This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor's note: Former Final Fantasy superfan Andy wonders why the series doesn't excite him anymore. What do you think: Has Square lost its magic, or have Andy's tastes simply changed? -Brett
I think I've officially outgrown Final Fantasy.
Don't get me wrong: I used to love the series. You know how most people had their formative video-game experiences with Super Mario Bros? I had mine with Final Fantasy 2 (aka Final Fantasy 4) on the SNES. I remember begging my parents to purchase an obscenely priced Final Fantasy 3 (aka Final Fantasy 6) cartridge for $74.99 at a specialty shop. I even had my relatives pick up an import copy of Final Fantasy 5 from a trip to Japan, even though I knew no Japanese whatsoever. Hell, I was determined to learn kanji as a 12 year old solely to play that game.
Final Fantasy used to be the reason I chose a particular console over another. Each new entry in the franchise was an event for me. I would spend every free moment lost in its world until the epic tale ended.
Yet it took me nearly five months to finish Final Fantasy 13. Some of those months, I didn't even touch the game. I eventually finished it, but it took a herculean feat of self-motivation to do so.
What happened?
Part of the cause may just be a function of growing up. I don't have enough free time as an adult to engage on a 40- to 60-hour epic with a glacially paced plot. As kids, we're interested in maximizing the amount of gameplay time per game. Without money to buy our own games, we had to make sure that we wrung all we could out of that Christmas or birthday present.
Playing a Final Fantasy game ensured that I always had something to do. Even if I had completed the story, I could load up a save right before the last dungeon in order to take part in numerous side quests and, of course, attempt the ultimate goal of grinding my entire party to level 99.
As I grow older, I find myself caring less about side quests and focusing on the main storyline. And even that's a chore: It takes 40 hours to complete just the bare minimum in a Final Fantasy title. That 40 hours of video gaming could be put towards finishing 4 or 5 shorter games like God of War, Halo, or Alan Wake. I'm much more interested now in the quality of a game storyline than the quantity.
The other cause rests solely on Square Enix's shoulders. Quite frankly, the characters and plot of each successive entry in the series have become more and more derivative and forgettable. Can you remember all the characters from the last, say, two Final Fantasy games? How about what they were fighting for?
I've written about Final Fantasy 13 previously. It showed some promise early on, but it eventually ended up being predictable and hackneyed.
As for Final Fantasy 12, my only memory (other than the fact that it was eerily similar to the plot of Star Wars) is this Mega64 spoof:
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSyfGm6wXgs ]
On the other hand, I could wax for hours about how Final Fantasy 4's Cecil embarked on his epic journey from being a Dark Knight pawn to becoming a Paladin to discovering the true identity of his hated enemy Golbez on the moon. The game ends up on the friggin' moon! You can't get more epic than that, right?
And how about Final Fantasy 6's build up to the end of the world in the game's first act? The game starts off with a typical "rebel against the evil empire" plot, but it manages to draw you in with the characters. From the Robin Hood-esque Locke, to the mysterious Terra, to the honorable Cyan, to the estranged royal brothers Sabin and Edgar, all the characters are dynamic and interesting. Hell, you even get to play as a moogle, for crying out loud.
Once you've spent 20 hours really bonding with the characters and fighting to the evil emperor, the game throws you for a loop by engineering an upheaval that leaves you in an almost post-apocalyptic world controlling just one character. When you meet the main characters again in the second act, they've all settled into new lives. It's all the more powerful seeing them in new settings because you knew who these characters were before. Blowing up the world shouldn't just plop your group tidily back on the beach ready to gallivant towards a final level. It should mean something. And it does in Final Fantasy 6.
Maybe there's only so much you can do within the structure of an ensemble fantasy epic. Maybe Square knows the well of creativity is dry, so they're trying to paint a new coat of hi-definition sheen over cookie-cutter characters and generic fantasy plots.
I call shenanigans on that excuse. TV series like Battlestar Galactica and Lost have proved that it's possible to write engaging, original character-driven epics in the modern era. There's no reason why a game franchise with a blockbuster budget can't rival the writing found in those shows.
I'm not sure Square can figure it out again, but if they ever do, I'll be open to getting back on the Final Fantasy bandwagon. Until then, my free entertainment hours are going elsewhere.