Ben-DutkaThe word "reboot" has become awfully popular over the past five or six years.
It started to gain a lot of traction toward the end of last generation (and perhaps rightly so, given the staleness of certain franchises) and it has continued strong ever since.
We're still seeing reboots left and right. This year's Need for Speed entry is a "full reboot," for example, and Doom is one of the most well-known reboots in development right now. They're even calling the upcoming Mirror's Edge: Catalyst "more of a reboot than anything else."
But maybe we're not addressing the elephant in the room. Perhaps we should all acknowledge that the one franchise that desperately needs a reboot is the legendary Final Fantasy .
As I understand it, reboots are issued when a franchise has either lost its way or has fallen in popularity, or both. I think we can all agree that FF qualifies for both. Not only has Final Fantasy XV been in development for nearly a damn decade (it was originally Final Fantasy Versus XIII , which was initially revealed way back in 2006), but Square Enix is continually asking for feedback. It just seems painfully obvious to everyone that they have no idea what to do with this series. They have no idea; they really don't. And then you've got the sales, which have been tanking badly ever since Final Fantasy XIII . That game sold over five and a quarter million , and then FFXIII-2 sold only 2.6 million , and the embarrassment that was Lightning Returns barely broke a million .
Numbers-wise and direction-wise, this is a no-brainer, isn't it? There's only so long you can flounder about, asking questions and trying to produce a game that magically satisfies the long-time fans and modern-day gamers who have never heard of – and want nothing to do with – outdated mechanics. If you can't figure it out, take some time off and do a full-fledged reboot.
Good to know about FF.
I sorta feel like that's the future of where AAA gaming is going. Open world structure and freedom infused with multiplayer seems to be the natural progression from where we're at now.
Destiny has been made into something a lot better with its expansion and it got me thinking. Man. What if this sort of format will become something of a standard for a lot of big budget franchises? Destiny manages to provide strong single player elements now. Strong competitive elements. Strong co-operative elements.
And here we have FFXIV winning over FF fans with something that seems to satisfy a lot of tastes.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/26/2015 1:48:31 AM
God no! I don't know if you play it or not, I do, and while it may appear like a good reboot, it is in fact the opposite. Everything that made XIV unique from the 1.xx days are long dead, and while they did improve on quite a few problems , they also walked straight into MANY more. I wont go into details, but my lord this is a bad idea, unless you're aiming for a very shallow experience.
But the combat in FF11 was more boring than anything in a realm reborn.
Even when my Linkshell would do Named monster fights, or bosses the combat was never anything exciting. It was by the books, yes you had to be on top of things but, if you are going to call FF:ARR boring then you have to call FF11s boring because it was very slow.
Mind you I liked it at the time, but games have evolved and that style of combat just isn't satisfying for me anymore.
I want to find the video Phoenix because the zones in FF14 1.0 were big but they were literally made in a generator. Just because a zone is big and expansive doesn't mean it is better lol. I would much rather everything have a purpose to it and be hand designed than something that is massive and dull.
Arent most Final Fantasy game reboots? What does FFVII has in common with FFVIII or FFIX or FFX storywise? The increment in chapter only tell us that its the same kind of game with a different try of a story. I love them all up to FFX. Then all went south after that one (for me). I'm looking forward to this one bacause the characters look cool, but nothing else.
Since all recent FF have being a let down I am more interested in Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront and the upcoming Witcher 3 DLC. But still, I'm looking forward for the reviews on this one before buying it.
Last edited by TheOldOne on 9/26/2015 7:00:10 AM
Reboot or not, they need to go back to it's roots, for that is what once made it great.
Phoenix….the combat went through a huge overall, and the skill rotations require skill now.
It isn't as hard as FF11s skill chaining was but it is a nice step in the right direction.
I was talking about it as a template to build off of, mix FF12 and FF14 and I think you would have a pretty good game.
Also anyone who thinks the Vanilla FF14 was better than Reborn is crazy. There are NO objectionable points that made it better, it had clunky combat, unfinished animations, terrible limitations, almost no story, was a huge grind and well was unstable as heck when I played it.
Several of the classes have a 3 button rotation, I'm not kidding, it's boring and shallow. I'll agree some classes got more interesting combat changes, i.e monk/drg, but overall the combat changes were boring and shallow. I agree that the other changes were massive, and mostly good, i.e the changes to crafting, making it easier to get around the world ( came with drawbacks ).
While I'm sure everyone would agree, 1.xx versions of XIV were a hot mess, but it took some very cool risks, and some of them work quite well, the idea of using base classes that could borrow skills from other classes , or switch to that class's job but not use other class skills was a really cool idea, a nice tradeoff. The large worlds were very nice, beautiful landscapes which for the most part were lost with the 2.0 ( realm reborn ) update. The game took a pretty big loss in the graphics department all together. I could go on and on, but all that matters is that a lot of the good parts of 1.xx were stripped away, or made into bare bones versions. The game lost everything that made it unique and interesting, and now we have a VERY watered down WoW clone, with a heck of a lot less content.
