My name is Joesephyr, but you can call me Joe, and my channel is here to chat all things Final Fantasy! Here on RU-vid, I've been well known for covering games like Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Final Fantasy XIV and the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, and I'm looking to broaden my horizons even further to the wonderful community the Final Fantasy franchise fosters!
I've been very fortunate to work with Square Enix on many occasions (including being their official commentator for FFTCG events in 2017-19, and working for them as a Community Manager in 2019-2020) and adore their products, so you can also expect video reviews and commentary on some of their other games as well!
I am a full-time content creator, also streaming 5 times a week on Twitch, primarily playing FFXIV, Dissidia and my Final Fantasy Countup, playing each game in order, and more too, so be sure to come and find me on there!
For business enquiries, please email: joesephyr@gmail.com
I like your video bro, but what you described were themes within the plot, but not the plot itself. The story is what happens from point a to point b in the tale, the plot covers the why these things happen in the story, and what we experience in the way of feelings is the narrative. For example they want us to believe that Cloud is a Soldier 1st class, and that there is a fun relationship with Aerith and an awkward one with Tifa. The plot explains why that awkwardness is there. What most people don’t get is that there are 2 plots going on in this story, the external one of stopping Sephiroth from destroying the planet via meteor and the internal one of saving Cloud’s soul. Each of these ladies takes up their role within the story. Aerith the heroine of the external plot and Tifa of the internal one. When looking at the plot from the beginning, you’ll see a boy fall in love with the girl next door and doing anything to try to get her attention. The first time we meet these characters were in the middle of the plot and at Cloud and Tifa’s lowest point in their romance story. All-in-all the entire journey from the beginning of the game to the end takes about a month and Aerith is there for about a week of it. Cross that versus a woman the MC had been trying to impress nearly his whole life and there’s no comparison. It just doesn’t make much sense to me. Especially once the girl you like saves you, as far as I know that doesn’t make someone love them less. 😂 That being said harassing devs is waaaaayyyyy too much.
I don't hate Cecil at A tier, but he's more than a wet noodle, combat wise. His strength lies in defense. Slap him in the back row and counter every turn and he will carry the crew for a significant part of the game. Seriously, it is shocking how powerful he can be. By end game, sure, he is not anything to write home about and he's essentially a heal bot. But he has his moments!
Def 9, 12 and 15. 9 for the 1000 jump ropes; 12for obvious reasons like the 100 trials battle and optional postgame dungeons and 15 for ff15 comrades which was part of the main game at some point
I absolutely agree, thank you. It's not like Vaan is my fav character or do I think it's there with the best protagonists in the franchise, but he's a pov main character, he has his own arcs, he matures (really early I would say with the scene between him and Basch when they came out of prison) and he's not annoying, he's not talking all the time, cracking bad jokes or forcing relevance, he's just there doing minor but important things in the story. Comparing him to the most annoying characters in jrpg history like Tora, ChuChu or Snow/Hope it's taking it too far...
I don't think these people are SE/FF fans. From what I observed, they're JRPG elitists/hipsters who are fans of other JRPG franchises. They still see SE as the mainstream JRPG publisher. You also have some Nintendo/Xbox fans who wish to see games like FF16 and Rebirth fail because they're PS5 exclusives.
Journalists don't get paid to provide news, they get paid to get people to click things that show ads. So that's what we get, content that's designed to get people to click things that show ads. If they have to pretend to also provide news, they will.
Imagine if your company was like Square Enix and you say hey for all you people who play on Xbox and PC go out of your way to buy a PlayStation if you want to play our game. I would love to have given both of them a shot Square Enix lost the right to get full-priced money from me when they did this dumb move SE Final Fantasy 7 and 16 did not meet our sells expectations so now we're going to switch up our strategy and make sure these games are available for everyone when they should have been available for everyone in the first place
Root for their success and celebrate whatever you genuinely feel if it is a positive experience! Side note... I hope they are working on a World of Final Fantasy Sequel!
I think FF7 Remake, FF 16, and FF7 Rebirth are the three best games that SE has released in over 20 years (Rebirth might be their best game ever), and ironically, the press and general public seem to be at an all time high in portraying SE and FF in a negative light.
As someone who joined this series with FF15 ive loved every entry since and my love for FF just gotten stronger. Just sad to see they being negative to a new found love for me
Square deserves scrutiny for a lot of their poor decisions, like NFTs, but it's only when they deliver great games that they're worthy of praise. You can't overlook the bad aspects of a company, otherwise you enable their more exploitative nature.
