I can actually see why people say it's unappreciated because yeah there's a ton of gawking fanboys and fangirls out there to the point that even I, who thinks that it's the best game ever made, am a little on the queasy side. But there's also a lot of people who hate the game. And it's not for the reasons they give really, it's simply due to the fact that Final Fantasy VII has these fanboys and fangirls and suddenly they develop an unatural hatred for it simply because it wasn't their favourite game in the world. I'll admit I'm a victim of this when it comes to certain things too, such as Wayne Rooney and Lost. It's especially prominent in those who played FFVI first because let's face it Final Fantasy VII stole it's thunder. It's like the first child who built a cool gadget for science fair then the second younger child who built a nuclear reactor.
Anyway onto the very good points that Duttle made.
So I disagree with you when you say we just need another game exactly like the older Final Fantasies. Like you mentioned with FF7, those "classics" you brought up were all fairly fresh and genre-defining; token sequels or remakes would defeat the point. The result might still be fun, but it'd just be riding on the corpse of the original. Square Enix just needs to remember that players don't actually get in the way of a game too badly and are sort of the entire point. It's not like they need to stop thinking of new ideas altogether and go back to what worked in 1997.
It's exactly my point, sure it worked back then but it won't work now. If suddenly they released Final Fantasy XV with the materia system, 2D graphics and a medieval setting, people would be seriously disappointed.
Maybe it was just me but when I played through Final Fantasy XII, I missed the
fixed camera angles, because it felt a little less cinematic. They improved on that a little in XIII, but that was I think more due to the fact that the visuals, despite your inability to explore anything beyond "the tunnel" were the best seen on a modern game. However I know for a fact that'd just never return, unless they made it optional.
However could the
turned based battle system return, absolutely. I don't see why it wouldn't, sure people have complained it's a little slow, but at the end of the day, the turn based battle system is the staple of the JRPG, it's one of many reasons the JRPG is my favourite genre. Random battles have been removed, and I thought that FFX and FFX-2's battle systems were fast enough, and with a quicker victory screen, the game will flow more fluid-like. Whilst technically XIII had a turn based system, you could only control one character like in XII, this annoyed me SO much. This is a perfect example of what W-RPG things NOT to include, this takes away from the joy of a J-RPG and it DOESN'T fit, but I'll get into that in a bit.
World Maps, we've all pretty much expressed a want to have these back. So yeah. I had an idea that was like making the world map more of a 1:1, maybe a 1:2 or 1:4 size map, so it's a lot larger and more of a world exploration than just a representation of the world. I mean the later half of Final Fantasy XIII showed it was possible once you left "the tunnel" (though to be honest, I got bored long before then).
Towns, F***ing TOWNS! What kind of retards thought it'd be a good idea to remove towns from a J-RPG, that's like removing the battle system... no wait they did that in XII. Will get more into this on the bad W-RPG Aspects but still, removing towns doesn't make a more fluid game it makes a more frustrating game.
W-RPG Aspects (The Good):
I think that a linear story is a good aspect of a J-RPG and before I played XIII, I thought it was just people whining and moaning because they've got too short an attention span to actually play a proper J-RPG with a compelling story. Then I actually played the game. There's a difference between J-RPG's linear aspect of cinematic storytelling and just plain
RUNNING THROUGH A TUNNEL!! Phew, now that's off my chest. People have told me not to compare W-RPGs and J-RPGs because they're completely different genres. Ehm... no they're not, they're just a different style because of their origin. At the end of the day, whilst I don't consider Mass Effect a full RPG, it's more like an Action RPG, the RPG elements are still there, lot's of these elements are present in J-RPGs too. I said it before but J-RPGs linearity can be a good thing, it can drive a story more, I'm just asking to tone it the hell down. W-RPGs have got this aspect of choice, that doesn't mean a story can be any less compelling and any writer who thinks so is just being damn lazy. I'm a writer professionally, *hint hint * square enix if you're reading this I'm better than you, or at least not as lazy, hire me * hint hint *. I mean with today's technology Mass Effect was able to tell a pretty damn compelling and fairly linear story, but the aspect of choice made the was events in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 seem like you had a choice to do something and tell the story in a different way. Mass Effect 3 is going to continue that trend. I don't think it's an impossible request to see a Final Fantasy game give us the opportunity to make decisions on a more open scale, XII had a good stab at it but made it perhaps a little too linear, a world map would have helped that especially. I'm not saying every word has to be chosen by you like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but it would be nice to have some choice. (Also character customisation can't hurt a little, it's not like Shepard didn't have a set face that everyone knows as Shepard and some people use too, also I'm not sure how that's all that different to the old days of J-RPG where you literally chose everything about ALL your characters, including their names).
W-RPG Aspects (The Bad):
A few things I'll retread here, first off. The lack of towns, I know this was an attempt to appeal to the type of gamer that just wants to be in ACTIONS YEAH! RAGHGH!! BANG BANG HEADSHOT! YEAAH! But let's face it is the battle system of Final Fantasy suited to that? No, you do damage in statistics not though headshots blam blam woo! They removed towns because they thought it'd slow the pace of the game down. That's the IDEA! They're supposed to give you break to piss about and involve yourself deeper in the world of the game, talk with the people e.t.c. Another thing is the single character control only, if anyone says this isn't a W-RPG aspect taken to the retardation, I'll slap you, and my slaps HURT. In W-RPG's this works, because it's not a J-RPG style of battle. Take the Fallout games, whilst I wouldn't have minded if in Fallout 1 & 2 you could control your NPCs, it's all part of the W-RPG experience. In Fallout 3, it would have been dumb. Same with Mass Effect, or Dragon Age, they're your team-mates, and you control only youself and it works that way because it's more of an action style than a turn based combat. Knights of the Old Republic, despite my lack of enjoyment playing this game, is a prime example. Though you CAN control the other characters, you can only really control one at a time in battle, and that works because it's more of an action oriented style, it's not turn based as J-RPGs are.
I think that about wraps up my rant on fixing Final Fantasy, what does all this have to do with a Final Fantasy VII remake? Well like I said in the original post, the things that made VII so great, are dragging the series down now because of it's refusal to evolve right, or more importantly, evolve in the right direction. Final Fantasy VII was a great game, but now it is out of date and the remake is past it's due date. Whilst I'm certain a Final Fantasy VII remake would sell five million copies or above, it's not going to set the world alight like it did fourteen years ago. With that in mind, I think it's time that Final Fantasy listened to it's fans in some capacity and focused their efforts on a single good product rather than churning out a bunch of crap sequels, remakes and spin-offs. Focus their efforts into Final Fantasy XV and hope that they can return to what made Final Fantasy so great originally, but keep things fresh and new without shamelessly pandering to the crowd that simple isn't theirs.
