A look back at Final Fantasy

Now I'm not going to say too much in the way of review of these games.  Other people have already done that.  What I am going to discuss is the changes that have occured over the years to this and other properties. 

It seems that nowadays game companies use shiny new graphics and pre rendered sequences to excuse the lack of actual game play.  Not saying that its bad to use modern graphics of cutscenes.  Its just that it seems that software companies put too much emphasis on these aspects of games and not on the fact that they are games.

I've played through the three final fantasies in the above pictures.  And I do admit that I am yet to finish the latest installment: Final Fantasy 13, but I have made it most of the way through it.

There's a bit in final fantasy 13 where the characters fly away from a ship at the end of chapter 9.  I don't see much reason why this wasn't a playable sequence.  Instead they made the whole thing a cut scene.  That made me think of the event in final fantasy 7 where you are exiting the Shinra Building.  There was a short cut scene where everyone got into a truck and Cloud hopped on a bike.  After that there was a playable section where you controlled cloud on the bike while you defended the truck.  Later when you opened up the Golden Saucer you could replay the bike segment at the mini game hub.  Which brings me to my next point.

For a series that had installments with lots of extra things to do there just isn't that much in the most recent installment. The extra things in final fantasy 13 seem to take place after you finish the main story and they include more fighting for the most part.  Which isn't bad the fighting system for final fantasy 13 is rather good.  What I miss is things like chocobo breeding from final fantasy 7.  Meaning things related to the world or concept of the game but directly related to the main story or gaming experience.

The other thing I would like to mention is the feeling of bigness.  Final fantasy 13: although beautifully rendered.  Just doesn't seem like its world is that big.  Even though its story takes place on 2 separate worlds.  You spend most of your time moving your characters around corridors with 3d effect wallpaper.  I got the distinct feeling like I'm running on a treadmill in front of one of those giant rolling screens with landscapes on it.  The worlds of the original final fantasy and final fantasy 7 have a good feeling of scope and bigness.  Despite the fact that when moving around the world map your just moving a miniature version of one of the characters.  It gave you a sense of distance between locations.  In final fantasy 13 you could be just in connecting corridors in the same building.

In closing I'd like to mention that I don't hate Final Fantasy 13.  Its just that I feel a little let down by it.  Older installments still seem like better games to me.  And I keep getting the feeling that game companies are using modern graphics and cut scenes as an excuse for having less game play dynamics.  Would like to see both in games but if one must be cut down I would rather have it be the pre-rendered cut scenes rather then actual game play.  If I want to see cinematic scenes I'll just go and see a movie. I buy games for an opportunity to play.