I thought it was best in the chaos era, the bosses were just the right difficulty where you could use many characters and unconventional methods but weren't locked out by mechanics. I hate gacha but this one actually made it fun
As you said "I undestand, it's an action game. It's not what a lot of FF fans expected". The same can be said about FF7 Remake and Rebirth. They are not what a lot of FF7 fans expected. Fans have been treated with a lot of disregard in the last few years. Star Wars, Marvel and now their favorite games. Companies are doing whatever they want with very little regard to their core audience. And those games are not free. People pay for them, you know. The vitriol is well deserved. Love and hate are intertwined. A company can turn that hate into love again. When fans feel nothing more than apathy then the brand is dead. Let the hate flow through you. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L66wBjSMe50.html
This is gonna be a doozy. 13, 12, 8, and 15 are all in my top 5. Tactics A2 was my favorite tactics game. 7, 5, and 9 are some of my least. favorites. 7's story, cast, and villain never resonated with me... I mostly only loved the Midgar portions, and Shinra was infinitely more interesting than Sephiroth to me (i haven't played Remake, that may change my mind). 5's job system felt stupid since it only let you have one skill slot, I feel FF Dimensions, Blue Dragon, Dragon Quest VI, and Bravely Default do this all so much better. And while I love 9's story and characters, it's gameplay was honestly the worst of the series imo. Still love them all tho! FF2 is better than 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9😬 FFX-2 is the worst in the series for me, as much as I love its take on the ATB system. It's sidequests, dungeons, and all that were awful. Loved the cheery vibe though. I think FF13's linearity made me love the game more. I could just enjoy the story and characters without annoying dungeons or towns. I loved the beautiful setpieces, it's for the same reason I enjoyed Octopath Traveler dungeons. I love the presentation and the lack of annoying dungeons like Marsh Cave, The Great Crystal, and all that. And Gran Pulse is lots of fun to explore, so... Not that I'd want every game in the series to be like this, but it fits the game perfectly. I loved the combat of 15. Never understood the hold X complaint. Sure, you can do that, but that's just a product of being bad at the game. Breaking FF2 and FF8 are NOT downsides to the games. The game letting you break the game is not an issue, as you don't have to do it. Lots of FFT fans hate these two games for the same reason they love FFT. How odd 😂 I love FFX's combat, but it's not top tier. Mostly because games like Blue Dragon and Octopath Traveler did the CTB system better. Hope and Snow aren't awful characters. They get character development. Shocking, who knew people develop due to the circumstances they are in. Their character moments in Chapter 7 at Palumpolum are honestly some of the greatest moments of the whole series. The Deathlord from FF Dimensions II is one of the best villains of the whole series. Change my mind. The character cast is also amazing in that game, with great skits. And the art is stunning! World of FF is one of the best FF games. I liked the FF15 complimentary media. While i wish the game was more complete, I like the idea of a multimedia project. Just wish it was planned from the beginning, and not a cash grab. FF13's story made complete sense. Just think of L'cie as demigods, Fal'Cie as gods, and the Purge as genocide. Honestly, the Datalog is completely unnecessary. However, i loved it, as it let you catch up if you took a break for a couple weeks. Magic in FF15 is kind of awesome! They definitely could've came up with a much better way of giving your crystals and gave more elemental variety and such, but the idea of craftable, single-use magic was actually pretty awesome. Just wish it was a bit more in-depth. FF13 has one of the best stories in the series. Junction system is just as good as Materia system. Love them both a ton! Personally, two of my favorites of the series. I think the Lisence Board in FF12:TZA is way more fun than the Sphere Grid. Having to grind for spheres is one of the most agonizing things in the series, imo. Idk, I just adored the License Board. Unfortunately, the Crystarium was quite the step back from both of them... I don't really have too many FF6 hot takes. All I can say is that FF6's World of Ruin and FF1 are the only true "open-world" non-MMO experiences until FF15. Makes me laugh when people say FF10 and FF13 suck because of their linearity when none of the games were non-linear. Sure, you can hate on the lack of labyrinthine dungeon design, but that's not the same argument. Haha. FF6 is one of my favorite FF games, but I do think that it'd be near the bottom without the World of Ruin. Still love the World of Balance, but I definitely couldn't say it was a better experience than 4 or 5 if they didn't have that extra development time. I think the first is the favorite argument is always silly. I played them in order from FF1, and I sure as heck do not think FF1 is the best game here 😂 Also, there's no objective ranking of the Final Fantasy games. That's literally stupid. You can rank them off sales, or by popular opinion, but one singular person claiming to make an objective ranking on any subject makes me wonder where the world's brain cells went. My ranking is absolutely not objective, nor is Billy Bob Joe's four houses down. Objective is a silly word unless looking at cold hard facts like sales numbers. I agree with all the hot takes in this video for the most part. I'll say that a party certainly helps the game, but is not necessary. FF16 does a great job including other characters, so I can't say it sucks. However, makes combat more stale. Whatever.
Its not just Square Enix, I see the same criticisms with others as well. Blizzard, Bethesda, Amazon, etc. They even do it with sales that do well like Genshin or Star Rail saying oh this banner sales didn't do as good as the previous banner and so forth. As for wanting to talk about the actual game, I used to love doing that but like you said someone like me that refuses to buy a PS5 just to play a game the same time as everyone else when the talks are actually relevant I've lost that spark. With news of SE dropping console exclusivity I've never been happier.
@andrepayne4349 I played the OG in 97, went on to play it to conclusion 23 more times after. Just finished Rebirth a few a few weeks ago. A few bells and whistles have been added that have led to a few small deviations. Other than that it's the same things happening beat for beat. This, of course, could all wildly change in part 3, but up until now it's all roughly the same.
