Nope. Square needs to stop worrying about two things: -Western influence -Games journalism Hollywood is struggling right now because their budgets are too high and their releases are too rare and not diverse enough in budget, genre, and quality. If the game industry does the same thing, it will be 1984 all over again. I've been enjoying the mid to low budget games as well. I've been playing Poison Control, Triangle Strategy, and MONARK the last few weeks and enjoying myself. If that type of game goes away, the industry is screwed. How else do you recruit and train the next generation of developers? Instead, they're going to the Hollywood model, where Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood are still directing major movies, and where a low budget director gets handed a huge budget franchise and ruins it, like Rian Johnson.
@@NukeA6 I don't think it's that so much, but mentorship and dynasty building would be a big plus. As badly as Star Wars is run in this age, it would be a hundred times worse without Dave Filoni to try to keep things close to George Lucas' original ideas.
@@100Servings The Ethics Department is Square-Enix's sole reason for being obsessed with the West and it didn't exist before the FF7 Remake was announced. Before that, the worst that Square did was give FFXIII two sequels.
Whaaaaat?! You don't wanna wait a console cycle for a God of War Witcher Final Fantasy action game with no identity to it? Who wants a spread variety of racers, action rpgs, rhythm games, party games, and the genre that made them famous? No one likes JRPGs. The kids like fortnite and NFTs. Don't you guys have phones!?...lol But to be honest.... Square Enix needs to get their shit together and realize what their fans actually want.
Very true what you said about indie games, last few months all I been playing has been indie, midsized and older games and I feel like it has revitalized my interest in gaming again, I've been playing games back to back. I'm letting these large AAA games sit there while I wait for a sale because they're all starting to feel samey. As for Square Enix I feel like they don't have direction they're constantly making seemingly random decisions and leaving so much money on the plate its been very weird.
The fact that they hired Yuji Naka and allow him to make the garbage that was Balan Wonderworld is evidence that Square Enix is out of touch with their audience. Their audience are RPG players, RPGs players don't care about platformers, cinematic cutscenes, micro transactions, simulation, and live service games, etc., RPG players just want to play an JRPG with a fantastic story, discovering secrets, customizable features, engaging battles, and get themselves lost in that world.
I'm going to give you a somewhat more optimistic view here, this actually sounds a lot better than what we've been hearing in the past. "Mid sized" could mean a lot of things, my take is hopefully means less "mobile" games, since that's been the brunt of their focus in the past, including NFTs. More AAA is also good in my book, but they didn't say "all" mid sized, they said "less", which means there still will be mid sized games in-between. Lastly "AAA" is another loosely term with wide interpretations, some of the more obvious one are Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but I also consider Nier and Star Ocean, but also Octopath and Bravely could also be considered AAA to a smaller extent, and even Chrono series if ever revived. While their mid sized games would be interpreted with games like Live a live, Romancing Saga games, their strategy lineup and the Mana series somewhere in-between. So I don't think it's all doom and gloom, we'll just have to see what they have in store for us.
Great take. I hope that you're right. I grew up with Square in the 90s and I hate to see that they've fallen so far. I was genuinely so happy to see that FFXVI wasn't complete trash. That alone is a start.
I wish they would just say mobile games and nfts since it's more specific. They've been too specific with NFTS but your point of view seems more positive and I hope that is the case. So Im open to believe that's what it means.
I’m hoping, with all the new changes going on at the top square can stop making the same mistakes they’ve been making for 15 years. They’re the very definition of “getting in your own way”
Thanks and here I was thinking my channel wasn't active enough lol. Topics are hard to come up with at times and since I'm heading into a more expensive direction in terms of topics I cover. It will take a bit longer to release them since some require more research while others is just my opinion. Glad you like the content! This is the feedback I need to hear and thank you!
@@MugenLord I think the difference now is that you cover all types of topics now. It's an evolution of your channel. I notice more and more people are watching. And it's great.
@@mrfeh8214 Yea, I was too scared to cover too many different topics because it fragments the viewerbase because some viewers only watch a certain type of video and don't watch the other content. But it appears that it did the opposite this time around, interesting.
It's not the Square Enix name that made their games so good its the people that made them. They all left and joined other studios or made their own, such as Monolith Soft, Grezzo, Love-Del-Lic, etc. Oh, and whatever mobile game Sakaguchi is wasting his talent on next.
The talent leaving wouldn't be much of an issue if they made more active efforts to scout out new promising talent with vision.The people who've worked on those past great games didn't come from nowhere and we most likely wouldn't have heard of them if SE(Squaresoft at the time) didn't take a chance on them.Or,maybe get some of the people who worked on those AA game and get them to work on the AAA IP like FF,DQ,etc.? Right now, the only prominent talent they have is Nomura and because of that they rely on him as a crutch.
The issue is that a lot of AA games like diofield and harvestella didn’t sell well. So it sounds to me like their going to focus on proven IPs like dragon quest and final fantasy. They’re probably continue with Asano games like Octopath but not experiment with new AA games anymore.
Diofield was a cool idea with poor execution. These companies, Square especially, keeps trying to merge real-time and turn-based strategy/tactics, and it has been rough. FFVIIR has easily become one of my favorite games of all time. It does far more right than it does wrong in my opinion, and it's because of that that it delivers an amazing experience. The issue, however, is that what it really does right, it also really does wrong. For everything that Remake does right with the hybrid combat, it does a lot wrong. I've read countless complaints from action gamers who tried FFVIIR and hated it because it lacks MOST features that actual action games have. SE needs to pick a damn lane with regards to action or turn-based where the games that would benefit from either are concerned. The other option is to continue to tune the hybrid system throughout the development of the Remake trilogy and perfect it. I'll tell you right now if the combat is the same or barely changed from Remake, I won't be bothering with Rebirth. Diofield failed because it didn't speak to the tacticians/strategists OR the action gamers out there. Remake got lucky by simply having a massive fanbase. Had it been any other game with that system, there is a good chance that it would have failed. Even when we move on to the future, and look at FFXVI, we see that all they do is recycle an old DMC combat system. There isn't anything spectacular about it, outside of the massive spectacle and GoT story (and that only matters if you like spectacle and GoT). These damn companies, in their constant chase for more and more profit, and record-breaking quarters over and over, have run out of ideas to chase to get more customers and sales. So now they try to make every game for every person and it ends up ruining them for everyone. It doesn't necessarily make them bad games, but it does keep the games from ever truly being good.
I have to say some of their games may have "failed" because of design choices that some gamers just didn't like. I bought Triangle Strategy, Live a Live, Bravely Default II and Harvestella and love them. I may consider buying Octopath 2 soon, but the reason I don't is that Square Enix does so many rapid releases akin to a studio like Game Freak now you can't take your time to complete them. There's just been so much for AA titles that if they want to AAA should be their focus.
Square-Enix needs to look at a very good example right now which is Electronic Arts, imo SE is moving into the same direction with what EA did a 2 decades ago focusing more on AAA titles and mainstream franchises. It worked for a time sure, but things have changed and the consumers are much more diversed now more than ever before. EA is slowly returning to their roots (which I hope stays on that path), and even releasing small titles in the indie space which one of them even won Game of the Year. Not to mention EA's focus on single player titles did return in a capacity which is a good thing (yes, before someone says it - TF3's dead is unfortunate). But my point is, Square-Enix should look into good examples around them first before committing on it. Squaresoft used to work with EA too back in the day before merging with their rival Enix. The EA I knew wasn't even releasing AAA titles, more on Simulator Games like the Jane's series, American McGee's, Command & Conquer series, and the first game they released which was a full pledge AAA Game was the 1999 Medal of Honor in PlayStation which was developed by DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg himself. Square-Enix had pretty much a similar history where the first FF game which is a AAA budget was Final Fantasy VII in 1997 (85.7M USD if adjusted to this year's inflation). The JP Company really needs to look at the US Company whom they worked with back in the PS1 days like for real before its too late and they become the next EA.
Square like Capcom, Konami, and others tried to be like EA; greedy, double down on decisions and practices that nobody wanted, and disregard their fans. This was shown with FF15. Their focusing more on AAA is a gamble with the odds against Square, and will only result in them burning if they continue being reckless. They really need to tone, make small titles, then go big. Glad to see you're using the outro theme! What's it called? It's a bop.
@@MugenLord Yea man, seriously, FF7 was my first square game, and to this day i haven't played the remake, just not feeling it, that's how sad it is for me.
The lack of Micro transactions is always nice to see in any videogame, but no one really escapes competition if you wanna succeed. It's either you try new things or fall into obscurity because people are always looking for more. Lol Meanwhile the competition isnt very stiff in the west (At ALL the quality difference is jaring) to say the least especially with RPGs which is why i think its been this way for so long.
