How much has Square Enix tarnished their reputation with Final Fantasy 14 Online

How much has Square Enix tarnished their reputation with Final Fantasy 14 Online? What do you think?

I mean, Square Enix was still a respected company and most of their Final Fantasy games including 13 were really good, quality games. But they released this horrible game, Final Fantasy 14 Online. The game is extremely bad. What were they thinking? Did nobody working in the company knew the game was terrible? Why was this released? Not only SE released a flop, but they tarnished their reputation.

I would not be surprised if the game is dead within a year. I am the kind of gamer that when I buy a bad game, I still play it and enjoy it the best I can because I don't like wasting my money. However with FF14 this is impossible. I simply refuse to touch it again after maybe 12 hours, even if I paid 50$

I don't see how releasing this on consoles is magically going to redeem the game. I seriously can't see this game scoring more than a 7 on PS3.

i find that FF13 hurt their reputation more becausedespite that itgot GOOD reviews, a significant amount of people HATED it.

So if there's a future game (FF 15 or whatever) that scores really well, I could see people just simply not being interested anymore.

But then again, big FF games have such high production values, and come out so rarely, that people would probably just buy it anyway.

The question is "How much reputation did SE have before", not only FF14, but FF13 and FM:E were just horrible IMO :S I also hated most of their NDS and Wii games :S Only platform I played surprisingly good games from SE was the PSP :S

FFXIII was a good game. No doubt about it. There's a reason it scored well universally. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again. FFXIII was a victim of it's own hype. No matter what the game turned out to be in the end, there was no way it was ever going to please the masses. A game with the amount of hype that that game had has no chance. People need to stop judging FFXIII based on what they expected it to be, and start judging it by what it actually is.

dont forget FF13. That was crap.Allicrombie

It wasn't that bad :(

Final Fantasy X-2 anyone? *weeps*

They probably ruined their MMO credibility. Unrelated games will continue to do well.

There may be hope yet for FFXIV.....

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=ae8d667b53355d8ea364fafa44d5253e4362e17f

tldr; Tanaka's "resigned" from his position on the game. Dev team has been reshuffled/better people (Note: current FFXI team) added, PS3 version delayed, free trial for FFXIV is now indefinite.

Those of you that play/played FFXI up til recently might notice the director FFXI got in September has now been moved to FFXIV, as such XI has a new Director, see: http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11eu/detail/6065/detail.html Shame because the past few FFXI updates have been made of so much awesomesauce it has completely changed the game for the better (we're actually getting stuff we want now!) but since the new director created Abyssea which is a large part of that win it could be a good thing, but at the moment I think the following sums up FFXI players reaction to this announcement:

Dear FFXIV Players,

Give us back our awesome director.

Regards,

FFXI Players

Should be win/win for FFXIV though. Hopefully the game picks up quickly.

dont forget FF13. That was crap.Allicrombie

What reputation?, they lost the little they still had with FF13 as far as im concerned. FF14 is just as bad as that one, but this time at least people admit it.

[QUOTE="Allicrombie"]dont forget FF13. That was crap.fend_oblivion

It wasn't that bad :(

Final Fantasy X-2 anyone? *weeps*

In my opinion, they destroyed any chance of ever selling another MMORPG after this, and this is coming from somebody who bought and enjoyed FFXI. FFXIV was simply an incomplete, rushed mess that ignored nearly a decade of progress. Everything you try to do in the game fights you and goes against you. It's like they looked at what they did right in FFXI, ignored it all, and just regressed with XIV. It's simply terrible designed and not a fun experience in any way.

dont forget FF13. That was crap.Allicrombie

Na not to me. In fact its far from crap.

Bluntly I never recovered from that Infinite Undiscovery fiasco they released a few years ago. I still have PTSD at the thought of playing another JPRG after that experience.

I think to answer your query that FFXIII hurt thier reputation much more than 14 has simply because as a poorly selling PC only release no-one has really played 14.

Squaresoft has gone from the top of my list to the only company where if I see their name on something I get nervous. It just seems that they've completely lost touch with what made them great. I was really looking forward to FF14, thinking it might be an amazing game. "Surely they fixed all of the problems 11 had". Then I started reading the first reviews and I was blown away by just how bad it was.

wait till it appear on PS3 next year.. I see a lighthippiesanta

[QUOTE="hippiesanta"]wait till it appear on PS3 next year.. I see a lightDracula68

Their reputation with me was destroyed when I got about 15 hours into Final Fantasy XIII and practically lapsed into a monotony-induced coma. I have no interest in future installments of that franchise - I try to learn from my mistakes, not repeat them. I just hope they don't totally eff up Deus Ex, because I actually am fairly interested in that game.

