Without the merger, would either square or enix still be around?
Square has always and will always view Vaan as the lead character.
It's the reason that he is in Dissiida, the cover art for XII's 25Th Re Art, as well as first character Amano ever did for XII.
Not towards you, but the Vaan not being lead is old and boring now. Yes he wasn't early on, however the sheer length of time he was and the fact we never even saw the game before he was the lead makes the arguements dumb.
Just because he isn't the story center doesn't mean he isn't the MC of the game.
About 7, doing a cursory glance. SE doesn't really do very many 100% internally developed games anymore, regardless. Even FF13-2 had outside help.
99% of the gameplay time it didn't matter who the lead actually was. The game let you play as whoever most all the time with large swathes of pure gameplay between story elements (at least in the 2nd half of the game)
This is a fan interpretation. This is not reality. Vaan is the main character. He is the turd in the punchbowl that has kept many people from finishing the game.
What determines who the main character of a game is? Vaan is front and center in much of the promotional material. You don't have to play as him in the game, though, and his role in the story is basically nil after the opening segment. In truth, if anybody got focus in FF12, it was Ashe.
Did some pretty cool stuff with his character to.
Storyline is certainly of a different style, but Vaan getting the Goddess Blade and even before that pimp slapping Balthier was awesome.
On top of all this Vaan in TA2 is flat out amazing.
So I've heard. Never played past Tactics since I read that the story is not related to it.
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FOOLS! CLEARLY GILGAMESH IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF EVERY FINAL FANTASY!
So you guys are claiming that nobody likes FF10-2, Crystal Chronicles, DQ8, KH2, KH Chain of Memories, Radiata Stories, Rocket Slime, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, Grandia 3, Front Mission 5, Valkyrie Profile 2, Crisis Core, Dragon Quest Swords, The Last Remnant, The World Ends with You, DQ9, 4 Warriors of Light, Nier, and so on? Huh.
Even the ones he's not in!
That doesn't seem like many people...
Square has always and will always view Vaan as the lead character.
It's the reason that he is in Dissiida, the cover art for XII's 25Th Re Art, as well as first character Amano ever did for XII.
Not towards you, but the Vaan not being lead is old and boring now. Yes he wasn't early on, however the sheer length of time he was and the fact we never even saw the game before he was the lead makes the arguements dumb.
Just because he isn't the story center doesn't mean he isn't the MC of the game.
Obvious to anyone who grew up with Squaresoft.
You know... I can safely say that I don't love any of these games (and some of them I downright hate. Saga ugh). I'm not saying they're not amazing games to some people, or that they don't have elements I loved... but no, I don't think any of them belong in the same league as what Square used to mean in the SNES and PS1 era (XII aside, for me). They're ok, I guess.
I own most of them too.
wow this CEO makes an interesting point. Square Soft was ballsy before they merged with Enix, after the merger they lost the balls and started playing it safe...
I'd like to hear more about this.
Thanks Drek, and this will be my last attempt to shed light on this whole subject, hopefully I'm not as ignored as before. I do not know much about games anymore, but I was OBSESSED with Square back in the day, and I followed nothing more closely a decade ago than this merger.LevelNth dropping truth bombs up in here but still going mostly ignored.
OF COURSE! SUCH IS THE GREATNESS THAT IS GILGAMESH!
So you guys are claiming that nobody likes FF10-2, Crystal Chronicles, DQ8, KH2, KH Chain of Memories, Radiata Stories, Rocket Slime, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, Grandia 3, Front Mission 5, Valkyrie Profile 2, Crisis Core, Dragon Quest Swords, The Last Remnant, The World Ends with You, DQ9, 4 Warriors of Light, Nier, and so on? Huh.
ultros will always be greater than girugamesh.
lovable too
Anything released after the NA release of FF11 (so everything after Zilart) is.Chains of Promathia is post-merger too, isn't it?
Bring back Front Mission, and all is forgiven.
snip
Screw Enix!Maybe a total failure for Enix.
ultros will always be greater than girugamesh.
lovable too
Thanks for all of this, very informative. Things don't sound too promising as long as Wada is running the show.
Thanks Drek, and this will be my last attempt to shed light on this whole subject, hopefully I'm not as ignored as before. I do not know much about games anymore, but I was OBSESSED with Square back in the day, and I followed nothing more closely a decade ago than this merger.
