It's no good when all your disparate titles are competing against one another.

mcderek3000

The anti-Sony haters are the only ones saying the PSP is dying or dead. Those of us who have both have been enjoying new excellent games right up until now - and will continue to do so.

Plat-biased fanboys suck.

pixelator

jubeininja69

onikuwagata

toysmaniac

1) Tetsuya "every character must have at least four to six belts (or other strappy things)" Nomura was given a major role in the development of the series.

2) Squaresoft combined with Enix, and created the monster studio Square-Enix.

Square used to only publish a few games a year. I liked some (FFIV-VI, Seiken Densetsu 3, Chrono Trigger), hated others (the insufferable Xenogears, FFVII), and was conflicted about some others (FFXI, Chrono Cross). But they were all extremely polished, ambitious, and always technically impressive games, regardless of whether they fit my particular tastes or not.

Now look at Square-Enix. FFX-2. FFVII Dirge of Cerberus. 13,000 different versions of FFI. Drakengard. Even the Enix branch has been slipping as of late, with things like Star Ocean 3. Consider that there is a FFT remake, this new FF PSP, three versions of FFXIII in development, this new "Last Remnant" thing, and FF bastard child Kingdom Hearts III in development all at the same time (and I'm leaving some things out too). Sure they're a bigger company now, but I have a hard time believing that they can produce products with the same degree of quality when there are so many products in development.

FFXII is proof that they can still do it if they really try, but why should they? If they half-hearted crank out titles, they still sell a billion copies and the press lauds them for being the coolest thing since someone decided to try cutting bread into slices.

Alixsar

Considering that Nintendo don't put nearly as much effort into the characters as Square does and how there's still usually a love interest to the hero who is trying to stop a villain threatening the world, they do make things a bit less unpredictable. I can guess what's going to happen in a Zelda game before playing it.
That may be down to the different audiences the games are aimed towards (Final Fantasy doesn't appeal to nearly as many people as Zelda).

But I still can't see how people can say Final Fantasy is being milked or it's the same thing over and over when most of the time it's really different, interesting and a high quality game.
If that defines "milking", then I'm all for it.

Kurnel

Notice he didn't ruin FFXII?

Roux

Gamemaster

djricekcn

Open advice to game studios:

NEW IDEA

Snaphaunce

And belts. Can't have enough belts.

CommentatorHatman

I look forward to all of those games hehe... Just release Crisis Core already ggrrrr!

RPGZero

[SKO]DraftD

Not that I care. I gave up on the PSP a year or so ago.

Momomo

Kuraudo

@Kurnel: I certainly won't complain about it as long as they keep the quality at the expected level, which is extemely high. Even if Zelda and Metroid are always "the same thing" (they aren't), they are produced at a rate similar to the early FF series.

There can definitely be too much of a good thing. Personally, if its better than my FF low-point benchmark of FFVIII, I will enjoy it.

StrikerGold

Seriously, I like my Final Fantasies without the Myspace drama, please.

MasaMuneCyrus

They need to take a step back and look at what they're doing to themselves? They're making a stupid amount of money. And milking the franchise? They just use some of the same elements... what good would it do to keep changing the name of each game?

If you took the chocobos, bombs, changed the names of magic spells Final Fantasy XII could have easily been a spin off from Vagrant Story. How is that milking the series?

Kurnel

KirbySS

It's nothing really that new anyway. There were lots of Chocobo games during the PS era and the non-FF SNES RPGs were notorious for featuring FF cameos. They've just made the spin-offs more directly related to the games already out there so they appeal to more fans.

As long as they keep the current quality of the games up I don't see how any of this is a problem. They still change the gameplay and battle systems between each game so each iteration is as fresh as the last. As a big fan of the series it's nice, after previously having to wait for years for any FF related product, to actually be able to pick and choose what FF games I want to play.

Kuraudo

That's all from me for now, I need to go work on finishing FFXII...

天

Jonn

Let's see what this means...

dissidium, dissidi(i) N (2nd) N [EXXCE] Later
separation, divorce, discord; disagreement, quarrel; tearing apart;

That's quite a negative implication there. Perhaps Nomura will pump out something interesting this time, he has pretty much exhausted his list of coloured hairstyles and face shapes. Good to see Amano drawn title backgrounds again.

Sandcastle

ming`

jackal888

Sinnix

Raining Day

MR. FAP☆FAP!

Final Fantasy may be a long running franchise, but each game attempts to do new and different things at least. Besides, asking them to change the name for games would be like asking Coca-Cola to have different names for the different flavours of Coke.

hikaizer

I just don't care anymore.

Also: I thought Nomura was done with Final Fantasy?

Lissar

If you compare those games, the battle system becomes less menu driven and more hacking and slashing away.

It's either that or I have a problem called rpgadd (role-playing game attention deficit disorder) :p.

Phlycheez

Kurnel

Kirakun

creid

usedtabe

Kenofthedead

popdem

bobtheduck

Same with Tecmo... They do almost nothing but exclusives... I like that better than half-assed ports.

bobtheduck

Yukito

johnhummel

thank GOD it's not another remake.

sakuraz

Tri5cui7

Brill