Nothing gets me riled up more than when companies are seemingly out of touch with consumers and the general marketplace. Square Enix is one such company. The modern incarnation of Final Fantasy which began on PSone with Final Fantasy VII and lasted through Final Fantasy X was nothing short of a miracle. Not only was Square able to release hit after hit, but the public was enchanted with each new title.

Final Fantasy XI aside (which was an MMORPG), something changed with Final Fantasy XII and then went terribly wrong with Final Fantasy XIII. Everything fell off the cliff with Final Fantasy XV which has been in development for nearly a decade. Once again I’m excluding Final Fantasy XIV because that is yet another MMORPG. The culprit? According to Final Fantasy XV Game Director Hajime Tabata, it is the Final Fantasy disease.

 Oh yeah, there was. It wasn’t only from inside the team, but outside as well. The reason was that if my way of doing it ended up working, there are those whose circumstances will worsen. 

The kicker is that we fans have caught it as well.

 Around that time, I realized that among fans as well, there are people who’ve caught FF disease, 

So what the hell is this disease? According to Tabata, it’s that we don’t want to accept change – that in our minds, a Final Fantasy game should have a certain style or format to it. Specifically, the Final Fantasy disease

 refers to people within the company who can’t imagine anything other than their own view of Final Fantasy. Since the root is a strong self-affirmation, one’s own view of Final Fantasy takes more priority than the team’s success. 

Tabata continues:

 If that view of Final Fantasy isn’t fulfilled, then they’re convinced that it’s bad for Final Fantasy. They think, ‘Since Final Fantasy is a special team, then we are also special because we are making it. When the new Final Fantasy comes out, everybody is going to be so into it.’ But that’s not the reality of the situation, is it? 

Luckily it’s not just fans who have this disease; internal staff members at Square have caught it as well.

 Because of that, there was a time I told off the team, saying, ‘We’re not special. Wake up’. Yet, I realized that when Final Fantasy XV news was made public, this wasn’t only inside the company. Everyone has FF disease 

At least we as fans have faith in Square right?

 One thing I’ve felt from fans is that they are disappointed in the current state of Final Fantasy, but still have hope in terms of where the brand could go 

So that’s right folks, the problem with Final Fantasy taking a nose dive in quality isn’t because the three entries of Final Fantasy XIII on PS3 were utter pieces of garbage, but because we fans had the FF disease which meant we wanted the games to be a certain way, you know? Like an RPG. How dare we not want Final Fantasy to change into an Action Adventure series and stick true to what it’s been since inception!

Funny how when the series was actually an RPG, they were well regarded and highly sought after. When Square decided for some reason that fans no longer wanted an RPG and instead wanted Action Adventure titles with Shooter elements in them and sales/reviews tanked, it’s because of our weird perception.

It’s a bit disheartening though not surprising to hear a Japanese developer so out of touch. While the 90’s were the golden years for Japanese devs, something happened as we transitioned to HD consoles, starting with PS3 when a majority of them just fell off a cliff. Titles were suddenly changed to be more Americanized and since then, nearly all Japanese series have declined. That includes games like

• Final Fantasy
• Resident Evil
• Silent Hill

Arguably the only one to survive was Metal Gear Solid and in the end, that resulted in the whole Kojima/Konami mess that will likely mean we’ll never get another MGS title. Much like Final Fantasy, what gamers haven’t liked about each of these titles is the fact that Japanese devs thought it wise to change them into something they never were. We played Resident Evil for its horror and Final Fantasy for its roleplaying elements, not because we wanted a cheap Uncharted or Call of Duty-esque clone. Ironically, Square simply needs to look back and see the differences between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X to see how a company can modernize a title without changing its core elements.

On the other hand, games like Uncharted and Call of Duty have survived and adapted while sticking true to their core game elements. In the end, I don’t think the ruin of Final Fantasy has been due to the Final Fantasy disease but more due the Westernification disease by which developers from Japan tried to morph their titles into what they thought Western audiences would want when in reality, Western gamers played and liked their games because they weren’t Western titles.

Discuss:

Do you think the decline of titles like Final Fantasy has been because the developers failed to adapt and modernize their games or because they tried to adapt and modernize their games?

[Via PSXextreme]