I'm currently playing the only installment of Chocobo Racing that exists, and that game has references to FFs 1-6, and unlockable content themed around the then-upcoming 8, but not a single reference to 7, despite the fact that 7 was the most recent numbered installment at the time and at the height of its popularity. Back then, Squaresoft didn't rest on their laurels, in fact they wanted to keep raising the bar and not have any game be overshadowed by their other ones they were working on. These days, they keep going back to that cookie jar way too often.
If you mean the one on ps1, that one had Cloud as a secret character. You needed to clear the game a certain amount of times, then highlight Squall and select him while holding some button combination
Yeah, you bring up a good point here, I could talk about it for hours. Like square Enix churned out tons of games last year, star ocean, valkyrie elysium, soul hackers? And many other promising titles that were incredibly underwhelming. That probably was a poor decision on their part. But look at today's games, people are buying games like open the jar of Mayo 1,2 and 3. Stroke the cow and many other BS indie games. I'm not saying there isn't good indie games, but if we are all honest over 95% of them are garbage, and alot still sell due to people trophy hunting or streamers playing it to satisfy an audience. (I kind of miss when we didn't have all this free digital space for people to make any old crap). But to the point I think some Devs are probably sick of putting insane amounts of work into a title only for it to sell incredibly poorly. Its a very complex subject, like the witcher 3 to me is an absolute masterpiece, but I know the devs were overworked like crazy and probably to the serious detriment of their own health. So it is a mixed bag of issues for sure.
@@slashinghades7347 yeah, my mistake, I think square Enix possibly helped with distribution of the persona 4 and maybe 5. Hence my confusion. My overall point was square released way to many titles in 2022 and I think over half we're terrible and some had potential but maybe they were too widespread.
What makes me more sad its that their AA experience its miles better than the AAA these days for Square Enix, this year they've released a game called Paranormasight, i'll tell you, one of the sleeper hits this years, i was in shock as to how good this game was, and it came out of nowhere, no marketing, just a really good NEW game, AAA these days its where creativity goes to die save rare exceptions, Square cannot afford to make innovative things with the size of AAA games, so expect something safe like FFXVI
Paranormasight is one of the best point and click adventures in a while tbh and has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam across the board which is pretty surprising since it hardly had any marketing. Absolute masterpiece with a launch price of 20 dollars while there 60 dollar games are mediocre at best.
Having an Ethics Department is a big mistake for Square Enix because they will censor Japanese video games that are supposed to be for Japan, not for bigots.
Sea of Stars. It just released or close to release, it's a Chrono trigger inspired indie RPG. They even have the composer of Chrono Trigger to produce a few tracks for the game.
Modern game companies needs to learn a lesson, and it seems like Baldur's gate 3 is doing something for the people. Nier automata is more RPG than 16. If they go more for AAA games then they also take a bigger risk since if they put out more Babylon's Falls they will have to sell themselves to Sony for scraps.
I completely agree with you. I’ve been following the company for awhile now with their recent releases, company decisions, etc. To them it’s all about sales figures and copying trends on what sales at least that’s what I kind of got from the direction of the previous ceo president of the company who was recently replaced. Like you said I wish they just stick more to their roots of what makes them THE STANDARD of rpg and evolve that instead of trying to be what it’s not. (Be yo yourself) Ever since the success of FF7Remake(2020), the company takes on many approach to gain wider audiences, sadly with subpar quality gameplay. This includes the disaster of Balan Wonderland(They actually funded the momentum they got from remake into this shit) They got that to be a studio of its own for a time can you believe that? I’m done lol. That proved costly for the company that every Game retailer stores I went to has like $19.99 discount They flopped when they tried the Mario kart experience with Chocobo GP. They failed the fortnight experience with the mobile game first shooter First Soldiers Poor sales overall just to name a few, Stranger of paradise, crisis reunion and especially the cost heavy Forspoken. Team Asano with bravely default and octopaths series were great but won’t make up for all of their failures Now how I see they can jump right back is this. If they could continue their AA IPs(fan loves) and release everything FF7 remake mannnnn we wouldn’t be having this conversation. TIFA, BRING IT HOME BABY!!! Lol
@@vincentgraymore Oh I do. FF7 classic was what introduced me to the FF series and FF7R may just be my fav game of all time. Let's hope they stick to the direction it's going and nothing else. But even someone like me don't feel comfortable pre-ordering the game (or any game, really) in todays messed up gaming market... which is really a sad sad state we're in rn.
The issue was they released to many smaller games this year and were basically competing with themselves. People only have so much time to dedicate to gaming if you release to much at once people will have to decide what to spend there money and time on.
MegasXLR was a really popular Cartoon Network title that the executives at the TV company decided to sabotage by not releasing merch for the show, then coming out and saying it was the lack of merch sales that proved the show wasn't popular and canned it. SE seems to be in a similar situation, with the top executives deciding to can mid level games (which are much better than their AAA titles nowadays and actually come out in a reasonable time frame) because they want their non-Final Fantasy games they keep titling Final Fantasy and whatever Forespoken they have lying around to be the only thing they pump out!
Sqaure's golden age was maybe in the SNES/PS1 era, they were a very good financial position to invest in new IP's like Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Racing Lagoon, Chrono Trigger and Cross and The World Ends With You.
You're correct, that was their golden era. PS2 era was okay, other companies were offering different JRPG'S at this time that were a bit better in quality in my opinion but FF10 marked the downfall for FF for me. FF10 was a good game but felt a little of for me in terms of a FF game.
Yeah, I remember as a young boy, whenever SquareSOFT would announce something i was immediately hyped, I would immediately look forward their release and then buy their game day one without a second thought. But nowadays whenever I need my jrpg fix I look literally anywhere else, to the point that smaller jrpgs like Atelier or Ys or Even Legend of Heroes are becoming much better as time goes on.. Heck some of my favorite jrpgs are just small, mid sized games - not always indies, some of them are from big companies - because at least they tend to just be enjoyable and nothing else, and while not innovative or mindblowing, at least I have fun with them! Only exception I can think of is Dragon Quest: XI was pretty good so I'll leave them some slack. But anything else just feels boring even to look at.
@@Ubu90 Atelier is technically Gust, which I know it's under Koei but I'd say that Gust does their own thing for the most part - with the only weird thing being their expensive season pass, which only has cosmetics so you can completely ignore it. With that said, DW9 did suck, I never played it but I did play it since 4 and I can see why it's bad. ButI heard SW5 was good so not sure? Can't be worse than DW9, can it?
I remember a time when I bought Square games without even checking their reviews and I was never disappointed. Now they're just playing catch up and it feels like they're in a major identity crisis phase.
I really liked ff16, I think it's heading towards the right direction, but the world needs to be more explorable, like in ffx, or even God of war Ragnarok. I liked how we go from one place, to another in real time vs fast travel, I found that a bit awkward, but didn't mind it much. It kinda reminded me of Valkyre Elysium. I wish that game was AAA. I played that after GOWR, and it def felt lower quality. It had potential to be much better. But I'm a kingdom hearts fan, so I'm waiting on news for kh4 lol
I would say sack all of their investors and shareholders. They are the ones obviously running the current Square-Enix company. They don't listen to their fans and the gamer audience anymore. Square-Enix only listens to their own ESG Investors that are poisoned by DEI agendas.
I would say ever since they released kingdom hearts on switch with no physical or digital release and was only available through cloud. I knew something was up. But otherwise I do agree with your points about how they should focus more on their aa titles, in that way they can become aaa Also what was the background music?
The original song is called Corridor of Time. I know because it’s my favorite song from my favorite game of all time! So I’d look up any remixes of that to find it. But I’d suspect there’s more than one.
@@MugenLord oh it’s definitely understandable. Side note I just discovered your channel this morning. I like what you’re doing. Probably gonna subscribe and check out more vids.
Recent sub here. Thank you for all your hard work, man. Final Fantasy 6 is my favorite RPG of all time, and one of my all-time favorites across all genres. Where modern day Square is concerned, I'm reminded of that quote, "you either die a hero... or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
I've been hearing fans requesting remakes or remasters of that series. My brother Keo has been a fans since day 1 of that series even when I thought the game played horribly XD
I couldn't disagree more. I think they are smart to focus on quality over quantity. FF16 was a good game but it could have been much better if they only spent a bit more time adding in some more superbosses and better gearing/skill upgrading. Plus, by focusing on AAA titles, hopefully they can cut development time down for the big games like the FF remakes.
Square-enix is slowly killing itself, the fact they always bank the company on a single game and have absurd sales expectations for a single game tells you management is out of touch with reality and with how you should manage a company and your costumers, focusing solely on AAA games is one more bad decision
As someone who likes the style of FFXVI and FFVII remake, i definitely understand where you're coming from. Square Enix has recently been out of touch with one of their IP'S. Parasite Eve is the PERFECT example of this.
