When the Tower Begins to Tumble...

Square-Enix Slashes Outlook, Delays Game Launch

On December 16th, 2010, news hit the gaming world that Square-Enix, the long-venerated video game producer of Role Playing Game fame, had to revise it's financial outlook for the year downward by roughly 92% from last year.  For those of us who have been with the company since its humble Final Fantasy beginnings, this really comes as no surprise.  Those readers who are less familiar with the world of RPGs are likely to need a bit of a quick primer course concerning the history of the company.

In 1987 Square Co., Ltd. was facing failure.  After a series of poorly received, and frankly poorly designed, video game releases, the company released Final Fantasy, thus named because it was expected to be the final game released before the company filed for bankruptcy.  This game revolutionized the gaming industry, not only in Japan, but worldwide.  Built upon the success of Enix's Dragon Quest (also known as Dragon Warrior in the U.S.), Final Fantasy was one of the first accessible games that managed to successfully bridge to gap between American and Japanese RPG gamers, with a focus on turn-based battle systems, sweeping and epic story arcs, and a departure from the highly popular screen-to-screen dungeon games in which players would be presented with a menu of options and actions, select one, and see what happens ("You've punched the wall." "The wall gives way.")

Throughout the 90s, Squaresoft dominated the American RPG market (though Enix continued to control the greater sales in Japan), and their rising star seemed unstoppable.  The turn of the millenium, however, brought with it a worldwide desire to "rebrand" oneself, and nearly every industry saw its companies attempt to branch out into new realms.  New technology allowed video game companies to explore increasingly realistic realms, and with that rush to make everything look realistic, Square began to lose some of the characteristics that defined its meteoric rise.

In 2003, Square Co. Ltd. merged with the highly successful Enix (makers of the Dragon Quest series) after three years of negotiations.  Enix feared that merging with Square would be a massive failure after the company managed to lose a massive amount of money on the critical and box office flop, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.  To this day, I'm not sure that I disagree with that assessment.

Square-Enix has crumbled significantly over the past decade, primarily because they lost something of the charm that was their saving grace along the way.  I am certain that other game reviewers will rant about the failure of the gaming industry to provide quality rants, but as this is my introductory review of a news item, it seems only apropos that I begin by setting my readers' expectations of my positions.

This rant will likely follow the same path as many of the other ancient gamers who have become increasingly vocal of their displeasure with Square-Enix's departure from quality game production.  It all starts with a single game that shapes one's expectation of a great game, and ends in disappointment as those expectations are repeatedly bashed against the rocks in one company's attempt to move into the future and attract and increasingly inept gaming crowd.

When I began playing the NES as a child, Final Fantasy was the one game that I rented every weekend, without fail, until I convinced my parents that it was cheaper to just purchase the game rather than to rent it until the cartridge exploded.  On my 10th birthday, I used all of my birthday and Christmas money to pay the $85 to purchase Final Fantasy II (US - AKA Final Fantasy IV) on the SNES.  With each successive release of a new Square title, I was one of the first in line to purchase the game, up to and including the dreadful Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

Each game was unique - the characters, while only sprites, had more character and charm in their unrealistic bodies than almost any of the newer characters (post-Final Fantasy VIII).  The storylines were both complex and yet struck at the very core of what makes a great story - the struggle of good over evil.  And then came the Playstation.

Watching Squaresoft go down the primrose Playstation path to gaming (while it was infinitely more cost effective) changed the way that people thought about JRPGs.  No longer did we need a coherent, complete storyline without plot holes, free from disappearing characters, or the ability to freely wander around an overhead shot of a map fighting monsters and attempting to figure out the next task out of a list of vague clues.  We had graphics, now, and those would make up for what was very often simply a bad game masked by very impressive graphics.

With the emergence of the PS2, we were introduced to the wholesale abandonment of characters with whom you could either identify or in whom you could see any depth or development. Final Fantasy X introduced us to a world where the exploration was both limited and limiting; where the progression and development of characters was based upon what you could purchase instead of what you earned through hard-fought battles (and many hours of grinding).  This combined with nearly impossible to complete Ultimate Weapon tasks (that alone could take up hours of play) resulted in what was a visually stunning, yet ultimately unsatisfying gaming experience.

The foray into MMORPGs destroyed in me any hope that the Final Fantasy franchise would see a return to its better days.  In fact, Square-Enix's entire adventure into internet communications (beginning with its failure of a FF IX online-guide book) has been lackluster, at best, providing the least interesting approach to social networking on record.

Meanwhile, the only title in its entire lexicon that still lives up to some of the charm and whimsy that made me (and countless others) love Square-Enix was one that it acquired in the merger with Enix - Dragon Quest.  As each Final Fantasy moves further away from being a game and further toward being a B-Rated movie, the Dragon Quest series continues to deliver the classic gaming experience.

