The Final Final Fantasy?
CEO of Square Enix make it pretty clear it is.Published 06/01/2010 at 15:07.
By Tuffcub.
Square Enix President and CEO Yoichi Wada has been talking to Edge about his plans for the company and they include waving goodbye to Final Fantasy in its current form.
“I believe Final Fantasy XIII is going be something special,” he said, “And that it’s going to be well received by the audience. But whether we are going to continue to internally create this type of game remains to be seen, because I actually feel that the team that was involved with Final Fantasy XIII should next move on to create and generate some ‘next generation’ forms of play. Internally and externally I feel there’s an expectation of Square Enix to offer something new, and I really think that the Final Fantasy team could create something completely different, but at the moment they’re strictly catering to the particular audience they have now.”
Have a stiff drink and a sit down whilst you assimilate that news. The boss of Square Enix wants to move the Final Fantasy team on to new projects. Before you start hugging your limited edition Tifa statuettes and crying like babies there is one small glimmer of hope. When asked if western developers could take over an existing Sqaure Enix franchise, Wada said,
“That is one of the possible paths, but it’s not something that we would shift completely over to. But there are many combinations of ways to handle an IP. We’re not considering it at the moment, but there is always the possibility that in the future a Final Fantasy could be produced with the input of our western developers, overseen by our Japanese developers.”
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Roynaldo | 06/01/2010 15:12
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4155 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008
No, No, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Right off to go drown my sorrows, just what i didnt need on my Bday, hope your happy now Tuffcub?!!
cam the man | 06/01/2010 15:43
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2728 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Even if XIII is the last FF game, the next game that Square Enix’s FF team bring out will proberly be as good, if not better.
DRCD1 | 06/01/2010 21:04
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1445 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2008
Happy Birthday, Roynaldo. Hopefully it is the only bad news you’ll get today.
kevatron400 | 06/01/2010 15:13
Don't call him Kevatron400.
2125 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2008
Wow, that’s pretty big news. A lot of people will be saddened by this, but not many other game franchise could get to a 13th sequel, so I guess it’s done alright for itself really.
Roynaldo | 06/01/2010 15:20
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4155 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008
None of them are actual “sequels” so to speak, very much individual and different games storywise but yeah, 13 (actually 14 with the MMPOG coming too) is good but I would be happy to be 60 odd playing FF33 if it were to happen….sadly it seems not :’(
2ofclubs | 06/01/2010 15:34
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645 TSA Points | Member since: Sep 2008
Aside from FFX-2. That was a sequel and pretty good aside from the cringeworthy female craziness of it. The costume/job changes and fast combat I enjoyed a lot.
Roynaldo | 06/01/2010 15:39
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4155 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008
oh yeah, forgot about that one, only played it once, didnt like it much.
carlosfilippsen | 06/01/2010 15:40
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1318 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009
Gotta agree with Mr Roy :( The FF series needs to carry on!
P.s. Its Roy’s birthday today everyone :P Happy birthday dude, best wishes!
BIGAL-1992 | 06/01/2010 15:20
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3075 TSA Points | Member since: Jan 2009
Hang on, is he saying he’s planning to stop making Final Fantasy games, or have I missed something here.
Tuffcub | 06/01/2010 15:23
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Well pretty much yes. He wants to move the team to create a “new style” of game. I suppose they could call that Final Fantasy as well, but it wont be a JRPG Final Fantasy.
BIGAL-1992 | 06/01/2010 15:33
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Thanks for clearing that up with me.
mugsybalone | 06/01/2010 15:21
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So, are they excluding XIV from the ‘Final Fantasy in its current form’ bracket?
seedaripper1973 | 06/01/2010 15:26
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er…what does ‘verses’ have to say about this bombshell?
Lorcan | 06/01/2010 15:27
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See, I don’t think he’s actually saying that he’s stopping Final Fantasy games, I read that as in there will still be Final Fantasy games, they’ll just be very different from what they are now.
Tuffcub | 06/01/2010 15:30
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Right.. so they’ll be like Sonic then. Or something. They wont *BE* like Final Fantasy, a JRPG.
2ofclubs | 06/01/2010 15:38
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That would be a shame because one of their ‘not FF’ games, Dirge of Cerberus, wasn’t that good. Hopefully he just means more action based as opposed to a total departure.
BioEye | 06/01/2010 15:36
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1280 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
“MGS3 is my last Metal Gear game”.
“Next Gen” happened to be the PS2 then the PS3 for Final Fantasy. I’m sure if it’s the end of the numbered series, there’ll be spin-offs, or returns, or remakes, or prequels to the sequels of prequels.
clank250 | 06/01/2010 23:21
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855 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008
Yes, agree with you. “Halo 3 will be the last Halo” Umm… Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach…
They will be other games, it has proven wrong all the time. If a series has made mucho money then they will make mucho more games.
Verminox | 06/01/2010 15:38
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87 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2009
Can they make their mind up. Not long ago they said they want Final Fantasy to last forever.
Square Enix developer Akitoshi Kawazu has said that he wants the Final Fantasy series to last forever. In an interview with German site GameZone, Kawazu was asked if we’ll ever see a final Final Fantasy said;
“I would of course be delighted if Final Fantasy will last forever. When I die, it would be an honor if standing on my tombstone, “He was involved in the first Final Fantasy!” That would be fantastic – literally!”
So it looks like they have no plans to quit the series just yet. It was revealed in a recent trailer that Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the United States and Europe on 9th March, 2010.
seedaripper1973 | 06/01/2010 15:46
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Well considering it’s supposed to be ‘Final’ Fantasy…whens this finale coming around? eh…eh?
cc_star | 06/01/2010 15:50
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Is he basically saying FFXIII is not a true next-gen title, I don’t mean graphics – but scope and depth of gameplay.
Tuffcub | 06/01/2010 16:02
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I always seem to be arguing with you, it’s nothing personal – btu what “next gen” title would you suggest has “more gameplay” than any previous gen title? Its not like the FPS has radically changed when it moved up.
cc_star | 06/01/2010 16:08
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I dunno, you wrote it
“ I actually feel that the team that was involved with Final Fantasy XIII should next move on to create and generate some ‘next generation’ forms of play.”
So by definition does that not mean he feels the play-style is a bit last gen, or or at the least offers absolutely nothing new over the PS2 titles?
Tuffcub | 06/01/2010 16:59
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Sorry you said ” I don’t mean graphics ” so I took ut you thought the gameplay was “Last gen” not him. I still dont know what “Next gen” gameplay is. Id say Eyetoy, Wii Mote and Natal are next Gen gameply elements I guess.
Anthony72 | 06/01/2010 17:43
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Could there be a use of the wand for combat?
Syncya | 06/01/2010 15:51
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They have three different teams that work on Final Fantasy games, four if you want to count the Crystal Chronicles series, and only one team was working on XIII. I’m not surprised he’s wanting them to work on new stuff, but I doubt that will mean the end of Final Fantasy. Fourteen is still coming, as well as about a million different versions of XIII, etcetera. From a marketing standpoint, the company would have a major lose for the company if they completely stopped making Final Fantasy games. It would be nice to see some Mana, Front Mission, or Dragon Quest games, or even some FPS.
Deathbrin | 06/01/2010 16:41
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Haven’t they said that when FFXIII was almost done, parts of the team were switched to help the Versus team?
Syncya | 06/01/2010 18:35
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Yeah, the majority of the team that finished moved on to other Final Fantasy projects. The team that made Kingdom Hearts were working on Versus, or from what I’ve read and heard, the majority of the team.