Some interesting stuff in there including follow up on them takeing that approach to combat... and apparently being offended by the term "jrpg".
Final Fantasy XVI
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An ANN article had an interesting take on it.
Thinking about it, I recall some bigger streamers with their bingo cards on Directs, and whenever the "jrpgs" came up it was often surrounded by cringe reactions so I can see where this is coming from.
Elden Ring was criticized for being "too Japanese."
what
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Feels like they're kinda out of touch over at SE.
The fans of the genre never used the term in a derogatory fashion. In fact, if the rest of them are anything like me, their eyes light up when they see letters JRPG together.
I get US is a big market, and they need to sell their games, but it's really sad to read. Action games are the norm nowadays? Hell, why not turn FF into FPS, they must have seen those COD numbers.
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@Razh I'd say that's a little revisionist. Fans of the genre reclaimed the word, but for the first few years of use, it was definitely a derogatory term. It didn't help that it came into use at a time when Japanese-produced RPGs were in a bit of a slump (2005-2010) and games like Oblivion and Dragon Age and Mass Effect were starting to take off and define the "western RPG", so there was this prevailing stereotype that Japanese RPGs were lesser.
I think nowadays our use of the term has evolved and it's often used by fans in celebration of a certain type of game that's usually turn-based, but even that's disingenuous, as action-based Japanese RPGs like the Mana games, Star Ocean, Tales of, etc., have been around for quite a long time as well, and yet people still argue whether From games are JRPGs. It's an ill-defined term at best, and a xenophobic one at worst.
Ultimately, I'm not all that hurt about FF16's direction. The lack of party members did bum me out at first, but I've always been excited by the FF games that break from the house style. I'm far more excited for the VIs and the IXs and the XIIs and the Tactics of the series than I am the 7s and 13s and 15s. I generally trust in Yoshida and think he's an excellent game designer, problematic statements on diversity (that may have been unfairly overblown) aside.
This has felt from the beginning like an auteur's Final Fantasy and it sounds like Yoshida made the game he wanted to make and hasn't really strayed from that vision. Outside of a highly understandable COVID delay, this is the smoothest development cycle we've seen for a Final Fantasy game in decades. It's also the shortest time an offline FF game has gone from farm-to-table in as much time.
It's also been textbook Final Fantasy from the start. I find a lot of the discourse about it being "not Final Fantasy enough" to be played out. Whether we like it or not, FF hasn't been truly turn-based since 2002, and the ATB system, while definitely turn based, should clue us in on what the series has been chasing for at least the last 30 years. And whether you chalk it up as an identity crisis or consider it an integral part of the series' DNA, no two Final Fantasies are alike: arguably, the FF games that most closely resemble each other are 3 and 5, and 11 and 14. Every other game has been its own thing carving out its own identity.
But that criticism is especially frustrating when combat aside, so much of the game feels familiar under the hood. This game feels like it belongs in Ivalice. Not only that, FF14 has a track record of reverence for the early games in the series, and Yoshida regularly calls out FF5 as inspiration. Plus not to mention the crystals and summons at the center of the story are classic FF iconography. Sure the gameplay might be a massive departure, but my three favorite FF games (IX, XII, and Tactics) all play in completely different ways.
I can see how the gameplay changes might turn people off to the game, but at the same time, it feels like such a weird take to call this game "out of touch", when it appears to be the most laser-focused production I've seen the series put out since the Sakaguchi days.
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I just couldn't get into FFXV. This looks a little more promising. Although I'd have to buy a PS5. And I'm really worried that that dog might die.
In the meantime, I'm considering Octopath Traveler 2 for my JRPG needs.
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As someone who remembers how different the combat was from FFX to X2 I Don’t personally mind how the combat is handled.
Just so long as the story is good and doesn’t do some cliche bullshit like killing off the main character.
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@Kitsune-Inferno From my experience, people were either going wild about JRPGs or never played them and/or mocked the whole anime thing. Of course, I started paying attention around the time Baldur's Gate and FF7 were released. The slump you mention wasn't helped by the fact there were plenty of PS exclusives and that whatever did get ported to PC, for example, was a botched job, rendering many of the ported games barely playable.
I called the developers out of touch. Like I said, will probably play the game, because it looks interesting at least.
They talk about how people used the term JRPG in a derogatory fashion, and how the new audiences prefer action combat. Well neither of those is a good enough reason to remove the party on turn the game into a 3rd person action game. The party and the party dynamic in FF15 was one of the rare things about it that was widely praised. There was no reason not to develop that system further, giving the user more freedom in controlling the team as well as improving the action aspect of the combat.
No reason other than cutting cost and production time. This way we got an evolved combat for the franchise, that's still partly a devolution from FF15.
And where FF15 at least tried to add more importance to the team mates, FF16 drops that and is a single character focused story. Even DMC lets you choose a character here and there.Just think there was a way to both satisfy the fandom and attract new audience. Might have taken a bit longer, sure. Although, accounting for the decline of SE, and what seems like a general loss of direction, maybe it's better that we didn't get that. Maybe a DMC clone with more story is a lesser of two evils? If they saved money and end up making a hit, then it means a studio, that makes all the other games you're more excited about, will survive and keep making them.
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@Razh said in Final Fantasy XVI:
The party and the party dynamic in FF15 was one of the rare things about it that was widely praised.
After gamers bitched about how you were relegated only to four party member and how all of them were guys or rather “pretty boys”?
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@Time-Control-Magician After some gamers bitched about it, yes. The team and the friendship was still one of the bright sides to the whole mess.
Not accounting that you had to watch a few anime episodes and get additional episodes to get everything out of it, of course.
