Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

So I just finished the Echoes of the Fallen DLC for Final Fantasy XVI. Honestly, the content here felt like a mix of something that could've been part of the main story but also not. It feels borderline like brand new content and not content that's been cut from the base game. The primary reason for me saying this is because you're basically exploring another dungeon like in the main game. But the additional lore you gain from playing this DLC, on top of the incredible boss fights, differentiates it from the base game and makes it worth experiencing.

Although €10 for roughly 3 hours of content might be asking a bit too much. In my case though, if I can play more FF16, then I'll happily pay that amount. It actually felt nice to return to this world after six months since I finished the game. I've missed the gang. Clive, Jill, Joshua and Torgal are easily my favourite FF characters. Such an awesome team!

Looking forward to playing the second DLC next year. Given that it's called "The Rising Tide", I hope they give Clive a new Eikon power in the form of the "lost Eikon" Leviathan. That's something that I felt was missing from the Echoes of the Fallen DLC.

@LtSarge you will finish ff8. The 100% completion is really fun too - bar the treasure hunting side quest, my god is it bad. I had never beaten Ultima weapon before and finally had the minerals to do it its not easy but has a particular pattern you can roll with. Good luck soldier. Galbadia garden salutes you cadet, now go meet your destiny.

Random side note about FFXVI —
I’m so impressed with the art direction of the game. Yes, the game is graphically beautiful in many aspects, but the design and costuming is so detailed and interesting. Kudos to the art team for their attention to detail. I find myself just staring at the characters outfits during cutscenes and dialogue. There is some occasional repetition of the clothing they wear with some color palette swaps, but a lot of the NPCs are uniquely attired. The amount of individual design into these details is mind boggling.

It contrasts somewhat with the lack of outfit options for the main characters. So far I only have two outfit options for Clive and Jill, which is fine I guess but I would have enjoyed having more outfits or perhaps having the equipment change the appearance of the armor. Clive’s sword appearance changing is a welcome option but it appears that’s all that changes.

The other really impressive aspect that shows the excellent attention to detail is in the summaries in the State of the Realm / War Room Map with Vivian. It’s fantastically detailed and organized. The story is a complicated mess, but running through Vivian’s lectures and interactive maps and charts makes is really quite digestible. I’m not a fan of games that make you read a boatload of text to understand the narrative backdrop, characters, and events, and the State of the Realm in this game keeps it really easy to just glance through and follow what’s going on in all these corners of the kingdom. Add to that the active time lore that you can access on the pause menu during a cutscene and you have just a wonderful way to communicate narrative without becoming laborious with reading tons of text. Square-Enix has set a new standard with this method and I hope to see other games implement this kind of style of storytelling.

@Th3solution I was really confused about the story since the game just drops you right in the middle of things without explaining any of the characters, previous events, politics, locations and so on. But like you mentioned, the active time lore is a fantastic feature and I think learning a few things at a time is much better than dropping extensive story exposition all at once on you.

@Th3solution @LtSarge Couldn’t agree more! I’d be happy to see the Active Time Lore system be standard issue in any game with a narrative going forward. Life is busy, sometimes you just need that quick reminder to spark your memory and having it tied to what’s onscreen is brilliant.

Been playing some Final Fantasy XVI over the course of last week. I wish all games were like this. The last time I enjoyed a game this much was... FF7R!

Gonna bump the f*** out of this forum post, as I can feel myself getting absolutely addicted to FF7 Remake Intergrade, and the Rebirth game isn't so far away, so people will be back here soon anyway.

There are games that I play and I really enjoy my time with, and then there are a few that for reasons unknown just get in my head and make me itch to get back on them. FF7 Remake, right now, is one of the itchers 😅

I've maybe played 4 or 5 hours of it, only 3? Chapters, and a large part has been setting up the story and then doing some side quests, and yet it has me hooked already. I can't really explain why, but I can just tell its a good'un.

