The Final Fantasy franchise has seen long running success, to the point where the name is essentially synonymous with epic RPGs, and Square Enix has essentially confirmed that FFXIII is no different with regards to sales.
Final Fantasy XIII has been generating much debate since its release, with many fans of the franchise split over how they feel about the title. While many profess that it is indeed a good game with several merits, a large majority of the outspoken crowd is on the completely opposite side of the spectrum. Even here at PlayStation LifeStyle, some of the staff liked the game, but we voted it as last year’s biggest disappointment, which also led to much controversy. It’s even brought us to wonder, why would they ever make a sequel?
Well, we have our answer: sales. Numbers talk, and Final Fantasy Producer Yoshinori Kitase has announced that they’ve reached their goal of selling 6 million units. He goes on to explain why this results in a direct sequel to FFXII, rather than an entirely new plot and universe:
If we were going to make a numbered title, obviously we’d have to make it from scratch, and that takes a really long time. Final Fantasy XIII only came out in March of last year, so literally only over a year, so it’s quite a short turnaround. Because Final Fantasy XIII has been so popular, we’ve also enjoyed commercial success – shifting over 6 million copies – so instead of taking a long time to make a new Final Fantasy title, we wanted to make a direct sequel.
So it seems that love it or hate it, FFXIII has indeed been successful enough to make a profit and warrant more adventuring with Lightning and Serah. Expect more of the same too, with the monotonous paradigm system making a return, but with a supposedly slightly more open world to explore. Personally, I’ll be avoiding this like the plague, but I’m clearly only one side of the coin. Will you continue to support the Final Fantasy franchise when FFXIII-2 releases next year, or move on to other, possibly greener pastures?
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