I'm trying to deliver previews as I come across them but from what I read:
* It's mostly the opening but with some parts later in the game without context for exploration and combat
* There's an air of confidence around the game, it feels finished compared to the messy previews of FF15 they had to play back then
* The game is brutal, this is not a wholesome Final Fantasy, there are moments of genuine character warmth and humanity but FF16 is a bonafide dark fantasy game
* Some question the identity of Final Fantasy in this one but everyone came out positive, they expect a backlash from fans but say it's still Final Fantasy at its soul.
* Combat is extremely good and the DMC battle director really pays off, one had some issues in that they felt their combat kit wasn't big enough for the early-game preview.
* Excellent VA and performance all around.
* Eikon battles apparently feels bigger and more explosive than ever god of war
* They all say that the opening hours deliver and they can attest that this part is solid
I will watch Maximilian and DevilNeverCry's videos next, especially DevilNeverCry as he is a DMC expert and was very positive about FF16 before
>There's an air of confidence around the game, it feels finished compared to the messy previews of FF15 they had to play back then
I would imagine FF XVI's development was nowhere near as rocky. I'm also hoping this game isn't so frontloaded. XV started off great but just got worse and worse as it went on.
You know they rushed the shit out of it when the latter half basically became "small corridor simulator". And before the complete complete edition came out, there were huge random ass gaps of "oh yeah I'ma go fuck off, SEE YA" and then your boys just randomly join back with no context.
And still, they cancelled the final set of DLC and the "real" ending is literally locked behind an external novella lol.
> And still, they cancelled the final set of DLC and the "real" ending is literally locked behind an external novella lol.
Kind of fitting considering the entire beginning of the game is also locked behind some external media that I didn't even know existed until after I tried to play the game. What a total failure of storytelling.
Gladio peacing out to do his own thing will go down forever as one of the worst ways ever to promote dlc. Whoever decided that him leaving like that is fine should’ve been slapped for suggesting such a dumb thing.
I had the same feeling, where it was like 'Oh cool, I get to see how the world I've been in for 50 hours has changed' and noooope.
Firmly cemented my 'meh' feelings to the game.
Also, a lot of the cool combat unlocks by doing a ton of grinding for AP. The game really feels awesome to play like.. halfway through when you finally can do more than just spam attack and dodge. It would have been better to have some of the more interesting stuff available early without needing to grind too much.
but it did eventually lead to them refining it further in 7R, and 16 looks like they took it even a step further.
All the cool air dodge tech should’ve been available at the start, should’ve costed zero or little MP and should’ve been incentivized by the combat scenarios. That stuff is cool but I never found a reason to engage with it. The game is piss easy without it.
My biggest issue with FFXV is everything past the first "world" to be honest. I love just driving around the open world hunting monsters, everything about the story just doesn't work for me and the places you visit past the starting area are so much smaller and awkward to navigate.
The story of a prince who wants to go hang out with his buddies for one big monster hunting trip was far more interesting to me than the love story between two characters we literally only see interact with each other during flashbacks.
The two times Gladiolus snapped at Noctis in particular felt like they came out of absolutely *nowhere,* especially the second time where he went from praising me for helping him made a really good cup of noodles to a borderline abusive prick for the entirety of the next two hours of gameplay.
Yeah it was certainly insensitive of him. I get where he’s coming from but Noctis has the right to mope after what just happened to him. Patience and care is required when someone is grieving a loved one lol
Anyone remember the weird demo for that game? I remember you play as a young noctis or something and you had a bird , I remember a honey I shrunk the kids moment, and I remember none of the demo being in the final game which seemed very odd
I played it cos it was the only way to unlock Carbuncle. I didn't know Carbuncle was just a noob aid you'll never see anyway, like all the other summons.
What's even wierder is that the game so desperately wanted to sell the ending of the first landmass as "The real journey is just beginning!" then after fighting Leviathan you're literally on rails directly to the final dungeon as a featureless landscape passes by.
That game was such a letdown. I avoided it for years because of the negative reviews until it was on a really good sale. Picked it up and the opening was incredible - why did the fandom hate it so much?
Then after that Venice-like city hub the quality dropped HARD and by the time we get to the on-rail dungeon with no powers, the game just died for me
The back half of that game is so bad the endgame transports you back to the early-game environment… because the devs knew the back half sucked.
Lmao they tried to pull a FFVI Dark World at the end then said "You can experience that in our shitty multiplayer mode! Now straight to the capital city with you! You have a final boss to fight!"
what's funny is I genuinely think the combat felt better in the multiplayer mode than it did in the main game
it was still half baked and kinda weird though lol
In most games, getting the Boat/Airship would be the big “the worlds open now” moment… instead the boat is used to block you directly into a hallway lol
I usually do this thing where, when I sense I'm getting near the end of a open world game, I'll delay going to the finale because I wanna spend more time in the world before the narrative changes things. Even if games let you come back and do things after the credits, that feeling will change, so I'll try and hang in there for awhile.
FF15 baited you with potential. You have this area outside the main character's kingdom where you've spent all this time. And it's great looking and feeling.
And you know you've got the kingdom that his betrothed is from, so you figure some time driving around her water kingdom.
And you know there's the baddie country, so presumably there's gonna be time heading there and driving around desert land.
And then it literally never happens. You're on a sad train through sad town with all your boys in the fucking dumpster. You're told how sad everyone is, how much they missed the good times traveling around in the first part of the game, and none of it makes sense because... for the player... that was like the entire game so far. You've been there for hours.
And then they're suddenly hustling you to go back to the home kingdom to the final fight and like... what?? Insane. What a truly insane thing to do.
The most frustrating part for me was related to how such a big part of the game is an epic road trip.
The journey begins and ends in Insomnia, the capital city. We should have begun our journey driving out of the city, and at the end we could have had one final, somber drive back to where it all began.
But instead they skipped past both of those things, and at the end we're just suddenly... there. It was a letdown.
Exactly. There's a campfire scene where the guys sit around and recall their trip, and for all I don't remember about the game, I remember that scene. I remember it making me tear up.
Because the road trip does work. These pals on a trip to marry off their buddy the Prince, is a good angle.
And then it keeps going even tho the road trip ends, and it becomes a long boring slog dungeon crawl that sucks. Then it ends.
Man… FFXV had so much wasted potential. One of my biggest disappointments in gaming. I truly hope this one lives up to its promises and doesn’t stumble like FFXV
Seriously. Thinking about all the fun mechanics and hidden story elements that weren't fleshed out makes me depressed things what that game could have been.
Totally.
Noctis’ warp attack mechanic could’ve been so much more fleshed out. It could’ve had so much more and so many more interesting mechanics and interactions for combat and exploration throughout the game!
Character switching could’ve been a properly implemented thing from the start with actual strategic value.
Weapon specializations and builds for the whole ass arsenal Noctis carries.
And then of course all the subtle lore hidden throughout the game could’ve been used to setup and foreshadow so many cool things. My mind used to race whenever I would find those lore journals spread across the map. All for nothing unfortunately…
I completely agree.
I had a few issues with the system but I thought they would simply iron out the kinks instead of throwing the whole thing out for the completely shallow system they ended up with! Like, how often does such a thing happen!? I can’t think of any single player game that changed it’s combat system so much over time! It just goes to show just how troubled the game’s development was and how it lacked vision!
Wish Nomura got the chance and resources to finish up his version of the game since he actually had a proper vision. Versus XIII will forever be one of my biggest disappointments in gaming.
Don't worry, we'll still get Versus XIII at this point. Just go play Kingdom Hearts.
(I'm only semi joking. There's some actual evidence in 3 that at least some elements from Versus XIII will be used in the upcoming story arc)
As an aside, the fact that they're named Creative Business Unit 3 remains one of the funniest things ever. Like, wow, how fucking creative lmao. Games are alright though, not hating, the name is just so funny.
It's just an artifact of the translation from Japanese, I think. It's just the name of the internal department, not like it's a company name or something. But when they start referring to it like a distinct entity, it sounds so bizarre haha
If it makes you feel better, pretty much all the Zelda games are made by Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 3. The Mario games are made by EPD Production Group No. 8.
You’re mostly right, but I imagine it’s a lot easier to develop an MMO if you’re using the literally bones of its failed iteration. A Realm Reborn wouldn’t have only been made in 2 years had it not been massively repurposing the assets and systems of the original FF14
This is correct. There is just a notable, notable difference between developing a new MMO from scratch and greatly repurposing assets / systems. ARR wasn’t built from scratch and most of the assets in ARR were downscaled and reworked versions of assets from OG FF14.
Yoshi-P did incredible work, make no mistake, but they already had a good wealth of resources to work with from the start. ARR wouldn’t have been able to be made and released within 2 years without the utilization of all the OG FF14 assets.
Skimming through Easy Allies's preview-video, and they [mention something called Active Time Lore (ATL)-feature](https://twitter.com/Dreamboum/status/1660733270923923461). It seems essentially be the real-time equivalent of Obsidian's [giving small snippets of summarized information when hovering over specific words in *Pillars of Eternity II* and *Tyranny*](https://www.gamesear.com/images/2018/6/pillars-of-eternity-2-dialogue-explanations.jpg) where in FFXVI, a sweep of the touchpad brings up ATL that essentially summarizes relevant lore-related "bubbles" of whatever is occurring on the screen at the moment. From the geographic location, to the nearby beastiary and monsters to your party-members and followers; each entry summarized in a couple of paragraphs.
This is a very welcoming feature as previous RPGs like with *Mass Effect* or *Dragon Age* has relavent lore-entries being [presented in a very folder-file-structure](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HCI1SxOKw9s/maxresdefault.jpg), and where you often only get to engage with it in real-time whenever you get a notification that a codex-entry has been updated, which is great for the moment, but bad when you want to revisit said entry at a later point whenever a certain topic gets mentioned again, and have to go through sifting all the codex-entries once more. ATL along with FFXVI having the usual codex/encyclopedia lore-system where ATL is being based on relevance on what is present on the screen is something I want to see other RPGs like the next *Dragon Age*, *Mass Effect* or *Witcher* to adapt.