Here's the thing I skipped out on Parasite Eve of that time. I ended up going for Xenogears which was still an amazing choice. But I for some reason never went back to grab parasite Eve. Kicking myself in the ass because I missed out on that time and era when the game released. It won't be the same if I go back to play it now.
I love how they make some many games PS exclusive than say “games didn’t make sales expectations”. Well nigga stop excluding large portions and the market as potential customers
I gave up on companies a long time ago all I can say to them make a good game I want and you'll get my money period. No need to hold nostalgia or love for the games since now adays they don't wanna make a good fun game to play.
Get it out of there, I hadn't played a Square game that good since FF 6 and 4 on the GBA Remasters, honestly it plays like FF 4's style of narrative in an exceedingly simplistic version of a Fire Emblem game. I imagine it is the closest I will get to ever playing FF Tactics unless it too gets re-released on a modern console. The Games only problem is length but it is very replayable with a NG+ you will at least want to try 3(possibly 4 if you don't get the perfect golden Route to unlock the max amount of characters in the first one) times to unlock all the characters *skippable gameplay(possibly more story than you want to hear) spoilers below: Interestingly they avoid giving you a traditional "class" system and instead they allow you to recruit a single unique fighter that represents every fighting style you will find in game, each has a story and I'm not sure you even get to fight all the character fighting styles you can get though at least a few are unique late game boss encounters so I'm sure I will see more in my next group of NG+ playthroughs to finish the set.
Capcom has released mostly AAA games and they seem to be doing fine.. Tbh this doesnt mean they aren't going to continue more of the Octopath games and Yoko Taro's Nier cuz I think they consider now those 2 a AAA game.
The only AAA game from Square Enix I care about at this point is Dragon Quest. Im heavily looking forward to 12, but Square even screwed up with that by announcing the game way too early. Im in line with everything you've said. Out of all the mainstream japanese companies, Square Enix is at the bottom for me. I didn't bother with any of their recent releases in terms of AAA games such as Forspoken, Avengers, or FF16. What kept me as a consumer for that company in recent years was like you said, their SMALLER titles. Trials Of Mana was awesome, and became a permanent fan of the series. Star Ocean The Divine Force was a really great game. Octopath Traveler 1 & 2 are gonna be regarded as classics as far as im concerned. But they also really pissed me off with the failiure of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. There HAS to be a restructure. I love Final Fantasy 14, but thats not enough for me. They need more variety. More AA and smaller titles and much more respect for the fans when they say they don't want NFTs. Also get rid of their ethics department. One more thing, I just finished Trails in the Sky 3, the last game of the sky series, I'm also gonna tell you right now man, you GOTTA GET ONTO THAT SERIES ASAP!
Totally agree. Dragon Quest 8 was one of the best games I ever played back in the day and I had an absolute blast with a 120 hour playthrough of Dragon Quest 11. Love all the other titles you mentioned as well.
@@OHHHHUSBANT Nah, I have faith in this one. Despite 12 going in a direction that I really wouldn't prefer for this franchise in terms of gameplay and tone, the company hasn't given me a reason to doubt them. They haven't made a bad mainline Dragon Quest game yet. Hell, they haven't even made a mediocre Dragon Quest game yet. All of them are great.
@@Jman88933 you say this like treasures doesn't exist Abandoning the literal foundation of what makes dragon quest, dragon quest is a good way to commit seppuku in the japanese market Horii tried this with 11 but immediately was met with hostility by both coworkers and japanese fans alike telling him it's a fucking horrible idea to abandon the foundation of dragon quest for an Oscar bait "mature" garbage that dq isn't even know for
@OHHHHUSBANT You missed the part where I said "mainline". So no, treasures doesn't count. I love 11, but I'm also not against the idea of franchises trying something a little different so that the formula doesn't get stale. As long as it still retains the overall elements of what makes a DQ game a DQ game.
I was playing FFXVI last night, thinking the exact same thing. While I do love the story and appreciate the fact that they're trying to modernize the gameplay, it's less about Square Enix being a trendsetter nowadays and more about them chasing trends, and it really sucks. FFXVI's gameplay is basically just a watered-down Devil May Cry clone with a few of the surface level Final Fantasy tropes sprinkled in. Another classic example is that their production cycles for their bigger flagship AAA titles usually span a decade for some pretty middling reception.
removing aa games will be a mistake, I personally loved final fantasy 16, im actually doing a replay something that i dont usually do with jrpgs, but i think for the next ff they need to reitarate a little bit more with jrpg elements and the action elements, same goes with nier/drakengard they need to make another game on the series that isnt mobile I think on the long run they need to invest for more aa titles
Yeah honestly as someone who beat Breath of the Wild and is currently playing through Tears of the Kingdom, I'm getting rather feed up with all the games that are so freaking massive they take around two years to fully complete. Not every game needs to be freaking Skyrim.
The irony is that the rpgs you mentioned as being midsized games would be considered triple A games 15 to 30 yrs ago lol. The problem with the videogame industry us that it costs so much to to produce and make a even a midsized game. That its a financial risk. The point of producing games fir a company like Squarenix is to make profit ie money. All Square needs to do is produce and make a traditional FF ( turn based, with towns, likable characters, with memorable moments ) game. That has a triple A game budget. It worked with Dragonquest 11. Even the Yakuza like a Dragon rpg from Sega sold very well. But for some odd reason Squareenix proceeds to shoot itself in the foot by making FF an action game experience. It has gotten so bad that gamers are starting to consider FF13 a classic FF game 0_o.
30 years later and i bet people will say ff16 was the greatest final fantasy game. This always happens. Whatever ff game people grew up with they will consider it the best. Im kind of an outlier though because though i played most of the ps1 era and consider 9 the best game ever, i didn't think that till later. My first one was mystic quest lol
@@snuggie1849 True to an extent. It comes down to knowledge, preference, and ignorance . Like you stated long time players and fans of the series will have likes and dislikes of games within the series. But since we played the older games,we have a basic understanding and knowledge of what makes and is integral aspects that is Final Fantasy game. There is a formula and brand identity that has defined the franchise for over 30 yrs . Sadly SquareEnix has been slowly deviating from the formula. An perfect example is.. Coca Cola company as a brand has not deviated from using the formula and making Coke. Even though they have made different flavors of Coke and types of Coke sodas. As well as making different soft drinks. They still push and sell regular Coke to represent the company,s brand. They havent strayed and drastically changed from the formula that makes Coke a renowned soft drink throughout the world. SquareEnix has slowly disregarded the brand identity of Final Fantasy franchise.
Square Enix continues to baffle me, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI up until the time skip then the games pacing just got weird. I haven't played Star Ocean Divine force yet ( currently working my way through all of the titles for my channel right now) but I plan to get to it. They really are a shell of what they once were. Honestly Outside of Final Fantasy VII Remake (Which i'm not even a fan of) they don't have much going for them.
As a fan o Trails, I really hope you give it a chance, It is amazing! Before I played the first game, what, 10 years ago? I knew a lot of genres in gaming: FPS, West RPG, JRPG, Action, Shooters etc... Now I have only two genres: Trails games and games I play while waiting for the next trails games to be localized. Talking more about the topic of the video, I agree with you in almost everything. There is nothing worse, as a consumer, to love and support a company for what It does/did and then being left adrift because the content they made has no more demographic, or so they say. Change is normal, not just normal, It is necessary. They need to, as a company, analyse the market and change in a way that They can benefit for it. The problem lies in the fact that, by the look of it, They don't look into themselves to find a way, they are just looking for the way others carved. It's sad to see it, but all We can do for now is wait and see. Another sad and important discussion in my opinion, is how most of these behaviors are us to blame. Consumers. The universal fact about any game developer is that they will make the moves which they can earn more money. Now, games with quality are not the only (and for sure not the easiest) way to do it.
@@MugenLord Totally understandable, haha. Thanks for the content, I am new here, but I am really enjoying how you portray your opinions in most of these topics. I found your channel by the "Ugly woman in video-games" topic, where even If I do not agree with everything, I, again, enjoyed and learned from the way you portrayed it. Keep doing the good work!
Pretty sad news. The only things coming out of Square these days that I remotely enjoy is their AA catalog. I don't know how they expect to have future AAA success if they are going to essentially get rid of the "farm team" that is their AA catalogs. This is particularly baffling given that their recent AAA efforts aren't even living up to internal expectations. And to answer your question, no one is really in charge given that they are a large public corporation. It is basically a committee of hired men managed by another committee of hired men. The people in decision making positions are just thinking about the next quarter and making their bonuses before they bail and go do the same to some other company.
