he feels a similar FFXV saga is necessary to make, and prepare adequately for it. Cliffhangers by the way, are a good way to annoy FF gamers from what we have seen. It's better to avoid that. If FFXV has to be a saga, focus on different fronts of a conflict, or a different perspective of something else entirely.

+ Don't let Toriyama and his right-hand writer Watanabe on the loose again for a mainline FF game for another ten years at least. They can do smaller side-game projects if Toriyama wants his waifu Lightning to be a Goddess somewhere else after LR. Go make some Vita games, dammit.

+ The Agni tech demo was relatively well-received. That could be put to good use for FFXVI (not every bit of it has to be used, especially if people aren't too keen on Arabs with AK-47s), especially the design of Agni herself. Heck, for FFXVI itself, why not take the best parts from the fans' favourite - FFX - and parts from FFXII that made it stand out, and put them together? The size, scope, lore and translation work of FFXII with the turn-based battle system of FFX? I mean, if each new Final Fantasy game is different in how they play, why not go from an action-RPG to a next-gen turn-based game, potentially satisfying as many people as you can? Is there not still demand for a shiny turn-based game?

+ Plan well ahead. The new strategy of interacting more with the fans, updating them regularly, and generally being more transparent, is a very good start. However, you shouldn't totally listen to the fans because they largely don't know what they want either. The FF fandom is far from homogenous, and you can fall into the trap of Capcom's RE6-approach of trying to appeal to EVERYONE, including those who aren't typically fans of the franchise, but satisfying very few people in reality. Sometimes, a good longer-term vision independent of the fans' desire is a good thing. I'm generally not one to bark about how FF should "go back to its roots", so long as I get a good game that has clearly been made with a coherent vision, and not simply piled out through a factory conveyer belt.

+ Localise Dragon Quest VII for fuck's sake.

+ Keep the Bravely Default and FF Type-# series going.

+ Perhaps most importantly, and this may concern Square-Enix Japan as well: DEVELOPMENT BUDGETS AND SALES EXPECTATIONS. Don't be such a daft idiot that you treat Hitman as a triple-A blockbuster IP, expecting it to dish out as much floor-wiping with sales figures on the lines of Call of fucking Duty. Don't be so moronic that you think hiring Hollywood voice actors are needed for a "cinematic" experience, hence driving up development costs by 9,000 or whatever. Don't be such a pillock that you completely underestimate general development costs by a mile that sales expectations have to be at absurd levels to break even.

Do you know what it's called when Tomb Raider has managed the sales figures it did and was still considered disappointing? Oh yeah, that's right. It's called BAD BUSINESS. You don't survive long in this gung ho! capitalism, ahoy! world like that.

Oh, and:

+ Never, ever, ever, ever repeat the disaster of this generation. What do I mean? Crystal Tools engine problems. FFXIV initial release. The inability to even know how FFXIII will play until the bloody DEMO of it came out with Advent Children on Blu-Ray! Never ever announce a game so early again without good reason. I'm still ambivalent as to whether announcing KH3 this early has been a good idea...

 

[Razberry Knight]

I would

☆after LR, I will FIRE Toriyama. And I will threaten Kitase telling him "get your crap together or your next!" Tell Tetsuya Nomura to calm the hell down with his weird ideas and tell his staff if its too crazy, dont take it.

☆I will allow mobile gaming aslong as it was also on other handheld consoles, and considering PS Vita has android support, more games will be on android. I will add classics or games that made it to I-Mode, EZweb, Keitai, or Softbank phones into iOS/android aswell (and not modify them to look more advanced), such as the 1st 3 Saga games, Seiken Densestsu -Final fantasy Gaiden- (not the sword of mana version), The Horrii Yuuji Mysteries trilogy. Games most people havent heard of in the west but are very popular in Japan.

☆DO NOT MAKE AGNI PHILOSOPHY INTO A FINAL FANTASY GAME. Im sorry, but it looked like crao when it came to ff. FFXV already holds most of the modern style, we dont need more of those type of FFs. Goback tonits roots (when it comes to style such as ffxiv, vagrant story, ffxii). Im not saying Agni Philosophy SHOULDNT be a game. Just not an FF game.

☆Do everything in my power to localize every game we shouldve gotten such as Type-0. of course for Vita users into its online store and in retail and promote the shiz out of it (but not too much) so people can know this game is good.

☆Create new series for new IP. And not expect ridiculously huge sales.

☆REMAKE FF7, 8, 9 and 12. And the first three will most likely be closer to reboots rather than remakes (for good reason)

 

[Robbiedbee]

I would make the next Final Fantasy game a return to its roots.

-I'd not put everything into making the graphics amazing (but still on the level of the current gen)
-I'd ask Mr. Uematsu to name his price to come back and score at least one more game
-There would be returns for the world map (as found in FFI - X), ATB, all the familiar summons
-With the cutbacks made on graphics, I'd try make the longest FF yet in terms of time to complete the main story
-I'd try and get a few references to older games in, like FFIX. Not necesarily mindless fanservice, just a few nods/homages


The main philosophy I'd try to instill is "We have FFVII, FVIII and FFIX as a template. How can we make this better?" I didn't say anything before FFVII, because we're not bound by 4-directions. So I'm thinking PSX-era FF on steroids; bigger, longer, better graphics.

It would be interesting to see how well something like this would sell. I feel the Tales series hasn't changed too much looking at newer titles such as Graces F and Xillia, I'm sure the FF series would work well if it was closer to its roots.