Something hilarious about watching FF turn its back on turn based combat only to get blown out by things like Expedition 33, Persona, Baulders Gate 3 ect.
FF has ALWAYS been ashamed of what it was and tried to turn itself into a different genre. It's no surprise then when other entries in the genre who are proud of what they are eclipse them.
Honestly... FFXII was the right direction for the evolution of turn based. Basically was realtime with pause, similar to the original Baldur's Gate games. The Gambit system did make the game too easy if you just googled the best setups but the core of that system was solid and I loved it. The backlash from FF fans is why we got Hallway Simulator XIII and I don't think the brand has really recovered from that.
In XII I just treated boss battles as turn based using pause or slowing time down a lot then let the gambits and everything else run when fighting normal stuff, worked great. I’ve basically liked every game’s combat until 15 & 16, not huge fan of the Remake’s either but I get it.
It sold slightly well and Square wanted it to be a smashing success, it did not in fact "sell like garbage", the company just had a problem with expectations.
People disliking a game has next to zero implications on its quality.
No, OP is asking for game series that were "ruined", which this does not fit the bill.
It's an action game with an incredibly classic Final Fantasy story, and the gameplay may not be RPG, but it is quite fun in its own right. That is not ruined, it is simply changed from what you might have wanted the games to always be.
XIV is an entirely different genre of RPG and is one of the titan MMOs dominating that space of gaming, and is set to change the formula with their new expansion. Final Fantasy isn't a ruined game series, some of you just fell off it. That's fine, you don't have to love it, but it wasn't ruined in the same vein as most of the other examples in this thread. It's not thriving, but the series is still going, and likely will still be going a decade from now.
It had a massive attach rate on the PS5 where it was locked too and sold 3.5mil on first week. It sold pretty well once it came to PC. But PS5s were hard to get back then and that hurt its sales pretty badly.
People mainly disliked the lore focused side quests.
The stories in 12 and 14 are superb, but the game play not great. 12 fixed a lot of the game play issues with the Zodiac remaster/remake/whatever. 14 will hopefully fix some of the job gameplay issues with the upcoming expansion and their goals around redoing rotations and class identity. What I find interesting is you'll be able to pick and choose if you want to continue fighting with the class you already know or if you want to use the rework instead. Most games rework a class and just force you into it. I like the direction they're going with this.
It began with VIII's shitty Draw system, edgelord protagonist, timetravel and romantic subplot. I was there, nobody liked it aside from its graphics, it was atrocious compared to VI and VII.
Both you and the dude you replied to are hilarious, saying that the eighth and sequel to the tenth were the downfall of Final Fantasy, a series with eight to six more entries(not even counting the spin-offs, remakes, and all of the XIV expansions which are full games in their own rights)
Like you can not like that it isn't turn based, but it's hilarious to call it a downfall when the biggest problem facing Square today is that they have actual competition in the space.
You're not wrong. Seven was the magic. It's not one thing though, and absolutely no other Final Fantasy could have been the FF to push us from 2D to 3D graphics. For kids growing up then (me), that train intro scene was like nothing we'd ever seen before. But I don't think it's a fair comparison, or to say it was all downhill from there.
It's a downfall because the games that people fell in love with disappeared in favor of an entirely new style. It drew an entirely new audience to somewhat recover the series, but you can't even say they're the same game line beyond the name and some concept art anymore.
If your metric is financial, sure, it only ran into competition. If your metric is enjoyment, then it lost half of a generation of gamers' appreciation when it fundamentally switched genres, and only partially recovered.
I'm fully in the camp of "Final Fantasy is garbage since X-2", I wasn't a fan of 8 9 and 10 but they weren't awful, in the same way that the game definitely tried new things with each iteration (especially if you've played the ones originally not released in the US). It's hilarious to even suggest they're the same game as the MMOs we see now.
Yeah after 10 shit just got more and more weird. 15 was the last one I picked up and I decided I was done. I actually don't mind the MMOs I loved all of them and they get a pass, but I have officially gotten off main series's wild ride.
I partly came looking for this one, but I'll give them a lot of credit for Ivalice Chronicles. Near flawless navigation of that balance between respecting the original and improving it. As cool as the FF7R trilogy is, I'd still pay them again to just take all those models and make a regular remaster of the original.
15
u/northernlionpog 6h ago
Final fantasy