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?
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.
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 :/
Have you even played XII? Hardly a love story. It’s more of a political storyline rather than a ‘save the world’ trope since the ‘villains’ are actually doing the same but through more violent methods. It’s open-world real time combat system was a huge breath of fresh air after dealing with 10’s poke’mon like, ‘surprise Malboro butt raping’ hassle. I wish they’d bring XII’s fighting system back.
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.
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.
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.