Did the Squaresoft Enix Merger Kill Final Fantasy? 

Thanks for watching 💙 If you enjoyed the episode please consider subscribing to support the channel. If you'd like to support the channel further you can do so here: - Patreon: www.patreon.com/gamediscourses - Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/gamediscourses

I think Forspoken was also built on the Luminous Engine.

just recently started a ff7 remake playthru for the 1st time and i gotta say im having so much fun and enjoyment, i really liked what they did with the production design and music as always is top notch..and also its a nostalgia hit for me as i 100% the original back in the day....nice vid my dude!

i remember going to see FF spirits within in theatres with my brother and we left not even half way in. Idk what they were thinking putting the Final Fantasy brand on that

Being part of the old guard I can still appreciate some of the new things that they are trying out, things like FF7 Remake and FF14 have their own distinct flavor. there are still people showing the love at the company, but it also feels like they are at odds with the business practices at play For the series I've moved over to Persona 3-5, Yakuza Like a Dragon, and a few indies for that more traditional RPG flavor. Something I don't get anymore from games like 16 that were more action focused and had limited party interaction. THIS IS NOT ME SAYING IT'S BAD, just that it doesn't scratch that same itch. I respect that some people got a lot out of it, even if it didn't for me Unfortunately I can't say that I'm excited for everything that comes out of it like in the Squaresoft days, but that is also probably a good thing. Nobody should ever get too attached to a company or a franchise. Though I wish them the best and look forward to a few gems that come out every once and a while, even if I have to sort though more games in their catalogue to find them these days

Final Fantasy 10 was the last one I loved. 12 wasn't a bad game, but it just didn't have the same feeling. Anything else which has come out since 10 has given me a very negative feeling. 10 is kind of like the Resident Evil 4 of Final Fantasy. Really made a lot of changes which completely changed things, but still an amazing game, and yet followed by things which don't have soul. When I played 10-2 as a kid when it came out, I was absolutely heartbroken.

FF7R and FF16 really brought me back to the franchise. If rebirth is even just a fraction of what i expect it to be, i think square would regain the momentum it lost with its previous games.

FFXVI was built on a modified luminous Engine which is the same as the XIV engine as thats what the team (Creative Buisness Unit 3) was used to using. so tehcinally all Numbered Mainline games have been made on in studio engines. FFVIIR is Unreal Engine 4 and is a Mainline game however. so we are seeing a change. I would be very keen to see the continuation and modifaction of the adapted Lumious engine however as it seems they've finally got an engine that works and is stable which can produce modern AAA graphics. *Edited to Unreal Engine 4 as I said unity*

Id argue final fantasy 11 killed it just as much, even if i did enjoy the game. The momentum they had after 7/8/Tactics/9/10 in like a 4ish year span is insane. 11 Required a lot of resources on their end, and then 12 was kinda a meh game by most fans.

No, it wasn't the merger that caused the major shift in the franchise. It was Hironobu Sakaguchi leaving Square, whether voluntarily or being forced, that caused the series to lose its way. Even if he wasn't the lead on all the games, he was still the guiding hand on the series. He was the person everyone else would go to for advice and consultation. Yes, Spirits Within was his baby and it sucked and cost the company a ton of money. No one can deny that. But the wisdom he provided to the development teams was invaluable. I think that, had Spirits Within never existed, Sakaguchi would have stayed with Square and Final Fantasy wouldn't have taken such a detour into the mediocre zone.

Very incisive - when you think that FFIV which is my favourite game of all time was made with only 13 people and now the total mess that SquareEnix is in and the messy way they operate they are such a radically different company

If you’re older than 30, yes. If you’re younger, no. I really think it’s that simple lol

I never consider the merger to be that moment, because by then I had felt "that moment" so many times as a life long fan of the series. The jump to the PS1 era was a pretty large shift in ideal and tone, and you feel that build up to that in each subsequent release of the game... the themes were going deeper every time, they were always reaching for higher heights, but something always got left behind from a previous version. There is something from just about every Final Fantasy I can point out it does the best, and an aspect of what made it great didn't stand the test of time. In many ways the series has always felt like a struggle, it's constantly been tinkering with the formula from day 1. To me, the trouble with the main line didn't start until 13. Every version before that, 11 included, felt like it had it's place to me within it's time and genre, but 13 was the first pure quality drop, and I think we can blame the dev cycle and it's many issues. The same goes for the original 14 and 15... each one had a difficult dev cycle that cost it. 16 was the first return to form in awhile... but it also gave me the immediate reaction to want to play 12, because 12 did somethings better.

