Final Fantasy XVI

Enough.

You are! But the same fact-free talking points over and over and over is annoying as hell. No one here is unclear on where you stand on this.

I don't know what you do for a living but I can tell you know jack ***about software development, at least from a management perspective. Those budgets and teams are planned out years in advance. The XIV expansion cycle is on a (relatively) fixed clock; the XI expansion cycle is over. If those resources were going anywhere else, it was going to be another mobile game they'd cancel in six months.

I've topicbanned you both, since you have nothing to add to the conversation but the same talking points over and over, never once being grounded in anything resembling reality. If you have something new to say, say it, and if you don't, knock it off and let people actually talk about the god damned game.

It is entirely possible to express dissatisfaction with a game or SE's direction without insulting anyone who doesn't align with your thoughts, and you're going to figure out how to do it you're both going to take a lengthy vacation.

Thats not how it works. SE probably have some budget to make the new numbered FF a reality and it is a big deal. They hired more people and expanded the times (sometimes they even hire people just during the development time. After the game is done, they are lay off). Then they pick Yoshida to direct the new game, and it makes sense, he transform a financial disaster that was FF14 1.0 into the huge success that is ARR. They usually do this, it is not the first time directors of other FF games are called for "the next big one". People working on FF 11 or 14 would have been the same, with or without FF 16. Was a good or bad idea the direction they took? We will see, for now people are just overreacting to some changes (many of them that I personally dislike)



He was topic banned because he was off topic on non-FF 16 related threads. Now this IS a FF 16 related topic, so I dont think it is unappropriated to express his dislike for the game. Dont like his opinion, just dont quote them. If you are enjoying FF 16, good for you! really. But for him, me and many others this is not the correct new direction the mainline games should be following. My guess is that we wont know for sure until the PC release if the bet payed off, but so far it is not looking good from what we know

>.>; Now I'm the Snorlax of Mods.

Sounds like the issue here is a combination of expectations and reality often being at odds with each other, and having to come to terms with the fact that those of us who have enjoyed the series since the beginning are simply not the target demographic anymore. I had no expectations going in to the game and am having a great deal of fun with it. The game is fantastically mediocre, I will agree, but one can just enjoy a game without having to compare it to everything that came before it. FFXVI plays a lot like a watered down <insert generic souls type title here>. I don't find that offensive; can just jump in and play without having to really think too hard about it, and it doesn't feel like it is wasting my time with unnecessary game mechanics as a means to an end.

My only real gripes are thus: The gear 'progression' has been simplified down to 'the next stabby thing is objectively better than the current stabby thing', and the side quests are just either 'get thing', or 'kill thing', and are generally just chores. The latter, however, is pretty ubiquitous for all FF titles, though, so I can't call that a fault in practice, just in execution. There are some particularly poignant side quests, but generally the other non-main characters that Clive interacts with tend to be utterly forgettable. I had a few "Who is this guy, and why do I need to care about him?" moments even after doing a thing for them just a few hours previously.

Lastly, the story is slightly less predictable than the sun rising in the morning, but I don't really care. It's good enough to keep me interested, and is simple enough to understand so that I don't feel I need to read a doctoral thesis on the innernet to glean its full scope as the series' stories tend to try to be, yet still respects my intelligence enough to not feel patronizing.

To actually contribute to the discussion at hand, or at least to be somewhat antagonistic, I fail to see how a product's apparent sales volume is an indictment against how good a game is. Who cares? Tetris is the third best selling game in existence, but it is still just squares. Also, it is a bit farfetched to think that they could have, or even WOULD have used the manpower on this game to improving XI or XIV. This is similar to saying Ford could have allocated their resources improving the '89 Bronco if they had just not spent it all on their new '23 F-150. I know it isn't a perfect analogy since Ford doesn't make money on the Bronco, but the point stands. The missing factor is incentive. They would never get the return on their investment with XI, and the folks that enjoy XI and XIV will keep paying their subscription fees regardless, so why fix what is still functioning well enough as it is?

To wrap up this diatribe, I feel it necessary to state that this is all my opinion and I am not trying to be objective here or convince anyone. Play it, or don't, I just advise people to stop comparing it to what they think it should be. It isn't.

