Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

I’m continuing to be fascinated by the reactions FF16 is creating. I’ve not gone back to it yet, but I’ve also not done any form of gaming lately anyways.

I might be wrong, but I don’t remember the narrative from the fanbase being like this with 12, 13, or 15. They were each criticized for various reasons, but there wasn’t a large outcry or polarization of fanbase like 16 seems to have created. I don’t recall as strong a backlash about the series having lost its way, betrayed the sanctity of its roots, sold out to millennial short attention spans, needing to return to a traditional turn-based system, or much of the other discourse going on about 16 now. (These are complaints I’m reading the last few weeks around the web, not necessarily here)

I remember that 12 was actually well received, even though the gambit system in retrospect is such a large deviation from traditional gameplay.

And 13 was spurned by most fans, to be sure, but I think the majority of the complaints I heard and read were to do with the game’s linearity and long ramp-up time on-rails before it “got good” at the midway point. Now in retrospect with a deluge of open world time-sinks, I think a lot of us are more accepting of linearity in some of our games but in the zeitgeist of 2010, gamers wanted more of that open world magic that Ubisoft was popularizing.

Then with 15, I think a lot of the complaints were about a disjointed and unfinished story and the annoying DLC rollout.

A game’s legacy is so dependent upon its timing. The Tik-Tok/HBO generation of today definitely calls for products that are edgy, quickly engaging, fast paced, visually spectacular, and epic in their storytelling. I count myself as guilty, by the way, of these tendencies as much as anyone else. So much so that even though I consistently proclaim FF7 to be one of my all-time favorites, I’m just not sure I will ever go back to play it again because of all the new and shiny other games vying for my attention which give me a much quicker dopamine hit than the tedious and tactical calculations of figuring out materia combinations or long-haul party strategies for hidden boss fights underwater. I just lack the time, attention span, and energy that I had in years past. And so for me, FF16 might just be what the doctor ordered. Yet I feel strangely compelled to leave it alone for a while until I can clarify in my mind of what I actually want from this game.

@Pizzamorg After re-reading some of your comments about FF16, I think I see where you’re coming from. I have games that I’ve played through to completion where I finish the game and realize I really had no idea what was going on in the story and didn’t remember any smaller plot points. I’d skip over any of the written lore hidden in the menus and on collectibles. I’d just enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay, get my fix, and then shut down until my next play session. (Examples - Souls games, Ratchet & Clank games, Returnal, Borderlands, etc.)

In contrast, I have an equal number of games which I played and mostly just tolerated the combat until I could get to the next cutscenes and experience the compelling story or character study being told. These were more of an exercise in patience as I waded through points of minor tedium and occasional boredom whilst playing on autopilot until I got the next plot reveal. (Examples - Uncharted games, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, etc.)

I actually really enjoy both types of experiences in equal measure, depending on my mood. Optimally, a game has me enjoying it non-stop beginning to end with no slow down gameplay-wise whilst I’m also blown away by the tale it tells and come away pondering it for weeks afterwards. Those are fairly rare. (Examples - The Last of Us, Nier Automata, Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, etc)

I think I hear you saying that so far FF16 looks like it’s more in that second category, where if one is not enthralled with the story and characters, the gameplay might not carry me through it. I’m unlikely to be playing along and enjoying and simultaneously not know what’s going on in the narrative, like in say, Borderlands. Rather, during the umteenth combat encounter where I do roughly the same thing at hour 40 that I did at hour 15, if I really like the character and his story then I’ll still enjoy getting to the next storybeat, like say, Red Dead Redemption 2.

@Th3solution I do genuinely think it is a cultural thing, Skill Up posted this the other day: https://www.threads.net/@skillupyt/post/CvK27oFMI2_/?igshid=N... And it really resonated with me deeply. (The forum formatted that in a weird way, I am away on my iPad so cannot copy and paste the text from the app for some reason, but the quote is at the top of his Threads account at time of writing if you can’t see it via this weird link).

The internet has turned everything into a turf war. If you like thing, you must go ‘lalala’ with your hands over your ears to every criticism, and must defend it against all criticism as if this piece of media was your own child.

