Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Those points are definitely in the video as well

I'm sure. I just had to get it off my chest lol

EDIT: Finally watched the video. It was a very reserved and fair comparison of the two games.

I'll reiterate: how players perceived the gameplay is what's important here (they received it extremely well, you and I included :) ). This is not an objective analysis on the strengths and weakness of any classic FF's battle system.


You''re probably thinking: "no, it matters! If it's "objectively" bad then it won't work nowadays!", which I can see, except:

1- While nobody is saying they were perfect, nor that they could not use some tweaks (that's what mods and challenge runs are for!), it seems to me that you attempted a "proof by example", trying to paint a general picture that there was no fun to be had in those fights. I don't think they were that bad, and I don't understand the need for a revisionist approach given the context of this discussion.

2- That's conjecture at best. I came across zoomer friends who started some classic FFs in recent years and enjoyed them (the full package).

So, in conclusion, it's not a given that a new turn-based FF won't generate interest or will be doomed to failure (and vice versa; a Final Fantasy that is not striclty turn-based is not automatically trash).


That's true. The answer you will receive from most (explicitly or implicitly) is: "it's not like that FF I liked!" and they'll start listing all the differences they could spot wihtout realizing which differences were meaningful and actually impacted the experience in a negative way.
I had to deal with a lot of FF8 hate (veiled as criticism) for not being FF7 (and more recently, FF14 hate because it's not FF11. The list goes on).
The average person isn't very good at articulating their thoughts and examining them carefully. And resisting change is a human phenomenon.

But that's also just another attempt at "proof by example":
"Players can't articulate what they disliked about FF13, therefore they must be wrong about whatever they claimed to have liked about classic FFs"
B doesn't necessarily follow from A.

I think a more accurate representation of the position of players who want turn-based back is that they're basically fed up with SE experimenting too much with FF for the past 20 years, and they just want them to go "back to the roots", and turn-based combat was part of that package.

Now, I don't necessarily agree that they have to go back to turn-based combat, but I clearly see where that is coming from. So I don't think that they're saying that turn-based combat is the reason classic FFs were received well and loved dearly. They just want them to go back to what they perceive as the winning formula. The closer they go back to it, the better. It's been 2 decades since the last good mainline offline FF.



I agree with you here.


I meant locked* party roles, by character profile (reflected on stats and/or abilities). FF8 had none of that, and you didn't use LBs for support (except for Selphie very early game). You could soon make any character into whatever you wanted, and they all will perform just fine (but you end up breaking the game just equipping your best magic and spamming attacks/LBs lol).

FF10 was smart in locking you at first (so you have to go through most of the story with the intended party roles) then giving you complete freedom later on. I liked that.

The context of this discussion is if turn-based is still popular now and if future FF should go back to it. Yoshida believes this is no longer the case. Fans of older FF used persona and Pokémon as the counter argument and claimed Yoshida was wrong.

I was simply point out the truth is somewhere in between. Turn-based can be fun and exciting, but only if it is carefully designed and balanced like a lot of newer turn-based games did. A lot of older turn-based rpg system were viewed as "slow and boring" by newer gamers precisely because of bad design logic back then. (Can't blame them, turn based genre was still an infant in 1990-2000.)

Therefore if we are discussing if FF should go back to turn based in the future, of course it makes more sense to judge using today's standard, since future FF will need to compete with current gen games. Why would you compare it with other early 2000 games if we are discussing future FF directions lol.


This is basically what I said this entire time lol. Man, that is a lot of exchange to repeat the same point =.=


My memory is kinda vague since I played FF8 2 decades ago, but I vaguely recall in FF8 some characters are more offensive than another because of stats and LB. So removing one or multiple characters from the team WILL affect the gameplay. At least I know I'd be super annoyed if my core team member is removed, even if I can just use another character to replace them.

Yoshida may not be bringing back the gameplay of any of the past Final Fantasy games, but he is bringing back a fan-favourite mechanic from fan-favourite game Final Fantasy XIII: telling the story through homework!

“I think it was May in 2019,” Yoshida remembers. “We brought together pretty much the main staff from all of the sections working on the game, and we read through the entire script all together. [...] And we found out that a lot of even the internal core staff were lost, they didn’t know what was going on! So we realized all of a sudden that we needed some way to support players that were going to feel this way as well. Because if we as devs are feeling it, players are definitely going to.”

Rather than going back and making the story and world more digestible and memorable, they're letting you pull up data logs to explain who everyone is and what their motivations are.

It's funny, too. I just read an interview with a Pixar writer who gave internal tips for how their movies are always written so well. Stuff like "Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff, but it sets you free!" - And I saw someone comment on it saying how it's all common sense. But evidently not.

oh great- so it'll feel like watching a movie on Amazon Prime.

Oh I'm wrong, sorry. There's one other thing they're bringing back from an existing Final Fantasy game.

