Both in the film and in the gaming sector, there is often criticism that no risks are taken. There are many remakes, remasters and sequels. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, sees the blame not only with the companies, but also with the players.
Who is Hironobu Sakaguchi? Before Square merged with Enix, Sakaguchi played a key role in the creation of the Final Fantasy series. He worked on the series to a greater or lesser extent until part 12. In 2004, he founded his own studio, Mistwalker.
With Mistwalker, he developed titles such as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, which are less well-known but still very popular among genre fans. However, he has a problem with the current industry, because it doesn’t dare to try anything new. He doesn’t blame the companies for this, but rather the players.
Hironbu Sakaguchi is an avid gamer himself: Final Fantasy 14: The creator of Final Fantasy admits to having spent 80% of his time in the MMORPG
The main series has now reached part 16:
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Sakaguchi sees the problem with us
As Jeuxvideo reports, Skaguchi spoke about the subject in an interview with Yuji Horii on a Japanese radio show. He says that developers are often presented with a lot of expectations from players who don’t want anything changed. This forces studios to repeat what is known and has already worked.
In principle, he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing to please players’ nostalgia, but that means there are no resources for developing new IPs. Despite the alleged urge for the familiar, Sakaguchi believes that players will eventually get bored.
What does Sakaguchi say about criticism of his own games? In the interview, Sakaguchi also addresses the criticism that his games have too many cutscenes. He is annoyed by this and says that in order to play his games properly, you should experiment and explore everything.
Are there really too few new IPs? Of course, there are endless new ideas and brands in the indie sector. In the AAA sector, it’s a bit more difficult. New games like Immortals of Aveum flop hard, and if you look at the top 20 of 2023 from the USA, there isn’t a game on the list without a well-known brand in the background. (via Gamespot)
The blame can be placed on both sides. The big companies are afraid of a huge flop and marketing a new game to players is much more difficult than letting Spider-Man and the Harry Potter universe speak for themselves.
Things will look a little different in 2024, however. With games like Stellar Blade or Palworld, you can see that small studios have the power to make even unknown brands big. Of course, it must be said that these two games can almost market themselves through concept and design. At least Final Fantasy is always trying out new things in terms of gameplay. For MeinMMO author Cortyn, this worked really well with part 16: Final Fantasy 16 is the game that you should all buy a PlayStation for.