Final Fantasy Disease

[kane_magus]

"Final Fantasy Disease"

I dunno. I suppose Square Enix can change Final Fantasy all they want to. It's their franchise.

But then, the last Final Fantasy game that I actually finished was Final Fantasy X-2, and that was over 12 years ago. I played XII and XIII, but I never finished them (though I thought they were okay for what they were, I suppose). I never played XIII-2 or Lightning Returns, though. I also had and still have absolutely zero interest in XI and XIV (or its do over) because they are MMO games. I haven't really been following news of XV at all, and I just happened to see this thing about "Final Fantasy disease" or whatever in the Facebook trending panel.

So... yeah... I haven't much cared about Final Fantasy for quite a while now. *shrug* More power to 'em if they can make this work, though, I guess.

Comments

[dmjewelle.livejournal.com]

The problem starts when the comments go, "Oh I prefer FF medieval settings" in the SAME BREATH as "My fave was FF6" because FF6's steampunk setting was CLEARLY medieval. IMO fans don't really know what they want from an FF, and if the dev team themselves are thinking the same then it's a problem of not having a shared vision on the very FF they're working on. Funny how people can't just sit and say "Yeah that was my fave FF" and nod politely when other people mention another FF is their favourite.

Surprisingly, I've been very addicted to FFXIV. It's an MMO yeah, and with MMOs there are douchebags, but there are some solid NPCs, the sidequests are hilarious, and people are civil (at least the Europeans are very chill about dying a lot). The last FF I enjoyed was FFXII and I am not an MMO person, so when I say I plunked down money for a 6-month sub, I recommend checking out the cutscene or fanmade videos.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

As far as that goes, I guess Final Fantasy hasn't really ever been truly medieval. I mean, there were things like airships and such even as far back as the very first game. FFIV had Cid (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Cid_Pollendina) building bombs and there were tanks and such as well. (I haven't played FFII or FFIII at all, so I can't say how medieval or not medieval those are.)

Well, I guess I can kind of see where people are coming from, but Final Fantasy hasn't been "medieval" since, as you said, at least FFVI, and FFVII and FFVIII were most definitely not. I guess an argument (EDIT) can (/EDIT) be made that FFIX was, kinda sorta, if you squint and look at it side-eyed, maybe? But once you left Alexandria, even that mostly went out the window. And then all the games after that...

I guess I just don't get why anyone thinks that there's some sort of, I don't know... Platonic ideal Final Fantasy out there in the conceptual void somewhere, and that the series can only ever adhere to that and nothing else.

As for MMOs... the only MMO that I've played to any real extent was Star Trek Online, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Online) and that was a game that I could play pretty much 100% solo, aside from the occasional, optional Borg invasion event that I'd participate in. Also, it's completely free, aside from whatever optional cosmetic stuff you might want to buy (which I didn't), and that helped convince me to give it a shot. I went on and on about The Secret World, (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/the%20secret%20world) but after I played the beta during one of the beta weekend things, I pretty much lost interest in that one altogether. About the most multiplayer I can tolerate was playing Minecraft with owsf2000, on Pseudo's private server, (http://owsf2000.livejournal.com/125914.html) and I don't even do that anymore. What (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg-xoC-koYM) I've seen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHXd7XorR9A) of FFXIV looked cool enough, but it's not a game that I'd personally care to play myself.

[dmjewelle.livejournal.com]

I guess I just don't get why anyone thinks that there's some sort of, I don't know... Platonic ideal Final Fantasy out there in the conceptual void somewhere, and that the series can only ever adhere to that and nothing else.

^ This right here. I never understand it. If they want medieval RPGs so badly there's everything else. What is it about FF9 that everyone's nostalgic about? The FF1-3 references that most won't get because only FF1 was released? I'll bet you that if FFs 16-19 were the same SOMEONE else will complain all the games are too samey. Nobody ever wins, so might as well just enjoy whatever FFs that come out.

That said, the FFXV hype over here is insane because one of the key devs is Malaysian and he's put local culture & food in the game, so everyone I know has preordered the Limited Edition. I'm waiting to see if they'll release an FFXV PS4 so I can buy that.

One thing I like about FFXIV is that I can solo most of the game. Dungeons and trials (fancy name for boss fights) require people, but unlike RO2 where everyone crowds outside a dungeon yelling for tanks, I can sign up for the duty finder and go along doing other things while waiting for a party. Random parties are a crapshoot, but I've been lucky to be in good parties, and sometimes nobody even talks, just go in do the job get out. I understand if MMOs aren't everyone's thing. I thought I'd like Guild Wars 2 but I think FFXIV's interface has spoiled me. :(