Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

@Th3solution you're right about action vs turn base. there are good games on both sides but sale numbers are very different.
about XVI, it's not the battle system. XV was a disappointing experience for me; dull open world, boring quests and light RPG elements and it feels like XVI followed a same way. it might work better as something like Final Fantasy Origin (or even Nioh); straightforward and linear with shiny chaotic move sets but then -as you said- the sales would be a fraction of it being FFXVI.

@Pizzamorg That’s a great point about approachability and keeping things ‘casual’ enough for those who aren’t typically fans of the genre. It’s a little confusing as to why they didn’t implement actual difficulty settings though. All S-E’s other action games that I know of have difficulty sliders like Forspoken, FF7R, etc. In fact, I can’t remember if you played FF7R but there is difficulty setting and also an option to choose a “classic” style combat, which I suspect leans heavier into the turned-based style of the original. I wonder if they have metrics from mining player data that shows few people actually using the “classic” setting and so maybe that influenced their abandonment of even having a hybrid battle system to begin with for FF16. I guess we’ll know more when FF7R-2 comes out.

But yes, to your point, I’ve played a little of DMC and I’m rubbish at that style of combat. If they hadn’t included easier difficulty settings in Nier Automata then I would have struggled with that (and certainly would have enjoyed it less).

I think S-E must have been confident in the story of FF16 to carry the experience, even if the gameplay was a little too watered down for the action-combat / Souls-DMC fans.

I don't know whether I posted this here before, but due to their closeness of releases, you can draw a lot of parallels between Diablo 4 and FF16. They both present a very glossy and polished vision of their respective franchises, which are both simultaneously somewhat gutted under the hood. Streamlining aggressively seemingly in the name of trying to appeal to a wider, more casual, audience, which goes beyond that core dedicated audience they already had (and now may risk alienating).

In a lot of ways, I honestly think this is a real shame, to be honest. I guess we'll have to see how things shake out and see how this colours future projects in gaming in general. Apparently box sales in the UK for FF16 aren't great, but then box sales for games in the UK seem bad a lot of the time, as digital I would assume is a much larger market share these days and once that data comes out, we'll have a clearer picture.

@Pizzamorg Obviously we don't know the numbers yet, but it debuting at #1 is still a solid sign regardless.

@CthulhuFhtagn I had actually forgotten about Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, which maybe was their attempt to do the actual in-depth Souls-formula of deeper action combat. I can’t find solid sales data but it appears it did pretty poorly commercially. Hard to draw firm conclusions about whether there’s an audience who wants a really deep challenging action combat system in their FF game based on that game because apparently the game was kind of a mess narratively also. Still, it might have influenced the decision to be less hardcore with the combat system in FF16

@Th3solution @Pizzamorg

For me, the focus on appealing to the lowest common denominator or teenagers is a bad move for FF. 'No one plays turnbased games anymore' we'll yeah it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to realise if no turn based games are developed then no one will play them.

FF has sometimes quirky, often convoluted, sub system mechanics. Which tied in to a variety of options to play around with in a turn based fighting system. It's not that fans of the series want a strict ATB format, 4 on screen characters in 2 ranks, like the snes games. We want a hybrid which has depth in strategy on top of action elements. The FF7 remake had this mostly sussed.

FF13 for all its issues, had a great fighting system once it opened up. Why not have Clives bayonetta esque fighting sat inside the changing stance mechanics of ff13 with a couple of hommies to compliment your arsenal?

I did something last night that I should've done at the very start of the game - switched difficultly to story focused. Not because the game is challenging but because it shaves a lot of time off fighting mini-bosses and bosses.
See, I'm at that point where I let the story just go over my head, it's taking itself way too seriously and I miss that charm which FF games are known for. Some of the better characters in the game have been killed off and Clive just reminds me of grumpy Geralt except without the wit and charisma of our famous witcher. I've just had a scene that made Jill a lot more interesting but that's only because she actually did something.

Apart from all of this, I still can't stop playing the game.

@ApostateMage Oh, I guess I misunderstood how the game describes story mode. I was under the impression that the only difference was that it automatically equipped the accessories that make battle actions more automated and easier to perform. I didn’t realize it also affected enemy health, etc. Good to know.

