Giant swords, spiky hair, and seemingly endless character tropes, Final Fantasy is a series of games that has withstood the test of time. No game is truly "final" it seems, as developer Square Enix has stood true to the game's general formula since its creation. Over the past 20+ years, the franchise has built up a reputation for having wonderful, polished gameplay and a storyline that weaves through environments that are always as deep as it is large. I'm constantly impressed when I read into each game and compare it to previous titles, noticing not only the completely new and sprawling world that has nothing in common with games before it, but also more subtle changes like the battle system or the way equipment and stats are handled.
With all of this said, I've recently had a fallout with playing Final Fantasy. I've heard many a good thing about the last released console title, Final Fantasy XIII, as well as its fair share of criticism. The battle system was something different, and it really paid off as a stand-out feature of the game. It did suffer a little for being really linear, but that's a minor nitpick in my opinion, as the game supposedly features hours upon hours of content to satisfy any level of gamer. There's even a sequel planned for release this year, which I'm really hoping doesn't flop like the previous one did for Final Fantasy X.
What is my point in all of this? Well, even more recently Square Enix has been working their asses off on Final Fantasy XIV, and like Final Fantasy XI before it, the game is an MMO. I haven't played either game, and I'm not regretting my decision. The first MMO was okay, but many had issues with the complicated terminology, not being able to experience content unless you found a consistent group, and prices being solely based on a player economy, which jacked up prices so high that Bill Gates would have trouble affording a single Phoenix Down. Maybe the second outing would be filled with corrections learned from the first.
...Or not.
Let me digress a little bit. If you follow this link here, it will lead to a video done by Mike B of Zam.com. It describes everything that is wrong perfectly, and one has to wonder how it got this shockingly terrible. Further information can be found in this somewhat of a follow-up video, where Mike B lists his most controversial games of 2010. If you watched my first video link, it's not hard to guess what was at the top of his list.
As it was mentioned in the video, the graphics were pretty high caliber, but many, MANY things were wrong. Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada had stated that the game's flaws had "greatly damaged the Final Fantasy brand", and sweeping changes had gone underway to make things right (see the second video). To this day, I don't believe that players have been charged at all in terms of a subscription fee, and there are plans to relaunch a "2.0" version of the MMO with a beta planned for late 2012.
How did so much go wrong? How did all of these choppy decisions and inexcusable game problems make it past the private testing phase? How did the once awesome Final Fantasy brand, known for having high quality graphics and fun, immersive gameplay, turn into a completely phoned-in effort of a video game that wouldn't even pass a quality test half a decade ago?
Regardless, it does seem Square Enix is taking the issue very seriously with the shuffling of their staff and the reassurance they are giving players. It shows that they at least care about the game doing well, though it's probably more for money's sake right now, but it's caring nonetheless. That's the only real thing Square Enix has remaining for the franchise right now, aside from announcing titles before they even have a development team (which is a whole other different topic). Here's hoping that the story continues on into something better, because after all, no true Final Fantasy game is ever Final.
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