I can say that without the internal turmoil at square in the late 90s, there would be no Xenosaga or Xenoblade for that matter.

Short answer is no it didn't.

Funnily enough, my friends and I have recently had a similar discussion and went on a rabbit hole of looking for info on this topic 😂 super fun to see someone cover it now! I’ll say subjectively first, as someone whose first FF was FF12 and then i went full forward and full backward, i dont think this merger killed Square. I feel like there were definitely several dark years but right now we’re “eating good”, and its a matter of tastes if people still like the games or not (as you say), but it seems that the days of bad management are mostly behind us. Looking at the current pacing of CBU1 and CBU3, its quite amazing. Even then, i’d say FF11 is an amazing product even if an mmo, and FF12 too, it only really started cracking when they spent too much time developing their engines…. FF13/versus13 era Now as for the merger.. i think all that you’ve said stands. However, i also think its important to look at the wider picture of the times in 2001-2003 period or even later. Take a look at how many franchises have been “exploited” those days. Star wars prequels came out many years after the originals just then, HP and Lord of the rings got their movies and some sequels (first Harry potter video game also 2001, LOTR videogames in 2002 and 2003,Pirates of the Caribbean got some sequels there… I think (and i may be wrong here), we’re looking at the start of the “franchise boom”. When companies realised their IPs need to be exploited in order to quantify growth instead of coming up with something new all the time. Pair that wide trend with SQEX’s wish to go west, with some financial issues from the movie (and drop in sales again after ff7, really), with ever expanding technology that is becoming more expensive anddd their trend to innovate on something each time, AND the original creator leaving in those times… its a bit of a recipe for disaster 😂 i think, even if the merger didnt happen they would have probably gone the “IP exploit” route with sequels and movies and what not, maybe they just wouldnt have had the money to continue so long, but we can only speculate.

I thought Forspoken was on an upgraded Luminos engine. Is that incorrect? Great job on the video.

it didnt kill FF but it killed everything else.

I don't have a ps5 but I'm hoping to have one soon so I can play FF7 rebirth and 16. I'm more excited for Final Fantasy's future than I have been in years. Great video as always! I've been watching for years and you always have insightful commentary!

I don’t think it was the merger itself, but THAT movie, which signalled the beginning of the end, and Square pushing more to a corporate position(Sakaguchi for example, never wanted sequels, but then came 10-2 with lots of reused assets shortly after the film bombing). Enix still has Dragon Quest, and I don’t see that series being drastically altered to chase big numbers

After FF16 and FF7R I can definitely tell they're on the right track again. I was so freakin impressed with 16's writing after the massive floppy 15 mess.

I just hope that their game engine woes are done. This is one of the reasons for ff not reaching the heights it needed to reach. It took too much of their time and energy and games ended up half baked like 13 and 15. I did and still enjoy those games tho. With rebirth I can say that game engine development hell is gone at least for now. Kitase mentioned how having experience with the engine made it faster to develop the game. And it shows, all the content the game has and the amount of cutscenes,yet it was only made in 3.5 to 4 years. Honestly kinda nuts. Now the teams can actually focus on making a game instead of fighting with the engine. Although I would love for SE to have their REengine type moment, where they finally develop a good in house engine that makes their workflow even better than UE4.

Forespoken was made with Luminous. Probably the end of that engine's usage. Square should stick to Unreal for the time being. Look at how much CB3 did with Remake and Rebirth in a much shorter dev cycle. There is no harm in cost cutting in smart ways until you can make your own tools efficient and cost effective again.

