For me I lost interest for several reasons. It began when they released FFXI Online and I didn’t have internet to play it. I also didn’t see how they could maintain an authentic Final Fantasy experience if they had no control over the online aspect of different players. continued below….So I waited for the next single player experience to arrive which translated into twice the time period between installents.By the time FFXII released I moved on thinking about the diminished effect FFX had on me anyway. So I never picked it up to play. Then years later I got a PS3 and thought the platform could push the visual envelope like “CGI” did with the older FF games. Instead they went multiplat, which was fine but was a bit of a diisappointment to hear.Then they released a linear experience while still preserving issues that became prevalent in later games (I’ll explain these in a minute). It was the events that occurred this console generation that made me realize that Square was trying to reach somebody else. I felt like they were more concerned about recouping their lost, yet small, audience by finding a new crowd to take their place. In this process they lost their remaining audience and seem to be going “all in” to find the money.At the same time they have failed to adjust to the changing landscape of gaming. As promised above I will explain what I mean.One of the biggest changes that have occurred is the visual landscape. Older titles had less detail leaving more to my imagination. Adding voices, if not done right, Can remove the imagination as well. It was easier for me to connect to those characters because they didn’t ruin it with failed design. Compare Wada from X with a sprite character in the 16bit era. I’ll bet we can match personality types while still hating Wada more.Final Fantasy VII did two things right. They told a universal story that wasn’t crippled by translation…meaning the translation of words wasn’t the way people connected to the story. It was more told through visual communication. This story seemed to relate to humanity rather than a particular culture or race.The 2nd thing they did right is cheat its visual capabilities of the PS1 console by using CGI to impress the player…enhancing the realism and drawing the player into the story.Yet these two things have never really been recreated since ( except Yuna’s story in FFX which was a worthy effort but seemed too focused around her…like they picked up on the Aeries’ incident and make it the center drama piece).
Read more: Why Square Enix Is Losing MoneyAn Indictment
