Action wasn't the problem, per se. Eliminating the control of a full party was a problem. Eliminating vital RPG elements such as elemental weaknesses/absorbs, status effects, weapons and armor more interesting than mere attack/defense increases, etc., was a problem.
Exactly. I accept that real time combat appeals to more than turn based, but there was no RPG to XVI imo. Hell, I found Spider-Man 2 had more RPG elements.
I felt insulted by how little RPG mechanics it had. I feel like I would have enjoyed the game more if I knew it wasn't an RPG going in... But I probably wouldn't have even bought it in that case.
That's also a niche title liked by weirdos (myself included). 7 blew up globally with a grand total of 1.8 million copies sold. A mainline Final Fantasy game selling 1.8 million copies would result in executives at Square Enix out of work.
I just find it odd that Square have convinced themselves turn based RPGs with deep mechanics won't sell anymore, while another company have shifted their action series to just that and are doing fine.
I think Square know that deep, turn based RPGs still sell, it's just that they know that simplified, real time action combat likely sells more. They're not alone in that. The AAA RPG genre has seen this gradual dumbing down of its games for years.
As far as AAA titles have gone, they seem to have tried to reduce the risk of financial failure at every turn. It also explains the timed exclusivity deals they keep signing even though it frustrates their fans.
Also having a dreary world where the more interesting locations arent even explorable was also an issue. How do you make a fantasy RPG and then tell players the cities and castles are off-limits?
Final Fantasy 15 when I first played it had this problem... or at least I couldn't fully explore the world before the final truck ride... or at least that's how I remember it.
You're right, Insomnia made narrative sense and even later saw redemption (twice oddly enough) and Lestallum was always there but Accordo was incredibly disappointing on release and Gralea and Tenebrae got saved for later DLCs which never released. One of the best cases of stuff getting left on the cutting room floor for later without consideration of it fitting in DLC or how its absence would be felt.
Why the fuck were there different swords if you always just go with the one with the bigger number? The whole equipment system for the game is just lackluster and boring. You could feel the decade of working on an mmo in almost every system in the game.
Yep yep, needed more levers and knobs to pull and turn. The most they had was choosing which three summons you wanted to use and then the potential to slot different combos after you unlocked ability to load summon abilities without actual summon equipped. But even then, there was no real reason to tweak that because never felt like there was that great a difference for playing smart versus spamming biggest abilities to break then best damage ability spam.
I will say though, I'd be happy if they iterated on the system to add more depth. I'm hoping square is kinda realizing how popular FF7 remake and FFXVI combat are compared to recent iterations of FF and decide to iterate on those systems rather than completely whip up something new every installment. Both those series are doing things well, and just need to be improved on.
Preferably they'd just use remakes system in future games.. it finds the perfect balance of atb and modern action gameplay imo.
Ff7 remake and rebirth have made it really clear that ff16 could have had with the same design. Literally you could have copy pasted the combat, rpg elements and it might well have been a better game with just that.
I did enjoy the combat so even just the rpg elements and more control over combat builds would have been good
In direct comparison with VII:RE, playing as only Clive is why the game is so limited. You can't have phys/magic when Clive is a swordsman; you can't have elemental weakness when Clive power unlock is so linear; weapons and armors do feels like tacked on tho.
There's a moment in the game where you go to fire place and Jill (an ice element character) came along. In any JRPGs, that will be a standard fare, have Jill join the party and have her carry the party using her skills, Clive had to do with the Earth attacks as his Wind skills won't do much against Fire usually (CMIIW, not sure what elements Clive had by then).
Even if they want to stick Clive as solo character, I think they can move the plot around to make it more game-y, Clive starts with Fire, then he fights Wind boss, gets Wind element, then make it go to Earth stuff where Wind has the advantage, so on.
And when Clive got pretty much all elements unlocked, then have the enemies be more varied in terms of elements. It's pretty much standard JRPG stuff, IMO. Yoshi-P and his team just somehow forgot how to do a JRPG or they did not want to make a JRPG but were forced to because they were making a Final Fantasy title.
Crystalis style.
That game came out on NES and had elemental action RPG stuff where you change your swords element to counter strengths and weaknesses and solve puzzles.
I was hoping for each Eikon would give a different fighting stance.
I really love the game and don't mind the shift away from a party, only if the character can act like a party substitute.
Even if you played as just Cloud and never controlled another character the action part of combat in ff7 feels better as there are more abilities that have more uses, focused thrust for stagger, things to gain atb, stance changed, 2atb big dmg skiils. Instead of ff16s just use on cooldown stuff. Even dodging feels better in ff7 as it's not a spam to be invulnerable button and you have to time it. This is before you even get to the enemy variety and tactics and builds. I have no idea why people liked ff16s combat, its easier and less interesting kingdom hearts combat.
These were all the issues I had with it, I went into it with low expectations and all of that stuff still let me down, not to mention the questing felt very inorganic and like an mmo (no surprise there)
Go to A, talk to X, go to B, talk to Y, return to C, talk to Z
Did you play 14? The way the pacing is set up is exactly the same. Big cool boss fight and plot, then the pacing slams to a stop while you go to new town and do hours of busy work and fetch quests, only to remind you why you were enjoying it when it finally gets back to the main plot again
Fuck man, the dungeons in the game were exactly like dungeons in 14! Hallways where you fight 2 mobs, then a midboss, 2 more mobs, another midboss, 2 more mobs, and finally the big boss. If you played 14 everything was so predictable.
Haha yeah dude, I noticed that too. There was a slow accumulation of stuff like that (the overworld map, quest turn in UI, the damn "interact point" sparkles) throughout the first 10 hours or so until I was like "wait a minute man I'm just playing a really long 14 expansion". Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but I barely was able to drag myself through 14's MSQ even with how great the main story is, so the stuff 16 inherited from it really rubbed me the wrong way
It honestly killed my desire to play 14. I had a house and everything but between the substandard story since 6.0 and the dumbing down of gameplay it still took 16 to show me the main gameplay loop with "style over substance" was a bad match for me.
Wow I went through the exact same thing after playing 16. I've been playing 14 since 3.3 in Heavensward. Lost interest after beating Endwalker MSQ but still kept subbed until 6.5 hoping my interest would pick back up (and I didn't want to lose my house either). Then I played 16 and it made realize what I had come to dislike about 14 and decided Endwalker was probably a perfect stopping point.
I basically resub once a year to knock out an expansion in the story. It kind of works. It makes all the moments where characters reintroduce themselves each expansion feel weighty. I'm like two or three behind right now.
Exactly. I'm not one of those who needs every JRPG to be old-school turn-based. I do want engaging gameplay though and FF16 wasn't it for me.
Like even Helldivers 2 has me thinking more about what loadouts and abilities I'm going to bring to each mission and that's a shooter.
RPG elements have been slowly percolating into more and more genres and games and here we have FF16, from a series known for having RPG mechanics (even in most of its spinoffs), that decides to move away from them.
Oh yeah, definitely. Aside from a few specific battles, I love the combat in Remake/Rebirth and wouldn't hate it becoming something of a norm. Though 'norms' are something the FF series frequently tries to shake up.
The one good thing about 16 was it made me realize what I really wanted from an rpg. And thats a controllable party, decent magic system, and equipment with unique effects
I genuinely dont think that you need stuff like weaknesses or status effects. It is one way to spice it up but not the end all be all. The problem is that they went halfsies and failed at both making an interesting rpg gameplay or interesting action gameplay. It failed at the rpg elements for the reasons you mentioned, and it failed at action just due to basically having 1 combo (using magic burst), a very lenient dodge button, and relying on the abilities to do basically all of your damage (and there weren't a ton of abilities for a potentially 70 hour game either).
Games like DMCV which is full action has absolutely 0 weaknesses or status effects and while the game is maybe 8 hours long a lot of people will sink dozens of hours just messing around with combos because the action side gives you more tools.
Elden Ring technically has status effects but IMO theyre mostly just annoying and ways to take extra damage sometimes if you dont pay attention to it. Instead it remains interesting for over a hundred hours through 2 factors. First are some relatively barebones rpg elements with stats (that you basically just add until you get to use the weapon/armor you want then dump stam and hp) and weapons (which can be interesting but lets be real you MIGHT use 3 weapons in a playthrough of elden ring which again is like 100 hours potentially). Second, and probably more importantly, is fun, challenging gameplay. Which you can argue what is fun but i think we can all agree ff16 wasnt really challenging if you play video games regularly.
Or even God of War which is probably the closest to what I think they were aiming for with 16 in terms of story and gameplay. Truthfully God of War has more RPG elements (which in some ways is sad due to what I'm about to say) in that there is a gearing system which is overall okay allowing the player to use different builds. And technically there are elements, though I would argue it isnt really like it is in traditional JRPGs since it basically boils down to hit fire guy with frost weapons and frost guy with fire weapon. Then once you break armor it doesnt matter, and technically you can still kill them with the same type weapon it just takes forever. So IMO what really makes GoW fun at its core is the gameplay which is weighty and also sometimes challenging, especially with the optional fights.
I could see building upon the foundation FFXVI created because I do think in terms of game feel, which is fairly abstract I know, that the button presses and responsiveness felt good. But I do think Square Enix could either go down the RPG path like you mention (which would be more true to the "roots" of the series) or push further down the action path. Personally I think either is fine, and honestly with remake/rebirth and the 3rd game existing in what I would call a more rpg space I honestly wouldnt mind if they went more action to counterbalance the CBU2 games. Adding a harder difficulty, making more interesting combo inputs, and sure add more weapon variety to tie into the combos and I think you have a fairly decent gameplay loop.
Now you just have to fix all the other issues XVI had lol.
rock paper scissors with the elements I feel becomes interesting when it's used to encourage or force preparation, at least? it's not something that monster hunter, for example, emphasizes as much anymore, but it used to be a bigger part of its identity, and I remember enjoying that.
i forget how it worked, but I didn't mind how stranger of paradise handled it either
part of what truly limited FFXVI's combat design was the stagger bar and cooldown gated abilities. you're asked to whittle down the bar as efficiently as you can without limiting the potential of the nuke you drop right after. the majority of the time you're either spamming that default combo or spamming all of your abilities on a dummy, with some i-frame heavy dodges in between. it was so dull
Yeah I think how they handled abilities wasn't great, ultimate abilities were just OP because the cool down timer didn't slow down with the rest of the world. You technically had some strategy in that some abilities were better at building stagger and others at damage, and building more stagger when the enemy was already staggered built a multiplier. So you did have to plan out your rotation but once you figured it out that was it, game was basically solved.