While some of the younger gamers will complain about the lack of innovation, modern graphics, and in-game cut scenes to dazzle the senses (but dull the wits), those of us who have been around to watch the JRPGs develop are often excited by the noticeable LACK of these characteristics.  It seems as if much of the money Square-Enix keeps doling out to produce these next-gen games is wasted to create a graphically stunning CGI film of Avatar proportions rather than a functional game.

I purchased the PS3, this fall, because I had the cash and wanted a Blu Ray player that would upscale to 1080p, despite knowing that I would only like about 2% of the games available for the system - none of which were made by Square-Enix.  I had refused to purchase the system for three years, but the lure of the Playstation Network and its downloadable classics lured me in - I have not been disappointed.  The ability to replay the games of yesteryear was what led me to purchase many of the systems I own, including the Wii, which is otherwise unplayable.

My first game purchase was Final Fantasy XIII, which I played for approximately four hour (cumulatively) before I put it back in its case from which it will likely never return.  This game is perfect for the modern gamer that prefers style over substance - a story comprised of disposable characters modeled entirely off of the most popular character from Final Fantasies VII, X, and XII that makes only the barest attempt to actually be a game, much less an RPG.

The biggest disappointment associated with this game is the paper-thin storyline and ultra-linear gameplay that has, sadly, become commonplace in modern gaming.  Younger gamers complain of the lack of flashy graphics and the repetitive nature of having to grind for hours just to make it through the next boss, and on that last point, they are correct.  Those of us with more experience, however, can attest that flashy graphics do not make up for a story that would likely earn a mid-C in any fiction writing course, and would likely doom any major box office release to an early and painful demise.  Final Fantasy XIII is the prime example of everything that is wrong with modern gaming - it renders the player almost completely incapable of exploring the world around them, wastes most of the game play time with pointless and boring cut scenes, and adds nothing new to the world of gaming stories.  The game relies entirely on its graphics to suck people into the game, and once you're trapped, you only finish it so that you feel you haven't wasted $60 to watch what is little more than a subpar ripoff of Avatar.

If Final Fantasy XIII isn't enough to sink a company's stock, let's take a look at some of Square-Enix's other woeful decisions:

Outside of releasing nearly unplayable games, Square-Enix has seemed bound and determined to rest the success of its operations entirely upon the popularity Final Fantasy VII.  To date, Final Fantasy VII has been the most beloved by younger fans, as it was, for many, their first introduction into the world of Final Fantasy and JRPGs, in general.  Since its initial release in 1997, this one game alone has seen no fewer than nine related game and films releases on various platforms...none of which are particularly amazing or even remarkable.  Nothing of real value is added to the mythology by these subsequent releases, and some of the games (most notably Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII) were damn near unplayable.  They are little more than half-assed attempts to capitalize upon the critical and financial success of the original title.

In addition to piggybacking on the success of a single title, Square-Enix has spent much of the last decade rereleasing old favorites on various gaming consoles in what I can only assume is an attempt to placate the growing discontent  from its most vocal fanbase - people like me.  Final Fantasies I-VI have all seen rereleases on various consoles, while parts VII-IX have recently been released on the Playstation Network under PSOne Classics.  These games have, in fact, been my favorite Square-Enix releases in the past ten years, with the sole exceptions of Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, as each new release allows me the opportunity to escape from the dismal reality that is Next-Gen RPG Gaming.

Despite Square-Enix's seemingly bankruptcy-inducing financial outlook, the opportunity still exists for the company to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes - a return to its roots (along with those of Enix) is in order.  Instead of focusing on breaking into newer, seemingly greener game genre pastures, Square-Enix should go back to basics: great story lines, simplified graphics in exchange for more engaging characters and stories, and an emphasis on making players think instead of check out and reach for the next "trophy" (example - "You've completed the first mission!"  My reaction: "Who gives a crap?").  Instead of wasting money on graphics that can only carry the company so far in the eyes of both the industry and public reviewers, reassemble the original team and ask them to create a classic gaming experience that will ensnare the player and bring them into the world along with their well-developed, likable characters.

Here's an idea - put the Final Fantasy franchise to rest for a while.  Spend more time focusing on the Dragon Quest franchise that you worked so hard to procure in your merger with Enix, and capitalize on the growing US interest in the series, almost entirely thanks to Nintendo's efforts - not your own.  Get out of action games and first-person shooters, and go back to what you know and once did better than almost everyone else.

Ultimately, the ends did NOT justify the means, and if Square-Enix fails to correct the path of the Titanic, an iceberg looms ahead.

With curmudgeonly regard,
Marcus J. Hopkins

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST: