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It nearly took a year but I've finally completed it. Not quite a year, still several months off but close enough and it did get me to thinking. About Final Fantasy and to a lesser extent, the whole of the video game industry. I've been a gamer since I can remember. Back before the Playstation, even further back before the Genesis and Sega Master System. I've been playing games when Game & Watch were still being sold. Outside of an antique, pawn shop, conventions or wherever else they may sell these things now. I'm not that old but I've been playing games since I was fairly young. Needless to say, I've been a fan for a long time.

And of the Final Fantasy series? I've been a fan since, maybe, a month to a year after I first got into RPGs which was when I first played Phantasy Star IV...probably around Grade 7. First got into the series after playing VI then V, IV, VII and progressively so on. Some I've liked more than the others but none that I absolutely abhorred...'til I played II xp But anyway, I felt the series was going great up until X-2 was announced. A direct sequel within the series? Preposterous! I thought. And, after playing X-2, my feelings for it were not wrong. I just couldn't get into it. As much as I wanted to since I loved X so much. I just couldn't. Then XI was announced to be an MMO? I was just wondering what the ******** Square-Enix was doing/thinking. The decision could've been made before their merger but whatever, doesn't really matter, they went through with it anyway. I love MMOs, don't get me wrong, but to have a Final Fantasy one, I always just kept telling myself to just keep the series to the single-player game and consoles. This put a halt to my fanaticism of the series and the company almost immediately. And while they're all working on FFXII they come out with Advent Children, Dirge of the Cerberus, Kingdom Hearts, etc. just to keep milking the name of Final Fantasy. Eventually XII comes out and as it turns out by then, all my motivation and eagerness to be enthralled by the world that these guys never failed to make in the past (for me) just...dwindled away. By the time I had that disc spinning in my system and the controller in my hand, mere hours of just starting the game, I really had no desire to continue with it other than that I wanted to see it through. The game wasn't disappointing just that, to me, it was 5 years too late. All that steam the company and the franchise had behind it just went behind the machine they used to milk the name. Direct sequels, MMOs, movies. All great ideas but to me each FF had always been solid standalone stories that I could always enjoy as the series went on and now, it's just another stale franchise. Think EA's sports series or The Sims. And after seeing FFXIII, it doesn't seem to be veering from it's current direction.

Unfortunately, what got me to thinking even further is that...is this just Final Fantasy to me or all video games? Looking at all the games available to us now and it's hard not to notice that it's predominantly FPS, MMOs and JRPGs. Sadly, many of them don't differentiate from one another. Look at the 360 and PS3, Halo 3, The Darkness, Bio Shock, Call of Duty 4, Resistance: Fall of Man, Shadowrun, Killzone 2. Look at the MMOs, Everquest 2, Lineage 3, WoW, LotRO, Age of Conan. Look at JRPGs, Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon, FF, Lost Odyssey. There's just nothing to really be excited about anymore. It could just be in my changing taste in games or that I may just be growing out of them now but I can't help but feel that each company just wants to make their version of the same game nowadays. There's no ambition to make their game epic in terms of story, design or just gameplay elements people just haven't been able to experience before. And while there are games that I will continue to follow just 'cuz I've been following it for so long and I trust that I can always enjoy it, namely the Smackdown and GTA series, I'm putting a lot of stock into Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed to help revive the industry. Sadly, those are only two titles...

What's also sad is that I used to finish games days, if not under 24 hours, after starting them. XII took me almost 9 months, off and on, all due to disinterest xd