This is factually untrue.

@@TheSteelers4190 I don't see how it's untrue, Hironobu Sakaguchi in the DVD beyond Final Fantasy talks about this.

@@ssniku22 because at the height of the franchise it very much clearly had an identity. That identity allowed for creative freedom title to title. But each title clearly worked within that framework. The differences come in the worlds, settings, characters, and such. That's what Sakaguchi is talking about. But when you look at what people consider the height of the franchise IV-X....all those games very much feel like the same franchise. They clearly work from the same skeletal frame. There are many shared features from title to title. Yet, there's room for each title to experiment and be different enough for the creatives to stretch their legs. X may be the most different, but it definitely feels adjacent to the previous formula. VIII's junction system is definitely different from VII's materia, VI's Magicite, or IX's jobs/equipment based systems.....but you can play every single one of those games and see the identity they're working from. That's the point made in this video and the point many of us have made. Reinventing the wheel has become the modern identity of FF. It's absolutely incorrect that it has always been this way.....and to be honest it's not serving the franchise well. It's hard to sustain or build a consistent fan base in this current model.

@@TheSteelers4190 Look into any interviews with Sakaguchi and he will say the idea of final fantasy is pushing creative limits. It started as a hail mary to see if he could use his pain and emotion to form something creative that would be loved. The changes that happen title to title are based on that same philosophy, pushing creative limits. He even states that the different titles are branches of a tree he envisioned, the only weird branches being the mobile titles created around it. The "identity" isn't just turn based classic JRPG or staying within certain creative patterns that work. Just because something works doesn't mean to stop pushing the boundaries and expand to newer heights, that limits your own creative freedom and goes against it's true "identity".

They're all turned based RPGs

@@tabbofii With different systems. 10 isn't like 7 turn-based. And the story and setting is completely different

@@awsomeboy360 so are GTA games. Different settings, different mechanics, different music etc. But they're still similar enough, still a series. So were FF games while they still had turn based combat, world map, etc. If you're trying to argue against this you're an idiot.

@@awsomeboy360 they all had the same structure. With details you mentioned changing. That's what made it a series. That all changed with arguably the PS2 era. Most certainly the PS3 era. Before when buying a FF game you pretty much knew what you were getting yourself into. Now when buying a new game in the series you have no idea whether you'll end up with a Devil May Cry clone or a battle royal game.

@@tabbofii 16 is the only Devil may Cry like title my guy. FF15, and FF7 Rebirth and Remake are awfully similiar. Your entire argument relies on one example. And let's not talk about spinoffs as that would be proving my point even more.

I think people are underestimating how much potential there is for each game to change using something like the Final Fantasy VII Retrilogy combat system as inspiration. Like I want change, but there's a difference between changing the games up and changing so much that the games are borderline different genres altogether.

@@FaustFantasy not sure why this is going over people's heads. It's like 20 years of constant genre shift has made them forget it's possible for a franchise to have an identity and still allow creativity and room for experimentation for the creatives in charge. When the franchise was at its most consistent success it operated this way.

yup

It's hard trust something that's always changing. Even harder to form an attachment if it has no clear identity. If each entry in a series is drastically different, then it can hardly be called a series

Yep, Even earlier ff like ff1 and ff2 are so different to each other.

@@lpstweetytv5242 While I can kind of understand the sentiment. This has been the case for 16 entries so It has been a successful series, so imo I feel if people aren't with the program its on them. The devs on each of these games are known to take pride in differentiating themselves in anyway and I think that is cool.

So story came before gameplay in Final Fantasy I and III?

@@FaustFantasy Are you interested in having a discussion, or about trying to one up? Do you take issue with my statement and believe that story ISN'T the core selling point of the franchise?

@@EntertheFray1 I believe that story is important to the franchise, but equally as important as gameplay. I think it's unfair to say it only comes second.

@@FaustFantasy The gameplay is important, but yes I think it comes in second. The specific style of gameplay isn't too integral to it being a FF game. They have their own iconic spells, jobs and enemies, and while I will concede it was mostly turn based, so it might detract some people of more hybrid action based combat, they can play around with it a little. The story is integral to it being a FF title, however. That's its core defining feature, it's selling point. You know and have known for around 30 years now, that when you buy a FF numbered game, it will revolve around the story significantly, so if that's the type of game you want, you buy it. Even when It was Square soft, it was the case. The gameplay drastically changes from game to game. It always has an element of hit or miss, because they are always tinkering with it. Even amongst people that only enjoyed turn based, the tinkering they did could make people miss on the turn based aspect. FF8 is a strong case of this for many due to the junction system, although personally, it's one of my favourites. But how good the stories tend to be, and for those looking for a heavy story driven game, I'd definitely say FF fits that market. There are games known for it's gameplay over storyline, and vice versa for others. FF has always been the one pushing the storylines.

I hate to single out your comment, but people are clearly not understanding that I'm not suggesting it become a "homogeneous" experience. Final Fantasy can absolutely change it's setting, characters, gameplay. My suggestion is.... I don't know... something within the same genre. There's a LOT of variation with what you can potentially do with what Final Fantasy VII Remake's combat system initiated to the point where the games would still feel even more different than they were in the past between releases. The whole point of building a brand is to corner a section of the market. If you're appealing to different corner of the gaming market with each release, then it's going to be impossible to budget for the next release. How can you possibly know how many copies the next game will sell if you're appealing to a different audience? Then Square Enix wonders why they overbudget their releases and they don't meet sales expectations. You can't have a functional business and in fact, some of their games may in fact perform worse BECAUSE it has Final Fantasy in the title. Many people might have liked Final Fantasy XVI because they enjoy other character action games, but didn't bother to play it because they're not big RPG fans and just didn't think it was for them.

