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Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Guy also worked on Dragon's Dogma's combat system, which would be a closer fit I think to what they'd be going for.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
I know it's probably not the same guy, but when people say, "They invited the DMC guy to do the combat!" all I hear is "Hideki Kamiya", and when I hear Hideki Kamiya I hear Okami and I hear Nier Automata, and oh god yes give me a Final Fantasy where the giant surfboard-sized swords actually fly around like they do in those games.
 
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.
I think you're selling FFXIV short. It's a good looking game! Yeah, it's a bit old, and a lot of the older regions that were a holdover from 1.0 are lookin' a little dated at this point. But it's not a fundamentally bad looking game. The preview looks very FFXIV to me because of a few intangibles, but also things like the polygon structure of the faces, the mix of shading and other particle effects, the overall art style/direction, the character designs, the color palate being emphasized, etc. It all screams FFXIV. Maybe it is a new engine, and I suspect a lot of the assets are early/placeholder/rough drafts, but the dev team is clearly doing what they know and the visual feel looks like a souped up FFXIV.

Guy also worked on Dragon's Dogma's combat system, which would be a closer fit I think to what they'd be going for.
A Final Fantasy that had combat like Dragon's Dogma is something everybody should want, oh man can you even imagine? Imagine climbing up the back of an Adamanantoise or hanging onto the scruff of a Behemoth's neck as it thrashes about. I'm getting giddy thinking about it!
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Man, y'all went to town on this while I was too busy to engage for a day or two huh.

Anyway, on first glance I had the same slightly disappointed reaction that a lot of people did - that this fantasty didn't look *fantastic enough* in that it just seem like a completely generic medieval setting with the usual chocobos and (admittedly gorgeous looking) FF summons layered on top - no wondrous and werid new settings and characters; it could just be Earth with an FF bestiary. But having taken a second look and read through the thread, that's tempered by two things. One is I agree that it's pretty damn likely that everything here is intended to be part of a prologue/setup segment, and both setting and characters could take massive left turns for other parts of the game. And two, it's the FFXIV crew, and while I haven't played it (just don't feel like I have space in my life for any MMO no matter how awesome), pretty much everyone I know who plays it loves it and has tons of faith in the team to make cool and engaging stuff. So I'm cautiously hopeful that the final setting will turn out to be a lot more engaging than this early trailer lets on.

And also there *is* some fun stuff in there, like the summon aspects integrated into the MC's attacks. This looks like something that was played with back in the early dev versions of FFIX when it was going to be a spin-off title, where apparently they were toying with the idea of combining summons and jobs - like I remember a drawing of a Leviathan-style Dragoon vs a Bahamut-style Dragoon and so on. I always thought that sounded really fun and was sad it got cut. Maybe now is finally its time!
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
I think you're selling FFXIV short. It's a good looking game! Yeah, it's a bit old, and a lot of the older regions that were a holdover from 1.0 are lookin' a little dated at this point. But it's not a fundamentally bad looking game. The preview looks very FFXIV to me because of a few intangibles, but also things like the polygon structure of the faces, the mix of shading and other particle effects, the overall art style/direction, the character designs, the color palate being emphasized, etc. It all screams FFXIV. Maybe it is a new engine, and I suspect a lot of the assets are early/placeholder/rough drafts, but the dev team is clearly doing what they know and the visual feel looks like a souped up FFXIV.

It is not FFXIV. Trust me, I've played it at Max Settings for seven years* now. The poly counts per character alone give it away.

Just. I love FFXIV, but I know FFXIV graphics and engine limitations far too well.



*crumbles into fine dust
 
The poly counts per character alone give it away.
I mean, that doesn't necessarily say anything about the graphics engine. A lot of FFXIV's limitations are built upon the foundations of the game being designed for optimal-ish performance PS3, and then PS4 after the PS3 version got phased out, but if they wanted to they could easily slide some modifiers to allow for higher resolution textures and higher polygon count in the game if they stopped caring about allowing it to be played on as many varied gaming rigs as possible.
 
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Fyonn

did their best!
I have no strong opinions on whether this is the FFXIV engine or not, but I would be delighted if it were at least based on the FFXIV engine. Building a new engine for everything is one of the unsustainable things that set Final Fantasy as a franchise on fire after FFX and before Yoshi-P and his team saved the franchise.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Square Enix already has multiple game engines that also feature action-y combat, so like... I imagine they're leveraging a ton of what's in the 7R or XV engines for this new game.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
I cannot imagine this game being made in Crystal Tools at this stage, literally no project has ever been made in that engine except those greenlit while SE's engineers were promising the moon about them prior to FFXIII coming out and their expansions or sequels. Luminous Engine's an outside possibility though all the people who know how that works are over at... Luminous Studio. There's a not insignificant chance that SE's higher ups are rolling the dice on internal engine development again because it going pretty pear shaped twice has apparently not taught them much.
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
I mean, that doesn't necessarily say anything about the graphics engine. A lot of FFXIV's limitations are built upon the foundations of the game being designed for optimal-ish performance PS3, and then PS4 after the PS3 version got phased out, but if they wanted to they could easily slide some modifiers to allow for higher resolution textures and higher polygon count in the game if they stopped caring about allowing it to be played on as many varied gaming rigs as possible.