We exist in a world now where everything is a 0 out of 10, or a 10 out of 10, with nothing in between. IGN posts a 7 for something and there is online forum outrage. This is too nuanced for a binary modern audience, that only operate in black and white, good and evil, garbage and perfection.

To engage critically, and honestly, is now seen as “hating”. People go to reviews to have their biases confirmed, nothing more or less.

When I grew up, you knew no one loved deeper than those who cared enough to be critical about the things they love, but those days seem long over.

It exhausted me on Nintendo Life which is why I don’t post on there much anymore. I was often criticised for being “overly negative”, but this was never my intention. I grew up on the days of forums where spending far too many hours dissecting all the ways the things we loved didn’t work was like 90% of the fun of following any property or freedom. No one was criticised for being “too negative” back then, back then you were just passionate fans who wanted the best version of the property they loved.

To me there is nothing more boring than mindlessly calling everything the “best ever” and refusing to have any discussion beyond ‘Nope, you are wrong, I am having fun, so you are wrong. End of.’

@Pizzamorg I’m with you about how important and informative critical analysis is… and I’m sure everyone else is too. Hope that you don’t let this recent discourse give you any pause-for-thought about posting around here in future.

If anything, I’m thinking your various posts (and those of others) helped me enjoy the game more due to my expectations being lowered somewhat after reading them.

Also… I like quite a few games for which the general consensus is that they're poor games. I like a load of games that are generally thought of as masterpieces too. I think what helps me enjoy most games is that I consciously try to not want a game to be some specific thing going in and simply embracing what it is that the devs were attempting to do… and why.

@Th3solution I think the controversy is because of the real split in the FF fanbase post FF14s popularity.

Square Enix have gone with an action adventure over RPG philosophy. The single player, love the menus, controlling a squad and levelling FF gamers (of which I am one) feel let down. But the writing has been on the wall for a while. We are no longer the target demographic. Which Is fine when we have the likes of persona, chained echoes and Octopath traveller.

My 22 year old son who loathed the likes of FF10 and 12 - but plays FF14, loves FF16. On picking him up to watch the Barbie film with the family, he went on for maybe 30 minutes talking about it. In a similar way I used to chew anyone's ear off about ff7-10. So much so he wants me to borrow his ps5 and give it a go.

The split is real. Completely different demographic and expectations. FF, both MMO and Single player, will follow the 3rd person action adventure template from here on in.

I am glad I could be of service! Nothing like calibrating expectations for the best experience, that is what reviews and other criticism is there for.

Mainline Yakuza too! If you haven’t played it and love the older style of Final Fantasy games, you will love Like a Dragon, trust me on this.

@themcnoisy @Pizzamorg just in case you’re both unaware (a lot of people seem to be tbh) people hankering after that old school FF feel should definitely check out Tokyo RPG Factory’s output. A team put together in-house, deep within the bowels of Square Enix… openly rebelling against the markets lurch towards action-RPGs.

@colonelkilgore thanks CK, I'm waiting on sea of stars (on both ps premium and gamepass end of the month!) Then Starfield.

So should be OK for rpgs for a bit. Just bought SF6 and waiting on the online update. I'm pretty sure I played I am satsuna googling tokyo rpg factory and didn't play for very long. But lost sphere seems more my bag, so will pick that up!

@Pizzamorg I loved Yakuza zero and played through Kiwami 1+2. Strangely I enjoyed all 3 but played them too close together. Played Yakuza 6 earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot. Like a Dragon has been sat in my to play list for a year now rofl 🤣

I don't dislike action rpgs, infact with the right mix it can be enjoyable. And I'm sure ff16 is too. But it's not how I have associated the FF series. Also I don't like DMC or Bayonetta, I understand the allure but they are passable to say the least.

They made I am Setsuna right? I think I played that on Switch. Where you had to like time your inputs to do bonus damage kinda like FF8 right?