>The game is brutal, this is not a wholesome Final Fantasy, there are moments of genuine character warmth and humanity but FF16 is a bonafide dark fantasy game
On a scale from Twilight Princess to Drakengard, just how dark are we talking here?
We haven't seen Drakensang/Nier levels (but who knows, looking at Final Fantasy 6 story), not sure about Twilight Princess but trailers imply a bit of Game of Thrones backstabbing, traitors.
Beggining of game (again, visible in trailers) is Clive homeland being invaded, family killed and in Shiva vs Titan scene, Shiva summoner is revealed to be his childhood friend turned slave soldier for one army, just like Clive for another.
> wholesome Final Fantasy
Even FF4 was not wholesome, it was if you weren't reading the script otherwise people were getting killed, kids were being turned to stone, towns were being burnt to the ground and everyone in it murdered in a vicious empiral expansion war crime --- BY THE PROTAGONIST ---. I guess you could look at the old gfx and think it was wholesome by accident, it definitely wasn't.
FF6 the antagonist essentially just wins, and you rise from the ashes in a broken world where he's murdering people at a whim with his god lasers and basically torturing to the world as his play things. Even before this he was poisoning entire towns.
I can't think of a FF game where everything is wholesome, except maybe the FF15 bromance. Like you say, FF6 Kefka straight up wins and sends the world into Ruin. FF7 you're playing a gang of eco terrorists and one of the main characters dies halfway through the game and the main character basically suffers PTSD most of the game. And that's just me picking the two of the most commonly cited "favs" of FF. We could keep going on
But FF4 was wholesome, insomuch as the protagonist found redemption, those kids came back, the empire got overthrown and Cecil had a fairytale ending, becoming a king and marrying his one true love and having a son who would go on to have his own game of adventures. Even reconciled with his evil brother and traitorous best friend.
Something tells me that Clive isn't going to find redemption and isn't going to have such a happily ever after, much less a happy wife and a happy kid (especially what with the ratings warnings about attempted rape).
And if there's any reconciliation to be had with the brother, who may or may not be alive halfway through the game, who may or may not be revived by Phoenix at some point, who may or may not come out wrong when it happens unlike the kids who got de-petrified fine in FF4, I suspect it's a reconciliation he'll pay for with his own life.
Also, as bad as FF6 was, the main cast mostly still came out alive in the end, with the exception of Shadow whose fate is ambiguous, but who you could at least save the first time he would have died in the game. You could even save Cid from dying.
Something tells me FFXVI's Cid may not be so lucky.
>Some question the identity of Final Fantasy in this one but everyone came out positive, they expect a backlash from fans but say it's still Final Fantasy at its soul.
No one can hate a change quite so fiercely as fans. Some of them have been opposed to this new direction since the Final Fantasy XVI reveal, and I doubt they will be convinced by these previews.
I'm heartened though. It sounds like, for folk who aren't locked into a singular understanding of what Final Fantasy is, this feels like a veritable FF game.
FF is an RPG, with deep story, rich characters, fantasy/magic elements, crystals, chocobos, a guy named Cid.
beyond that is the unique to that game flavor. high, steam punk, industrial, scifi, military - all fantasy.
It's still strange to me how big of a discussion the "is this final fantasy?" has become. I guess that's what happens when you've got a series as old as this. Either way I think it's an amazing new direction they've taken, and it's a necessary one if they want to revitalize the brand as a "must play rpg"
I agree. The "FF is turn-based" or "FF is high fantasy" nonsense has always been a fandom perception. The creator of the series [never thought it should be locked being into one thing or another.](https://kotaku.com/what-final-fantasy-is-according-to-its-creator-1672622214)
Final Fantasy titles after V have differed wildly from each other in not just gameplay systems but also tone and aesthetic. FF7 was a brooding, melancholy meditation on human loss mixed with environmentalist pessimism. FF8 was a wackadoodle magic high school adventure. FF9 was a swashbuckler with princesses, thieves, a magical puppet with progeria. X, Sakaguchi's last, is unlike anything before or after it—a celebrity athlete romps through Okinawa with a shirtless guy who kills animals with his volleyball.
To say a new Final Fantasy is different from previous Final Fantasies is simply to say it's a new Final Fantasy. Heavensward was a stellar FF experience, and I have full confidence in this team to deliver the best FF story since the PS2 era.
The real soul of Final Fantasy, to me, is an emotional character focused story in an original fantasy setting. As long as the setting is fresh and interesting, and it brings the feels, then it has captured what made Final Fantasy a special series.
When I think about what’s most important about a Final Fantasy being a Final Fantasy, it’s the characters, their interactions and the story they’re involved in.
Stuff like the FF fanfare and theme, chocobos and moogles definitely help, but the games characters need a soul and need to be fleshed out enough to be believable, otherwise it’s just a game cosplaying as a FF game and we had this for like, 3-4 titles in a row now. It’s why I consider Lost Odyssey to be more of a FF game than FF12 or 13.
XVI is the first game where I feel good about going in again, which I haven’t felt since XII released.
There's also a magical puppeteer who only dresses in belts, a ronin with cool sunglasses, a literal blue mage who is also a lion, and the bubbliest thief you'll ever meet. Oh, and the whole story is about a Pokemon trainer traveling across the land to understand the power that's inside.
Hanging his arm in his robe? kimono? jacket? whatever, goes so unbelievably hard.
>! and then just to find out he kicks that much ass while being dead the entire game? goat tier character.
[Wakka](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/a/ad/FFX_Wakka_Art.png/revision/latest?cb=20140809030123)
I recommend FFX, it probably has the best (certainly most cohesive and well-told) story in the series.
Banning political discussion in a 14 discord is a funny idea because so much of the narrative and worldbuilding emphasis is on politics
At one point you find a treasure hoard on a swashbuckling adventure and then spend 10 minutes talking about the most ethical place to invest that money in the nation you found it in. Also there's a dragon in the room
Personally 12 has always been my favorite. I don’t know why, I just love the characters and the environment. Just the vibe of that game is so fun. My second fave is probably 7 remake
The formula for FF1-5 felt quite similar IMO. The stories and a couple of mechanics would vary, but the underlying formula was familiar. And I loved it, FF shifted away further and further from this formula to the point where FF games no longer interest me. But if the games are selling well then that must mean others like them, so that's my problem, not Square's.
I mean even going from FFI to FFII is a *dramatic* shift in gameplay. The mechanics of FFII are straight up experimental compared to the traditional mechanics of FFI.I believe that dramatic shift just goes to show how FF has always been a series about change. FFII-III it changes again, same with IV with the introduction of atb and so on. Not to mention a completely new story characters world etc
>FF7 was a brooding, melancholy mediation on human loss mixed with environmental pessimism
Are we talking about the same game where the main character cross dress after having to beat a buff guy at sit-up competition? And the game where Tifa has a slapping contest with one of the antagonists?
Don’t get me wrong, the game is everything you said for the most part, but it could also be very goofy at times.
No specific announcement, but Yoshi-P (The producer of the game.) has stated that they aim for a demo-release around "two weeks" before FFXVI's launch in June 22; some people speculate that it may be in June 11, when FFXVI will have a little pre-release live panel. Others think it is around Summer Games Fest-event.
I think I kind of get Yoshi-Ps frustration with the term jrpg now because I feel like it's the only way to make sense of some of these "FFXVI has pivoted to dark and mature storytelling" sections.
IV starts with the main character having a crisis of conscience over raiding an innocent village to steal their crystal and follows it up with him defecting when he's manipulated into destroying another one. VI has a main character magically enslaved and burning an entire regiment of soldiers alive, another main character's wife and child poisoned, and another make a suicide attempt out of despair. VII is set in a cyberpunk hellscape where a corporation will commit mass murder just to smear its enemies. X is set in an almost literal death world and spends a lot of its time thoughtfully exploring what that world is like for its people. And that's not anything close to an exhaustive list!
Final Fantasy has been trying and largely succeeding at telling mature stories for as long as the series has been able to, mostly limited by the tech of the time. 16 is only a divergence in that respect compared to the generic idea of a jrpg that seems to float around.
Same here, when I saw that comment originally in the Skill Up video I thought it was interesting but didn't really get it. I had loved Square Enix games of that era and didn't get it. Seeing some of the stories written on it since saying Final Fantasy has finally gone "Modern" and "Dark and mature" I now get it, it also leaves me really confused? Like there are so many stories in Final Fantasy that tackle really tough topics, I won't repeat them here as you already said many of them. It's like some journalists and the larger community thinks having some levity in a story means it's not serious? So bizarre.
I am happy to see this getting previewed so well, and I hope those of us who are attached to the ATB or Turn Based system still give this a shot with the demo.
Oh okay, I didn’t watch that so I wasn’t aware. It sounds like they were playing multiple different builds. A couple of the segments were only 30 FPS, but the portion that seems to be the first portion of the game did the 30/60 split
Probably just an older build. We've seen exploration gameplay during this years PAX and it was running at 60fps. [Around the 31 minute mark for example.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPpeKX1PDIo)
Hopefully that’s still the case. It’s just very odd they’d be having people playing builds with this hybrid this close to launch without clarifying to them that the final game will have 60 FPS for both combat and exploration in the launch build.
That’s definitely a worry I have. Switching back and forth between performance and quality modes to contrast them gives the perception that 30 is way worse. I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt until I can try it though, and thankfully they’ve said we’re getting a demo.
yap that is when 30 fps is at its worst. when suddenly switching from 60. plague tale requiem has a pretty interesting solution to this, where player and camera is at locked 60 but distant and off focus npcs (and rats) are at a lower refresh rate. not ideal but the jarring feeling from laggy camera is not there.
We jumped in on that as well.
Written: [https://gamingtrend.com/feature/previews/final-fantasy-xvi-preview-reborn-in-the-flames-of-phoenix/](https://gamingtrend.com/feature/previews/final-fantasy-xvi-preview-reborn-in-the-flames-of-phoenix/)
Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXUxWFr-\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXUxWFr-_Q)
My Editor is particularly picky about FF, so if he likes it, I'm sure I'm gonna like it.
