FFXVI announced - PS5 and PC

[Keyboard Koala]

Given the team that's behind it, this has to be the most excited I've been for a FF game since IX 

[layten]

Probably seeing if they can put out a Switch version as no fucker in Japan is buying PS5 games.

[BitterToad]

 

 

[Calashnikov]

The massive health bars up at the top of the screen make it look like some kaiju Street Fighter with FF summons. 

[bobontheway]

Not liking the look of the combat from what they’ve shown in that trailer. 

[Qazimod]

It looks mental. On the one hand you've got summon battles with health bars, but then there's also character combat with what looks like item and ability shortcuts shown in the corners.

 

The summon battles did look a bit unusual though - there's a big "interactive cutscene" vibe...

[Cyhwuhx]

VIIR combat meets Dissidia?

[Calashnikov]

It looks like the party characters maybe morph into the summons?

[Calashnikov]

[Calashnikov]

Combat director Ryota Suzuki worked on Devil May Cry 5.

[Calashnikov]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks stunnin tbf. Thankfuck it's not being hampered by the necessity to be cross-gen.

 

I'm confident it'll be good. In Yoshi P we trust.

[footle]

What are Creative Business Units 1, 2 and 4 doing?

[carlospie]

4 minutes ago, footle said:

What are Creative Business Units 1, 2 and 4 doing?

Churning out mobile gatcha shite.

 

This look ok ish. Combat like a hybrid of Kingdom hearts and ff15. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

I really really really REALLY disliked the combat in FXV and VIIR So if this looks in any way interesting come release time, I'll just put it on easy. For now I'm not sure, those screenshots posted earlier look awesome and very atmospheric. But the trailer looks a bit..  I dunno, drab and messy? By focusing on the summon interactive battles it gave me a second rate Pokémon vibe. Could go either way still. I just hope they understand what went wrong with XV.

[Cyhwuhx]

I liked VIIR's combat, but only when it actually let me experiment with it and play at my own pace. Which you are only allowed to do once you hit the worst mechanics-only boss in the game (i.g. HH) making it a pretty miserable experience. VIIR only properly starts in its NG+ as a result. All the post-XII combat systems seem to suffer from not letting you get to grips with them properly from a state of absolute zero. If they can solve that with a *good* tutorial and maybe allow for people to, you know, grind/train/enjoy the game, I think they're halfway there.

 

Relative linearity plus a delayed blossoming of the combat system is what made the last few decades of FF pretty horrible (disregarding MMOs). Compared to the "break the game however you want" nature of VII/VIII it's not even the same series imo.

 

Also, death to stagger states.

I also just realised I basically want combat progression like in Dungeon Encounters with the bombast of FF.

[Qazimod]

3 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

Compared to the "break the game however you want" nature of VII/VIII it's not even the same series imo.

 

Recently (between mid-April and mid-May of this year) I did some "blind" playthroughs of two older games I either abandoned or never played - FFV and FFIII (not western VI) - and it's kind of nuts how your options in battle get blown open (I particularly liked V's job/ability thing, and coming up with combinations of skills for each character.)

 

The "latest" mainline numbered game I played was XII so I can't comment on anything beyond that. I thought VIIR had some nice ideas with the unique character abilities and the gear upgrade/ability system (kind of a simplified licence board) but you feel the constraints of the elemental weaknesses and ATB implementation when you run into HH.

[Calashnikov]

1 hour ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

I really really really REALLY disliked the combat in FXV and VIIR So if this looks in any way interesting come release time, I'll just put it on easy. For now I'm not sure, those screenshots posted earlier look awesome and very atmospheric. But the trailer looks a bit..  I dunno, drab and messy? By focusing on the summon interactive battles it gave me a second rate Pokémon vibe. Could go either way still. I just hope they understand what went wrong with XV.

You’ve got FFVIIR’s combat all wrong. It was waayyyyy better than XV’s. Very deep and satisfying once you get to grips with it.

 

I hated it when I played that first demo, felt very XV as you say, but playing the game proper I could sense it had plenty of depth. Particularly on later, trickier bosses. I think they totally nailed the whole JRPG elemental / status effect / buff / heal / cure type systems but in a flashy real time stylee. Combat was a triumph 👏🏻 

[Mr. Gerbik]

12 minutes ago, Calashnikov said:

You’ve got FFVIIR’s combat all wrong. It was waayyyyy better than XV’s. Very deep and satisfying once you get to grips with it.

 

I hated it when I played that first demo, felt very XV as you say, but playing the game proper I could sense it had plenty of depth. Particularly on later, trickier bosses. I think they totally nailed the whole JRPG elemental / status effect / buff / heal / cure type systems but in a flashy real time stylee. Combat was a triumph 👏🏻 

Fair enough. Note that I'm not saying the combat was the same as XV. I appreciated the differences. I just didn't like it. XV and VIIR are the only FF games so far with combat I actually dislike. My favourite combat systems are V, VII, XII, and XIII. So I don't mind something completely different but the XV style doesn't do it for me. :shrug:

[Calashnikov]

What I will say is that it took me a not insignificant amount of time to click with it and understand it. Even then, I never fully mastered it. I didn’t do many of the ‘VR’ type battles (VIIR’s optional hunt battle equivalents I suppose), or play NG+ where the combat really comes into its own. I could sense that there was plenty depth there for me to get involved with further, a process I would like to return to one day, but my poor aching backlog 

 

Think I’ll replay it in time for VIIR Part 2 coming out. Ideally I’d go right into NG+ but I think I’ve forgotten all the systems that I’ve been raving about in here 🙃

[BitterToad]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Fair enough. Note that I'm not saying the combat was the same as XV. I appreciated the differences. I just didn't like it. XV and VIIR are the only FF games so far with combat I actually dislike. My favourite combat systems are V, VII, XII, and XIII. So I don't mind something completely different but the XV style doesn't do it for me. :shrug:

You're just not going to get turn based/RPG style combat in a game they need to make as much money as they do a mainline Final Fantasy these days I don't think. I'd say that it's a DMC 4/5 combat guy leading the charge on the systems is a good thing though. Those games had good fightin'. I personally think the FF7:R combat is about a good a hybrid of turn based RPG style combat layered over a great feeling 3D action game as you're going to get, so I'm excited to see how this plays. 

