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The state of Square, and what happened?
- Thread starter HitokiriNate85
- Start date
They've also had way more then that.
Lets not forget that with PS1 and evne more so PS2 that Square-Enix great games list is going to differ widely from person to person. They also had several bad games, and published some terrible ones as well.
Frankly, it's astonishing to me that they can't even get HD remakes out quickly.
I realize they aren't simply up-rezzing FFX, but it should be easy money to put a small team (20 people) onto it and crank it out in a year. Kingdom Hearts HD has apparently been under development for 1.5 years, and only had like 3-5 people working on it? It just does not make sense.
HitokiriNate85
Member
Thanks, dude. That's an excellent point and comparison. Yeah, I haven't been big on the quality of a lot of Capcom games this gen., but they certainly got things right with their engine.
Eh, I agree with you to an extent. I mean, this particular quote is accurate, but I'm not sure that had a big effect on sales. I used to be really into anime but I'm not anymore. However, if they release a game to massive acclaim chances are I'm buying it. Execution is what matters. That applies to games at large. I'm not interested in a lot of RPGs/shooters/etc, but I am interested in ones that are really well executed.
Mismanagement.
Anything outside of Square proper seems to be okay. The Enix side of the merge is just fine. Edios seems to be okay as well. Something is really wrong with the Square management and it's been a problem for a very long time. Post-2003 or 4 is as far back as I'd go for when things started going really wrong.
That's post Spirits Within (gets far to much hate then it deserves), Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy XI.
I think the starting point should be Final Fantasy X-2 or right after it because of the problems Final Fantasy XII had. That's actually the time when Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square Enix. The void and actions he took behind the scenes has likely never been filled.
Anything outside of Square proper seems to be okay. The Enix side of the merge is just fine. Edios seems to be okay as well. Something is really wrong with the Square management and it's been a problem for a very long time. Post-2003 or 4 is as far back as I'd go for when things started going really wrong.
That's post Spirits Within (gets far to much hate then it deserves), Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy XI.
I think the starting point should be Final Fantasy X-2 or right after it because of the problems Final Fantasy XII had. That's actually the time when Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square Enix. The void and actions he took behind the scenes has likely never been filled.
Choppasmith
Member
Yep, a lot of corporate meddling led Matsuno to leave Square. A shame, I really wanted to play his original vision with Basch as the main character.
Sakaguchi leaving was the biggest factor, I believe.
He's a really good manager/producer on the video game side (despite the Spirits Within debacle), and he's got a more global worldview than the people who were running S/E in the last decade. He knows how to get games out on time, to put people in the right positions and provide feedback to improve games and stop bad ideas from happening.
He's a really good manager/producer on the video game side (despite the Spirits Within debacle), and he's got a more global worldview than the people who were running S/E in the last decade. He knows how to get games out on time, to put people in the right positions and provide feedback to improve games and stop bad ideas from happening.
This has never been confirmed by either Matsuno or Square Enix.
We only know that Management requested the lead to be switched from Basch to Vaan (Vaan was always apart of the game, but just a party member, not the lead) and that this happened fairly early in development.
Meaning Matsuno stayed with the company for at least 3 years (time of XII's reveal which Vaan was already switched to lead and the fact that the very first XII character Amano drew was Vaan as well) before finally throwing a tantrum and leaving.
We have know idea what caused the tension beyond baseless fan speculation.
Surfing games are really in right now on the world market.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I really hope people won't blame Enix... will they?
There we go.
Imagine if Square was never merged to Enix (people still think the former is the one buying the latter and not the other way around lol)... we wouldn't have Square today!
There we go.
Imagine if Square was never merged to Enix (people still think the former is the one buying the latter and not the other way around lol)... we wouldn't have Square today!
crimzonflame
Member
They backstabbed Sony aka the King.
cosmicblizzard
Banned
I think this is what people mean when they blame him. It's true the guy didn't have a lot to work with after Spirits Within fucked over the company, so he had to change some policies here and there, focusing only on certain franchises and milking them for all they're worth. Unfortunately, that strategy did not pay off thanks to some of the people being put in charge of certain series, which has since damaged many franchises and the Square brand.