@@ademirc5937 I also played through the game multiple times back from 97 to 99. I didn’t obsessively play through it 100 times like you and other people, I moved on to other games, but I still remember it well. I never expected a 1:1 remake, but…… Spamming Sephiroth from the beginning, destroying the ominous impact he had. Bringing characters back to life. Those random, distracting kingdom hearts whisper things. The alternate timeline multiverse BS. Tons of padding with forced mini games and side quests. Aeris being dead………but not really. Chadley….. I could keep going but because FF7R was false advertisement that spit in the face of fans, I predicted not as many people would buy Rebirth and I was correct. It serves them right, I’m glad it failed. Same will happen for the final game.
I’d put 7-9 S tier. Cloud goes without saying. Squall’s weapon is iconic and once you understand the draw system Squall can easily solo the game. Zidane as said in the video was refreshing as a more outgoing character and him being a thief as the main is very cool.
People not understanding tribalism is funny we as a species at a basic level form tribes for everything. SE and a host of other companies rightfully get some hate for somethings it also seems SE is never happy with their own sales of nearly any of their games while also being gungho about NFTs and other shady monetazation.
I think a lot of the 16 and Rebirth hate has to do with people who are just mad that they need a PS5. Like we're what, 6 years into the console's life cycle? GET OVER IT. They have been readily available for a while now and those of us who do own one are sick of last gen holding things back. Videogames are first and foremost a luxury item so while I do think it's fair to criticize the overall rising prices of them and egregious predatory tactics by companies such as EA, Ubisoft and Activision (and yes SQEX as well sorry) complaining that they aren't still catering to last gen owners this late into the current gen is just asinine and childish. I've actually seen comments from people demanding a PS4 version of 16, like are you kidding? The hardware could never handle it - Remake was already pushing it to the limits and had to be locked to 30FPS, which as the Intergrade proved was a huge detriment to the combat as the full 60 FPS on PS5 made things flow far more smoothly and it was much easier to react and dodge & do cancels etc. I will disagree slightly in that I personally don't find at least some of the malcontent towards SQEX and FF to be unwarranted - the franchise has been languishing for years, on top of the executives having unrealistic sales expectations. That being said, it is definitely getting to be a bit much lately. Their recent announcement about quality over quantity has many worried that we won't see gems like Harvestella and Octopath going forward anymore, but that remains to be seen. I'm still excited for Dawn Trail and Visions of Mana. And there's talk now of Sony experimenting with PS2 emulation on PS5, so maybe there's hope we can even get XI ported over though even if that were possible I doubt it would ever get approved at this point. TL;DR I think cautious optimism is what's needed currently. Rebirth definitely screwed some things up (badly) but overall was a fun and well put together game and IMO a strong showcase of what's possible going forward.
All this video was him scared that his top Content (Square Enix games) takes a drop and he loses money. Doesnt help that he works with Square Enix so hes very biased.
In 15 I never camped out and always went to a place for more exp. Which meant at the end I had to just go out kill some mobs then make camp to increase the camping skill. Don't be like me, the extra xp really isn't worth the extra time. Lol
Im very out the loop with this but one thing I can say is... I just finished rebirth, took me 102 hours and loved 90% of it aha was it perfect? noh, am i sad its over? yes.
Well. You can't spell Squarenix without EA. And the last few years, they've become their Japanese equivalent. Sometimes it feels like a contest between the two on who's gonna have the biggest live service graveyard. As to 16 specifically, well, PS5 exclusive. Bad decision, pissed people. I'd be salty too if I was forced to buy a 700$ brick to play the new hype final fantasy. 16 was not 7. It wasn't a console seller, it was not groundbreaking, it was just an above average action games that didn't sell ps5s despite the fat check Sony gave them to be exclusive. So like... I get some people just bitch about SE just for the fun of it, but they deserve the vast majority of it. And, just saying, it's gonna take them a while to get rid of the bad rep they got during their nft phase. That made them a gaming lolcow. And it was by their own doing and that's why they are trying to regain trust. They lost it. Remember the gem cap Joe. That's the kind of decision they are still making but with time, people's patience have eroded and they've had it with Squenix and I get it.
The latest FF game is a Game of Thrones knock off... no original or interesting story. It's a button masher with very little RPG elements. It's an action game. SQE decided to chase trends and make a cheaper game as action games are typically cheaper and easier to make than RPGs. The guy in charge went over budget on it. The company is never going to turn a mass profit off that game. It isn't a good game. FF7 rebirth was ok. The forced mini games the entire game was again chasing trends. SQE has been chasing trends and not producing what they do best. What the company has been known for since it was Squaresoft. Rpgs. SQE has stated that they are going back to basics. Which is why they fired the guy in charge of all the chasing trends and overbudgetted games. He was solely an action game guy. Per his own words. That was his vision for FF. It reflected in both of those games. Button mashing mini games. His views reflected in both of those games poorly. SQE themselves fired the guy that made those choices. SQE is fully aware that the newest FF and FF rebirth are not well liked or received by the actual Square community. Maybe instead of trying to defend a viewpoint that SQE obviously doesn't agree with. You support them in the decision to go back to basics.
