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Final Fantasy XVI and Next-Gen Gameplay

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GymWolf

Member
Lol tlou2 has nothing nextgen in its gameplay whatsoever except maybe animations because it use motion matching.

I don't think that ff of all games need nextgen gameplay tbh, it just need to have a solid combat system and all the things that people love about ff.
 
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ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
No, you dont get it

Because after saying that, you started comparing a trailer from a game that never existed to a game that will be launching next month

Nocts warp ability would never work in a working game. How would you be able to aim where to warp to during combat? Thats why in the final game you could only warp to specific objects (it was worthless)
This is a pretty dumb comment considering warping in the trailer was relegated to enemies and set points like vertices on ledges or some type of pole - just like the final game.

If you want a more functional example, see Insomniac's Spider-Man games where the world is chocked full with points you can zip to by having a good camera and auto-reticle system. On top of that, you can manually aim and web zip too. There is nothing precluding this design for a warp like Noctis'.

Environmental destruction also didnt make the final cut. Probably because it wouldnt work in open environments, where the game takes place 90% of the time.
Because the consoles it was targeted for didn't have the juice to provide it. That has changed now.

"The scripted set piece has Noctis fighting in different spaces and warping between moving airships as Altissia crumbles in a tidal wave. I've seen nothing of FF16 that looks anywhere close to this scale."

You also havent seen anything like that in the actual FF XV game, btw.
In FF15, no. In Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, even fucking Prototype on the PS3, and many others, we have seen setpieves that touch on that to some degree.

You should be noticing a trend here. As I said before, nothing I'm talking about here is entirely unseen or unattainable. It's been done before to varying degrees. For the 3rd fucking time, this is why I put "next gen gameplay" in quotation marks.

And seriously, are you really complaining about scale in a game where summons can battle each other?

What other game can offer this sense of scale? I can only think of God of War 3
God of War 3 does not offer that sense of scale in the actual moment-moment gameplay. The boss battles against the likes of Poseidon are all visual spectacle, zero mechanical complexity.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Lol tlou2 has nothing nextgen in its gameplay whatsoever except maybe animations because it use motion matching.
It's easy to be reductive, but the animation systems actually add a lot of mechanical and strategic dynamism to combat encounters. The dodge mechanic introduces timing and enemy pushback challenges that a lot of games can't manage without being and/or feeling totally cheap. Pushing enemies up against walls has its own animation thay looks and feels smooth, transitions you to a state where you can kill an enemy a lot faster without direct pushback, all while possibly opens you up to attacks from other enemy characters in your surroundings.

The fact that heavies can drag you out from under cover forces the player to stay on the move, or keep the pressure on in defense. I could list and explain more, but you get the idea.

I don't think that ff of all games need nextgen gameplay tbh, it just need to have a solid combat system and all the things that people love about ff.
No, this game does not need it.

I will, again, quote my own OP:
To be clear, I do believe that Final Fantasy XVI will be a damn good game. Probably the fastest selling yet, cleanest success FF game in 20 years
 

Spaceman292

Banned
It's easy to be reductive, but the animation systems actually add a lot of mechanical and strategic dynamism to combat encounters. The dodge mechanic introduces timing and enemy pushback challenges that a lot of games can't manage without being and/or feeling totally cheap. Pushing enemies up against walls has its own animation thay looks and feels smooth, transitions you to a state where you can kill an enemy a lot faster without direct pushback, all while possibly opens you up to attacks from other enemy characters in your surroundings.

The fact that heavies can drag you out from under cover forces the player to stay on the move, or keep the pressure on in defense. I could list and explain more, but you get the idea.


No, this game does not need it.

