Games The Final Fantasy Thread!

[Nie Li]

I'm pretty impressed and pleased with how transparent they're being about everything. Like I said before, this is not a game for me. If anything it's everything I don't want out of a Final Fantasy game (Action/non-PC/no party control) but I really like that they are being very clear and transparent about what this is.

They aren't getting my hopes up, unnecessarily. It's basically "We've made a Final Fantasy themed Ninja Gaiden game." So the people who are into that can get excited. People like me who aren't can just move on and ignore it. I wish more companies would be this open about what they're doing with a game.(Lookin' at you Dragon Age)

As a side note, what a world we live in. Yakuza is a turned based party RPG. Final Fantasy is a combo based action brawler.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 1, 2023, Original Post Date: Mar 1, 2023 ---

In terms of this direction. I don't really believe in it but it's something they've been edging closer and closer to it for a while. Might as well get it over with and let this strategy succeed or fail. Maybe they're right. And this will bring in the audience that they think it will.

I think it's a mistake. Especially given the popularity of the likes of Dragon Quest, Persona, and now Yakuza. Final Fantasy Remake as well, which while still very action-y was nowhere near as much as this is. To go full action is to risk getting lost among all the many third person action games out there. But I can't know if that's true or not and I'm sure there are people out there that will love this. So I wish them luck in their endeavors.

It will probably succeed, it does look dope and having the designer of DMC 5's gameplay on board and those graphics is already very promising.

Like you, this is just not what I expect out of a Final Fantasy game, and I'd like it a lot more with different gameplay mechanics. Thinking that turn based stuff is just "old stuff that's better to move away from" just because there are some best-selling action games around is plain wrong in my opinion.

That being said, I'll probably buy it anyway... whenever it lands on Steam.

 

[Jammin]

It will probably succeed, it does look dope and having the designer of DMC 5's gameplay on board and those graphics is already very promising.

Like you, this is just not what I expect out of a Final Fantasy game, and I'd like it a lot more with different gameplay mechanics. Thinking that turn based stuff is just "old stuff that's better to move away from" just because there are some best-selling action games around is plain wrong in my opinion.

That being said, I'll probably buy it anyway... whenever it lands on Steam.

I think that is the reaction they're hoping for. Maybe not the steam part but the rest of it. But the idea that old fans will be interested enough to give it shot. While at the same time reaching out to a different pool of players who previously just weren't interested in the JRPGness of it.

That being said, I'm with you. The idea that turn based doesn't have broad appeal is demonstrably wrong. Pokemon is a turn based JRPG. Persona is a turn based JRPG. Dragon Quest is a turn based RPG. Turn based games are still quite popular.

I also have a lot of questions about this approach that I personally can't answer. My answer to "Will I play this kind of Final Fantasy game?" is a rock solid "No". Nothing else to really even be said there. Will combo action brawler game fans want to play a long, serious, drawn out Final Fantasy story? Will enough old fans be willing to give this a shot? Is the audence for this type of game as big is Square thinks that it is? I don't know. I don't begrudge them for trying something different but I'm not optimistic that it will succeed in the way that Square is hoping it will.

 

[Nii]

I'm actually rather optimistic that it will succeed. I've seen tons of people be excited about how the game looks, and especially from people who usually don't play Final Fantasy. It will obviously deter some old-time fans, but I saw that they added a lot of optional stuff that makes it way easier for those who just don't like action (like auto-evade, difficult combos triggering automatically just by mashing the same button, etc.).

Make no mistake, I'm actually not that big on action either. It's fine, but stuff like DMC never really appealed to me. I was among the guys who at first didn't really like FF7 Remake going mostly action, but in the end that worked out incredibly well in my eyes. And I see the argument Yoshi-P makes. Turn based games can still be popular for sure, but they are rarer and action-focused games definitely have a bigger potential audience nowadays. Think he also said somewhere that they basically wanna introduce FF to a newer audience with a BANG, and that's a lot easier done with the epic action approach they're taking.

Will it work out in the end? If it's a good game, I think so. But we'll have to wait and see. I'll definitely play the game when it comes out, and if the action really is too much for me I'll go with some of the optional stuff mentioned above. In my eyes just like with the classic mode in FF7R, they've added enough options to make this playable even for the oldschool fans of FF, but I ofc understand if someone says it's just not for him.

 

[xi0]

I'm not the biggest FF person really, but I think aesthetically the game looks a bit ordinary and unexciting. But Yoshi-P is a good developer so I'm not as negative about it as I otherwise would be I guess.

