The major problem with Square Enix as a gaming company right now is their obsessive focus on graphical presentation. With each new game, they seem to challenge themselves to raise the industry bar for what can be accomplished visually. However, this investment has proven to carry with it some consequences. Games are more than just visual feasts for the eyes, they're an interactive media which people have some level of expectations for now. But it hasn't always been this way with them; there was a time when their main goal behind making a game was tying in a strong narrative with unique game play. Now, it seems Square takes a look at a gaming platform and says to itself, 'let's see how I can make this lag'. Even Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy's original creator, has been quoted saying he wasn't good at making action games, so he's rather tell a story instead. But I feel they went astray from misinterpreting the success of Final Fantasy VII which has lead to several years of misguided concepts.
All 6's and 7's
When making this case, it's best to compare what the series started as and where it went, and the time between Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII is what I consider a crucial moment in Square's history. Final Fantasy VI emerged, stateside, on the Super Nintendo on October 11th, 1994 and, I think, it's fair to say that Final Fantasy VI is good representation of 'old school' Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy VII was released on the Playstation on September 7th, 1997 and embodies the spirit of all 'modern' Final Fantasy titles. So we first have a console generation gap which says the obvious, production values. Super Nintendo was 16-bit, Playstation was 32-bit. What does that mean? Better graphical resolution. Final Fantasy VI used pixels, Final Fantasy VII used polygons. Final Fantasy VII's graphics were a milestone for the series and for console gaming in general. But the biggest graphical leap was the computer generated cutscenes which SquareSoft had sunk millions of dollars into to pull off (millions of dollars and they still had consistency issues: ever notice Sephiroth takes his gloves on and off during his descending stab in the Forgotten Capital?). These added production values were what set this game apart from Playstation games and other Final Fantasy titles.
So when SquareSoft looked at the huge success of Final Fantasy VII, what was the biggest addition to the seris? Presentation. I'm not suggesting they just dropped all creative game play ideas afterward for the sake of shoving a CD full of graphical goodness, the idea of over-presentation had to have time to grow and fester (if this were Inception, Final Fantasy VII would be Leo). From then on, the Playstation era was very kind to SquareSoft and SquareSoft was kind to it. Players got such classics as Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Threads of Fate, Parasite Eve, all of which provided unique game play quirks without sacrificing substance for visual flair (especially with Parasite Eve and Xenogears). In the Playstation's 5-year lifespan, there were many games from Square that attempted to do something different. It wasn't until the Playstation 2 era that the warning signs started to emerge.
Leaving A Legacy
One of the biggest changes was the leaving of Hironobu Sakaguchi during the development of Final Fantasy XII. Hironbu was the creative mind behind a lot of the titles Square, including the director's chair for Final Fantasy I through Final Fantasy V, Square Soft and Square Enix produced. Once he left, anyone can see a substantial decline in review scores. It's also around the time that Hironobu left that Square fans started doubting the gaming quality of Square; the griping first began with Final Fantasy XII's license board and gambit system and since, no game has gone without a fair share of complaining. Also Final Fantasy XI happened, but that's a whole other rant (don't worry, it's coming sooner or later).
Final Fantasy: Spirits Within
The other change was the before-mentioned shift towards production values over game play. Evidence of this can be seen from Square's only major motion picture, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. This movie was released in US theaters on July 11th, 2001. It had all the makings of a hit motion picture: great voice acting cast with the talents of Alec Baldwin, James Woods and Steve Buscemi, and some breakthrough computer animation which was how the movie was rendered in its entirety. However, the movie bombed and effectively shut down Square Pictures immediately due to the sales not making back the money the company sank into the film. To the film's credit, it's not a bad movie: the visuals are impressive, the voice acting is solid, the story is decent; the problem was Final Fantasy was in the title, and it didn't have anything to do with Final Fantasy. No chocobos, no mogs, no teenagers saving the world from a great evil, only an old guy named Cid and some ghosts. Now Square could've taken this as a sign that maybe relying heavily on your graphics engine is a poor investment, but I think they were a little too thick for that. Since this movie's failure, I can't help think Square somehow resents the world and gets back at us by trying to make movies disguised as games.
Unlucky 13 and 14
By the time the Playstation 3 came around, Square Enix was lost (yes, lost in a very linear corridor with characters like Vanille and Sazh, or as I call them, Vanilla and Chocolate). Final Fantasy XIII, released on March 9th, 2010, is the poster child of the over-presentation, Square Enix dilemma. Square Enix stated that they wanted to make a game that played out like an interactive movie (namely, a movie like Advent Children). Interesting idea, but the problem is, people play games to... play them. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie; when I play a game, I'm looking for some interaction. Taking away interaction is taking away the basic idea behind video games. Final Fantasy XIII did what the series has always done, which is try out new ideas, but there are good ideas and bad ideas; and Final Fantasy XIII was one big bad idea. 2010 could've ended with just Final Fantasy XIII being a relative weak entry in the series, but, unfortunately, Square Enix was preparing to launch the biggest bomb of their history.