I will, again, quote my own OP:
You're still just talking about animations rather than actual game play. The animations are amazing, but they don't add 'mechanical and strategic dynamism to combat encounters' or whatever. The gameplay would be the same even if Ellie was just t-posing the whole time.
 

hyperbertha

Member
That’s why turn based is wildly more popular as people age, right? Um…nope

Turn based is fine, but it’s ancient and largely outdated and solves a problem that no longer exists

You can combine the depth of turn based options with the dexterity, skill, and engagement that action provides
There is no way to have the depth of options within the small time frames that action games provide. No modern action game has provided the engagement that persona 5 has.
And are you seriously judging quality based on popularity? The more niche something is, the higher the quality tends to be. My muscle memory is well honed from years of playing. Dmc esque combat does not challenge me in any meaningful way. It's always mindless dodging and pressing the a button until all enemies are dead. Mindless action is outdated.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
OP. You don't stand a chance questioning anything to do with this game. There's a large fanbase that has already decided the games amazing without ever playing it and will argue to the teether that it is completely a traditional final fantasy RPG when it looks like DMC meets Azuras wrath with light rpg elements to many people that grew up with the franchise.

Does that mean it's going to be bad, nope. Does that mean it's not got a chance of being amazing! Hell no. But the section of people who have decided that this game is amazing, including some of the so called journalists has me cautious on if any of the messaging near launch will actually be relevant.

I'm hoping it's amazing but I'm going to wait for the dust to settle.

If it stays as 30fps traversal and 60 fps combat...I don't care what is said about it...I'm waiting for PC version.

Just be careful when saying it doesn't look like a traditional final fantasy.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Apparently the performance mode in this is very lackluster and not smooth at all.



Mentioned several times throughout these impressions.

However they are VERY HIGH on the game overall.


Yay, more none to borderline final fantasy fans talking about how it's going to be in their top 5 this year...and a hype man saying its a character action game.... and game of the year before playing the finished game....classic kinda funny hype.

These are people who are going to review this game and have already decided ita their game of the year from playing previews....from a playstation podcast....its god of war ragnarok all over again.
 

GymWolf

Member
It's easy to be reductive, but the animation systems actually add a lot of mechanical and strategic dynamism to combat encounters. The dodge mechanic introduces timing and enemy pushback challenges that a lot of games can't manage without being and/or feeling totally cheap. Pushing enemies up against walls has its own animation thay looks and feels smooth, transitions you to a state where you can kill an enemy a lot faster without direct pushback, all while possibly opens you up to attacks from other enemy characters in your surroundings.

The fact that heavies can drag you out from under cover forces the player to stay on the move, or keep the pressure on in defense. I could list and explain more, but you get the idea.


No, this game does not need it.

I will, again, quote my own OP:
Agree to disagree, i played that game 2 times on grounded for an amount of more than 50 hours and it was even my goty for that year, but none of what you say is new or nextgen, good animations are just that, good animations.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Turn based is fine, but it’s ancient and largely outdated and solves a problem that no longer exists

You can combine the depth of turn based options with the dexterity, skill, and engagement that action provides
Turn based is meant to emulate board games. It was not designed solely to deal with hardware limitations.

And no, you cannot combine the depth of turn based combat with action based one just like that. They live under very different paradigms. You cannot make real-time combat chess and still call it chess.
 

geary

Member
OP. You don't stand a chance questioning anything to do with this game. There's a large fanbase that has already decided the games amazing without ever playing it and will argue to the teether that it is completely a traditional final fantasy RPG when it looks like DMC meets Azuras wrath with light rpg elements to many people that grew up with the franchise.

Does that mean it's going to be bad, nope. Does that mean it's not got a chance of being amazing! Hell no. But the section of people who have decided that this game is amazing, including some of the so called journalists has me cautious on if any of the messaging near launch will actually be relevant.

I'm hoping it's amazing but I'm going to wait for the dust to settle.

If it stays as 30fps traversal and 60 fps combat...I don't care what is said about it...I'm waiting for PC version.

Just be careful when saying it doesn't look like a traditional final fantasy.
And why do you think that happened? For some is clear why, for others not so much.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Agree to disagree, i played that game 2 times on grounded for an amount of more than 50 hours and it was even my goty for that year, but none of what you say is new or nextgen, good animations are just that, good animations.
Fair enough. I'll only make 2 more points, not to persuade you, but to justify my statements.

1. I agree that it's not new. I do think it's a cut above the rest, which is why, again, I use "next gen" in quotes throughout the whole thread.

2. To me, animations and animation quality do and should have a material impact on gameplay. In the mechanical sense, they should alter the hitboxes, appropriately respond to collision, and match the mechanical risk-reward nature of a given combat manuver. In a game feel sense, I think it's pretty obvious why animations are important.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I agree that it's not new. I do think it's a cut above the rest, which is why, again, I use "next gen" in quotes throughout the whole thread.
This is why I disagree about your entire premise for this thread, for me TLOU is not "next gen" or "cut above all else" not even close.
 
OP. You don't stand a chance questioning anything to do with this game. There's a large fanbase that has already decided the games amazing without ever playing it and will argue to the teether that it is completely a traditional final fantasy RPG when it looks like DMC meets Azuras wrath with light rpg elements to many people that grew up with the franchise.

Does that mean it's going to be bad, nope. Does that mean it's not got a chance of being amazing! Hell no. But the section of people who have decided that this game is amazing, including some of the so called journalists has me cautious on if any of the messaging near launch will actually be relevant.

I'm hoping it's amazing but I'm going to wait for the dust to settle.

If it stays as 30fps traversal and 60 fps combat...I don't care what is said about it...I'm waiting for PC version.

Just be careful when saying it doesn't look like a traditional final fantasy.

Wha what waiittt a second ...it has dynamic framerate? 30 fps traversal > 60 fps combat? Where did you hear that? Can't be true .
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
This is why I disagree about your entire premise for this thread, for me TLOU is not "next gen" or "cut above all else" not even close.
Yeah, I know you've got a stick up your ass about that.
Thing is, you're allowed to have your opinion, and I'm allowed not to care. I'm not going to get into an argument about an objective metric like animation quality. Much less am I going to get into an argument about it when it's a reference to one game that is miniscule to the rest of the OP and discussion in this thread.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Yeah, I know you've got a stick up your ass about that.
Thing is, you're allowed to have your opinion, and I'm allowed not to care. I'm not going to get into an argument about an objective metric like animation quality. Much less am I going to get into an argument about it when it's a reference to one game that is miniscule to the rest of the OP and discussion in this thread.
Animation quality isn't gameplay.

Also, if said animation can run perfectly fine in last gen hardware, it isn't next-gen.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Yeah, I know you've got a stick up your ass about that.
Thing is, you're allowed to have your opinion, and I'm allowed not to care. I'm not going to get into an argument about an objective metric like animation quality. Much less am I going to get into an argument about it when it's a reference to one game that is miniscule to the rest of the OP and discussion in this thread.
We are talking about game with highly fast paced combat compare to stealth based shooter. They are VASTlY different game from each other, in fast action combat like FFXVI, precision and responsiveness is more important than detail animation while game like TLOU is slower paced and is not trying be over the top, so it has more realistic animation.
 
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ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
We are talking about game with highly fast paced combat compare to stealth based shooter. They are VASTlY different game from each other, in fast action combat like FFXVI, precision and responsiveness is more important than detail animation while game like TLOU is slower paced and is not trying be over the top, so it has more realistic animation.
What you seem not to be getting it is that I'm not saying this game, or any FF should change to fit into a TLOU mold. TLOU is an example of what I think the foundations of higher tier combat are - applied in the context of a grounded action/adventure TPS; but an example nonetheless. You don't even have to agree that it's the best (I notice you think that RE4 and Vanquish more enjoyable) but you cannot sit there and say that the combat doesn't take level design, positioning, spacing, and enemy design into account.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
What you seem not to be getting it is that I'm not saying this game, or any FF should change to fit into a TLOU mold. TLOU is an example of what I think the foundations of higher tier combat are - applied in the context of a grounded action/adventure TPS; but an example nonetheless. You don't even have to agree that it's the best (I notice you think that RE4 and Vanquish more enjoyable) but you cannot sit there and say that the combat doesn't take level design, positioning, spacing, and enemy design into account.

