Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

For my money, Final Fantasy XVI is the best Final Fantasy since IX. Finished it last night, did all the sidequests and hunts, loved it.

Yeah, it is funny, some of my favourite games are very story heavy and very gameplay light, so it isn't like I dislike these things inherently. I just don't think FF16's story or characters are so strong they override all this game lacks, clearly for a lot of people though this story and set of characters are enough. Good for them, I guess. I do recommend to those people watching more shounen anime if you like this, as this is basically a 101 paint by numbers shounen battle anime in a Game of Thrones skin.

As you go along, side content does offer you more insights into this world and also offers some insights into characters that otherwise just sorta side around at your hideout and don't do anything, so if you value this stuff then I would feel bad if I was the one that made you decide to skip the side content. However, I don't really care about all this stuff, but my gamer OCD compels me to press X to sand through tears of boredom.

@Th3solution "Playing a couple AA/indie games lately in Tacoma, Tchia, and Stray, I’ve really gleaned some satisfaction from gaming that I didn’t realize I was missing. The thought of another 80 hr marathon just gives me heartburn."

Nail on the head. I look at yet another AAA 40-100 hour action game and the necessary commitment puts me off. I started Ghostwire Tokyo (not the best example admittedly) got 2 hours in and can't be bothered with the other 40. It looks great, plays well, but it's all so boring and wishy-washy.

I was saying the other day how I miss when games were like 15 hours or less, just linear and tight telling a great story and steering us through a series of set pieces. Had FF16 focused on like six Eikon battles, gave each one a unique mechanical gimmick, threaded each battle with a smaller mission either side and the necessary cutscenes, I think I would have enjoyed this game so much more and all the shortcomings would have been far less obvious. Like I said above, removing the hubs and the MMO side quests wouldn't be a magic fix all wand, but they would significantly improve the game nonetheless by removing them.

@johncalmc What did you think about the hunts? They're easily my favourite side activities in this game since you get to go all out with your abilities on stronger foes. Not to mention you get great rewards that are necessary for upgrading certain weapons, such as Ragnarok and Gotterdammerung.

Speaking of which, I got Gotterdammerung yesterday. From what I understand, this is a reoccurring weapon in the Final Fantasy games. I've played FF 1-7 and this is the first time I've acquired this weapon lol. I don't really like going for the side stuff in the older FF games since they aren't that enjoyable to play.

@LtSarge Great. Liked them a lot. The combat is really good against bosses - much less so against the rank and file, but then that's true or most Final Fantasy games and JRPGs generally. The flow of the battles, building up the stagger, timing the dodges etc. All really good.

I also like that there's not an overwhelming number of hunts, or a super hunt where you need to grind to 99 or any other time wasting rubbish. I think FFXVI is good for that. You're not spending a dozen hours looking for a specific nut and then hoping you breed the right colour chocobo or spending 100 hours maxing out the sphere grid so you're strong enough to beat the super boss. I know people have a problem with the sidequests but I actually think the optional stuff here is well judged.

@johncalmc I agree. I only wish that they made a separate type of side quest for the ones where you bond with the characters. I haven't noticed it until now but there are more or less "character quests" in FF16 but they are disguised as regular side quests. I think differentiating between them would've made people more interested in checking out the optional content.

Love the music in Lostwing. Got that old JRPG vibe.

Well that's a wrap on FF16 after 70 hours of playtime. I'll probably write down my thoughts in a separate post during the weekend. But in short, this is the best FF game I've played, it's my GOTY and it's one of the best games I've ever played in general. Absolutely phenomenal experience. This is why I love video games.

I beat FF16. Spoiler free info dump.

