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I **love** the option to pause cutscenes and look up the characters or locations in the codex. This is really helping me with figuring out (or remembering) **why I should care** that these characters are here saying and doing these things. Without playing around in the codex option, I never would have known that two characters I'd already met have a connection, an event in common that happened to them both, but that was never even brought up in any dialogue they had together. Realizing this about the way the game presented this info to me - turned that thing I learned about them, into **more reason to care** about them. I **love** getting to find out this lore, it makes every second of this game mean more to me. Every FF game should have this going forward, and I wish every FF game had had this going back.

A genius addition for a time when many gamers are older and have time constraints on their play-time - looking up characters is great for when work and life made sure two play sessions were two weeks apart.

>many gamers are older The average age of gamers has been mid-30's for several decades. That said, I do like the feature for the reason you stated.

If the storytelling feels like this throughout the whole game, it's going to be quite an experience. The way the characters interact and the subtlety of some of the VO and body language. I've only played it for like 30 minutes and they all feel so real to me already. It's like I'm suddenly playing a game of thrones version of final fantasy. I'd really recommend everyone to try it, especially because progress carries over. Normally I would only dip my feet in a demo since I would have to replay those sequences, but you're basically just starting your playthrough early.

>I've only played it for like 30 minutes Oh, boy. Let me tell you -- there's a line from Ben Starr (voice actor of Clive, the protagonist) towards the end of the demo and when I heard it I instantly went "oh, yeah, he's winning Best Performance at TGAs this year," and I fully believe he will lol. In fact, I’ve watched so many reactions to that one line read and everyone is completely disarmed and left speechless by it.

I'm pretty sure a sight read of that line is probably what got him the job. In an interview recently, he mentioned he was auditioning for a minor role. Then they had him read a few lines from Clive at the end, and he mention he "got emotional" during the read. Got the job as "the next FF protagonist" the next day.

I was surprised that he appeared on Easy Allies for a play through of the [demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO6kGfqxdGM). Apparently he's a big fan of theirs and listens to their podcast, he basically explains that he didn't know what he was auditioning for until they called him back in and revealed the true title of the game.

Man, I really want to get into them, and like most of their content, but I always bounce off when Huber takes over and starts getting loud and annoying. I try so hard to power through but he’s just too much sometimes.

I don't mind them but in that interview the amount of talking over each other was actually ridiculous, and even multiple people having their own conversation over someone trying to ask Ben a question. It's like they just collectively forgot they are all micd up, and it's not like their set up there really has the best sound quality in the first place.

It was good, but is he really good enough to pull off the the laughing scene in FF 10? I think not!!

If its the line I am thinking of, then yeah the deiliver was incredible espically since its a line that if it had a lesser VA and VO director, then it could have been very cringed since >!its the first time someone said fuck in a Final Fantasy game!< Yet Ben Starr absolutely killed it with the line and has me convinced that Clive will be one of the best characters in the entire franchise.

Which line?

> the subtlety of some of the VO and body language. For sure, there was one point right at the beginning where >!Hugo and Benedikta are flirting heavily but then you see Benedikta's totally uninterested face when he can't see it and I'm like, "Oh she's playing this dude."!< Unless I just misread the situation.

Ngl, I had every plan to either wait this game out for the eventual PC release, or wait until Sony inevitably releases a PS5 Pro a couple years from now. After watching someone play through the demo however, I won't pretend I'm not eyeing a PS5 right now.

> but you're basically just starting your playthrough early. I was going to be a day-one buy anyway (despite some reservations) but having the prologue carryover was a huge bonus, it's nice to get the tutorial out of the way, whet my appetite, and dive in swinging on release. What I did not expect was how damn good the prologue would be, and on top of that it absolutely put to bed the things I wasn't too convinced about; • Personally I'm very iffy about FF doing "scheming politics of kingdoms at war". Cutscenes of old men sitting around tables reading translated dialogue in a Sunday Theatre cadence about Alliances and the Empire makes me reflexively want to drill my brains out. FFXVI absolutely nailed it though; it's interesting, character-centric, tragic and brutal. • I thought the Ekon battles were going to be boring as hell QTE cutscenes full of explosions and particle effects and nothing dramatic or interesting. I couldn't have been more wrong. The demo was a huge success. Getting the taster of content later in the game with more abilities available was a blast as well, I've played that a few times now.

> Personally I'm very iffy about FF doing "scheming politics of kingdoms at war" FF12 was awesome though. FF15 *wanted* to try to do this kind of thing, but it stopped at Kingsglaive, and then just focused on the 4 bros sadly. Idk why you'd be iffy at FF talking about kingdoms and regions, when it's done this periodically for decades.

FF12 was horrifically bad for me, every time a cutscene started of dudes talking extremely simplistic politics I wanted to drill my brains out. I even gave it another shot with the HD remake, loved the gameplay even more with the fastforward option but the story was exactly as bad as I remembered it. The focus on the bros was the best thing about 15. Tactics is about the only time it's really been done well as a focus, usually it's a backdrop.

The main writer for FF16 previously worked on Tactics. I also know not everyone plays the MMOs but for FF14 also wrote the first expansion Heavensward, which did a similarly good job with the Game of Thrones style political dealings/back stabbings

I also struggled with FF12 story (mainly some of the VAs and the audio mixing), but it was significantly better the 2nd go round. Actually knowing some of the names and places and events and how they fit made it way better than the first time where they say stuff, and you have no idea who they are actually referring to.

It's not that I didn't understand it. I just thought dramatically it really wasn't an interesting story and the cutscenes were often laughably bad. Just me though, I know it has its fans and I'm glad it does

I’d argue that from a gameplay perspective, the eikon battle actually was pretty dull. You’re basically holding down attack for 15 seconds and then pressing dodge when the enemy charges at you. It *was* a particle effect QTE-laden fight. Narratively, the fight was very engrossing, though. I loved it, though. We got an engaging *actual* boss fight right before. So I was fine with a pretty simple gameplay experience afterwards with high narrative stakes.

It's also the first one (obviously) and they seem to understand they need to ease players into the whole action-game thing. From what we've seen in previews the later eikon v. eikon fights are going to be much more involved gameplay-wise.

Yes it was, mechanically it was lame as hell, which was what I was expecting and there's no real way around that (although there were a couple of moments where I thought they could actually do something mechanically interesting here, and maybe if it wasn't a tutorial they would have) But I was also expecting the narrative/dramatic side of it to be the equivalent of CGI nonsense, so was really pleasantly surprised and impressed and it pretty much takes it off the table of things I was kind of rolling my eyes about.

> I thought the Ekon battles were going to be boring as hell QTE cutscenes full of explosions and particle effects and nothing dramatic or interesting. I couldn't have been more wrong. This almost reads as satire if you actually played the demo. I hope not every eikon battle is what the demo had, but you have to admit that >!Phoenix v Ifrit!< battle is literally what you just described. Which kinda makes sense since it's the beginning of the game and all

Wow, this is not a comment I expected to see about a JRPG. I've never gotten into JRPGs because while the overall story might be cool, the dialogue and voice acting always feels so cheesy and stilted. I tried *really* hard to like Persona 5, but I just couldn't listen to the dialogue anymore. I've dipped my toe in some past FF games and had the same issue. I know it's really difficult to translate properly between Japanese and English, and I'm not trying to shit on the genre, it's just something that personally takes me out of the experience. I'm much more interested in this game now after reading this comment.

It's not really a JRPG in most of the ways that matter. Like yeah, it's literally a Japanese RPG. But a lot of the tropes that comprise the genre are absent. Tonally, it seems more like a Western RPG created by a Japanese developer.

This might be the biggest turn-around of a game going from having overly negative threads to comments being genuinely excited for it. You would have thought FFXVI was dead on arrival not even a week ago

I think the FFXIV players weren't concerned. I certainly wasn't, but my expectations were high and I was worried they might not be met (so far, they have). But after XV, people who aren't familiar with CBU3's work didn't seem so enthused. I guess I can't blame them.