[QUOTE="fend_oblivion"]

[QUOTE="Allicrombie"]dont forget FF13. That was crap.MAILER_DAEMON

It wasn't that bad :(

Final Fantasy X-2 anyone? *weeps*

In my opinion it couldn't actually get any worse than after FF13

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"][QUOTE="fend_oblivion"]

It wasn't that bad :(

Final Fantasy X-2 anyone? *weeps*

fend_oblivion

That right there is the exact reason why FFXIII failed in many people's minds. I'd keep my expectations in check if I were you.

Hey, at least they acknowledged it, apologised for it, and got a team of devs working on a marjor patch to fix the dmn thing.

Honestly, they haven't screwed their reputation up that much, at least not in my eyes.

How much has Square Enix tarnished their reputation with Final Fantasy 14 Online? What do you think?

I mean, Square Enix was still a respected company and most of their Final Fantasy games including 13 were really good, quality games. But they released this horrible game, Final Fantasy 14 Online. The game is extremely bad. What were they thinking? Did nobody working in the company knew the game was terrible? Why was this released? Not only SE released a flop, but they tarnished their reputation.

I would not be surprised if the game is dead within a year. I am the kind of gamer that when I buy a bad game, I still play it and enjoy it the best I can because I don't like wasting my money. However with FF14 this is impossible. I simply refuse to touch it again after maybe 12 hours, even if I paid 50$

nurnberg

Their reputation as a MMO developer is dead.

It didn't damage them at all, aside from within the confines of the MMO genre.DarkCatalyst

But it did damage their reputation. If they hadn't made FFVIII, FFXI, FFXIII, and now FFXIV, not to mention FFXII, then Squaresoft wouldn't be in such a bad place with the series. They should have kept on making the FF game the way they should have been, such as I-VII, then IX and X. Had they stayed upon that path and were inspired by that formula, then there wouldn't be such bad damage done to the series.

As for FFXIII? Don't get me started on that. The graphics were beautiful and the soundtrack was gorgeous, but the linear gameplay and dull battle system left a lot to be desired. What happened to the sidequests, towns, etc? Yes, I heard that the game opens up later on in the game, but if the game didn't turn out to be either fun or enjoyable for me, then I immediately shut it off. I gave FFXIII a great chance and the only thing I got out of it was constant disappointment. It's like with FFVIII, the worst game in the series; I bought the game to PLAY the game, not to sit there and watch hours and hours of FMVs. Final Fantasy XIII went down that path too and I loathed it.

I gave up on Square with XIII and was definitely right on target with XIV - what a horrendous piece of s*** that game turned out to be!

i loved ff 13, i dont care how many ppl hate it.

i loved 8 too, and i still dont care how many ppl hated it,

imo 10 and 10x2 were the worst of the series.

Personally, I think it's hard to gauge where Square Enix lost their touch.

I think they still make some decent games, I enjoy Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light which just came out in like September. Of course it didn't get the best reviews, but it had some small success.

Of course, I felt pretty disappointed by FF13. I knew before I bought the game it wasn't going to be that impressive, and I wasn't excited at all leading up to its release. I felt the same way about FF12, I really didn't care if I played it or not, and didn't even pick that game up. But, I don't want to say those games were total bombs - they are better than a lot of mediocre RPGs, but perhaps just not good by Square Enix standards.

Some people felt that Square went downhill when they merged with Enix. I reject this idea though, because Enix brought a lot of great games to the table in the merger, most notably Dragon Quest 8(which got good reviews) and Drakengard (which didn't do so well but I loved) and lest not forget that Final Fantasy 12 and Kingdom Hearts 2 came out after the merger, and both of those did well, even if I didn't care about FF12.

For me, I think Final Fantasy 10 was the last great FF game, the last one that really impressed me. The characters were likeable, the story was good, and even if the game traded in difficulty and complexity for a speedy battle system and voice acting, it was a good game. Some people would be quick to criticize FF11, but even that game did pretty well and was the most successful Japanese MMO for years on end.

So, it's really a matter of preference where you feel that SE started to 'tarnish' their reputation for making great RPGs. Some people even feel that they haven't yet.

But the most realistic answer, and probably the one that is the hardest to swallow for most of us FF fans, is that SE is moving into a different direction with their games and has been for years. They are no longer a strictly 'RPG company', they are broadening their horizons and doing new and different things. So maybe, in the long run, this will lead to some new and interesting advancements in other game genres.

end long post.

i loved ff 13, i dont care how many ppl hate it.

i loved 8 too, and i still dont care how many ppl hated it,

imo 10 and 10x2 were the worst of the series.

incred_davis

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"][QUOTE="fend_oblivion"]

It wasn't that bad :(

Final Fantasy X-2 anyone? *weeps*

fend_oblivion

As an example, the remakes of FFIII and IV, as well as the recent 4 Heroes of Light were outsourced to Matrix Software. The DS Kingdom Hearts games were made by h.a.n.d. The recent PSP KH game, Birth By Sleep, was made by a different internal dev team than the people behind KH2 and Final Fantasy vs. XIII, and that same team made the PS2 remake of KH: Chain of Memories and is now working on 3D.