Like a Dragon is a typical Yakuza game, but moves away from the brawling and instead functions as a turn based JRPG where you manage parties, jobs, stats, gear, builds etc. Just wonderful stuff if you can tolerate the very slow pacing Yakuza games have, especially at the beginning.

And yeah the character action stuff is a blessing and a curse in FF16. Like I said in another thread, if you needed to chain together 100 hit combos with six different weapons and get an S rank against every boss to get the true ending, I would have hated that.

But the flip is the simplicity of FF16 that makes it so inviting never meaningfully expands or deepens. This might have been fine if the game was less than 15 hours, but at like 60 plus hour long experience the combat is too thin, like so much of FF16 is.

That is kinda my whole thing with FF16, the first three or four times you use a system, or experience some kind of mechanic it seems really great, but it is when you are using it for the dozenth time some ten hours later and it still works in exactly the same way you start to grow so tired of it all. Had the game been shorter, these issues would not have piled up.

@Pizzamorg yeah that was their first game… they then made Lost Sphere and Oninaki. I haven’t played any of them yet tbh but am keen to give them a try.

I absolutely adored Live a Live last year too, one of my games of the year. Another massive recommendation from me for like old school turn based JRPGs.

For anyone else having trouble with the ‘Such Dodge, So Mega’ trophy as I have been, mastering the ability that charges your mega flare made it easily obtainable.

@Pizzamorg “But the flip is the simplicity of FF16 that makes it so inviting never meaningfully expands or deepens.”

I respect your opinion on the game and I too have pointed out many ways it might be disappointing for series fans but this statement is simply not true. The game is a slow burn to a fault but the combat eventually flowers into a beautiful system with no shortage of variety and combinations to play with, especially once you start equipping different eikonic abilities to different Eikons. The depth is there for those willing to find it.

Maybe in the last 30 hours this becomes true (but again why make me wait so damn long?), but with the five or six sets of powers I unlocked, this simply wasn’t true. No buffs or debuffs, no status effects and other staples of the series. Attacks had unique animations and visual flairs, certainly,, but they were all just different means of damage that could be applied to all enemies universally. So sure, you can combine different damage skills to your liking, but that doesn’t make the combat actually deep.

@Pizzamorg No, @Jimmer-jammer is correct, the combat is deep. Looking at the different eikonic abilities alone: first we have Phoenix. Being able to teleport lets you make quick work of distant enemies. The attacks themselves are fairly straight-forward damage-based attacks and Phoenix's final ability is a fantastic AOE attack. Then we have Garuda's abilities, which focus more on stagger damage. You don't really use them to deal a lot of damage but they're useful for staggering. However, they can take a long time to fully execute so you need to find ways of stunning enemies, such as using Shiva's freeze status first and then using Garuda's stagger attacks. Once staggered mid-way, you can pull larger enemies down with Garuda's claw ability. Garuda's final ability is also a great way to do a lot of stagger while focusing on performing other attacks. Moving on, Ifrit has an ability called will-o-wisp, which is pretty much a buff as it provides damage protection for a short duration. Limit break that you get along with Ifrit's abilities is also a good way of healing in a pinch. Next, Ramuh's abilities is a good combination of damage and stagger. Firing numerous bolts and then using your ranged attack to cause a chain reaction is a good way for crowd control. Its second ability does a lot of damage as well as stagger, and its final ability is incredibly powerful, especially against staggered enemies. Then we have Titan's abilities. The shield is high risk, high reward because it can be tricky to time the parry at the right time but if you do you're able to execute multiple follow-up attacks. This can then be upgraded to increase your limit break restoration, which means that if you fail sometimes to parry in time, you could regain your health more often thanks to this added effect. Titan's abilities are great for dealing a lot of damage but comes with some waiting time, which makes them fairly risky to use in situations where the enemies are frequently attacking you. So they're best used after an enemy's attack or when they're staggered. Its final ability is another great AOE attack. Next is Bahamut's abilities, which don't do a lot of damage but they stun enemies and do more stagger. Combining these abilities with Garuda's will make it easy to stagger enemies quickly. Not to mention if you use the ability that stuns enemies, you can then use Bahamut's main ability of storing up energy while avoid getting attacked. Then you can perform Mega Flare, which is a really strong AOE attack. Bahamut's final ability is absolutely devastating and can be used both for crowd control as well as stronger enemies. The catch is they need to remain stationary for best use as you need to aim the ability manually. After that is Shiva's abilities, which do a fair amount of damage and stagger. The most interesting part of this set is Shiva's dash ability, which as I mentioned earlier lets you briefly freeze enemies. This is useful in combination with other abilities that take some time to execute, such as Garuda's or Odin's abilities. Speaking of Odin, I found this one to be the coolest ability set. The attacks themselves don't do a lot of damage at all. Instead, they're used to power up a meter so that you can execute Zantetsuken, which is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. The caveat here is that Clive need some time to charge up the attacks as I mentioned earlier, which leaves him vulnerable for enemy attacks. In other words, you can't just spam these attacks. The timing needs to be right, for example if the enemies are frozen or staggered. So the best strategy here is to use other abilities first, then when the time is right, you use Odin's abilities.