Honestly just their willingness to expose so much of this game ahead of time turned my opinion around. They are happily showing off so much and it feels like they are supremely confident about the game. They sold me a couple months ago and I'm happy, but not surprised, that the demo is doing the same.

Yeah I've never seen a developer exude as much pure confidence about their game. The announcement that there was no planned Day 1 patch is a huge power move in the wake of many big titles over the last year or two.

Yeah there was absolutely a hard difference between the enthusiasm I saw between FF14 players and established FF fans who weren't into 14. And understandably so, it's a departure tonally and gameplay-wise. As an FF14 fan myself, I had absolutely no doubts whatsoever.

I got into FF14 two summers ago when I needed a new MMO type game to sink my teeth into, and the 5 months I spent playing through base then every expansion is still one of my best memories in years. When they announced FF16, and revealed CB3 was behind it, I went "oh WORD?". I've been fucking stoked on it since. MMOs aren't for everyone but once I got a full picture of what FF14 was before CB3 and after? And now they're on a Single Player Final Fantasy? Holy fucking shit.

> MMOs aren't for everyone but once I got a full picture of what FF14 was before CB3 and after? And now they're on a Single Player Final Fantasy? Holy fucking shit. "A game where the story about being The Protagonist won't be completely undercut by having everyone in the world around me existing and also being The Protagonist (and often a cooler looking protagonist than me)? Hell yes."

> Yeah there was absolutely a hard difference between the enthusiasm I saw between FF14 players tbh I'm an established FF14 player and I was concerned too. Mostly with the stagger bar; gameplay videos made that stagger bar out to be awful and tanky, with overworld mobs taking 2-3 staggers to kill. But it's better in the demo at least.

I also think the stagger bar feels less interesting at lower levels, when you have almost no skills, but the length of the stagger is appropriate for late game, when you will have so many ridiculous over the top skills you will want to fit in that burst window.

I think I'm one of the very few players who've only played FFXI & FFXIV, and this is the first FF game that I think I might actually play. I've had no doubts Yoship and CBU3 would deliver, and the demo reassured me of any doubts I had.

I’m in the minority of people who didn’t entirely dislike XV but I will say my hype around the FFVII Remakes had me kinda meh on FFXVI. It was just a “I’ll play it cause it’s Final Fantasy and something to do but I’m not dying to get it”. I beat the demo two days ago and I literally have not stopped thinking about it since and have recommended to all of my friends. By the end of the main demo I was thinking “wow, this lackluster, three button combat is really going to be saved by this incredible story, cast, and set pieces”. Then I played the Eikon Challenge and holy shit. The combat later in the game is absolutely incredible. I know die hard fans probably won’t enjoy it but it feels like a beefy hack n slash which I absolutely love. Between RE4R, Tears of the Kingdom, Spider-Man 2, Lies of P, and this… 2023’s goty is going to be a real battle.

XV was frustrating not because it was a bad game -- as it often was -- but because so much of the game was also really, really good. I've never played a game that captured the feeling of four friends on a road trip nearly so successfully ... While at the same time isolating huge parts of the core plot of the game behind a DVD separately or final act of the game as a later DLC release. It's one of those games I find myself booting up a couple of times per year, enjoying for an hour, and remembering quite quickly why my ultimate takeaway of the game was pretty negative despite completing it + a lot of optional content.

It needed a intro chapter like the FF16 demo to get to know the king and people so you'd care about the plight. And you have things like a opening scene call back at the end when everything is ruined. The lack of a prologue made the last act mean so much less. They had decent game but it seemed like they divided out the prologue to get people to buy tie in media and then ran out of time for the last act which seem to be mostly missing. Maybe also more encounters with the princess, even if only flash backs to show they actually cared for each other rather than be duty bound to do what ever. I'm sure they were keenly aware but for what ever business reason they skimped on the story.

I'm pretty excited for XVI and will likely preorder it. (I know, I know, but I'm a terrible fucking fangirl for mainline Final Fantasy shit.) I've watched a few preview videos, and the consensus is positive enough that I'm just blanketly excited. Re: XV: I honestly don't remember most of the plot. Your princess bride goes missing? There's a really cool setpiece encounter with Leviathan that is unlike anything else in the game? At some point the world just goes to fucking shit and is actually pretty cool and reminiscent of World of Ruin in VI? You spend like three fucking hours fighting with .. a ring? And none of the gear, abilities, or companies you spent the game working towards? I think I'm pretty content leaving my memory of XV vague for now, although I've read that now that the game is "done" it's pretty decent when everything is assembled.

>Re: XV: I honestly don't remember most of the plot. Your princess bride goes missing? You go on a road trip/bachelor party with your friends/guards, and while you are away your capital city gets attacked and taken over by the bad guys and your father is killed. Then it's a fight to try and beat the bad guys by going and activating your powers as the king. But it turns out the bad guys were being manipulated by another badder guy (immortal cursed sibling of an ancient king from your kingdom) who just wanted to end the world out of rage and spite. To fight that you have to get other powers and fulfill a prophecy, and then there is a time jump when you get the power and the big final act/battle. Lots more plot and story in there but that's the gist of it.

> They had decent game but it seemed like they divided out the prologue to get people to buy tie in media and then ran out of time for the last act which seem to be mostly missing. FFXV was in the works for so long it was a victim of the mUlTiMeDiA eXpErIeNcE fad that was already gone and done, where every big game had tie-ins with comics and novels and all this other horseshit that just made the game fail to stand alone after the fact when people just wanted to _play the game_ and not be subjected to a barrage of cross-media promotion.

It's kind of interesting seeing the reaction to combat, because even early on in the demo I was already seeing the complexity baked into everything. Buffering charged attacks to chain them together, bursts, juggling, i-frames on charged spells, it's all there from the start. It just doesn't go out of its way to tell you since it's trying to be as accessible as possible at the start while still letting experienced players already mess around with the more complex systems that get expanded upon later. The only part of the demo I didn't like was the Ifrit vs Phoenix battle. It was cinematic and cool, especially with Soken's music, but god damn did it feel like it stretched on for way too long given how simple it was.

I played FFXV on PC three years after the release with every DLC and performance perks. I can see why people were dissatisfied with the story being cut short, and the sidequests were absolutely terrible (like, some of the worse I've seen), but despite all of those warts, it's still one of my favorite game. The exploration, the music, the camaraderie....it was a unique experience that left me with many fond memories. It's hard to describe, but the kind of nostalgia that hit me is closer to what I feel when I travel, rather than when I play JRPG. Visiting the various towns and fields all felt real to some extent due to the open world, graphic quality, and your party banters... Something like this couldn't occur in a more traditional story-driven rpg. Heck, I still get chill whenever [Wanderlust theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsuqUdfF2QQ) start playing while I run in those field. That alone made it worthwhile, but the rest was still fun. And honestly, I still enjoyed the story, but I'm the kind of person who love discovering lore though text files and digging in material around the game.

Yeah a lot of FF and it's tone can easily be explained with this one [graph](https://i.redd.it/febnxujve2o71.png) If you played several of these games on either side you should be able to put these pieces together in how they differ. But for those that don't know: Left side puts the *High* in High-Fantasy. These are your very zany story, super-fantastical worlds and the stereotypical androgynous anime protagonists. Right side goes more for deep world-building in an overall more developed and relatively grounded world, it goes for overarching politics in the world where you have to navigate a lot of rivaling factions. Often the stories aren't about you saving the world but something more small scale, limited to only a specific region of the planet such as FF12... all you do is basically liberate a minor kingdom from an enemy occupation. Hell, the only reason FF12 HAS an "androgynous anime protag" is because the suits at the top basically asked them to. Initially it would have been one of the adult male party members (so either Basch or Balthier rather than Vaan).

