I have played a lot of games during my life that were simply bad, boring or just disappointing, but those were all completely unremarkable as in that there is nothing really interesting to say about them other than that they are just not entertaining at all, so i am going to talk about a game that signaled the demise of an entire company for me.
From the point of its inception to many years in the future, as a Franchise Final Fantasy was among the best RPG-series Japan had to offer.
The storylines set an example for what storytelling in an interactive medium should be and the Gameplay improved steadily improved upon a formula that was in danger of becoming stale.
Nowadays most gamers are very aware that "Final Fantasy" no longer actually stands for quality, but only for a company that lost all connection to its roots and for me it signalled the coming of the end.
The game i am talking about is Final Fantasy X-2.
This installment brought about changes that would anger fans of the series and impact all releases that followed after.
Without spoiling to much of the actual game itself the major flaws of this game can be summarized in three distinct categories: Story, Gameplay and Series-cohesion.
Story:
Final Fantasy X-2 was the first direct sequel to any Final Fantasy game by Square Enix and instead of continuing the story set by Final Fantasy X and elaborating on established themes Square Enix made it blatantly obvious that they did not know what actually defines good Sequels. The tone was changed completely and the dark and moody themes of Final Fantasy X were abandoned for a cheerful and bubbly story about three young girls, that just happened to be pop-stars, skilled fighters and explorers at the same time. To a japanese audience these themes of "Idol"-culture might have seemed a very natural development for female characters, but for western audiences this was an extremely bizarre turn in a Fantasy world with established lines of steam-punk and magic. Many connections to the original game were constantly alluded to, but the pay-off was minimal at best and inconsequential at worst. Square Enix stopped taking the storylines of Final Fantasy Games seriously and it shows. Final Fantasy X-2 was nothing more than a parody of Final Fantasy X.
Gameplay:
To establish WHY the Gameplay was lacking one has to establish what actually made other Final Fantasy Games work so well.
The themes of heroism, overcoming adversity and wanting to achieve higher goals is not just something that factors into the quality of RPGs, but into video-games as a whole.
Final Fantasy X-2 failed in these respects because none of the characters are in the least relatable, the levelling system is overdesigned and bloated and the item-system is nonsensical and convoluted. Equipping armor to protect ones character is natural to anyone who has played RPGs in the last two decades, but Final Fantasy X-2 replaced that system with costumes. These costumes would give the main-characters a cuter appearance, which might be of interrest to some, but it made absolutely no sense. These costumes would very obviously never have had any ability to protect the characters at all and instead of having a natural progression of improving gear, it was not readily evident what point any of these garments could possibly have. This ties directly into the class-system. There is none. No characters have any real classes anymore, but instead drew class-status from the ridiculous costumes. This was such a pointless and shocking departure from anything the player might have known up to that point that this alone made many fans recoil.
Gone were the days of free-roaming adventure with a real sense of exploration, since the gameplay, just like the story now became extremely linear and unique playthroughs were a thing of the past.
Series-cohesion:
Sadly Final Fantasy X-2 formed the press that every other Final Fantasy Game from that point would be minted on and with every pressing the flaws of the original would be worsened and a constant decline of quality was readily visible to anyone willing to see. Final Fantasy was from this point on only ever used as a Cashcow and the decline was steady and evident.
