What does it mean to be a Final Fantasy game in 2023?
Theyre allowed to do what theyve been doin, i just wish more studios were around to fill that gap left by the very stylized fantasy of IX.
Agreed. I would mind a lot less the “Kingdom Heats-ification” of FF is there was a AAA turn-based successor still out there. As it stands, the biggest “proper” JRPG left is Persona, and much as I like it, it’s clearly a step below FF in scope. Even when they dabble in turn based stuff on the SE side they are stuck on mid-sized throwback games.
Does Dragon Quest not work for this? Still turn based even now in the most recent game in the series. Looking forward to the next one.
DQ 11 is also one of the only video games I’ve personally been hooked on the writing for, too. There are a few very emotional moments, both in the main story and side stories. Also, the rhyming mermaids start feeling corny but really grew on me.
Legend of Heroes is another.
I still have such a hard time believing in this claim. You play as a voiceless boy from a village who’s prophecized to be the Chosen One, and go to defeat a Dark Lord. I don’t mind that Zelda uses such a generic story since it’s all about the exploration and gameplay; but I really can’t put up with the idea of having that basic of a setup in a writing-heavy genre.
Yeah, that’s a good pull, but I’d place DQ closer to Persona than FF in terms of… I don’t know, triple-A-ness? I think objectively that may not be true, DQ XI is pretty large and feature-rich, and DQ VIII was definitely as big as FFXII, short of having fewer CG cutscenes… but I guess the whimsy and more fairy tale-style visuals and narrative knocks it down to that mid-size for me? This may be entirely subjective, I don’t know.
I just want to be able to make certain kinds of stats-based discoveries in combat, the kind of thing you can’t do in the fast pace of an action game. Like:
- This enemy deals a super-poison that takes 300 HP a turn, and it’s taking too long to cure it each time. But, people can only have one poison effect. So if I use my own 2 HP poison effect on myself, then he can’t poison me anymore!
- My characters are all decked with weapons that do superb damage when they’re on low HP. Most of the boss’s attacks deal status effects, and he only deals damage a few times. So, I’ll just leave them there, keep one person with status resistances and revive them as needed. Each time they get KO’d, it will cure the status effects.
- My characters get fully healed when they level up. For this next battle, not only will I not bother restoring ahead, but I’ll burn through all my MP on super-attacks since I’m about to get it all back.
Being able to make determinations like that feel like “cheating” but are quite often things the developers hope for players to discover - at least, as long as an RPG genuinely has enough cool systems interacting, and not just “Find the highest-damaging attack, spam that”.
This is probably just my rose tinted glasses and nostalgia speaking but I always thought FF7 (the original) had the best combination of real time and turn based combat, it felt dynamic and tense but also tactical at the same time. Materia was the ideal fun upgrade and customization system and I only grew to love it more over the years of being bombarded with looter-shooter / diablo-like / gear treadmill progression systems that are being shoehorned even in places where they don’t belong.
Hearing from Yoshi-P that he (or the analysts at CU3 I guess) don’t think that such gameplay would appeal to new generations of gamers is just disheartening to me. Is there even any other AA or AAA studio that does these kinds of games well?
Yeah, Persona and Dragon Quest are the ones that come to mind.
I’d even take FFXII or FFXIII as valid examples of the form, too. I don’t need pure ATB (although I’d love a throwback to it), I just don’t think you need to make a mediocre action game to reach a wide audience. I would have been a lot more willing to jump into FFVII Remake, FFXV or FFXVI had them not been action games. In fact, I never finished Remake, I haven’t bought XVI and I am not currently planning to get Rebirth at launch.
This game is a strange one as, from my perspective, FF hasn’t been a proper turn based RPG for nearly two decades. Additionally, the last few entries have already played with being action based. Then you have some strange experimentation with FFXII being RTwP and you start to notice that the series hasn’t been at all consistent since then.
I do think SE needs to reign in a bit what FF is from a gameplay perspective. They’ve long migrated from what made the series great for little reason when you consider FFX is still one of the best selling games in the franchise and is strictly turn based (not even active time battle.)
I haven’t played FFXVI yet, as I don’t own a playstation and would prefer to play it on PC, but some part of me looked at this new entry as a decent pivot point for the series tonally – it’s just a shame that it’s also so controversial regarding the gameplay choices it seems.
I didn’t enjoy 15 because it sat in a weird middle ground where it kind of wanted to be action but the mechanics didn’t justify it. If you just lean into ARPG, that’s a space that could use more complex options.
I get being disappointed that there aren’t really AAA JRPG options left, but the tech is to the point where it doesn’t take a AAA budget to make them any more. Just like platformers and metroidvanias are largely dominated by small studios that are as good or better than anything AAA left, JRPGs have options and can be made by small teams reasonably comfortably now. I like the genre but I think that path is perfectly fine. It also lowers the price point allowing you to explore more options.
I agree about 15. I kept thinking I should be able to avoid or dodge attacks and it just didn’t feel as good as it should have - same with the car, actually, in that it just never felt as satisfying as it could have. I prefer the feel of 16 or 13 (or even 14) to the weird hybrid that 15 was that was unsatisfying on both the action and rpg fronts.
I did like some of the small details in 15 like the pictures, though.Yeah, that’s the awkwardness for me. It happens in a few genres, where the underlying tech related to the mechanics is so accessible now that it doesn’t make sense to have a AAA version but it’s fairly trivial to make a smaller take. Bravely Default or Octopath Traveller are bigger and look more technically advanced than anything on the SNES, but they’re weirdly off when you compare them to the feel of a big triple-AA FF.
I do want to play through all the Final Fantasy games to see how the series has changed and evolved over the years
maybe Ill come up with an opinion on what I think makes a good Final Fantasy after playing all the gamesso far I’ve been enjoying the games though, I’ve played 1-3 and am currently near the end of 4
I’ve been thinking about doing the same but I heard 1-3 are kinda proto-games and a bit hard to get into. They play ok?
They are just not as fleshed out and detailed as modern FFs. Definitely play the pixel remasters as opposed to the originals. The first games are relatively short too so you won’t be investing a ton of time. 4 is when the series really starts to take shape. IMHO 6 is the best but everyone latches onto their personal favorite.
Yeah, I got into the pixel remasters when I bought a Steam Deck and it was a suprrisingly fun, breezy playtrhough to get through 1 and 2. I’d definitely follow a guide, but they weirdly hold up.