11:15 And that is the way it should be. The reason they probably did that, however, is two or even three fold. First they were making games for consoles that had vastly different architecture from each other, so every few years, when a new console gen came out, they knew they would have to throw away everything no matter what. Second, they were "rushing" these games out, I remember watching an interview or documentary where they commented FF7 was developed in a sort of modular way, by multiple different teams. You can imagine the mess that code was by the end of the game, which probably would justify starting fresh for the next game. Third, they always wanted to do better than the last game, technically speaking, and that is evident. I'm not sure FF7 even had proper skeletal animation at all. At least outside of combat you can see clearly that all the characters on the game are made of static meshes rigged with a skeleton. There is no mesh deformation. That of course was featured they added on their later games on the PS1.

The merger + Sakaguchi's exit

It wasn’t the merger with Enix that killed Final Fantasy. It was Kingdom Hearts that killed Final Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts is a fine series on its own, but its success resulted in the pollution of Final Fantasy with the garbage button-masher battle system with other characters on auto-pilot. It’s also where Square first started to scratch the nostalgia itch, resulting in a series that had previously resisted direct sequels instead experiencing diminishing returns on nostalgia properties.

True but 12 was a masterpiece in storytelling. 14 is a beast. 13 is totally underrated. And 15 is phenomenal as far as gameplay is concerned. So as a vet ( played them all quite literally) it's not as impactful. I.E. of ff7 compared to the remake. Remake is so cool but the story is meh. Og ff7 gameplay is meh but story is 35 out of ten . So it really just depends. Cant knock one thing because you in particular dont like the other . Stranger of paradise is another example. I absolutely loved this game . Kinda doubt you even know there is a story but its essentially a prequel to ff og . Great game great execution and good solid game for the newbs . Not all are fan bois and not all are idiots . Keep an open mind and dont let nostalgia keep your opinions in that limbo. Btw legacy of kain just needs a finish not a remake 😢.

In my humble opinion, FFX was actually good albeit weird for the absence of an explorable overworld map which did not make too much impact for me since each area is kind of large so it didn't felt lacking. My real nitpicking is the maps/areas on FFXIII that cannot be revisited which is kind of a let down. I enjoyed FFXIII for what it was and still love the story but the "linear" map progression which you cannot go back to and explore kinda threw me off. FFXII was still okay with me. FFXV was a hit or miss and I think it is because it felt more like an action game. I know it's not necessarily a bad thing but I have slight issues when a known brand suddenly switches style. FFXVI was really done well despite it being an action game already and it felt quite good despite me not really liking action games too much, most probably because the story and narrative was constructed really well. I'm open to the idea of company changing directions but I guess I won't be that much excited for the next "FF game" unless they have a really good story. As for the other action games like Valkyrie Elysium and Forspoken...it's a meh for me. I'm more excited to the likes of Octopath Traveler or Triangle Strategy now.

I enjoyed FFX-2 and am hoping for a X-3. FFXV is one of my favourites too so the SE era has been pretty decent imo. Forspoken was also on Luminous Engine, which I'm advised by informed observers actually ran worse than FFXV despite releasing years after. Hopefully SE will now shift entirely to Unreal and away from proprietary engines of dubious long term value, if any.

FFX is fantastic. Loved it. Make a new rpg with the same exact gameplay and an awesome story and you’ve got a hit on your hands

Interesting title of video. I will say back when I saw a game case with squaresoft on it. I knew it was going to be a good game. I can’t say the same for games that say square Enix on it

Yes and no. I personally think it was a combination of the merger and the massive army of talent simply outgrowing the roles they held at Squaresoft. Leadership change as a result of the merger was a large cause of much of that talent leaving as well.

I would say no for final fantasy. Sure there are some bad eggs looking at you 13 and og 14, not reborn), but it still has some good games. Honestly, I would argue more that other square games not having dragon quest or final fantasy suffer by getting the short end of the stick through lack of marketing support for some (still salty about them giving no attention toward neo twewy) or their business model (nfts, live services, etc).

The need for final fantasy to be a "premium" product, graphically speaking, is why I think it's fallen off. There have been duds in the series but the turnaround was faster and there were many other titles coming out, but that all stopped and slowed down. They recently said a ff8 remake would take 20 years. What? I think there's something very dysfunctional about their work flow.