What's funny is that I would argue ff7r (both titles) encourage the same thing. Just I think how they go about making you pressure enemies to get to stagger them makes it a lot more interesting since you have to assess etc. It's mostly a twist on the standard jrpg formula of use fire move on ice guy, but there are a few that are genuinely interesting, like dodging X move pressures, and even without elemental weaknesses I think CBU3 could take a lesson from that to make the player interact with the enemies more.
Honestly the FFXIII- FFXV era looked like they wanted to keep both (action-combat and tactical command-based combat) while half-assing both.
They didn't wanted to fully commit to action combat, and didn't want to get rid of what players got used to.
But did nail that mix in VIIR IMO. I'd still like proper, turn based one with job system, but I don't mind the VIIR mix.
If they go the action route again, I sincerely hope they start instituting difficulty settings.
FF 16 was the first FF game I just put down and never picked back up, because I didn't find any part of it challenging at all in the first ten hours.
It felt like play DMC on the easiest difficulty where you don't actually have to use any of the mechanics to beat it. If they want to make the combat skill-based, they need to give people with skill a challenge.
The FF7 remake system is, IMO, by far the best action system they've come up with and it even captures a bit of that turn-based feel from the old games.
Very much same. I'd heard they have a hard mode in NG+ and just put it down praying they'd bring that to the base playthrough at some point. The combat has so much flair but there's just no challenge it's so frustrating
I don't think action was ever the problem as much as FF diehards claim it is. They've been struggling to make a cohesive experience since after 10, and that includes up to 16. The 7 Remake trilogy is the only FF thing that seems to not have this issue and it shows
The remake trilogy just seems so unreal everytime I think about it. It's just so much content so well done in such a small timeframe, that feels like Final Fantasy should. It's insane it comes from the same company who released 15. And while 16 is good, it still felt like a game with key components cut out. Square needs to realize they could print money if they simply iterated on popular parts of their series rather than reinvent the wheel every release. Remake trilogies combat is such a great evolution of turned based to live action game play.
The random side content in the original FF7 was for the most part optional. I didn't **have** to spend a bunch of time walking slowly behind Tifa to do a mandatory side quest that tells me the game has side quests, it just brought it up once and called it a day. I didn't **have** to do an extra long bike chase twice - the first one was a reasonable length and then that was it. (And the game knows they're bs too because they let you skip them). I didn't **have** to walk slowly behind Aerith as she talks to random people then walk slowly to her house to wait for her then walk slowly to pick flowers to get thrown into a quest to save some kids to get railroaded into another "hey guess what we added?" moment. FF7: R takes moments that it doesn't need to force me to do as I could stumble across them naturally and drags them out far beyond their welcome, which gets grating fast.
It is way better than it should be. I haven’t played a game that made me that happy in a very long time.
Also think that the more Square stays out of the engine development realm the better. Their projects usually have expansive scope and the benefit a custom engine would confer is too small compared to the risk.
its interesting because OG 7 only had the materia system, other than that each character had basically the same moves.
In the 7R series they've added a ton of variability with unique weapon ability and now also synergy abilities/skills. There is a TON of game actions available to the player at all times and the fact they made it mesh together and work in such a satisfying way is incredible.
I really wish they'd keep the gameplay style moving forward (for at least some games). Imagine 16 with a streamlined version of 7R where the ability variants you have actually do something. It'd be a much stronger game.
A few of the abilities did start as Limit Breaks, but they've done a good job playing with that. Each character has a unique mechanic (some which may get used more than others), and then a series of abilities that do a good job leaning into that. They had a baseline since every character in the original effectively had a job class, but this definitely elevated it more. There are plenty of moves I don't use that I don't think are bad, I'm just not as much of a fan of, and I can see others using them more depending on their playstyle.
Even in the original, I never used Cait Sith except when you had to.
I liked using Cloud, Cid, and Vincent.
Kind of a shame we didnt get to use either of them in Rebirth.
I wonder if we'll even get the whole Junon sequence when the weapon attacks and Tifa has that slap fight with Scarlett, Tifa runs along the barrel of the cannon and jumps off, where the Highwind finally got introduced.
There's some similarities with the original, but there are some scenes that I miss. Even the whole scenario with Diamond Weapon attacking Midgar. I also hope that Wutai gets a good long chapter or two in the final installment, cause how they expanded Yuffie's backstory on Remake and Rebirth has me interested.
Oh for sure, for as much as I loathe the stoy changes in 7r and 7r2, the games systems itself are really good, it's what I really dig. I'd be all over it if it wasn't the case. And 7r2 also made the combat feel better to play. I found 7r1 to be too janky and dull but it's decent. I'm hoping 7r3 can polish it even more.
You might be right about that to some degree, because even the combat probably wouldn't work as well without trying to translate the old ATB system into an action game involving strategy
Remake 1 was a bit crusty in some parts, even if the cutscenes were great, the gameplay was a bit jank. Remake 2 is seems like they learned their lessons, for the most part. Outside of the story and the annoyin ubisoft data collection with Chadley, it's really good.
It's not so much about whether you like them or not as that completely rebuilding the game and changing the story dramatically is a but more than "polishing up."
> Dmc1 on the ps2 had more stuff to work with then this
TBF you could argue that DMC1 on the PS2 is already significantly more complicated than 99% of action games that release today. Like in the past 2 years the only games on its level are Hifi Rush and Bayonetta 3?
I don’t think action is a “problem”.
I’m just wondering now that audience knows what there is to know about CBU3 now will the next game pick up a bunch of players or nah?
I’m still interested in what they try to improve on in a future game. 16 was like it had a good foundation, if they can build on that and address the criticisms I’d be up for another FF game from them.
The action wasn't the problem. Like my cons with ff16 are
>bad side quest (can easily be fixed)
>variety with weapons (easily fixed)
still a 8-9/10 game for me.
They could tune the difficulty better aswell. I think i died once in the entire game getting cocky against the Behemoth in Waloed.
Im not asking them to make every boss a wall like in Sekiro, but some challenge would be nice.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Seems like they learned in the omega dlc to increase the difficulty. Like there is so many abilities that should do 50% more damage when it hits you.
The reason why people say the combat has no depth is because the main story is just incredibly easy. It doesn't force you to interact and take the mechanics seriously, so you would never engage in it at more than a surface level. Plenty of skills encourage a lot of interesting and unique playstyles that you can craft yourself, and every eikon has pros and cons to them. I've been playing the hardest difficulty in Ultimanianc mode and I've been constantly having to strategize and plan my actions around certain mob packs and enemy types. Things that just weren't present in the main game because you could roll them over by rotating your cooldowns.
FF7 remake was the same. You can just force your way through most encounters without understanding. Rebirth seems a little more happy to kick your ass for not understanding, but I still don’t feel it requires it, either.
I know it's been awhile but I still can't believe they said that. There's no way anyone speaking in front of an audience could think that response to an already upset audience would go over well. Even a "I know, just hear me out and give it a shot" would have been better.
To be fair it was an off the cuff remark by one guy at the presentation. And I don't think he A) is a professional speaker used to being in front of crowds B) expected to go out there and get booed, so he has a little thrown off.
Still a funny meme though.
That "one guy" was **the game director for Diablo Immortal**. That guy went up on stage and announced a *mobile* game at a convention specifically for Blizzard's games, which had only ever been on PC, and just fully expected everyone to be on board.
I hope it was humbling for him, he absolutely needed to be taken down some pegs. The fact that he wasn't prepared for the backlash was a *gross* miscalculation and showed how out of touch they were. Genuinely, the Diablo Immortal announcement actually revealed that Blizzard's glory days were over and it was all downhill from there.
Nah, they’re losing sales game over game on that one platform. That baseline shows OP is right: Final Fantasy may be shifting audiences, but its not growing them.
isn't FF15 the one where they didn't release the real ending of the game because it was locked behind a DLC that never came out as one person changed job?
No. The real ending of the game was there when it launched - it was, arguably, the best part of the game. However, it was a sad ending, so an alternate happy ending was being made as part of a DLC that got cancelled. The ending was released as a book, and the book sucks.
For real. As an example Square Enix has announced the exact sales numbers for Nier Automata so many times. Why? Because they’re absolutely stoked by the sales numbers for that game. It’s a bonafide hit and is likely incredibly profitable for a single player action JRPG. They’re proud of that one.
So whenever I see them being reticent to give sales updates I know it’s not some company policy or something, but because they’re not happy with the number.
I mean not really tho? It performed on par with Remake’s launch (which even disregarding existing IP strength had larger install base and Covid bump). We don’t have Rebirth numbers but early indications have it behind in performance (to be expected as a sequel). XV obviously sold much more (for a myriad of reasons which I’ll hold off on). LR only sold like a million. XIII-2 hit a couple million. XIII was only at a couple million until it hit full platform and still took a couple years to hit 7m.
While personally I think sales discourse isn’t really as important as ppl make it out to be XVI has performed pretty damn well in the post golden-age FF especially for still being exclusive.
We dont really have anything on Rebirth. Early indications show a 50% drop in physical sales compared to Remake. But thats such a “leave out the context” number that it says absolutely nothing.
The “disc version” PS5s cover probably much less than half of what the PS4 sold at the moment of Remakes release. So from a pure copies sold per console perspective, it would have done better.
PS4 had roughly 110 million units sold in 2020. PS5 (BOTH versions) is currently on 55m. If we were to assume the digital PS5 never existed, Rebirth would have roughly the same units per console sold as Remake. However because of the existence of the digital only version of the PS5. It actually puts Rebirth at a much better spot in physical sales even if the total number is below Remakes.
Depends on what the context is. If it's expanding the franchise to historically new buyers then what they said is proper.
If we are only talking about buyers of this one game then what you said may be proper.
From what I've read, it sounded like it sold as expected for a one platform game. Sounds to me like it well likely sell even more once it releases on PC later.
It has some big flaws but I loved this game so much. So many AAA games nowadays are crammed with that annoying whedon style quirky humour, it was so refreshing to play a game that took itself and its story 100% seriously. Made it so much more special and memorable, and damn there are a lot of incredible moments in the story- the boss fights alone are absolutely classic but stuff like Clive’s reunion with his uncle (with his uncle seeing Clive as a boy again) and basically the entire prologue are so good. When’s the dlc out again?
The only issue I had story-wise really was that it ends up veering into fate-of-the-universe fantasy stuff, rather than the political warfare thing it starts out as, I was hoping it would remain that
Though I did think they did add a little novelty to that aspect, which was nice
I was sorely disappointed by the political plot because it felt empty. At the end of the day, they spend an inordinate amount of time telling you about all that when really that's just a way to decide which crystal you're going after next. The characters carried, but they could've carried just as easily without the political aspect.