First off: THE MERGER DID NOT SAVE SQUARE, NOR WAS IT REQUIRED TO. Everyone in this thread thinking/saying this, stop it. You are wrong. You are not right. Stop it.
Enix had a problem. They were essentially a tiny, completely unproductive publisher except for one mega-ultimate franchise. The problem? They controlled absolutely zero part of it. DQ is Horri's, and Enix could never control how and when he made them. Thus, the expansion potential of Enix was completely limited. But they were the definition of stable.
So in 2000, off the heels of the megaton explosion of awesome that Square experienced in the previous 3 years, Enix approached them to merge. But Square was hesitant, because it would require a larger share to Enix on the backs of just their one franchise, a franchise they felt they could eclipse in the coming years.
So they bickered and went back and forth as mergers do for over a year. But then the FF film released. And it tanked. It was the product of Sakaguchi, who called the shots on nearly every facet of concept development at Square, and Suzuki, the old-school business man who ran the money and left all the smaller crap to his second-in-command, a man named Yoichi Wada.
Suzuki and Sakaguchi were the brains behind Square of the 90's. Sakaguchi thought a change to Nomura's art style suited a new generation of consoles, Suzuki envisioned the necessity of the CD, they both created the concept of having two concurrent teams making FF games at the same time, etc. And they both envisioned a massive CG development studio in Hawaii that would revolutionize games and simultaneously be able to create films as well...
So naturally they both caught shit for that. Now while the Suzuki/Sakaguchi plan was for the huge dev studio to recoup costs over time, even they overestimated, to their fault. The board of Square began to panic at the notion of recouping the entirety of the costs immediately, and it was perpetuated by the constantly reported losses of the film. Upon the film failure, the board naturally told Suzuki to shape up, increased Wada's role, and essentially lost all faith in Sakaguchi. This was the beginning of the end of Square, and it's name was Yoichi.
Wada thus moved in and took on a much larger role, relegating Suzuki to having to go along with his vision of a massive developer/publisher that relies on its tentpole franchises. Development costs were streamlined (read: cut), projects were cancelled. Suzuki, and more so, Sakaguchi, hated this idea, and hated the development reforms Wada implemented to make it happen. But when Enix started getting gun shy about the merger, it was all Wada needed to convince the board that Suzuki's model was a disaster, and his was the future. Suzuki's last true contribution to Square was finalizing the Sony stock purchase, a testament to the relationship Suzuki built with Sony over the years.
Wada also hated Sakaguchi, and feared he would make a decision that would screw him over like he perceived the FF film did to Suzuki. So he essentially boxed him out, relegated his role in FFXII to almost nothing, and continued with his plan to cancel a bunch of non mainline franchise projects. It left Sakaguchi with no choice but to leave as he was essentially no longer a part of the company. So he did.
Square and Enix merged, and Wada's vision was now super strengthened with DQ on board. What else do we need?! The idiot. Suzuki was relegated further to 'special director' after the merger, then fully resigned two years later. SE was Wada's now, and the rest is history behind the workings of who I believe to be the most incompetent, unprepared and short-sighted company head this industry has ever seen.
This was interesting, if it's actually true, but I have no reason not to believe it. I didn't know some of the stuff that's happened in the background.
Now I have a question. You think Sakaguchi's and Suzuki's plan would've gotten Squaresoft out of the shitter?
Wada and his fortune teller relocating HQ is what caused Uematsu to go freelance and leave SE as well.
Oh man I had forgotten about that one. Yeah I don't even really know what to think about it.
Thanks Drek, and this will be my last attempt to shed light on this whole subject, hopefully I'm not as ignored as before. I do not know much about games anymore, but I was OBSESSED with Square back in the day, and I followed nothing more closely a decade ago than this merger.
First off: THE MERGER DID NOT SAVE SQUARE, NOR WAS IT REQUIRED TO. Everyone in this thread thinking/saying this, stop it. You are wrong. You are not right. Stop it.
Enix had a problem. They were essentially a tiny, completely unproductive publisher except for one mega-ultimate franchise. The problem? They controlled absolutely zero part of it. DQ is Horri's, and Enix could never control how and when he made them. Thus, the expansion potential of Enix was completely limited. But they were the definition of stable.