FFXIV uses a modified (and streamlined) version of the Luminous Engine which FFXV also used. It can’t run that trailer.

Please stop saying it looks the same. One background npc’s hair has more polygons and shaders than an entire FFXIV character model.

/playtime Gaer. Let's see it

Sure, once you transfer one million dollars into my bank account.
 
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Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Sure, but a semi-turn based system sort of like XV/VIIR would mesh really well with an expanded pawn system for the other party members (if there are any), especially if there's a way to customize their AI even remotely like gambits from XII.
 
Oh god you're absolutely right, i didn't even think about it that way, a VIIR system with gambits would be absolutely perfect for pawns. Direct control over what and when they cast, making sure they FINISH CASTING. The dream. If there's a party I can see this being the direction but we definitely need to see more, right now I can't identify anything turn-based about it.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Yep, we just need more info is all, but the core staff involved potentially means good things. Unlike XV and VIIR which I was largely apprehensive about the entire time because of Nomura's involvement and the extremely troubled development besides.
 

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
This is from huskybythegeek who is one of the most prolific ffxiv remix/covers artist, though he does lots of games.

He is incredibly masterful at arranging tracks!
 

hologramblue

taxonomically dubious.
Oh his arrangment makes the melody from 50s to 1m really clear. That's....that's from FFXIV, right? It's super familiar. What is that. (Not the Maker's Ruin bit that he deliberately put in later)

Speaking of FFXIV (because there's not enough of that in this thread hurr hurr) man I was hearing the XVI theme as a mashup of Heavensward and Stormblood leitmotifs (combine "storm of blood, born of blood" with the Ishgard city theme) but now I hear Shadowbringers in the "come follow me" part (has vibes somewhere between "riding home, dying hope", "we fall", and "the road that we walk")
 
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hologramblue

taxonomically dubious.
Not....quite. I'm feverishly scouring the FFXIV OST at this moment because this will kill me if I don't figure it out.

It sounds kind of like the opening to Ominous Prognosticks, so that might be it, but I can't shake the feeling I've heard the exact melody line somewhere before.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I haven't played 13 or 15 yet and I'm vaguely interested in, but not particularly set on, playing both of them. The only reason I don't play FF14 is I swore off MMOs forever, but I've heard great stuff about it and I'm interested to see what that team can do with a main-series game. On the one hand, I like the return to fantasy setting, but on the other I'm also playing Dragon Age and have the Witcher to go through, so it somehow feels less unique than the usual industrial-through-scifi range of the main series.

The blood splash isn't at all out of character for the FF series... FF6 was dark as heck, early in FF7 you find a Shinra office splashed with blood all over the floor and walls and a man with a sword in his back, not to mention the various flashbacks et al. And this cuts away from the actual violence to focus on the kid's reaction, which at least shows that they know where the story is and focus on the character over the shock. All of which isn't to say that I don't miss the lighter/more colorful aesthetics of FF9 or 10 et al, too, but it remains to be seen how this plays out. God, I don't even remember where 12 fits in that spectrum.

Honestly though, the combat being a DMC-like series of midair-floating anime combos and juggles is pretty unappealing, especially if it is indeed a single-protagonist deal. I like the summon-integration thing, but we'll see if that's enough to keep my interest.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
egUUg31.png


Vagrant Story, 2000

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Final Fantasy XVI, 20XX​

This isn't the only knowing wink, parallel or deliberate allusion even this scant amount of footage makes, and the people helming this project are avowed Matsuno fans and admirers who look to his work as an inspiration, so more will probably present itself in time. Now, Vagrant Story in particular is one of my favourite games in the world, but it and Matsuno's other writing in particular always leave me cold--you guessed it--in the treatment of women and what roles they're allowed to have, so I'm hoping the starry-eyed emulation only goes so far in that respect.
 

hologramblue

taxonomically dubious.
The dragoon's armor was a little bit further towards the industrial/mechanical end of things design-wise. I'm willing to put down money that the maligned empire is more technologically advanced than the areas shown in the trailer and there'll be a healthy sprinkling of weird technological anachronism.
 
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