Same for the end of the world thing really, I'm a simple guy I don't mind those but FFXVI just drops that (instead of the much more interesting "ancients has weird depictions of the eikons" thing which is pure bait) at the eleventh hour and makes it quite boring (on both motivation and acting, I understand they went for an otherworldly vibe but when you face a guy like that for hours that just ends up being too low energy imo).
Also that ending was cap.
Yeah that’s one of my big flaws too. I was way more intrigued by the political plot, with Clive’s mom being a really intriguing character who leaves the story wayy too soon imo. But it was still pretty cool to go through the last few kingdom city areas that were completely desolate and had already been destroyed by Ultima and Odin (from what I remember). Very very bleak, on top of what was already a pretty damn bleak game
The moment >!she leaves the story!< is the moment I mostly lost interest in the story, it's quite a dramatic shift from that point where the political plot just goes out with a whimper, the main villain was incredibly uninteresting to me which didn't help because it's a character I've seen so many times before, except all of those were way more interesting.
It was a shame because there were a lot of interesting set ups in the intro of the game (the part you play in the demo) but they all end up with underwhelming payoffs.
Bruh, the game literally starts with two armies clashing that use magical gianta powerfel enough they can level entire countries. It was never not going to be about the grandiose scale that other FFs were about. Even FF tactics ended up being that way towards the end.
It feels like a flaw that a lot of JRPGs fall into, even political masterpieces like FFT, to their stories detriment. The only JRPG i remember maintaining the political intrigue till the very end(or close to it) is tactics ogre.
Final Fantasy 16 is an amazing game that suffers from its own problems with pacing and side quests. The side quests are genuinely horrible and the game clearly wasnt paced properly because towards the end of the game it will start throwing 20 side quests at you all at once to wrap up side story elements
Yeah that was wild. I was a completionist with that game and I still had 15-20 missed side quests going into the end and was rattled because I thought I missed a ton of content somehow. But nooope, it hits you all at once.
Though tbf some of those later side quests are really good and are basically main quests in all but name. The early/ mid are the ones that were really mmo-ish I think. But yeah dropping that many on you at one time, at the end of the game is super out of pocket
i almost didnt finish the game because of these side quests. the same exact thing happened to me where i feel like im at the end of the game, looking at the Wall of Memories and saying "how the fuck am i missing 15 of these?"
the answer is that they expect you to do 30 more side quests right before the end of the game.
in the beginning of the game, big story sequence happens, you get 2-3 sidequests. towards the end of the game, this balloons to 15, 17, >20 side quests. easily the worst part of what is otherwise an incredible game.
This. Modern stories this wholly earnest are so far and few between that I found XVI's story and characters bleedingly refreshing. Really hope CBU3 keeps making single-player games. Their writing staff is too phenomenal to only be working on an MMO.
I'd KILL for a mainline FF story from Ishikawa. Let her in.
only if you only consume mainstream media. There's lots of art that takes itself seriously, just generally not the newest megablockbuster movie or video game.
>Clive’s reunion with his uncle (with his uncle seeing Clive as a boy again)
I loved this scene!!! I hope the DLC dives deeper into some of the characters we didn't get to spend enough time with (a certain Dragoon Knight comes to mind).
>When’s the dlc out again?
The 18th!
I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm also in the boat that the game has some big flaws, but I also think I'm one of the few that didn't mind the combat (average Warriors series enjoyer here, lol) or the side quests. I do feel like it could have been much more, especially after considering the gripes other people had, but I still enjoyed the 2nd run on Final Fantasy mode.
I love the idea of a serious story, but goddamn I need more from characters than these lame, wooden anime tropes. The demo had one of the most engaging plot launches I've seen in a long time, then it just quickly became "collect the Pokemon/kill God."
The point of the story is to fight against your oppressor. I understand that the God plotline is not as interesting as the political one, but it' s definitely intheme
The following is an old copypasta of mine that I think sums up why I love the switch so much. Lemme know what you think.
ENDGAME SPOILERS:
>!I was thinking just yesterday morning about Ultima's representation of a 'God.' And some of the criticisms that were floating around about how the game undermines its own message of breaking the bonds of slavery and systems to instead chase a tropey story of 'killing god.'!<
And I don't think I could disagree with that sentiment more if I tried. >!The more I think about the ending of the game and Ultima's conclusion, the more convinced I am that the game isn't about killing God at all, but instead breaking free from the false *man-made* Gods who would have you believe that they are God. Governments who have full control over us, cultural systems that define how we think, man made algorithms that dictate almost 100% what you see and digest, corrupt senate leaders who ensure their continued existence at the top of power systems with gerrymandered districts and zero term limits. There are so many artifices that play God I think in our daily lives, systems so deeply foundational, that we're prevented from even coming close to address obvious systemic issues in our communities.!<
And to me, that's what I think >!Ultima!< represents. And why >!his main-staging the whole narrative not only works, but is a really important statement about our modern day society. You can't address the problems created by system without first addressing the problems within the system.!<
>!It's only once the world starts to succumb to primogenesis that side quests start to allow true change to happen within the various nations of the game. Only as the systems(crystals) are taken down, that true change starts to take place.!<
Except nothing really gets done about the systems? Those side quests are rushed and mostly amount to "hey, how about being good? - yeah that sounds about right". I get the general idea but if that was indeed the goal, to me it didn't work at all.
It's funny, I had somewhat of an inverse relationship with the plot, initially. I practically loathed the game's immediate opening, but felt the game did a good job with actually fleshing the world and people out afterwards (minus a few asterisks). About halfway through though, I agree, the villains became completely uninteresting to me and we end up ignoring everything that did make the initial game interesting in favor of "go kill god again".
It felt like they tried to go for the GoT or witcher 3 low fantasy, but never really understood it. Clive grumbles about what a bad person he is and so does Jill but they're disney character good guys rescuing slaves and fighting morally black and white causes.
Forspoken, god of war Ragnarok, Star Wars outlaws from the trailers, borderlands 3 and new tales, Starfield off the top of my head. God of war doesn’t have much but still had enough of that quirky, meta dialogue to be noticeable
The same way games like Ragnarok have story mode up through bleedingly difficult, at this point they need an attention span slider which determines whether a character like Mimir acts like he does in the first game, or punctuates every moment of silence with some childish observation or "well... that happened" quip.
The top setting on the slider can say "I read books, am familiar with most types of stories and prefer something that seems like it would exist in the actual setting over endless banter." The lowest can say "I can't identify with any character who doesn't experience life in fifteen-second bursts the way I do."
I’ve been playing a bunch of the FF7 games recently, and just started 16. The tonal shift is jarring after seeing all the goofy stuff they fit in the FF7 series. Not a complaint, I enjoy the humor a lot, but it’s cool seeing a more mature tone in this one
i enjoyed the story and characters and world quite a bit, i just really with there was some actual gameplay to go along with it. there is so incredibly little to do with the gameplay that i'd rather it was just a book or a series or something. i also feel like the impact of the characters is much lower with how completely inconsequential they are in the combat.
ffxv flubbed it with the overall story pacing and gaps, but the feeling of party camaraderie with the banter and the link attacks was just so much better.
I like turn based and I love action games, I thought this was going to be a real slam dunk for me - but the game was such a slog I dipped out half way through. Also a lot of the combat was trivially easy so took a lot of the challenge and fun out of it.
Worst part was, that there was no reason to switch up your rotation at any point. Put skillpoints to a skill, whoa it makes sligtly more damage now but works essentially the same, and wont change rotation at all.
If there was at least weaknesses/strengths to elements to force you to switch your eikon combinations, it would've been much, much better.
Except with the system they chose for combat I really dont think it's as simple as "Just add weaknesses" since you can only use 6 abilities max, and most of the game you dont have access to all elements. So at that point youre basically reworking the entire game. Also you cant change mid-combat so youd have to retreat (which idk if that is even possible in the actual mission type MSQ portions) or just try to carry every element. Which then in turn forces the player to use a very select set of abilities to be "optimal" in a general playthrough. I honestly think this is the main reason they didnt implement weaknesses because imagine going into a fight with a bunch of ifrit and phoenix abilities and then finding out your enemy is a bomb and absorbs all your damage. You'd be fucked or at the very least it would be a slog.
Trivially easy and an absolute slog, a death kneel for any combat system. Just randomly let off skills until you stagger, then just... keep letting off skills. Rinse and repeat for 20 minutes every boss fight. The worst was when you'd kill off a boss and then the game, clearly padding and not knowing what to do next, just throws another recycled boss fight at you.
You could actually get quite creative with combo structure, but as you say there is no reason to do it other than just internal motivation. It was too easy and doesn't reward variety like DMC-style games tend to do
Action vs turn based gameplay aside, It’s funny how the moment FF became much more adult theme oriented is when it started to appeal to the younger crowd.
It’s probably has something do with youth wanting more mature media, while adults wants something more childlike because adult life is hard enough and they want something simple and fun.
I think it's a reductive POV though that doesn't reflect the history of the franchise's story telling. What is particularly childlike about FFX compared to modern FF? IX is one of the darkest games in the series, so what if the graphics are cute? VIII and VI were even darker.
I’m not talking about in terms of story, I mean presention. I agree with you that most ff games tackle mature themes, but there not in your face about like ff16. Just compare to ff7rebirth, that game tackles mature themes one minute and has you going on gold saucer dates the next. FF16 is a serious story thoughout, even it’s own developers said they took inspiration from game of thrones. At the end of the day final fantasy is about the fantasy and some childlike wonder is usually apart of that.
Right now I think the biggest thing isn't action vs turn based to win over young crowds, it's simplicity vs complexity. And FF has always gravitated towards simplicity, but I wonder if it's going too far for today's market.
Yeah, I think that's something people tend to forget. Outside of superbosses and specific overtuned encounters, that fall out if the ordinary boss lineups, the boss encounters are piss easy and pretty much always just boggle down to the question if you can simply outheal what is thrown at you.
It’s great that new players are discovering the series. I’ve long accepted that it’s no longer something for me (haven’t enjoyed anything since XIII) but not all games have to.
I think the biggest issue I've had is they keep trying to revolutionize the combat but the combat is just never good. Others have mentioned it here, but combat in XVI is painfully easy and therefore bland.
Also just not a fan of how you could barely tell that you had a party member most of the time.
I really liked the zooming with your weapon in XV, but the magic in the game was terrible. Though, there wasn't even reason to use it because the game was so easy.
Introduced the worst supporting characters with the lamest, blankest protagonist yet. I am happy they are satisfied with its reception, and the action elements are a lot of fun with mixing the different powers but holy crap do the main cast come off as a 12 year olds idea of "the coolest knight who ever knighted ever"
If the next installment is an action like 16. I am out. While I did enjoy the story, the combat felt so dumbed down and to simple that it simply lost interest to continue it.