The abuse part LO! But no, no Parasite Eve. I think we can guess in our heads what that will turn out like and it will chase trends instead of be what made that game unique. They may not go back to it because of how they buried it with Third Birthday, but that could only turn into Resident Evil even more the PE2 and perhaps more an amalgamation of what's "hot" in the West. In fact, I know it will have micros in it as they won't take a chance on it selling itself, but milking it in some fashion. Plus, they'd censor the hell out of it if not change the story because of the licensing.
The one thing people miss about PE is that it's licensed, not an original IP they own. Which is probably the major reason why SE has never made another PE game after 3rd birthday or any kind of remakes. It's also probably the reason why 3rd birthday had nothing to do mitochrondria,the main aspect of the PE IP. If the original creator doesn't want to give them permission to use it,there's nothing they can do because I'm sure they've tried. Someone should just make a video on why expecting anything PE from SE is unrealistic.
@@blumiu2426 Most people only know PE through the games and don't know that PE was a licensed IP that was a book and then a movie before that. But at the same time,they need to do their own research. PE isn't as big and well-known like FF,DQ,or CT,but it's still pretty well known in it's own right. Everytime people bring up the golden era for SE(Squaresoft at the time) PE is usually one of the games people mention. I doubt SE wouldn't have tried to take advantage of brand recognition if they could to make remasters/remake or a possible new game as soon as they could. The fact that they haven't means they can't
My biggest red flag was Square blaming the losses of FF games on the western division all these years until they sold em for dirt cheap and now they can't blame but themselves 🤣
I hate this. I mean I played ff16 to completion and the entire time I just felt like it was missing the charm of older entries, because it was missing the weird that final fantasy games had up to that point. I honestly felt like Clive was a character that a few decades ago would have been a secondary character and Joshua would have been the focus of the story.
It’s definitely a shame Square can make more realistic expectations with their games. Idk if they put too much money in these projects or understand the profit for these games are just not what they used to be. Just focusing on AAA games to make a profit sounds like quite the risk. Especially since FFXVI had a hard sell even with the western influence. With how jrpgs are being viewed lately I’ll be surprised these games hit over 6mil
I agree they have so many RPG classics they can revive, like Chrono Cross or Parasite Eve. Was so disappointed with FF16. But at least I enjoyed FF7 Remake, so I'm looking forward to Rebirth.
Here the thing Square Enix between Forspoken, Babylons Fall, Avengers, plus all the mobile live service fails they lost a lot of money. They need to make it back or let another company buy them.
Its funny how they invest triple A games on powerhouse platform and aomehow their indie title sells more on Nintendo switch at that point they still wondering why their triple A still sold less and ignoring something from Nintendo platform selling hotcakes. Imagine if super mario rpg sold 3m in a week and still ignores and they have collab with Nintendo that one
In japan, even some youtubers talked abotu the biggest problem of the current SE and you got it right. More they trying to focus on the trendy market, how to make more cash, how to please to the modern audience and trying to attract old audience for nostalgia but the truth: they doesnt care... SE care about the cash, not the feeling of the audience, so they are trying so hard to copy other games and mix them but as a result, the games its NOT as we liked before and that FF16 showed again that they cant please an large part of the audience even they trying to adapt a brand to the modern industry... The problem its also these current modern audience, because many people are becomed a "streamer" and they are looking to get some sponsor, or they keep to playing modern new games etc...but most of them doesnt have any passion, they are not gamers, and most of these games end to be played just one time and nothing more, many are not interested to complete them (trophies, quests, missions etc...) and this is another reason that we are getting much quality, but less contents... Meanwhile there are a lot of games that are created from veteran creators that worked in these big companies in past, but since their companies are not big and popular, they are not able to get an large marketing or sponsors, so only who are loving the games as "nerd" level are noticing these games. Idk how much SE are in a bad situation currently, but if they are keep to release these trash stuff and dont listen the fanbase, i presume that they are getting cash in some way, so until they are not failing so bad, they will keep that direction...
man.. im playing the emulated version of the PSP Final Fantasy 4 plus interlude plus after years now and its fantastic.... the last games i gave squeenix money for was Dragon Quest 11, Nier Automata, and Bravely Default.. and while they were worth every penny, the way they act now makes me glad as hell i either wait a few years and a sale or i yo ho ho emulate it... besides i still have nihon falcom games to play and a huge back log, so im not gonna support asshole policies when ive got years worth of the good shit..
TBh i really love ff16 like really love but tbh i really loved nier automata, but removing aa games is a mistake same goes with strangers of paradise final fantasy origin
I was so hyped when i heard that CBU3 was in charge of FFXVI cause i have over 3000h in XIV and that game made me fall in love with FF again after a looong time. Even though im a single player guy an never touched an mmo before. So i preordred the collectors edition and all. Man i am so disappointed in that game. And then i realised that its over. Square is over, FF is over. Time to move on. Luckily there are devs like Fromsoftware that have been putting out bangers for the last decade. Ill still play FF7R trilogy and everu FF game they put out but the golden era is far gone bro. Thats just it
Ff16 great combat but the restricted movement around the map is killing me. Like give us air dashes and proper sprints etc and double jumps. And also male the map more interesting with platforming and treasure to find plus better side quests we actually remember.
Square Enix is pulling a Sony and thats the problem u cant just have players waiting 6-7 years for mid titles like Final fantasy Remake a mostly filler story or Final Fantasy 16 a game whos combat is worse than Hi Fi Rush
Will Square Enix ever get it together?
Nope. Square needs to stop worrying about two things:
-Western influence
-Games journalism
Hollywood is struggling right now because their budgets are too high and their releases are too rare and not diverse enough in budget, genre, and quality. If the game industry does the same thing, it will be 1984 all over again.
I've been enjoying the mid to low budget games as well. I've been playing Poison Control, Triangle Strategy, and MONARK the last few weeks and enjoying myself. If that type of game goes away, the industry is screwed. How else do you recruit and train the next generation of developers? Instead, they're going to the Hollywood model, where Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood are still directing major movies, and where a low budget director gets handed a huge budget franchise and ruins it, like Rian Johnson.
They need to remove their Ethics department if we're going to see any good change.
@@NukeA6 I don't think it's that so much, but mentorship and dynasty building would be a big plus. As badly as Star Wars is run in this age, it would be a hundred times worse without Dave Filoni to try to keep things close to George Lucas' original ideas.
@@100Servings The Ethics Department is Square-Enix's sole reason for being obsessed with the West and it didn't exist before the FF7 Remake was announced. Before that, the worst that Square did was give FFXIII two sequels.
Whaaaaat?!
You don't wanna wait a console cycle for a God of War Witcher Final Fantasy action game with no identity to it?
Who wants a spread variety of racers, action rpgs, rhythm games, party games, and the genre that made them famous? No one likes JRPGs.
The kids like fortnite and NFTs.
Don't you guys have phones!?...lol
But to be honest.... Square Enix needs to get their shit together and realize what their fans actually want.
Very true what you said about indie games, last few months all I been playing has been indie, midsized and older games and I feel like it has revitalized my interest in gaming again, I've been playing games back to back. I'm letting these large AAA games sit there while I wait for a sale because they're all starting to feel samey. As for Square Enix I feel like they don't have direction they're constantly making seemingly random decisions and leaving so much money on the plate its been very weird.
The fact that they published Forspoken is all the proof you need that they're completely out of touch with reality.
Damn lol
Forspoken is basically The Quiet Man with a better budget and UX, storyline-wise and appeal-wise, both are on the same level LOL
Nah. They even more out of touch of reality trying to make back that money using ff 16 sales. 😂 square always on bullshit lies
@@bobbywrtmCW show inspired.
The fact that they hired Yuji Naka and allow him to make the garbage that was Balan Wonderworld is evidence that Square Enix is out of touch with their audience. Their audience are RPG players, RPGs players don't care about platformers, cinematic cutscenes, micro transactions, simulation, and live service games, etc., RPG players just want to play an JRPG with a fantastic story, discovering secrets, customizable features, engaging battles, and get themselves lost in that world.
I'm going to give you a somewhat more optimistic view here, this actually sounds a lot better than what we've been hearing in the past. "Mid sized" could mean a lot of things, my take is hopefully means less "mobile" games, since that's been the brunt of their focus in the past, including NFTs. More AAA is also good in my book, but they didn't say "all" mid sized, they said "less", which means there still will be mid sized games in-between. Lastly "AAA" is another loosely term with wide interpretations, some of the more obvious one are Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but I also consider Nier and Star Ocean, but also Octopath and Bravely could also be considered AAA to a smaller extent, and even Chrono series if ever revived. While their mid sized games would be interpreted with games like Live a live, Romancing Saga games, their strategy lineup and the Mana series somewhere in-between. So I don't think it's all doom and gloom, we'll just have to see what they have in store for us.