Admittedly they did try with Crystal Tools, but they ran into problems with that as well. Namely that they didn't have a clear idea of what they wanted it to be, so it ended up stalling in development and slowed down projects that relied on it.
Gamasutra did a post morten of FFXIII a while back that illustrates that problem. In fact it seems to be a big problem across a lot of areas for SE, in that they don't seem very good (at all) in creating a unified vision for a title that everyone clearly understands. There are communication breakdowns, internal conflict over what direction a game should take, and ultimately that slows development in a number of ways. Like I won't be surprised if their are figuratively piles of discarded design ideas, game assets, character concepts/designs if/when Versus is released.
Their main answer to these issues, so far, seems to have been doing a lot of outsourcing. Which started with FFXIII-2 and is presumably continuing with Lightning Returns.
Are you being serious?
encephalon
Member
I think Square has the potential to put out better games than previous generations, but they lack the management and story/presentation capabilities to make them work. FFXIII was a relatively challenging game compared to FFVI through FFIX, but was poorly designed outside of that system. 3rd Birthday is an excellent game with a great replay value, but has an absolutely offensive storyline. Then you have Type 0, where things really came together and produced an overall great experience.
Wada's biggest failings have been seen more this generation than last generation when he took over.
I feel like we make a SE or FF thread every week. lol. This is sort of funny. It's like the Bioware of Japan.
I'm wondering how much money they spent making this game. Seriously.
I'm wondering how much money they spent making this game. Seriously.
Enix was mainly a publisher, so I don't see how merging with them would have affected the internal teams at Square. And I think we can safely say that the "terrible phone crap" has a little something more to do with these crazy new-fangled things called smartphones that everyone is buying.
ComputerMKII
Banned
Seeing how terrible Square has become since FFX I'd rather they never remake FF7.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Like I said, Square fans blaming others.
The talent is there. It's just that the talent is being mismanaged and that management doesn't seem to want to grow any of their talent.
I'm wondering if people vastly overestimate how many copies FF7 would sell if it got a remake. The amount of resources it would require to develop that in full HD and the profit gained from selling it would seem not that high. I think they have a better chance creating new IP or new titles. Just... don't make them suck. Seriously.
EDIT: I meant overestimate. I was thinking opposite for some reason. Sorry for the confusion.
EDIT: I meant overestimate. I was thinking opposite for some reason. Sorry for the confusion.
Lesser reasonable men have been doing that for years now.
slightconfuse
Banned
Bad mangement and everyone drinking toryama's cool aid
Well that, and the fact that it would be absolutely nothing like the original.
I think people would take an FF7 remake on the Vita and SE could make a reasonable profit. Sony should be pushing for it. lol
Toriyama has a lot less power than people think. You have to think about who is letting him make kool-aid.
Do you mean Overestimate? If so clearly people do.
FF VII was at around 10 million. No chance a Remake hits these numbers, no chance in hell. Where as new games if they are of high quality and get the right marketing (FF VII, X maybe Versus?) can get really great numbers.
That would utterly kill the game in the West. Vita is tanking on a world wide scale, and limiting something like a Remake isn't smart, much less so to a platform that can't even get off the ground in it's supposed strongest market.
Yoichi Wada is even from the Square side, not the Enix side. Enix's president became vice president, and they had people on the board, but that's about it so far as I know.
Edit: Also the vast majority of staff at SE after the merger were Square staff.
Yes. I totally wasn't thinking when typing. LOL. Regardless people seemed to understand what I'm saying. Yay for prescriptive reading!
Samurai-Don
Banned
This pretty much, in fact didn't a former employee stated that the merger with Enix was a mistake and shouldn't have happened.