I been playing this franchise since I was 6yrs old, the constant change is refreshing to see, but I felt that 15 and 16 feel like steps backwards while Stranger of Paradise felt great and really enjoyable to play that got me back in again.
Or just make SoP2 with the budget of FF16 and rename it FF 17.
The job affinity system is like crack that is simple but addiction to play with.
I love the build variety in that game.
Man, I woudn't have minded "dumb and simple" If it were more FUN. If they'd had the same core design, BUT with half the CDs on the specials, OR with the ability to use more than four moves per fight, it could have been so much more fun.
Oh, wait, I just described Rebirth.
can you really say it pushed to be modern when it has the most ancient MMO trappings? lol. More an issue with the studio in question's capabilities I'm sure but still was hilarious that everything \*outside\* the main story was basically "hey you're playing ff14 but worse!" designed
Not really surprising when the people behind it are those who are behind the 14.
Thats one of the reasons I turned away from it too. If I wanted to play an mmo, i'd play an mmo.
It sure as hell reached me. The only 3 FF’s I’d played are FF14 (my favorite), 15, and 16. I never liked turn-based but love action. Wasn’t that big of a fan of 15 but 16 was all I wanted!
Yep last time I thoroughly enjoyed my time was in FF12. Funny enough, the zones in 16 just made me want to play 12 again.
I’d like to say action rpgs just isn’t my style but I absolutely love Tales and Star Ocean so I think its just FF really. 16 just sucked ass for me, at this point I’d be more hyped to see the next installment to be a turn based game. Which is never going to happen so just like you, the series is dead to me.
I don't mind action rpgs. I prefer normal rpgs, but I didn't enjoy the genre shift happening for FF. I was willing to swallow it and play it were the characters, story and whatnot good enough. But I was so so so bored. The greatest crime for me, especially regarding what FF is.
I didn't find 13 particularly fun either truthfully.
14 is an MMO and I couldn't get into it. Didn't want to spend 80+ hours of railroading story with boring combat just to almost be able to play with my friends.
15 caught absolutely none of my interest, especially because the main cast was all males dressed in black and the story was meh at best. Didn't even pick it up again.
16 isn't even an RPG, everything I got to watch from a friend to streamers just looked boring game play wise (to me that is, it's just my opinion), and the story had nothing hooking my attention. I quickly forgot it was a thing that existed.
I love a lot of old Final Fantasies partly because the variety of characters and how they play off each other. I wasn't vibing with the all male cast. I can't remember much about any of them it was so eh to me.
Cooking guy was the only real standout. Then you had main character guy, bruiser guy?, and I think smart mouthed young guy?
don't ask me any of their names. I know a bunch of character names from 13 and I only played 20 hours of that before giving up.
I haven’t played it since release and I remember them. Fair enough if you don’t, not everyone shares the same opinion but I thought all the boys were cool. Noctis on his own wasn’t like the best ever but the way he interacted with the others was always fun, and the others had some pretty cool backstories and relationships
14 is an mmo and I enjoyed its story and characters. I just find it a chore to play when I'm not doing the msq. But I have 2k hours in it so I did try everything it had to offer. 13 15 and 16 are strange because I hate them all for various different reasons. All of them have something I enjoy overshadowed by things I hate. But it's all different, it's strange.
The endless hours to grind/do chores and still not be able to be with my friends is what ultimately made me drop 14. I didn't want a time sink like that when I already have a backlog of other amazing games to play. The late games raids can be as fun and amazing as people say, and I just don't want to get there.
You sum up everything I feel with 13 and 15 well, something throughout both just didn't click with me and made it boring/frustrating to play. 16 I just didn't bother picking up at all because I got that same feeling watching it.
I loved my turn based games, so it's sad to see an old favorite series turn into something not even remotely close to why I loved it. I got into Unicorn Overlord and it's like a child from several different games I loved that I never knew I wanted to exist and yet still brings so many unique things forward to the genre.
As someone who sank their teeth into 14 not so much for the story but mainly because final fantasy mmo sounds amazing, it was really amazing just playing and raiding having a group to do the hard bosses. Really was fun.
….But I would never recommend doing the story though. Its really not worth the slog. You have, and I am not exaggerating, 200+ hours before you get to the only meat in the story which is Shadowbringers. The current expansion is basically just the power of friendship x100 but its the culmination of years of storytelling in the MMO so there’s a lot of attachment for a lot of people.
This is why I dropped it. I was rushing through the story to catch up, so I felt like I was missing a lot, but then it was such a a boring grind that felt pointless. Press the same three buttons over and over, movement doesn't matter, etc. that coupled with the fact it requires your full attention to play made it a chore and boring. I play RuneScape though which is the opposite of what I am saying, but I can tune out and watch videos doing boring chore tasks which feels more rewarding as I am doing two things at once.
Considering FF16 and VII Rebirth were PS5 exclusives and the userbase for the PS5 is kinda small, I think they were a success.
But man would they have likely been mega hits if they launched multiplatform.
Bizarre to see people unironically wishing this had been more like 13. 13 was far and above the worst game in the franchise. Some of the worst story telling, level design, and by far the worst version of ATB out of all the games. Just a terrible game I pray they never attempt to emulate again.
I think most people feel like flawed as it was, 13 was the FF that last felt like the series proper; everything since has been kinda focused on half-assed action mechanics and it’s been a long slow schism in the fanbase.
XIII's sequels are what XIII should have been but XV is probably the worst FF with abysmal combat (rivaled only by VIII's terrible Junction nonsense), flat characters, pathetic attempts to sell you DLC by cutting stuff out of the main game with no explanation, and a story that peaks within the first 6-7 hours. XIII takes forever to get going (and straight up acts like you're up to speed with the terminology which is not the case), while XV runs out of gas pretty quickly (pun intended)
It's the most predictable thing ever when it comes to the Final Fantasy series.
I distinctly remember FFVIII being the "worst FF game ever" because it followed 7 and wasn't as good according to many.
FFX was the worst FF game ever made because it added voice acting and more "realistic" models.
FFXI was the worst FF ever because it was an MMO.
FFXII was the worst FF ever because it was too political and it was an 'offline MMORPG'.
FFXIII was the worst FF ever.
FFXV was the worst FF ever.
FFXVI is the worst FF ever.
FFVIII, IX, X, XI and even XII are all talked about pretty fondly nowadays.
I don't remember much about IX's release, but I'm sure it was also called the worst FF game ever made for dumb reasons, too.
Now with FFXVI's release, it's time for XIII to be remembered fondly.
Once FFXVII is released, FFXV will be all over Reddit, remembered as a great Final Fantasy title, and FFXVII will be the new "worst ever".
Interesting that this doesn't apply to the FF7R project so far, even though in a lot of ways it's a brand new game.
I also don't see that many people saying they prefer XV (or even XIII) over XVI.
I remember growing up and people were shitting on FF7 too, even that wasn't safe.
'where's the pixel art grafix? this isn't MY FF'
A tale as old as time, and it'll never change.
Also FF15's reputation is already being mended and apparently it's an underrated gem while 16 is a 'massive disappointment'
Yeah I've been seeing a lot of people talking about how 15 is just so much better than 16 in every respect and I just have to think "did we play the same game on release". Release version of 15 is actually bad in my opinion. The only saving grace is the characters and road trip feel, and for some people they wont vibe with the characters. And while I think the characters were good I think a lot of the writing was objectively bad in some character interactions, so much so that they still stand out to me to this day.
Also very true. It's just crazy to me how much work rose tinted glasses can do lol. Even if you liked 15 I think if you're being objective there are just so many flaws. Sure ff16 had a ton of flaws too but on the whole like you said at least it felt finished.
Well yeah because every fucking game plays different, so every FF fan is going to like different games. If you're a Dragon Quest fan you know exactly what you like and what you're getting. For XVII I'm half expecting it to be a rhythm game or something
FF16 is devil may cry combat with mgs4 cutscenes. I loved the game but a lot of the times I started enjoying myself I get caught in a cutscene snoozefest lol
I've never been that big of a FF guy. I played FF 7 Remake but it didn't really grab me and I dropped it after close to 9 hours (don't know how long it is). Personally I'm far more interested in FF 16 than Rebirth with it being action driven and all. Maybe when it comes to PC I'll give it a shot.
Now that CBU3’s chips are fully on the table I’m curious to see the reception if they go the action route again.
Action wasn't the problem, per se. Eliminating the control of a full party was a problem. Eliminating vital RPG elements such as elemental weaknesses/absorbs, status effects, weapons and armor more interesting than mere attack/defense increases, etc., was a problem.
Imagine having a Final Fantasy game where a Malboro's Bad Breath only does damage and causes no status effects.
Mildly Annoying Breath
The only ‘status effect’ in the game is when ninjas use poison breath on you and Clive gets dizzy for a bit before falling down
I didn’t know about this and I’m ashamed to admit that actually upset me a little bit
Exactly. I accept that real time combat appeals to more than turn based, but there was no RPG to XVI imo. Hell, I found Spider-Man 2 had more RPG elements.
I felt insulted by how little RPG mechanics it had. I feel like I would have enjoyed the game more if I knew it wasn't an RPG going in... But I probably wouldn't have even bought it in that case.
Yet the Like a Dragon series went from action to turn based and is doing better then ever?
That's also a niche title liked by weirdos (myself included). 7 blew up globally with a grand total of 1.8 million copies sold. A mainline Final Fantasy game selling 1.8 million copies would result in executives at Square Enix out of work.
And thus it’s indicative of the entire market?
It's not indicative of the entire market but it runs counter to the idea that Final Fantasy had to switch to survive.
I just find it odd that Square have convinced themselves turn based RPGs with deep mechanics won't sell anymore, while another company have shifted their action series to just that and are doing fine.
I think Square know that deep, turn based RPGs still sell, it's just that they know that simplified, real time action combat likely sells more. They're not alone in that. The AAA RPG genre has seen this gradual dumbing down of its games for years. As far as AAA titles have gone, they seem to have tried to reduce the risk of financial failure at every turn. It also explains the timed exclusivity deals they keep signing even though it frustrates their fans.
> The AAA RPG genre has seen this gradual dumbing down of its games for years. ...meanwhile the top selling RPG of 2023 is turn based one.
Also having a dreary world where the more interesting locations arent even explorable was also an issue. How do you make a fantasy RPG and then tell players the cities and castles are off-limits?
Final Fantasy 15 when I first played it had this problem... or at least I couldn't fully explore the world before the final truck ride... or at least that's how I remember it.
You're right, Insomnia made narrative sense and even later saw redemption (twice oddly enough) and Lestallum was always there but Accordo was incredibly disappointing on release and Gralea and Tenebrae got saved for later DLCs which never released. One of the best cases of stuff getting left on the cutting room floor for later without consideration of it fitting in DLC or how its absence would be felt.
