Father of Final Fantasy: “Stop Rehashing Final Fantasy!”
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Apr 7, 2010 02:54 JST
- Tags: Continuations, Final Fantasy, Production Controversy, RPG, Square Enix, Twitter
Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, recently took part in a candid exchange with a Square Enix employee in which he told the company to stop endlessly rehashing the same game.
Hironobu Sakaguchi, generally credited with creating the Final Fantasy series, left his executive vice president position at Square in 2004 to start his own studio, Mistwalker, responsible for Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.
In a (light-hearted and friendly) Twitter based exchange with game designer Takashi Tokita, current head of one of Square Enix’s development divisions, he was surprisingly frank:
Sakaguchi : “What about if you stopped all the rehashing of Final Fantasy?”
Tokita : “We’re planning to!”
Sakaguchi fields scepticism about his own current project, “The Last Story”:
Ahiru0026: “Last Story sounds just like a Final Fantasy rehash from its title alone, what’s up with that then?”
Sakaguchi : “If you tried it, I think you’d see it’s not in any way a rehash.”
Few could help but sympathise with Sakaguchi’s comments – Japan’s gaming industry, and in particular its RPG segment, have become stultifyingly unoriginal in recent years, failing to innovate in any significant fashion save moderate improvements in graphics.
Even Square Enix boss Wada, known to be a fan of western games, has given hints that the franchise may finally move on – might change finally be in the air?
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finally, a change
Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy
Final Fantsy: Yes It's For Real
I have to hand it to Ahiru though, the title alone, lol
i mean, if they want to lose out in all that money, let them go ahead. I'd take the profits over feelings. Which is why should they remake FFVII, they'll be beyond all the riches they could imagine.
The problem is not that they're rehashing it, the problem is that they SUCK at doing it....
Remakes coming???
Remakes, Remakes everywhere...
Game company's are too pussy to try anything new, follow the trends will earn them more money... look at all the RPG games that came out before, how they were different.
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
Azure Dreams
Star Ocean
Valkyrie Profile
Persona
Breath of Fire
Earthbound
Shadowrun
Chrono Trigger
Act Raiser
And many more.
Can you really blame them? Making a game today is a lot more costly than it was say back when Earthbound came out. Taking a chance in today's industry could mean risking everything. The most recent example I know of is Psychonauts. Psychonauts was a really good game, in my opinion, but a huge financial loss for Majesco, its publisher. Even if a development team is will and able to work outside the box, a publisher might not be so willing to sign on.
"Japan’s gaming industry, and in particular its RPG segment, have become stultifyingly unoriginal in recent years, failing to innovate in any significant fashion save moderate improvements in graphics."
Valkyria Chronicles says fuck you buddy
So i should expect a Final Fantasy 1 HDDVDBLURAYOMGWTFBBQ 69th anniversary edition tomorrow then?
The Final and the last, I wonder if any of em live up to their name, being final and last I mean.
Oh wait, we had have a lot of "final" here, so I guess the "final" is out.
nuuuuuuuuuu~ D:
I want a FFXXX !
>:]
Please expound upon what was new and different about it. I'm interested to hear what you have to say.
Do any of you guys know why final fantasy is called final fantasy? Some people criticize the name but it makes sense if you know the background info.
*raises hand*
i do, and i think it's a neat bit of information. kind of a charming success story, really. way to go, sakaguchi. \o/
i love the guy who commented about Last Story, laughed my ass off
The Japanese were never known for originality. To expect it now out of the blue is silly.
You mean like how America has rehashed the same games for years?
Don't you mean how America is full of retards (oh wait, redundant lolol)? They SHOULD just stick to fucking their greasy fuckass cheeseburgers or whatnot, taking a bath in the grease of the burgers, getting fat to the point that they die like how that fat piece of shit died in Se7en. Yeah. That's "The American Dream." Toss in some niggers, and lack of quality in everything, there, that's America.
oh boy! someones mad they weren't born in America :p
Yeah, I know. Somebody's jealous of our freedom.. 'Merika, Fuck yeah!!!
"You mean like how America has rehashed the same games for years?"
Well there's only so much you can do with the FPS genre. There's way more originality in our indie games and RPGs.
I think it's beyond pathetic that the RPG genre, which has so much room for creativity, is so uncreative in Japan given their undying love for them. Same can be said for anime and manga.
