What exactly is SquareEnix problem?

[Flake]

One thing that I think everyone can agree on: SquareEnix today in no way resembles either the Squaresoft or Enix of yesteryear.

I personally lost interest in the company around the time of the original Kingdom Hearts. From that point on all I saw was belts, zippers, hair gel, and zero substance in their games. I'm sure we all have our own reasons for losing some (or all) of our confidence in SquareEnix.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/29/grin- ... side-down/

This article I read on joystiq today is interesting because it gives a developers view of the problems SquareEnix is dealing with. Former GRIN exec's are finally beginning to point fingers at (what they say are) the causes for GRIN's downfall. What I think is more telling is that at one point, just to test SquareEnix, GRIN sent them their own conceptual artwork from FFXII and whoever they were talking to at SquareEnix did not recognize it for what it was and instead told GRIN that their artwork designs were not 'Final Fantasy' enough.

So what's the deal? Is it that too many of the 'right' people have left SquareEnix? Or have they just failed to grow along with their industry? Or is it a problem with Japanese companies in general?

[AmishSamurai]

They probably realize that they have a dedicated enough fanbase that they can spew out any crap, give it the Final Fantasy label, and it will sell.

A lot of their smaller stuff has been great though- DQ9, 4 Heroes of Light, the FFTA games, etc. The mere mention of 3D though seems to blast them into a storm of pretentiousness and style over substance though.

[ZenErik]

Square lost me early on during the PS2 era.

[jfrost]

Well, GRIN didn't have much leverage with the big boys after the piles of garbage they pumped out, but it seems to me that the problems they describe have a lot to do with becoming too big. Square Enix is now a mammoth corporation that cannot respond quickly enough and has lost touch with a lot of its audience because of that. Diseconomies of scale and all that.

[brunoafh]

I raised my eyebrow the minute they became SquareEnix. I honestly cannot name one SquareEnix game I give a damn about other than the FF ports/remakes.

[Xeogred]

First off, as much as I hate SE, this story sounds very one sided and kind of unprofessional. But I'm curious to see how it develops.

A lot of their smaller stuff has been great though- DQ9, 4 Heroes of Light, the FFTA games, etc. The mere mention of 3D though seems to blast them into a storm of pretentiousness and style over substance though.

Which is true because Type-0 looks like it could be the best thing they've done in years ... and it's on the PSP.

So what's the deal? Is it that too many of the 'right' people have left SquareEnix? Or have they just failed to grow along with their industry? Or is it a problem with Japanese companies in general?

Well, this is certainly a fact that Square Enix is literally not the Square Soft that we once knew and loved. The Chrono Dream team or whatever they were are essentially Monolith Soft, so they split after Chrono Cross into the PS2 era and into today. Another team of former Square Soft developers left and formed Sacnoth, or whomever did the Shadow Hearts series on the PS2. Then of course there's the big on, Mistwalker which is more than likely made up of tons of former Square Soft staff, Hironobu Sakaguchi himself included.

The SaGa team still seems to be around (The Last Remnant), but all their games are usually pretty low tier and hit or miss. The only half decent team that I think Square Enix still has is the former Quest developers (FFT, Vagrant Story, FFXII), except... now their founder Matsuno himself has even gone freelance from what I know.

Uematsu went freelance and for awhile there Square Enix didn't have the balls or respect to keep him around and got some half assed people to take his place on some projects like FFXIII.

In my opinion, Tetsuya Nomura has been one of the biggest harbingers of doom against Square Enix. The guy was a character designer and a little programmer. Suddenly he's directing movies and has taken up so much creative control that he doesn't deserve a damn bit.

The pompous name titles are atrocious.

The fact that there's constantly multiple Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy games in development at the same time says enough. Cut this shit out. It's either Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, or the 50th port of a game we've already played before.

They've been on a high horse this entire gen that is slipping and I would love to see them completely fall and crumble. I really won't care at all, because Square Soft died years ago, and this is a completely different company I don't love at all.

[DinnerX]

From that point on all I saw was belts, zippers, hair gel...

I don't play SquareEnix games, all I see are the covers and this is what I think of.

[Reprise]

So I'm the only one who thinks Final Fantasy XII is really damn good? :S

Granted, I only bought it a few weeks ago, but I'm a good 12 or so hours in so far and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't been this hooked by a FF game in a long time.

[irixith]

So I'm the only one who thinks Final Fantasy XII is really damn good? :S

Odds are, for every 50 people that hate what Square-Enix has become, there's at least one fan out there to counter them.

[ZenErik]

So I'm the only one who thinks Final Fantasy XII is really damn good? :S

Odds are, for every 50 people that hate what Square-Enix has become, there's at least one fan out there to counter them.

I wouldn't say that. Judging from those that I know personally, people that started with PS2 Final Fantasy games actually tend to like FFX - XIII a lot.

To me, FFXII is the worst in the series... Excluding the online games that should not be called FFXI and FFXIV...