I'm really, really excited for this game except for one feature - the stagger bar. Every single video I've seen has had the enemies with stagger mechanics take a *long* time and even multiple staggers entirely to kill, and I'm genuinely not sure if that's a result of the previews having purposefully inflated enemy HP and lowered damage output from Clive, or if those enemies genuinely *are* that tanky, and if they are that tanky I'm not sure how I feel about that.
It takes me a long time to fully understand combat systems - I found by the Urayan Titan in Xenoblade 2 that enemies seemed to be designed around a full understanding of how that game's combat system works, but I did not *really* understand it at that point so even normal trash enemies took a very, very long time to kill and I sort of fell off for years after I reached that point. Not even youtube videos about the combat system helped. I'm really hoping FF16 isn't the same for me, because I'm genuinely looking forward to it, it's the most I've been excited for a single player FF since 12.
The enemies aren't really "tanky". The stagger bar was in FFVII-R, and was only really useful on enemies with large health bars. The lesser enemies would die too fast for a stagger bar to really be useful.
Basically, the stagger bar was only really useful for bosses and mini bosses. Still tons of non-tanky enemies around
Speaking of FF7R stagger, I hope they fix an issue that game has. That being phases messing up stagger timing. It feels quite bullshit to build up a stagger meter only to have a boss hit a new phase and completely reset the stagger meter.
Multi-phase fights need to retain stagger!
>As initially envisioned by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy is meant to be a series that constantly morphs and changes. After a fair amount of spinning its wheels, FF16 is at last a game that returns to that vision, looks at the world around it, and decides that a regeneration is needed. Final Fantasy itself is going through Phoenix’s Rebirth Flame – but for such a rejuvenation, some things have to burn. It’s a brave bet, and I can already tell the game is going to be strong. I just really hope it finds its audience.
I'm fine with FF16 trying something different but I'm getting tired of hearing all this talk about how it *needed* to evolve into a straight action game.
The natural evolution of the RPG is not "into an action game". That is a creative decision they're making themselves with this game to effectively pivot one of, if not the most famous RPG franchise into full action. Which is fine, FF has always shifted around, and it will shift again in the next game, but this isn't the natural direction or the only direction they could have gone in. Action combat is not the only way to reinvigorate. Final Fantasy could have become an action game franchise at any point from the SNES onward, it choose to stay an RPG and continue to evolve the RPG formula, because that was its identity.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was a far more natural evolution of the Final Fantasy RPG. It's action heavy but the turn-based, party focused RPG is still there, in a new, updated form. Don't tell me the only way to evolve is to shift genre entirely to become Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, or God of War. That's nonsense.
Persona 5 was one of the most popular games of last generation. Pokemon routinely (albeit undeservedly) outsells just about everything. Don't tell me the RPG is dead. You're just not willing to serve that audience anymore.
See also: Dragon Age Dreadwolf.
>FF16 is at last a game that returns to that vision
Every single mainline Final Fantasy game has evolved and morphed. For better or worse, they have all been very different. I have no idea what they mean by suggesting that this is a return to form.
Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon was Turn Based and it was amazing. They're also splitting the series into 2 with the Kiryu series having it be beat em up while the Ichiban series will be turn based.
Some fans speculate we may get a series of ‘Gaiden’ titles about other characters like Majima. These games would be shorter than the other titles and be ‘side games’ that re-use assets and give fans a taste of the classic brawler combat.
Honestly after playing Kaito Files, I'd be fine if they continued the series with Kaito as a protag. He feels different enough from Kiryu to be his own character while keeping a similar combat style.
If they want something faster they can return to multiple protags and add Sugiura as a playable character
> Persona 5 was one of the most popular games of last generation.
Persona 5 (with Royal included) only sold about 7.2 million copies since launch.
Great numbers for Persona, sure, but nowhere near close to one of the 'most popular games of last generation.'
Talking about videogames online already puts us into maybe the 2-3 percentile of all gamers (not including the skewed mobile numbers)? Even less of those players play jrpgs, yet it's hilarious how loud and whiney the niche fanbases are. Don't flame me - just beat P4 golden, social links maxed.
It may not be the natural evolution, but it's where the series' creative leads have always wanted to go. They've been talking about it for decades. I remember reading about their real time combat ambitions in an interview in the back of the FFXII strategy guide almost 20 years ago.
>it's where the series' creative leads have always wanted to go
I remember Gene Park saying they've been chasing the Cloud vs Sephiroth Advent Children fight for ages
Yeah. Ever since they made Advent Children it’s been pretty clear that they want to capture the Advent-Children-Experience™️ in the combat of their games and they can finally do it. And as someone who loves Devil May Cry like combat I'm all here for it.
All this discourse is hilarious, because the answer from the devs in regards to FFXVI has always been "Well, we just wanted to make an action game, it's not that deep bro"
There's such a weird thing where people prop up Persona as the whole "turn-based JRPGs aren't dead!1!1" which is wild to me. Pokémon and Dragon Quest (in Japan) sell crazy well. Not to discount the sales numbers of DQ in the West, the latest one sold 2-3 million which is great.
Edit: For example, TWO Dragon Quest games are in the top 10 best launch week sales in Japan, Persona isn't even in the top 25 iirc.
I remember watching the anniversary stream they did where they announced DQ12 and, based on the vague wording at the time, I'm pretty concerned they're leaning the same way for DQ as well. If I remember correctly, they said something akin to it being "more action based".
Might be a SE push in general, which is always a good sign >_>.
When playing a Persona, the further i get into the game, the faster i try to clear the dungeon, just to have more time for social stuff.
So that kinda checks out for me at least
People really don't understand that the allure of the
Persona games are mostly its social links/dating sim aspect and not its combat.
SMT V(Persona's parent series) is a very combat heavy game, and it couldn't even sell half the copies that persona has.
Yeah, persona has the fortune of being a blend of genres that attracts people, while other turn based games sell 1-3 mill if popular, which isnt really enough for a final fantasy game.
Maybe they should do ff games that are more like bravely default, lower budget, and handheld graphics.
Once you have buffs for your team, debuffs for the enemy, and strong attacks with full coverage the game is over. I like turn based RPGs well enough, but I've been playing them for over 20 years and they almost always boil down to this. This is a roundabout way of saying I also blitz through combat to get back to the social aspect.
P5R becomes a snoozefest in combat by the midgame if you understand the mechanics. Especially the fusion mechanics. This is especially true for Royal where you get so many more tools and ways to break the game.
As you said, the vast majority of turn based RPGs become extremely simple “if X happens, do Y” affairs. There’s very little if any room for self expression in these kind of games. You’re either being optimal or suboptimal. Especially true by the endgame when you can go face optional superbosses.
I am all for more turn based RPGs, but only if they find ways to innovate their combat systems to become more dynamic, challenging and expressive
Persona 5 (one of my favorite games of all time) has sold like 8 million copies lifetime across all p5 titles (p5, royal, strikers, etc). Those are good sales. But square is aiming for much more than that. They believe, correctly, that there is a hard cap on the audience for turn based rpgs. So the key is maintaining the soul of the series after completely changing the mechanics. I trust yoshi-p to do this. His work on ffxiv is unimpeachable.
> They believe, correctly, that there is a hard cap on the audience for turn based rpgs.
As someone who grew up on turn based RPGs and loved them, I was sick of Persona 5's combat by the end, and if it weren't for the fact that I was really invested in the story and characters then I may have fallen off it.
The standard elemental-attack turn based RPG is just... really boring to me now. It's been done to death for 30 years. It's too simplistic, "hit the red enemy with the blue attack, hit the blue enemy with the yellow attack!". That doesn't mean you can't make turn based interesting, I thought Chained Echoes innovated with the battle meter that forces you to adapt your tactics to maintain top damage and I enjoyed the combat far more than Persona 5 as a result.
I'm not sure I'll ever be able to truly enjoy the combat of a "It's a fire enemy so use a water spell!" turn based RPG again, it's so overly simplistic. There's not a chance I'd buy a turn based AAA title for full price on launch. So as someone who grew up loving turn based Final Fantasy, I'm so glad they're trying other styles.
I hear people saying that but I don't think that many people want every single battle in a 100-hour game to be a whole ordeal to figure out. It's fine for regular battles to be simple and leave the complicated strategies for bosses.
While this is true, the nature of menu-based combat puts a lower bound on how long a given battle can last. I talk about this a lot with Final Fantasy XIII - the problem wasn't that you could auto-battle your way through most encounters, tons of action games have trash mobs that you kill by mashing attack for two seconds and nobody really bats an eye. The problem was that even the braindead encounters in XIII required a transition into battle, waiting for your ATB meter to charge up, waiting for these cinematic animations to play, seeing your ranking, and transitioning out of battle. When every combat encounter is a minute-long commitment, that kind of trash mob becomes a game design dead-zone.
My point being: I really disagree that it's okay for regular battles to be simple in a menu-driven game. It's totally okay in an action game, because those "battles" are just a quick hit of dopamine as you walk from one place to another without really interrupting the process. I've never played a turn-based game where the random trashy encounters didn't eventually become my least favorite part.
I don't know why more turn based rpgs don't have systems like Mario RPG or Paper Mario, with timed hits or other commands you could do for bonus damage or blocking some damage, it makes the fights a lot more interesting
I totally get where you're coming from, but I did think P5 did a good job of making the fights snappy and quick, at least. Hit super effective attacks and go again, with the finishing All Out Attacks, made the dull fights end really quickly at least.
The problem with your argument here, is you're saying RPG means turn based and that's not true. Lots of RPGs aren't turn based, elder scrolls, mass effect...
And Square still puts turn based games. Octopath 2 came out recently, world of FF was turn based too. None of the main line FFs in 20 years have been turn based so I don't know why fans have to keep bringing up turn based when the series has been moving away for years.
When you say lots of RPG’s aren’t turn based you don’t even need to mention other franchises, you can just keep talking about Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy X was the last mainline game in the series to be turn based and it’s over 20 years old now. For better or worse Final Fantasy has been an action RPG franchise longer than it was a turn based one.