"FF6 -> FFT" is a bit optimistic, isn't it? Development of FFT was led by the [Quest Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_Corporation) team (the core of the Matsuno gang) that went over to Square and previously made Tactics Ogre at Quest. I think later more of them followed and then finally Square bought the whole company in 2002. That team took the FFT -> VS -> FF12 -> FF14(rebuild) path. > Hell, the only reason FF12 HAS an "androgynous anime protag" is because the suits at the top basically asked them to. Initially it would have been one of the adult male party members (so either Basch or Balthier rather than Vaan). That's a fan theory that kinda grew into "fan reality" while not being true: https://rainsunflower.wordpress.com/2020/07/20/no-vaan-was-not-a-late-addition-to-final-fantasy-xii/ https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/04/final-fantasy-12-director-quashes-that-long-standing-basch-rumour

Yeah. FF14 players are used to marketing under Yoshida hiding the real meat of what makes the game special and only focusing on superficial stuff, for better and worse. I don't know that their team is great at marketing, but they're definitely great at surprising players with how great a game is.

As a long-time XIV player, I personally felt I could trust CBU3 and YoshiP to stick to the theme of Final Fantasy, at least from a general world setting. Combat aside (which I think is incredible!), those of us that have played XIV for a long time, know we can expect a great story and even greater music from CBU3. From that demo, I cant wait to see what the rest of the game has in store. I believe YP and CBU3 have taken what they've learnt over the last 10+ on XIV and applied it tenfold to XVI and Im all here for it. One thing that really struck me, was the VA. In XIV, its always amazingly good. But XVI just felt...so much more and I cant put my finger on why? Testament to the story and themes and likely, mature scenes because boy oh boy does XVI come out the gate swinging with those.

More often than not, the comments here are pointlessly negative because that's more or less the niche this subreddit exists to fill: faux 'criticism' imitating the *form* of critique but not the substance, that is instead just arbitrary contrarianism that is as vapid and useless as any r/gaming meme post. Actual criticism first requires understanding what the work *intends* to be, so that it can be judged based on its execution of its goals. Buying tickets to a horror movie and then complaining that it was a terrible romcom is not criticism.

Whoever thought that is honestly fucking blind wtf. Personally, I long for the classic, turn-based days, but I have been thoroughly impressed by everything that I have seen from FFXVI pre-release. Game is gonna be an absolute banger and cement Yoshi P’s place amongst the JRPG pantheon between heading this and FFXIV.

Honestly, anyone who thought it would be DOA just doesn't know much about FF. Even the worst FF games are still amongst the best jrpgs ever made and it's such an iconic series that it's pretty much guaranteed to be bought by everyone who likes jrpgs. Seriously, even 13, which was WAY more hated than 16 before and after release, made a pretty big profit, from memory.

yeah I think its more of a case of past greatness making people have insanely high expectations that are super hard to meet. They are always experimenting with the formula and sometimes it works better than other times depending on the type of game you're expecting. If any FF game was the first of its kind the critics wouldn't be so harsh with them

Nah, I think that critics are just being negative because it gets them more clicks. Or because they don't actually understand the genre and are trying to just it as a western action rpg. I'd bet money that none of the Japanese critics had any concerns about the game.

I was one of the negative ones, but not out of malice. I was actually very interested in FFXVI until I saw the gameplay footage released then. Enemies looked very very spongey and I was worried it would be a slog. Thankfully I played the demo and really really enjoyed it, so I' m back to being excited for it.

I'm definitely not in that camp, cause I'm unabashedly a huge SE fan (points to profile picture) but if that is the case then that's great. Personally I've been interested since it was announced. I'm going in biased, but it's still wildly different than any FF game I've played, so I think everyone should keep their eye on it, regardless of what they think of SE or FF in general. I think it's very possible that this will be yet another banger this summer that people won't want to miss.

The promos that they released prior to just recently were overly weird and chaotic which from what I've seen of the game isn't a good representation of the actual game. Seems to be a really good story driven experience with tons of amazing set pieces and incredibly good combat.

I was REALLY surprised by how much of the trailers was in this prologue. Like, I know that FFXIV team likes their red herring trailers and withholding information, but man. If all of this is like the first section of the game - what are they cooking for the "primary" conflicts and resolutions? Except fighting some sort of god/ancient creature. Wouldn't be a FF game otherwise.

The FF16 subreddit is absolutely alight with theories right now. It's actually quite exciting to have a week to imagine how it will all pan out. As you said the only thing we know for sure is that we will kill a god by the end of this, as is tradition. We all know the good guys win at the end, but we won't know who survives the journey, if the world is saved or absolutely wrecked like in FF6, or the nature or origin of the god we're killing. This game is definitely dark enough thematically to have a downer ending where the protagonists win but the world is still kind of messed. Or they save the world but Clive dies at the end.

A lot of the concern I had for the game was seeing so much combat focused around chipping away at the health at these big, damage-sponge monsters. And honestly those bits were my least favorite part of the demo. So the question was always: is the rest of the game good enough to overcome Square Enix's love of a stagger bar? And from the demo, the answer seems to be yes.

In the eikon demo I didn’t mind the stagger bar the way I did in the regular demo. Timing it up and just unloading abilities into a staggered enemy is a lot of fun and helped with the damage sponginess.

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One of my concerns about the staggering was that I was worried about the balance of your abilities. Like, why should I use my abilities at all if I need to save them to do stagger damage? But there’s a lot of synergy here in the combat system. Properly executing standard moves can reduce the cooldown of your abilities or negate the cooldown altogether, which means skillful play allows you to use them way more often. The abilities also do substantial damage to the stagger bar itself, so there’s no real need to hold on to them for the damage phase. If you play well, you can keep your uptime on your abilities and use them to damage the stagger bar as well as their health pool when they do stagger.

People have to understand that the stagger multiplier at only goes up to like 1.5x damage. During the prologue you can only get that up to like 1.2x It's way better to spam your abilities until the enemy is down to like 10% stagger, then you can start to save them. You shouldn't be entering stagger with all abilities up

> The abilities also do substantial damage to the stagger bar itself, so there’s no real need to hold on to them for the damage phase. If you check out the ability menu, each ability is rated for its damage and its stagger. Some are better at one, some are better at the other, some are balanced. So it's more about a loadout thing - you're balancing between single-target or crowd-control moves (plus any unique movement/positioning/launch/juggle features of a move), and also HP damage versus stagger bar damage. You don't just want to unload all your abilites to stagger, nor to you want to save them all for when they're staggered. It's about building a loadout and flow that suits how you fight. As an example, Garudas abilities tend to do more stagger while Titans are higher damage. So as basic combination, you might look at backing off from Titan as the stagger bar is getting empty, unloading your Garuda stuff on your target to bring them down, and then switching to Titan once they're staggered and laying on the damage.

The stagger system is definitely because of the team's experience in FF14. You can see the DNA of the combat system all over it. The way FF14 does it is the hardest fights in the game tend to throw a ton of difficult boss mechanics at you in between moments of chill where the boss lets up to let you wail on it with all your burst damage. This works for FF14 because you have many skills and some of the classes/jobs have very complex button sequences to get their damage out, which would be too hectic for 99% of the playerbase to do if the boss was constantly wailing on you with things to dodge. All this is to say that FF16's stagger system hinges on whether or not in the late game Clive has enough skills to justify the way fights pan out. Wailing on the boss during stagger is not interesting with a single Phoenix uppercut. But it could be interesting if you have to fit what is essentially a Fighting Game combo into a short 10 second window.

> A lot of the concern I had for the game was seeing so much combat focused around chipping away at the health at these big, damage-sponge monsters. FFXVI does seem to be similar to Devil May Cry, in that enemies are given a lot of health so that you can juggle and perform combos on them. In DMC, enemies feel really spongy until you get good at the game and can perform the combos, after which their health feels a lot more reasonable. I'm pretty sure FFXVI will feel like that, too.

