Can Final Fantasy 15 Revive the Aging Final Fantasy Franchise? Part 1
For many Final Fantasy fans like myself, Final Fantasy 15 seems like a ray of sunshine on a stormy day that will bring the Final Fantasy franchise to its former glory. The hope for us fans is that the game will be able to bring Final Fantasy back to mainstream gaming industry like it used to be years ago. A lot of hype about the game has been generated due to how good the game looks, but one question still remains. Can Final Fantasy 15 deliver? Well let's take a look at the Final Fantasy franchise history, and see where things went wrong.
In my opinion things started to get rough for the Final Fantasy series around Final Fantasy 10. Even though Final Fantasy 10 is admittedly an extremely good game, the story was not as strong as the previous games. To make things brief, Final Fantasy 10 is basically about a summoner and her guardians on a quest to defeat Sin, a giant monster who comes back after every time you kill him. The baseline for the story seems okay at first, but the execution of the story was weak. I didn't find the main character to be polarizing, and to be honest, I found him to be quite the whiner. Even though the characters were not that good, I think that the plot of the game was not handled that well either. The story telling just seemed flat, and there were no real plot twists or shocking moments that were famous in previous games in the series. That's enough about Final Fantasy 10 because I will be reviewing it later, but Final Fantasy 10 is important, because this is where I feel like the games started to focus more on battle mechanics rather than story, which is what Final Fantasy is famous for.
Now what do I mean by the games being focused on battle mechanics rather than story? Well starting from Final Fantasy 10, the games started to move away from the, "Active Time Battle" system or ATB for short. These games started to introduce more battle mechanics such as a sort of Grandia-esque battle system in Final Fantasy 10, in Final Fantasy 12 they had a World of Warcraft style of combat, and in Final Fantasy 13 they introduced the active paradigm battle system, but I am not even going to go say anything about that game because I hate it with a passion. However, aside from that tangent what do all of these games have in common? Oh yeah, these are the games that Final Fantasy fans say have the weakest stories. This just goes to show that Square Enix tried too hard to get new players to play Final Fantasy by using active combat like in other RPGs, but the trade-off was a weaker story for better battling mechanics.
Another problem I have with the Final Fantasy games these days is that they seem to have gotten rid of the "Fantasy" part of the games. Even though people are still using magic, and there are some dragons and what not, the games seem to be more Sci-fi if anything. In the traditional Final Fantasy games, the games plot was centered around 4 magical crystals that represent the 4 main elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind. Also, the fantasy theme was carried throughout the game with Kingdoms and dragons and all the other cool things you would expect the fantasy genre to have. However, now a days I feel like the games after 10 started to get too far away from its roots, and as a result, the games suffered because of it.
Now, Final Fantasy 15 which is scheduled to come out in March of next year has promise because it is going back to having crystals play a large part in the story, and Square Enix is taking a new approach to story with the tagline, "Fantasy Based on Reality", whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. I am very skeptical about this game, but I also think that if any game is going to bring Final Fantasy back to the top, it's going to be this one.
In my opinion things started to get rough for the Final Fantasy series around Final Fantasy 10. Even though Final Fantasy 10 is admittedly an extremely good game, the story was not as strong as the previous games. To make things brief, Final Fantasy 10 is basically about a summoner and her guardians on a quest to defeat Sin, a giant monster who comes back after every time you kill him. The baseline for the story seems okay at first, but the execution of the story was weak. I didn't find the main character to be polarizing, and to be honest, I found him to be quite the whiner. Even though the characters were not that good, I think that the plot of the game was not handled that well either. The story telling just seemed flat, and there were no real plot twists or shocking moments that were famous in previous games in the series. That's enough about Final Fantasy 10 because I will be reviewing it later, but Final Fantasy 10 is important, because this is where I feel like the games started to focus more on battle mechanics rather than story, which is what Final Fantasy is famous for.
Now what do I mean by the games being focused on battle mechanics rather than story? Well starting from Final Fantasy 10, the games started to move away from the, "Active Time Battle" system or ATB for short. These games started to introduce more battle mechanics such as a sort of Grandia-esque battle system in Final Fantasy 10, in Final Fantasy 12 they had a World of Warcraft style of combat, and in Final Fantasy 13 they introduced the active paradigm battle system, but I am not even going to go say anything about that game because I hate it with a passion. However, aside from that tangent what do all of these games have in common? Oh yeah, these are the games that Final Fantasy fans say have the weakest stories. This just goes to show that Square Enix tried too hard to get new players to play Final Fantasy by using active combat like in other RPGs, but the trade-off was a weaker story for better battling mechanics.
Another problem I have with the Final Fantasy games these days is that they seem to have gotten rid of the "Fantasy" part of the games. Even though people are still using magic, and there are some dragons and what not, the games seem to be more Sci-fi if anything. In the traditional Final Fantasy games, the games plot was centered around 4 magical crystals that represent the 4 main elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind. Also, the fantasy theme was carried throughout the game with Kingdoms and dragons and all the other cool things you would expect the fantasy genre to have. However, now a days I feel like the games after 10 started to get too far away from its roots, and as a result, the games suffered because of it.
Now, Final Fantasy 15 which is scheduled to come out in March of next year has promise because it is going back to having crystals play a large part in the story, and Square Enix is taking a new approach to story with the tagline, "Fantasy Based on Reality", whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. I am very skeptical about this game, but I also think that if any game is going to bring Final Fantasy back to the top, it's going to be this one.
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