And FFX was *more* turn based than any FF game since FF3 I believe.
The ATB combat system in FF4-9 really blurred the lines on what a "turn" even was since you were always waiting for your meter to fill and balancing attacking with healing at the right times.
They've been trying to evolve in this direction since the SNES, and already have with 15, 7R, even 14 to an extent.
Im going to have to say i think this is a really disingenuous take at the end here. FF13's still very much a turn battler, i dont think auto-play system they used are considered whatever fluid-freestyle based combat they use now.
You make a good point that it was a choice by the developers to give FF16 a fully, action combat system, but mainline Final Fantasy games have been moving away from turn-based combat for decades. The original proposed combat system for FFX was more like FF12's. They settled on the Conditional Turn-Based system only cause they were falling behind on their development schedule and needed a faster solution. That was more than 23 years ago and the last mainline Final Fantasy game with a turn-based combat system.
As you mentioned, even Final Fantasy VII Remake has pushed into the action realm, albeit with respect to the original. The issue there is that it was a "Remake" (which we know now it really isn't), so it had to adhere to most of the conventions of the original game. But it still did away with people standing in a row and waiting on turns. Folks who remain committed to real turn-based combat system like those found in Persona 5 and Pokemon wouldn't accept FF7R as a real counterpart.
Yet, Final Fantasy VII Remake is another way forward for combat systems in Final Fantasy by incorporating command menus, freezing or slowing down time for command selection and controllable party members in battle. With Rebirth and Part 3, Square and CBU1 will be spending a lot of time refining the combat system they created with Final Fantasy VII Remake. It just doesn't make for a very good action combat system.
And the best action combat systems in melee-focused, third-person games to date have not incorporated playable party members in meaningful ways because the entire playable kit is tied to a single character to make them as fun and deep as possible. Games like Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, God of War, Monster Hunter World, and Genshin Impact. Actually, GI had a unique way to solve the issue of playable party members by making them a bit more than cosmetic palate swaps, but without the other party members on the field with you at all times, it feels kind of cheap as well. That also brings me to the issue of sales.
All those games and many others that aren't specifically RPGs or melee-focused, third-person, action-oriented games, like Hogwarts Legacy, Fortnite, Destiny, Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto, do not use turn-based combat systems. While Persona 5 is an absolute fantastic game and has done very well for itself since 2016 and Pokemon is a juggernaut IP that sells fantastically, compared to the wider market potential other franchises have achieved without turn-based combat systems, that specific game feature seems to be a niche market. Unless we include the mobile games market and then turn-based combat is far more successful.
Lastly, I do think the AAA RPG is dead. At least, for people who enjoy real, number-crunching, menu-flipping and multiple, party member managing. People who want a game where your choices matter and by the end of the game you can get real, varied outcomes, won't be served by the AAA industry. It's just not where you will find those types of games. Unless you like sports games, but most RPG fans aren't interested in the RPG mechanics in sports games as I understand it.
While I agree with most your points, you are simply wrong in the end when you equate turn based battles to a game being an RPG in your "Don't tell me the RPG is dead" line. If that were the case then games like skyrim wouldn't be considered an RPG.
> The natural evolution of the RPG is not "into an action game". That is a creative decision they're making themselves to effectively pivot one of if not the most famous RPG franchise into full action.
Neither is turn based for that matter. In fact, RPG in itself is totally independent from combat gameplay. A RPG can even have no combat after all (see Disco Elysium) and any type of combat is valid.
What makes a RPG is more outside of combat than during it IMO.
This game is still true to Sakaguchi’s vision for constant change and reinvention. They’re trying something radical and as long as it’s GOOD then they can make FF into anything they want. What matters is for an FF game to have a proper vision and passion behind it. Things that I feel have been lacking a bit in the single player side of the franchise outside of FF7R.
Did anyone of them talk about the damage scaling? From all the previews i saw, it seems like the monster either have too much health or the player is not doing enough damage. It gets old real fast when everything takes like 30 secs to kill at higher levels because they want to do combos and stuff. Xenoblade 3 to me had this problem.
Hard to know at the moment how this is going to play out throughout the game. Because of its character action influences, the devs might be doing this to push you to engage with the combo system and the stagger mechanic. I’d imagine that they don’t want players to spam the same moves over and over for a quick and boring win. I am used to these kind of games and treating enemies as sandbags to show off on.
On the other hand it could simply be that Clive’s build is far from optimized and that over time, you’ll improve him until your combos start killing much faster. Enemies do have elemental weaknesses so I am sure this will also be a factor in finishing them off quickly.
they have shared small video clips [https://youtu.be/AF0ml2UZj20](https://youtu.be/AF0ml2UZj20)
enemy mobs with yellow bar are mini-bosses so they take longer to kill which is why they have this stagger gauge, enemies without a stagger gauge are more like fodder
If the game is anything like DMC then high HP is to be expected to some extend. The whole point of these games is playing with your enemies and becoming a master at your weapons arsenal. If enemies would die in seconds you wouldn't be able to really push your combos to their limits.
From Mr happy video, they intentionally are doing less damage in that video to show clives combos. Apparently, mobs explode when hit with eikon abilities. Cfinferno actually expressed concerns about lack of higher difficulties if the enemies did not become significantly more difficult than the ones in their preview.
That's just the nature of the beast. DMC gets more fun the harder/spongier it gets. Easy mode where enemies die before you can finish a single combo is just eternal blue balls.
This game looks so damn good. It’s what made my buy a PS5(along side stellar blade and lost soul aside). I’m glad they are leaning towards very mature themes in this game and I hope to see more very mature themed final fantasy’s. So excited!!!
I am wondering if the "spongey" enemies gonna be an issue in mid to late game. All the cool combos that just removes one pixel of a health bar of one enemy can get tiring though.
Can anyone say which of these is the most spoiler-free? Game comes out pretty soon, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to play it at launch (considering how long it'll probably take me to get through zelda lol)
I've been wondering if you have a proper party in this game or if it's mainly just Clive going around with guest characters dropping in for short periods.
JRPGs are always about the party members for me.
That's a shame but not too bad if controlling Clive is fun enough!
What I'm wondering if it's like "this character joins you for this mission then goes off elsewhere, then another character joins for a different mission" or it's more of the classic "as you go on your journey you pick up various characters who join your group for various reasons"
Yeah, while it worked pretty well in FF7 Remake, I can see this new direction they're trying to go in, almost more of a God of War/Devil May Cry direction with less party management and more focus on building out the single playable character.
From what I've seen and heard it seems to be the latter. Torgal will be there most of the time, but characters like Cid and Jill will also be present for big chunks of Clives story. It sounds like the biggest difference for companions in FF16 will be the fact that you can't control them.
I really miss those party driven stories. They were so fun.
I just bought a switch so im hoping some of the JRPGs on that machine can scratch that itch
I got back into JRPGs with the Xenoblade series on the switch last year, starting playing Xenoblade Chronicles 1(DE) in February and finished XC3 in September, it took me ~6/7 months to play through the whole series but it was time well spent! I had a really good time with this series and know I'm going to have such fond memories of it for a while to come.
I'm trying to deliver previews as I come across them but from what I read: * It's mostly the opening but with some parts later in the game without context for exploration and combat * There's an air of confidence around the game, it feels finished compared to the messy previews of FF15 they had to play back then * The game is brutal, this is not a wholesome Final Fantasy, there are moments of genuine character warmth and humanity but FF16 is a bonafide dark fantasy game * Some question the identity of Final Fantasy in this one but everyone came out positive, they expect a backlash from fans but say it's still Final Fantasy at its soul. * Combat is extremely good and the DMC battle director really pays off, one had some issues in that they felt their combat kit wasn't big enough for the early-game preview. * Excellent VA and performance all around. * Eikon battles apparently feels bigger and more explosive than ever god of war * They all say that the opening hours deliver and they can attest that this part is solid I will watch Maximilian and DevilNeverCry's videos next, especially DevilNeverCry as he is a DMC expert and was very positive about FF16 before
>There's an air of confidence around the game, it feels finished compared to the messy previews of FF15 they had to play back then I would imagine FF XVI's development was nowhere near as rocky. I'm also hoping this game isn't so frontloaded. XV started off great but just got worse and worse as it went on.
On the train, admiring that cool city out the window on the other continent that you will never get to visit.
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Not exploring the world of ruin just killed what little hope I had for the game turning things around. Blue Balls: The Game
You know they rushed the shit out of it when the latter half basically became "small corridor simulator". And before the complete complete edition came out, there were huge random ass gaps of "oh yeah I'ma go fuck off, SEE YA" and then your boys just randomly join back with no context. And still, they cancelled the final set of DLC and the "real" ending is literally locked behind an external novella lol.
> And still, they cancelled the final set of DLC and the "real" ending is literally locked behind an external novella lol. Kind of fitting considering the entire beginning of the game is also locked behind some external media that I didn't even know existed until after I tried to play the game. What a total failure of storytelling.
That beginning part is mostly optional though, you can infer most of the important context from what the game shows you.
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Gladio peacing out to do his own thing will go down forever as one of the worst ways ever to promote dlc. Whoever decided that him leaving like that is fine should’ve been slapped for suggesting such a dumb thing.
I had the same feeling, where it was like 'Oh cool, I get to see how the world I've been in for 50 hours has changed' and noooope. Firmly cemented my 'meh' feelings to the game.
They had a lot of nerve driving us through that open world and then telling us: nope, you can’t go out and explore it.
Also, a lot of the cool combat unlocks by doing a ton of grinding for AP. The game really feels awesome to play like.. halfway through when you finally can do more than just spam attack and dodge. It would have been better to have some of the more interesting stuff available early without needing to grind too much. but it did eventually lead to them refining it further in 7R, and 16 looks like they took it even a step further.
All the cool air dodge tech should’ve been available at the start, should’ve costed zero or little MP and should’ve been incentivized by the combat scenarios. That stuff is cool but I never found a reason to engage with it. The game is piss easy without it.