Great take. I hope that you're right. I grew up with Square in the 90s and I hate to see that they've fallen so far. I was genuinely so happy to see that FFXVI wasn't complete trash. That alone is a start.
I wish they would just say mobile games and nfts since it's more specific. They've been too specific with NFTS but your point of view seems more positive and I hope that is the case. So Im open to believe that's what it means.
I’m hoping, with all the new changes going on at the top square can stop making the same mistakes they’ve been making for 15 years. They’re the very definition of “getting in your own way”
so true
they lost their magic touch just like Disney did
I love how active you are on your channel now. Great topics. And yeah, I would be the first in line for a new Parasite Eve.
Thanks and here I was thinking my channel wasn't active enough lol. Topics are hard to come up with at times and since I'm heading into a more expensive direction in terms of topics I cover. It will take a bit longer to release them since some require more research while others is just my opinion. Glad you like the content! This is the feedback I need to hear and thank you!
@@MugenLord I think the difference now is that you cover all types of topics now. It's an evolution of your channel. I notice more and more people are watching. And it's great.
@@mrfeh8214 Yea, I was too scared to cover too many different topics because it fragments the viewerbase because some viewers only watch a certain type of video and don't watch the other content. But it appears that it did the opposite this time around, interesting.
Great video I completely agreed with you on everything, Square needs to get it together.
It's not the Square Enix name that made their games so good its the people that made them.
They all left and joined other studios or made their own, such as Monolith Soft, Grezzo, Love-Del-Lic, etc. Oh, and whatever mobile game Sakaguchi is wasting his talent on next.
The talent leaving wouldn't be much of an issue if they made more active efforts to scout out new promising talent with vision.The people who've worked on those past great games didn't come from nowhere and we most likely wouldn't have heard of them if SE(Squaresoft at the time) didn't take a chance on them.Or,maybe get some of the people who worked on those AA game and get them to work on the AAA IP like FF,DQ,etc.? Right now, the only prominent talent they have is Nomura and because of that they rely on him as a crutch.
The stockholders are running the company😂
Square Enix should emulate some of the stuff Falcom is doing. It seems Square has lost there way, and they don't mind being lost.
Trails, Trails, TRAILS!!!
The whole focus more on AAA titles is disinfo btw. Taken from twitter and then it was removed but the source was a third party analist to begin with.
That's good to hear actually but doesn't change the state of SE, they need to get it together.
@@MugenLord Yeah agreed with that :)
As a huge fan of The World Ends with You, this is unfortunate.
The issue is that a lot of AA games like diofield and harvestella didn’t sell well. So it sounds to me like their going to focus on proven IPs like dragon quest and final fantasy. They’re probably continue with Asano games like Octopath but not experiment with new AA games anymore.
Diofield was a cool idea with poor execution. These companies, Square especially, keeps trying to merge real-time and turn-based strategy/tactics, and it has been rough.
FFVIIR has easily become one of my favorite games of all time. It does far more right than it does wrong in my opinion, and it's because of that that it delivers an amazing experience. The issue, however, is that what it really does right, it also really does wrong. For everything that Remake does right with the hybrid combat, it does a lot wrong. I've read countless complaints from action gamers who tried FFVIIR and hated it because it lacks MOST features that actual action games have.
SE needs to pick a damn lane with regards to action or turn-based where the games that would benefit from either are concerned. The other option is to continue to tune the hybrid system throughout the development of the Remake trilogy and perfect it.
I'll tell you right now if the combat is the same or barely changed from Remake, I won't be bothering with Rebirth. Diofield failed because it didn't speak to the tacticians/strategists OR the action gamers out there. Remake got lucky by simply having a massive fanbase. Had it been any other game with that system, there is a good chance that it would have failed.
Even when we move on to the future, and look at FFXVI, we see that all they do is recycle an old DMC combat system. There isn't anything spectacular about it, outside of the massive spectacle and GoT story (and that only matters if you like spectacle and GoT).
These damn companies, in their constant chase for more and more profit, and record-breaking quarters over and over, have run out of ideas to chase to get more customers and sales. So now they try to make every game for every person and it ends up ruining them for everyone. It doesn't necessarily make them bad games, but it does keep the games from ever truly being good.
I have to say some of their games may have "failed" because of design choices that some gamers just didn't like. I bought Triangle Strategy, Live a Live, Bravely Default II and Harvestella and love them. I may consider buying Octopath 2 soon, but the reason I don't is that Square Enix does so many rapid releases akin to a studio like Game Freak now you can't take your time to complete them. There's just been so much for AA titles that if they want to AAA should be their focus.
More mid tier games would be really nice. Im burnt out on AAA games myself, trying to play mostly indie
Square-Enix needs to look at a very good example right now which is Electronic Arts, imo SE is moving into the same direction with what EA did a 2 decades ago focusing more on AAA titles and mainstream franchises. It worked for a time sure, but things have changed and the consumers are much more diversed now more than ever before.
EA is slowly returning to their roots (which I hope stays on that path), and even releasing small titles in the indie space which one of them even won Game of the Year. Not to mention EA's focus on single player titles did return in a capacity which is a good thing (yes, before someone says it - TF3's dead is unfortunate).
But my point is, Square-Enix should look into good examples around them first before committing on it. Squaresoft used to work with EA too back in the day before merging with their rival Enix.
The EA I knew wasn't even releasing AAA titles, more on Simulator Games like the Jane's series, American McGee's, Command & Conquer series, and the first game they released which was a full pledge AAA Game was the 1999 Medal of Honor in PlayStation which was developed by DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg himself.
Square-Enix had pretty much a similar history where the first FF game which is a AAA budget was Final Fantasy VII in 1997 (85.7M USD if adjusted to this year's inflation).
The JP Company really needs to look at the US Company whom they worked with back in the PS1 days like for real before its too late and they become the next EA.
Square Enix the Business mind set of a EA, Take2, and Activision/Blizzard, but with a experimental mindset of a Nintendo
Wow, never looked at it that way XD
Square like Capcom, Konami, and others tried to be like EA; greedy, double down on decisions and practices that nobody wanted, and disregard their fans. This was shown with FF15. Their focusing more on AAA is a gamble with the odds against Square, and will only result in them burning if they continue being reckless. They really need to tone, make small titles, then go big.
Glad to see you're using the outro theme! What's it called? It's a bop.
I ripped it from some vlog a few years back.
You seem to forget it was Squaresoft that was great, Square-ENIX went downhill.
I fully agree, like ever since last 2 years they've just been making strange strange decisions.
Square Enix needs to get it together or face extinction
In short, i don't know this Square Enix anymore.. Had fun and great time growing up with them.
It's just sad....
@@MugenLord Yea man, seriously, FF7 was my first square game, and to this day i haven't played the remake, just not feeling it, that's how sad it is for me.
Reading or hearing "Square Enix" now makes me worried and sad instead of happy and excited.😢
The lack of Micro transactions is always nice to see in any videogame, but no one really escapes competition if you wanna succeed. It's either you try new things or fall into obscurity because people are always looking for more. Lol Meanwhile the competition isnt very stiff in the west (At ALL the quality difference is jaring) to say the least especially with RPGs which is why i think its been this way for so long.
Square Enix makes the biggest mistake ever. Again.
I'm currently playing the only installment of Chocobo Racing that exists, and that game has references to FFs 1-6, and unlockable content themed around the then-upcoming 8, but not a single reference to 7, despite the fact that 7 was the most recent numbered installment at the time and at the height of its popularity. Back then, Squaresoft didn't rest on their laurels, in fact they wanted to keep raising the bar and not have any game be overshadowed by their other ones they were working on. These days, they keep going back to that cookie jar way too often.
If you mean the one on ps1, that one had Cloud as a secret character. You needed to clear the game a certain amount of times, then highlight Squall and select him while holding some button combination
I hope Sea of Stars to be this year what Chained Echoes was last year.
I have to grab both of those games, my backlog is getting bigger XD
I like there triple AAA games I hope they do focus on those
Are we sure that this isn't also the fault of current day gamers and their buying habits?
Yeah, you bring up a good point here, I could talk about it for hours.
Like square Enix churned out tons of games last year, star ocean, valkyrie elysium, soul hackers? And many other promising titles that were incredibly underwhelming.
That probably was a poor decision on their part.
But look at today's games, people are buying games like open the jar of Mayo 1,2 and 3. Stroke the cow and many other BS indie games.
I'm not saying there isn't good indie games, but if we are all honest over 95% of them are garbage, and alot still sell due to people trophy hunting or streamers playing it to satisfy an audience.
(I kind of miss when we didn't have all this free digital space for people to make any old crap).