What make you think FFXVI doesn’t take enemy design in to account? Not only we have different type of enemies both monsters and humans but also in FFXVI you can’t launch every enemies to do air combo based on their size and weight.

I don’t know maybe your issue with FFXVI or DMC combat and gameplay because they are less grounded but that’s actually positive for me.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
Some of you guys really have to work on your reading comprehension.
I am not saying "FF16 should have guns and stealth mechanics and crafting". I am saying that what defines "next gen gameplay" to me is the fleshing out and intersection of player character combat capabilities, enemy combat capabilities, level design, environmental interactivity and traversal. This is a mostly genre agnostic design philosophy.

I said that I find DMC's juggle combat design to be lacking. I think the appeal is also generally limited. I think FF16 looks different enough from DMC to the point that it won't be a problem for the game, but the interest here is relatively understated, and I think that whatever resemblance it does bear to DmC it part of the reason for it.


You will notice that the only audio-visuals I provided for the OP are the 2013 videos for Final Fantasy XV.

I'll take this opportunity to also mention the upcoming Kingdom Hearts IV. There's is not much, but what we have seen is a good sign to me. Sora is faced with an enemy much larger than him in a large and vertically scaled environment. In order to attack it, he has to scale his surroundings, and seems to be able to go very high. On top of that, he is forced to respond to the enemy's use of the environment. In previous KH games, this would all boil down to jumping 10 feet in the air and performing an aerial combo.


I'm someone who is wanting to buy a PS5 solely for Final Fantasy XVI and I agree with you.

You aren't saying FFXVI should have TLOU Part 2 gameplay. You are highlighting how seamless and dynamic it is. People severely underestimate the gameplay of that game and I will die on that hill. After playing Zelda TotK, I am wanting more dynamic gameplay.

With that said, I still think I would have tons of fun with FFXVI and the combat seems to be in the best hands possible. I still think it could looks more next gen, but it does have some impressive things going for it as it seamlessly goes from one setpiece to another. Especially with the Eikon battles that have you switching genres like Nier Automata.

I will have to go in with the expectations that it isn't trying to be that kind of gameplay. That is okay. For now. I do hope the next FF title will have more of what you wrote. With that said, this looks like the best FF title by a landslide.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Wha what waiittt a second ...it has dynamic framerate? 30 fps traversal > 60 fps combat? Where did you hear that? Can't be true .

In these previews the traversal was 30 fps and the combat was 60...there were a lot of performance issues.

Luckily some influencers who can actually do a job asked square and they committed to it being 60 fps across traversal and combat by launch.

Let's see.
 

Kumomeme

Member
Well, apparently we aren't getting any kind of "next gen gameplay" anytime soon. Goddammit.
more like your personal preferences of what "next gen gameplay" is

which is fine by me honestly, since everyone has their own taste. as long there is no effort of trying to shove the view toward others.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
have you played Dragons Dogma? with 2nd game coming out maybe that exactly the game you are looking for.
Dragon's Dogma 2 looks fine in terms of visuals, but it doesn't look much like they've really broadened or deepened the scope of combat.

Calling down a meteor shower should bust up the environment big time. The best example of destruction we got was the breaking of a wooden bridge not 20 feet long.

more like your personal preferences of what "next gen gameplay" is

which is fine by me honestly, since everyone has their own taste. as long there is no effort of trying to shove the view toward others.
Did you see anything there that looked mechanically ambitious?
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Dragon's Dogma 2 looks fine in terms of visuals, but it doesn't look much like they've really broadened or deepened the scope of combat.
I mean you said wanted more interacting between the player and enemies and in Dragon Dogma you literally can climb on big enemies while fighting them.