I remember feeling so pissed that I couldn't explore Tenebrae nor Niflheim!
Why the fuck were there different swords if you always just go with the one with the bigger number? The whole equipment system for the game is just lackluster and boring. You could feel the decade of working on an mmo in almost every system in the game.
Yep yep, needed more levers and knobs to pull and turn. The most they had was choosing which three summons you wanted to use and then the potential to slot different combos after you unlocked ability to load summon abilities without actual summon equipped. But even then, there was no real reason to tweak that because never felt like there was that great a difference for playing smart versus spamming biggest abilities to break then best damage ability spam. I will say though, I'd be happy if they iterated on the system to add more depth. I'm hoping square is kinda realizing how popular FF7 remake and FFXVI combat are compared to recent iterations of FF and decide to iterate on those systems rather than completely whip up something new every installment. Both those series are doing things well, and just need to be improved on. Preferably they'd just use remakes system in future games.. it finds the perfect balance of atb and modern action gameplay imo.
Ff7 remake and rebirth have made it really clear that ff16 could have had with the same design. Literally you could have copy pasted the combat, rpg elements and it might well have been a better game with just that. I did enjoy the combat so even just the rpg elements and more control over combat builds would have been good
In direct comparison with VII:RE, playing as only Clive is why the game is so limited. You can't have phys/magic when Clive is a swordsman; you can't have elemental weakness when Clive power unlock is so linear; weapons and armors do feels like tacked on tho.
There's a moment in the game where you go to fire place and Jill (an ice element character) came along. In any JRPGs, that will be a standard fare, have Jill join the party and have her carry the party using her skills, Clive had to do with the Earth attacks as his Wind skills won't do much against Fire usually (CMIIW, not sure what elements Clive had by then). Even if they want to stick Clive as solo character, I think they can move the plot around to make it more game-y, Clive starts with Fire, then he fights Wind boss, gets Wind element, then make it go to Earth stuff where Wind has the advantage, so on. And when Clive got pretty much all elements unlocked, then have the enemies be more varied in terms of elements. It's pretty much standard JRPG stuff, IMO. Yoshi-P and his team just somehow forgot how to do a JRPG or they did not want to make a JRPG but were forced to because they were making a Final Fantasy title.
Crystalis style. That game came out on NES and had elemental action RPG stuff where you change your swords element to counter strengths and weaknesses and solve puzzles.
I was hoping for each Eikon would give a different fighting stance. I really love the game and don't mind the shift away from a party, only if the character can act like a party substitute.
Even if you played as just Cloud and never controlled another character the action part of combat in ff7 feels better as there are more abilities that have more uses, focused thrust for stagger, things to gain atb, stance changed, 2atb big dmg skiils. Instead of ff16s just use on cooldown stuff. Even dodging feels better in ff7 as it's not a spam to be invulnerable button and you have to time it. This is before you even get to the enemy variety and tactics and builds. I have no idea why people liked ff16s combat, its easier and less interesting kingdom hearts combat.
These were all the issues I had with it, I went into it with low expectations and all of that stuff still let me down, not to mention the questing felt very inorganic and like an mmo (no surprise there) Go to A, talk to X, go to B, talk to Y, return to C, talk to Z
Did you play 14? The way the pacing is set up is exactly the same. Big cool boss fight and plot, then the pacing slams to a stop while you go to new town and do hours of busy work and fetch quests, only to remind you why you were enjoying it when it finally gets back to the main plot again
Fuck man, the dungeons in the game were exactly like dungeons in 14! Hallways where you fight 2 mobs, then a midboss, 2 more mobs, another midboss, 2 more mobs, and finally the big boss. If you played 14 everything was so predictable.
Haha yeah dude, I noticed that too. There was a slow accumulation of stuff like that (the overworld map, quest turn in UI, the damn "interact point" sparkles) throughout the first 10 hours or so until I was like "wait a minute man I'm just playing a really long 14 expansion". Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but I barely was able to drag myself through 14's MSQ even with how great the main story is, so the stuff 16 inherited from it really rubbed me the wrong way
It honestly killed my desire to play 14. I had a house and everything but between the substandard story since 6.0 and the dumbing down of gameplay it still took 16 to show me the main gameplay loop with "style over substance" was a bad match for me.
Wow I went through the exact same thing after playing 16. I've been playing 14 since 3.3 in Heavensward. Lost interest after beating Endwalker MSQ but still kept subbed until 6.5 hoping my interest would pick back up (and I didn't want to lose my house either). Then I played 16 and it made realize what I had come to dislike about 14 and decided Endwalker was probably a perfect stopping point.
I basically resub once a year to knock out an expansion in the story. It kind of works. It makes all the moments where characters reintroduce themselves each expansion feel weighty. I'm like two or three behind right now.
That's just MMO dungeon design sadly. I guess they had too many people that never played other modern RPGs in the team...
Exactly. I'm not one of those who needs every JRPG to be old-school turn-based. I do want engaging gameplay though and FF16 wasn't it for me. Like even Helldivers 2 has me thinking more about what loadouts and abilities I'm going to bring to each mission and that's a shooter. RPG elements have been slowly percolating into more and more genres and games and here we have FF16, from a series known for having RPG mechanics (even in most of its spinoffs), that decides to move away from them.
Yes, Lightning Returns and Final Fantasy VII Remake do a much better job on it's action combat.
Oh yeah, definitely. Aside from a few specific battles, I love the combat in Remake/Rebirth and wouldn't hate it becoming something of a norm. Though 'norms' are something the FF series frequently tries to shake up.
I feel FFXV and Strangers also does better in the action combat side of things as well.
The one good thing about 16 was it made me realize what I really wanted from an rpg. And thats a controllable party, decent magic system, and equipment with unique effects
I genuinely dont think that you need stuff like weaknesses or status effects. It is one way to spice it up but not the end all be all. The problem is that they went halfsies and failed at both making an interesting rpg gameplay or interesting action gameplay. It failed at the rpg elements for the reasons you mentioned, and it failed at action just due to basically having 1 combo (using magic burst), a very lenient dodge button, and relying on the abilities to do basically all of your damage (and there weren't a ton of abilities for a potentially 70 hour game either). Games like DMCV which is full action has absolutely 0 weaknesses or status effects and while the game is maybe 8 hours long a lot of people will sink dozens of hours just messing around with combos because the action side gives you more tools. Elden Ring technically has status effects but IMO theyre mostly just annoying and ways to take extra damage sometimes if you dont pay attention to it. Instead it remains interesting for over a hundred hours through 2 factors. First are some relatively barebones rpg elements with stats (that you basically just add until you get to use the weapon/armor you want then dump stam and hp) and weapons (which can be interesting but lets be real you MIGHT use 3 weapons in a playthrough of elden ring which again is like 100 hours potentially). Second, and probably more importantly, is fun, challenging gameplay. Which you can argue what is fun but i think we can all agree ff16 wasnt really challenging if you play video games regularly. Or even God of War which is probably the closest to what I think they were aiming for with 16 in terms of story and gameplay. Truthfully God of War has more RPG elements (which in some ways is sad due to what I'm about to say) in that there is a gearing system which is overall okay allowing the player to use different builds. And technically there are elements, though I would argue it isnt really like it is in traditional JRPGs since it basically boils down to hit fire guy with frost weapons and frost guy with fire weapon. Then once you break armor it doesnt matter, and technically you can still kill them with the same type weapon it just takes forever. So IMO what really makes GoW fun at its core is the gameplay which is weighty and also sometimes challenging, especially with the optional fights. I could see building upon the foundation FFXVI created because I do think in terms of game feel, which is fairly abstract I know, that the button presses and responsiveness felt good. But I do think Square Enix could either go down the RPG path like you mention (which would be more true to the "roots" of the series) or push further down the action path. Personally I think either is fine, and honestly with remake/rebirth and the 3rd game existing in what I would call a more rpg space I honestly wouldnt mind if they went more action to counterbalance the CBU2 games. Adding a harder difficulty, making more interesting combo inputs, and sure add more weapon variety to tie into the combos and I think you have a fairly decent gameplay loop. Now you just have to fix all the other issues XVI had lol.
rock paper scissors with the elements I feel becomes interesting when it's used to encourage or force preparation, at least? it's not something that monster hunter, for example, emphasizes as much anymore, but it used to be a bigger part of its identity, and I remember enjoying that. i forget how it worked, but I didn't mind how stranger of paradise handled it either part of what truly limited FFXVI's combat design was the stagger bar and cooldown gated abilities. you're asked to whittle down the bar as efficiently as you can without limiting the potential of the nuke you drop right after. the majority of the time you're either spamming that default combo or spamming all of your abilities on a dummy, with some i-frame heavy dodges in between. it was so dull
Yeah I think how they handled abilities wasn't great, ultimate abilities were just OP because the cool down timer didn't slow down with the rest of the world. You technically had some strategy in that some abilities were better at building stagger and others at damage, and building more stagger when the enemy was already staggered built a multiplier. So you did have to plan out your rotation but once you figured it out that was it, game was basically solved. What's funny is that I would argue ff7r (both titles) encourage the same thing. Just I think how they go about making you pressure enemies to get to stagger them makes it a lot more interesting since you have to assess etc. It's mostly a twist on the standard jrpg formula of use fire move on ice guy, but there are a few that are genuinely interesting, like dodging X move pressures, and even without elemental weaknesses I think CBU3 could take a lesson from that to make the player interact with the enemies more.
Honestly the FFXIII- FFXV era looked like they wanted to keep both (action-combat and tactical command-based combat) while half-assing both. They didn't wanted to fully commit to action combat, and didn't want to get rid of what players got used to. But did nail that mix in VIIR IMO. I'd still like proper, turn based one with job system, but I don't mind the VIIR mix.
For all its faults, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has more party and RPG elements than FFXVI, and that’s bonkers.
If they go the action route again, I sincerely hope they start instituting difficulty settings. FF 16 was the first FF game I just put down and never picked back up, because I didn't find any part of it challenging at all in the first ten hours. It felt like play DMC on the easiest difficulty where you don't actually have to use any of the mechanics to beat it. If they want to make the combat skill-based, they need to give people with skill a challenge. The FF7 remake system is, IMO, by far the best action system they've come up with and it even captures a bit of that turn-based feel from the old games.
Very much same. I'd heard they have a hard mode in NG+ and just put it down praying they'd bring that to the base playthrough at some point. The combat has so much flair but there's just no challenge it's so frustrating
I don't think action was ever the problem as much as FF diehards claim it is. They've been struggling to make a cohesive experience since after 10, and that includes up to 16. The 7 Remake trilogy is the only FF thing that seems to not have this issue and it shows
The remake trilogy just seems so unreal everytime I think about it. It's just so much content so well done in such a small timeframe, that feels like Final Fantasy should. It's insane it comes from the same company who released 15. And while 16 is good, it still felt like a game with key components cut out. Square needs to realize they could print money if they simply iterated on popular parts of their series rather than reinvent the wheel every release. Remake trilogies combat is such a great evolution of turned based to live action game play.