At first I was just enjoying all the visuals, art direction, music and world. Then I was thinking, just jokingly, it's cool to be running around with a Mr.T inspired dude (A-Team reruns fueled part of my youth) and Badger from Breaking Bad. And today I realised it legitimately is Badger from Breaking Bad, so my mind was reblown 😂😂

So yes. I definitely got that itch where i'm casually thinking about the game in the back of my mind, and I really can't wait to get back on it tonight 😅

I'm imagining at some point for all of you here there was a moment where a Final Fantasy game gripped you in the same way?

@Ravix Good to see you’re enjoying the game, since FF16 fell flat for you, iirc.

For me, Remake was a great game, but not quite a “mind itcher” 😅. I enjoyed it and several aspects impressed me, but I think it’s a smidgen over-rated. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but the OG FF7 was most definitely one that got under my skin and one I’d think about all day when I wasn’t playing it and at night as I drifted off to sleep.

The original FF7 is probably my favorite of the series, or a close second maybe to FF12. Either way, Remake is a solid entry and the reimagining of the characters and story is something I’ve come to accept after the initial disappointment that the story is divergent from expectations. I still am nervous about ever direction it’s taking and I won’t spoil anything for you, but I’m sure you’ve seen enough to be aware that it’s controversial.

@Th3solution FF16 didn't fall flat for me, I was loving it, but BG3 barged it's way in before I'd finished XVI. But I still enjoyed going back to it, just not quite to the same level as I enjoyed BG3 😅

I think I've got to thank Clive and XVI for setting me on this path to a game I was never likely to have tried before too! 😁

I've seen some say controversy, and be a bit down on changes, but it looks to me like those are a little exaggerated because of expectations (almost like the 'never meet your heroes' effect. As nothing will be as good as you rememeber it, especially if it is from childhood) or because it is not yet a fully told story, and that is like when people watch part of a film and say "nope, it's dumb" when in most good films it is the full story, especially the ending that defines the things you have experienced beforehand, and something that seems to be one thing can be felt in a dramaticaly different way once you have had the full experience and can think back on the whole work.

@Ravix Oh, okay - I just misremembered. I personally am liking FF16 more than FF7R, but both are great.

As far as my personal take on the reimagining of the FF7 narrative, I feel like my issues are less about it being ‘different’ and more about it being just… not good 😅, at least in some ways. It’s hard to know if having played the OG years ago and holding it dear is tainting my opinion, but there’s just aspects of the storyline that I’m not a fan of, independent of any relation to a previous version of things.

But this is where you’ll be a good source of truth because you’re going in without the prior experience.

@Th3solution perhaps part 2 of the remake could change things for you as well, perception wise, so whichever comes first, me finishing 7 Remake, or you playing through Rebirth. If it feels like it veers off at all or lacks something, I will probably mention it though 😄

Like I say, I don't even really know why I like it yet, it just feels like a game I'm getting a great deal of pleasure from, even early on. The combat clicked with me after an initial bit of confusion on how best not to get a million rockets in my face, and understanding how to switch between characters to keep stacking special moves, getting staggers etc. And it feels like a game that is going to have some enemy variety, which I always appreciate.

And the art design and level design is bloody lovely, especially compared to late game FF16 which does get a bit monotone and repetitive

If someone told me years ago that one day I'd be playing two Final Fantasy games concurrently, I'd have just laughed

But now I just have a big f***ing grin on my face as Barrett screams the FF battle victory tune on a train, for seemingly no reason. And he keeps doing it after battles as well. I hope he doesn't tire of it, as I certainly won't haha 😁

I realise that the FF victory tune or 'leitmotif', if we're being fancy, must be called something too, but I do not have that knowledge 😅

So, has anyone played the Rebirth Demo yet? If so, what did you think? Changed your mind about the game at all?

I haven’t played it and probably won’t, although we’ll see. I’m essentially sold on the game already, partially out of a feeling of obligation since I loved the original FF7 and have played the Remake. My lesser enthusiasm for the Remake’s narrative direction is well documented, but as a game it was fun and Rebirth looks even better from the gameplay standpoint. So for me it’s ‘when’, not ‘if’ I get to Rebirth, and perhaps the Demo would service to move it up or down my priority list. So I was wondering what people thought of it.