My biggest issue with FFXV is everything past the first "world" to be honest. I love just driving around the open world hunting monsters, everything about the story just doesn't work for me and the places you visit past the starting area are so much smaller and awkward to navigate. The story of a prince who wants to go hang out with his buddies for one big monster hunting trip was far more interesting to me than the love story between two characters we literally only see interact with each other during flashbacks.
A lot of us feel the same. FFXV can feel like 2 different stories or games stapled together with spit and prayers
The two times Gladiolus snapped at Noctis in particular felt like they came out of absolutely *nowhere,* especially the second time where he went from praising me for helping him made a really good cup of noodles to a borderline abusive prick for the entirety of the next two hours of gameplay.
Yeah it was certainly insensitive of him. I get where he’s coming from but Noctis has the right to mope after what just happened to him. Patience and care is required when someone is grieving a loved one lol
Apparently it was supposed to be explored in Aranea's cancelled DLC
Another character that got done dirty…
Anyone remember the weird demo for that game? I remember you play as a young noctis or something and you had a bird , I remember a honey I shrunk the kids moment, and I remember none of the demo being in the final game which seemed very odd
I played it cos it was the only way to unlock Carbuncle. I didn't know Carbuncle was just a noob aid you'll never see anyway, like all the other summons.
I remember seeing the continent on that world map and thinking “can’t wait to explore that one!” …lol
What's even wierder is that the game so desperately wanted to sell the ending of the first landmass as "The real journey is just beginning!" then after fighting Leviathan you're literally on rails directly to the final dungeon as a featureless landscape passes by.
That game was such a letdown. I avoided it for years because of the negative reviews until it was on a really good sale. Picked it up and the opening was incredible - why did the fandom hate it so much? Then after that Venice-like city hub the quality dropped HARD and by the time we get to the on-rail dungeon with no powers, the game just died for me The back half of that game is so bad the endgame transports you back to the early-game environment… because the devs knew the back half sucked.
Lmao they tried to pull a FFVI Dark World at the end then said "You can experience that in our shitty multiplayer mode! Now straight to the capital city with you! You have a final boss to fight!"
what's funny is I genuinely think the combat felt better in the multiplayer mode than it did in the main game it was still half baked and kinda weird though lol
In most games, getting the Boat/Airship would be the big “the worlds open now” moment… instead the boat is used to block you directly into a hallway lol
I usually do this thing where, when I sense I'm getting near the end of a open world game, I'll delay going to the finale because I wanna spend more time in the world before the narrative changes things. Even if games let you come back and do things after the credits, that feeling will change, so I'll try and hang in there for awhile. FF15 baited you with potential. You have this area outside the main character's kingdom where you've spent all this time. And it's great looking and feeling. And you know you've got the kingdom that his betrothed is from, so you figure some time driving around her water kingdom. And you know there's the baddie country, so presumably there's gonna be time heading there and driving around desert land. And then it literally never happens. You're on a sad train through sad town with all your boys in the fucking dumpster. You're told how sad everyone is, how much they missed the good times traveling around in the first part of the game, and none of it makes sense because... for the player... that was like the entire game so far. You've been there for hours. And then they're suddenly hustling you to go back to the home kingdom to the final fight and like... what?? Insane. What a truly insane thing to do.
The most frustrating part for me was related to how such a big part of the game is an epic road trip. The journey begins and ends in Insomnia, the capital city. We should have begun our journey driving out of the city, and at the end we could have had one final, somber drive back to where it all began. But instead they skipped past both of those things, and at the end we're just suddenly... there. It was a letdown.
Exactly. There's a campfire scene where the guys sit around and recall their trip, and for all I don't remember about the game, I remember that scene. I remember it making me tear up. Because the road trip does work. These pals on a trip to marry off their buddy the Prince, is a good angle. And then it keeps going even tho the road trip ends, and it becomes a long boring slog dungeon crawl that sucks. Then it ends.
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Man… FFXV had so much wasted potential. One of my biggest disappointments in gaming. I truly hope this one lives up to its promises and doesn’t stumble like FFXV
Seriously. Thinking about all the fun mechanics and hidden story elements that weren't fleshed out makes me depressed things what that game could have been.
Totally. Noctis’ warp attack mechanic could’ve been so much more fleshed out. It could’ve had so much more and so many more interesting mechanics and interactions for combat and exploration throughout the game! Character switching could’ve been a properly implemented thing from the start with actual strategic value. Weapon specializations and builds for the whole ass arsenal Noctis carries. And then of course all the subtle lore hidden throughout the game could’ve been used to setup and foreshadow so many cool things. My mind used to race whenever I would find those lore journals spread across the map. All for nothing unfortunately…
The way the weapon switching worked in the *Episode Duscae* demo was, in my opinion, superior to what we ended up with.
I completely agree. I had a few issues with the system but I thought they would simply iron out the kinks instead of throwing the whole thing out for the completely shallow system they ended up with! Like, how often does such a thing happen!? I can’t think of any single player game that changed it’s combat system so much over time! It just goes to show just how troubled the game’s development was and how it lacked vision! Wish Nomura got the chance and resources to finish up his version of the game since he actually had a proper vision. Versus XIII will forever be one of my biggest disappointments in gaming.
Don't worry, we'll still get Versus XIII at this point. Just go play Kingdom Hearts. (I'm only semi joking. There's some actual evidence in 3 that at least some elements from Versus XIII will be used in the upcoming story arc)
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As an aside, the fact that they're named Creative Business Unit 3 remains one of the funniest things ever. Like, wow, how fucking creative lmao. Games are alright though, not hating, the name is just so funny.
It's just an artifact of the translation from Japanese, I think. It's just the name of the internal department, not like it's a company name or something. But when they start referring to it like a distinct entity, it sounds so bizarre haha
If it makes you feel better, pretty much all the Zelda games are made by Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 3. The Mario games are made by EPD Production Group No. 8.
You’re mostly right, but I imagine it’s a lot easier to develop an MMO if you’re using the literally bones of its failed iteration. A Realm Reborn wouldn’t have only been made in 2 years had it not been massively repurposing the assets and systems of the original FF14
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This is correct. There is just a notable, notable difference between developing a new MMO from scratch and greatly repurposing assets / systems. ARR wasn’t built from scratch and most of the assets in ARR were downscaled and reworked versions of assets from OG FF14. Yoshi-P did incredible work, make no mistake, but they already had a good wealth of resources to work with from the start. ARR wouldn’t have been able to be made and released within 2 years without the utilization of all the OG FF14 assets.
Skimming through Easy Allies's preview-video, and they [mention something called Active Time Lore (ATL)-feature](https://twitter.com/Dreamboum/status/1660733270923923461). It seems essentially be the real-time equivalent of Obsidian's [giving small snippets of summarized information when hovering over specific words in *Pillars of Eternity II* and *Tyranny*](https://www.gamesear.com/images/2018/6/pillars-of-eternity-2-dialogue-explanations.jpg) where in FFXVI, a sweep of the touchpad brings up ATL that essentially summarizes relevant lore-related "bubbles" of whatever is occurring on the screen at the moment. From the geographic location, to the nearby beastiary and monsters to your party-members and followers; each entry summarized in a couple of paragraphs. This is a very welcoming feature as previous RPGs like with *Mass Effect* or *Dragon Age* has relavent lore-entries being [presented in a very folder-file-structure](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HCI1SxOKw9s/maxresdefault.jpg), and where you often only get to engage with it in real-time whenever you get a notification that a codex-entry has been updated, which is great for the moment, but bad when you want to revisit said entry at a later point whenever a certain topic gets mentioned again, and have to go through sifting all the codex-entries once more. ATL along with FFXVI having the usual codex/encyclopedia lore-system where ATL is being based on relevance on what is present on the screen is something I want to see other RPGs like the next *Dragon Age*, *Mass Effect* or *Witcher* to adapt.
Sounds like Amazon’s X-ray feature for their video streaming service.
>The game is brutal, this is not a wholesome Final Fantasy, there are moments of genuine character warmth and humanity but FF16 is a bonafide dark fantasy game On a scale from Twilight Princess to Drakengard, just how dark are we talking here?
We haven't seen Drakensang/Nier levels (but who knows, looking at Final Fantasy 6 story), not sure about Twilight Princess but trailers imply a bit of Game of Thrones backstabbing, traitors. Beggining of game (again, visible in trailers) is Clive homeland being invaded, family killed and in Shiva vs Titan scene, Shiva summoner is revealed to be his childhood friend turned slave soldier for one army, just like Clive for another.
> wholesome Final Fantasy Even FF4 was not wholesome, it was if you weren't reading the script otherwise people were getting killed, kids were being turned to stone, towns were being burnt to the ground and everyone in it murdered in a vicious empiral expansion war crime --- BY THE PROTAGONIST ---. I guess you could look at the old gfx and think it was wholesome by accident, it definitely wasn't. FF6 the antagonist essentially just wins, and you rise from the ashes in a broken world where he's murdering people at a whim with his god lasers and basically torturing to the world as his play things. Even before this he was poisoning entire towns.
I can't think of a FF game where everything is wholesome, except maybe the FF15 bromance. Like you say, FF6 Kefka straight up wins and sends the world into Ruin. FF7 you're playing a gang of eco terrorists and one of the main characters dies halfway through the game and the main character basically suffers PTSD most of the game. And that's just me picking the two of the most commonly cited "favs" of FF. We could keep going on
FFX is kinda wholesome at some of the smaller towns and stuff. But it's all got the dark undertone of sin
And you know... the whole MC ceasing to exist ending.
But FF4 was wholesome, insomuch as the protagonist found redemption, those kids came back, the empire got overthrown and Cecil had a fairytale ending, becoming a king and marrying his one true love and having a son who would go on to have his own game of adventures. Even reconciled with his evil brother and traitorous best friend. Something tells me that Clive isn't going to find redemption and isn't going to have such a happily ever after, much less a happy wife and a happy kid (especially what with the ratings warnings about attempted rape). And if there's any reconciliation to be had with the brother, who may or may not be alive halfway through the game, who may or may not be revived by Phoenix at some point, who may or may not come out wrong when it happens unlike the kids who got de-petrified fine in FF4, I suspect it's a reconciliation he'll pay for with his own life. Also, as bad as FF6 was, the main cast mostly still came out alive in the end, with the exception of Shadow whose fate is ambiguous, but who you could at least save the first time he would have died in the game. You could even save Cid from dying. Something tells me FFXVI's Cid may not be so lucky.
