Hironobu Sakaguchi and Square

Undoubtedly the Father of Final Fantasy, the saviour of Square, and an inspiration to me for years, What happened???

MISTWALKER?? I guess my question is, Why would he leave Square-Enix? Sure Lost Odeysey looks pretty good, But I'm nost sure Final Fantasy would be the same without Sakaguchi-san at the helm, or at least producing. Although I loved XII, the story was crap...Again because Hironobu wasn't there. And now you have XIII on the horizon (which looks cool and sounds to have a decent story, mainly because of Tetsuya Nomura) But it looks like a shootem up/ action RPG, and that's just wrong. XII was OK with it's battle system, But I felt more like I was playing Vagrant Story 2 more than a FF.

So my last question. IF Sakaguchi-San had to answer this, what would he say, The question is, If he were still with Square, and he started making Lost Oddeysey, Would it actually be a Final Fantasy? Because My only problem with Lost Oddeysey is the fact that is doesn't sound like Uematsu's greatest musical score. Call me Traditional I guess....

Please discuss. I love FF and it sucks to know Sakaguchi isn't with them anymore, but is that a good thing?

(PS: For all you FF die-hards that check this thread, Go over to GameTrailers.com and check out their series on FF. It'll give you the best feeling of Nastalgia!!)

As the above poster just said, He created one of the worst flops in history.

At the same time...It could just be Squeenix is on a downhill. About all they are doing now is milking FF. Something like 30 something games just release, pending, or planned. He hasn't been the only one to leave, more have.

Sakaguchi-san was regulated to a figurehead status after the enormous flop that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. They weren't going to fire him, but he couldn't really do much with any project after that-- even in Final Fantasy X he was simply "Executive Producer." He left so he could take a more active role in game development by starting his own company... one that outsources development to teams like Artoon. :?MAILER_DAEMON

Did you guys like Spirits Within? I thought it was decent, maybe not worthy of the FF name, but still good. But Yeah, Artoon..... Not sure I liked Blue Dragon. I'm getting tired of all these Kiddy RPG's like that one that just came out this week, (the name escapes me).

@ Shinoto

I agree. They can milk it all they want, as long as the series keeps it's integrity. There are 21 BOND films out there, and only 3 have tickled my fancy, it's a shame really. You mentioned that more people have left. Now if we can just get Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura to jump on the band wagon and re-join Sakaguchi-san, That would be a killer team, along with the battle programmers and such from the days of old.

Im glad Saka left SE to make his own company which is doing pretty well atm.I have to say Im very disappointed in SE whom I loved since the Snes days but the last 3 years have been god awful except FF12 and DQ8,but it seems all they care about is hyping up hand held games and the ever so FF-X2 wanna be FF13.Ballroompirate

How exactly is FF13 a game we know so little about a FFX2 game wannabe? Just because it has a female protagonist it doesn't mean it's going to be FFX2.

Back on topic personally im glad he's gone after playing FFX which imo had the worst gameplay out of all the main FF games, it seems SE is now willing to take more risk with their series which is nice, anyway most the best people from from FF6 days are still working at SE and are actively working on FF13 games.

in my opinion, sometimes change is good. he can move on to try new things, and square can try to get out of this rut they are in. sometimes you do great work, but its hard to move on from that, and in video games this can mean things get stale.

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"]Sakaguchi-san was regulated to a figurehead status after the enormous flop that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. They weren't going to fire him, but he couldn't really do much with any project after that-- even in Final Fantasy X he was simply "Executive Producer." He left so he could take a more active role in game development by starting his own company... one that outsources development to teams like Artoon. :?legacyzero

Did you guys like Spirits Within? I thought it was decent, maybe not worthy of the FF name, but still good. But Yeah, Artoon..... Not sure I liked Blue Dragon. I'm getting tired of all these Kiddy RPG's like that one that just came out this week, (the name escapes me).

@ Shinoto

I agree. They can milk it all they want, as long as the series keeps it's integrity. There are 21 BOND films out there, and only 3 have tickled my fancy, it's a shame really. You mentioned that more people have left. Now if we can just get Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura to jump on the band wagon and re-join Sakaguchi-san, That would be a killer team, along with the battle programmers and such from the days of old.

Eternal Sonata is really much more than a "kiddy" rpg, and to be honest that term really irritates me. People that simply write off games as kiddy because of a game's animation, or because the main characters appear to be in their teens or pre-teens really do miss out on alot of great games...Viva Pinata and Beyond Good & Evil instantly come to mind, anyway if you read about ET's plot it really is much more mature than the animation may lead on, the game deals with really mature questions of death, the afterlife, morality, and the metaphysical in general...It is a game with a plot much deeper than the surface, much like Beyond Good & Evil...But hey whatever, maybe you should stick to your precious FF.

[QUOTE="legacyzero"]

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"]Sakaguchi-san was regulated to a figurehead status after the enormous flop that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. They weren't going to fire him, but he couldn't really do much with any project after that-- even in Final Fantasy X he was simply "Executive Producer." He left so he could take a more active role in game development by starting his own company... one that outsources development to teams like Artoon. :?HiResDes

Did you guys like Spirits Within? I thought it was decent, maybe not worthy of the FF name, but still good. But Yeah, Artoon..... Not sure I liked Blue Dragon. I'm getting tired of all these Kiddy RPG's like that one that just came out this week, (the name escapes me).

@ Shinoto

I agree. They can milk it all they want, as long as the series keeps it's integrity. There are 21 BOND films out there, and only 3 have tickled my fancy, it's a shame really. You mentioned that more people have left. Now if we can just get Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura to jump on the band wagon and re-join Sakaguchi-san, That would be a killer team, along with the battle programmers and such from the days of old.

Eternal Sonata is really much more than a "kiddy" rpg, and to be honest that term really irritates me. People that simply write off games as kiddy because of a game's animation, or because the main characters appear to be in their teens or pre-teens really do miss out on alot of great games...Viva Pinata and Beyond Good & Evil instantly come to mind, anyway if you read about ET's plot it really is much more mature than the animation may lead on, the game deals with really mature questions of death, the afterlife, morality, and the metaphysical in general...It is a game with a plot much deeper than the surface, much like Beyond Good & Evil...But hey whatever, maybe you should stick to your precious FF.

way WAY ahead of you

[QUOTE="MAILER_DAEMON"]Sakaguchi-san was regulated to a figurehead status after the enormous flop that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. They weren't going to fire him, but he couldn't really do much with any project after that-- even in Final Fantasy X he was simply "Executive Producer." He left so he could take a more active role in game development by starting his own company... one that outsources development to teams like Artoon. :?legacyzero

Did you guys like Spirits Within? I thought it was decent, maybe not worthy of the FF name, but still good. But Yeah, Artoon..... Not sure I liked Blue Dragon. I'm getting tired of all these Kiddy RPG's like that one that just came out this week, (the name escapes me).

@ Shinoto

I agree. They can milk it all they want, as long as the series keeps it's integrity. There are 21 BOND films out there, and only 3 have tickled my fancy, it's a shame really. You mentioned that more people have left. Now if we can just get Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura to jump on the band wagon and re-join Sakaguchi-san, That would be a killer team, along with the battle programmers and such from the days of old.

Nobody really said FF Spirits Within was a bad movie, it just tanked so bad at the box-office.