But to the point I think some Devs are probably sick of putting insane amounts of work into a title only for it to sell incredibly poorly.
Its a very complex subject, like the witcher 3 to me is an absolute masterpiece, but I know the devs were overworked like crazy and probably to the serious detriment of their own health. So it is a mixed bag of issues for sure.
To be fair, Sir Jar of Mayo 3 the III has more flavor than any final fantasy character in the last decade
@@riyuphoenix4533
Quick correction, Soul Hackers 2 is from Atlus and is a part of the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise.
@@slashinghades7347 yeah, my mistake, I think square Enix possibly helped with distribution of the persona 4 and maybe 5. Hence my confusion.
My overall point was square released way to many titles in 2022 and I think over half we're terrible and some had potential but maybe they were too widespread.
@@rredix most poeples final fantasy journey end with FF10, I can't see why because it was the last more traditional turn-based combat game.
Dude you at 15k 💯💯💯💯💯
Correction 15.1K lol
@@MugenLord oop my fault u got that💯💯💯
@@hotboi1718 now it's 15.2K XD
@@MugenLord I’ll sip to that let’s go!!!!💯💯💯💯💯💯
It's not Square Enix anymore. It's West Enix now.
What makes me more sad its that their AA experience its miles better than the AAA these days for Square Enix, this year they've released a game called Paranormasight, i'll tell you, one of the sleeper hits this years, i was in shock as to how good this game was, and it came out of nowhere, no marketing, just a really good NEW game, AAA these days its where creativity goes to die save rare exceptions, Square cannot afford to make innovative things with the size of AAA games, so expect something safe like FFXVI
Paranormasight is one of the best point and click adventures in a while tbh and has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam across the board which is pretty surprising since it hardly had any marketing. Absolute masterpiece with a launch price of 20 dollars while there 60 dollar games are mediocre at best.
Having an Ethics Department is a big mistake for Square Enix because they will censor Japanese video games that are supposed to be for Japan, not for bigots.
SE and Capcom with Ethics department really hurts me. I believe those two will become more westernized over time.
Sorry what's the game showing on 3:26 ?
Sea of Stars. It just released or close to release, it's a Chrono trigger inspired indie RPG. They even have the composer of Chrono Trigger to produce a few tracks for the game.
@@MugenLord Thank you! I have never heard of the game till now. The Chrono Trigger visuals as well as the composer made me interested about the game.
I thought they changed their CEO who is already making great decisions?
SE is mentally rotting away.
Modern game companies needs to learn a lesson, and it seems like Baldur's gate 3 is doing something for the people. Nier automata is more RPG than 16. If they go more for AAA games then they also take a bigger risk since if they put out more Babylon's Falls they will have to sell themselves to Sony for scraps.
I completely agree with you. I’ve been following the company for awhile now with their recent releases, company decisions, etc. To them it’s all about sales figures and copying trends on what sales at least that’s what I kind of got from the direction of the previous ceo president of the company who was recently replaced.
Like you said I wish they just stick more to their roots of what makes them THE STANDARD of rpg and evolve that instead of trying to be what it’s not. (Be yo yourself)
Ever since the success of FF7Remake(2020), the company takes on many approach to gain wider audiences, sadly with subpar quality gameplay.
This includes the disaster of Balan Wonderland(They actually funded the momentum they got from remake into this shit) They got that to be a studio of its own for a time can you believe that? I’m done lol. That proved costly for the company that every Game retailer stores I went to has like $19.99 discount
They flopped when they tried the Mario kart experience with Chocobo GP.
They failed the fortnight experience with the mobile game first shooter First Soldiers
Poor sales overall just to name a few, Stranger of paradise, crisis reunion and especially the cost heavy Forspoken.
Team Asano with bravely default and octopaths series were great but won’t make up for all of their failures
Now how I see they can jump right back is this. If they could continue their AA IPs(fan loves) and release everything FF7 remake mannnnn we wouldn’t be having this conversation. TIFA, BRING IT HOME BABY!!! Lol
That FF7R2 can't come soon enough. And IF they fuck even that up? Man...
If you like the new direction, which a lot do, then SE cannot do anything to duck it up for you.
@@vincentgraymore Oh I do. FF7 classic was what introduced me to the FF series and FF7R may just be my fav game of all time. Let's hope they stick to the direction it's going and nothing else. But even someone like me don't feel comfortable pre-ordering the game (or any game, really) in todays messed up gaming market... which is really a sad sad state we're in rn.
The issue was they released to many smaller games this year and were basically competing with themselves. People only have so much time to dedicate to gaming if you release to much at once people will have to decide what to spend there money and time on.
MegasXLR was a really popular Cartoon Network title that the executives at the TV company decided to sabotage by not releasing merch for the show, then coming out and saying it was the lack of merch sales that proved the show wasn't popular and canned it.
SE seems to be in a similar situation, with the top executives deciding to can mid level games (which are much better than their AAA titles nowadays and actually come out in a reasonable time frame) because they want their non-Final Fantasy games they keep titling Final Fantasy and whatever Forespoken they have lying around to be the only thing they pump out!
Sqaure's golden age was maybe in the SNES/PS1 era, they were a very good financial position to invest in new IP's like Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Racing Lagoon, Chrono Trigger and Cross and The World Ends With You.
You're correct, that was their golden era. PS2 era was okay, other companies were offering different JRPG'S at this time that were a bit better in quality in my opinion but FF10 marked the downfall for FF for me. FF10 was a good game but felt a little of for me in terms of a FF game.
Yeah, I remember as a young boy, whenever SquareSOFT would announce something i was immediately hyped, I would immediately look forward their release and then buy their game day one without a second thought.
But nowadays whenever I need my jrpg fix I look literally anywhere else, to the point that smaller jrpgs like Atelier or Ys or Even Legend of Heroes are becoming much better as time goes on.. Heck some of my favorite jrpgs are just small, mid sized games - not always indies, some of them are from big companies - because at least they tend to just be enjoyable and nothing else, and while not innovative or mindblowing, at least I have fun with them!
Only exception I can think of is Dragon Quest: XI was pretty good so I'll leave them some slack. But anything else just feels boring even to look at.
while koei is successful with atelier its also made there other ips fall behind, just look at dynasty warriors 9 and samurai warriors 5
@@Ubu90 Atelier is technically Gust, which I know it's under Koei but I'd say that Gust does their own thing for the most part - with the only weird thing being their expensive season pass, which only has cosmetics so you can completely ignore it.
With that said, DW9 did suck, I never played it but I did play it since 4 and I can see why it's bad. ButI heard SW5 was good so not sure? Can't be worse than DW9, can it?
I remember a time when I bought Square games without even checking their reviews and I was never disappointed. Now they're just playing catch up and it feels like they're in a major identity crisis phase.
Identity crisis indeed!
Fire the guy doing the decisions AND the whole garbage ethics department .
100% It's like once they got rid of Hironobu Sakaguchi and became Square Enix, they slowly started going downhill.
I really liked ff16, I think it's heading towards the right direction, but the world needs to be more explorable, like in ffx, or even God of war Ragnarok. I liked how we go from one place, to another in real time vs fast travel, I found that a bit awkward, but didn't mind it much. It kinda reminded me of Valkyre Elysium. I wish that game was AAA. I played that after GOWR, and it def felt lower quality. It had potential to be much better. But I'm a kingdom hearts fan, so I'm waiting on news for kh4 lol
I would say sack all of their investors and shareholders.
They are the ones obviously running the current Square-Enix company.
They don't listen to their fans and the gamer audience anymore.
Square-Enix only listens to their own ESG Investors that are poisoned by DEI agendas.
I keep forgetting that SE is one of those Eastern studios that's licking the boot of the ESG.
I would say ever since they released kingdom hearts on switch with no physical or digital release and was only available through cloud. I knew something was up. But otherwise I do agree with your points about how they should focus more on their aa titles, in that way they can become aaa
Also what was the background music?
It's a Chrono Trigger Remix "Schala" I believe.
@MugenLord Hi again, I looked up the song I don't think it's the right one. Could you perhaps send me a link to the song if you don't mind?
The original song is called Corridor of Time. I know because it’s my favorite song from my favorite game of all time!
So I’d look up any remixes of that to find it. But I’d suspect there’s more than one.
@@gshorter I keep confusing Schala and Corridor of Time for some reason.
@@MugenLord oh it’s definitely understandable.
Side note I just discovered your channel this morning. I like what you’re doing. Probably gonna subscribe and check out more vids.
The fact that they haven't remastered Chrono Trigger yet is mind boggling to me
I know right!
Facts Mugen Lord I Love Final Fantasy
Recent sub here. Thank you for all your hard work, man.
Final Fantasy 6 is my favorite RPG of all time, and one of my all-time favorites across all genres.
