Well, with IX, X, and XI announced, I hafta say I'm not all that disappointed. The whole medieval thing in IX IS the FF series should be. Lets see... only 2 out of 8 so far have been more sci-fi than medieval. And finally, MP is back! I thought having no MP made FF8 battles kind of flat and 'to the point'. GF, GF, GF! That's mostly all there was to it. I think Square has made a smart move and returned the Final Fantasy series to its roots, where it all began. FFXI sounds good too! Now, who wouldn't want to play WITH their friends in a Final Fantasy world?? Instead of them watching you save the world, you could do it together!! Better yet, get all your friends together! (Better have some rich friends, or hope PSX2 will drop to $150 =P ) So before of thinking about the bad point, think about all the good ones. I'm sure Square knows what their doing, they've known so far anyways =) -Reisz

Yo, Kaufmann

A'ight, now I'm a bit freaked by the first glimpses at the character designs of FFX. Tida and Yuna look like overly-realistic versions of Gau and Rinoa. That is, Yuna/Rinoa looks pudgy, and Tida/Gau looks like some kind of ganja-tripped X-Games mascot. Tida's garb seems to be ripped straight out of Chrono Cross' brightly colored menagerie. "Hi! I'm the hero and I wear NEON GREEN and PURPLE clothes!" No ripping on CC, as that's the style they aim to have -- but this's just creepy for a FF incarnation. The mis-matched swap-around 'style' vaguely reminds me of Yuffie; and some of the things I really detested about her..

Strange thing, though. If you look at the screen-grab of Tida in the "lush, green valley" it appears as though he's really pretty blocky. Though I'm sure he won't look that bad in the end, and there's a good chance this is just from image distortion...It almost looks like a PSX model. FF8 had GFs that seem to have more detail than this guy. The legs are built just like the legs in Legend of Dragoon, merely with smoother shading.

Square'd better give out some high quality shots, art, and details pretty soon. This is is more annoying than hype-forming. In my eyes, the only publicly pleasing thing to come from that little show was the verifying fact that you guys at GIA had a huge amount of concept art from FF9 sitting on your site for months. I want something to see and drool over -- I don't want 2 grainy blocky images of neon-Gau. My hope is that you guys scooped the show so fast (and nabbed images from Core Mag) that the quote-endquote "Big Fish" pages haven't had time to publish/upload the high quality stuff yet..

Aw, who am I kidding? I'm just looking for an excuse to nit-pick. You'll let me do that, right?-

Jagger

AK,

Do not even get me started on what a horrible mistake it would be for Square to make the next three FFs related to each other. For one thing, it would break a long-standing tradition of un-related Final Fantasy games, and for another, it would just show a huge lack of creativity, which would be a death-knell as far as the Final Fantasy series is concerned.

Allow me to elaborate. First off, the tradition. Square has always said that no two FFs will ever be related, except for some minor details, such as Cid, chocobos, Biggs & Wedge, Airships, etc, that help to hold the series together and give some sense of familiarity. This gives each game its own unique world to develop in, and gamers a whole new game to experience. Remember the outcry when people thought ff9 would be a direct sequel to ff8, with the player playing as Laguna instead of Squall? (thank God that didn't happen..) Sure, Square is going back to a more traditional environment with ff9, but I don't think that the super-deformed characters and medieval environments of FF9 would even transfer well into the super-realistic world of ff10.

Secondly, if Square did have them all set in the same world, well, it would be like Square basically admitting "Ok, we've run out of ideas, so we're just gonna rehash the same things for three games." Sure, sequels can be good, if enough thought is put into them, but the fact that all three are being developed at nearly the same time makes me think that Square is going to spread itself too thin, especially if all three are related. And of course, Square's fans will not stand for it, since the amazing amount of creativity and love put into each and every Final Fantasy game just wouldn't be there, at least not like it was with other FF games. Sure, Final Fantasy 7 is the least-liked FF game of all, but if you look at the world, the settings, none of it is rehashed from other FF games. It's all unique, all lovingly created by those who made every other FF game great.

