Square Enix is Playing a Very Dangerous Game With Final Fantasy XV

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final fantasy xvFinal Fantasy XV is FINALLY here! Huray!! A while back, I did a blog post where I expressed skepticism about Final Fantasy XV’s prospects. In terms of reviews of the game, I was pretty much correct. Here are the scores (out of 100) of every Final Fantasy game since FFV on SNES:

game-scores-no-formatting

FFXV is one of the worst ever.

I’ve been very, very curious to understand why so many people are buying such an average game (at least by Final Fantasy standards).

I was talking to one of my coworkers the other day about this and he made a very good point- Destiny is another great example of a game that was very anticipated but the original incarnation of the game (it has since been updated and improved  lot) was so-so– not nearly on par with the hype. But tons of people bought it anyways, because there was a huge unmet demand in the market for a first-person shooter MMO quasi-RPG.

Which brings me to Final Fantasy XV. My life is pretty nuts these days so I have to be really selective with what games I decide to play. I play the Uncharted 4’s of the world (one of the best games I have ever played, ever, by the way  :-). So why waste my time on one of the worst Final Fantasy’s ever? Well it’s because I hadn’t played a new Final Fantasy game since 2009. And so despite the reviews, I bought the game and am playing it now (it’s ok; lame plot and the gameplay is hard to understand but the sidequests are fun). So much like Destiny, it seems like the market (myself included) was craving a new (non-MMORPG/non-sequel) Final Fantasy, regardless what that game looked like and bought it. (literally and figuratively  🙂

So why is this all so dangerous for Square Enix? A while back I did a blog post about the NBA Live vs. 2K rivalry about how serial complacency opens the door for a rival to take over. Let’s come back to the average scores of the Final Fantasy games, now with conditional formatting applied to the scores:

Final Fantasy video game scores

Almost all of the worst games in the series have come out after 2006. Scores above 80% vs. the entire video game universe is still very good but compared to Final Fantasy in 2006 and before that, it is very weak. As a result, there are a few conclusions we can draw here:

  • On its current path, expect Final Fantasy XVI to be an average seller at best. (think of all those jaded NBA Live players that went to 2K). In fact, if Final Fantasy XVI is like XV, I (the most die-hard of fans) might not even buy it.
  • The JRPG market is ripe for the taking. With the right game and marketing push, I really feel like Capcom, Namco Bandai or Sony (or maybe even a newcomer!) could step in and overtake Square Enix as the JRPG king.

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