Rating: Olive Garden out of 10. Generic and a bit bland, but rather enjoyable if you temper your expectations.

I'm not an expert in the field but I know a little bit. The JP VA industry is taken very seriously. More seriously than most, if not any, other places on earth. They put a lot of stock into finding VA in other regions that can at least do the bare minimum to meet their standards.

It so happens that UK VA are some of the best (and for most foreign markets, most aurally appealing) Western VAs available. Carciatures tend to sell well which is why chav accents rise to the top in a lot of games.

I can't remember where I read it, but I was pretty sure I read at some point that the main reasons were like, USA VAs give similar performance to UK but are way more demanding/harder to work with. But I buy the quality thing, too. Someone with more info, tell us things!

Radial was pretty on point, FF16 is terrible because it's not a FF and really just Dark Souls / Devil May Cry GoT edition. They are just using the Final Fantasy name with a product that has nothing to do with FF. It's the same thing they did with 15, just stuck the title on a different game to help sales. "Final Fantasy" is part of the JRPG subgenre of RPGs, there are plenty of others in that category but they all share the theme of party based play with a focus on abilities, gear and fantasy magic. This was just another Action RPG where they focused on cinematics.

I wouldn't call Y's or a Tales game "Final Fantasy".

This kind of comes back to what Stepth asked earlier: what is a Final Fantasy game?

It can't be the combat system, because there's no "one" combat system. You could make a case for ATB since the bulk of the better known games use it, but it's far from universal and they've made a clear move away from it, with both XV and XVI. 7R is a weird case because it's sort of a new game, but not really, and it's not really ATB in the classic sense either.

I've always considered some combination of thematic elements and the overall tone/type of story to be the major factors; 16 mostly succeeds on this point, moreso than XV anyway. The GoT-ification of FF wasn't super welcome but it's really only in the first third of the story; by the time you get to one of the first real inflection points, it's a much more standard FF story with some grimmer themes and more profanity.

Ultimately FF is Square's brand and if this is how they want to change the series, leaving turn based/ATB to DQ/Bravely/whatever other side games they want, then there's not a lot to be done about it. I think my dream scenario would be that they do what they do with the "Warriors" games for Switch; have a separate line of games that uses a different battle style than the mainline. Maybe in FF's case it'd be turn based/ATB that got relegated there (bring back the Final Fantasy Legend name?!) and they stick with more actiony stuff for the mainline, but it'd still be _something_.

I guess as simple as it can possibly be put.

If you have to break down what is FF1 - FF15 It's a group saving the world right.

Every numbered game changes stuff a bit but the core remains the same. And now 16 is one guy, single fights, button mashing (well ff7r does the mashing too)

It's completely antithetical to a numbered ff title. Dirge is one guy shooting stuff. Crisis Core is one guy stabbin stuff. 16 is one guy soulsborning stuff.

Numbered series breaking the established paradigm is messed up.

But he is saving the world, isn't he?

Numbered - party

Spinoffs - solo

Stranger in paradise switched the script, didn't really matter. But had 16 and that game switched titles everything would be totally normal.

XVI rocks.

I have yet to not enjoy a FF game, but this one currently ranks near the top for me.

Tactics tone, Devil May Cry (lite) combat, and really enjoyable characters to sit with for a few dozen hours. Plot kinda goes off the rails in the last 40% or so like every other Final Fantasy in the universe.

Only substantial complaint: Please let us choose the difficulty from the beginning.

I'd take a traditional JRPG or an ARPG next time around and be very happy regardless.

But at the same time, I kinda hope they keep doing ARPGs just to spite certain people here who've made 'hating modern FF games, while obsessing over XI' the entirety of their personality.

It's still not quite that simple, though.

The action based combat isn't traditional Final Fantasy, but I'd argue they've been slowly moving away from that since XII (XI if you wanna count the MMOs).

XII and XIII both had iterations of the ATB system that pretty much played the game for you. Gambits ran the party in XII and you just mashed the "Auto Battle" button in XIII to command your one party member while the others did their thing. I'd argue XIII's version was closer to the I-X titles than the others, but still not the same.

