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Final Fantasy XVI
- Thread starter Mogri
- Start date
It was more just a snarky comment because his comments sound like peak GG.
You hate to see the same hoary old lines about ahistorical European ethnostates trotted out in front of an audience that most often sees them as an unconvincing excuse for the most naked hate. However, it's mostly just unnecessary, since the game will speak for itself.
This was one of the few games I really wanted to be playing as soon as it came out in the near future and wow, that's not happening now. Guess I'm just gonna watch other people play until it sees a bunch of price dropping so I can pick it up cheap off ebay or something.
4-So
Spicy
https://www.polygon.com/23617590/final-fantasy-16-preview-ps5-square-enix
Yes, FF is an action game now. Its transformation is complete.
Purple
(She/Her)
My misgivings are starting to pile up a bit. The weird "why would there be black people? It's not like people have TVs" bit was a HUGE turnoff, and the "JRPGs are relics of the past!" thing is offputting in the specific sense of "all those beloved things I'm making a sequel to? Garbage!" sort of sense. The real cause for alarm though is like... I like my action games to be breezy in length, with few to no cutscenes taking me out of the game, and with some real jump back in with alternate modes or characters or movesets stuff wherever after I'm done. This may deliver on that last point but I'm having a really hard time picturing something that isn't just kind of a boring slog when looked at next to its peers, given how Square-Enix paces everything.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
The article calls it a “pure” action game but it’s clear from the descriptions that it still has experience points and levels and ability cooldowns, with the summons acting as pseudo-classes similar to Lightning Returns. The RPG elements will likely be scaled way back, but they’re there.
I’m definitely still in, though I’m tempering my expectations. I’ve yet to play an FF I didn’t like.
I’m definitely still in, though I’m tempering my expectations. I’ve yet to play an FF I didn’t like.
4-So
Spicy
I'm not sure what a pure action game is anymore. DMC? Bayonetta? I'm just coming off 70+ hours of God of War: Ragnarok, and it has a lot of RPG-adjacent systems but I'd be loath to call it an RPG or even an action RPG. A lot of these older designations don't work any longer. I've watched about an hour of FF16 from the most recent event via the people in attendance producing content - god, I hate that term - and it's pretty clear to me that a bridge has been crossed with this title. Where the "action" part of action game was only hinted at to various degrees in FF15 and FF7R, this is the real deal, whatever that means. It shouldn't come as a surprise considering the franchise direction but I've already heard some disgruntled mumblings in other places. What can you do.
I'm totally in for the ride. I just think that people with pre-existing notions of what a mainline FF game is should be aware that, yeah, this is what FF is now and the gameplay experience you perhaps crave (as found in older titles) is not to be found here, even if the story elements seem very Final Fantasy.
I'm totally in for the ride. I just think that people with pre-existing notions of what a mainline FF game is should be aware that, yeah, this is what FF is now and the gameplay experience you perhaps crave (as found in older titles) is not to be found here, even if the story elements seem very Final Fantasy.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I’ve only played a few Final Fantasy games, yet each of them (aside from 15) have starred an ensemble cast with women in leading roles. Isn’t it kind of going backwards to go from that to “single gruff dude with occasional squad mates”?
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I’ll definitely be bummed if this is what FFs look like going forward. REMAKE is such an amazing blend of Action and party management that I would rather them iterate on that than relegate it to the VII sub-series. But then, this is a series that’s constantly reinventing itself so hopefully next time they surprise us and pivot.
I mean, I'd say so at least... >.<
This has always been a series that's favoured men in leading roles--the only exceptions in the main numbered games have been VI (and people will argue this regardless, for the game's heavy ensemble focus) and XIII. The difference in the recent string of works like XV and from what it looks like, XVI, is not that they're lead by men once again--it's that that focus comes at a cost of women not being allowed to exist at a level of deuteragonists, playable party members, or as presences in the story not entirely defined by sexist sidelining. I will keep coming back to this parallel until the game proves me otherwise, but Matsuno was never particularly great about this either, and this team and this game are deliberately walking in those creative footsteps, knowingly or inadvertently making the same missteps as they go.
Also not feeling super great about accessibility features that would usually be options in a menu somewhere being turned into equipment, effectively punishing players who want to use them by limiting their gearing choices. The timing for me specifically on this is wild, seeing it the day after watching a DMC5 stream where someone put together a Steam controller layout that makes the game way easier on basically everyone's wrists and finger joints.
The more news comes out about FFXVI, the more it seems like maybe anything besides the combat design itself is built on bad choices. Between this and either the buying into or pandering to every racist's "realistic medieval era" crap I think I'm just fully skipping this one unless the narrative really goes out of its way to SHATTER my current expectations.