Seriously? You're going to ignore the fact that Square used to make game exclusively for Nintendo until they had that fall out.
You don't think that would increase Vita sales? I'm not saying it's going to happen or anything, but surely a Vita game's budget is lower than a console game's budget.
It doesn't matter if it would increase Vita sales. Final Fantasy VII and it's remake would be much more valuble to Square Enix then allowing Sony a bone to use to try and get the platform up and going.
If they did it, they would sure as hell get that out to the most amount of people they could to turn the greatest profit. That would be PS3/360 or the next systems and NOT Vita.
Well... NB did remake two Tales games on the Vita. LOL. Oops. Scratch that. Reimagining
HitokiriNate85
Member
Reading through that now, thanks. I was going to ask about Versus as well, but I know that's been covered a number of times in the last few months and I didn't want to knowingly rehash it. That said, I can't imagine the kind of development clusterfuck that game has gone through.
Seriously? This really doesn't seem like it was part of the problem.
Plenty of people pointing out that their handheld output has been worthwhile. What's staffing like between console and handheld stuff? A lot of the same people or different? Any reappearing people who have been doing good work/are worth following?
Also, to whoever pointed out that a FFVII remake would be a big risk, could you expand on that a little? I feel like there's a lot more to gain than to lose there and can't help but stick to the idea that it's almost viewed as too good to remake, and to leave it as is avoids contention over its stature.
I know a couple people said that Square basically said they wouldn't remake it until they had surpassed it. That seems reasonable and I'm not doubting it was said, but I also don't feel like Square is below stooping for money.
KH HD is in development? Haha, what the hell. That just makes me think that they're really just unwilling to take any risks at this point. KH3 would sell, for sure, and even if it wasn't as good as the rest of the series it would probably get babied into the pantheon like MGS4 did.
Well, someone brought up budget concerns and that was my response. It's not like I think it would see awesome sales. Maybe 1 million to 3 million worldwide sales give or take. Of course you would want it on current or next gen systems, but the budget would be tremendous.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Yeah, it's baffling too.
Hell, they think Square side "bought" Enix when actually Enix backed out due to the disaster that is Spirits Within. I forgot what the compromise was.
Weirdly two games that are neither the high of the series in either sales or critical acclaim. I get your joking, but even using the joke it just points to how SE would never use Vita as the ship for a VII remake or likely any full 3D remake of any game.
A fully budgeted Vita game that goes all the way isn't going to be much further off then what they could get on 360 and PS3. The over 100 million combined User base would easily make it much more worth it to go that route over Vita.
Also you're 1-3 million goal just highlights the problem. VII is huge by todays standards, the amount of content and the work needed to rework it would be huge. So the return on VII Remake going full out even on Vita is worth so little it actually could hurt Square Enix to make it and fund it instead of having the team dedicated to a new piece of software.
Die Squirrel Die
Member
It is odd, if the speculation that management interference was behind Matsuno's departure are true, that Toriyama and Kitase have been left to their own devise to turn FF into their own little playground for their JPop tunnel running melodramas.
It becomes doubly odd when you factor in the talk of appealing to a western audience, yet with FF, one of their biggest western successes, aesthetically they've moved further and further away from what western audiences find appealing and into anime tropes that that audience doesn't get, or even actively dislikes. And then they've taken their other big international success, Kingdom Hearts, and relegated it to handhelds for almost all this generation, barring a forthcoming console HD remix, a move that seriously undermines its sales potential outside Japan.
It becomes doubly odd when you factor in the talk of appealing to a western audience, yet with FF, one of their biggest western successes, aesthetically they've moved further and further away from what western audiences find appealing and into anime tropes that that audience doesn't get, or even actively dislikes. And then they've taken their other big international success, Kingdom Hearts, and relegated it to handhelds for almost all this generation, barring a forthcoming console HD remix, a move that seriously undermines its sales potential outside Japan.
Uhh.... I don't think so.