Where modern day Square is concerned, I'm reminded of that quote, "you either die a hero... or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
I feel like that quote could apply to Disney as well.
Mmmmmm! Putting respect on star ocean, love to see it, def my favorite game in a long time!
Star Ocean 2 still one of my favorite JRPG's of all time.
@@MugenLord I never played it but the remake is a day 1 for me!!! :)
I wish they remastered Drakengard games like they did with Nier Replicant
I've been hearing fans requesting remakes or remasters of that series. My brother Keo has been a fans since day 1 of that series even when I thought the game played horribly XD
i just want another Nier too. more than anything else
I couldn't disagree more. I think they are smart to focus on quality over quantity. FF16 was a good game but it could have been much better if they only spent a bit more time adding in some more superbosses and better gearing/skill upgrading. Plus, by focusing on AAA titles, hopefully they can cut development time down for the big games like the FF remakes.
Square-enix is slowly killing itself, the fact they always bank the company on a single game and have absurd sales expectations for a single game tells you management is out of touch with reality and with how you should manage a company and your costumers, focusing solely on AAA games is one more bad decision
As someone who likes the style of FFXVI and FFVII remake, i definitely understand where you're coming from. Square Enix has recently been out of touch with one of their IP'S. Parasite Eve is the PERFECT example of this.
Here's the thing I skipped out on Parasite Eve of that time. I ended up going for Xenogears which was still an amazing choice. But I for some reason never went back to grab parasite Eve. Kicking myself in the ass because I missed out on that time and era when the game released. It won't be the same if I go back to play it now.
Square Soft has always been better then Square Enix to me
Fucking facts!
I love how they make some many games PS exclusive than say “games didn’t make sales expectations”. Well nigga stop excluding large portions and the market as potential customers
I miss Squaresoft
if they had put first solider on pc it would've been fine and probably still alive. I don't understand why they made it mobile only.
It boggles my mind with that stupid ass decision.
i agreee
It doesn't matter how good they were. They didn't make enough money
Hello star ocean etc has been around and isn’t going anywhere just a whole bunch of speculation
I gave up on companies a long time ago all I can say to them make a good game I want and you'll get my money period. No need to hold nostalgia or love for the games since now adays they don't wanna make a good fun game to play.
Squaresoft was amazing. As soon as they became Square Enix the clock was ticking
So true.
How could you not mention Triangle Strategy?
I forgot because mine is still in the plastic with the rest of the backlogs XD
Get it out of there, I hadn't played a Square game that good since FF 6 and 4 on the GBA Remasters, honestly it plays like FF 4's style of narrative in an exceedingly simplistic version of a Fire Emblem game. I imagine it is the closest I will get to ever playing FF Tactics unless it too gets re-released on a modern console.
The Games only problem is length but it is very replayable with a NG+ you will at least want to try 3(possibly 4 if you don't get the perfect golden Route to unlock the max amount of characters in the first one) times to unlock all the characters
*skippable gameplay(possibly more story than you want to hear) spoilers below:
Interestingly they avoid giving you a traditional "class" system and instead they allow you to recruit a single unique fighter that represents every fighting style you will find in game, each has a story and I'm not sure you even get to fight all the character fighting styles you can get though at least a few are unique late game boss encounters so I'm sure I will see more in my next group of NG+ playthroughs to finish the set.
Star ocean, the divine force is an unplayable mess. It plays nothing like star ocean till the end of time or the last hope
The last hope was pretty terrible and a low bar to try and set. Divine force wins by default against that and the 5th star ocean games.
Capcom has released mostly AAA games and they seem to be doing fine.. Tbh this doesnt mean they aren't going to continue more of the Octopath games and Yoko Taro's Nier cuz I think they consider now those 2 a AAA game.
The only AAA game from Square Enix I care about at this point is Dragon Quest. Im heavily looking forward to 12, but Square even screwed up with that by announcing the game way too early.
Im in line with everything you've said. Out of all the mainstream japanese companies, Square Enix is at the bottom for me. I didn't bother with any of their recent releases in terms of AAA games such as Forspoken, Avengers, or FF16. What kept me as a consumer for that company in recent years was like you said, their SMALLER titles. Trials Of Mana was awesome, and became a permanent fan of the series. Star Ocean The Divine Force was a really great game. Octopath Traveler 1 & 2 are gonna be regarded as classics as far as im concerned. But they also really pissed me off with the failiure of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.
There HAS to be a restructure. I love Final Fantasy 14, but thats not enough for me. They need more variety. More AA and smaller titles and much more respect for the fans when they say they don't want NFTs. Also get rid of their ethics department.
One more thing, I just finished Trails in the Sky 3, the last game of the sky series, I'm also gonna tell you right now man, you GOTTA GET ONTO THAT SERIES ASAP!
Totally agree. Dragon Quest 8 was one of the best games I ever played back in the day and I had an absolute blast with a 120 hour playthrough of Dragon Quest 11. Love all the other titles you mentioned as well.
12 is pretty much going to be the first dragon quest game that will fail trying to be "mature"
@@OHHHHUSBANT
Nah, I have faith in this one. Despite 12 going in a direction that I really wouldn't prefer for this franchise in terms of gameplay and tone, the company hasn't given me a reason to doubt them. They haven't made a bad mainline Dragon Quest game yet. Hell, they haven't even made a mediocre Dragon Quest game yet. All of them are great.
@@Jman88933 you say this like treasures doesn't exist
Abandoning the literal foundation of what makes dragon quest, dragon quest is a good way to commit seppuku in the japanese market
Horii tried this with 11 but immediately was met with hostility by both coworkers and japanese fans alike telling him it's a fucking horrible idea to abandon the foundation of dragon quest for an Oscar bait "mature" garbage that dq isn't even know for
@OHHHHUSBANT
You missed the part where I said "mainline". So no, treasures doesn't count. I love 11, but I'm also not against the idea of franchises trying something a little different so that the formula doesn't get stale. As long as it still retains the overall elements of what makes a DQ game a DQ game.
I was playing FFXVI last night, thinking the exact same thing. While I do love the story and appreciate the fact that they're trying to modernize the gameplay, it's less about Square Enix being a trendsetter nowadays and more about them chasing trends, and it really sucks. FFXVI's gameplay is basically just a watered-down Devil May Cry clone with a few of the surface level Final Fantasy tropes sprinkled in. Another classic example is that their production cycles for their bigger flagship AAA titles usually span a decade for some pretty middling reception.
It is closer to ys
Octopath Traveller 2 sold less than the first one, its dead.
Yea I just looked into it, well it appears that they didn't learn their lesson from the 1st game.
I hope not!
removing aa games will be a mistake, I personally loved final fantasy 16, im actually doing a replay something that i dont usually do with jrpgs, but i think for the next ff they need to reitarate a little bit more with jrpg elements and the action elements, same goes with nier/drakengard they need to make another game on the series that isnt mobile
I think on the long run they need to invest for more aa titles
Yeah honestly as someone who beat Breath of the Wild and is currently playing through Tears of the Kingdom, I'm getting rather feed up with all the games that are so freaking massive they take around two years to fully complete. Not every game needs to be freaking Skyrim.
NFTs are the future according to this company!
Please don't mention that XD
The irony is that the rpgs you mentioned as being midsized games would be considered triple A games 15 to 30 yrs ago lol.
The problem with the videogame industry us that it costs so much to to produce and make a even a midsized game. That its a financial risk. The point of producing games fir a company like Squarenix is to make profit ie money.
All Square needs to do is produce and make a traditional FF ( turn based, with towns, likable characters, with memorable moments ) game. That has a triple A game budget. It worked with Dragonquest 11. Even the Yakuza like a Dragon rpg from Sega sold very well.
But for some odd reason Squareenix proceeds to shoot itself in the foot by making FF an action game experience.
It has gotten so bad that gamers are starting to consider FF13 a classic FF game 0_o.
30 years later and i bet people will say ff16 was the greatest final fantasy game. This always happens. Whatever ff game people grew up with they will consider it the best. Im kind of an outlier though because though i played most of the ps1 era and consider 9 the best game ever, i didn't think that till later. My first one was mystic quest lol
@@snuggie1849 True to an extent. It comes down to knowledge, preference, and ignorance . Like you stated long time players and fans of the series will have likes and dislikes of games within the series.
But since we played the older games,we have a basic understanding and knowledge of what makes and is integral aspects that is Final Fantasy game.
There is a formula and brand identity that has defined the franchise for over 30 yrs . Sadly SquareEnix has been slowly deviating from the formula.
An perfect example is..