 

Plus who doesn't love big Kaiju battles? I wonder if they'll be a more traditional turn based style affair? With Clive (because he's still called Clive) telling the big monsters what to do? We'll see I guess, I'm just very excited for a massive expensive mainline Final Fantasy from the guys who made that MMO everyone loves but I'm never going to play. 

[Qazimod]

I don't know; whenever someone says that big franchises can't do turn-based combat anymore, I look at Persona (and Yakuza) which seem to be fine.  

[BitterToad]

 

4 minutes ago, Qazimod said:

I don't know; whenever someone says that big franchises can't do turn-based combat anymore, I look at Persona (and Yakuza) which seem to be fine.  

I had a feeling this would crop up. Yeah if you want to do Yakuza or Persona sales then I'm sure turn based is fine but Square tend to bet the whole bank on these big Final Fantasy games. A bit of wiki research has told me that Persona 5 has sold 5 million units. FFVII remake sold 3.5 million in three days. Final Fantasy XV is at 10 million lifetime sales. 

 

I don't know, I feel like turn based games are out there and really well regarded ones at that. I like the idea that Final Fantasy is this huge expensive thing that goes off in a completely new direction every time. 

[Cyhwuhx]

Request to change the thread title to "Final Fantasy XVI - Attack on Eikon".

[Mr. Gerbik]

16 minutes ago, BitterToad said:

You're just not going to get turn based/RPG style combat in a game they need to make as much money as they do a mainline Final Fantasy these days I don't think. I'd say that it's a DMC 4/5 combat guy leading the charge on the systems is a good thing though. Those games had good fightin'. I personally think the FF7:R combat is about a good a hybrid of turn based RPG style combat layered over a great feeling 3D action game as you're going to get, so I'm excited to see how this plays. 

All fair enough and I know that old traditional farts like me have the next Dragon Quest to look forward to for a high budget modern one of those. So no worries here

 

I do usually like exploring the daft world of a FF game, so I'm just saying I'm willing to dial the combat difficulty down to as easy as they'll allow to enjoy the rest of the game.

[RubberJohnny]

It's definitely had a visual glowup since the first trailer, but it's pretty hard to figure out what's going on onscreen at times there, I still think the turbo flippy combat style clashes with the more grounded medieval aesthetic.

[Ran]

10 hours ago, Calashnikov said:

Combat director Ryota Suzuki worked on Devil May Cry 5.

Doesn't fill me with the joy it should. I binned it off as I thought the control scheme was atrociously fiddly and muddled.. the jump and dodge being mapped to the same button being probably one of the most frustrating things I've dealt with in a while.

[Calashnikov]

44 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

I do usually like exploring the daft world of a FF game, so I'm just saying I'm willing to dial the combat difficulty down to as easy as they'll allow to enjoy the rest of the game.

 

TBF I will absolutely be doing this for Stranger of Paradise or whatever it’s called. I’ve got it here in its shrink wrap, it’s supposed to be a hot mess, and I absolutely cannot be fucked with off-brand Soulsliking so soon after Elden Ring (I’m still only 3 quarters through Elden Ring). But those lads out there wearing the Topman sales rack and acting like dickheads in that weird take on FF1? That I gotta see.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Just now, Calashnikov said:

 

TBF I will absolutely be doing this for Stranger of Paradise or whatever it’s called. I’ve got it here in its shrink wrap, it’s supposed to be a hot mess, and I absolutely cannot be fucked with off-brand Soulsliking so soon after Elden Ring (I’m still only 3 quarters through Elden Ring). But those lads out there wearing the Topman sales rack and acting like dickheads in that weird take on FF1? That I gotta see.

Coincidentally, I'm planning to do the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. I'm waiting for a better sale price though, I'm not in a hurry.

[Calashnikov]

1 hour ago, RubberJohnny said:

It's definitely had a visual glowup since the first trailer, but it's pretty hard to figure out what's going on onscreen at times there, I still think the turbo flippy combat style clashes with the more grounded medieval aesthetic.

I think the utterly incongruous clashing of visual / historical / future / fantasy designs, style and aesthetics is legit one of the top 3 things I love most about this franchise

[Qazimod]

1 hour ago, BitterToad said:

I had a feeling this would crop up. Yeah if you want to do Yakuza or Persona sales then I'm sure turn based is fine but Square tend to bet the whole bank on these big Final Fantasy games. A bit of wiki research has told me that Persona 5 has sold 5 million units. FFVII remake sold 3.5 million in three days. Final Fantasy XV is at 10 million lifetime sales. 

 

I don't know, I feel like turn based games are out there and really well regarded ones at that. I like the idea that Final Fantasy is this huge expensive thing that goes off in a completely new direction every time. 

 

But how much of those sales are due to people going and looking at the gameplay systems? How many units are sold based on attachment to the Final Fantasy name alone? The franchise messes with the formula in its own games and ends up having some unpredictable success stories (Bravely Default outselling Lightning Returns in the west) - and I agree that the new directions are always fascinating, but at the same time I don't know if something as radical as turn-based would be a turn-off.