Square Enix Merger??? (You've been poisoned)

[retrofiber]

i wish people would stop talking about this.

fake nostalgia is destroying your mind...

I've been a part of this forum for over 2 years and I cant recall seeing this topic before. Tell you what, next time I start a thread I'll be sure to check that your cool with it first. I'm not quite sure how nostalgia can be faked either.

[Solbadude]

They still released some gems. The Last Remnant is my favorite Jrpg of this console generation. And Nier is great. Surprisingly mature story.
We do need a new Valkyrie Profile! And More Classic Front Mission! None of this Armored Core copys!

[The Almighty MegaMan]

If not for Enix stepping up and buying the failing Squaresoft it's conceivable we wouldn't have any Final Fantasy games right now.

PLEASS SEND ME TO THE ALTERNATE DIMENSION WHERE THIS IS HAPPENING.

As for the question... Enix alone?
ACTRAISER and TERRANIGMA - the latter being probably the best RPG I've ever had the joy to play.
Square alone?
EINHANDER, which is not one of the best games I've ever played on the PSX, nor one of the best games in the genre it belongs, but one of the best games of ALL TIME.. After hearing of the game and seeing it in action, I thought "oh, this looks great!" and then I saw Squaresoft's logo.
My jaw dropped, I swear.
They also did Brave Fencer Musashi and... Rad Racer. If you're > 20 you probably know that one

Together?
Two billion FFs (special mention for 13). A strategy shoot-em-up, for God's sake! You're doing it all wrong! And the cherry on top of the cream... Gayass Fanfic Hearts.

And they bought Taito. Ever since, nothing good has come out of it.

Please reverse time. Or kill them. I'd gladly help.

[JKDarkside]

Videogames are a business.

They merged because both weren't doing as good as they could and could do more together without being bought by another major company. You complain about like two truly bad FF games and a poor MMO along with KH, but we also got the following:

FFXII: Has one of the best stories in the series
DQ VIII: Easily one of the best old school style JRPGs ever made
TWEWY: A beautiful experiment of a game
Drakengard/Nier: A series of JRPG deconstructions that are easily some of the darkest and most interesting subject matter in the medium
Radiata Stories: A critically underlooked gem with tons of replay value
Valkire Profile 2: One of the best sequels I've ever seen
Nanashi No Game: One of the few games that can truly terrify me

They've also published Edios series games like Just Cause 2 and helped allow Sleeping Dogs to even get finished and sold. We're getting Thief 4 because of them. They may fuck up with Final Fantasy nowadays, but you seem to think that's all they've ever done. Truth is they're a major publisher that encourages experimental games that doesn't limit themselves to a style like EA and Activision mistakenly do. They have far more pros than cons.

[AKLFratGuy]

I'm going to have to say it was a good move. One company had massive success in the U.S., while the other one was huge in Japan. When they merged it just felt right, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy both being made by the same company. Enix was able to get some major games released in the U.S., and managed to get some remakes of their insanely popular series for the DS. Square was already a company with a dedicated fan base in the States (anyone who owned a Playstation more than likely had a Squaresoft game or two, some had even more) and the merger with Enix gave them an extra bump in their ability to make games. Sure Kingdom Hearts may be a game for Disney fanatics and kids, but the fact that they are still pumping out games says that they are doing something right. You can't go around blaming the conglomerate of Square-Enix just because you don't like the games from the Ivalice Alliance(where we get the FFTA and FFXII). I hate the FFTA games they just lacked that special something that made FFT a sleeper hit. They may go in directions that certain fans may dislike, but the collective says that they are one of the greatest entities in video games right now.

[Lightya]

Kitase,Toriyama,Nomura needs to step aside for while they been working on every SE japan major project now especially Nomura don't get me wrong nomura has his own good but having him to be character designer or creative producer on most major project is mistake give Hiroyuki Ito a chance this guy haven't working on anything major since FF XII,Takashi Tokita i know he's not Kazuhige Nojima or Matsuno but he is better choice than Toriyama, and Tabata give him a green light on 4 rd birthday or Type-1 it's better than waste time making FF Otome

[JKDarkside]

Nomura is batshhit insane and I am convinced he had little to do with TWEWY's writing after seeing his "brilliant narrative" in the KH games.

[MaslowK]

Why is Weapon flying around?

So you can kill him again :p beat him enough times and it gives you a new weapon and access to another summon.

[Alan Heer]

Videogames are a business.

They merged because both weren't doing as good as they could and could do more together without being bought by another major company. You complain about like two truly bad FF games and a poor MMO along with KH, but we also got the following:

FFXII: Has one of the best stories in the series
DQ VIII: Easily one of the best old school style JRPGs ever made
TWEWY: A beautiful experiment of a game
Drakengard/Nier: A series of JRPG deconstructions that are easily some of the darkest and most interesting subject matter in the medium
Radiata Stories: A critically underlooked gem with tons of replay value
Valkire Profile 2: One of the best sequels I've ever seen
Nanashi No Game: One of the few games that can truly terrify me

They've also published Edios series games like Just Cause 2 and helped allow Sleeping Dogs to even get finished and sold. We're getting Thief 4 because of them. They may fuck up with Final Fantasy nowadays, but you seem to think that's all they've ever done. Truth is they're a major publisher that encourages experimental games that doesn't limit themselves to a style like EA and Activision mistakenly do. They have far more pros than cons.

