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Erilex

hourglass figure
The post-timeskip version of the main character looks exactly like that generic scruffy dude that plays the role of the "warrior of light" in every cinematic Final Fantasy XIV trailer and-

I would NOT make that character in a game with a character creator. Super not thrilled at the prospect of having no choice but to play as him.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Your invocation of the WoL made me wonder - this is mostly the XIV team, so... Hear me out here - maybe we can create our own character?
 
Your invocation of the WoL made me wonder - this is mostly the XIV team, so... Hear me out here - maybe we can create our own character?
I certainly hope so but a bunch of those cutscenes look like they probably have that classic separation from gameplay here so the amount of hope is extremely low. Unless something about PS5 hardware made CC models more convenient to put into cinematic cutscenes.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
FFXV had full "game engine" rendering for its entirety, though? It upscaled for the flashier cutscenes, but if all the goofy costumes I put on Noct and the Band of Chocobrothers persisted for the entire game, I don't think it'd be hard for a fully customized player character to do the same in more powerful hardware.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
As long as the player built models don't differ in structure from the pre-gen NPCs, then it doesn't matter, yeah. Animatics are animatics, and most of the work would probably go into the shot framing and camera angles in case you can change heights and so on.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Basically yeah, though a lot of my expectations are going to depend on how much of XIV's lore and story team they're borrowing for XVI.
 

Juno

The DRKest Roe
(He, Him)
Any character creator would have to be kinda limited- once you get into extreme changes like major height differences it becomes difficult to animate for. Like in FFXIV, it's very difficult for the team to animate the WoL interacting with others in cutsceens since they need to make it fit for somebody can range in height from 2 to 7 1/2 feet.
 

Fyonn

did their best!
Also then they'd have to figure out a way to age up your custom character after the time skip we're seeing here.
I could see an alternate female player character maybe, maybe. But hoping for anything other than Generic White Swordsman just from what we've seen here is going to lead to your heart being shattered, I think.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Get rid of lalafells and you have not only a much easier range of heights to animate, but also a better, more aesthetic game
 

Juno

The DRKest Roe
(He, Him)
Anyway, what little we've seen of the combat interests me. I do sympathize with people who mourn the death of turn-based FF, but at the same time, I can't say that I'll miss it much. Earlier this year I replayed FFVII shortly after playing FFVIIR. The combat in the remake was far, far more interesting to me than the original, and I'd take it over any turn-based system any FF game has ever had.
 
Super not thrilled at the prospect of having no choice but to play as him.
I think the odds are in your favor for this prediction to end up being true, but I don't understand making such a definitive statement when we literally don't know the first thing about the game beyond very abstract facts like:

-It will be titled Final Fantasy XVI
-It is indeed in production

And even facts like that can change. Like, Versus XIII got a name change during production or it could get a subtitle later; games can get cancelled; etc. Even things I would predict to hold steady/be broadly true like the European medieval fantasy setting doesn't have to be 100% true through the whole game. (FF4 visiting the moon says hi, among other examples people have brought up over past games.) We just simply don't know anything, and the next time they'll even talk to us about this game again is next year at the earliest. We're a long ways out from even holding the game in our hands, I'm just not comfortable making definitive declarations about anything in the absence of any real knowledge.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Also, if people think a 100% medieval setting is disappointing, and the game does turn out 101% medieval, Tactics says hi.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Also, if people think a 100% medieval setting is disappointing, and the game does turn out 101% medieval, Tactics says hi.
Yeah, but Cartoonish Abstraction vs. Gritty Über Real AAA, ya know. Tactics is a brutal game for sure, but it's also presented with li'l sprite people who ain't got no noseys.
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
don't think XIV is particularly special

Yeah boy ya wrong. FFXIV is the only FF I've loved unabashedly since like V. And considering how I feel about most JRPGs and where they've gone in terms of Squick territory.

The trailer to me definitely looks like it's just put together in the FF14 engine.

AHAHAHAH no way in hell. FFXIV's graphic engine is a piece of shit. This is a new engine even if it's rough looking.

Basically. I have more faith in this FF being poorly represented by a trailer meant for mainstream media than I have in the sun rising tomorrow. Writers from Heavensward, and Yoship at the helm means that I'll be buying. Even if I am distasteful of a non-turn based system.

I just wonder if SOKEN is putting tracks in.
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
Also, if people think a 100% medieval setting is disappointing, and the game does turn out 101% medieval, Tactics says hi.

Yoship said if he were to make a single player JRPG it would be High Fantasy. Like FFXIV. Which has plenty of sci-fi in it too (Let me tell you about Allagans). But even then High Fantasy is way more appealing to me than the constant "modern" FFs since VII (and arguably starting in VI).
 
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Fyonn

did their best!
Heavensward writing team?
hmmm
hmmmmmmmmmm
okay, i'm warming up

insert ffxiv "church is bad because they won't let you fuck dragons" joke here
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
Heavensward writing team?
hmmm
hmmmmmmmmmm
okay, i'm warming up

insert ffxiv "church is bad because they won't let you fuck dragons" joke here

Director is Hiroshi Takai who was assitant director for ARR and HW. He stopped being assistant director for Stormblood.

Like this game can't be any more appealing for me. This is wild. I can't believe I'm excited for a non XIV FF. Like straight off the bat.

I also heard riffs of Torn from the Heavens so I'm wondering if that madman SOKEN is doing the OST.

Black is White and Up is Down.
 

hologramblue

taxonomically dubious.
FFXIV was my proper introduction to FF.