I don't think the battle system alone is what makes Final Fantasy what it is. There are tons of other turn based RPGs out there.

Final Fantasy is a unique combination of setting, story, characters, and recurring terminologies/creatures/tropes.

Evil empires, magic, Limit Breaks, Ultimate Weapons, Moogles, Chocobos, Gil, Crystals, Summons, Goblins, Bombs, Potions, and probably a dozen more things are what makes it a Final Fantasy. These items, in different combinations per entry, are the bread and butter of the series, even if they're not unique to it.

The story of XVI revolves, on a basic level at least, around magic, crystals, and summons. To me, that's pure Final Fantasy. If XVI came out as a different title, people would probably be saying "Gee, that seems like Final Fantasy."

I'm not quite sure about this GoT/FF relation as I didn't watch the video for want of avoiding spoilers. The two pictures on the previous page I saw make me feel like it's mostly a nothingburger. (Jon Snow and Clive have dog companions? Okay...?) If it truly is, I can't wait to meet Olenna Tyrell.

In 15 you can swap and control other dudes, in 16 it's just the one dude. right? or like one section as someone else. There's never a multihero battle where you alternate characters.

It's got superficial similarities to GoT, but it feels far more Tactics than GoT to me.

It's not nothing; the whole production team watched the whole series beforehand to get the style down. The big difference, without getting too spoilery, is that GoT's tension derives from an overall grim setting (check) and vulnerable characters - the idea that anyone can die, so you never know what to expect.

The setting is indeed grim, but as you progress in the game, there's less tension about individual characters and more the fate of the world itself (which is as FF as it gets)

Again, on release, you literally could not control the other characters. That was only an option after the DLCs came out. So yeah, you can do that NOW, but absolutely not at release, which means it wasn't considered important enough to delay the game.

It took them over a year to implement the party swap mechanic.

Initially, Noctis could use any weapon type to emulate what he buddies could do, but you only controlled Noctis.

So they fixed the *** up, 16 fix when?

This is a very simple question, pickup FF 1~6 PR on steam. Then do FFVII, then FFVIII, then FFIX, then X and so forth. There are common themes and systems all the way from 1 to 14. Even the MMO's have the JRPG elements inside of them, the are not ARPGs. You are not jumping, dodging, counter breaking or doing button smashing combo chains.

Then 15 showed up and it most certainly was not a main line Final Fantasy game, in fact it originally was going to be "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" part of an entirely different line of products when near the end they decided to change it's name. I suspect 16 is just another from that line as it has the exact same ARPG combat style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Final_Fantasy_XV

Ultimately Final Fantasy main line is a JRPG, not a CRPG, ARPG or Rogue Like RPG. As much as I loved playing Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3), I would not call that a Final Fantasy game. I enjoy the heck out of adventuring with Adol Christian, I would never link his series to Final Fantasy.

Unlike Radial I don't think either 15 or 16 are bad games, they just are not JRPGs, which is what most people expect from the series that quite literally defined Japanese Role Player Game (JPRG). It would be like buying a new Breath of Fire game only to find myself playing something that felt like Aludra.

God damn the second discussion in a row that yall have been so demonstrably wrong on, that the worst people knew better.

This is now depressing. Now I got the ick on me, lovely.

What is Final Fantasy?

Final fantasy (the mainlines) are, at its core, Role Playing Games where the core of the control of the build up of you party members (compositions, items, etc) while having and some what strategic approach with the weakness strengths of elements (so you just dont mass use one spell). During combat you are expected to use wisely you different attacks and managing you MP wisely, outside combat the build of your team and exploration are key to archive some success. All of this is tight with an interesting narrative, cutting edge graphics and memorable characters. Story connections were abandoned long ago when they start to create different settings for each game, they would only maintain some characters and elements the same, like the 12 gods, the Chocobos or Cid. The tone of the story can be in a range wide range, games like FF12 goes above the miles to give a more complex story than what we had before.

Of course, when you have a huge franchise like this you want to explore more, so they have MANY sub titles thats allowed them to try new stuff like strategy games (FF Tactics), Racing games (Chocobo GT), Battle Royale (Last soldier... I think that was the name) or action games (Stranger of Paradise). But, so far, the mainline have been maintaining the core of what a (J)RPG was. It is not the only one, othe example are the Crash Bandicoot games: the numbered ones are platforming games while they also have subtitles were they test stuff with its characters.

