Square Enix Reduces Earnings Forecasts By 91%

I should make it clear that there's nothing wrong with linearity (it happens in RL, amirite), it's just that railroaded story-lines are a major disservice to video games as a whole. Sitting back and watching cutscenes/dialogue fly doesn't seem very videogame-y to me.

This doesn't necessarily mean adventure games are bad. Assuming you're not following walkthroughs, you're still using your noggin to figure out the puzzles. There is none of that in the typical JRPG; the gameplay is completely disconnected to the story (fight > cutscene > fight etc.).

WRPG gamers generally like choice, right? That's why I say they should tap into that potential crowd (correctly, not like FM: Evolved) and give their other series like SaGa another chance.

Just replace anything resembling anime in there with brown n' bloom bald space marines or some ***.

What is erratic about it?

Y'all talk about chrono series and FF, but I've never seen these two titles mentioned anywhere:
Lost Odyssey
Infinite Undiscovery

It felt to me like each time didn't properly correlate with the others, so the plot felt disjointed to me. I haven't played it since I had it for the SNES though so maybe I should give it another go one day.

Lost Odyssey was awesome, I love that game. I'm assuming most won't because it's incredibly wordy, but all the back-story on Kaim made that game one of my favourites. It was really sad at parts too.

I've got Infinite undiscovery, but I haven't played it yet.

Lost Odyssey isn't a Square Enix title. It's Mistwalker (and co-developed by Feel Plus), Hironobu Sakaguchi's company.

I know, but even the latter isn't mentioned...

i lied, not last post. infinite undiscovery is one of my altime favorite games even if it is a huge ham. tri ace games > SE. especially valkyrie profile

I dunno, I find most good JRPG's give you freedom in places where it matters. Character development, side-quests and combat. I don't like a game which is linear in all facets, and that's why I'm not a fan of the Golden Sun series.

The only SaGa game I played was the one on the PS2 that had the inviting box-art but sucked ***.

I do admit I prefer JRPG's that don't flash into a battle normally because it makes it feel less disjointed. One thing I liked so much about X was the fact that different battle quotes changed depending the part of the storyline you were in.

Yes, Tri-Ace does well with games (strangely, I hated SO3, but love SO4). Back to Lost Odyssey, it had a level of depth and a compelling story that recent Final Fantasies pale in comparison to. I hope The Last Story comes to Western territories next year.

I like SO1, 2, and 4. Never played 3.

Don't really like the Valkyrie Profile games, too much grindan.

I think SE has made more money off of me from me buying remakes of their old games... I just recently picked up FF 3 and 4 and Chrono Trigger.

13 was okay... but... I see no reason to go back and do all the side quests, it's a mediocre storyline that I couldn't get into, but was polished as all hell on the graphics side.

I think Jaerik is 100% in that it's saying something that this thread turned from "SE lost a lot of money" to, "Their old games were great"... obviously they aren't doing much of anything right recently.

I also like reading FF arguments, since usually small groups agree on which ones are "the best", personally I came into the FF genre very late and the ones I played first, 10 and 9 are my favorites, but I very much so am enjoying playing the older ones. But I can see a trend of people more so agreeing that the later titles are not great... that right there should tell SE what is wrong... but then again they haven't been very good at listening to their customers recently and just do what they want.

If it was Unlimited Saga, I don't blame you, because that game was seriously bad. Romancing SaGa, on the other hand, would just be a matter of taste.

As a series, they're underdeveloped, too experimental and often released with a good chunk of the game taken out. I still love them because they try (and they're visually awesome). SaGa could be legitimately good would they have had the same funding and treatment Final Fantasy gets... yet they did that with Unlimited Saga and the game was crap. On the other hand, they remade SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2) for the DS, a game with a more traditional JRPG set up, and it sold amazingly well.


I don't understand the love for Golden Sun though aside from the nostalgia factor and the fact that it was a pretty large GBA game. That game represents everything I dislike and complain about.

yeah, hes right, romancing saga 3 was amazing, as were the 3 adaptations on GB. theyre much better if you can pirate jap ports with IPS translations though.

"Square Enix Uses the FF7-Remake Remedy Potion"
Square Enix is no longer at the brink of destruction.

I'll have to jump on the SaGa wagon soon to see if I get on with it. I'm currently in a platformer/indie game onry phase though. Slightly off topic but did anyone else buy the humble indie bundle 2?

inb4 it's in development

This needs to be remade... again!

I want it... But I don't want the horrible DS graphics.

Sprites > 3D renditions of sprites

SAME THING!

The Occam's Razor explanation for why they haven't remade FF7 is because they're not allowed to.

Remakes of pre-merger titles (as opposed to spin-offs like Derge) can be legally complicated.

I don't believe it was ever "remade". They ported it to the PSP? GBA and PS1.

As much as I love this game, I don't know if a remake would ever do it justice.

Just re-released on the PSX and GBA.

GBA removed some of the better dialogue though like "Son of a submariner!"

I still have the old FFIII (6, or whatever) SNES game cartridge. That was my very first experience with FF games. I guess that's why i got so hooked on it.

since when? theyve remade the dragon warrior games *such as 3 and 5* without a hitch. the reason theyve officially stated is because A. itd take too long and B. cost alot.

On the other hand, this would be the... 4th remake so far, not counting mere ports?

Heresy!

This explains X-2.

Though honestly, if they thought it was a good idea to remake 7, they would be jumping through all the legal hoops right now to make it happen.

Since I have heard to the contrary, I'm forced to assume it's not in the company's best interest. As a customer, I think it'd be amazing to have a remake. But from the company's viewpoint, they realize that remakes have a certain standard to uphold and maybe they don't think they can do it.

I really find IV highly over-rated. It's seen as the old-school favourite but I have no idea why.

Square always had an immutable internal policy to never directly remake any IP, and I wonder if that somehow got into the merger agreement. You'll notice that all of the remakes since the merger are Enix's intellectual property. Square's are just tangential spin-offs.

With Wada's insane money-grabs and tendency to milk the FF franchise, I have a feeling he would have already if he were allowed to. But I'm just speculating here.

The "takes too long and costs too much" explanation is a joke to me. It wouldn't cost any more than something like XIII, and probably do a lot better. Hell, I don't even like VII and I would buy it.

Maybe they're just baffled as to why VII was so beloved and are worried about screwing it up, and ruining fans' nostalgic attachment to the franchise in hindsight.