The more news comes out about FFXVI, the more it seems like maybe anything besides the combat design itself is built on bad choices. Between this and either the buying into or pandering to every racist's "realistic medieval era" crap I think I'm just fully skipping this one unless the narrative really goes out of its way to SHATTER my current expectations.
I'm a big Metal Gear fan, so I am fully onboard for a relatively long, overly loquacious action game. But why do I get the feeling this will end up a 70hr+ slog?
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
The combat looks really fun, at least. It looks like a fairly natural progression from the mechanics that started in XIII and looks way easier to parse than XV. I love me some stagger management. And there are buttons for the dog!
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
It looks like Yoshi-P’s thinking behind the accessibility accessories is that he wanted to incorporate them into the game mechanics so it felt like they were part of playing the game rather than choosing a menu option, because he feels that difficulty options might insult someone’s “gamer pride.” And he wants to encourage people to get better at the game so they slowly take those training wheels off.
Which is stupid, of course, because accessibility isn’t about helping people git gud, it’s about letting people play your game who couldn’t otherwise play your game. It’s a pretty classic example of a designer making these decisions based on how they themselves play the game, rather than consult someone who actually knows what’s needed. Pretty embarrassing for a big budget title.
I remember Nier Automata doing something similar, though that game still gave you plenty of tread to customize even with all the accessibility stuff equipped. XVI sounds like it’s just straight-up punishing you.
Which is stupid, of course, because accessibility isn’t about helping people git gud, it’s about letting people play your game who couldn’t otherwise play your game. It’s a pretty classic example of a designer making these decisions based on how they themselves play the game, rather than consult someone who actually knows what’s needed. Pretty embarrassing for a big budget title.
I remember Nier Automata doing something similar, though that game still gave you plenty of tread to customize even with all the accessibility stuff equipped. XVI sounds like it’s just straight-up punishing you.
Forget everything, I'm all-in
feel like automata comparisons are apt because that's a game that definitely made me wary of story-driven games with technical action elements. by which i mean, even if it ends up being a bad thing at least the assist options and stuff will let me finish it, but i'll end up being a huge fucking hater if it comes to that
i do think it wasn't helped by automata's boss and enemy design being especially obnoxious and i like dmc much more than platinum's games. but i still know how i feel these days
i do think it wasn't helped by automata's boss and enemy design being especially obnoxious and i like dmc much more than platinum's games. but i still know how i feel these days
I don't know how discussed it's been in general, but I want to note how dark this game seems to be from all relayed material. I don't mean narrative, tone, or subject matter--I mean literally dark, in illumination. It's like the game's brightness setting has been universally set to its lowest internal setting, and it's not the kind of high-contrast showcase of light and dark extremes but a muddy blur of mixed together hues and tones in every scene and environment. It's difficult to make out even basic, static shots in detail because they're engulfed by this dour outlook, additionally hurt by the game's monochromatic palette choices of predominantly grey and maybe another scene-setting colour if you get lucky. Even ostensible daylight is downcast, with the only reservations for colour highlights being the copious particle effects during combat. It's as if someone pitched a "dark fantasy" and it was interpreted as meaning "dimly lit."
Maybe it's an unfair point of comparison to come to over and over, but since the game has as much as invited it itself... Vagrant Story had a mind to work a beautifully vibrant, "earthly" palette range in a way that never became illegible or boring to witness, and used its hardware limitations to its benefit with baked-in shadow textures and lighting sources to instill mood. The potential displayed by FFXVI's visuality at this stage seems to me to be in the realm of "well it might come off a little better on an expensive OLED display", but in the overall impression it gives off visually, I have never been excited to see footage of it--it's that presentationally dire in how it treats these aspects of itself.
Maybe it's an unfair point of comparison to come to over and over, but since the game has as much as invited it itself... Vagrant Story had a mind to work a beautifully vibrant, "earthly" palette range in a way that never became illegible or boring to witness, and used its hardware limitations to its benefit with baked-in shadow textures and lighting sources to instill mood. The potential displayed by FFXVI's visuality at this stage seems to me to be in the realm of "well it might come off a little better on an expensive OLED display", but in the overall impression it gives off visually, I have never been excited to see footage of it--it's that presentationally dire in how it treats these aspects of itself.
Using this as as a tongue-in-cheek segue into a different topic (one that might be better for a certain section of the board that must not be named, but I don't go there anymore) is that recently in a yoship interview, he had this to say about the term "JRPG" and its usage in "Western" media, as an aside when discussing the developers approach to making FF16. Pulled from a translated interview:
Meanwhile, in order to underscore this point as it was being discussed, someone on twitter unearthed this X-Play clip to really underscore the tone and connotations that this term and the general attitude of "Western" gamers/games media has had over the years towards Japanese RPGs and games in general:
lol gee I wonder why any Japanese person would think they're being other'd and discriminated against
