[QUOTE="H3LLRaiseR"][QUOTE="TriangleHard"][QUOTE="H3LLRaiseR"]I don't think you can have a better excuse. If Square doesn't want to make a sequel because they don't think they can do the series justice, then they shouldn't be trying to make one.
TriangleHard
Many Final Fantasy games don't have the same team and they still make the sequel. How do you justify that? Shouldn't they stop making Final Fantasy games too if their excuse is about having same team?
At least if they invest more on Chrono series, then we would have two franchise provided by the company and two franchise does have very different element to one and another. Chrono series even if it felt different from the first game, still had that Chrono element that really was refreshing after so many Final Fantasies.
It is just lame excuse from Square because they want to use their dominant and most well known franchise name because it is cheaper in terms of marketing, since the marketing is already done over many number of years. Chrono series are more of cult based. It doesn't have wide audience as Final Fantasy which is why it is being ignored, and sales wouldn't be as secure as Final Fantasy series. Also because Chrono series does have it's reputation of being great, high production value would be needed or the company would take a hit in their image, meaning large amount of money needs to be invested while the expectation of profit is much lower than Final Fantasy franchise, which is why they are avoiding Chrono series. That's the real reason.
You've justified it yourself. Square needs Final Fantasy, its the series that kept them from going bankrupt 20 years ago and thats still essentially true today. I honestly don't care what the reason is, if Square doesn't want to make it, I don't want them to. I'm a huge fan of Chrono Tigger, and I don't want to see the series dragged through the mud. If they force out a sequel, then it likely won't be worth playing anyway.
I just find it unfortunate that Square cannot handle 2 main franchise at once.
They had 2 potential huge franchise with Mana series and Chrono series. If Square was smart, they would've expanded that series into something big like how Blizzard did using Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. In the end Square proved that one venture was dangerous enough for their company (Spirits Within)
Using Final Fantasy name excessively is good financially in short term, but in the long term it is really bad move. Until recently, Final Fantasy was more than well respected franchise but ever since PS2 days people are talking about Square milking the franchise and they aren't wrong. They ARE milking the franchise and already the company and franchise image is starting to get tainted with huge number of side Final Fantasies and re-releases.
Square has more games than just Final Fantasies but they aren't utilizing it. They finally announced something else besides Final Fantasy with The Last Remnant, but that's one original title out of 10 Final Fantasies or so that's been announced.
To simply put, they are cheapening Final Fantasy franchise.
If they strongly pushed Chrono series and Mana series instead of trying to make quick dollars with low budget effort, they would've been able to keep things more fresh by rotating their franchise. At least Enix side of the company is trying to establish something else besides Dragon Quest by giving legitimate effort into Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean (although both are made by Tri-Ace)
I'm just really disappointed with Square. I thought they merged with Enix to be more aggressive, but they are making passive moves. If Square milks Final Fantasy franchise too much, before we know it, it will be like Sonic.
As fan of Chrono and as fan of the company for all the great work they have done, I hope they focus more this franchise. It will be slow process to make it into mainstream franchise, but the effort must be made. Square can't just rely on 10 year old marketing investment made by Sony to keep their company going.
I agree that Square does not have a very smart business model. Theres too much reliance on the Final Fantasy name, which has been bleeding in popularity for the last 5 years. A lot of those side games could easily have been new IPs. Likewise, I don't want them to cheapen the Chrono franchise. If they're going to make a Chrono game that doesn't have the "Chrono spirit", then I'd rather it be something else.
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