And as for the "massively multiplayer" environment of the Play Online (what a great name ^_^) network, I have an idea. They could have pre-existing environments, in which each player has his own little adventures, but with random pre-existing events based on what the player has done before, and with massive world-wide quests for all players to take part in, or not, which would also affect where their game would take them. They could stay home and work on their farm, or go off searching for the Great Dragon's Horn or some crap like that. Sure, it'd be kinda hard to do with millions (and millions!) of people playing, but hey, it is Square, the company that made a guy who looks like Sandra Bullock seem pretty damn cool.

Thank You Drive Thru,

Tedman

Wow, that's something that never popped into my mind, and I think I may have a solution to the whole "characters with different names" problem that presents itself. Since there are still a lot of characters to be announced, what if Zotan is the main character in FF IX, and someone like Yuna is a another party member. Yuna could than be the main character in FF X. It's like passing on the torch. IX will have it's own hero, than another member of the party will be the star of the next game. That way, you can progress the story from a different view point, but tie it all in at the same time. Or maybe (lets reach WAY out on a limb here) the main character in FF IX dies at the end of the game. This would be pretty cool since I can't recall it ever happening before... it would show that your party isn't as invincible as you'd like to think it was... in any case, the main hero would die, but before s/he (well, we still don't know exactly who the hero is yet) bit the dust, s/he would ask someone from the party to make sure everyone got back safe. Since there is a girl in the logo for X, maybe you're taking her home aftering rescuing her from something at the end of IX, while trying to get home yourself. It's the long journey home because you have to make sure everyone else gets back to their homes before you, meaning you have to travel all over the world. Of course, the rescued girl would be the last person you'd drop off, simply so that they could develop her character. You'd need a third character, though, so someone from your previous party would have to be a friend from your village or an area close to it. The game would end with her arriving safely at home. Now, if we continue to walk on this ever-bending limb, we could say that the girl was a princess, who will become a central character in FF XI. Due to here horrible treatment, she has tried to create peace in the world. Since it's online only, you must interact with an incredible amount of people, and hopefully try to maintain the peace that has been created. Square could generate legions of monsters, and have them attack villages. If you live in the village, than it's up to you and everyone else to defend your homes. They could even have one person be a messenger, and send him to another village to ask more people for help. If the village sends too many people, the monsters may attack the other village, because it won't be guarded as well. Egads, there are just way too many possibilities here! I simply love it. Ah well, if Square doesn't use these ideas, I always can.

-CTZanderman

hey ak
in response to quezacolt's letter regarding ffix's pipi's name you said:"Well, that's kinda cute, isn't it? At least the character isn't named Cold Front or Whirlwind or something weather related. Gotta count our blessings!"

well according to your preview on ff ten the two character's names are Tida and Yuna.

if you look closely at that mockup menu (which i still think looks cool-even for a mockup menu), then you can see that the characters faces are not drawn my amano, and so i guess nomura is doing the characters on number ten. and he's the one who likes all the weather related names.

so i think Tida will be known as Tide (as in tide-regular rise and fall in the level of the sea, caused by the attraction of the moon). seems like the characters DO have weather related names -zenith

Square, you silly, silly bastards.

I think that the biggest, most horrible stumbling block to Square's plans for a Massively Multiplayer game would have to be the fact that it uses Real People (TM). The Real People (TM) who buy and play Square's RPGs more often than not cannot really roleplay worth a whit. That's why the games are becoming more and more like interactive movies, and while they are certainly entertaining, they are not truly a roleplaying experience. Hell, the game is more often than not just an excuse for the plot to keep going... and even shoot-em-ups have plots nowadays.

Let me clarify. By roleplaying, I mean that you create a character; a persona; an essence, and act as this character would. You are no longer Bob the accountant, you are Thor, mighty defender of the realm. And so on.

However, having played online with many of these such games (Such as Everquest) it seems very apparent that those who truly Roleplay are of the minority. It becomes a tedious hack-and-slash thrown into an AOL chatroom... definitely not the engrossing experience one wants from an RPG.

This would be even worse for the Final Fantasy series, which is renouned for its plotlines (Let's face it, very few people would play just for the battle engine.)... when FFXI is put in the hands of Real People (TM), it is most likely to become nothing more than a chatroom over the latest Superbowl than discussion over the current in-game politics.

So, unless Square has some way to harness and control the millions of Final Fantasy fans and make them roleplay (Dammit!), we're in for a less-than-spectacular performance. ^_^

~Cowman "So Anal Retentive It Hurts" Dairylord