As for templates to build off of, I'd do what they did for XII, and use XI honestly, it's the far superior MMO, or at least it used to be, and that's IF you really want to use an MMO for a template, judging by you wanting to use XII, you do, as it's just an offline MMO really.
Ive played both and I don't know what depth you are talking about in 1.0
Concepts can be cool but they have to be executed properly. The combat in 1.0 was to much like FF11 but in my opinion way worse and unrefined.
I played FF11 and got Mnk to 75 and a bunch up very high as well. I loved FF11 but it came out in a time where MMO combat was slower, and FF11 just had something unique to it. I could never play it now, it was a huge grind, took long to do everything. Yeah that made it special and addicting but I have more important things to do now.
Also FF14 1.0s landscapes were terrible, the assets were copy and pasted Hugely before they hired a company to revamp the zones, and the revamped zones were in my opinion just okay.
I admit FF14 1.0 had cool ideas but I don't think they were executed properly. Even if Real reborn copies WoW in a lot of ways I think it plays better than the original did, and this is coming from a huge fan of FF11.
We can agree to disagree though, I don't think anyones changing anyones mind soon 🙂
LV, it doesn't change the fact that the game is paper thin, it's exactly what is wrong with the FF series, becoming too action focused, less traditional RPG.
As for the story… meh, it's not all that great, it might get better as time goes on as they add more, but the main story isn't really anything to write home about.
I'd agree that some zones needed work, no doubt about it, but I enjoyed the size of the zones, and I know many others did to, so it was a real bummer to see them so small in ARR.
Honestly, XIV is in a lot of trouble right now, there just isn't enough content there ( this is after an expansion mind you ), and they are losing subs. So, we've got a game with very little combat, and the combat system is boring, hence why I'd call it shallow. Don't get me wrong, XI's wasnt a masterpiece, auto attack until you get tp and ws, but things were more interesting after that part, I.E Skillchains + Magic Burts. Also, XI at least had interesting stats on the gear, this again is something XIV is missing. With every piece of gear you get from the hardest raid atm, you know EXACTLY what stats you're getting, it's you main stat + vit, and either Crit/Det/SS/MP, how boring and dare I say… shallow?
So yes, while ARR did change the game to at least be playable, it gave up everything that made it interesting, it's very paper thin experience, it's the light version of a MMO. Hardly what every MMO should be.
No more MMO style battles in SP games please.
I think you're remembering FFXI through rose-tinted glasses. Every sky raid was sleep everything and kill one at a time. Rinse and repeat. And they took forever to do, which is something I could never do again due to time. I can feasibly get lots done in just an hour, and even on a half hour I can finish quests, levequests, crafting, guildhests, or other things. Half an hour in FFXI wouldn't even get you a full party going most of the time. (And I was the often sought after Red Mage)
The game must be healthy because the duty finder finds matches for you almost instantaneously now for anything. The fact is FFXIV is accessible, diverse in classes and race, has lots of quests and a decent story. I can't even fathom how anyone could think it's shallow. The battles are engaging, and there are a lot of skills at your disposal. And as a RDM in FFXI, I gotta say, getting through your skill tree is a lot less cumbersome. Don't forget, after 2 years, FFXI didn't have anything near what FFXIV has now.
They are. Non-fans don't understand that it's different every time, battle system and all.
Ok, I think I've asked this here before some time ago. What would make a reboot any different than just FFXVI? It's not a series that has any particularly consistent aspects or story that can be rebooted.
Reboot FF13. Make it, you know…good.
Imagine the game after 20 hours with gambits, the ability to switch characters mid-battle, and no game over after main character death (despite another starting a Raise cast).
Then incorporate the story into the story… and not just into the archives. Boom. Amazing game.
Dude, every Final Fantasy is different with different characters, different setting, etc.
There's nothing to reboot.
Or rather, you could say each game is a reboot.
Every new FF title is a reboot it just so happens the last several FF titles have been terrible. The formula has worked for two decades. The execution is what's been failing the franchise.
Different developer, different leadership, different vision. Just because the character models and names slightly change doesn't mean we haven't been getting a lot of the same thing for a long time now. They do try to change, but they're not very good at it, probably because they wanted to just keep making the same thing over and over again. I mean, for the NINTH main entry in the game one of the selling points was "The Crystal is BACK".
Personally I think 9000 Final Fantasy games is enough, but if it has to go on, at least give it a break for a few years, then let one of your other studios take a crack at it with fresh eyes.
That game had promise. One hallway for 20 hours is just too much though.