https://www.vg247.com/2019/02/19/final-fantasy-9-switch-xbox-bugs-bad-hd/
Just wanted to share this article because it puts into words my frustrations with Square-Enix and their consistent track record of re-releasing masterpieces from their golden era in buggy, inferior condition. Time and time again Square churns out mobile ports of their JRPG classics that are typically worse than their original forms by most measures (graphically inferior, new bugs introduced, etc.), and then they continue to base successive console re-releases off of this shoddy mobile codebase with zero effort put into fixing or improving them along the way. It's baffling and frustrating, and doubly so since they keep getting away with it. Sure, people on forums will complain and an occasional article like this one or the one Jason Schreier wrote for Kotaku bring more mainstream attention to the matter, but at the end of the day these shitty ports continue to sell like hotcakes regardless. Last I checked the Switch release of FF9 is the best-selling game on the US eShop!
That success is a testament to the quality of these old games, that people are still willing to fork over 20 fuggin' dollars for a quick and easy port of a mobile port that was plagued by issues (some minor, some significant) that have never and will never be addressed despite fan complaints.
And let's not forget what they did to FFVI when they finally deigned to give it an updated release. Gross.
Even if you can look past the flaws in these ports and can justify spending the $20, I'd think that anybody could admit that Square is getting away with doing the absolute bare minimum here. They should be giving these JRPG masterpieces the definitive edition releases that they deserve, but that just never pans out.
This is how Square-Enix makes me feel when I think about their shoddy FF ports.
VG24/7 said:We've seen this story before, of course, but with the Switch release of FF9 it feels particularly egregious. FF9 released on iOS in February 2016. It hit Steam the following April, then PS4 in September 2017. Each and every one of these versions of the game has suffered the same problems, and fans have been consistently vocal about them. We're now three years on from that mobile release and not only has Square Enix not seen fit to fix the problems on those platforms, it's actively releasing the same flawed version of the game on two new pieces of hardware.
Just wanted to share this article because it puts into words my frustrations with Square-Enix and their consistent track record of re-releasing masterpieces from their golden era in buggy, inferior condition. Time and time again Square churns out mobile ports of their JRPG classics that are typically worse than their original forms by most measures (graphically inferior, new bugs introduced, etc.), and then they continue to base successive console re-releases off of this shoddy mobile codebase with zero effort put into fixing or improving them along the way. It's baffling and frustrating, and doubly so since they keep getting away with it. Sure, people on forums will complain and an occasional article like this one or the one Jason Schreier wrote for Kotaku bring more mainstream attention to the matter, but at the end of the day these shitty ports continue to sell like hotcakes regardless. Last I checked the Switch release of FF9 is the best-selling game on the US eShop!
That success is a testament to the quality of these old games, that people are still willing to fork over 20 fuggin' dollars for a quick and easy port of a mobile port that was plagued by issues (some minor, some significant) that have never and will never be addressed despite fan complaints.
And let's not forget what they did to FFVI when they finally deigned to give it an updated release. Gross.
Even if you can look past the flaws in these ports and can justify spending the $20, I'd think that anybody could admit that Square is getting away with doing the absolute bare minimum here. They should be giving these JRPG masterpieces the definitive edition releases that they deserve, but that just never pans out.
This is how Square-Enix makes me feel when I think about their shoddy FF ports.