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My bf got FF13. I never even touched it. He played it for a few weeks then let someone borrow it and now we don't know who has it.
I remember a time when I would've fought him over who got to play first!
I don't know about Japanese games in general, but I feel the FF series started suffering when Square put it's sights on film. The fiasco of The Spirits Within didn't make me stop playing, but it was such utter shite (aside from the amazing CGI...gotta bow down to that) that I kinda wish i forgot I ever saw it. It wasn't until Advent Children that Square finally made a FF movie it's fans could actually enjoy, but instead of it being something new they went with the tried and true FF7 world to hook in past customers.
The moment I tried Fallout 3 I fell in love. Honestly I'd never heard of Bethesda or any of the Elder Scrolls until after that night that my baby let me play Fallout. I was hooked instantly.
What was it that it had that FF12 (which I never got around to finishing, and don't get me started on 11. I don't do MMOs well) didn't?
It's really simple: open world.
The open world option, being able to literally tailor the game to my specific interests...THAT was, and still is, fantastic.
In past rpgs most of them just had a linear story with a linear map that maybe you finally got to explore later on once you were ready to fight the big final boss at the end...
In Fallout 3 there was NO BOSS. It was a series of choices that decreed the end of the game, and I could play for however long -I- chose before I ended it.
I -still- haven't beaten Oblivion. I only beat Fallout cause I wanted to see the end. Technically I'm still playing. I wanna see how the game reacts to a character that started out extremely evil and then went extremely good. lol I nuked a town and then saved some kids from super mutants.
You just don't get that kind of choice with classic rpgs, even though the whole point in an rpg is an immersible world. Well, how more immersed can you get than a complete open world where you truly are the boss of how the game plays?
If we ever get that copy of FF13 back I'll play it. I may even break out the ps2 and finish FF12 if I get bored enough. But until Square learns from it's competitors and makes an open world FF I just don't see the series going from past glory to current.
Besides, I think an open world FF game would be amazing.