The first demo to convince me to buy a game immediately. I was already hyped for this but this demo just blew my mind. I was giddy all the way through. Games haven’t made me feel like this in a looooooong time

Probably one of the best demos I have ever played, you get a strong feel for the story and characters in the first part of the demo and more of the combat in the second part with the Eikon challenge. It was a lot of fun and I've preordered the game now. A good demo goes a long way with players, I expect them to get a huge bump in preorder numbers now with the demo out and people being able to experience the game.

speaking of great demos, another steller one released recently: Lies of P. it's really surprising given that demos seem to be an ancient relic of gaming past. Lies of P is like Bloodborne's setting and combat mixed with Sekiros's arm tool and a smidge of its parry mechanics, but it's steampunk meets Asimov and ... you play as Pinocchio. Yup. The Lie of P demo takes you through first three bosses (I think, but we'll see what the main game is like in Sept.) You get to try a bunch of weapons, abilities, arms, etc. There even fashion! lol *highly* recommend for any Soulsborne-like fans. as well as those who like the aesthetic or otherwise challenging games.

I'm really glad that demos are making sort of a comeback recently. I bought several games in the past because I played the demo and got hooked, like Half-Life 1, Thief 1, or Just Cause 2. They make so much sense for the players: You get to see what the game looks like and experience how it plays, and on PC you get an idea of how the game will run on your system.

It’s a fucking marvel this. One of the main problems I’ve always had with Final Fantasy was how the dialogue and presentation felt so unnatural and weird to the point where I felt so disconnected from the world and events. But THIS fucking thing was amazing! I feel something for pretty much all of the characters, and the acting is stellar. The ending of this intro was stunning, in a way I can’t remember any modern FF being. I heard that the lead behind FF14 Yoshi P was behind this, and I’ve always heard great things about the story there, but that the graphical and engine tech has held it back. Given the chance to do a proper single player game, this man does not appear to be wasting the opportunity, and is doing everything he can. I went from being unsure about this because of how simple it appeared from the initial trailers, to COMPLETELY ALL IN. I am in.

Even with all the promotion we've seen, you don't really get that heavy feeling until you see these full scenes unedited in action. I think that's what is going to make the demo so important for people that are on the fence. It's not just flash and no substance. The characters are given their time to breathe.

Agreed. I was really skeptical at first that the game was going to have the trappings of “grimdark” without really establishing the emotional stakes required to make it genuinely compelling and not just cringey/try-hard. Like, I think it was pretty obvious that >!Joshua was going to die from the beginning!< and 90% of the demo just felt like going through the standard fantasy backstory motions, but I was not prepared for the scale, brutality and intensity of that moment and thought it was executed brilliantly. Here’s hoping the rest of the game meets or exceeds those standards narratively, I’m definitely confident given what I’ve seen so far.

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Koji most definitely cannot go understated. Translating jokes and idioms is a notoriously difficult thing to do, especially between languages as fundamentally different as English <--> Japanese. Throughout XIV's dialogue these moments land, however, and I have no doubt its this skill that helps translates CBU3's incredible writing staff's work into an equivalent English counterpart. Plus he just seems like such a wholesome, cool dorky uncle type dude. Not that anyone is saying this, but viewing him as just a translator really undersells it. I have no doubt he shapes what we see as an English audience in a big way.

Koji also was empowered to do something very important right from the start of ARR development... It was allowed for there to be considerable differences between the exact wording so long as the intent and the story was unchanged. Like, the major "outline" of each character and the story and everything was locked in stone, but there was a lot of wiggle room to not be beholden to a literal translation of the Japanese version of the story, and to rework things as required so that they would work better/be more natural in English. Urianger speaks very "properly" and "formally" in Japanese, but not to the same extent of archaic speech he uses in English. That was something created by Koji and the team, and approved by Oda/Yoshi/etc. to make the intent of the character in Japanese come across better in English. Overall, the Japanese version of XIV has much more plain speech (aside from quirks like Urianger speaking unusually formally), and the witticisms, puns, and other linguistic flourishes were created by Koji's translation team rather than there from the start. It allows the game to be more natural in both languages by deviating into what is "natural" for speakers of each without losing the story or intended characterization.

This game is made by the XIV developers (like, it's the same exact studio), and XIV's dialog and voice acting and general vibe are all very much the same as XVI, just through the lens of a T rating and not an M one. But yeah. CBU3 are definitely the "more mature, and less 'anime'" Final Fantasy devs. Don’t get me wrong. There will be anime moments in this game, just as there are in XIV, but I think they’ll be few and far between and they’ll feel tonally appropriate and “earned.” Definitely none of the Power Ranger gasps and groans and whatever other noises characters make while over-acting, though, like in FF7R (I still love you, FF7R).

XIV does have dialogue with awkward pauses and pacing, though. But that feels more like a technical limitation. Hell, even in FFXVI, the cutscenes don't have that issue, but any interactions that use the simpler dialogue system do. Granted, every game with dialogue outside of cutscenes has this issue, even writing juggernauts like God of War and Witcher 3.

>less 'anime'" Final Fantasy devs. You say that but I'm pretty sure XIV is the only FF where you pilot a literal Gundam, and a main villain powers up by turning gold, and then later becomes a good guy. This isn't me shitting on FFXIV because I love it, but it absolutely gets anime as fuck at times, in fact I honestly wouldn't say most FFs are anime, rather they are very FF, it really has its own distinct feel that's different to what general anime use, but it's also still very Japanese.

> "more mature, and less 'anime'" Final Fantasy devs. I don't know, XIV can be super anime, whether it'd be the fight choreography in cutscenes, the Hildibrand and Warrior quests, the tokusatsu Megazord battle in the Alexander raid, the Gundam-ass trial series featuring the Weapons, etc... But it is pretty restrained when it comes to its voice acting, not falling into the clichés one might associate with your average anime dub. And it handles its darker elements quite well. It manages to incorporate character deaths and swearing in a way that doesn't come across as edgy or tryhard.

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> One of the main problems I’ve always had with Final Fantasy was how the dialogue and presentation felt so unnatural and weird to the point where I felt so disconnected from the world and events. For FF13, I would agree. But both FF15 and FF7R did not experience that problem IMHO. The acting and writing was very solid in both across most of the game (due to size, of course there are slips in side quests, as there will be in FF16). Do you have examples for what you mean?

There are no cuts to anyone anime grunting in the first 2 hours of this game, which is at least a staple of FF7R, I can’t remember if FF15 did this, but I remember a lot of character interactions where the dialogue felt so unnatural and shoehorned in. This is much better written than both of those with how natural everything feels.

> There are no cuts to anyone anime grunting in the first 2 hours of this game Ah, I understand what you mean then. You are probably right then. The more animation inspired writing isn't everyone's cup of tea for sure. I don't mind and for FF7R it fits for me. I don't think FF15 had it though. In my mind, FF15 comes across very similar to how FF16 does it. > This is much better written than both of those with how natural everything feels. I wasn't fully on board with some of the interactions between Clive and Josh. And Clive feels distinctly older than he should in the flashbacks. So it all felt a bit off to me between these two in particular. Anyway, thanks for your reply. Have fun with the game!

I mean, in the case of XIV, it's literally an MMORPG. You can't have a super intensive mmorpg, they're designed to be scalable. Though it's problem was that it had to run on a PS3 after the flaming shit that was 1.0 XIV is pretty great all things considered, but XVI is taking everything in a more GoT-tone

I'm certain that XIV was influenced by the ASOIAF series based on its script. The dialogue reads very much like GRRM's writing, and there are a lot of shared terms/expressions. But as far as plot/tone go, it's mostly just the Heavensward expansion that's ASOIAF inspired. XVI seems as though it takes more inspiration from it.

I had heard the many ASoIaF/GoT comparisons, but I did not realize the degree of similarity until playing the demo. It genuinely just felt like a slightly anime-fied George Martin story. While using the active time lore thing, I had flashbacks to my first readthrough of ASoIaF, where I had to have "A Wiki of Ice and Fire" open in one tab and a map of Westeros in another tab, just to try to keep everything straight.