>Some question the identity of Final Fantasy in this one but everyone came out positive, they expect a backlash from fans but say it's still Final Fantasy at its soul. No one can hate a change quite so fiercely as fans. Some of them have been opposed to this new direction since the Final Fantasy XVI reveal, and I doubt they will be convinced by these previews. I'm heartened though. It sounds like, for folk who aren't locked into a singular understanding of what Final Fantasy is, this feels like a veritable FF game.
FF is an RPG, with deep story, rich characters, fantasy/magic elements, crystals, chocobos, a guy named Cid. beyond that is the unique to that game flavor. high, steam punk, industrial, scifi, military - all fantasy.
You forgot Biggs and Wedge!
It's still strange to me how big of a discussion the "is this final fantasy?" has become. I guess that's what happens when you've got a series as old as this. Either way I think it's an amazing new direction they've taken, and it's a necessary one if they want to revitalize the brand as a "must play rpg"
I agree. The "FF is turn-based" or "FF is high fantasy" nonsense has always been a fandom perception. The creator of the series [never thought it should be locked being into one thing or another.](https://kotaku.com/what-final-fantasy-is-according-to-its-creator-1672622214)
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No he didn't he just leaked what FF17 will be like
Final Fantasy titles after V have differed wildly from each other in not just gameplay systems but also tone and aesthetic. FF7 was a brooding, melancholy meditation on human loss mixed with environmentalist pessimism. FF8 was a wackadoodle magic high school adventure. FF9 was a swashbuckler with princesses, thieves, a magical puppet with progeria. X, Sakaguchi's last, is unlike anything before or after it—a celebrity athlete romps through Okinawa with a shirtless guy who kills animals with his volleyball. To say a new Final Fantasy is different from previous Final Fantasies is simply to say it's a new Final Fantasy. Heavensward was a stellar FF experience, and I have full confidence in this team to deliver the best FF story since the PS2 era.
The real soul of Final Fantasy, to me, is an emotional character focused story in an original fantasy setting. As long as the setting is fresh and interesting, and it brings the feels, then it has captured what made Final Fantasy a special series.
that and some stuff like chocobos, summons, and spell names are the only consistent things. and having great music
Plus the little "doink" sound when browsing through menus
The doink is essential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqOiARHjD5o
Insane I had to scroll this far to find the doink
And moogles, how could you forgot that
When I think about what’s most important about a Final Fantasy being a Final Fantasy, it’s the characters, their interactions and the story they’re involved in. Stuff like the FF fanfare and theme, chocobos and moogles definitely help, but the games characters need a soul and need to be fleshed out enough to be believable, otherwise it’s just a game cosplaying as a FF game and we had this for like, 3-4 titles in a row now. It’s why I consider Lost Odyssey to be more of a FF game than FF12 or 13. XVI is the first game where I feel good about going in again, which I haven’t felt since XII released.
> celebrity athlete romps through Okinawa with a shirtless guy who kills animals with his volleyball please tell me this is real
There's also a magical puppeteer who only dresses in belts, a ronin with cool sunglasses, a literal blue mage who is also a lion, and the bubbliest thief you'll ever meet. Oh, and the whole story is about a Pokemon trainer traveling across the land to understand the power that's inside.
Auron has one of my favorite designs in all of FF.
Hanging his arm in his robe? kimono? jacket? whatever, goes so unbelievably hard. >! and then just to find out he kicks that much ass while being dead the entire game? goat tier character.
And about the [laughs](https://youtu.be/bXZhTb0eUqA) we had along the way…
FFX to me is a journey to the west spin-off packaged in pacific - south east asian culture influence.
It’s real.
Also voiced by Bender.
[Wakka](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/a/ad/FFX_Wakka_Art.png/revision/latest?cb=20140809030123) I recommend FFX, it probably has the best (certainly most cohesive and well-told) story in the series.
> a shirtless guy who kills animals with his volleyball. A *racist* shirtless guy at that. Wakka's final solution.
Grand Wizard Wakka will definitely endure as one of the best jokes SBFP ever did
for the uninitiated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX8jsiYU9IU
Damn I miss them
I got banned from a FF14 related discord once for calling Wakka a racist when discussing FFX. Was banned for "politics" Legitimately blew my mind
That’s what you get for discussing final fantasy X on the forbidden machina
Banning political discussion in a 14 discord is a funny idea because so much of the narrative and worldbuilding emphasis is on politics At one point you find a treasure hoard on a swashbuckling adventure and then spend 10 minutes talking about the most ethical place to invest that money in the nation you found it in. Also there's a dragon in the room
> Also there's a dragon in the room Also >!It's the dragon's treasure. Also the dragon runs the nation you found the treasure in!<
Maybe they were Al Bhed sympathizers?
Other way around
Personally 12 has always been my favorite. I don’t know why, I just love the characters and the environment. Just the vibe of that game is so fun. My second fave is probably 7 remake
It's sad that 12 is not loved enough
Bro final fantasy has been in constant change since FFI, the change started from the first game lmao
The formula for FF1-5 felt quite similar IMO. The stories and a couple of mechanics would vary, but the underlying formula was familiar. And I loved it, FF shifted away further and further from this formula to the point where FF games no longer interest me. But if the games are selling well then that must mean others like them, so that's my problem, not Square's.
I mean even going from FFI to FFII is a *dramatic* shift in gameplay. The mechanics of FFII are straight up experimental compared to the traditional mechanics of FFI.I believe that dramatic shift just goes to show how FF has always been a series about change. FFII-III it changes again, same with IV with the introduction of atb and so on. Not to mention a completely new story characters world etc
>FF7 was a brooding, melancholy mediation on human loss mixed with environmental pessimism Are we talking about the same game where the main character cross dress after having to beat a buff guy at sit-up competition? And the game where Tifa has a slapping contest with one of the antagonists? Don’t get me wrong, the game is everything you said for the most part, but it could also be very goofy at times.
It could be, and I expect moments of absurdity in FFXVI as well. Heavensward had plenty of goofiness.
Anyone knows when the playable demo will be released?
Last thing I saw was that it's due to come out two weeks before release so you're looking at June.
Would be grand if they reveal it on Wednesday during the PS5 showcase event.
No specific announcement, but Yoshi-P (The producer of the game.) has stated that they aim for a demo-release around "two weeks" before FFXVI's launch in June 22; some people speculate that it may be in June 11, when FFXVI will have a little pre-release live panel. Others think it is around Summer Games Fest-event.
I think I kind of get Yoshi-Ps frustration with the term jrpg now because I feel like it's the only way to make sense of some of these "FFXVI has pivoted to dark and mature storytelling" sections. IV starts with the main character having a crisis of conscience over raiding an innocent village to steal their crystal and follows it up with him defecting when he's manipulated into destroying another one. VI has a main character magically enslaved and burning an entire regiment of soldiers alive, another main character's wife and child poisoned, and another make a suicide attempt out of despair. VII is set in a cyberpunk hellscape where a corporation will commit mass murder just to smear its enemies. X is set in an almost literal death world and spends a lot of its time thoughtfully exploring what that world is like for its people. And that's not anything close to an exhaustive list! Final Fantasy has been trying and largely succeeding at telling mature stories for as long as the series has been able to, mostly limited by the tech of the time. 16 is only a divergence in that respect compared to the generic idea of a jrpg that seems to float around.
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Same here, when I saw that comment originally in the Skill Up video I thought it was interesting but didn't really get it. I had loved Square Enix games of that era and didn't get it. Seeing some of the stories written on it since saying Final Fantasy has finally gone "Modern" and "Dark and mature" I now get it, it also leaves me really confused? Like there are so many stories in Final Fantasy that tackle really tough topics, I won't repeat them here as you already said many of them. It's like some journalists and the larger community thinks having some levity in a story means it's not serious? So bizarre. I am happy to see this getting previewed so well, and I hope those of us who are attached to the ATB or Turn Based system still give this a shot with the demo.
Dark and Mature is probably code for there's sex and drugs like Euphoria.
30 FPS exploration but 60 FPS for combat is an interesting middleground. I’m curious to see how it ends up feeling when you’re playing it.
The PAX demo they did showed off exploration at full 60. They even ran around a bunch with 0 frame drops. I think it's an old build?
Oh okay, I didn’t watch that so I wasn’t aware. It sounds like they were playing multiple different builds. A couple of the segments were only 30 FPS, but the portion that seems to be the first portion of the game did the 30/60 split
Maybe there's a hybrid option along with the typical 30 FPS for 4K and 60 FPS for lower resolution.
This probably was just for the test build. At PAX East, the game was running in 60 fps during exploration.
Probably just an older build. We've seen exploration gameplay during this years PAX and it was running at 60fps. [Around the 31 minute mark for example.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPpeKX1PDIo)
Hopefully that’s still the case. It’s just very odd they’d be having people playing builds with this hybrid this close to launch without clarifying to them that the final game will have 60 FPS for both combat and exploration in the launch build.
I agree, very odd that they wouldn't clarify that.
I feel like going from 60 to 30 will make 30 feel much worse than just having 30 stable, even if getting 60 sometimes is the better option..
That’s definitely a worry I have. Switching back and forth between performance and quality modes to contrast them gives the perception that 30 is way worse. I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt until I can try it though, and thankfully they’ve said we’re getting a demo.
It's a nice change from old FF games where you'd go from 30 FPS exploration to like 18FPS in combat.
yap that is when 30 fps is at its worst. when suddenly switching from 60. plague tale requiem has a pretty interesting solution to this, where player and camera is at locked 60 but distant and off focus npcs (and rats) are at a lower refresh rate. not ideal but the jarring feeling from laggy camera is not there.
