Should Final Fantasy go back to fantasy?

[Kathranis]

But FF15 is PART of the disaster that is FF13. It started off as a side-story and there was going to be all this interconnected bullshit. Rewriting that mess is a part of why development took so long.

No it wasn't. From the moment it was announced they said that the only connections between VSXIII and XIII would be in their mythology. And almost all FF games have shared mythologies.

[unholytestament]

No it wasn't. From the moment it was announced they said that the only connections between VSXIII and XIII would be in their mythology. And almost all FF games have shared mythologies.

This is extremely deceptive. The Fabula Nova Crystallis series was intended to have a more extensive mythos than previous Final Fantasy titles and the world building of Versus was directly influenced by said mythos. Issues in development of XIII wound up affecting these plans which led to further issues developing Versus, so much of the connecting elements were almost completely excised when Versus was rewritten.

Most FF games do not share a mythos. Even though they share names and thematic elements, to say they share a mythos would be like saying any game that features Cthulhu shares a mythos.

[Kathranis]

This is extremely deceptive. The Fabula Nova Crystallis series was intended to have a more extensive mythos than previous Final Fantasy titles and the world building of Versus was directly influenced by said mythos. Issues in development of XIII wound up affecting these plans which led to further issues developing Versus, so much of the connecting elements were almost completely excised when Versus was rewritten.

Most FF games do not share a mythos. Even though they share names and thematic elements, to say they share a mythos would be like saying any game that features Cthulhu shares a mythos.

The connections between Versus and XIII essentially amounted to a handful of keywords. In fact, as i recall, the only ones even mentioned in Versus promotional stuff were l'Cie, Etro, Etro's Gate, and the Unseen Realm.

And Fabula Nova Crystallis (which just means "new legend of the crystals") was compared conceptually to the shared crystal mythology in FFI, FFII, FFIV, and FFV. It was just meant as a general reimagining of core concepts like crystals and warriors of light. Versus was no more connected to XIII than Agito (Type-0) wound up being.

And the issues with the reworked story in FFXV has less to do with breaking it away from FNC and more to do with Tabata just cutting a ton of plot and characters to shorten development time, and to turn the prologue into Kingsglaive. Yes, it was changed quite dramatically from the original concept, but it's not as if the original concept was so tied into the FNC that they couldn't just change some names and tell roughly the same story.

[Zafire]

Final Fantasy VIII has a terrible story IMO. Disc 1 is great, but it suffers greatly after that. At least the endgame is interesting, and it rewards exploration.

I haven't liked Final Fantasy since 10 (And arguably is still one of the best). The MMOs were good, I guess.