On top of all these different abilities, you can equip three different sets as well as assign abilities from other sets by mastering them. There are so many combinations and lots of different ways to customise your play style.

In short, the combat can be as simple or in-depth as you want it to be.

Cool, let us agree to disagree @LtSarge there is so much I don’t agree with in your assessment, and I started putting together a response and then realised we are destined to go in circles over this until the end of time. So I’m done with this now, as bored with this circular discussion as I am with the actual FF16. Almost impressive.

@LtSarge @KilloWertz I really like the approach to spell casting in this, and how the abilities often work with and build off of each other in ways that I actually find far more interesting (and certainly less pedestrian) than the traditional turn-based system. For example, with Megaflare, rather than simply managing a mana bar and choosing a spell from a menu and then watching idly as the spell does it’s thing, you’re encouraged to execute perfect dodges in order to quickly charge the gauge, allowing you to unleash the most powerful version of the spell while then leaving you free to commence the next barrage of attacks while the spell does its thing. In a way, it successfully creates the feeling of actually casting the spell, rather than just watching it be cast.

I’ve really loved the small touches too. I guess I’m a bit weird but I’ve loved listening to all of the npc chatter as it contextually and dynamically changes frequently throughout the game, visiting Harpocrates to “study the tomes”, seeing what the former university professor, Vivian, has added to her collections. After helping a baker find his passion again by encouraging him to express himself in his work, I was thrilled to see his creations show up later at the Hideaway with some inhabitants discussing their design. The game is loaded with this type of detail (and more) for those willing to appreciate it.

The Active Time Lore system is something else I haven’t seen discussed much. It’s a frankly revelatory and innovative addition that I’d welcome in any game going going forward.

I’ve always seen Final Fantasy as a series full of ‘moments.’ Every game in the series that I’ve played have all had aspects I’ve liked, aspects I’ve put up with and aspects I’ve disliked, but they all have those amazing moments that stick with me. Those moments I wish I could replay and relive. Before XVI, VIII had always been my favourite for this reason. Even though disc 4 is essentially a throw away for me, I played the first 3 discs countless times as a teenager just to experience those moments. With that in mind, I find the stage replay via the Arete stone an astute addition that I for one appreciate greatly. Sure, it’s arguably pointless in the age of YouTube, but for and old soul like me, it’s totally welcome. Being able to play through them with current abilities is the icing on the cake.

Anyway, just wanted to celebrate some things I’ve really been enjoying about the game with some folks who seem to also have enjoyed it.

@Jimmer-jammer I actually mentioned the Active Time Lore system in my review and I agree, it's a fantastic feature! Great way to spend short amounts of time of reading up on the background of figures and locations instead of dumping too much exposition all at once.

Speaking of the level of detail in this game, I've been watching multiple people react to FFXVI and I've noticed that the attention to detail in this game is absolutely impeccable. Here are multiple examples (minor story spoilers):

@LtSarge Wow! That detail with the vegetables is something I would likely have never noticed! Very cool. Also, I’ll check out your review, thanks!