The ending’s pretty good. Bit of a disappointment all round though. Combat never completely felt that interesting outside of the brilliant boss fights. The story was a bit of a mess but that’s par for the course for FF games. The ‘darker’ tone kinda lets up for a bit and it does lean into the goofy stuff which was fun. I’m 99% sure it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, I’d bet there wasn’t a single woman in the writer’s room. Clive was a fantastic protagonist but he definitely gets a million times more development than anybody else and the overarching story suffers as a result. The baddie didn’t do it for me, I’d probably put them alongside Vayne from XII in terms of ‘missed opportunity’ with some interesting stuff but not enough. The sidequests were a bizarre mix of great little character based ones and then the most mundane sh*t you’ll ever play. It absolutely needs a filter between character quests and filler. The structure being ‘wide linear’ areas did feel a bit XIII. It’s just an odd odd game, that has next-gen stylings layered over a game that felt a bit dated? Obviously this is all my own opinion but I’d probably call it a 7. Probably an 8 if I take into account that I played it for free, I might feel differently if I’d paid that much for it 😂

@nessisonett I read that first sentence wrong and thought it was Fifa 16. I was thinking what can you spoil in a fifa game? And what is this doing in the Final Fantasy thread? Then I realised I should probably go back to bed! 😂

Finished writing my review of FF16 but I decided to post it in the reviews thread in order to avoid posting a wall of text here. In case people are interested in reading my thoughts, here's a link: https://www.pushsquare.com/forums/retro_and_other_gaming/user...

@JohnnyShoulder Would be pretty impressive to beat a FIFA game 😂

@LtSarge It was an interesting read! Coming from FF1-7 I can see how this kinda seems like a good evolution of the core elements of what makes a Final Fantasy game. My favorite era of the series is 7-10 (+12) and FF16 does not really evolve off of them the in quite the same way, in my opinion. Even though I wasn't a fan of this one it was nice to get a more in-depth view from someone who thoroughly enjoyed the game, so thank you!

@LtSarge I enjoyed your review and it was nice to read such a positive appraisal to counter-balance the disappointment I’ve read elsewhere. I’m hoping that my experience will be similar to yours… and given your reference to God of War 2018 and Nier Automata (two of my personal all-timers), there’s a decent chance that I will.

@SerraAngel Thank you for reading! It's going to be interesting to catch up with the rest of the series and see how FFXVI fares to the other games after FFVII. I'm actually considering starting up FFVIII in the near future, but its in-depth mechanics have made me a bit reluctant. But we'll see, hopefully I'll give it a go sometime this year.

@colonelkilgore I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! Yeah, I definitely think you'll like it, especially if you enjoyed GoW and NieR.

It feels like this generation has finally gotten underway after having played FFXVI. It's kinda like how it took several years before the PS4 finally got some impressive experiences: Horizon Zero Dawn and NieR: Automata in 2017 as well as God of War in 2018. I'm definitely going to remember FFXVI as one of the first impressive current-gen games I've played.

@LtSarge Good luck with FF8, I can really see glimpses of a great game in there but oh man, I’ve bounced off that so many times now. Elements are fantastic but I wish I had the original disc like I did with FF7, much less games to distract me when I was playing FF7 for the first time on the PS2.

@LtSarge I always think “in depth mechanics” feels a little OTT when describing FF8.

I quite liked the GF system and using AP gained from fights to unlock new abilities etc. The draw system is admittedly a real pain but I don’t think the junction system is as convoluted as it’s sometimes made out.

So long as each character eventually has a GF that allows junctioning to boost HP, the rest just depends on how you use characters. For instance, I think Ifrit allows junctioning to strength so Zell always had him as he’s a very attack based character.

The triple triad card game rocks too.

I'll have the house all to myself this weekend, so hopefully I'll get Both FF Pixel remaster finished (Just the final boss to go). Also looking forward to finishing XVI, an absolute ton of sidequests have opened up at the same time, as the final main mission. So going to do all those and clear the hunt board before finishing the story, will do all Chronolith trials after I've rolled credits.

So I finally had a chance to make a start on Final Fantasy XVI this afternoon and made it through what i assume to have been the initial demo that was available pre-release (I got to the big title-screen moment basically). So far I think it’s class, sumptuous art design and visual execution, epic score and a great narrative set up.