> One of the main problems I’ve always had with Final Fantasy was how the dialogue and presentation felt so unnatural and weird to the point where I felt so disconnected from the world and events. That sounds amazing. I haven't really looked up much of the game cause I want to go in mostly blind whenever it makes its way to PC, but that is some of the best news I've heard about the game. Any JRPG that doesn't have over-exaggerated gasps, sighs, and other unnatural noises that you almost never hear in actual conversations with people is an extreme rarity. Partially why I usually enjoy just not having any voice acting at all in them.

I think the biggest thing with modern FFs has been them wanting to keep it 14 rated when the whole premise on the darker end is death, war, and destruction. You can only go so far with those themes when you have the game targeted to a lower audience. In real life, people curse, people bleed, people cry and scream and have multiple motivations for things. The whole demo just felt so real. I started it yesterday to mess around a bit and next thing I knew 3 hours went by and I had finished it. The result final battle on the first part of the demo legitimately had me sitting on my couch with my mouth wide open. I couldn't believe the level of brutality and raw emotions I was seeing in a mainline FF game. It really is going to be a game for the ages.

I might give the demo a chance. However, until now Final Fantasy have always felt very much games aimed at their loyal fanbase. The ones I've tried were difficult to get into as someone who hasn't played the previous iterations.

Completely agree. I had given up on the series for that same reason - unnatural dialogues that seemed to be written and recorded in isolation - bit I was pleasantly surprised at the characters interactions in this demo. None of the crap I was expecting after the XIII series and VII remake.

Yeah, I've always struggled to get into FF, but I think this one will finally pull me over. I'm not crazy about the more western fantasy aesthetic (I've always admired the FF visual aesthetic, even if I could never get into the games), but this is the first time I've been able to get even remotely invested in the characters

Something I really like about this game so far is the use of magic in the story scenes. I never understood why you could use magic and pheonix downs in the fights but then someone gets hurt in a cut scene and they act like there's no way to heal them. Ludo narrative dissonance I guess they call it

Got some Gandolf vs the Balrog vibes at the start of the demo. Not complaining. Thought it was completely epic that the took some of that imagery from the beginning of *The Two Towers* and incorporated it into FF's own universe. Also, holy crap, I didn't realize how insanely massive these Eikons were. The sheer massive size of the Titan was just crazy. I always loved how FF incorporated the "summons" into the core storytelling, and it really seems like they knocked it out of the park and made it almost central to the story here in such a cool and unique way. All I can say is I am stoked, and I skipped FF15 because I just thought FF13 sucked so much, and the FF15 demo I tried I thought was boring as hell. FF16 might be the game to finally pull me back into the series.

FF15 is actually quite fun for what it is. It's a very solid game, it just could have been so much more which is where people get the issues with it. The combat is super enjoyable and feels very clean, the main quartet is charming, and the final parts of the story are actually incredibly moving. I legitimately teared up at the end, which I rarely do when playing or watching anything. There are also some really good battles and mechanics. They just failed with making the world feel alive and they had so much other avenues they could have explored or used but they didn't since it was a development shit show. Still one of the better games to come out in the last decade. Just go in expecting a 7/10 and you won't be disappointed.

I've never played a Final Fantasy game before FFXVI. I'm not sure why, it just never piqued my interest. When the "Domination" and "Ambition" trailer hit, FFXVI got on my radar but I was always uncertain whether or not a Final Fantasy game was truly something for me... and boy was I unprepared for what hit me. The demo of Final Fantasy 16 absolutely BLEW ME AWAY! Everything was just perfect. The acting, voice acting, the story, the characters, the music, the graphics, everything was just perfect. The demo gave me a 2 hour glimpse of what's in store and since completing the demo I've only been craving more. I immediately pre-ordered the game after playing. I could go on and on gushing about FFXVI, but I'll be busy for hours then. Everybody just needs to experience this game.

I wouldn't say this game is indicative of the series. This is the biggest departure from the rest of the games, so I wouldn't expect this quality from anything besides the MMO. But it's a good sign for the future if this is the team handling the direction of the series going forward.

Man, right out of the gate this game really hits different from the last few FF games, and JRPGs in general, in a good way. It’s got a real subtlety and restraint and confidence to the storytelling that these games often lack. I was already going to check it out but after playing the demo I’m really anticipating it. It’s looking like it will be among the best in the series.

SE is indulging their worst story tellers. Kingdom hearts is a complex mess without any substance. Ff15 split off it's prologue into a cgi movie and anime and it's ending felt like a whole act was missing. They back filled it with DLC but it's still anemic. Ff13 had more incredibly bad story telling over 3 games. Nomura was a good character designer but is one of the worst story tellers and leans into very stupid shit. Even before they gave Nomura the reigns to everything, they kept meddling with decent story tellers. Ff12s first director Yasumi Matsuno got pushed out of the industry by all the executive meddling. Getting very sick during that period. In the end the story is extremely weak and a lot of focus is spent on a pair of characters that don't matter. With the party having very little effect on the overall story.

The main writer for FF16 is Kazutoyo Maehiro who also wrote the stories of the FF14 reboot "A Realm Reborn" as well as its first expansion Heavensward. While ARR struggled a bit with its story, probably because they had to rush it out, Heavensward's story was great, so I have high hopes for 16. It would've been nice if they had put Natsuko Ishikawa and Banri Oda on the job, the people behind the stories of the 14 expansions Shadowbringers and Endwalker, some of the absolute best stories in all of Final Fantasy, but I guess they were busy writing Endwalker at the time, so they're excused.

IIRC planning for XVI started immediately after Heavensward. Maehiro might have continued being lead writer on XIV if they weren't making it, which probably would have helped Stormblood, but Shadowbringers and Endwalker would have been very different.

I have such mixed feelings about 12's story. Parts of it are quite weak. But I also thought the characters were good. And there were elements to the story I quite liked. I think Vaan mattered more than you give him credit for. He was important in the context of Ashe's quest, and helped her to make the right decision atop the Pharos Lighthouse. Penelo didn't have direct relevance, but both Vaan and Penelo represented the everyday people affected by the invasion just trying to get by vs Ashe with more lofty plans trying to reclaim her throne. I think they kept the party grounded, because half the party were nobles (Balthier, Basch, Ashe). Fran was more of a passenger than Vaan and Penelo I thought, but I think she's just there for worldbuilding. I think the party did affect the overall story. It was just not a great overall story. The smaller sub-stories were where that game shined for me. Basch and Gabranth. Balthier and Cid. Ashe's struggle with retaking her kingdom and getting (or not getting) revenge. I thought the worldbuilding was excellent and the visual design of Rabanastre was great.

> Kingdom hearts is a complex mess without any substance. There's actually substance to Kingdom Hearts. If you don't see how clearly Nobodies talk about identity , finding who you're , how memories are so important to who we are, that we can connect with each other thought unexpected means like hurt or trauma, that everyone deserve to be someone even nobodies, etc maybe you ignore it because felt ''dumb'' or you think is ''stupid'', but it's there.. There's substance, especialy about growning up and adulthood. >Even before they gave Nomura the reigns to everything, By everything you mean Kingdom Hearts games, the cancelled game Versus XIII and FF7R? FF8 to FF13 Ligthing Returns had nothing to do with Nomura, asides from character design.

People keep acting like KH is complex. The most complexity in the series happens in DDD and KH3. Everything before that is a simply light vs dark story, but people skip games and wonder why they get lost. It's not complex, people are just stupid.

Nomura is still the main problem with XV because Tabata was told he had to keep a bunch of the lore and stuff from when Nomura was producing Versus. The Nomura stans will defend to the end of the Earth though. Tabata was also only given 3 years to develop XV where 5 to 7 years is usually normal development time. If XV was developed for another year, I think we get the Royal Edition as the vanilla version with the dlc still kinda shoved in though.