Final Fantasy XIV was released September 21st, 2010 and it was terrible (still is, actually). But it didn't start being terrible there, it was terrible in beta testing. Instead of taking all of what they learned during the extensive testing and applying it to the final product, Square Enix decided to ignore it and release the game as a broken mess of road blocks and poor user interface. It's currently the only game Square Enix has publicly apologized for, on top of relieving staff members from their manager positions, they have yet to charge a monthly fee as of yet due to the inexcusable condition of the game. It would seem more understanding if this was Square's first attempt at an online game, but it isn't. Final Fantasy XI was released October 28th, 2003. While it wasn't the best game in the series, it wasn't bad. It still remains a decent online game in the pre-WoW era of online gaming; so how did they mess up Final Fantasy XIV so badly? One of my theories is they spent all their time and energy developing the Crystal Tools graphics engine. It was the game engine being developed during Final Fantasy XIII and powered both XIII and XIV, and will power Versus XIII. Instead of relying on a 3rd part engine, they spent all that time making their own, and their games have suffered since. Tying back into the determination of telling a story, Square Enix developed Crystal Tools so they could render out facial expressions for their character models; this is the link between the dilemma and Hironobu's philosophy.
Exposition
From Final Fantasy VII to Final Fantasy XIII, the use of cinematic sequences has almost replaced what the actual game part of the game should've been. Ever watch a cut scene and think, 'wow, I wish I could be doing that'. But you never really get the chance to because your characters never have that capability once it's over. It's like how all magic suddenly disappears once you're back to running around on the map screens. Cut scenes are now being more heavily used to tell the story instead of setting scene or giving the player another perspective, so where does that leave the rest of the game? I don't want to play a game that's all cut scenes and random battles, I need to feel like it's up to me to push the narrative forward, not be dragged behind by it.
Heavy Rain and Dissidia
Now what the heck do these two games have in common. Heavy Rain was a story-driven, quick-time-event based game that hit the PS3 in 2010 and was well-received. Dissidia: Final Fantasy was a fighting game for the PSP which pitted many heroes and villains from the numbered games against one another in a giant battle for the universe, and received the full force of my resentment for Inward Chaos's final boss. Both games managed to take an interactive medium and make it seem like it belonged to another form of media. What does that mean? It means both games play out much like a movie. Heavy Rain is the detective story and Dissidia is basically every fight scene from Advent Children; but both managed to stay interactive while casting aside normal gaming conventions (actually, you could make the case that any fighting game does this, and I do. I think fighting games are only 1/3rd of a real game). Dissidia was the answered prayer of people wanting to be as awesome as they saw their characters be in cut scenes, and I think it was a good idea. Now if they could turn those mechanics towards an RPG base and move away from the fighting genre, which is what Dissida 012 is supposed to be. So even if Square wanted to keep its philosophy alive, there are now examples of how to go about doing it (one of them they freakin' made).
Final Fantasy XV
No, it hasn't been announced and we probably won't see it until Final Fantasy XIII Agito and Versus are released. I bring it up because I offer a solution to this ongoing dilemma. Square Enix needs to prove to itself that the latest graphical splendors aren't what carries a game. So, instead of throwing millions of dollars at a graphics budget, I suggest taking a bold route and... wait for it... making Final Fantasy XV a 16-bit game. Mega Man 9 and 10 did it with 8-bits, I'm sure Final Fantasy can do it with 16 (no, I do not count Final Fantasy IV-2: The After Years). This solution would calm the legion of fans that demand old school Final Fantasy, it would alleviate budget costs and it would allow Square to focus on compelling game play. We've seen Square Enix try and recapture the magic before, with varying results. 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy was released on the Nintendo DS and tried to do just that with some minor success.
But who knows, if the Crystal Tools engine really did suck up all that time and effort, they should be able to fully focus on games again (them and their entire staff of monkeys with typewriters). Maybe the next batch of games will prove all of this ranting to be just minor hysteria and jumping-the-gun. After all, I criticize Final Fantasy X for being too linear and worried whether Square could really make a vast world to explore. The answer was, they still could, and we got Final Fantasy XII. So perhaps Final Fantasy XV will be a next-gen powerhouse and offer players fully explorable worlds and we can put all our worries to rest. If not, then there's always Elder Scrolls V.