@themcnoisy Agreed. I think over time FF13 has become much more appreciated. I was always a fan of the game, even though it’s not my favorite of the series. But the combat was indeed fun once you got into it. And I do think FF7R struck a nice balance between old and new.

Are you playing 16 yet, boss? I just dabbled in the opening tutorial and I’m going to come back to it in a couple weeks when I clear some other games first. I think I’ll really like it, but with it being so button-mashy I wonder if I’ll grow tired of it. Fortunately I have to spread my games out over several weeks and my play sessions are by necessity shorter so I usually won’t get bored of a game as quickly as most who binge them in one week.

@Th3solution I've sold the PS5. I Couldn't stand the controller. So no rofl.

@themcnoisy Oh yeah, I remember now. 😄
Well, I’ll let you know if FF16 is worth picking up another PS5 for. Or maybe by early next year you could jump back on for FF7 Rebirth.
You’d have to tolerate the DualSense to play it though.

@Th3solution Alluding back to an older conversation within this thread. FF7 remake was a weird one.

I loved almost everything they did. Bar the memory ghost nonsense. I will never understand why story writers have to explain alternative universes or t Junction Canon. Memory ghosts is such a ridiculous concept and waters down the ff7 remake as a game in it own right. Now wherever changing the overall story in such a manner is sensible going forward? The jury will certainly be out. Otherwise it was a great experience and a ton of fun.

Yeah the decision to can the ps5 was in part due to gamepass and ms rewards. I play a lot of games and those two benefits combined has saved me a small fortune. I think I've had £150 in game vouchers so far from ms rewards and am 70% there on my next £25 voucher. I have 40 games in my to play list on gamepass (of admittedly varying quality) and a backlog of games I've bought in sales. I miss the big PS games but the money I'm saving is significant and I really look forward to redeeming vouchers and picking up slightly older games in sales. Like olli olli world, the house of the dead remake and the spyro trilogy most recently. I suppose I'm using it like the old ps instant game collection.

I read a lot about people hating the ghosts, but... they were such a small part of the story. I really liked their inclusion. I think it was a nice and meta way for the authors to connect to the gamers. They want to modernize the game of course, but they also feel the burden of fans of original to keep things as is, these ghosts I think symbolize so well the struggle of making a remake.
But even if I had hated it, and I've hated many of these kind of themes that could be considered to be pretentious in previous Square games, I think they were such a small part of this game, that you could ignore them being there without it effecting the story.

Anyway, my love for this game seems to be almost blind. I can't imagine a more perfect game, but that probably means there's something wrong with me.

@Kidfried Maybe there is, but then there's something wrong with me too as I have very little to complain about in Final Fantasy VII Remake as well. My love for the game actually grew when I played the PS5 version, which was my second time through the game. While I may say I like this game or that game better for a particular console generation, the game is still very special regardless and one I probably still think about more than others. It's one of the rare games that left a really lasting impression, even if it took two tries to get there for me.

@Kidfried @KilloWertz Same here, I found very little to complain about the remake, and I adored the original when I first played it. I find it exciting that I'm usure of what comes next.

I have an itching to play the DLC soon with all this chatter about the series.

@JohnnyShoulder The DLC is so good. Had to play it twice, and will probably play it again soon.

@Kidfried @JohnnyShoulder @KilloWertz I also wasn't bothered by the Ghosts in the remake and had played the original a few
years back. Still have to play Yuffie DLC though.

Currently playing through XVI and on the final boss of the first games pixel remaster

It's funny how the trailers for XVI made so many people go "this is just a generic fantasy game, not a Final Fantasy" while in reality the game makes it very obvious that it's definitely another entry in the series pretty early on.
The worldbuilding, characters and general aesthetic don't stray from the core of the series one bit.
What is different is the tone of the story (more mature and involves a lot of dying) and, obviously, the combat.
I've just gone past the 2nd time skip last night and I'm loving it so far, especially the boss battles (even if it's all a bit too easy for my taste).

@JohnnyShoulder You should enjoy the DLC more than I did initially. Yuffie's combat is very different from the cast from the main game, so when I jumped in shortly after beating it a second time, I royally sucked at it and dropped it. I went back to it last year and highly enjoyed it, as the difference was no longer an issue since there had been a good amount of time in between.

@Kidfried @KilloWertz @MightyDemon82 Sounds good. I don't often get dlc, especially so far out from playing the main game but am willing to make an exception in this case.