#5 I kinda feel like this is selling so much short in so many different areas. In the first place, not all spin-offs are created equal. There's a world of difference between a spin-off like Crisis Core and a spin off like All The Bravest. One is a spin-off from a specific game (FFVII) and one is a spin-off of the franchise's meta. One's also meant for a platform designed specifically for gaming, and the other is meant for a platform that's designed for many things other then gaming. So there's that.
Another problem is that the gaming community is in a huge transitional period. Back when console gaming was really all there was for AAA titles (FF1-9 at least), there wasn't a huge need to experiment with what platforms were going to do well and what type of games worked on what platforms. Game devs knew what those were. Now though, we've got the console games and what they're good at, we've got the handheld games and what they're good at, we've got the cells phone games and what they're good at. And there's no good reason for companies to sink in a lot of money into an AAA title to try to figure out what type of game works on what system. Especially when they can make enough money experimenting with smaller spin-off games that they don't have to spend as much time on.
Of course, they have to balance all that with what the fans think of them and when there's no new content coming forth, that can get very annoying, very quickly.
#4 I felt like they were grasping at straws for this one. FFXIII's plot can be summed up with "God-like beings decide to give a group of people the task of bringing about the apocalypse. The group says "screw that" and decide to kill all the gods off". It's about as coherent in it's overall theme as all the other FFs are.
Of course, you can also describe the plot of all the other games with as complex terminology as they described FFXIII's plot. Here's what the first chapter of FFVII's plot could also be described as... "This terrorist organization decides to blow up a mako reactor so that it won't suck out mako because that's destroying the planet, which is technically alive. Oh, and crazy stuff happens like meeting an Ancient and going out in drag. The second time the terrorist organization does this, they're captured by the organization that owns the reactor only to get booted out by... a super-soldier that kills off a bunch of people in the organization and who's trying to destroy the world. So they chase after him."
I mean really, what game doesn't make up it's own terminology for specific elements of it's setting? Especially ones that don't exist in any other setting? Espers, mako, cauctars, chocobos, mist, moogles, eidolons, Cetra, crystals, etc. What's a few more from FFXIII? We've been collecting new terms from nearly every single game.
#3 This is definetly true for FFXIII. It started with a massive plot-hole (why did Fang and Vanille wake up from crystal stasis) and it kinda just snowballed from there. The ending was a massive plot-hole as well (who woke everyone but Fang and Vanille up form crystal stasis) so the story didn't feel properly begun or concluded. Making more sequels to give the story a more developed background makes sense for a lot of reasons.
I would hesitate to apply the same standard for any of the older games that didn't have a equal planned immediately after the first game (FF1-9 basically). I really hope this doesn't become a trend though.
#2 I'd be more bothered with this if this was only a SE thing and not a trend that most Japanese media follows. That said, Cracked should really have looked at some of the enemy designs on the non-exported versions of the earlier FFs as some of the more risque ones were changed for the NA/Euro releases...
#1 This is flat out wrong. Anyone who has seen the FFVII:R trailer can tell you that. It's ridiculously obvious that someone over in SE cares about how Midgar and James and Jessie and Biggs looked, felt and impressed the player all the way back in 1997. Heck, take a look at our FFXV thread; even if it's taken SE 10 years to care, it's obvious they're at least trying to care now even if they weren't then. And guess what? This is all new content. They're not ports. FFVII:R is going to have a whole new battle system. It'll be interesting to see where SE goes after these games get released.
TBH, I kinda feel like this list could apply to any number of video game companies, not just SE...