So in 2000, off the heels of the megaton explosion of awesome that Square experienced in the previous 3 years, Enix approached them to merge. But Square was hesitant, because it would require a larger share to Enix on the backs of just their one franchise, a franchise they felt they could eclipse in the coming years.
So they bickered and went back and forth as mergers do for over a year. But then the FF film released. And it tanked. It was the product of Sakaguchi, who called the shots on nearly every facet of concept development at Square, and Suzuki, the old-school business man who ran the money and left all the smaller crap to his second-in-command, a man named Yoichi Wada.
Suzuki and Sakaguchi were the brains behind Square of the 90's. Sakaguchi thought a change to Nomura's art style suited a new generation of consoles, Suzuki envisioned the necessity of the CD, they both created the concept of having two concurrent teams making FF games at the same time, etc. And they both envisioned a massive CG development studio in Hawaii that would revolutionize games and simultaneously be able to create films as well...
So naturally they both caught shit for that. Now while the Suzuki/Sakaguchi plan was for the huge dev studio to recoup costs over time, even they overestimated, to their fault. The board of Square began to panic at the notion of recouping the entirety of the costs immediately, and it was perpetuated by the constantly reported losses of the film. Upon the film failure, the board naturally told Suzuki to shape up, increased Wada's role, and essentially lost all faith in Sakaguchi. This was the beginning of the end of Square, and it's name was Yoichi.
Wada thus moved in and took on a much larger role, relegating Suzuki to having to go along with his vision of a massive developer/publisher that relies on its tentpole franchises. Development costs were streamlined (read: cut), projects were cancelled. Suzuki, and more so, Sakaguchi, hated this idea, and hated the development reforms Wada implemented to make it happen. But when Enix started getting gun shy about the merger, it was all Wada needed to convince the board that Suzuki's model was a disaster, and his was the future. Suzuki's last true contribution to Square was finalizing the Sony stock purchase, a testament to the relationship Suzuki built with Sony over the years.
Wada also hated Sakaguchi, and feared he would make a decision that would screw him over like he perceived the FF film did to Suzuki. So he essentially boxed him out, relegated his role in FFXII to almost nothing, and continued with his plan to cancel a bunch of non mainline franchise projects. It left Sakaguchi with no choice but to leave as he was essentially no longer a part of the company. So he did.
Square and Enix merged, and Wada's vision was now super strengthened with DQ on board. What else do we need?! The idiot. Suzuki was relegated further to 'special director' after the merger, then fully resigned two years later. SE was Wada's now, and the rest is history behind the workings of who I believe to be the most incompetent, unprepared and short-sighted company head this industry has ever seen.
Wada also hated Sakaguchi, and feared he would make a decision that would screw him over like he perceived the FF film did to Suzuki. So he essentially boxed him out, relegated his role in FFXII to almost nothing, and continued with his plan to cancel a bunch of non mainline franchise projects. It left Sakaguchi with no choice but to leave as he was essentially no longer a part of the company. So he did.
Wada and his fortune teller relocating HQ is what caused Uematsu to go freelance and leave SE as well.
Pretty much all their most prominent composers left.
Only a matter of time before Ishimoto bounces too.
Most of em are freelance now.
Of the composers I like Uematsu,Ishimoto, and Hitoshi Sakimoto.
I hate Hamauzu so he'll likely stick with SE.
Actually Hamauzu went freelance immediately after XIII released.
The answer is always "it depends".
If Suzuki and Sakaguchi were the main driving force behind Squaresoft quality then I am inclined to say yes. Every company is bound to fuck up at least once, it's what you do to fix it that matters.
FFXIV stands as the biggest single example of how screwed up their internal development is, but there are plenty of others.
This thread is now about how insane MagiusNecros is.I hate Hamauzu
This thread is now about how insane MagiusNecros is.
Eh, Horii was a director at Enix before the merger, and Enix had an internal group of producers just for the Dragon Quest franchise.Enix had a problem. They were essentially a tiny, completely unproductive publisher except for one mega-ultimate franchise. The problem? They controlled absolutely zero part of it. DQ is Horri's, and Enix could never control how and when he made them. Thus, the expansion potential of Enix was completely limited. But they were the definition of stable.