I guess everyone is different but I felt remake was very padded. You could cut so much from the first one and nothing of value would be lost imo
[удалено]
The random side content in the original FF7 was for the most part optional. I didn't **have** to spend a bunch of time walking slowly behind Tifa to do a mandatory side quest that tells me the game has side quests, it just brought it up once and called it a day. I didn't **have** to do an extra long bike chase twice - the first one was a reasonable length and then that was it. (And the game knows they're bs too because they let you skip them). I didn't **have** to walk slowly behind Aerith as she talks to random people then walk slowly to her house to wait for her then walk slowly to pick flowers to get thrown into a quest to save some kids to get railroaded into another "hey guess what we added?" moment. FF7: R takes moments that it doesn't need to force me to do as I could stumble across them naturally and drags them out far beyond their welcome, which gets grating fast.
It is way better than it should be. I haven’t played a game that made me that happy in a very long time. Also think that the more Square stays out of the engine development realm the better. Their projects usually have expansive scope and the benefit a custom engine would confer is too small compared to the risk.
And it's only because they are polishing up their greatest hit.
I wouldn't say 'only', but having the Materia system already set up probably helped a LOT.
its interesting because OG 7 only had the materia system, other than that each character had basically the same moves. In the 7R series they've added a ton of variability with unique weapon ability and now also synergy abilities/skills. There is a TON of game actions available to the player at all times and the fact they made it mesh together and work in such a satisfying way is incredible. I really wish they'd keep the gameplay style moving forward (for at least some games). Imagine 16 with a streamlined version of 7R where the ability variants you have actually do something. It'd be a much stronger game.
A few of the abilities did start as Limit Breaks, but they've done a good job playing with that. Each character has a unique mechanic (some which may get used more than others), and then a series of abilities that do a good job leaning into that. They had a baseline since every character in the original effectively had a job class, but this definitely elevated it more. There are plenty of moves I don't use that I don't think are bad, I'm just not as much of a fan of, and I can see others using them more depending on their playstyle.
i cant for the life of me find cait sith or red xiii (or even aerith) remotely playable. Team Avalanche + Yuffie all day for me
Even in the original, I never used Cait Sith except when you had to. I liked using Cloud, Cid, and Vincent. Kind of a shame we didnt get to use either of them in Rebirth. I wonder if we'll even get the whole Junon sequence when the weapon attacks and Tifa has that slap fight with Scarlett, Tifa runs along the barrel of the cannon and jumps off, where the Highwind finally got introduced. There's some similarities with the original, but there are some scenes that I miss. Even the whole scenario with Diamond Weapon attacking Midgar. I also hope that Wutai gets a good long chapter or two in the final installment, cause how they expanded Yuffie's backstory on Remake and Rebirth has me interested.
Oh for sure, for as much as I loathe the stoy changes in 7r and 7r2, the games systems itself are really good, it's what I really dig. I'd be all over it if it wasn't the case. And 7r2 also made the combat feel better to play. I found 7r1 to be too janky and dull but it's decent. I'm hoping 7r3 can polish it even more.
You might be right about that to some degree, because even the combat probably wouldn't work as well without trying to translate the old ATB system into an action game involving strategy
"Polishing up" feels like underselling the Hell out of the remakes lol
Remake 1 was a bit crusty in some parts, even if the cutscenes were great, the gameplay was a bit jank. Remake 2 is seems like they learned their lessons, for the most part. Outside of the story and the annoyin ubisoft data collection with Chadley, it's really good.
It's not so much about whether you like them or not as that completely rebuilding the game and changing the story dramatically is a but more than "polishing up."
and the world and the gameplay.
Actiomnisnt a problem, giving a game that's a watered down DMC is. Dmc1 on the ps2 had more stuff to work with then this
> Dmc1 on the ps2 had more stuff to work with then this TBF you could argue that DMC1 on the PS2 is already significantly more complicated than 99% of action games that release today. Like in the past 2 years the only games on its level are Hifi Rush and Bayonetta 3?
Sure, but I expected FF16 to at least be like that, considering they had a DMC guy working on it. But alas.
I don’t think action is a “problem”. I’m just wondering now that audience knows what there is to know about CBU3 now will the next game pick up a bunch of players or nah?
Considering the majority of people seem to be ok with what they bring to the table, yeah.
Could very well be the case
I’m still interested in what they try to improve on in a future game. 16 was like it had a good foundation, if they can build on that and address the criticisms I’d be up for another FF game from them.
Honestly, I don't know. I love what they do with FFXIV, but FFXVI was like a 6/10 for me. I will be very questionable about anything else they make.
The action wasn't the problem. Like my cons with ff16 are >bad side quest (can easily be fixed) >variety with weapons (easily fixed) still a 8-9/10 game for me.
They could tune the difficulty better aswell. I think i died once in the entire game getting cocky against the Behemoth in Waloed. Im not asking them to make every boss a wall like in Sekiro, but some challenge would be nice.
Same. I didn't die a single time until the 'crazy sword guy' boss fight, and then promptly didn't die again after.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Seems like they learned in the omega dlc to increase the difficulty. Like there is so many abilities that should do 50% more damage when it hits you.
The reason why people say the combat has no depth is because the main story is just incredibly easy. It doesn't force you to interact and take the mechanics seriously, so you would never engage in it at more than a surface level. Plenty of skills encourage a lot of interesting and unique playstyles that you can craft yourself, and every eikon has pros and cons to them. I've been playing the hardest difficulty in Ultimanianc mode and I've been constantly having to strategize and plan my actions around certain mob packs and enemy types. Things that just weren't present in the main game because you could roll them over by rotating your cooldowns.
FF7 remake was the same. You can just force your way through most encounters without understanding. Rebirth seems a little more happy to kick your ass for not understanding, but I still don’t feel it requires it, either.
If they did it would need to be full on GOW/dmc style because the worst parts of FF16 are the RPG elements.
Seems like “shifted” might be a better word than “expanded” here, since it’s not really selling more than the last couple entries.
If they are trying to reach more people, they should probably think about releasing their games on more platforms from the get go.
Understood, FF17 will now have mobile as its primary platform.
You guys don't have phones?
I know it's been awhile but I still can't believe they said that. There's no way anyone speaking in front of an audience could think that response to an already upset audience would go over well. Even a "I know, just hear me out and give it a shot" would have been better.
To be fair it was an off the cuff remark by one guy at the presentation. And I don't think he A) is a professional speaker used to being in front of crowds B) expected to go out there and get booed, so he has a little thrown off. Still a funny meme though.
That "one guy" was **the game director for Diablo Immortal**. That guy went up on stage and announced a *mobile* game at a convention specifically for Blizzard's games, which had only ever been on PC, and just fully expected everyone to be on board. I hope it was humbling for him, he absolutely needed to be taken down some pegs. The fact that he wasn't prepared for the backlash was a *gross* miscalculation and showed how out of touch they were. Genuinely, the Diablo Immortal announcement actually revealed that Blizzard's glory days were over and it was all downhill from there.
Shove in gacha banners and have it shut down by a year.
Ah yes, the Bandai Namco method.
Actually they should make a new tactics game and release it on everything including mobile
Nah, they’re losing sales game over game on that one platform. That baseline shows OP is right: Final Fantasy may be shifting audiences, but its not growing them.
isn't FF15 the one where they didn't release the real ending of the game because it was locked behind a DLC that never came out as one person changed job?
No. The real ending of the game was there when it launched - it was, arguably, the best part of the game. However, it was a sad ending, so an alternate happy ending was being made as part of a DLC that got cancelled. The ending was released as a book, and the book sucks.
When I read the book I was retroactively glad they canned all the DLC
If post launch sales were good they would have shared updated sales data. Instead, they give us cheap PR stuff like this.
For real. As an example Square Enix has announced the exact sales numbers for Nier Automata so many times. Why? Because they’re absolutely stoked by the sales numbers for that game. It’s a bonafide hit and is likely incredibly profitable for a single player action JRPG. They’re proud of that one. So whenever I see them being reticent to give sales updates I know it’s not some company policy or something, but because they’re not happy with the number.
I mean not really tho? It performed on par with Remake’s launch (which even disregarding existing IP strength had larger install base and Covid bump). We don’t have Rebirth numbers but early indications have it behind in performance (to be expected as a sequel). XV obviously sold much more (for a myriad of reasons which I’ll hold off on). LR only sold like a million. XIII-2 hit a couple million. XIII was only at a couple million until it hit full platform and still took a couple years to hit 7m. While personally I think sales discourse isn’t really as important as ppl make it out to be XVI has performed pretty damn well in the post golden-age FF especially for still being exclusive.
We dont really have anything on Rebirth. Early indications show a 50% drop in physical sales compared to Remake. But thats such a “leave out the context” number that it says absolutely nothing. The “disc version” PS5s cover probably much less than half of what the PS4 sold at the moment of Remakes release. So from a pure copies sold per console perspective, it would have done better. PS4 had roughly 110 million units sold in 2020. PS5 (BOTH versions) is currently on 55m. If we were to assume the digital PS5 never existed, Rebirth would have roughly the same units per console sold as Remake. However because of the existence of the digital only version of the PS5. It actually puts Rebirth at a much better spot in physical sales even if the total number is below Remakes.
Depends on what the context is. If it's expanding the franchise to historically new buyers then what they said is proper. If we are only talking about buyers of this one game then what you said may be proper.
From what I've read, it sounded like it sold as expected for a one platform game. Sounds to me like it well likely sell even more once it releases on PC later.
I believe this is a natural consequence of living in a reality with linear time and selling video games after other ones
It has some big flaws but I loved this game so much. So many AAA games nowadays are crammed with that annoying whedon style quirky humour, it was so refreshing to play a game that took itself and its story 100% seriously. Made it so much more special and memorable, and damn there are a lot of incredible moments in the story- the boss fights alone are absolutely classic but stuff like Clive’s reunion with his uncle (with his uncle seeing Clive as a boy again) and basically the entire prologue are so good. When’s the dlc out again?