 

[Jammin]

I do want to say that I think what he said about making it accessible to purists like myself is sort of rooted in another misunderstanding. Auto-Evade and stuff like that doesn't actually... help. For people like me at least.

The deterrence for action combat I think generally isn't the difficulty. Like I played Elden Ring and Dark Souls games. And I feel like most long time Final Fantasy fans have been playing videogames long enough to be more than capable of beating whatever with a bit of effort. So it's not that we can't play it, it's that a lot of us don't want to.

The thing that I think they would need to account for should they wish to pursue an action based future for Final Fantasy and bring people like me on board is more about depth of gameplay and story. Because they are transitioning to something more reliant on reflex and less on deliberate strategic decision making. For example not having a party takes an exponential amount of those decisions away. It also takes a ton of depth from the story, which in Final Fantasy is usually told as a party centric thing. Where that party is your primary supporting cast. Now you can remove those things but you need to replace them something to bring in a fan like myself. And if they can't do that people like me will just view is as "inferior" and not be interested in it. Which is absolutely fine if they're just not interested in selling it to somebody like me but lowering the difficulty doesn't really get them any closer to me wanting to play it.

And it's worth mentioning that DMC and Ninja Gaiden type of arcade games don't sell as well as Final Fantasy does. They just don't. I mean, Persona 5 Sold 6.5 million units which is about the same as Devil May Cry 5 which is the highest selling DMC game. They are certainty going for a new audience here and that's fine but I really don't know if this audience is as big as they think it is. If they really want to chase the biggest audience possible. They should be trying to go with a slower more deliberate Elden Ring style of action. That sold 20 million.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 4, 2023, Original Post Date: Mar 4, 2023 ---

Now to be fair to Yoshi-P, he I think see's it more generally than that. Sounds like he see's it as a transition from "indirect input" to "direct input". Which he argues is reminiscent of like Call of Duty and GTA. Where to shoot a gun.... you shoot a gun. As opposed to traditional Final Fantasy where you select attack and your character shoots a gun on his turn in response to that. That direct immediacy is what he sees as crucial appeal to new fans. Which I'm sure is true to some degree.

 

[Jammin]

The Sony State of Play thing had a long gameplay and mechanics showcase for FF16.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 14, 2023, Original Post Date: Apr 14, 2023 ---

My impression is basically, it is what you would think it is.

In terms of visual style, it looks pretty good. There are some interesting bits about the players "base" something they call the hideaway. A bit about how NPCs will work in the game. Lots of information about the combat.

I continue to really appreciate how clear and forthright they're being about what this game is going to have to offer. Still not something I have any interest in playing but I feel like the way they are presenting things really helps people figure out if what their offering is something you might possibly want.

 

[ninjabot]

It's Devil May Cry.

That's fine, because I love Devil May Cry. Just give me fleshed-out lore and tons of content and we're golden.

Speaking of DMC, it originated from devs deciding to take ideas that were deemed unfitting for the Resident Evil franchise, but good enough for a new series, and using those so that the RE series wouldn't lose its identity. I feel like if they wanted a full-on action series they could've done the same here. I have a friend whose disability won't allow her to play games that require a ton of twitch movement and rapid button pressing. She loves RPGs and the FF series especially. This is the first one she's afraid she'll have to skip.

 

[Jammin]

It's Devil May Cry.

That's fine, because I love Devil May Cry. Just give me fleshed-out lore and tons of content and we're golden.

Speaking of DMC, it originated from devs deciding to take ideas that were deemed unfitting for the Resident Evil franchise, but good enough for a new series, and using those so that the RE series wouldn't lose its identity. I feel like if they wanted a full-on action series they could've done the same here. I have a friend whose disability won't allow her to play games that require a ton of twitch movement and rapid button pressing. She loves RPGs and the FF series especially. This is the first one she's afraid she'll have to skip.

For what it's worth it sounds like they are trying hard to put in accessibility options to cater to those in her situation. How effective those will be remains to be seen but if she's interested in the game itself, I think there is probably reason to hope she'll be able to play it.

Though at the end of the day it's still going to be something very different from a normal FF game. And that's not going to be for everyone, it's definitely not for me.