I can’t bring myself to finish Remake, I flat out think it is a bad game basically. But I’m really interested in Rebirth because my love for FF7 dies hard. My plan is to watch the remainder of remake on YouTube and inevitably pick up Rebirth at launch.

@kyleforrester87 Out of interest, which elements of Remake didn't land with you?

I ask because I actually struggled to get through the remaining 25% of the game....

There were elements I absolutely adored - the combat for instance (IMO now the benchmark for combat in the series) and I actually enjoyed the changing narrative beats and different story path. The voice acting was really solid as well, and felt that the game did well bringing Cloud and co to a new audience.

It was pretty much most things outside of combat that killed it for me, the endless corridor exploration / narrow lifeless areas + tedious subquests (rescuing cats!). The DLC was pretty good though, I enjoyed the Fort Condor mini game.

Hojos lab was pretty infuriating also and felt to last forever.

If I could summarise, I felt Remake was an 'OK' 40 hour game.... but if the padding was removed, and some tweaks made - it could have been an awesome 20 hour game.

Also, Hard mode being locked behind completion of Story/Normal was a shame. Would have been good to have had Hard mode from the get-go, as this really was incredibly challenging - in a good way.

@CJD87 The padding was just too much... In particular the section between Don Corneo and the plate being dropped, it really seemed to get in the way of the urgency of the moment. On reflection, the original game does it all in 2-3 hours. Yes Remake has some pros, but not enough to justify its time investment when you could just play the original.

@kyleforrester87 The remake definitely needed more jam, I give you that.

@JohnnyShoulder now listen here you

I actually just fired up my old Remake save again last night. Despite mostly enjoying my time with it, I fell off of it in chapter 17. Wanting to give the Rebirth demo a try, I thought I’d better finish Remake once and for all. I was immediately reminded why I fell off of it in the first place as I spent my first hour back walking over catwalks, arduously pulling levers and moving from cut and paste room to room. Everything just moves so slowly and while the graphics are nice, the environment is just drab. That said, I’m going to see it through this time and give Rebirth a spin. I have a huge soft spot for Final Fantasy and XVI recently blew me out of the water so I have high hopes for Rebirth.

After 80 hours, I finally finished FFXVI.

Overall I liked it a lot. I enjoyed the story, characters, combat, music… just about everything. I do think the last couple chapters were a bit of a slog — at least it was a slog to do all the side quests. And the side quests in the last chapter all felt important, but were so filled with exposition and tying up character storylines, that it just dragged to have a shopping list of about 20 of them to do all at once. I would have liked to somehow have them spread out more. Some of the final character arcs needed to be at the penultimate section like for Jill, Joshua, and Dion, but some really could have happened earlier to help with the pacing.

And I think I’ve had my fill of boss fights for a while. Good grief this game’s boss fights go on forever. Some of them are like 2 hours each by the time you get through all the phases. And that’s without dying! If you die and have to start over I can’t imagine how frustrating that would be.

Speaking of, I found the difficulty to be just about right. One of the final optional hunts was the toughest fight to me and I died twice before beating it. The final boss was also very hard and actually the first time you fight Ultima it was a little harder for me, but the final fight was more like a marathon of endurance, and I can’t imagine how it would have been without obtaining the Gotterdammerung and the Oroboros items.

I played without the use of the “cheat” accessories though (except the one that makes Torgal’s attacks automated) and so that made it a little harder. But seriously, I don’t know how people thought you can get through the game by just mashing the attack button. The normal enemies maybe, but the boss fights were really intense and you had to stack your eikon attacks just right or else you were toast.

Glad to be done with it, and I’ll miss it in a way, but with Crisis Core and then Rebirth, I’ve got plenty of Final Fantasy to keep me busy when I’m back in the mood