The Problem with Final Fantasy

(There are no major spoilers in this section, so feel free to browse at your leisure)

            I love the Final Fantasy series.  I have since I was six years old and got my first taste of Final Fantasy 3/6 through my brother’s snes.  I’ve loved and collected the series for nearly twenty years and I can say with no small exaggeration, that the series I’ve loved is dead and gone.  Final fantasy’s 11-14, while by no means commercial flops, have been criticized by fans for deviating from the formula that made it so successful to begin with.  While there is one major deviation that I blame for my disenchantment with the series, it is not the one people would expect. 

For me, this was the start of an era and all future Final Fantasy games would be compared to this.  The brilliant, FF6.

 Many people argue about why exactly Final Fantasy started to go downhill.  Some speculate that losing Yoshitaka Amano as the character and monster designer hurt it, as Tetsuya Nomura was brought in to replace him and created characters that more closely represented Japanese fashion than actual fantasy characters.  Others believe that when Hironobu Sakaguchi left the franchise, it lost its voice for telling a story and creating characters that people cared about.  One of the most popular theories, however, is that when Nobuo Uematsu left Square Enix, the series lost its soul.  Without his stirring music, there was no fantasy in Final Fantasy.  While I admit that each of these changes has been difficult to deal with, I do not believe that they are the primary causes for Final Fantasy’s decrease in popularity with its fans.

Pretty much how fans view the newer Final Fantasy games.

 My theory lies with the changes to Final fantasy’s game design.  I believe that the mechanics governing the Final Fantasy series have become so overcomplicated and superfluous that to manage them all, the developers decided to take control away from the players.  The battle systems in particular focus less on simple button presses and lean more towards complex pre-battle preparation that ultimately makes the experience more bland and passive than it needs to be.  However, rather then delving straight into this issue, let me give a little bit of background first.

One of the key aspects of video games is their ability to immerse the player in the game’s world.  Part of immersion is a feeling of streamlined control within the game, a set of pre-defined parameters that players have the ability to influence and can manipulate quickly and easily.  This leads to the characters in the game feeling like an extension of the player.  When the player says attack, they attack.  When they players says use magic, they use magic.  When the players says use item, they use items.  Taking away this control through superfluous additions ruins a person’s immersion in the world and makes it very clear to them that they are playing a game.  Or in the worst case scenarios, it makes them feel like they are watching a movie, which negates the whole point of a game.  The less 1-to-1 control a player has over their party, the more cumbersome a battle system feels, as there is more out of battle micro management.

Streamlined, fast paced, fun...why did they change this again?!

 This change in the fundamental game design of Final Fantasy has roots in good intentions, but poor execution.  While I have never been the biggest supported of Final Fantasys 1-3, I love the Active Time Battle System that Final Fantasy 4 introduced and every Final Fantasy after up to 10-2 mimicked.  It gave full control of the party, but it didn’t feel like the characters and enemies were just swapping blows.  It felt like time was moving as the battle progressed, giving the world a sense of liveliness that aids in immersion.  However, most importantly, there was 1-to-1 control over the characters.  Players could control all of them and they responded immediately to player input.  I am not so arrogant as to say every Final Fantasy game should use this system but, for me at least, it created a sense of immersion and control, while being simple and streamlined.  This invested me in the games and allowed me to forget about time.  To just enjoy the game as it played out.

Final Fantasy always tries to innovate...sometimes with disastrous results.

 However, Final Fantasy has always been a series that sought to innovate and improve on its battle systems.  Final Fantasy 4 added character specific commands which created a wild card ability for each character.  Final Fantasy 5 took a basic class system and allowed players to mix and match specific commands from each class.  Final Fantasy 6 took all of that and added in the ability for players to learn individual magic by equipping powerful Espers, rather than finding, buying, or just being gifted with spells, allowing any character to become a mage.  Final Fantasy 7 popularized the limit break, an ability that was character specific and trigged in emergencies, creating a way out for players in a tough situation.  Final Fantasy 8 allowed customizable skills and stats based on their equipped G.F.’s, like espers, but also retooled the magic system and added a number of non essential but fun minigames.  Final Fantasy 9 went further, allowing players to learn skills by equipping certain items.  These skills were unique to each of them.  Final Fantasy 10 created a battle system that allowed players to swap out characters mid battle, control summoned monsters, and see the flow of battle, both when their turns would end and when an enemy’s would begin.  Even Final Fantasy 10-2 created a job based system that encouraged players to use jobs that would combo well together.  And then, Final Fantasy 11 rolled around.

Final Fantasy 11 was a massively multiplayer online role playing game.  This shifted combat away from the active time battle system and had it retooled to work in a slower, more methodical way, to accommodate different players across different computers with different internet speeds.  The job classes were reintroduced to allow players to experiment with varying play styles, however because active time battling would not work in an MMORPG, auto attack became the default mode of combat.  This approach was more passive, but because of the MMO environment, it was acceptable.  However, when Final Fantasy returned to being a single player game, the passive battle system remained.  Final Fantasy 12 and 13 were built less as sprawling single player experiences and more like the MMO that preceded them.  And this is part of the problem.

Not as exciting as it looks, but it's an MMO.  It doesn't always have to be.

 In an MMO where things like lag and different play styles need to be accommodated for, it makes sense for auto attack to be the default and for players to only control one character.  It also eliminated the oft complained about random encounters that had been a staple of Final Fantasy games until Final Fantasy 11.  However, these accommodations complicated the game and removed control from the players.  This would not necessarily be a problem for an MMO, as players can learn gradually and repetitive grinding is expected.  For a single player game though, it was unwieldy and annoying.