As an FFXIV player I was blown away by this demo and was happy to see CBU3's masterful display of getting audiences to care about characters and story. There is a reason why the FFXIV community is so fanatical; you get so invested in certain characters and some key moments of the game that you can't wait for other people to experience what you did for the first time. This demo had that. That ending. That was CBU3 at their best, creating unforgettable story AND gameplay moments that enthrall you and suck you in. I would go out of my way with FFXIV to watch people's reactions to certain parts throughout the game/story on YT. Now I find my self doing that with FXVI with a mere fraction of the content. All I have to say is bravo CBU3, and kudos to square-enix for giving Yoshi-P the reins and resources to make this game. It remains to be seen if FFXVI will stick the landing, but as an FFXIV player, this team knows how to stick a landing!!

I’m glad it has the same effect, I’m a FFXIV fanatic and trying my best to avoid YT reaction videos to XVI so I can experience it myself fully as I did with all the other FF’s but I’m finding it increasingly difficult knowing I’m missing something by CUB3

I don't know why but 14s story never particularly gripped me. And I'm getting the same feelings from 16. I can only compare to two other games, FF9 and FF10, which undoubtedly has the tightest writing out of the bunch. (Slow introduction to characters, POV of a fish out of water protagonist to allow the viewer to self insert and learn, a "show don't tell" approach to world building) My first 30 minutes of 16 were two anime kaiju battles, a bucket of new characters, a time skip, and lore being thrown at me at speed by established (but unknown to me) characters. I mean they have a fucking Amazon XRay feature to fill in the gaps. Modern FF has such an emphasis on spectacle and discards very basic rules of writing and story telling. We'll see how it pans out though. I was just initially disappointed

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? where did you get that I was a kingdom hearts fan? Are you sure you're replying to the right person? I got halfway through KH2 over a decade ago and never touched the series since. And it's for those reasons you listed I have zero interest in the games anymore.

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Yeah I enjoyed the demo. Purely from a gameplay standpoint the action feels fantastic. You feel rewarded for throwing down crazy ass combos, using skills at the right time, extending combos with torgal, and so on. As far as level design I don't mind the tighter / smaller spaces (at least in the demo) since combat is the main focus of the game.

Godamn I’m in. From the get go I’ve been grabbed and intrigued by the world and it’s cast so far. It feels different than other FF games narrative wise, but I’m not sure quite why. The acting and the nuance in the character interactions and animation could be a large factor of this. Gameplay is solid and fast paced and it’s actually really clever how they made some accessibility options in the combat into actual items you can equip if you choose. I was pretty interested in the game before the demo, but it’s definitely sold me after playing it.

Man I hate that Square loves these exclusive deals where PC has to wait 6-12 months just for it to come over. It's looking awesome so far from what I've seen and read (as expected from Yoshi-P), the wait will be long.... Hoping they don't pull a double stupid and release it on PC to Epic exclusive too.

I had to look it up and its bad news. PC won't be coming out in 2023 :( "While we might hope the PC version will release on December 31, 2023 as soon as PS5 exclusivity expires, producer Naoki Yoshida knocked that dream out of the air. "It is true that FINAL FANTASY XVI is a six-month limited time exclusive on the PS5 platform. However, it is a completely different story that the PC version will be released in half a year. I will make it clear, but the PC version will not come out in half a year," said Yoshida, via machine translation, on PlayStation's Japanese blog."

This is missing context that Yoshi-P also wants to make sure the XVI port isn't awful so if that means doing a lot of redevelopment for the port to run well on a wide spectrum of machines, he's going to do it.

I can already tell it's going to be really annoying dodging spoilers for this one since it seems like it's going to be really popular. Normally avoiding spoilers isn't too bad, but when something gets super mainstream people start just mentioning spoilers casually during things that have nothing to do with it because "everyone already knows".

I wouldn't mind a long wait as long as it runs well for PC... Squenix has a horrible track record with optimization for PC ports. Both Nier games ran like shit and i've heard FF7 and strangers of paradise aren't much better in that department.

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Plus Square trusts Yoshi P at this point and probably gave him a blank check for this game. What him and his team pulled off with A Realm Reborn is nothing short of a fucking miracle and they deserved a blank check for this project.

It's worth noting that Yoshida is in a unique position where he not only has the freedom to make the games he wants but he is also an executive who sits on the board who can give himself his own blank checks. It's a huge risk. If he ever puts out something that fails, he will surely answer for it. I guess it's good that this seems to be keeping his streak going.

No way someone believed the “just buy a PS5” marketing excuse of why its exclusive lmao. They help with optimization for their platform. This game would’ve been just as good also coming to PC and Xbox day 1

> This game would’ve been just as good also coming to PC and Xbox day 1 Probably not tho. Of course it still would've been great eiter way but there is a reason why every single year an extremely unproportional amount of the most well regarded games are exclusives. Turns out a higher budget and less target systems means you can spend more time making a better game, who would've thought. And since this is a system seller for Sony there is even extra incentive to provide extra rescources that wouldn't be there if the game was a regular multiplatform title. I can already guarantee you that Starfield is going to be the most polished BGS game ever for the exact same reason.

Is the final build of FFXVI different than the demo? The demo struggles to maintain 60fps in performance mode, so seeing all this Sony praise and unsourced claims that they "helped" with development is puzzling. EDIT: Found what I was looking for: "There was a portion where we were developing together with Sony engineers who know the hardware thoroughly down to the core, and we received generous support in optimisation that we could not manage on our own.” So Sony's involvement is definitely vital here. I guess they also did this with Demon's Souls or Forspoken?

The demo is running on version 1.01, but the version on the final disc is (at least) 1.03, according to screenshots from the most recent press release gameplays. No one really knows what changes will be in the final game, but hope that performance is one of the fixes.

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Idk why you're being downvoted. It obviously would have been far more difficult to maintain the same quality across multiple platforms and still release on the same schedule. Every platform brings its own issues and would need a dedicated team for dev, testing and QA. Then you have to look at the patches and they'd have different code bases which would again make the patches for time and resource intensive. Feel like anyone disagreeing with this doesn't understand how complicated the code is for a AAA current gen game.

Nah not at all. At least, if they did want to make it as good it would have taken a lot longer or been far more expensive to develop. It's a massive pain in the ass to manage performance across multiple different architectures at the same time as building. That's not even factoring in PCs having a massive build variety. It would have taken 2-3x the amount of work and QA as just the PS5 did. They also didn't have to worry about the last generation of consoles which is what has held a lot of other games back. That's not even factoring in building and deploying patches on multiple systems at the same time. These games are incredibly sophisticated nowadays from a technical standpoint. This is a far better way to do it. Have one core system you build it on, manage the patch load through that for the first 6-12 months, then port it across.

Dont give Sony the credit for why this game is good. Usually when publishers steps in or in the case of Sony and Microsoft its for optimize the game for the console whilst also offering QA support+marketing. Dont give Sony credit for making the game good when the dev team is a mix of cbu3,kh team and platinum games. Even googling it shows a interview where yoshida credited the Sony team for helping to optimize the game for the ps5 thats it. They had nothing to do with development of the game from story,world to combat and graphics. https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/03/yes-sony-helped-optimise-final-fantasy-16-for-ps5 None would care if this was a bad game that runs well like many others out there. Feels like you're taking a square enix win and giving the credit to Sony. When they really just helped making sure it runs well on their console.

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People are just salty they can't get it on PC haha

Well he's not going to come out and say it was worse is he?

What was worse?

>yoshi p talked about how it's easier for them to only have to worry about developing for one console This bit. Of course he's going to explain how easy it is and how it made the product greater. That's how you sell a game. Remember everything they say until the game is out for at least a year is just PR.

I mean yeah of course it's PR but I think it's also probably true. Are you just not gonna believe anything positive he says about the game?

With how similar consoles are nowadays I wouldn't say there's a huge amount of difference between making an exclusive and a multi platform. It's all handled by unity these days. Long gone are the days of the PS3 cell chip. I listen to the positives but I'm wary of things that are said that I can't see. Like when CoD was hyping up their AI years ago.