Is Final Fantasy 16 a "Final Fantasy" game? Well, it is on the name so of course it is, SE can do whatever they want. Now it is "Worthy" to be on the mainline, thats for the fans to "decide". A lot of the drama could have been avoided is they just create new subtitle for it, idk, Final Fantasy: Holders of the Gods or something like that. Because you cant expect to fans to not be mad if you just change the whole genre of the main game, there are some expectations, specially when this is the sixteen game in the series. Thats why companies uses spin offs. It would be like Bethesda to announce that the Elder Scrolls 6 is a 4x strategy game, people would be mad. And it recently happened to another known IP: Projects Cars 3 went full arcade mode and it had a huge backlash and flop miserably. Again, companies uses spin offs to regulate expectations but take advantages of the fans, another good example: World of Warcraft is not called WarCraft 4 because they where going to go to a totally different direction.

As for the effect of FFXVI on CBU3, they did not hire a bunch of people for this project, they used existing in house staff and it was a challenge balancing all the stuff that had to be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XVI#Development

They had just finished FFVII remake, which is another ARPG. I do not believe this had any effect on the FFXI maintenance as this game has been in low dev mode for awhile now.

Did you read your own link? They specifically hired new staff to replace those they pulled from the XIV team, and got additional support from KH devs in CBU1 and a team brought over from Platinum.

And part of the early development pushbacks were due to communication issues with outsourced companies.

Are the Tales games JRPGs?

Xenoblade?

Nier?

Rune Factory?


You'll find that many games that you don't expect are classified as JRPGs (Monster Hunter, Kingdom Hearts)

The category has been muddled indeed for a while now. Doesn't make it ok to continue the muddling.

It's not like it doesn't happen everywhere, the muddle. Music. Movies. Games. They just slap whatever sells on it.

Action-Adventure-JPRG-Soulslike-Platformer

Completely broken.

Sounds like you've come up with a personal definition. That doesn't mean it's right. JRPGs are characterized by tropes, having a large cast of characters, and their stories (particularly length and breadth of those stories). If you want to boil it down even more, a JRPG is just an RPG that was made in Japan. The combat system has nothing to do with it. The number of characters that you directly control has nothing to do with it.

I was very open about not looking forward to the lack of a party up until the release, and I still think its a net negative that you only control Clive. Torgal is a fine companion, and does actual damage in combination with Clive. But your other one companion does little to nothing. They can't even die, they don't have HP bars, so you can't cure them, and they don't cure you. They don't take hate, and have minimal affect on the stagger bar. Those are all negatives.

But that doesn't make it not a JRPG imo. The story itself is very Final Fantasy. The world is in grave danger, you are going to save it. Eikons are the most involved they have been in any story since X, and way beyond any FF before that. And really, as much as Yuna's Aeon's were involved in that story, I would say the Eikons in 16 play an even larger role. You spend time playing as one, and its fun.

Despite the lack of a party, the game still has a huge cast. Clive is surrounded by allies, and each kingdom has its own cast of villains. All of which are compelling and get a lot of development. Thank God for Active Time Lore, which should be implemented into FF14 ASAP.

The lines were very clearly drawn for decades. And then they weren't.

RPG was a party (turn based)((subdivided tactical etc)), adventure was a solo adventure. action was a masher. fighters are fighters.

Now everything is just all three. Oh you mix two items it's a sandbox game! You use a bow it's an FPS! You put on gear it's an RPG! Oh ***you punch a guy, it's a fighting game too!

OG Zelda is an adventure game. It has puzzles, it's not a puzzle game. It has action, it's not an action game. it has fighting, it's not a fighting game (link is IN fighting games!) It has upgrades! ***you can buy! Link gets stronger! and more health! and better gear! It's not an rpg.

New zelda. Same ***. But now it's a
How about RE? RE is famous for zombies... and puzzles. It's not a Survival-Horror-Puzzle-Action-Adventure-FPS-RPG is it?

I...didn't even know that. And I have FF15 RE in my library.