Let me give a few examples.  In Final Fantasy 12, players control only one character and that character will auto attack when near an enemy.  Players can, to an extent, select abilities to use, like summoning or limit breaks, however much of their gameplay is determined by “gambits” a set of commands that tell the player’s character and his companions what to do in a set situation.  Such as, if life drops below 50%, use a potion, if ally is poisoned, use antidote, etc.  In an MMO, this forethought would be rewarded, as battle could be fast, fraught with lag, and players could only focus on one character.  However, in a single player game, it drastically limited control and hurt immersion, as the player could put their controller down and nothing would change.  The commands would already be set up for the computer to follow and the game would basically play itself.  Further complicating this battle system would be that players didn’t have class specific or character specific items.  All items could be used, so long as a “license” was bought for them.  It became cumbersome and unwieldy, and in truth, did not make a great deal of sense.  After all, who needs to buy a license to learn how to put on a hat?

Final Fantasy 12: It's like playing a boring MMO without the MMO.

Final Fantasy 13 was little better.  While in theory, the active time battle system returned, the system of using “gambits” to control a character’s actions and their allies was retooled and integrated into a new job system.  The player only controlled one character and the computer controlled the others.  The character’s jobs changed their abilities every time, so there was no baseline.  For some classes, there would not even be an “attack” command.  Worse yet, the interface for the battle system was so cumbersome, with spells and actions so neatly divided into different categories, that it was impossible to select an attack with any amount of speed.  And the battle system required several attacks to be queued up at one time, requiring further fiddling with the menu screens.  It seems that Square Enix knew this would be too complicated for most players to bother with, since every class has the “auto battle” command.  Once selected, the computer would choose the best action for the character to perform in any given situation.  With “auto battle” there was no room for error.  Players could only make a mistake if they were in the wrong job at the wrong time.  In effect, the computer controlled everything and the player controlled nothing.

Final Fantasy 13:  You see the image above?  Yeah, you don't do that.  That's all the computer.

This is one of the most pitiful attempts at a battle system because the game itself actively does not wish to be played.  And it does not require the player to input any data.  If a player taped down the select button on auto attack and had the right party set up, like one attacker and two healers, they could leave the game alone and it would play itself.  And because the computer controlled the player’s actions and always chose the best one in any given situation, the player would be unable to lose.  This passive approach to a combat system killed much of the game’s immersion by removing control from the player.

I believe this to be the real reason that Final Fantasy has fallen so far.  While the loss of its voice for storytelling was unfortunate, there are many great writers and story tellers in the world.  While the loss of its soul through its music was sad, they still had a few staple soundtracks to fall back on.  While the change in character design was jarring, it was no more offensive than any other JRPG on the market.  The real problem with Final Fantasy is that the battle systems have become so complicated that the players are no longer trusted to control their party.  They have to have a computer do it for them.

One of the reasons games like God of War, Devil May Cry, Ratchet and Clank, or any number of FPS games like Halo or Resistance are so popular is that they give 1-to-1 control to the players.  If a player pushes forward, they move forward.  If a player hits fire, their gun fires or clicks if its out of ammo.  If they hit the button to throw a grenade or swing their sword, the character does it.  What does not happen is the player presses a button and the computer does five moves in quick succession that the player has no control over.  These controls can evolve and gain complexity, but the simple act of pressing a button to do an action is kept sacred.  It keeps the players in control at all times and thusly keeps them invested in the game.

I don't like Halo, but it at least makes me feel in control of my own destiny.

Final Fantasy’s woes are not merely linked to combat, however.  In Final Fantasy 12 and 13, outside of battle their control is still highly limited.  In Final Fantasy 12, players could not freely choose what items to use.  They had to have a “license” before it could be used.  In Final Fantasy 13, the whole game is based around a lack of control.  Players are forced down a linear path, cannot buy new weapons, cannot explore their surroundings, have no towns to explore or look around and the only time when they are given freedom is after fifty hours in.  By then, most players would have given up or would just like the game to end.  This is remarkably clumsy.  Game developers can exercise these same levels of control, but still give the illusion of freedom.  For example, in Final Fantasy 4, the characters are, at one point, stranded on an island.  However, they can explore that island at their leisure.  They can go to the town or to the sacred mountain to the east of town.  When they go to the mountain they are sent back to town for supplies.  These choices are made by the player, not by the computer.  And perhaps most importantly, when the players clear the area, they can go back, to hunt monsters, visit the town, visit the mountain, etc.  They are forced along a linear path to complete the story, but are given the illusion of control because they can go and do their own thing if they do not wish to follow that path.  This illusion of control invests players in the game because it makes them feel like their actions have a genuine effect on the game world.

This pretty much says it all about Final Fantasy 13.  No control?  No thanks.

So, that is my theory on why Final Fantasy has gone down hill.  While these issues will not be as apparent in Final Fantasy 14 because it is an MMORPG, they still remain.  Players want more control, especially in single player games, and taking that control away from them to force them to play how the developers or the computer wants them to play will only frustrate them and break their immersion in the game.  So, allow me to offer this ultimatum to Square Enix.  No matter how beautiful a game you may create, no matter how jaw dropping the score, or the story, or the visuals of the next Final Fantasy, if you take away control from the players, all you will be doing is creating a 60 hour movie.  And no one wants to sit through a 60 hour movie.  You have been warned.

Once again, if anyone is uncomfortable with how I have used their images, please, simply contact me and I will remove them.