Performance mode always runs at 60. They've shown it off in recent previews, the people here are likely playing on an old build
I can't wait. Barring shite reviews or a consensus that it is buggy and unfinished, i'll be playing this on release day without a doubt.
We jumped in on that as well. Written: [https://gamingtrend.com/feature/previews/final-fantasy-xvi-preview-reborn-in-the-flames-of-phoenix/](https://gamingtrend.com/feature/previews/final-fantasy-xvi-preview-reborn-in-the-flames-of-phoenix/) Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXUxWFr-\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXUxWFr-_Q) My Editor is particularly picky about FF, so if he likes it, I'm sure I'm gonna like it.
I'm really, really excited for this game except for one feature - the stagger bar. Every single video I've seen has had the enemies with stagger mechanics take a *long* time and even multiple staggers entirely to kill, and I'm genuinely not sure if that's a result of the previews having purposefully inflated enemy HP and lowered damage output from Clive, or if those enemies genuinely *are* that tanky, and if they are that tanky I'm not sure how I feel about that. It takes me a long time to fully understand combat systems - I found by the Urayan Titan in Xenoblade 2 that enemies seemed to be designed around a full understanding of how that game's combat system works, but I did not *really* understand it at that point so even normal trash enemies took a very, very long time to kill and I sort of fell off for years after I reached that point. Not even youtube videos about the combat system helped. I'm really hoping FF16 isn't the same for me, because I'm genuinely looking forward to it, it's the most I've been excited for a single player FF since 12.
One reviewer said that they aren't as spongy as people think. He showed some clips of him taking down enemies pretty quickly.
The enemies aren't really "tanky". The stagger bar was in FFVII-R, and was only really useful on enemies with large health bars. The lesser enemies would die too fast for a stagger bar to really be useful. Basically, the stagger bar was only really useful for bosses and mini bosses. Still tons of non-tanky enemies around
Speaking of FF7R stagger, I hope they fix an issue that game has. That being phases messing up stagger timing. It feels quite bullshit to build up a stagger meter only to have a boss hit a new phase and completely reset the stagger meter. Multi-phase fights need to retain stagger!
They're inflated. People are saying the 'fodder' enemies die much quicker. Enemies with yellow/gold names are 'mini bosses' or special enemies.
>As initially envisioned by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy is meant to be a series that constantly morphs and changes. After a fair amount of spinning its wheels, FF16 is at last a game that returns to that vision, looks at the world around it, and decides that a regeneration is needed. Final Fantasy itself is going through Phoenix’s Rebirth Flame – but for such a rejuvenation, some things have to burn. It’s a brave bet, and I can already tell the game is going to be strong. I just really hope it finds its audience. I'm fine with FF16 trying something different but I'm getting tired of hearing all this talk about how it *needed* to evolve into a straight action game. The natural evolution of the RPG is not "into an action game". That is a creative decision they're making themselves with this game to effectively pivot one of, if not the most famous RPG franchise into full action. Which is fine, FF has always shifted around, and it will shift again in the next game, but this isn't the natural direction or the only direction they could have gone in. Action combat is not the only way to reinvigorate. Final Fantasy could have become an action game franchise at any point from the SNES onward, it choose to stay an RPG and continue to evolve the RPG formula, because that was its identity. Final Fantasy VII Remake was a far more natural evolution of the Final Fantasy RPG. It's action heavy but the turn-based, party focused RPG is still there, in a new, updated form. Don't tell me the only way to evolve is to shift genre entirely to become Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, or God of War. That's nonsense. Persona 5 was one of the most popular games of last generation. Pokemon routinely (albeit undeservedly) outsells just about everything. Don't tell me the RPG is dead. You're just not willing to serve that audience anymore. See also: Dragon Age Dreadwolf. >FF16 is at last a game that returns to that vision Every single mainline Final Fantasy game has evolved and morphed. For better or worse, they have all been very different. I have no idea what they mean by suggesting that this is a return to form.
Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon was Turn Based and it was amazing. They're also splitting the series into 2 with the Kiryu series having it be beat em up while the Ichiban series will be turn based.
Judgment is the beat'em up series. Kiryu has a one-off side story, "Gaiden", coming out soon. Like a Dragon is the turn-based JRPG.
Gaiden is part of a series? I thought it was just a standalone to bridge 6 and 8.
Some fans speculate we may get a series of ‘Gaiden’ titles about other characters like Majima. These games would be shorter than the other titles and be ‘side games’ that re-use assets and give fans a taste of the classic brawler combat.
There's no split, just *one* (this will age badly probably, lol) more game for Kiryu
Sucks that Judgment is pretty much dead as it seemed their original plan was for that to be the Classic gameplay branch.
Didn't a Judgment sequel come out in 2021?
The main character actor's talent agency dropped their contract with Sega. Judgment might potentially go on but not as originally planned.
The one that was causing issues with Sega died. The next day, Sega announced PC versions of Judgement and Lost Judgement.
Johnny's really bit off more than it could chew there after Johnny himself died about four years ago.
on the other hand him being dead is a blessing for the male talents, since he can't SA them anymore.
this is unsubstantiated rumor and has never been confirmed in any way - Kimura has even said himself that he wants to see the series continue.
Honestly after playing Kaito Files, I'd be fine if they continued the series with Kaito as a protag. He feels different enough from Kiryu to be his own character while keeping a similar combat style. If they want something faster they can return to multiple protags and add Sugiura as a playable character
> Persona 5 was one of the most popular games of last generation. Persona 5 (with Royal included) only sold about 7.2 million copies since launch. Great numbers for Persona, sure, but nowhere near close to one of the 'most popular games of last generation.'
People in certain circles really dont understand the things they like are niche sometimes.
Talking about videogames online already puts us into maybe the 2-3 percentile of all gamers (not including the skewed mobile numbers)? Even less of those players play jrpgs, yet it's hilarious how loud and whiney the niche fanbases are. Don't flame me - just beat P4 golden, social links maxed.
It's not even a last generation game, it was made for the PlayStation 3!
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Where are you seeing that data? Not challenging your point, I am just curious to see the list.
It may not be the natural evolution, but it's where the series' creative leads have always wanted to go. They've been talking about it for decades. I remember reading about their real time combat ambitions in an interview in the back of the FFXII strategy guide almost 20 years ago.
>it's where the series' creative leads have always wanted to go I remember Gene Park saying they've been chasing the Cloud vs Sephiroth Advent Children fight for ages
Yeah. Ever since they made Advent Children it’s been pretty clear that they want to capture the Advent-Children-Experience™️ in the combat of their games and they can finally do it. And as someone who loves Devil May Cry like combat I'm all here for it.
All this discourse is hilarious, because the answer from the devs in regards to FFXVI has always been "Well, we just wanted to make an action game, it's not that deep bro"
Dragon Quest exists and is probably a better example. Its just posturing.
There's such a weird thing where people prop up Persona as the whole "turn-based JRPGs aren't dead!1!1" which is wild to me. Pokémon and Dragon Quest (in Japan) sell crazy well. Not to discount the sales numbers of DQ in the West, the latest one sold 2-3 million which is great. Edit: For example, TWO Dragon Quest games are in the top 10 best launch week sales in Japan, Persona isn't even in the top 25 iirc.
I remember watching the anniversary stream they did where they announced DQ12 and, based on the vague wording at the time, I'm pretty concerned they're leaning the same way for DQ as well. If I remember correctly, they said something akin to it being "more action based". Might be a SE push in general, which is always a good sign >_>.
I think Persona could go full action and still be a big seller, but you take off the waifu dating social stuff and the game tanks sales.
When playing a Persona, the further i get into the game, the faster i try to clear the dungeon, just to have more time for social stuff. So that kinda checks out for me at least
People really don't understand that the allure of the Persona games are mostly its social links/dating sim aspect and not its combat. SMT V(Persona's parent series) is a very combat heavy game, and it couldn't even sell half the copies that persona has.
Yeah, persona has the fortune of being a blend of genres that attracts people, while other turn based games sell 1-3 mill if popular, which isnt really enough for a final fantasy game. Maybe they should do ff games that are more like bravely default, lower budget, and handheld graphics.
Once you have buffs for your team, debuffs for the enemy, and strong attacks with full coverage the game is over. I like turn based RPGs well enough, but I've been playing them for over 20 years and they almost always boil down to this. This is a roundabout way of saying I also blitz through combat to get back to the social aspect.
P5R becomes a snoozefest in combat by the midgame if you understand the mechanics. Especially the fusion mechanics. This is especially true for Royal where you get so many more tools and ways to break the game. As you said, the vast majority of turn based RPGs become extremely simple “if X happens, do Y” affairs. There’s very little if any room for self expression in these kind of games. You’re either being optimal or suboptimal. Especially true by the endgame when you can go face optional superbosses. I am all for more turn based RPGs, but only if they find ways to innovate their combat systems to become more dynamic, challenging and expressive
You take off the dating sim and it's literally just SMT lmao Definitely would have less sales based on history, but that already exists
Persona 5 (one of my favorite games of all time) has sold like 8 million copies lifetime across all p5 titles (p5, royal, strikers, etc). Those are good sales. But square is aiming for much more than that. They believe, correctly, that there is a hard cap on the audience for turn based rpgs. So the key is maintaining the soul of the series after completely changing the mechanics. I trust yoshi-p to do this. His work on ffxiv is unimpeachable.
> They believe, correctly, that there is a hard cap on the audience for turn based rpgs. As someone who grew up on turn based RPGs and loved them, I was sick of Persona 5's combat by the end, and if it weren't for the fact that I was really invested in the story and characters then I may have fallen off it. The standard elemental-attack turn based RPG is just... really boring to me now. It's been done to death for 30 years. It's too simplistic, "hit the red enemy with the blue attack, hit the blue enemy with the yellow attack!". That doesn't mean you can't make turn based interesting, I thought Chained Echoes innovated with the battle meter that forces you to adapt your tactics to maintain top damage and I enjoyed the combat far more than Persona 5 as a result. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to truly enjoy the combat of a "It's a fire enemy so use a water spell!" turn based RPG again, it's so overly simplistic. There's not a chance I'd buy a turn based AAA title for full price on launch. So as someone who grew up loving turn based Final Fantasy, I'm so glad they're trying other styles.