 

[Nii]

Well I finished the game some days ago, and enjoyed it a lot. I also think it's not really for you though @Jammin

The action stuff actually is more basic than what it looks like, and while it gets really fun once you've unlocked your three Eikon slots, it also gets kinda stale for the last third of the game. The game also has some INCREDIBLE highs, but does suffer from bad pacing here and there, especially during the last 20% of the game or so. It also had some really great characters, while others got the short end of the stick (looking at you, Jill). Women don't play much of a role for the most part, which is another reason why you probably wouldn't like it Jamms

In summary, it's very good game, but has too much stuff that holds it back from being outstanding/great. RPG aspects are almost non-existent, and that you only play as Clive 90% of the time definitely hurts the "Final Fantasy" feeling the most. Visual presentation is on another level though, that's the one thing they 100% delivered on. And the english VAs were great too, especially the one for Clive.

8/10 for me, maybe 8.5 if I'm being generous.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 10, 2023, Original Post Date: Oct 10, 2023 ---

Should also mention the music, some really amazing tracks and overall maybe the best modern FF game OST.



Anyway, heard there's going to be two DLCs for the game, definitely going to check those out.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 10, 2023 ---

That being said, what we've seen from FF7 Rebirth looks amazing so far. Seems like it has all the good FF ingredients that 16 was lacking to some extent. I have to contain my hype for this one, hopefully it's as good as they make it look/sound.

 

[Jammin]

I certainly like that Rebirth looks more... playful. Which seems great.

The thing about pretty much any Final Fantasy game for me is that it needs to be a party based RPG. Having a couple main line Final Fantasy games come out now that weren't that. At least not in the same way. That to me, really focused in on what is and isn't a dealbreaker for me personally.

I can probably deal with any control scheme or battle mechanic or whatever. But I want a party in my JRPGs. Without that it's of absolutely no interest to me. That really is the dealbreaker. Give me a group of characters I can get attached to and I'm in. Fail to do that and I'm out.

 

[Nii]

I certainly like that Rebirth looks more... playful. Which seems great.

The thing about pretty much any Final Fantasy game for me is that it needs to be a party based RPG. Having a couple main line Final Fantasy games come out now that weren't that. At least not in the same way. That to me, really focused in on what is and isn't a dealbreaker for me personally.

I can probably deal with any control scheme or battle mechanic or whatever. But I want a party in my JRPGs. Without that it's of absolutely no interest to me. That really is the dealbreaker. Give me a group of characters I can get attached to and I'm in. Fail to do that and I'm out.

Well it seems to me like Rebirth is capturing that oldschool FF vibe, just with modern graphics. Would be awesome if they can actually pull that off, this is what everyone was hoping for with the remake.

And yeah that's fair enough. You do have companions and can give the dog orders to some extent, but I really wouldn't call what you have in FF16 an actual party. One of the big flaws of the game in my eyes too, so I can understand why that's a dealbreaker for you.

 

[Jammin]

Yeah, the dog and all that isn't the same and doesn't really give it more appeal than any other such game. It's not a party based game.

I'm curious what FF17 will be whenever that comes out. Because unfortunately, by all accounts, FF16 did under perform from a sales perspective. Part of which may be it's exclusivity to playstation but to be honest I'm not sure what the path forward looks like. Are they going to just imitate the Remake? Square's kind of run itself into some financial trouble with all it's big swing strike outs at live services.

 

[Nii]

Yeah, the dog and all that isn't the same and doesn't really give it more appeal than any other such game. It's not a party based game.

I'm curious what FF17 will be whenever that comes out. Because unfortunately, by all accounts, FF16 did under perform from a sales perspective. Part of which may be it's exclusivity to playstation but to be honest I'm not sure what the path forward looks like. Are they going to just imitate the Remake? Square's kind of run itself into some financial trouble with all it's big swing strike outs at live services.

Yeah, agreed about your first point.

In terms of sales, I'm not sure. I always hear arguments for both sides. I'd say FF16 neither tanked nor had outstanding sales, it sold fine. SE is giving mixed messages about what they expected, but personally I imagine they feel good about how much it sold overseas, but not happy with how it sold in Japan itself. There it clearly underperformed, but in my eyes that's more bc of the very obvious marketing as a western/game of thrones style setting and heck, for the first time english voices done as the primary language. You can argue FFs always had western influences, but it's never been as clear as this time.

In the grand theme of things, FF16 isn't and won't be a financial failure. But yeah, SE had a lot of life service flops lately (to no one's surprise). Where a possible FF17 goes next is impossible to tell, because no matter how well the prior game does, they always change things up for the next entry. It's a huge charm of the series, and also it's curse lol.