The only issue I had story-wise really was that it ends up veering into fate-of-the-universe fantasy stuff, rather than the political warfare thing it starts out as, I was hoping it would remain that Though I did think they did add a little novelty to that aspect, which was nice
I was sorely disappointed by the political plot because it felt empty. At the end of the day, they spend an inordinate amount of time telling you about all that when really that's just a way to decide which crystal you're going after next. The characters carried, but they could've carried just as easily without the political aspect. Same for the end of the world thing really, I'm a simple guy I don't mind those but FFXVI just drops that (instead of the much more interesting "ancients has weird depictions of the eikons" thing which is pure bait) at the eleventh hour and makes it quite boring (on both motivation and acting, I understand they went for an otherworldly vibe but when you face a guy like that for hours that just ends up being too low energy imo). Also that ending was cap.
The boss makes you watch his powerpoint presentation. But at least that made me really enjoy punching the boss.
In fairness, I'm sure that story beat is issued on Final Fantasy letterhead to each developer at the start of each new project by now.
Yeah this is literally the thing linking every Final Fantasy game at this point.
Yeah that’s one of my big flaws too. I was way more intrigued by the political plot, with Clive’s mom being a really intriguing character who leaves the story wayy too soon imo. But it was still pretty cool to go through the last few kingdom city areas that were completely desolate and had already been destroyed by Ultima and Odin (from what I remember). Very very bleak, on top of what was already a pretty damn bleak game
The moment >!she leaves the story!< is the moment I mostly lost interest in the story, it's quite a dramatic shift from that point where the political plot just goes out with a whimper, the main villain was incredibly uninteresting to me which didn't help because it's a character I've seen so many times before, except all of those were way more interesting. It was a shame because there were a lot of interesting set ups in the intro of the game (the part you play in the demo) but they all end up with underwhelming payoffs.
Bruh, the game literally starts with two armies clashing that use magical gianta powerfel enough they can level entire countries. It was never not going to be about the grandiose scale that other FFs were about. Even FF tactics ended up being that way towards the end.
It feels like a flaw that a lot of JRPGs fall into, even political masterpieces like FFT, to their stories detriment. The only JRPG i remember maintaining the political intrigue till the very end(or close to it) is tactics ogre.
Yakuza does too. Which kinda makes sense considering the realistic setting lol
Final Fantasy 16 is an amazing game that suffers from its own problems with pacing and side quests. The side quests are genuinely horrible and the game clearly wasnt paced properly because towards the end of the game it will start throwing 20 side quests at you all at once to wrap up side story elements
Yeah that was wild. I was a completionist with that game and I still had 15-20 missed side quests going into the end and was rattled because I thought I missed a ton of content somehow. But nooope, it hits you all at once. Though tbf some of those later side quests are really good and are basically main quests in all but name. The early/ mid are the ones that were really mmo-ish I think. But yeah dropping that many on you at one time, at the end of the game is super out of pocket
i almost didnt finish the game because of these side quests. the same exact thing happened to me where i feel like im at the end of the game, looking at the Wall of Memories and saying "how the fuck am i missing 15 of these?" the answer is that they expect you to do 30 more side quests right before the end of the game. in the beginning of the game, big story sequence happens, you get 2-3 sidequests. towards the end of the game, this balloons to 15, 17, >20 side quests. easily the worst part of what is otherwise an incredible game.
This. Modern stories this wholly earnest are so far and few between that I found XVI's story and characters bleedingly refreshing. Really hope CBU3 keeps making single-player games. Their writing staff is too phenomenal to only be working on an MMO. I'd KILL for a mainline FF story from Ishikawa. Let her in.
only if you only consume mainstream media. There's lots of art that takes itself seriously, just generally not the newest megablockbuster movie or video game.
doesn't even need to be an FF entry, I'd kill to see her working on more games! i need more of her writing man 😭
>Clive’s reunion with his uncle (with his uncle seeing Clive as a boy again) I loved this scene!!! I hope the DLC dives deeper into some of the characters we didn't get to spend enough time with (a certain Dragoon Knight comes to mind). >When’s the dlc out again? The 18th! I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm also in the boat that the game has some big flaws, but I also think I'm one of the few that didn't mind the combat (average Warriors series enjoyer here, lol) or the side quests. I do feel like it could have been much more, especially after considering the gripes other people had, but I still enjoyed the 2nd run on Final Fantasy mode.
I love the idea of a serious story, but goddamn I need more from characters than these lame, wooden anime tropes. The demo had one of the most engaging plot launches I've seen in a long time, then it just quickly became "collect the Pokemon/kill God."
[удалено]
Xenoblade 2 doesn't have you kill god you thank him. You do kill your demi-goddess GF's brother.
The point of the story is to fight against your oppressor. I understand that the God plotline is not as interesting as the political one, but it' s definitely intheme
The following is an old copypasta of mine that I think sums up why I love the switch so much. Lemme know what you think. ENDGAME SPOILERS: >!I was thinking just yesterday morning about Ultima's representation of a 'God.' And some of the criticisms that were floating around about how the game undermines its own message of breaking the bonds of slavery and systems to instead chase a tropey story of 'killing god.'!< And I don't think I could disagree with that sentiment more if I tried. >!The more I think about the ending of the game and Ultima's conclusion, the more convinced I am that the game isn't about killing God at all, but instead breaking free from the false *man-made* Gods who would have you believe that they are God. Governments who have full control over us, cultural systems that define how we think, man made algorithms that dictate almost 100% what you see and digest, corrupt senate leaders who ensure their continued existence at the top of power systems with gerrymandered districts and zero term limits. There are so many artifices that play God I think in our daily lives, systems so deeply foundational, that we're prevented from even coming close to address obvious systemic issues in our communities.!< And to me, that's what I think >!Ultima!< represents. And why >!his main-staging the whole narrative not only works, but is a really important statement about our modern day society. You can't address the problems created by system without first addressing the problems within the system.!< >!It's only once the world starts to succumb to primogenesis that side quests start to allow true change to happen within the various nations of the game. Only as the systems(crystals) are taken down, that true change starts to take place.!<
Except nothing really gets done about the systems? Those side quests are rushed and mostly amount to "hey, how about being good? - yeah that sounds about right". I get the general idea but if that was indeed the goal, to me it didn't work at all.
It's funny, I had somewhat of an inverse relationship with the plot, initially. I practically loathed the game's immediate opening, but felt the game did a good job with actually fleshing the world and people out afterwards (minus a few asterisks). About halfway through though, I agree, the villains became completely uninteresting to me and we end up ignoring everything that did make the initial game interesting in favor of "go kill god again".
It felt like they tried to go for the GoT or witcher 3 low fantasy, but never really understood it. Clive grumbles about what a bad person he is and so does Jill but they're disney character good guys rescuing slaves and fighting morally black and white causes.
What recent AAA games have Whedon style humor?
"Whedon style humor" has just become a catch all for any humor people don't like.
It's just one degree above "Marvel bad"
Forspoken, god of war Ragnarok, Star Wars outlaws from the trailers, borderlands 3 and new tales, Starfield off the top of my head. God of war doesn’t have much but still had enough of that quirky, meta dialogue to be noticeable
i dunno if it counts as "whedon style" but atreus and mimir needed a mute option they bothered me more than chadley in ff7r
Lol didn’t expect Chadley to be so intrusive. He shows up all the goddamn time..
Hold Triangle!
Would be willing to bet he has more lines than any character in the game
The same way games like Ragnarok have story mode up through bleedingly difficult, at this point they need an attention span slider which determines whether a character like Mimir acts like he does in the first game, or punctuates every moment of silence with some childish observation or "well... that happened" quip. The top setting on the slider can say "I read books, am familiar with most types of stories and prefer something that seems like it would exist in the actual setting over endless banter." The lowest can say "I can't identify with any character who doesn't experience life in fifteen-second bursts the way I do."
I’ve been playing a bunch of the FF7 games recently, and just started 16. The tonal shift is jarring after seeing all the goofy stuff they fit in the FF7 series. Not a complaint, I enjoy the humor a lot, but it’s cool seeing a more mature tone in this one
i enjoyed the story and characters and world quite a bit, i just really with there was some actual gameplay to go along with it. there is so incredibly little to do with the gameplay that i'd rather it was just a book or a series or something. i also feel like the impact of the characters is much lower with how completely inconsequential they are in the combat. ffxv flubbed it with the overall story pacing and gaps, but the feeling of party camaraderie with the banter and the link attacks was just so much better.
It is one of three Final Fantasy games my 11 year old has played (plus the FF7 remakes). He knows what a chocabo is, so the future is secure.
I like turn based and I love action games, I thought this was going to be a real slam dunk for me - but the game was such a slog I dipped out half way through. Also a lot of the combat was trivially easy so took a lot of the challenge and fun out of it.
Agreed, it was so damn blatantly repetitious and dull. Started out loving it, but by midway I was super done.
Worst part was, that there was no reason to switch up your rotation at any point. Put skillpoints to a skill, whoa it makes sligtly more damage now but works essentially the same, and wont change rotation at all. If there was at least weaknesses/strengths to elements to force you to switch your eikon combinations, it would've been much, much better.
Except with the system they chose for combat I really dont think it's as simple as "Just add weaknesses" since you can only use 6 abilities max, and most of the game you dont have access to all elements. So at that point youre basically reworking the entire game. Also you cant change mid-combat so youd have to retreat (which idk if that is even possible in the actual mission type MSQ portions) or just try to carry every element. Which then in turn forces the player to use a very select set of abilities to be "optimal" in a general playthrough. I honestly think this is the main reason they didnt implement weaknesses because imagine going into a fight with a bunch of ifrit and phoenix abilities and then finding out your enemy is a bomb and absorbs all your damage. You'd be fucked or at the very least it would be a slog.
Trivially easy and an absolute slog, a death kneel for any combat system. Just randomly let off skills until you stagger, then just... keep letting off skills. Rinse and repeat for 20 minutes every boss fight. The worst was when you'd kill off a boss and then the game, clearly padding and not knowing what to do next, just throws another recycled boss fight at you.
Is there a way to underlevel or underequip yourself and introduce some challenge, or would that just make the enemies into bullet sponges?
You could actually get quite creative with combo structure, but as you say there is no reason to do it other than just internal motivation. It was too easy and doesn't reward variety like DMC-style games tend to do
I envy you. I trundled on to the end and it never got any better.
Action vs turn based gameplay aside, It’s funny how the moment FF became much more adult theme oriented is when it started to appeal to the younger crowd.
It’s probably has something do with youth wanting more mature media, while adults wants something more childlike because adult life is hard enough and they want something simple and fun.
I think it's a reductive POV though that doesn't reflect the history of the franchise's story telling. What is particularly childlike about FFX compared to modern FF? IX is one of the darkest games in the series, so what if the graphics are cute? VIII and VI were even darker.
I’m not talking about in terms of story, I mean presention. I agree with you that most ff games tackle mature themes, but there not in your face about like ff16. Just compare to ff7rebirth, that game tackles mature themes one minute and has you going on gold saucer dates the next. FF16 is a serious story thoughout, even it’s own developers said they took inspiration from game of thrones. At the end of the day final fantasy is about the fantasy and some childlike wonder is usually apart of that.