Coca Cola company as a brand has not deviated from using the formula and making Coke. Even though they have made different flavors of Coke and types of Coke sodas. As well as making different soft drinks. They still push and sell regular Coke to represent the company,s brand. They havent strayed and drastically changed from the formula that makes Coke a renowned soft drink throughout the world.
SquareEnix has slowly disregarded the brand identity of Final Fantasy franchise.
Square Enix continues to baffle me, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI up until the time skip then the games pacing just got weird. I haven't played Star Ocean Divine force yet ( currently working my way through all of the titles for my channel right now) but I plan to get to it. They really are a shell of what they once were. Honestly Outside of Final Fantasy VII Remake (Which i'm not even a fan of) they don't have much going for them.
As a fan o Trails, I really hope you give it a chance, It is amazing! Before I played the first game, what, 10 years ago? I knew a lot of genres in gaming: FPS, West RPG, JRPG, Action, Shooters etc... Now I have only two genres: Trails games and games I play while waiting for the next trails games to be localized.
Talking more about the topic of the video, I agree with you in almost everything. There is nothing worse, as a consumer, to love and support a company for what It does/did and then being left adrift because the content they made has no more demographic, or so they say. Change is normal, not just normal, It is necessary. They need to, as a company, analyse the market and change in a way that They can benefit for it. The problem lies in the fact that, by the look of it, They don't look into themselves to find a way, they are just looking for the way others carved. It's sad to see it, but all We can do for now is wait and see. Another sad and important discussion in my opinion, is how most of these behaviors are us to blame. Consumers. The universal fact about any game developer is that they will make the moves which they can earn more money. Now, games with quality are not the only (and for sure not the easiest) way to do it.
I'm definitely going to give the series a go. I just need to clear some of this backlog first so I can actually invest time into it XD
@@MugenLord Totally understandable, haha. Thanks for the content, I am new here, but I am really enjoying how you portray your opinions in most of these topics. I found your channel by the "Ugly woman in video-games" topic, where even If I do not agree with everything, I, again, enjoyed and learned from the way you portrayed it. Keep doing the good work!
@@markjoseph6243 Thanks and I rather everyone not agree with me. I'm appreciate wide perspectives on my platform.
Where is Parasite Eve…my favorite game
Pretty sad news. The only things coming out of Square these days that I remotely enjoy is their AA catalog. I don't know how they expect to have future AAA success if they are going to essentially get rid of the "farm team" that is their AA catalogs. This is particularly baffling given that their recent AAA efforts aren't even living up to internal expectations.
And to answer your question, no one is really in charge given that they are a large public corporation. It is basically a committee of hired men managed by another committee of hired men. The people in decision making positions are just thinking about the next quarter and making their bonuses before they bail and go do the same to some other company.
My favorite Square game of all time is Xenogears.
Love that game!
The abuse part LO! But no, no Parasite Eve. I think we can guess in our heads what that will turn out like and it will chase trends instead of be what made that game unique. They may not go back to it because of how they buried it with Third Birthday, but that could only turn into Resident Evil even more the PE2 and perhaps more an amalgamation of what's "hot" in the West. In fact, I know it will have micros in it as they won't take a chance on it selling itself, but milking it in some fashion. Plus, they'd censor the hell out of it if not change the story because of the licensing.
The one thing people miss about PE is that it's licensed, not an original IP they own. Which is probably the major reason why SE has never made another PE game after 3rd birthday or any kind of remakes. It's also probably the reason why 3rd birthday had nothing to do mitochrondria,the main aspect of the PE IP. If the original creator doesn't want to give them permission to use it,there's nothing they can do because I'm sure they've tried. Someone should just make a video on why expecting anything PE from SE is unrealistic.
@@infinitedreamer9359 Thank you. I've tried to explain this where I can, but so many seem to not realize this.
@@blumiu2426 Most people only know PE through the games and don't know that PE was a licensed IP that was a book and then a movie before that. But at the same time,they need to do their own research.
PE isn't as big and well-known like FF,DQ,or CT,but it's still pretty well known in it's own right. Everytime people bring up the golden era for SE(Squaresoft at the time) PE is usually one of the games people mention.
I doubt SE wouldn't have tried to take advantage of brand recognition if they could to make remasters/remake or a possible new game as soon as they could. The fact that they haven't means they can't
My biggest red flag was Square blaming the losses of FF games on the western division all these years until they sold em for dirt cheap and now they can't blame but themselves 🤣
I hate this. I mean I played ff16 to completion and the entire time I just felt like it was missing the charm of older entries, because it was missing the weird that final fantasy games had up to that point. I honestly felt like Clive was a character that a few decades ago would have been a secondary character and Joshua would have been the focus of the story.
It’s definitely a shame Square can make more realistic expectations with their games. Idk if they put too much money in these projects or understand the profit for these games are just not what they used to be. Just focusing on AAA games to make a profit sounds like quite the risk. Especially since FFXVI had a hard sell even with the western influence. With how jrpgs are being viewed lately I’ll be surprised these games hit over 6mil
I agree they have so many RPG classics they can revive, like Chrono Cross or Parasite Eve. Was so disappointed with FF16. But at least I enjoyed FF7 Remake, so I'm looking forward to Rebirth.
Here the thing Square Enix between Forspoken, Babylons Fall, Avengers, plus all the mobile live service fails they lost a lot of money. They need to make it back or let another company buy them.
There is simply too much big-business involved in gaming. They're being ran to death by stockholders, not fans. The shit is everywhere.
Its funny how they invest triple A games on powerhouse platform and aomehow their indie title sells more on Nintendo switch at that point they still wondering why their triple A still sold less and ignoring something from Nintendo platform selling hotcakes.
Imagine if super mario rpg sold 3m in a week and still ignores and they have collab with Nintendo that one
In japan, even some youtubers talked abotu the biggest problem of the current SE and you got it right.
More they trying to focus on the trendy market, how to make more cash, how to please to the modern audience and trying to attract old audience for nostalgia but the truth: they doesnt care...
SE care about the cash, not the feeling of the audience, so they are trying so hard to copy other games and mix them but as a result, the games its NOT as we liked before and that FF16 showed again that they cant please an large part of the audience even they trying to adapt a brand to the modern industry...
The problem its also these current modern audience, because many people are becomed a "streamer" and they are looking to get some sponsor, or they keep to playing modern new games etc...but most of them doesnt have any passion, they are not gamers, and most of these games end to be played just one time and nothing more, many are not interested to complete them (trophies, quests, missions etc...) and this is another reason that we are getting much quality, but less contents...
Meanwhile there are a lot of games that are created from veteran creators that worked in these big companies in past, but since their companies are not big and popular, they are not able to get an large marketing or sponsors, so only who are loving the games as "nerd" level are noticing these games.
Idk how much SE are in a bad situation currently, but if they are keep to release these trash stuff and dont listen the fanbase, i presume that they are getting cash in some way, so until they are not failing so bad, they will keep that direction...
man.. im playing the emulated version of the PSP Final Fantasy 4 plus interlude plus after years now and its fantastic.... the last games i gave squeenix money for was Dragon Quest 11, Nier Automata, and Bravely Default.. and while they were worth every penny, the way they act now makes me glad as hell i either wait a few years and a sale or i yo ho ho emulate it... besides i still have nihon falcom games to play and a huge back log, so im not gonna support asshole policies when ive got years worth of the good shit..
TBh i really love ff16 like really love but tbh i really loved nier automata, but removing aa games is a mistake
same goes with strangers of paradise final fantasy origin
LOL SE really think that the FF7 remake series can really carry them sense 15 had fallen off
FF15 was fucking horrible, I turned the game off 2 hours in and haven't looked back.
I was so hyped when i heard that CBU3 was in charge of FFXVI cause i have over 3000h in XIV and that game made me fall in love with FF again after a looong time. Even though im a single player guy an never touched an mmo before. So i preordred the collectors edition and all. Man i am so disappointed in that game. And then i realised that its over. Square is over, FF is over. Time to move on. Luckily there are devs like Fromsoftware that have been putting out bangers for the last decade. Ill still play FF7R trilogy and everu FF game they put out but the golden era is far gone bro. Thats just it
This is what happens when a Japanese game company owns a western game company and doesn’t know how to handle it🤦🏾♂️
they consider these games AAA, that's why octopath is full price
You know they are greedy when they wouldn't make a Chrono sequel unless Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross sell like gangbuster.
Ff16 great combat but the restricted movement around the map is killing me. Like give us air dashes and proper sprints etc and double jumps. And also male the map more interesting with platforming and treasure to find plus better side quests we actually remember.
I still haven't finished the game, don't have the urge to play it.
Square Enix is pulling a Sony and thats the problem u cant just have players waiting 6-7 years for mid titles like Final fantasy Remake a mostly filler story or Final Fantasy 16 a game whos combat is worse than Hi Fi Rush