I agree. The merger was a good idea. And any cons aren't exclusively the merger's fault. Businesses change. New workers hired, other workers fired. In a company as big as Square Enix it becomes nearly impossible to pinpoint just who is responsible for any faults. You could say, that that means they should downsize, that their business is too large, and you may be right. Unfortunately in today's age gamers demand better graphics and more content, and while those things are good, they tend to overshadow more important things. Second, they are a business and that means they want profits. You could say that they are greedy and again, you may be right. But, without profits they can't stay afloat. They constantly have to worry about the bottom line. One wrong move commercially could end up in bankruptcy for smaller companies. The bigger size does mean they can experiment more, but they still aren't impervious to wrong decisions.

Another thing, in the old days games were cheaper to make. Cheaper games mean less sales are needed to profit. It was a good thing too, because gaming still wasn't as mainstream as it is today. Gamer expectations at times borders on ridiculous. We've groomed ourselves to put higher priority on graphics than anything else and turned brand loyalty into something nasty. Take Final Fantasy 13 for instance. Many of it's biggest supporters like it so much because it looks so nice. Those same people hated Nier because the titular character looked ugly and the "grafix suk". As a result, Nier sold poorly, and Final Fantasy was a commercial success. Where's the justice? Back to FF13, some of the detractors didn't like it as much because the graphics weren't as good as in the screenshots from years ago. "Forget any of the real problems, the graphics were downgraded." Some hypothesized the downgrade was due to being ported to the 360. They said, the graphics were downgraded so 360 owners wouldn't feel bad. That's offensive brand loyalty. It's sick to see people argue over which is better using mostly mudslinging. It's never about, my console can do this, it's your console can't do this. Back to FF13 again. One huge downfall was that it was so linear. There was never really any time to relax or return at least until you got to pulse. No towns or cities to explore beyond the few hallways we were given and the reason for that? They couldn't create HD towns and they felt it was suicide to create any sd towns. Gamers thought that would be ugly. So we traded functionality for aesthetics. They couldn't make a game like Terranigma today, at least on consoles. It would sell too poorly. Anything less than AAA game graphics would doom it to just being a cult hit at best. Chances are half of the game would need to be cut to just make it look pretty.And gamers are still not satisfied. You would think a new console generation would solve that. I don't. I think it will only exacerbate the problem. Games will get more expensive to make, gamers will demand better graphics as they have already begun. Without the merger, both companies may have died, or they would have had to get bigger somehow, their problems wouldn't just go away if they had never merged because the conditions for them to trigger was not in the merge.

Lastly, to be honest, I think some gamers have been blinded by nostalgia. For instance many claim FF7 is the best. I think it is subjective. There are things in other FF games I like better and so far FFX is my favorite. I played other FF games, and FF7 was not anywhere near the best for me. It was good, don't get me wrong, I think it is a bit overrated though. I think FFX-2 is also underrated as well. FFXII was a really fun game. FF XIII was pretty horrendous I admit, but XIII-2 was pretty decent IMO. I've found the root of most people's hatred of these games to be mostly about nostalgia. Change is the worst enemy of nostalgia. That's why many pick a game and nitpick at the differences in the other games of the series, hating things that are not intrinsically superior or inferior in any way. Newer games (newer in the sense that we play them later) will never match up to games we are nostalgic about. We're just too stubborn which makes nostalgia goggles almost inevitable to be worn sometime or another. I admit, I get nostalgic myself, I prefer some games that are technically inferior to other games in some series. But I also see nostalgia as personal. Meaning I try to separate nostalgia from facts when dealing with other people that may like other games over my favorite. Subtle differences in quality can be complicated by nostalgia to where we assign just enough value to one thing that we consider it better than the other. Opening our minds allows us to enjoy newer games without constantly nitpicking at whether something is better or worse.

[retrofiber]

After reading all the posts up till now I would have to say that I'm glad the 2 merged if the alternative was that one or both fell by the wayside. Thanks all for the informative and well mannered posts...you know who you are...and by all means, please continue.

[JKDarkside]

Ain't much else to say other than to post these two videos.

[retrofiber]

@ BloodMage: Too funny

Well, one last thing I'll say is that I've just started playing TWEWY and it is quite refreshing
so far, but the further I get into FFTA2 however, the more disappointed I am. I'll admit I've not
had a chance to play FF13 or its spin off, but I don't feel like I'm missing much from the
previews, reviews, etc.

IMO, Square Enix would do well to take a break from the FF franchise for a couple of years and come back with something fresh (old school fresh) (other than remakes) that might please both the retro and new school masses, perhaps the way Nintendo did by releasing Metroid Prime and Fusion (although both were awesome IMO), not only around the same time but also interactive with each other. Lets not forget what made FF, FF...

[JKDarkside]

FF prints money, ain't happening.

[Sheik]

FF prints money, ain't happening.

That is so true I don't even know where to begin...

[Rok124]

as said many times before, Square and Enix had to merge


but even if they didn't need to merge, i do believe the Final Fantasy games would be exactly the same as they are today. There are other factors for why FF games are "declining". Like someone said, Graphics and Blind Nostalgia

also, if we bring up FF7 we have to remember that it would be impossible for them to create a remake because they stated that they have to create a Final Fantasy game that succeeds FF7 in Sales and Profit.

This

WARNING: comes from IGN

they say "exceeds the quality" but im sure that means the same thing


someone tell me if im wrong