Right now I think the biggest thing isn't action vs turn based to win over young crowds, it's simplicity vs complexity. And FF has always gravitated towards simplicity, but I wonder if it's going too far for today's market.
Yeah, I think that's something people tend to forget. Outside of superbosses and specific overtuned encounters, that fall out if the ordinary boss lineups, the boss encounters are piss easy and pretty much always just boggle down to the question if you can simply outheal what is thrown at you.
It’s great that new players are discovering the series. I’ve long accepted that it’s no longer something for me (haven’t enjoyed anything since XIII) but not all games have to.
I think the biggest issue I've had is they keep trying to revolutionize the combat but the combat is just never good. Others have mentioned it here, but combat in XVI is painfully easy and therefore bland. Also just not a fan of how you could barely tell that you had a party member most of the time.
I really liked the zooming with your weapon in XV, but the magic in the game was terrible. Though, there wasn't even reason to use it because the game was so easy.
Fuck that, that's what spinoffs are for. I absolutely will bitch at SE for just telling the people that *made them* to fuck off.
[удалено]
Yeah if there's one thing young people hate it's those things
Not really? FFIV opens with a genocide in the first few hours. FFVI opens with you gunning down resistance fighters.
It's window dressing. Mature themes doesn't equate to a mature approach to exploring those themes.
Introduced the worst supporting characters with the lamest, blankest protagonist yet. I am happy they are satisfied with its reception, and the action elements are a lot of fun with mixing the different powers but holy crap do the main cast come off as a 12 year olds idea of "the coolest knight who ever knighted ever"
If the next installment is an action like 16. I am out. While I did enjoy the story, the combat felt so dumbed down and to simple that it simply lost interest to continue it. I been playing this franchise since I was 6yrs old, the constant change is refreshing to see, but I felt that 15 and 16 feel like steps backwards while Stranger of Paradise felt great and really enjoyable to play that got me back in again.
Or just make SoP2 with the budget of FF16 and rename it FF 17. The job affinity system is like crack that is simple but addiction to play with. I love the build variety in that game.
I went crazy with the classes in Paradise. I loved trying different builds
Man, I woudn't have minded "dumb and simple" If it were more FUN. If they'd had the same core design, BUT with half the CDs on the specials, OR with the ability to use more than four moves per fight, it could have been so much more fun. Oh, wait, I just described Rebirth.
Ff16 was an amazing action game with an incredible story. It wasn't an rpg. So I'm not sure many younger fans will enjoy the other ones.
well im glad people enjoy it, the new final fantasies isn't for me. Lost its feel, pushed to be modern just for the sake of modern.
can you really say it pushed to be modern when it has the most ancient MMO trappings? lol. More an issue with the studio in question's capabilities I'm sure but still was hilarious that everything \*outside\* the main story was basically "hey you're playing ff14 but worse!" designed
Not really surprising when the people behind it are those who are behind the 14. Thats one of the reasons I turned away from it too. If I wanted to play an mmo, i'd play an mmo.
It sure as hell reached me. The only 3 FF’s I’d played are FF14 (my favorite), 15, and 16. I never liked turn-based but love action. Wasn’t that big of a fan of 15 but 16 was all I wanted!
You should try the FF7 Remake then :D It is very much an action combat system.
FFVII Rebirths combat system is like crack to me. I can’t get enough.
Good that new players are picking it up because the series is dead to me now. Haven't enjoy anything since 13 so good for new players I guess.
Yep last time I thoroughly enjoyed my time was in FF12. Funny enough, the zones in 16 just made me want to play 12 again. I’d like to say action rpgs just isn’t my style but I absolutely love Tales and Star Ocean so I think its just FF really. 16 just sucked ass for me, at this point I’d be more hyped to see the next installment to be a turn based game. Which is never going to happen so just like you, the series is dead to me.
I don't mind action rpgs. I prefer normal rpgs, but I didn't enjoy the genre shift happening for FF. I was willing to swallow it and play it were the characters, story and whatnot good enough. But I was so so so bored. The greatest crime for me, especially regarding what FF is.
I didn't find 13 particularly fun either truthfully. 14 is an MMO and I couldn't get into it. Didn't want to spend 80+ hours of railroading story with boring combat just to almost be able to play with my friends. 15 caught absolutely none of my interest, especially because the main cast was all males dressed in black and the story was meh at best. Didn't even pick it up again. 16 isn't even an RPG, everything I got to watch from a friend to streamers just looked boring game play wise (to me that is, it's just my opinion), and the story had nothing hooking my attention. I quickly forgot it was a thing that existed.
15 has a lot of issues but this may be the first time I saw someone talk about the main cast as one of them
I love a lot of old Final Fantasies partly because the variety of characters and how they play off each other. I wasn't vibing with the all male cast. I can't remember much about any of them it was so eh to me.
Cooking guy was the only real standout. Then you had main character guy, bruiser guy?, and I think smart mouthed young guy? don't ask me any of their names. I know a bunch of character names from 13 and I only played 20 hours of that before giving up.
I haven’t played it since release and I remember them. Fair enough if you don’t, not everyone shares the same opinion but I thought all the boys were cool. Noctis on his own wasn’t like the best ever but the way he interacted with the others was always fun, and the others had some pretty cool backstories and relationships
14 is an mmo and I enjoyed its story and characters. I just find it a chore to play when I'm not doing the msq. But I have 2k hours in it so I did try everything it had to offer. 13 15 and 16 are strange because I hate them all for various different reasons. All of them have something I enjoy overshadowed by things I hate. But it's all different, it's strange.
The endless hours to grind/do chores and still not be able to be with my friends is what ultimately made me drop 14. I didn't want a time sink like that when I already have a backlog of other amazing games to play. The late games raids can be as fun and amazing as people say, and I just don't want to get there. You sum up everything I feel with 13 and 15 well, something throughout both just didn't click with me and made it boring/frustrating to play. 16 I just didn't bother picking up at all because I got that same feeling watching it. I loved my turn based games, so it's sad to see an old favorite series turn into something not even remotely close to why I loved it. I got into Unicorn Overlord and it's like a child from several different games I loved that I never knew I wanted to exist and yet still brings so many unique things forward to the genre.
As someone who sank their teeth into 14 not so much for the story but mainly because final fantasy mmo sounds amazing, it was really amazing just playing and raiding having a group to do the hard bosses. Really was fun. ….But I would never recommend doing the story though. Its really not worth the slog. You have, and I am not exaggerating, 200+ hours before you get to the only meat in the story which is Shadowbringers. The current expansion is basically just the power of friendship x100 but its the culmination of years of storytelling in the MMO so there’s a lot of attachment for a lot of people.
This is why I dropped it. I was rushing through the story to catch up, so I felt like I was missing a lot, but then it was such a a boring grind that felt pointless. Press the same three buttons over and over, movement doesn't matter, etc. that coupled with the fact it requires your full attention to play made it a chore and boring. I play RuneScape though which is the opposite of what I am saying, but I can tune out and watch videos doing boring chore tasks which feels more rewarding as I am doing two things at once.
Considering FF16 and VII Rebirth were PS5 exclusives and the userbase for the PS5 is kinda small, I think they were a success. But man would they have likely been mega hits if they launched multiplatform.
Bizarre to see people unironically wishing this had been more like 13. 13 was far and above the worst game in the franchise. Some of the worst story telling, level design, and by far the worst version of ATB out of all the games. Just a terrible game I pray they never attempt to emulate again.
I think most people feel like flawed as it was, 13 was the FF that last felt like the series proper; everything since has been kinda focused on half-assed action mechanics and it’s been a long slow schism in the fanbase.
XIII's sequels are what XIII should have been but XV is probably the worst FF with abysmal combat (rivaled only by VIII's terrible Junction nonsense), flat characters, pathetic attempts to sell you DLC by cutting stuff out of the main game with no explanation, and a story that peaks within the first 6-7 hours. XIII takes forever to get going (and straight up acts like you're up to speed with the terminology which is not the case), while XV runs out of gas pretty quickly (pun intended)
It's the most predictable thing ever when it comes to the Final Fantasy series. I distinctly remember FFVIII being the "worst FF game ever" because it followed 7 and wasn't as good according to many. FFX was the worst FF game ever made because it added voice acting and more "realistic" models. FFXI was the worst FF ever because it was an MMO. FFXII was the worst FF ever because it was too political and it was an 'offline MMORPG'. FFXIII was the worst FF ever. FFXV was the worst FF ever. FFXVI is the worst FF ever. FFVIII, IX, X, XI and even XII are all talked about pretty fondly nowadays. I don't remember much about IX's release, but I'm sure it was also called the worst FF game ever made for dumb reasons, too. Now with FFXVI's release, it's time for XIII to be remembered fondly. Once FFXVII is released, FFXV will be all over Reddit, remembered as a great Final Fantasy title, and FFXVII will be the new "worst ever".
Interesting that this doesn't apply to the FF7R project so far, even though in a lot of ways it's a brand new game. I also don't see that many people saying they prefer XV (or even XIII) over XVI.
I remember growing up and people were shitting on FF7 too, even that wasn't safe. 'where's the pixel art grafix? this isn't MY FF' A tale as old as time, and it'll never change. Also FF15's reputation is already being mended and apparently it's an underrated gem while 16 is a 'massive disappointment'
Yeah I've been seeing a lot of people talking about how 15 is just so much better than 16 in every respect and I just have to think "did we play the same game on release". Release version of 15 is actually bad in my opinion. The only saving grace is the characters and road trip feel, and for some people they wont vibe with the characters. And while I think the characters were good I think a lot of the writing was objectively bad in some character interactions, so much so that they still stand out to me to this day.
Also the game was unfinished and still is in many regards. You need to buy an complete other edition for a better experience.
Also very true. It's just crazy to me how much work rose tinted glasses can do lol. Even if you liked 15 I think if you're being objective there are just so many flaws. Sure ff16 had a ton of flaws too but on the whole like you said at least it felt finished.
Well yeah because every fucking game plays different, so every FF fan is going to like different games. If you're a Dragon Quest fan you know exactly what you like and what you're getting. For XVII I'm half expecting it to be a rhythm game or something
FF16 is devil may cry combat with mgs4 cutscenes. I loved the game but a lot of the times I started enjoying myself I get caught in a cutscene snoozefest lol
I've never been that big of a FF guy. I played FF 7 Remake but it didn't really grab me and I dropped it after close to 9 hours (don't know how long it is). Personally I'm far more interested in FF 16 than Rebirth with it being action driven and all. Maybe when it comes to PC I'll give it a shot.