XIII's issue was that the datalog was the only place a lot of it's information was presented, not that it existed at all. Having an in-game way to look up information on characters/events you don't remember isn't a bad thing, especially in lore-heavy games like FF. I think more games should have something like it, or like Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen's recaps on loading the save. Some people take breaks from playing for one reason or another and could need a refresher on stuff they've already played through.

X and XII were the same too. Let's not pretend the "airship" was anything more than a glorified menu in those games. Also love how they seperate Chocobos from vehicles to suit their clickbait, despite there being almost no functional difference between the two in most games.

I don't necessarily disagree with this. A recap after pausing the game halfway through would be nice. My issue though is that Yoshida himself said that the writers and other core staff were themselves getting lost. These data logs aren't just a recap, they are the solution to their self-admitted poor storytelling.

True that. For the sake of the people interested in XVI, I do hope that it's more reminiscent of X than XIII. At least X had some variety in the gameplay and motivation to explore a little bit.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The game takes place over three distinct time periods; it's not surprising that when reading through the whole script at once, that some people would get information about one time period mixed up with another. There's nothing new about any of this; games, tv shows, movies, etc all have writers bibles that they use to keep track of information, because when you're working on something it can be hard to keep track of ideas that made it in, ideas that didn't, things that change over the course of the work, etc. The only difference here is Yoshida wants the players to have access to the information in case they also get mixed up.
And to be honest, after years of discussions with people that played both older and newer FF games, those games should've had this ***too, because people are *** HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE and miss event blatant plot points. You can dedicate an entire pre-rendered CG cutscene to something and players will still find a way to miss it.

Really looking forward to this. Part 1 was amazing, and the changes they made from the manga worked out really well. Seems like we're getting more of those here too, with Shinji's Bankai finally getting shown outside of the novels. Pls gib CFYOW adptation next. (y'A')y

EDIT: Never mind, I don't think I need to beg for a CFYOW adaptation.

No. I engaged with you to explain why the expression "king of turn-based RPGs" is valid as a figure of speech when referring to FF by an FF fan. It's a metaphor denoting its popularity within the genre. So it's rather a linguistic topic :)

It was never about objectively analysing the technical aspects of classic turn-based FF, nor whether the next FF should (or shouldn't) be turn-based. Regardless, I actually very clearly agreed with you on what I believe have always been FF's strongest points: the presenation & art.


I had Pezz beat this game 2 weeks ago (and he loved it), so my memory is quite fresh :)

Well, at least someone knows how to use the english language beyond literal meaning of words^^ Thank you for understanding what I took to be a pretty basic generalization based upon popularity and name-recognition, not some industry-anointed title.

I love your avatar Zeig!

Thanks! It's by Afania lol.

New cast for new Fantastic Four. Margot Robbie as Sue. Gross.

Fantastic Three and BARBIE.


.....Grrrreat......

Cast doesn't matter, the Fantastic Four are trash. You could cast them perfectly and they would still suck.

Going to be bad regardless, sure, but now, worse.

The whole movie is meaningless now, it's just sell tickets to see the pretty bimbo. Nothing else matters. May as well just cancel it now.

It really is one of the most boring series within Marvel. Though apparently now Marvel actually owns them(?), so it might be just another run-of-the-mill MCU flick and not a figurative dumpster fire.

I like the original cast the most, she seems like a terrible choice

The Silver Surfer saga is one of the best stories in Marvel but yeah, lolFF

That's probably true. I haven't ever read any of the comic books around them, I just know that every other media I've consumed involving them is just kinda boring.

I only tend to read comics if I find a character or series that I like, as opposed to the other way around.

So many Marvel characters have soloed the Fantastic Four.

pewpew hand cannon gun now does shooty things 15% more betterer

The more complicated the story, the better the writing has to be. If people are having a hard time following it, either trim it down or hire someone qualified to tell the story.

No, Yoshida expects players to get mixed up. Quote:
"We needed some way to support players that were going to feel this way as well. Because if we as devs are feeling it, players are definitely going to."

There's a big difference between maybe missing something that may expand the lore of the game on subsequent playthroughs like in Final Fantasy IV or X, versus not being able to distinguish two characters or remember what the goal is.

XIII is a lot less complex than X, yet X still manages to keep players up with what is going on without a single data log. They do so by gradually introducing the cast, using Tidus as a surrogate for the player (by asking questions we would have about Spira), and establishing every setting with unique activities.

But by Yoshida's admission, it's going to be more like XIII's storytelling than X's:
"It was always our objective to tell this kind of story, this sweeping, grand, epic story, with this massive ensemble cast — something that was very complex and intertwined. And kind of throwing the players in that in the beginning sets you up for what’s going to come."

She is a good and versatile actor.

Why not Fantastic 3 and HARLEY QUINN?

Shes a terrible actress. Can only do one thing, and mediocre. But is cute and blonde.

Not even good enough to be a porn star.