I would love to see the final fantasy based on the first concept for ff7, a game based on crime investigation

Is Forspoken not not build on the Luminous engine?

Absence of the world map was one of the things I felt hard with FF10. I forgave the game for that, but I was hoping we'd be getting back to that. Well, not too late, FF19 is right around the corner I guess...

FF7 Rebirth will be massive and may be the birth of a new golden age for the franchise ❤

Here's an anecdote that isn't really worth much. When FF13 came out I played it on and off again for a while. Then right in the middle of it just before the final part, I put it down. There was nothing wrong with the game or the console I was playing it on. I just, put it down. Then I RE-played FF9 from beginning to end just before going back and finishing FF13.

Easy answer: No. Everything changes over time, and if Square was still pumping out games that followed the exact same formula as the earlier titles, you'd be making videos asking if Squaresoft had forgotten how to innovate. Not to mention, it's hard to look at some of the recent absolutely stellar games SquareEnix has made (FF7:Remake, for example), and not see the influences of earlier games. FFXII was the first to ditch the random encounter model, letting you see your enemies on the screen at all times, and introduced the gambit system and programmable ally characters. FFXIII switched to more action-focused combat with the Paradigm system that let you focus on behaviors, rather than specific actions. FFXV let you swap between characters, customizing individual behavior sets, while maintaining the ability to control characters directly. It's all iterative. Without the experimentation of titles post FFX, we wouldn't have the excellent experiences we've seen in FF7:Remake and FFXVI. And that's not even taking into account that games like FFXII and FFXIII have also aged remarkably well. Like, they're different than what came before, sure. But I'd call them successful experiments. And clearly they sold well enough to represent a financial success, or else Square wouldn't still be making FF titles. So like...where's this idea coming from that the merger somehow killed FF?

Ive always thought this.

Kicking hironobu on the side was too much

It didn't kill the FF series, but it definitely killed other IPs.

Yup the merger killed it. after 12 the magic was gone. Why? Because Sakaguchi is the secret sauce. Now we are stuck with hacks like Nojima and Nomura.

I really liked ff10 as it was one of my fav games, evenmoreso than ff9 but FF10 wasn't an ff game. FF9 was the last ff game and unlike ff10, ff9 was less liked but stuck with me more over the years and I was more fold of it than the mere spike that was ff10.

After Spirits within, Square was going bankrupt, so if they didn’t merge, they are done for

nope, it didn't.

This video aged very well lol

I didn’t like FFX when released. I may give it another go sometime but something about the world just wasn’t interesting.

Yes.

I just think FF has not been the same since losing Sakaguchi. He was the heart of the franchise.

10000% yes, since the merger the spirit of the games have been comparatively flat.

sure didnt

I would say it did. But X is still my favourite FF game.

Yes, I am not a cash cow.

Seems like ffx-2 and ff12 was the indicator that things were going to change for me. Wasnt ff10 or ff11, they still felt very ff

Let’s see Squarsoft developed and shipped FF6-10 in a 8 year period. FF7 remake was 8 and a half years from first teaser. Enix first Banger was FFX-2. Final Fantasy has been ran by people who don’t like Final Fantasy games for the last 20 years or so. In 25 years they have done nothing to grow the brand. Even know every new Final Fantasy game comes out and looks less and less like a FF game. They say they make changes to grow the brand and reach a wider audience. FF8 sold more copies than FF7 remake and FF16. So who is not buying these new games? The old fans? Or the new fans they desperately crave?

They went from JRPG to hack and slash games.

the freedom in which people keep throwing major ff7 spoiler in every video is beyond me. I know so many that still hadn't tried the game or only tried the remake and loved it. sad for them to stumble across horrible videos like this.

Yes. We haven't had a FF game after IX. I refuse to call the half-baked, trend-seeking slop we get nowadays "Final Fantasy." Rebirth seems to be the closest we've gotten in the past 24 years, and even that has nothing on real FF. XV and XVI aren't even FF games, they're modern AAA trend-seeking slop. XIV is the most overrated MMO of all time with a literal cult for a fanbase. XIII is, well, XIII. Nobody talks about XII for a reason. XI is another MMO. X is very underwhelming... I love with action combat, even if I prefer turn-based combat overall. However, my primary issue with the post-IX era is the lack of passion, unique and fantastical worlds, quirky and memorable characters, deep and complex character relationships, unique story beats and interesting, complex writing, realistic, relateable, and complex character arcs, funny and silly dialogue, interesting enemies (not just goblins, Malboros, etc., for the 10,000x time for "fanservice" nobody wants), and so on.

