And we don't need to ask them to improve their 'storytelling' because...?
Your misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that they shouldn't, but rather that's just how it has more or less always been.
At any rate, I'm not going to touch the issues I have with FFX because I don't want to be here all night going off on that tangent. Instead I'm going to focus my beef towards the FFXIII series and its criminal lack of player agency. I can handle a dumb plot or awful characters every once in awhile. What I don't like is hallway simulators, stomped bosses getting back up shouting "you lose" even though you just stomped them, growth mechanics that require being at end game or post game to make use of, and party mechanics that take forever to be allowed to use. And when people like me complained about these issues, they were 'addressed' by throwing the book out the window and slapping on rudimentary RPG mechanics and a collectathon in an attempt at handwaving their laziness with 'progress'. My problem is that they're doing it again. They're throwing out the parties, the monster collecting, and what have you for a single player ARPG (though probably along the lines of Lightning's DLC for XIII-2). They're not addressing the problem they're slapping on gameplay mechanics that look like they were 'borrowed' from Majora's Mask.
They've already made two attempts at trying to get it right; how many more attempts do you think they'll need before they magically get 'it'? How many more attempts of theirs are you going to tolerate? How much are you willing to pay to allow these people to continue on their merry little way? How many times are you willing to listen to how you suck, how you lost, how little you matter in their grand scheme of things?
But Lightning Returns is not being made to address problems related FFXIII (or XIII-2), that was FFXIII-2's job and it did adequately. LR being an Action RPG with one controllable character should be a non-issue unless you hate the sub-genre because some of the best RPGs ever made are ARPGs. This isn't the first FF game to be an action RPG either (FF Adventure, Crisis Core, Versus, Crystal Chronicle series etc). So I'm not getting your grievance here especially since LR doesn't look to have most issues of FFXIII had.
And my point here isn't about Final Fantasy XIII but of all Final Fantasies. How many mulligans are they going to need for XIV before they get it right? How many games are their board of directors going to need to meddle in? How many compilations are they going to make before they realize how awful the very idea of a premade compilation is? How many unnecessary sequels are they going to use to ruin otherwise simple and straight forward characters, settings, and plots? How long are they going to divide their resources and efforts to make games that take the better part of a decade to make? How many more years do you think it'll take 'Versus comparisons to DNF' jokes to become passé?
Many of your complaints are fairly exaggerated or don't really link with on another. For starters you make it sound like FFXIV went through many failures (it didn't) and isn't getting fixed and being on track to becoming a great game (it is). Second, FFXIII is the only premade compilation, others were made after the fact (Ivalice Advance and FFVII Complication). Many these contained great games (i.e FFTA2, WoTL, Crisis Core etc) and were pretty well liked, so SE certainly doing something right. And your problems with sequels only really apply to the FFVII stuff and that game was hardly straight forward to begin with (FFV was the last FF like that anyway).
I do agree with you on Versus (it's completely embarrassing really) and the crazy development time SE 's console games take, but not like the company isn't still turning out quality stuff when they aren't technology handicapped. It's also not like they aren't working on sorting out those things too. The Luminous Studio engine is one of the ways made in mind combat it.
Me? I'm done with most of this. Bravely Default looks like its trying to move away from what Final Fantasy 'is' to become what Final Fantasy 'was', and maybe TWEWY 2 might happen to succeed TWEWY 1 successfully, but those are my exceptions; my 'chances' that I'll give them.
FF hasn't become anything though. It's been what always has, which is providing a "difference experience" good or bad.
But I'm not spending a dime on them until I know for a fact that they are worth my time or not. And I'm not going to know just because they say so.
Shouldn't this normally be the case though?
