Square Enix “Will Focus On Social Gaming”

To HouseLife:

I honestly don't see why FFXIII is an attractive game to you with all due respect.
you're right in that the game isn't meeting expectations. But to blame fans for having an expectation for the game is not very reasonable.The marketing regime strongly convinced everyone that the game plays like a sandbox game is where it really went wrong.

The game came out when sandbox games made it really big. People enjoy rpgs that allow you to explore the world in, like oblivion or GTA.
that expectation, coupled with the long development of FFXIII and the marketing hinting on a huge world to explore in, fans were waiting for the Japanese rival of a sandbox rpg.

what turned out was a highly graphically enhanced game but without the depth in gameplay or vast world to explore in.
the gameplay is without a doubt stagnant. It really was a slightly more sophisticated rock-paper-scissors game.
the roles of the roster of characters are rather confusing. While you can say it allows for versatile play, the leveling and build is REALLY limited that no matter how you really build it, it doesn't matter so much. it's all back to the elements and the right formation.

story wise, some characters do make some very awkward decisions to just keep the plot going.
Hope is one of those character's that from beginning to end, i don't understand his mentality.

the good things about the game is the character and environment designs and the music. but the story has made all of this trivial.

@ Anon 12:32

I appreciate your points very much, and all of them valid, but I'll never truly accept a fan being angry at a game because the game wasn't their exact game they wanted. No gamer ever knows what they want until they see it, and then one of two things happens, they say 'it's just trying to be this game' or 'this is shit because it's not the last cool thing I played."

The entire reason this dichotomy exists is because we have been spoiled by games, and I was guilty as well until I finally one day just cleared my head and realized it was all judgements based on bullshit. Suddenly every game felt like it did when I was 13 and everything was new. How would you like it if all modern games felt like they did back when you played Chrono Trigger the first time? That's how all RPGs feel to me now, and it feels so amazing I can't even describe it. People can bitch and moan all they want, but every game I get is a new life experience again because I know how to make it one.

The one thing that destroys incredible games like FFXIII is expectation. Look at it as if you'd never seen a videogame before, for example. Can you IMAGINE how you'd react? If you can't, then that's my point. We have completely and utterly lost our perspective on something being incredible from the ground up. Spoiled brats, all of us.

You yourself said it. Gamers expected open-world because it was popular then. Why is that Square's fault? They did something everyone else wasn't doing at the time and did it very well as they always do. Every other game was a sandbox game, and most of them aren't even very good sandbox games. I craved a straight story that didn't try to pretend I was the protagonist and that wouldn't be beaten in 5 hours if I decided I wanted plot.

As for Hope's decisions, I don't understand why you consider them illogical. Maybe I need some specifics. A young kid seeing his mother die and reacting to it is very illogical, I'm not sure what you expected (magic word again). He reacted very much like a young boy faced with a trauma who hadn't developed the mind enough to not place blame on someone. He looked to Lightning as a mother and a lover both because he was in the midst of growth he didn't understand and to fill his loss. It's all there for anyone to notice if they're actually paying attention.

Won't argue that the gameplay was stagnant. This is merely my preference alone, but I liked the straight-forward aspect of it in the place I was mentally at the time. I really craved a straight story, and that's what I got. The gameplay was fun enough for me, but of course not unlocked at an early enough time to grow well with the game. That one's one I will never argue against.

The main reason why the magic is pretty much gone from gaming. Is simply because we're not kids anymore. from the 80's, 90's and for some in the 00's we only got games because our parents bought them for us. Since it was a gift we enjoyed it because of that fact. Yet now we're shelling out our hard earned money for something and the blinders are finally off. Before we think "this is awesome" but now its more like "This is alright" "This is okay" "This is some bullshit" etc.

It goes for the developers of these big companies too back then these guys were in their 20 - 30's they we're pretty much innocent to the whole bullshit of business. They were driven to tell stories and show people what they could do. Yet with time comes wisdom but it also carries complacency. The big devs / publishers got TOO BIG. They lost their vision, their innocence. It's like a child realizing their is no santa, life goes on but that good feeling you once carried in your heart is gone.

You gave nothing exact when you describe exactly what gamers want, which yet again brings up that you don't know exactly what you want either. You describe other games with towns... and nothing else. so? Most rarely if ever have any capability to enhance your existence in the world, and nothing to reward you truly with a meaningful enhancement of your character or story. The games really have nothing but the initial awe of discovery, which isn't really that worthwhile in the long run to a truly engrossing narrative world. Open-world experience is also a lie because nothing is truly ever open-world, just designed to make you feel like it. FFXIII actually impressed me because people complained of its linearity, but when I sat down to play it, the way in which they organically got to different locations didn't feel forced much of the time (sometimes it did, but a forgivable amount in my eyes). It may have looked like a hallways to someone who wanted to whine about the maps, but that's if you look at the map itself and forget why you're in it in the first place.

The FF-fans want a FF game. And every single game in FF have 4 things in common.

1) Open World.

2) Several Towns with NPC and stores.

3) Random Encounters.

4) Gripping Story.

FFXIII didn't have 3 out of 4 of those. And Even the story is weaker than the other games.

As a stand alone game it could work with it´s beautiful graphics, but the problem was that it was introduced as a Final Fantasy game.

And when it´s introduced as a Final Fantasy game then it will also be judged as one.

Opinions all, fine. But FFXIII was good. Perhaps not great, but there was nothing about it that was crap. I don't want to do extra crap after I beat the game unless it enhances the narrative, atmosphere or story like Lunar 2, otherwise let me move on. And for someone who enjoyed the entire atmosphere of the first one, and then saw how incredibly they let the story enhance beyond anywhere I could have expected in XIII-2, I know for a fact you don't have the perspective to speak on what you do not know. If cities were a sacrifice, then the designers were geniuses to make the reasoning behind it so reasonable.

Yet again FFers keep wanting more of the same while simultaneously complaining that there's nothing new. Always the same.

I liked FF13. It had a good story, if you're not so slow that you can't grasp it. It even had solid gameplay, with the maximizing combat efficiency thing (discovering that ATB paradigm switch was so helpful)...

But it wasn't really a "Final Fantasy"-ish game. Yeah, the legend of the crystals was there, some really re-spec'd summons, but not much else was. If they called it "The Epic of Pulse" or something more generic like that, it probably would have had much better reception.