Final fantasy died the day X-2 came out.

The biggest mistake for square was making sequels. Second biggest was making Nomura a writer 😵

Enix is a very disgusting company that ruined gaming.

Even if I don’t agree with all of the business practices that Square has made in recent years, I do at least appreciate the creative decisions and risks they’ve taken with Final Fantasy and their other games. I know I’m in the minority, but I really like the gameplay of FFXVI for instance, which is a direct result of wanting to explore new mechanics. I do very much agree that the company is spreading itself too thin, and I hope they don’t invest in blockchain games and other such scams.

16 and 7R were garbage.

Live a little! Things change and of course it’s not going to be perfect… but these “retrospective” videos are getting out of hand, considering Final Fantasy is very much “alive”. I promise you being a purist will not lead you to happiness.

Those that were there, Squaresofts quality was so far ahead of every other developer at the time, it was like they were working with different hardware. They were clearly an incredibly talented and passionate group of people but not only that, their philosophy was to not leave anything in the tank hence the name. This philosophy clearly came from Hinonobu Sakaguchi, who was not only a great designer but knew how to cultivate talent. Upon the failure of The Spirits Within, their new president was this as an opportunity to his philosophy of game design, and that is to milk Final Fantasy for all it was worth. The company of a shell of what Squaresoft was. They have not made a single game since the merger that even comes close to their best work from that era. And don't come at me with 12 or 14, if you call either of those a masterpiece, then I feel sorry for you.

Before watching this video, in my opinion these three reasons are involved with the downfall in popularity: 1st: Rise in action titles. PS1 wasn't able to pull off real time action in video games and so the JRPG titles were the most cinematic experiences that video games could offer in terms of action design. Maybe not as important for fans of the series, but for my dad... this was the reason to buy FFVII and he didn't return for FFX on the PS2. 2nd: Hironobu Sakaguchi left SE and with his departure he left a void on his position that, technically speaking, still isn't filled in. Naoki Yosida and Yoshinori Kitase both currently share that role between them and have different visions on what the franchise should be. But don't forget that there were about 10 years or so without any shared vision in the franchise. 3rd: JRPGs are epic tales and now require too much time to develop, cursed by their massive scale. Just take a look at the Final Fantasy VII Remake project, which might eventually end after 15 years of development across three titles. It is something Final Fantasy should do to meet fan expectations on gameplay, story and world... but it won't meet sales expectations to allow them to do so. It is a wonder that FFXVI released in this state, but fans judge it for a lack of controllable party members and real open world. And because of this grand scale, they either need to cut on graphical wonders and realism to be more like the SNES and PS1 games. OR take too much time between titles, like both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy suffer from nowadays and results in a decline in popularity. I'm born in 2000 and the first Final Fantasy title that was genuinely popular among my age demographic was Final Fantasy XV in 2015! Meanwhile people who were born in 1990 remember the popularity of FFVII in 1997. People always point to time between mainline (singleplayer*) releases of modern Final Fantasy, be it 4 years or 7 years. But Dragon Quest is currently on a near 7-year hiatus between XI and XII, after gaps of 4 years or longer. I'm going to watch it later, after I did my planned work for today on my novel. :) Edit: Okay, interesting points. :)

Sakaguchi San being fired ruined FF

I've heard this take so many times and it's so hypocritical. Square as is went completely broke, this is the only chance they had. Also i believe it very much was an enrichment to both sides of the company

yes, as much as i love FF, i hate squenix, FF under squenix become less and less popular, they also kill other francies that i love, like parasite eve, front mission, chrono...

Define killing. Final fantasy is more successful than it has ever been. I guess you don’t like it as much as you used to? That’s not really the death of final fantasy.

Yes.