LogFAQs > #979886933

wackyteen posted...

It benefited, heavily, from being on the best selling consoles of the generation.

FF7 sold 'over 10 million' copies on a system that sold 100 million consoles. Which is impressive, not to downplay, but that isn't really 'system mover' per se. FFX, as a series, sold a little over 20 million copies between originals and remasters. Even if that was, say, 15 million for FFX1 on the PS2, that's still a 10% install base on the PS2.

The games, being larger thanks to CDs over cartridges and Sony making the console as accessible as possible for 3rd parties while Nintendo intentionally wanted the N64 to be difficult to program is what drove 3rd parties to Sony. FFVII was a breakout performance for the FF series that launched it to legendary status in the West. Basically I'm saying the 3rd parties demonstrating the immense graphical jump from the previous generation sold the PS1, not the other way around.

The PS2 carried that momentum of strong 3rd party support but what made the PS2 reach astronomical numbers, that other consoles haven't been able to match despite the industry being much bigger (though the Switch is on track to match it), is that the PS2 doubled as an affordable DVD player.

FF was very much a well respected and popular (and profitable) franchise, which is why Sony has such a strong relationship with Square to the point of owning shares in Square and why it was a massive story when Square announced FFXIII to be multiplatform.

You are right in that the 'flubs' have hampered fan interest, but you could also just chalk it up to the fact that the gaming market is way larger and things that were impressive and could sell copies back in the 90s and 00s, just aren't anymore. FF7's cutscenes were impressive for the time. the sheer size of the world and story was also impressive given the time. Same for FFX.

Off the top of my head, the Mario series broke records despite being platformers, the simplest entry level genre, Zelda's sales are an order of magnitude bigger than prior generations, Pokemon, an RPG, somehow continues to pump out comparable sales each generation despite not keeping up with the development standards. Grand Theft Auto commands the industry,

I bring these up to say to put into perspective of FF's faltering. You could say I'm agreeing with you but I would say there's no conflicts with our statements not that I'm agreeing with you. Square has had troubled development from XIII on. XIII was not a good game, it's a corridor simulator with an uninteresting story. It took 30 hours for the world to open up and then it goes right back to corridor simulator mode. It wasn't fun. People wanted to see a sprawling lived RPG world and Square was blindsided by the scope of difficulty in transitioning to HD development. They never recovered with respect to the FF franchise.