I personally really like FFIX becuase it sort of went back to the old FF criteria, although I'm currenlty trapped in a castle in FFII, grr stupid magic system
the last good jrpg was shadow hearts 2, not another rehashed square-enix rpg that's for sure.
Nope, Radiant Historia and Dragon Quest IX say hi
The Last Story looks very much like Final Fantasy from the bits that have been released so far.
pfft final fantasy is dead, and square-enix is as unoriginal and uninspired as the mound of compost their games rot in.
I wonder if Final Fantasy XV will still come out for WiiU. If not, well it's not like they don't speak the truth, except for one little detail: Square Enix currently depends economically on names such as "Final Fantasy" "Kingdom Hearts" and "Dragon Quest" how are they gonna emancipate from such franchises when the time comes while keeping the company strong is beyond me.
Final fantasy has become less and less original and more of a ran-down "westernized" game in the years gone by.
It's lost it's innovation to be different and constantly tries to butt-kiss retardation as much as possible.
The stories are a bore, the combat is the old turn-attack table crap, and the male characters are always angsty or ditzy.
It's like no one tries to be different anymore and if they do their too afraid. So their never released or their butchered down.
*Sigh* I'll be glad when America stops being such asshat on video-games and allows some creativity to happen.
They're doing it wrong.(square-enix that is...) Each story is suppose to be a Final story in its own Fantasy right. No sequel. No spin-off. Nada. Make one and move on whether it sinks or float.
What's sad is that they wouldn't have to move on but the gameplay is so stale and repetitive since 7... too many teenager angst/love storylines meh :/
Anyone remember the Final Fantasy series for the original GameBoy- Final Fantasy Legends I II III and Adventure... For those of you who are Poke'mon fans - talk about rehashing... Poke'mon games simply copied the Battle system from Final Fantasy Legends.
Well so the person who had the same fate as Tomino has increased by another number.
Someone needs to travel back in time and kill FF VII and this would never have happened!
lol, "Father of Final Fantasy: 'Stop Rehashing Final Fantasy!'"
Kitase, on Lost Odyssey: “What about if you stopped all the rehashing of Final Fantasy and simmonising Shadow Hearts' judgement ring bullshit, eventually outputting a game that's even worse than its already rock-bottom-hitting inspirations?”
Sakaguchi: “It's the only kind of shit game I know how to design, don't be so mean. :( ”
Haha. And I can't believe that Last Story bit, the guy deserves the Epic Hack award, rofl.
epic hack award. lulz. is he hacking himself? XD
Change? Ha! I'll believe it when I SEE it!!
"Japan’s gaming industry, and in particular its RPG segment, have become stultifyingly unoriginal in recent years, failing to innovate in any significant fashion save moderate improvements in graphics."
As opposed to western games that are all fun and innovation?
The Last Story sounds like an FF title, huh? Hmm, so does every other game title in the genre~
Seriously, I think they should've ended the series after 10. I thought XIII was pretty good story-wise, but it just isn't the same anymore.
Surely you mean after 9? ~~
ryu ga gotoku is the best franchise left in japan. Its cinematically better than FF and more manly, it not filled with girlie boys and teen drama, it's fucking adult!
Make FF adult, I want to see cloud cut of sepiroth's head than celebrate by raping tifa, fuck the teenie shit!
What is Square-Enix?
Since Uematsu and Sakaguchi left, a bunch of scavengers who use their past glory to keep in releasing their fanservice crap...
It would be good if they remade their older games with the newer tecnology, but JRPG needs to innovate or else American RPGs will take over the entire market.
by the way, Lost Odisey was a masterpiece
Didn't they try and change things with FF13?
It failed in their faces.
How? By filling the game with porcelain dolls and bishounen, and no story to speak of?
They keep trying to rely more on the (frankly uninspired and way too "pretty") looks than on putting some effort in coming up with a decent story which isn't the same tripe over and over again.
Is it me, or the only changes that have been added to RPGs are the attempts to make them NOT RPGs?
like Mass Effect 2 and FFXIII
rather than building upon what RPGs do right, it seems like companies want to get rid of the genre entirely
why?
is it too hard fro them?
pussies
err... mass effect has always been a mish mash of genres. you can't just plop it into the RPG category because it doesn't fit that mold, really.
just sayin'.
but XIII is so linear! what the hell is he talking about?
we need some new blood!!
or square enix can just make a mind-blowing Hgame =D
That was the most times I have ever seen the word Rehash in any one article.