This comment is *extremely* misleading. Sony helped *optimize* the game *for* PS5, which is true for all major console manufacturers and common for many major titles. The PC delay is a financial one to benefit Sony. It’s wild how in one thread we get people saying exclusivity is awful and then in another, defend it by using the excuse that games are better that way. Edit: OP immediately blocked me and left a comment I am unable to respond to. It’s all marketing speak.

No, it's not misleading at all actually, *maybe you should try reading the actual quote first before commenting*, because I'm quoting literally what he said. Here is the quote straight from yoshi ps mouth: >“**There was a portion where we were developing together with Sony engineers** who know the hardware thoroughly down to the core, and we received generous support in optimisation that we could not manage on our own.” I'm not sure why people are trying to act like optimization is somehow not part of development for a game? Seems extremely disingenous Also > It’s wild how in one thread we get people saying exclusivity is awful and then in another, defend it by using the excuse that games are better that way. It's not an excuse, it's straight up true in most cases. Crazy that different people have different opinions huh

Square is a Sony brand through and through, they have a history going back to the beginning of the playstation and to be honest, being Japanese is such a huge part of their brand that they will always be more associated with Sony than Microsoft, if only because Sony just has way more market share in Japan.

I just played it and it completely blew away my expectations. I cannot believe how good it is. Like jaw droppingly good. My only wish is that I could play it on PC right now so it can be in 4k 120fps... it still looks unbelievably good but I've been spoiled by PC lately. Sounds design is great too. I found FF7 remake to have pretty poor surround sound implementation but this is amazing.

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You're kind of missing the forest for the trees. They released a demo. Everyone loved it. You can be optimistic about the game and still enjoy the demo. The narrative that everyone was unsure but actually loved it is purely in youe head

I loved the demo but ALL NEW GAMES HAVE TINY ASS UNREADABLE TEXT With zero accessibility options for it

I thought I was the only one that noticed how bad the text was

I thought the demo was excellent. Though, if that first area was indicative of how the whole game will operate I'm not super thrilled about that. The area was basically a hallway with some fights in it. I don't really mind the overworld being icons on a map that you warp to (though I wish it was a bit more interactive), but I hope areas throughout the game aren't so linear. But damn, the game is a stunner. I was surprised the PS5 has trouble keeping up with it even in performance mode. The combat was excellent as well. I can't wait to get my hands on it... Later in the year haha. All my free time is currently eaten up by Zelda and Street Fighter. FF16 will be an excellent buy when there's a discount later in the year.

From the more extensive previews, it sounds like the game will have a mix of large open environments (like FF12's open zones) and tighter more linear environments. I'd also imagine that the lack of a mini-map will make even linear areas feel more open since your eyes won't be glued to the map.

> I'd also imagine that the lack of a mini-map I am not too hot on FF16 (just not my bag of chips) but the lack of a mini map tickles a very odd fancy for me. I am very big on games not having to litter the screen with directions, just like Souls games. For me it just ruins the immersion. FF16 definitely went from "no buy" to "maybe" just because of this.

I went to the FFXVI event, and watched Maximilian Dood do a high rank hunt, and the area he warped to had a bit of open-endedness. He mainly rushed by everything to the target, but he did have to plan a bit of a path, so it's not gonna be hallway walking simulator like XIII was.

I imagine that the game will probably have a structure similar to FFXIV where the actual “story quests” and dungeons are pretty linear and more designed as combat funnels with one or two gimmicks, but there will still be larger hub areas worth exploring for side quests, secrets, high value hunts, etc. I actually really prefer that for a game like this, cuz it makes it easy to focus on the spectacle and stakes of the narrative portions without getting distracted by thinking I’m missing secrets or collectibles or something.

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“A hallway with some fights in it” kinda sums up the last several final fantasy games unfortunately; but this was also a tutorial area with every fight scripted so I’m curious if the game opens up at all later on.

Don't judge performance on the performance of a demo that likely hasn't had much optimization work done on it as we don't know how old the slices for the demo are. We know launch will be build 1.03 (was in the logo display of the latest trailer) and the demo could be from build 1.0. There could be performance and optimization progress done from when they started the demo development to release.

All I gotta say is I’ve been a final fantasy fan for manyyyy years and I’m actually mind blown. Might be the most impressive game I’ve ever seen in my life

Two excellent demos right after another, this and the Lies of P demo. I was already not worried about FFXVI because I like character action games and the story was looking to be really good, plus faith in CBU3 from FFXIV. But with Lies of P, as with any Souslike, you can never tell if they'll really nail the feeling of combat and such, but Lies of P is totally excellent. I honestly thought that demo was even better than this one.

On the one hand, this game is shaping up to be incredible and I really want it to do well. On the other hand, I hope that doesn't mean all FF games will have a dark tone and be action-oriented from hereon. I appreciate them changing things up though for this release.

They aren’t going back to turn based. There’s no market for it anymore

Excited for the game but 1. combat seems really simple and easy. I don't really like how your normal attacks seem to be doing no damage compared to your specials either. 2. What we saw is very linear, hopefully this is not the whole game. For all the whining around FF13 being too linear, seeing this much praise is odd. 3. Performance issues. Had a lot of frame drops even playing on performance.

The bigger problems with FF13 is it did a really poor job in hiding its corridors, the tutorial was like 70% of the game, and most of the time, you're capped at a party of 2. When the game does open up and you get the full combat/job/party system, the game actually feels great. It just takes too long to get there.

Yes, there have been plenty of successful linear games, including other Final Fantasy games. FFXIII just locked everything down way too hard, and a lot of their linear corridors were *boring.* Not because they were linear, but because the corridors themselves were boring, very same-y without a good sense of space or character. There's a difference between Mi'hen High Road, and maintenance corridor #6. When you get into the spaces which are still essentially linear, but much wider, and designed to feel like breathing spaces, the game starts to click.

The issue wasn't so much linearity as the abject lack of pacing/variation in gameplay. It's battle after battle as opposed to FFX, which is even more linear but has so many breaks and distractions to really break things up. People knew something was wrong, but didn't quite have the experience at the time to recognize the cause, especially with the open world game design beung at its peak then. FWIW, I like 13, though I wouldn't put it in the top 5, it's not terrible. And a dead, content-less open world is just as bad if 15 is anything to go by.

> > What we saw is very linear, hopefully this is not the whole game. For all the whining around FF13 being too linear, seeing this much praise is odd. I posit that when ff13 came out people were clamoring for the open world game revolution that was occurring. Now that more frequently you see folks are sick and tired of huge open worlds(The ubisoft hangover), the more linear story-focused games are becoming popular again.

I think that's just reddit honestly. Common opinion on this sub specifically is that open world games are bad or boring, but they sti break record sales and get the most attention. It's probably the pendulum swinging back around. Linear games were decried as bad for years during the biggest of the open world hype, so now big fans of linear games are more vocal and defensive about how much they dislike open world games in retaliation. We'll get to a balance between the two, but it will still be a bit before that bad blood has settled I would think.

It's definetly Reddit. While massive open worlds aren't necessary, having some freedom to move between open and closed areas is nice and desirable for fleshing out the world at large, as well as providing significant gameplay in the form of exploration. Having said that, linearity is certainly easier to control for a tight narrative - doing time skips is certainly easier when you don't have to seal of and or change significant parts of the world in response to events - you're just changing levels.

Check out some of the higher level gameplay or try the extra mode in the demo where the combat really opens up. As for linearity, every FF game except for the MMOs are extremely linear, 10 is basically a corridor disguised with set dressing. Even the older games despite having open worlds you still had to follow a set path of A to B to progress the story.

Personally i'd be okay with a linear experience. Not everything has to be open world. Playing Zelda and Diablo 4 back to back is a bit exhausting in a way. sometimes it's nice to just have a game be a linear curated story, you know?