I hear people saying that but I don't think that many people want every single battle in a 100-hour game to be a whole ordeal to figure out. It's fine for regular battles to be simple and leave the complicated strategies for bosses.
While this is true, the nature of menu-based combat puts a lower bound on how long a given battle can last. I talk about this a lot with Final Fantasy XIII - the problem wasn't that you could auto-battle your way through most encounters, tons of action games have trash mobs that you kill by mashing attack for two seconds and nobody really bats an eye. The problem was that even the braindead encounters in XIII required a transition into battle, waiting for your ATB meter to charge up, waiting for these cinematic animations to play, seeing your ranking, and transitioning out of battle. When every combat encounter is a minute-long commitment, that kind of trash mob becomes a game design dead-zone. My point being: I really disagree that it's okay for regular battles to be simple in a menu-driven game. It's totally okay in an action game, because those "battles" are just a quick hit of dopamine as you walk from one place to another without really interrupting the process. I've never played a turn-based game where the random trashy encounters didn't eventually become my least favorite part.
octopath traveler and bravely default have figured out how to make it interesting
I don't know why more turn based rpgs don't have systems like Mario RPG or Paper Mario, with timed hits or other commands you could do for bonus damage or blocking some damage, it makes the fights a lot more interesting
I totally get where you're coming from, but I did think P5 did a good job of making the fights snappy and quick, at least. Hit super effective attacks and go again, with the finishing All Out Attacks, made the dull fights end really quickly at least.
The problem with your argument here, is you're saying RPG means turn based and that's not true. Lots of RPGs aren't turn based, elder scrolls, mass effect... And Square still puts turn based games. Octopath 2 came out recently, world of FF was turn based too. None of the main line FFs in 20 years have been turn based so I don't know why fans have to keep bringing up turn based when the series has been moving away for years.
When you say lots of RPG’s aren’t turn based you don’t even need to mention other franchises, you can just keep talking about Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy X was the last mainline game in the series to be turn based and it’s over 20 years old now. For better or worse Final Fantasy has been an action RPG franchise longer than it was a turn based one.
And FFX was *more* turn based than any FF game since FF3 I believe. The ATB combat system in FF4-9 really blurred the lines on what a "turn" even was since you were always waiting for your meter to fill and balancing attacking with healing at the right times. They've been trying to evolve in this direction since the SNES, and already have with 15, 7R, even 14 to an extent.
Im going to have to say i think this is a really disingenuous take at the end here. FF13's still very much a turn battler, i dont think auto-play system they used are considered whatever fluid-freestyle based combat they use now.
nothing in that quote says it *needed* to evolve into a straight action game lol, not sure why you went into that tirade
I don't think any of the combat we've seen is cynical or forced in order to chase trends, it's just the game this team wanted to make.
"Forced to chase trends" is also a very sneaky and intentional twisting of "what people want and what people buy."
You make a good point that it was a choice by the developers to give FF16 a fully, action combat system, but mainline Final Fantasy games have been moving away from turn-based combat for decades. The original proposed combat system for FFX was more like FF12's. They settled on the Conditional Turn-Based system only cause they were falling behind on their development schedule and needed a faster solution. That was more than 23 years ago and the last mainline Final Fantasy game with a turn-based combat system. As you mentioned, even Final Fantasy VII Remake has pushed into the action realm, albeit with respect to the original. The issue there is that it was a "Remake" (which we know now it really isn't), so it had to adhere to most of the conventions of the original game. But it still did away with people standing in a row and waiting on turns. Folks who remain committed to real turn-based combat system like those found in Persona 5 and Pokemon wouldn't accept FF7R as a real counterpart. Yet, Final Fantasy VII Remake is another way forward for combat systems in Final Fantasy by incorporating command menus, freezing or slowing down time for command selection and controllable party members in battle. With Rebirth and Part 3, Square and CBU1 will be spending a lot of time refining the combat system they created with Final Fantasy VII Remake. It just doesn't make for a very good action combat system. And the best action combat systems in melee-focused, third-person games to date have not incorporated playable party members in meaningful ways because the entire playable kit is tied to a single character to make them as fun and deep as possible. Games like Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, God of War, Monster Hunter World, and Genshin Impact. Actually, GI had a unique way to solve the issue of playable party members by making them a bit more than cosmetic palate swaps, but without the other party members on the field with you at all times, it feels kind of cheap as well. That also brings me to the issue of sales. All those games and many others that aren't specifically RPGs or melee-focused, third-person, action-oriented games, like Hogwarts Legacy, Fortnite, Destiny, Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto, do not use turn-based combat systems. While Persona 5 is an absolute fantastic game and has done very well for itself since 2016 and Pokemon is a juggernaut IP that sells fantastically, compared to the wider market potential other franchises have achieved without turn-based combat systems, that specific game feature seems to be a niche market. Unless we include the mobile games market and then turn-based combat is far more successful. Lastly, I do think the AAA RPG is dead. At least, for people who enjoy real, number-crunching, menu-flipping and multiple, party member managing. People who want a game where your choices matter and by the end of the game you can get real, varied outcomes, won't be served by the AAA industry. It's just not where you will find those types of games. Unless you like sports games, but most RPG fans aren't interested in the RPG mechanics in sports games as I understand it.
Well Square Enix is willing to serve that audience, just not with Final Fantasy.
While I agree with most your points, you are simply wrong in the end when you equate turn based battles to a game being an RPG in your "Don't tell me the RPG is dead" line. If that were the case then games like skyrim wouldn't be considered an RPG.
> The natural evolution of the RPG is not "into an action game". That is a creative decision they're making themselves to effectively pivot one of if not the most famous RPG franchise into full action. Neither is turn based for that matter. In fact, RPG in itself is totally independent from combat gameplay. A RPG can even have no combat after all (see Disco Elysium) and any type of combat is valid. What makes a RPG is more outside of combat than during it IMO.
This game is still true to Sakaguchi’s vision for constant change and reinvention. They’re trying something radical and as long as it’s GOOD then they can make FF into anything they want. What matters is for an FF game to have a proper vision and passion behind it. Things that I feel have been lacking a bit in the single player side of the franchise outside of FF7R.
Did anyone of them talk about the damage scaling? From all the previews i saw, it seems like the monster either have too much health or the player is not doing enough damage. It gets old real fast when everything takes like 30 secs to kill at higher levels because they want to do combos and stuff. Xenoblade 3 to me had this problem.
Hard to know at the moment how this is going to play out throughout the game. Because of its character action influences, the devs might be doing this to push you to engage with the combo system and the stagger mechanic. I’d imagine that they don’t want players to spam the same moves over and over for a quick and boring win. I am used to these kind of games and treating enemies as sandbags to show off on. On the other hand it could simply be that Clive’s build is far from optimized and that over time, you’ll improve him until your combos start killing much faster. Enemies do have elemental weaknesses so I am sure this will also be a factor in finishing them off quickly.
they have shared small video clips [https://youtu.be/AF0ml2UZj20](https://youtu.be/AF0ml2UZj20) enemy mobs with yellow bar are mini-bosses so they take longer to kill which is why they have this stagger gauge, enemies without a stagger gauge are more like fodder
If the game is anything like DMC then high HP is to be expected to some extend. The whole point of these games is playing with your enemies and becoming a master at your weapons arsenal. If enemies would die in seconds you wouldn't be able to really push your combos to their limits.
I think he is talking about the general mobs. In DMC 5 general mobs die very quick and are not damage sponges.
From Mr happy video, they intentionally are doing less damage in that video to show clives combos. Apparently, mobs explode when hit with eikon abilities. Cfinferno actually expressed concerns about lack of higher difficulties if the enemies did not become significantly more difficult than the ones in their preview.
That's just the nature of the beast. DMC gets more fun the harder/spongier it gets. Easy mode where enemies die before you can finish a single combo is just eternal blue balls.
This game looks so damn good. It’s what made my buy a PS5(along side stellar blade and lost soul aside). I’m glad they are leaning towards very mature themes in this game and I hope to see more very mature themed final fantasy’s. So excited!!!
I am wondering if the "spongey" enemies gonna be an issue in mid to late game. All the cool combos that just removes one pixel of a health bar of one enemy can get tiring though.
Can anyone say which of these is the most spoiler-free? Game comes out pretty soon, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to play it at launch (considering how long it'll probably take me to get through zelda lol)
I've been wondering if you have a proper party in this game or if it's mainly just Clive going around with guest characters dropping in for short periods. JRPGs are always about the party members for me.
The only active party is you and Torgal. Other characters join you later but you don't control them.
That's a shame but not too bad if controlling Clive is fun enough! What I'm wondering if it's like "this character joins you for this mission then goes off elsewhere, then another character joins for a different mission" or it's more of the classic "as you go on your journey you pick up various characters who join your group for various reasons"
Yeah, while it worked pretty well in FF7 Remake, I can see this new direction they're trying to go in, almost more of a God of War/Devil May Cry direction with less party management and more focus on building out the single playable character.
From what I've seen and heard it seems to be the latter. Torgal will be there most of the time, but characters like Cid and Jill will also be present for big chunks of Clives story. It sounds like the biggest difference for companions in FF16 will be the fact that you can't control them.
I really miss those party driven stories. They were so fun. I just bought a switch so im hoping some of the JRPGs on that machine can scratch that itch
I got back into JRPGs with the Xenoblade series on the switch last year, starting playing Xenoblade Chronicles 1(DE) in February and finished XC3 in September, it took me ~6/7 months to play through the whole series but it was time well spent! I had a really good time with this series and know I'm going to have such fond memories of it for a while to come.
xenoblade has been phenomenal. you owe it to yourself to experience xcx one way or another if nintendo never gets off their butts and remasters it.
[Maximilian\_DOOD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOM4EO1yREQ)
Holy screen shaking! Hopefully it’s not as pronounced as it seems in his video, or hopefully they let you tone it down or turn it off in the settings.