I do think they stepped out of bounds quite a bit with 16's combat. Not the least of which because it had other heavy ramifications e.g. lack of a true party. But your suggestion to make variations on Remake's combat the style going forward, I think brings it back to the PS1 days where there was just so much commonality between games. (maybe you and some others want that, and it's fair to have that stance but I do not have that stance) I just think that from 10, 10-2, 12, 13, 15 it struck the perfect balance. All of those systems were very different from each other and didn't strike the homogeneous feel from the PS1 games. But also, they didn't jump into entirely different genres like 16. They still appealed to RPG fans and were a very rich balance of diversity.

There's so much variety of different systems that you can do with the base concept that Final Fantasy VII Remake introduced that it WOULD be more different than the ps1 days. People are clearly underestimating this so it looks like I'm going to have to make a separate video at some point explaining this in more depth it seems.

I agree that Rebirth being the second installment in the series has contributed to lack of sales. I'm cooking up a video currently that is going to dive a lot more into details on that topic. There's a whole bit on it. I also touched on it in my other sales Video. But, I'm curious as to what you find to be a problem with 7R's combat.

@@FaustFantasy Hey there thanks for the reply. Like I said before that the combat in Remake had a lot of problems that were ironed out quite a bit with Rebirth. Without going into full detail as this would be an incredibly long post, it's mostly down to aggro being significantly dictated on who you're controlling, basic attacks being a glorified haste unless you're playing a very small selection of characters and basic defensive options being a bit too good; the window for perfect block is ridiculously lenient and on certain characters the dodge is a free get out of jail card. Which comes down to personal preference if anything and it's likely better this way for the vast majority of players. Remake series isn't technically difficult in the slightest but it does have vast mechanical depth that's also approachable by a wide audience and is the best approach by far when it comes to introducing the ATB system and transforming it into action combat. Other things to touch upon are smaller, I'd like them to find a way to smooth out the ATB system, how AI interact with the combat outside of your direct input and boss' health being gated where you could waste a ton of damage if you didn't predict a phase shift. I know the provoke materia and the auto-cast materia does alleviate some of these but it doesn't take the problem away completely. I have some ideas that would make this much better on the surface, however I am not a game developer and my solutions would bring in more problems than solve, a major one would be that it'd increase the floor complexity of the game barring a lot of people who like to just play these games casually without sinking their teeth into the system.

Ok. Those are all fair points. It sounds like you're probably very good at the game. The leniency in regards to action is almost certainly intentional. Even for myself, it's hard to sometimes multitask the action with strategizing commands and I usually just don't even pay close attention to the timing when blocking as a result. I always sort of look at it as it's a Command Game first with the action supplementing it in a major way. So basic attacks likely are supposed to be glorified hastes. You perform the action to be able to issue commands. The commands are what influence the outcome of a fight the most. The AI being lackluster is also intentional I feel. They want you to switch between party members and build up their ATB by performing attacks. The aggro is a bit weird. It seems in Remake it was almost always set to whoever you are controlling, but in Rebirth it varies more. So I hear you on that. And yeah, boss' health being gated during phase shifts is a problem. I feel like they should just put markers on their health bars to indicate when a phase shift is going to occur, but I guess the surprise element is more important to them.

All of that sounds like a great idea! Would love to see something like that with a job system in a future Final Fantasy game for sure.

I don't call them MMORPGs because I think that many of the genre labels we came up with are terrible for the same reason I've started to refer to a lot of JRPGs as command games as I think that's a more fitting name for them. I probably don't look it, but I was born in 1991 by the way...

@@FaustFantasy not only do I disgree, that's just objectively wrong. MMORPG is a genre label, it's the same as saying platformer or rogue-like. "Live service" is a business model, that's being so brainwashed by modern videogame company greed destroying the industry that you've literally adopted their shareholder meeting terms.

@@Jambara I mean... really I would call it a Live Service Command Game, but for sake of brevity and understanding because my language isn't the same as everyone else's, I just called it a Live Service Game. Which would still abbreviate to less characters than MMORPG.

@@FaustFantasy you say that like people don't use "MMO" for short, even tho I just did.

I'm not sure what you mean about the Linus impression at the end?... So definitely not intentional. Are you talking about Linus from the tech tips channel?

@@FaustFantasy There is a "Sad Linus" meme based on that very same guy when he was thinking of retiring back in Jan 2022. You don't LOOK like him but it came to mind.

The anti-JRPG movement that took place in America in the late 2000s really got to them.

I would have to agree. I really disliked Type-0 as well. I'll end up playing it as part of my Re:Discover Final Fantasy Series at some point though so we'll see when I give it a second whirl. But I disliked it enough to not finish the game.

A small minority of them for sure.

this is nothing new if you were to go back in time when ff6 was out youd know this attitude is nothing new .... but it died out and came back as of recent years with ffxiii versus and ffxv ..... i was an ff fan for long while but ive never forced my opinion on anyone thats for sure ... ff has its ups and downs ... i have my own reasons just not to buy any ff related stuff