FF16 might look promising in some aspects, but it's still made by the same company that frankensteined the crap out of something that could have been an awesome game. Can't be too optimistic.
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.......Well, I'm excited for this game.
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What did FF15 do party-wise that was so amazing? The banter, the team combos, the relationship that became stronger than the one with your fiance? Swapping control to the other members didn't even come until 1.20 after the paid episodes with their mechanics were finished!
The scenario I read from some Ultimania for FF15 felt like a Final Fantasy, but the end product sure became something else. The game was also treated like a service, and I'll be glad if they never do that again.
Obviously different strokes for different people. I have trust in FF16's team because that team is what rescued FF14 and the brand instead of patching and praying like Tanaka's FF14 1.0 and Tabata's FF15. And they didn't even need to ask fans if they'd like to see Moogles in the game!
I was trying to find the trailer where Tabata introduced the happy idea of the "roadtrip with your bros" but I ended up finding this, which I thought was humorously accurate:
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@Cinder Amazing? More like one of the rare good parts that kept the whole thing playable. I did play the Royal Edition, though. Rarely do I jump in a game early upon its release.
Speaking of relationship. Um, why wouldn't a relationship with 3 childhood friends, comrades in arms, be stronger than the one with a woman Noctis met a couple of times? That's one of the few parts that make actual sense, lol.
Just silly to me that the following title would ditch one of the parts that actually worked. Maybe we just aren't allowed to have good things. And by good things I mean a fusion between FF15, FFT and Vagrant Story.
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Oh, just found out they're shooting a commercial for "Final Fantasy" in my hometown. There was a casting call couple weeks ago, guess that was it was for.
Parts of Braavos in GoT were filmed here too. -
@Razh The narrative is all over the place and that's a big part of why it's upsetting. We're TOLD they're childhood friends and would give up their lives for him, but any building up of that before the present got relegated to media outside of the game because they said "it didn't fit the game," and you the player is given the game to build that emotional investment on this journey so it'd make sense.
We're also TOLD about Noctis and Luna, but the player couldn't connect because it suffered from the (lack of) storytelling:
FF15 spoilers:
You can make the argument that the wedding was more a formality for stopping the war, but they were written to be a romantic couple. Brotherly love with his boys, romantic love with his girl. It's insane to think that their relationship is "just a woman he met a couple times!"
edit: I've read some thoughts about why they weren't romantically involved and why it was platonic or strictly political. I think there's a lot of ways to express love (my parents are a neat example of this), so even if we strike out over the first half of those bullet points because they're duty-related, what gets me are the last 3 bullet points which are displays of emotion!
To an earlier conversation point, if we wanna ask "Why can't FF16 have a bonding party like FF15 did? It's so backwards" - in fairness we should wait for the game to come out first, but second, which is mainly my own thought about it, but it feels like this is a conflict of what the game is supposed to be to someone. I think a lot of people really valued the camping aspects and the realism of fighting and hanging out with buddies. I didn't really, but I get it.
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I hate the idea of key story elements in a video game being relegated to optionally obtainable collectibles or apart of some extra media content.
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@Johnny-B-Decent said in Final Fantasy XVI:
.......Well, I'm excited for this game.
Same here!!! The combat looks cool and the story brings Summons to the front and center and there’s a lot of extremely talented people with good track records attached to it
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That video Shiebs posted cuts off (the livestream went down mid presentation). Here's the VOD with everything that was shown yesterday. It was a lot!
Since it's such a long video, here are the rough points of the video containing gameplay footage.
11:00 is a brief story trailer
15:40 is an environment showcase
24:25 is an 'Eikonic Abilities' (main Clive gameplay) combat overview
30:00 is about ten minutes of live gameplay
47:30 is showing off the different 'difficulty' settings in combat (essentially the equippable accessories that make certain parts of combat easier)
1:00:00 is one last overview focuses on the 'Eikonic Clashes' (eikon vs. eikon) -
State of Play in exactly 24 hours with 20 minutes of new footage. They are spoiling us with content.
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I'll be passing on it - not that I'm uninterested but I don't want my eyes to be too spoiled; I already made the personal cut-off some time ago! And I still haven't figured out my situation with how I'm going to play the darn game. I've been holding out on a (currently) non-existent PS5 pro and I already have the deluxe edition pre-ordered...
If you're watching it though, don't hold back and let us know how it goes!
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This wasn't shown in the State of Play (but announced during it), but here's a sizzle reel of the theme song and some CG scenes.
This clip is the first time the game felt rather "anime" to me. Not that that's a bad thing, but should hopefully soothe some of the "it's not even Final Fantasy / it's a God of War clone" discourse.
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I really can’t tell from the previews if people like the combat system or hate it
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@Shiebs Were we watching the same previews?
I've literally heard nothing but near unanimous praise for the combat system from the previews.
In any case, holy crap, three weeks to go! It sounds like the demo is starting to appear (but unavailable for download) on PSN. For those not keeping up, the demo will cover the first two hours of the game and progress can be transferred to the final game when it launches. Judging by the previews, that more or less encompasses the entirety of the teenage Clive content, which has been promoted heavily, so that two hours should be absolutely packed to the gills.
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By the way, reading the backstory, it seems that the Kingdom who is ruled by the Odin eikon/eidolon holder, they have a history of conflict with the Orcs and other beastmen. I wonder if that's going to play any part in this story?
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@Johnny-B-Decent I have to imagine it will, at the very least on a sidequest capacity. I believe Waloed is more or less confirmed to have an open zone area based on the world map, so I imagine that place could be packed with interactions with some of the various beastmen tribes.
