Opinion: Is Final Fantasy Due For A Reboot?

The Final Fantasy series is one of my favorite series of games of all time.  The stories up to about FFX were really good, the gameplay was great, and the characters were amazing.  Somewhere along the line SquareEnix lost a bit of what Final Fantasy (or FF) is.

I didn't get in on Final Fantasy from the first game like many people have, but I go back quite a fair bit with that game.  There was one that I played on the Super Nintendo, but I don't remember which one it was anymore.  I do remember that it was really fun though.

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy really evolved into something special with the release of FFXII on the Sony Playstation.  Never before had I had a gaming experience like it, the story was so robust, the characters memorable, and the world fantastic.  The battle system was all about strategy and weighing your options; Can I attack one more time or should I heal now?  I know this guy is almost dead, should I hit him again or resurrect my fallen teammate?  These situations are what really added the fun to the game.

FFVIII was a little bit weird.  The characters were cool but they were made to be much more realistic which I find to be a little inappropriate for the FF series.  It is a fantasy game and I really like it when the developer latches onto that with the whimsical characters and lands.  The magic system kind of turned me off as well because you had to use the "Draw" feature to stockpile magic from enemies, but the reasoning for that was how the junctioning system worked for developing your characters throughout the game.

Final Fantasy VIII

Then FFIX came out (FF9).  This is by far my favorite of the entire series because for me it had the best story, best characters, and I had the most fun of the 9 FF titles I've played.  Every system in the game was well thought out and executed.  The end boss battles of the game get a little weird but I thought the actual ending of the game was the best of the series also.

Final Fantasy IX

At this point I could continue breaking down every single game as they go, but instead I will just tell you about things I thought worked and where I think SquareEnix is getting it wrong.

The battle system in FFX was the most perfect battle system ever.  It let you swap weapons, armor, and party members out during combat, it didn't have the ATB (Active Time Battle) system but instead had a true turn based system.  You could see along the side of the screen (see picture below) the order of turns and could plan your moves accordingly.

 

In FFXII (we'll skip 11 because it was an MMO game and not really part of the series), they tried to take this automated approach to the battle system.  I still played the entire game but I have to say that the actual battles were less fun than in previous games.  The "Gambit System" was kind of fun to set up, it was the system in which you could issue and prioritize the actions that your characters would take in battle, but overall it made me wish for the old battle systems from the past games.

 

FFXIII (13) introduced this new fangled ATB system that was just weird.  Don't get me wrong though it was plenty functional but they took the emphasis off of thinking about what you were going to do and placed it more on doing things quickly without much thinking.  This turned off many fans of the franchise including myself.  I still played through it and beat it, but had considerably less fun.

 

Another thing that irritated me about FFX and FFXIII were that the game just felt like it was on rails.  There was absolutely no real sense of exploration.  Granted, there is really no such thing as an "open world" FF game, you still have to do everything in order, but with FFX and FFXIII I felt like I walked down an endless hallway to the end of the game.  In FFVII (7) through FFIX (9) and including FFXII (12) to some extent, I felt there was a sense of exploration.  Yes, there was only one place you could go to advance the story, but you had to look for it.  That is part of FF that I miss right now.

 

One other area that SquareEnix has been driving me crazy is in the story department.  FFXIII is a disjointed weird tale that I never really grasped at all through my 40 hour playthrough.  FFX had some strange bits too, but overall the story made sense.  It seems to me that the mantra at SquareEnix is that the story no longer has to make sense as long as it seems all deep and philosophical.

 

So how can SquareEnix make the FF series better going forward? 

 

First of all they can focus on bringing a well told story to the table again.  I will never forget how I felt about the stories of FFVII and FFIX.  Those were some of the best stories in gaming ever from my perspective. 

 

Secondly, they can reevaluate the battle system.  I know that peoples tastes change over time but I really think that the strategic element is something that most people would find attractive in the game.

 

Third, the character development systems need some work, the sphere grid and the weird board things are confusing and not really much fun to work with.  I really enjoyed the system from FFIX where each weapon, armor, and accessory could teach you skills and magic just from wearing it, of the FFVII materia system which was an absolute masterpiece.

 

If SquareEnix takes a look back at what all the FF games did right and what all the fans really loved, and concentrated on that going forward I think they could breath life back into a franchise that seems lost at the moment.  Also, they should probably stay away from direct sequels because FFX-2 and FFXIII-2 were both pretty bad.

 

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and stay tuned to Big Ups Gaming for more articles like this one!  Thanks for reading!