Did you see anything there that looked mechanically ambitious?
Except no one know what exactly you mean by "ambitious". I mean you want destructible environments you can play Red Faction: Guerrilla.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
what i see is someone has his own personal 'ideal preferences' over certain type of gameplay.
I mean let’s look at in practical way, according to him….
Calling down a meteor shower should bust up the environment big time
Now in Dragons Dogma you have other characters also fighting using spells and each those spells also causing destruction in environments, now think about all them fighting together at once. It becomes visuals mess of derby and destruction everywhere.

His idea seems exciting on paper but in reality it’s not practical or fun this is why you don’t see most devs do this often. Remember Metal Gear Rising before Platinum Games got involved? The concept was you can partially cut anything and everything, it sounds cool with cool tech but devs were having hard time actually making proper game around that concept because players end up cutting everything and destroying the level design.
 
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Kumomeme

Member
I mean let’s look at in practical way, according to him….

Now in Dragons Dogma you have other characters also fighting using spells and each those spells also causing destruction in environments, now think about all them fighting together at once. It becomes visuals mess of derby and destruction everywhere.

His idea seems exciting on paper but in reality it’s not practical or fun this is why you don’t see most devs do this often. Remember Metal Gear Rising before Platinum Games got involved? The concept was you can partially cut anything and everything, it sounds cool with cool tech but devs were having hard time actually making proper game around that concept because players end up cutting everything and destroying the level design.
yep. like my first reply on this post previously, his idea also based on a vertical slice gameplay of non existance version of video game. i get there is people expecting for some crazy innovative unthinkable of novel idea gameplay design formula(which is he also doesnt has an idea of what it is could be). but in the end practical matters. pretty sure developers would like become very very ambitious but in the end the final build they released is something resulted from countless of testing and reasoning of game design. im not suprise one of reason why devs ditched lot of stuff in FFXV reveal trailer is due to they cant prepare proper gameplay element to accomodate the system. for example that noctics warp around airship. to do that they need tons of high vertical area and tons of flying enemy. but in the end the game didnt have those things. open world just flat barren. Insomnia remain locked hidden in game. so not suprise they ditched it rather than put something half assed(the game end up half assed anyway). pretty sure they tried lot of things especially during pre production phase. in the end balance need to be achieved. there is no all rounder gameplay design that excel of everything and everything has a cost to develop for. there always pro and cons and there is advantages of focusing on certain aspect only. for FF16 it is clear they aimed for DMC-ish flashy sword combat fight. why there is people suddenly expected for a stealth gameplay lol? by this logic we should also ask for 3rd person shooter element too.

what funny is, environmental destruction is actually existed, as i timestamped the state of play video on my first reply previously.

we actually already at a period where gameplay design already at diminished return phase, atleast since ps360 days. heck, the element destruction also already existed in action combat of The Last Story on Wii. on a fuc*kin Wii! nothing new or 'next gen' much at this point already. at this point, nothing much 'new' can be invented anymore. we not at PS1-PS2 era, anymore where people first time encounter 3D. so anything we got today just a fruit of game design or artistic choice based on developers direction. at most, things would happen in bigger scale thats all. advancement of fast storage or stronger CPU wont change core gameplay much anymore aside increase in scale. in these past 2 decade we only got cool stuff like Nemesis system or the warp tech on Rachet and Clank but core gameplay pretty much unchanged. even TLOU2 combat also just same stuff we already seen. the differences is the execution. it even on PS4, so i wont count that as 'next generation either'. same goes to BOTW gameplay for example. i dare to say any core idea of gameplay can be run on any device, even smartphone today with exception of scale numbers. we progressed that much.

to be fair from FF16 gameplay we already see tons of stuff that take advantages of newest console hardware. those fast movement gameplay set piece with large scale against large enemy with tons of object flying around obviously leverage the stronger CPU and faster storage.

and most importantly, the game not even released yet to draw full conclusion.
 
