Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

@Feena i can understand why people might dislike Squall at least at first but he does grow over the course of the game and yeah the story had a few WTF moments but i wouldn't say it was the weakest of the series in my opinion that was FFII that had a poor story, poor characters, badly designed dungeons and an annoying leveling system, and while the PSP version did improve it, it wasn't by much

@FullbringIchigo Actually, I have never played Final Fantasy II - it's the only one in the series I have never played in any version. I finished the first one on NES mini last Christmas - with a party of mages nonetheless.

@Feena honestly it is quite a train wreck but i would still recommend playing it at least ONCE, because while it makes a LOT of mistakes some of what we call FF Staples originated in it

Anyone playing FFXIV: Stormblood? It's getting really good reviews.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/final-fantasy-xiv-stormblood

@kyleforrester87 @Feena @FullbringIchigo Final Fantasy 8 is the best!

The worst story is clearly final Fantasy 13. And crazily even worse is 13-2.

I've just 100% completed Episode Prompto and I must say that I am pretty satisfied and positively surprised.

My considerations:

• It has a very nice balance of story and gameplay and tells a (foreseeable) truth about Prompto with very effective and sleek looking cutscenes.
• The combat systems turns FFXV into something like dirge of cerberus but even if it is never as good as a proper shooter it is alright...most of the times. Sometimes it gets a bit messy. The final bosses and optional boss fights are very satisfying.
• There is some exploration with a mini overworld map, side quests, an album of photos that must be taken at specific point of the map a la Botw and a snow motorbike to carry you around.
• There are some other bells and whistles like snow-bike time trials, costume variations to find and unlock etc.

I'd give Episode Prompto a 7.5 (meaning it's pretty good, not the web's 7,5 = garbage) - what amazed me most in the end is the volume of stuff that you get for the meager price of the expansion. Some developers would sell you just a costume for that price!

@themcnoisy FFXIII story is fiiiine - just really badly told in the game. 13-2's story is ewwwww, as are Serah and Noel the gameplay was very enjoyable, though.

@Feena sounds great, I totally agreed with your comment in the ff12 article about rather playing ff15 than ff12. I should have kept my save file to play the dlc. Doh.

Im starting to question the validity of my fanboyism towards ff8. I like a lot of the mechanics most people dislike. Junctions are my favourite game play / boost mechanic ever, I like that you can break the game and complete with characters sat at level 1. Maybe it's part nostalgic and one of the few games I have mastered. The story on the first disc imo is as good as any game, but yes it does descend into nonsense from disc 2.

So big question to @Feena @kyleforrester87 @FullbringIchigo @wanderingBullet @johncalmc @shogunrok what do you all hope to see in ff16?

@themcnoisy ah if FF8 is your favourite, more power to you. I'll literally never change my mind about how fantastic FF7 and 9 are, if that's being a fanboy then call me a fanboy!!

I actually hope they invest their resources into the FF7 remake and get it out the door in the state it deserves within a reasonable time frame.

But when they do get round FF16, I expect there will be the weird mixture of technology and fantastical elements that we expect from the series but I would like to see a modern entry with a medieval vibe, like we had with FF9. That really gets me going. The more oriental flair of recent instalments does less for me unfortunately.

@themcnoisy you should be proudly championing VIII! we all have our faves

For FF16 I want Tabata and the rest of the team from 15 working on it from the start: keep the open world, fix a couple of things about magic and summons and use fantasy setting like 5 or 9 or even 12. Give it a nice story and BOOM, masterpiece.

@themcnoisy FF16, interesting question well for one NOT BEING AN MMO, i have no problems with MMO's but they SHOULDN'T be part of the main numbered series and should have been it's own spin off series

Battle System should be more like Kingdom Hearts, i think it has a good balance between action and turn based

World should be like FF15 but larger and more open

Character party should be like FF15 with a small group you can get to know personally but not as small as 15's maybe 5 or 6 MAX

Story should be more of a focus

BRING BACK AIRSHIPS!

costumes SHOULD NOT affect stats, that is what weapons and accessories are for, all costumes should just be a visual change only and more of them with some based on old FF games

the Summons should be more like the older games EG: FF10, where you call them whenever you want but then you take control of them

that's all i can think of right now but FF15 was a big step in the right direction, it just had a few stumbles along the way

@FullbringIchigo 100% agreed. I hope Square is thinking as obviously as we are.

@Feena I'd like to see Tabata do FF16 too, but from the start not taking over a difficult project. I actually loved Type-0 and overall enjoyed it more than 15. So I'm not overly happy with how FF15 ended up but gotta give the guy the benefit of the doubt. FF16's story just HAS to be significantly better than 15's, though.

That said after playing Nier I reckon Taura could make an awesome Final Fantasy game. Would love to see him let loose with that kind of budget.

@themcnoisy I think I want to see a return to more traditional role-playing mechanics. XV is a good game but I think so many people still love a 'proper' RPG - just look at The Witcher 3, the revival of CRPGs, and even stuff like Ni no Kuni II. Again, XV is fine, but it's really more of an open world action game with lite RPG mechanics bolted on, so it's missing a fair amount of depth in my opinion.

We need a grand Final Fantasy story, too. XV's is pretty much non-existent in the game, and since I've been playing XII, which has so many well acted cutscenes and so much dialogue, XV's lack of exposition sticks out like a sore thumb.

For me the best Final Fantasy games - IX, VII, XII, VIII, VI, X - have all featured amazing worlds that are well realised, full of character and wonder. While I liked XV's mix of fantasy and reality (remember that one from marketing?) the world didn't feel very fleshed out at all.

@KratosMD I don't think you need turn based combat to be considered a more hardcore RPG, but you do need more depth to your systems than XV does. I just want a bit more complexity, a bit more intricacy. Room for experimentation in gameplay, that sort of thing.

Again, XV is a fine, but it's lacking a lot of what makes a great FF game as far as I'm concerned.

Still waiting to see FFXV's co-op DLC first. If that's good I don't see why FFXVI can't be multiplayer game.

@kyleforrester87 yoko taro would be very interesting as well but I'd hate to see all the experience Tabata and team gained from XV go to waste! Let them start fresh and not use someone else's failed game assests.

It's funny how large towns like Lindblum felt in FF9 when in reality they were made up of 10-15 pre-rendered back drops and a bunch of NPCs without verbal dialogue. Replicating that on current gen machines must cost 1000 times more. They really got their work cut out for them!!

XIII story was bad and XV's been okay so far for me. They should get the writer(s) from FFXIV. The vanilla game had a good story and I read the recent expansion's story is really good as well.

@themcnoisy I want Square Enix to stop concentrating on being the biggest, and the prettiest, and go back to basics. I want a battle system in which I actually have to do stuff - shock horror, I know - and a story that makes sense and characters that have something to say. That's about it. Oh, and one of those old school battle systems where everybody stands around for their turn to throw a fist.

@KratosMD I agree with your post apart from this;

People these days prefer real-time over turn-based

That's not true, wherever it's real time or turn based if there's no strategy people get turned off. I think the line fighting showcased in ffx backwards has had its day for sure, as it's unrealistic and too abstract for today's visuals.

I would like to see an evolution of the turn based system, maybe a semi gambit system for character positioning in a real time field then pausing at set points say for a big enemy attack or after a set round of attacks.

There are loads of ways around it and turn based games can work within ff if brought up to date.