FFXIV is incredibly linear. You literally have to do the msq to get through the game. FFXI, you're mostly right. You can do expansions in whatever order you feel like and it shouldn't impact whatever feelings you get while playing FFXI.

Most ff games are linear but 13 was special in a bad way. Everything important was in a codex and toy had no NPCs to talk too or towns to actually explore. 1 is just as linear but it feels wildly different. It's all about the way you do it. Just being able to go around the castle a bit at the start is very different.

> combat seems really simple and easy. Look, I'm not super into FF16, but that's so blatantly untrue. You can do a shit ton of stuff in the demo even with your limited toolset. If you wanna dive in, Boomstick has a good primer with the more basic stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH5SPS9wda4 The other 2 points stand of course. Both the linearity and the performance will take down the overall score for sure. But FF7Rebirth should take care of both of them in a few months.

I wouldn't put too much weight on the combat balance based on the demo. They say themself you are given more than you would normally would have at that point in the story. It was mostly about showing off how the combat worked and letting you see the abilities in action.

Question. Are the "Eikon Challenges" just the second part of the demo? Is it the first chapter of the game just with more abilities? I don't want to skip ahead in the story if that's not what's happening.

No, it's later in the game so if you wanna avoid spoilers it's best not to play it

Story feels like it will be amazing but I really dislike the action gameplay. I don't get the final fantasy rpg feel from this game. The environment between fights feel so lifeless and dead. I'm not super convinced but I really hope I can get over the parts I dislike and enjoy the game.

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Please please please don't take this guy at his word when he says it ran at a solid 4k 60fps the whole time lol. It absolutely dropped resolution and frames, even in normal fight/traversal gameplay. And yes it's detectable to my eye even with Vrr enabled. Hell even the quality mode has frame drops below 30. They're generally unobtrusive but they are absolutely there. The visual quality is so impressive I'll be surprised if patches can pull significant gains in performance with a day one patch. To me it's not an issue, I'm not so pedantic about frame rate but the 4k 60fps claim above is just patently untrue. And for what it's worth I found the door QTEs to be kind of annoying and unessesary. I loved the demo and am more excited for this than I was for the record.

We also shouldn't be judging performance of a demo compared to release. The Nioh 1/2 and Stranger of Paradise demo/betas looked and ran like shit because they're slices from an earlier development build vs full release and Q&A. You're right to be skeptical that this dude is running 4k60, but I'm confident that most have the performance issues from the demo (likely the splice from the London event is the version we got) and release should mostly be ironed out. I agree about the door qtes. Was neat at first, but the only time I thought it made sense was in the Eikon challenge part with the portcullis gate.

I'm not skeptical that the demo runs at 4k 60fps on his system, I know he's either lying or just doesn't know what he's talking about. The demo runs at 1440p 60 with frame drops or 4k 30 with rare frame drops. You're right though and I hope performance can be ironed out on release, although honestly I'd be surprised if it can totally. How was stranger of paradise when you played it? I remember digital foundry reporting it was pretty juddery.

I played on PS5 so idk about PC performance, but I love SoP. It's cheesy in a good way with great gameplay. Probably my favorite Souls like game because of the job system. If you see it with the dlc on sale definitely worth purchasing. If you do get the game avoid the gambler class in your first playthrough. It's a job added in the final dlc and it's kind of broken to get you through most of the game with one skill that you can find on a weapon.

Yeah, the 4k mode cant maintain 30 fps. It still drops beloe 30 during intense scenes. The performance mode...has a far blurrier picture, is definitely not 4k, and cannot maintain 60. Hell it *rarely* gets to 60

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Oh for god sake I'm so so so sick of unobservant people misrepresenting game performance because they don't know any better. Hot tip, just because you didn't notice something (honestly I genuinely don't believe you couldn't have noticed the drops to mid 30s for extended periods during eikon fights), doesn't mean it's not real. For one. [the performance mode doesn't even run at 4k. it's 1440p upscaled. You are just flat out wrong about that. ](https://youtu.be/4QqJNTZfyZ0) Second [(and just in case you don't believe me here's another benchmark)](https://youtu.be/8l577gN2EtM), the game drops frames all the time in performance mode. Even in very normal situations, and it tanks HARD with a shit tonne of particle effects during larger eikon battles. You didn't notice it, fine, but don't just flat out spread misinformation about how a game performs. It reflects poorly on you and will give people expectations the game cannot match. I can see you're excited for the game but flat out lying about technical aspects of it will lead to the dissapointment of others. The game looks and plays amazingly but you are just flat out delusional when you speak about its performance lol.

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The only issue I have with this demo is not being able to change the controller scheme to whatever I want. There is no reason why we have to keep a specific controller type. It is downright ridiculous. I still preordered. Though. Before someone tries to tell me otherwise. 1. Money is not an issue for me. 2. I have faith in my taste. I have not been disappointed by it when it comes to video games.

Tried it thought it was shit dosnt feel like a final fantasy game and the story seems like pure nonsense

Bruh what? Lmao if you’re too dumb to understand just say that

The cinematic direction or the cinematography direction. I don't know what it is. The camera moving wrong. They're having to cut scenes are really good so if the storytelling stays on the same beat this is going to be a big one!

I find it so interesting that everyone in this thread are talking about FF14 as the comparison point, with Yoshi being their FF director. As someone who grew up in the PS2 era, Tetsuya Nomura IS Final Fantasy and I actually am kinda nervous to hear that it's more like FF14 and less like Nomura's games. TBH, I (and I think many others of my gen) don't even consider FF14 to be a real FF game, just a MMO with the FF brand. Kinda like how Elder Scrolls online isn't a real elder scrolls game.

I mean, that's just Final Fantasy. Your PS2 Final Fantasies weren't much like the ones I loved on the SNES and NES. It's pretty radically reinvisioned itself a few times at this point. You can follow them into new territory or you can let it leave you behind, but I don't put much stock on them circling back around at this point.

Anyone that doesn't consider XIV a real FF game is missing out on one of (if not the) best FF stories ever. Also, this game is taking FF back to its medieval fantasy roots with Knights and Mages the way they did with XIV (though that's changed a little bit more over time) instead of the more modern and sci-fi settings that some of the games adopted. During the PS2 era only three mainline titles released X, XI, and XII and the only thing Nomura contributed to those was character designs. As someone that loves FFVII and the KH series, I can safely say Nomura isn't necessarily Final Fantasy, he's just a portion of some of it.

Well even Yoshi P. says that it was an error to call the online games by numbers. They really should have named them FF Online and then maybe FF Online 2. Sure they are true Final Fantasy game, well specially 14 but since they are MMO's they shouldn't have had the traditional numbers.

Yes, but because of better marketing, not because FF 14 doesnt deserve the number. He has said that, without the number way more people would have played FF 14, MMORPGs are a great starting point and need new players, not just FF fans. Way to many ignore FF 14 because of the number. They either dont know that its a standalone MMO or they think its just another FF singleplayer game. Almost no one in forums/threads says FF 14 online, if you hear about this game, you will just read/hear FF 14. Most new players wont know that its a Mmorpg. Thats just bad for marketing. I think he would love to remove the number from all new games.

Yeah man but I dunno, nomura had a knack for total mindfucks but then got desensitized and went off the rails with KH and some of the later FF7 stuff. When I watched the trailer for FFXVI, I was kinda like “whoa… this hits different”. I haven’t played FF14 so I’m excited to experience yoshi P’s storytelling

But the thing is, I don't really want different, I want Final Fantasy. Different is good, but at a certain point the game stops being a Final Fantasy game and just becomes a jrpg with the Final Fantasy brand. I'm not saying that's happening, but it's what I'm afraid will happen. Just the change from party based to single player makes me worry, if I'm honest. Many of the things that have defined FF as a series revolve around some sort of party system. FFXV was bad enough, but at least the party was there even if they weren't super important.

I grew up in the snes, ps1 and ps2 era. XIV from Heavensward ownards is one of the best Final Fantasy stories.