 

[Jammin]

The mixed signals comes from the fact that it did sell in line with exceptions early, selling 3 million copies at a launch, which they kind of put there there for PR reasons. Then it fell off really hard. And then it later came out in investor calls that it "didn't meet high sales expectations". So while we don't know the numbers we do know it fell short of whatever their projections were. that comes directly from the president of SquareEnix himself.

Although Square is in particular famous for inflating those projections to unreasonable levels. So who knows what the actual numbers are. It also has a PC release yet to go. So that will be a second chance for the game to pull in a little more. But clearly it's not the hit something like that Avengers live service game was.

 

[Nii]

The mixed signals comes from the fact that it did sell in line with exceptions early, selling 3 million copies at a launch, which they kind of put there there for PR reasons. Then it fell off really hard. And then it later came out in investor calls that it "didn't meet high sales expectations". So while we don't know the numbers we do know it fell short of whatever their projections were. that comes directly from the president of SquareEnix himself.

Although Square is in particular famous for inflating those projections to unreasonable levels. So who knows what the actual numbers are. It also has a PC release yet to go. So that will be a second chance for the game to pull in a little more. But clearly it's not the hit something like that Avengers live service game was.

I mean you're right with almost everything, but the avengers game actually was a massive flop that's one of the games where they lost a huge amount of money, supposedly.

Square Enix Sells Avengers & GOTG Studios After Reportedly Suffering $200 Million Loss

In what appears to be the next big acquisition story to hit the games industry, publisher Square Enix has sold three of its western studios along with

segmentnext.com

"According to a report by Metro earlier in the week, Square Enix lost $200 million between Marvel’s Avengers and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy which is believed to be at least one contributing factor to the sale.


Marvel’s Avengers reportedly cost over $100 million to produce but managed to sell only about 3 million copies. Square Enix failed to turn a profit from the game which was described by its president Yosuke Matsuda as “a commercial disappointment” for the publisher."

 

[Jammin]

Yeah that was an utter disaster. Even Forspoken and Babylon's Fall couldn't touch that one.

In hindsight I worded that weirdly. When I said "hit" I meant like "financial hit". As in like a punch to the gut. Not as in like a "successful hit". Sorry about that.

 

[kkck]

Ok, I've had a bit of a FF frenzy recently. Played FFXVI a while back and am playing FFVII rebirth.

FFXVI was a fun game but I enjoyed the story more than the gameplay. It felt like a bit of an overcorrection from FFXV in most things. FFXV was a deeply flawed game but map exploration was at least good, if not great, while the story in turn required multiple fixes until it made any amount of sense. And the entire cast was unlikable and if given the chance I'd catapult them into a wall no questions asked. FXVI overcorrected because map exploration is... dated. In most games nowadays you usually can interact with most stuff you can see but FFXVI made the decision to... not. On the other hand in FFXVI I liked the story and cast. Though it was a bit of a shame that in a rare FF game with an entirely likeable cast you don't really get to use any of them. I can understand getting creative with gameplay but to me one of the staples of a FF game is having a team with differentiated abilities. I became less of a fan of dominant fights as I played the game. You spend hours playing a game and when you meet big bosses you do a bunch of stuff which has literally nothing to do with regular combat you have been practicing. It was very cinematic but from a gameplay perspective not particularly fun. Overall the game is still pretty excellent, even without a team combat is engaging enough to keep you through the game.

I am still in the middle of rebirth (chapter 12) and I definitely like it a lot more than 16. The world map looks incredible. Though it is worth noting that to me it is a bit dated from the gameplay perspective. As in, you can't interact with everything you see. It's not as bad as the previous sentence makes it sound though. Combat has been improved surprisingly, they really built up on stuff. And now there's a lot more variety of materia as well which is something which to me felt like it dragged remake down. I have a sort of love-hate thing with minigames here. Half of them aren't' fun but the other half is zany enough to be fun. Looking forward to how the story ends, I've sucessfully avoided spoilers online so far.

 

[ninjabot]

Been playing FF7 as well (check the sig).

XVI was a huge letdown. I wish they'd have used the same battle system as 7Remake in it. And this is coming from a Devil May Cry fan. DMC has a way of making it's combat not feel repetitive but FFXVI got super repetitive before I even got to the halfway point. I feel like removing elemental weaknesses played a huge part in that, since you didn't need to change certain combat strategies.

I will say that the one thing I miss about old-school OG FF7 is the over the top spells and summons. Realism is cool, but I wanna see planets blowin' up like in the old days.


Maybe we'll get that in Reunion.