So, I would argue that the main problem with SE is that their "big" games are unfocused, bloated, take too long to make, and are out-of-touch with what the people want.

[QUOTE="incred_davis"]

i loved ff 13, i dont care how many ppl hate it.

i loved 8 too, and i still dont care how many ppl hated it,

imo 10 and 10x2 were the worst of the series.

Ovirew

dont forget FF13. That was crap.Allicrombie

FFXIII was a good game. No doubt about it. There's a reason it scored well universally. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again. FFXIII was a victim of it's own hype. No matter what the game turned out to be in the end, there was no way it was ever going to please the masses. A game with the amount of hype that that game had has no chance. People need to stop judging FFXIII based on what they expected it to be, and start judging it by what it actually is.

KH-mixerX

It's a good game, but only because of its battle system. The rest of the game pretty much shows how lazy Square has gotten.

Dude, the game is called final fantasy 14, Ide be out of good ideas too.

Their problem isn't really that they're making a lot of games... they have a lot of development teams, and there isn't usually a lot of overlap. The problem is that they're so big that there isn't much communication within those really large dev teams. XIII suffered because it had no vision and direction, as the many parts of the dev team each had a different idea as to what the game should be.

MAILER_DAEMON

True. I remember reading an article where the devs said they weren't sure of what FF 13 was actually trying to do in terms of gameplay and story telling. Sad...

SE should really look back at what made them great back in the glory days.

[QUOTE="KH-mixerX"]

FFXIII was a good game. No doubt about it. There's a reason it scored well universally. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again. FFXIII was a victim of it's own hype. No matter what the game turned out to be in the end, there was no way it was ever going to please the masses. A game with the amount of hype that that game had has no chance. People need to stop judging FFXIII based on what they expected it to be, and start judging it by what it actually is.

GreySeal9

It's a good game, but only because of its battle system. The rest of the game pretty much shows how lazy Square has gotten.

Wow, that's an opinion you don't see too often. Most people hate the battle system the most, in my experience anyways. I'm a big fan of the battle system as well though. In fact, I'd say its FFXIII's crowning achievement. Aside from the soundtrack that is.

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"]

Their problem isn't really that they're making a lot of games... they have a lot of development teams, and there isn't usually a lot of overlap. The problem is that they're so big that there isn't much communication within those really large dev teams. XIII suffered because it had no vision and direction, as the many parts of the dev team each had a different idea as to what the game should be.

fend_oblivion

True. I remember reading an article where the devs said they weren't sure of what FF 13 was actually trying to do in terms of gameplay and story telling. Sad...

SE should really look back at what made them great back in the glory days.

More importantly, they need to bring back the original team members that made the series a success in order to get them back to that point - where they used to be great, for what they are dishing out now with the recent FF games will not cut it.

And someone said that the battle system was good in FFXIII? People who believe that are just crazy, IMO. Dull, repetitive, and a chore. No fun at all!

The real question should be How much have they tarnished their rep from this gen.

The answer is a lot. One mediocre RPG after another.

There stock dropped after the reviews came. The CEO of the company had to repeatedly apologize to the public saying they failed. Gamers from Japan and around the world agree that it's trash with extremely low user and critic reviews everywhere. They've been extending their free trial period for a while now and it's still free till they fix their mistakes. There has been major changes within the development team as well. They're hoping to redeem themselves with the PS3 version.

With the advent of FFXIII, Square tried to create an engine that could do absolutely everything they would ever want to do with it on the PS3. But it was simply an impossible, foolish task and work on FFXIII relied on the engine. By the time they reached a point where they could actually work on FFXIII, time was running out and they had to prioritize on the elements that were "most important." The problem with this is that while the battle system was definitely the best, the story was just awful with poor directing throughout. If the story had been good, it would have been more excusable. One half of their priorities, not counting graphics, just didn't go well.

However, if anything, I think people enjoy hating on Square these days. I can't see Square ever reaching a point where they'll be well liked again, because they aren't even appreciated for the achievements they did make with FFXIII, in spite of its flaws.

With the advent of FFXIII, Square tried to create an engine that could do absolutely everything they would ever want to do with it on the PS3. But it was simply an impossible, foolish task and work on FFXIII relied on the engine. By the time they reached a point where they could actually work on FFXIII, time was running out and they had to prioritize on the elements that were "most important." The problem with this is that while the battle system was definitely the best, the story was just awful with poor directing throughout. If the story had been good, it would have been more excusable. One half of their priorities, not counting graphics, just didn't go well.

However, if anything, I think people enjoy hating on Square these days. I can't see Square ever reaching a point where they'll be well liked again, because they aren't even appreciated for the achievements they did make with FFXIII, in spite of its flaws.

hakanakumono