Since then, I've dipped my toes into some of the other games, but FFXIV really has what hooked me; a world that feels real because it's inhabited by people who live and eat and shit and laugh and cry, a take on the societies we live in that's cynical on one hand and hopeful on the other, and a sense of resonance between the big things like metaphysics and mythology and the small things like waking up and watching the sun rise and sharing breakfast with someone.

I'm feeling bits and pieces of that in this trailer and want to see more.

Premature predictions: themes about how war is bad because it dehumanizes both the people who are raised to perpetuate it (noble boy) and the people who are treated as grist for the ever churning mill (tattoo man). The use of "eikons", first used in FFXIV as a derogatory/dismissive term for primals to emphasize that they're "false gods", to underline a theme of pointless, self-serving cycles of violence. Unfortunately timely pestilence plot elements ("blight", the noble lady holding her hand in front of her face while going outdoors among the rabble).

Hopes: more female characters, obviously. I'm not feeling pessimistic yet, we've only met, like, four or five characters total. I imagine we'll meet most of the rest of the "Dominants" (lmao) and Shiva's was mentioned and c'mon. C'moooooon
 

Fyonn

did their best!
screw it, if this has DMC-style combat, it will hands-down be the best game with this kind of setting
The Witcher and Gothic are a lot of things but "fun to play for the combat" are not among those things
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
I don’t think people here understand why ffxiv players here are so ride or die for yoship.

yoship said “trans rights”

To touch on the second part of your question about gender restrictions, first and foremost, I think there should be freedom in your values when it comes to the different genders. We don’t want to restrict attire and clothing that you wear based on characters’ gender or sex.

...

Let me give an example: I was heading to the office on a Saturday and I saw a situation that made me very sad. I was trying to go into the office and I was waiting at a red light. I saw a high schooler coming from the other side of the road in their school uniform. It seemed that they were biologically male at birth but they were wearing a sailor fuku, which is traditionally female attire. In Japanese high schools, there’s more and more schools that are accommodating for freedom of not being restricted to a specific gender for your uniform...That person probably wanted to present the gender they identified with in their heart...On the other side of the road was a mother and a daughter. The daughter was perhaps 5 years old. As soon as the mother saw the high schooler, she shielded her daughter as if she didn’t want her daughter to see. The high schooler must have been very hurt. Situations like these still happen and there’s areas where there’s not as much understanding.

Yoship has promised to remove gender restriction on all clothing ffxiv on account of this, and they’ve already released new models for things like the Wedding Dress and Wedding Tux.

yoship also ensured that marriage in ffxiv was between any race or gender back in 2014. And that there’s no “bride” or “groom”, it’s only who holds the Bouquet and whatnot.

This on top of the fantastic storytelling that puts women in effective leadership positions within the story.

One of my favourite anecdotes relates to the Leatherworker guild master, Geva. She’s got a reputation of being a total hardass and unlikeable. Which she is — she has no time for people not working up to her very high standards. Something you’d expect of a male guild master.

As the Warrior of Light you do show promise. In most games by the end of the questline she’d have “learnt to be nicer” and she hasn’t. She is the same. She just both approves of and trusts in your craftsmanship.
 

Poster

Just some poster
The trailer felt very "You guys like Witcher and Game of Thrones, right?" It honestly made me really miss Matsuno.

As for the combat, even though I definitely prefer turn-based, FF being an ARPG these days doesn't really bother me as there are still enough turn-based RPGs coming out to scratch that itch.
 

Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
This looks great. The cues from XV are exciting, the lack of Nomura's aesthetic (while he's occupied with the VIIR series) is different, and it's nice to see the series moving forward again.


Hey, guys, am I crazy or is that logo *not* an Amano drawing? Look less, dunno, flowy than his usual work.

He has a logo illustration credit in the credits at the end of the trailer (as usual), and you can see his signature at the bottom. It's him.


P8DGShO.jpg



Incidentally, it's interesting that the illustration is layered both behind and in front of the title. I don't believe that's been done since the FFV logo included the Hiryū's tail wrapping around the third A.

Edit: FFIX's does it, too, a little. Compared to both games, the effect is much more pronounced here.
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
Matsuno confirmed in a tweet (now deleted) that Maehiro is writing lead (lead writer of Heavensward). And SOKEN is definitely doing the music. Just Jesus.

Someone please tell me that Koji Fox is in charge of localization.

I can’t get more excited. I seriously cannot.

Y’all crazy for thinking this looks like Game of Thrones or Witcher. This is literally my dream team for a Final Fantasy.
 

Lady

something something robble
my glib take: ah yes, FFXV for people who can't tolerate cars in their final fantasy.

other things that caught my ear
summoned their icon (fun marvel cinematics)
we're going to destroy crystals on PURPOSE??
 

Lady

something something robble
I can’t get more excited. I seriously cannot.

Y’all crazy for thinking this looks like Game of Thrones or Witcher. This is literally my dream team for a Final Fantasy.
and that's fair enough; ffxv was my perfect ff, so I'm glad there's people that may feel this way about 16
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Incidentally, it's interesting that the illustration is layered both behind and in front of the title. I don't believe that's been done since the FFV logo included the Hiryū's tail wrapping around the third A.

I love that :D It denotes motion in the logo, with the Phoenix flying around the title instead of just hovering in place, while Ifrit charges at it from the foreground. I wish FFX had done something similar with its water effects, but, oh well.

It's also interesting how Ifrit looks more like a Behemoth in this illustration. I don't think I've seen him with a tail very often? Maybe FF14? He also has these giant lion hind legs instead of hooves or the more traditional, spindly wolf/humanoid feet. Combined with the dark and bestial appearance in the trailer, I'm looking forward to the kind of antagonism he will display with Phoenix.
 
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