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Ozzie666

Member
Just watched Maxmillian's review/preview. I was sold already, now I am pretty hyped and excited to play it. Really sounds like a great future step for the franchise. I still miss turn based, but the FF7 remake was a nice mix. Diablo 4 and FFXVI, what a great month for gaming. Expecting a lot from Yoshi and this game and a return to form. I hated 15 and the setting, so I didn't give it much of a chance. I think since FFX my interest dropped a bit with this franchise (except for online)
 

nikolino840

Member
Q: When selecting the "Performance First" mode in this demo, some places still seem to be a bit stuttering, will these areas be corrected before release? In addition, some players have legend that the game will use 30FPS when exploring the map, and then adjust it to 60FPS when entering the battle, is there really such a system design?

A: Regarding the problem of stuttering, because the game is really about to be released, I am afraid that it will be difficult for us to adjust it before the release, but it is not impossible to fix it through updates in the future. As for the system, we are not designed to 30FPS when exploring and 60FPS when fighting, although the performance priority mode will make the upper limit of FPS to 60FPS, but the actual FPS still depends on the current situation.

In response to the claim that FPS is relatively high in battle, there is a possibility that we do spend more time adjusting the battle, so the optimization of this part may be better; Another possibility is that we will also take some tricks when fighting, for example, during the battle, people will not look carefully at the background, light and shadow changes, and only focus on the characters, so it will feel that the FPS seems to become relatively high.

 

Dr. Claus

Banned
First because it doesn't play like a Final Fantasy (i.e. not ATB or turn-based combat, no controllable party members)

Also because it feels too streamlined and rigid, like every other AAA game out there that bombards the player with cutscenes and interruptions.
They're putting too much emphasis on the flashy stuff, which gives the impression it was intentionally exaggerated to mask the blandness of it all.

There's no reason developers can't do something as crazy as Dragon's Dogma, 10 years after its release.

Final Fantasy hasn't been turnbased longer than it ever was turnbased. You need to move on and stop crying about it not being turnbased.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Final Fantasy hasn't been turnbased longer than it ever was turnbased. You need to move on and stop crying about it not being turnbased.
I dont mind FF goes for more action combat as long as they sill make games like Octopath, I would be sad if SE stopes making turn based all together.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
So, there are reports about lagging pre-order numbers compared to FF15 and FF7 Remake, even accounting for exclusivity (and I don't think that's accounting for much), and people have already started taking that, missing for the "accounting for exclusivity" and the entire FF7 Remake half of the point, and misdiagnosing the problem here within an hour.

Some, for obvious platform fanboy reasons, blame exclusivity on PlayStation, others bizarrely attribute it to not being turn based, and others attribute it to FF15 in particular being a disappointment.

I said before that the hype was muted, and I'm now fully vindicated in that. Far be it from to also say I'm totally vindicated in the why, but I maintain that what the game is displaying isn't blowing anyone away.
 

Pelao

Member
I think the only mainline single player Final Fantasy games I didn't like, to the point that I didn't even finish them, were II and XIII, so I'm confident I'll enjoy XVI as well. I've liked everything I've seen.
Also, I guess I'm one of the minority that never had a problem with XV. In fact, I plan to replay it this week in anticipation of XVI.
 

Vognerful

Member
So, there are reports about lagging pre-order numbers compared to FF15 and FF7 Remake, even accounting for exclusivity (and I don't think that's accounting for much), and people have already started taking that, missing for the "accounting for exclusivity" and the entire FF7 Remake half of the point, and misdiagnosing the problem here within an hour.

Some, for obvious platform fanboy reasons, blame exclusivity on PlayStation, others bizarrely attribute it to not being turn based, and others attribute it to FF15 in particular being a disappointment.

I said before that the hype was muted, and I'm now fully vindicated in that. Far be it from to also say I'm totally vindicated in the why, but I maintain that what the game is displaying isn't blowing anyone away.
I wasn't following closely on how what is in the new FF, but I saw someone posting something and I found it suspicious to be true:

no option/secret Bosses and dungeons, barely any exploration, no RPG mechanics,

Is this true?
 

Vognerful

Member
I think the only mainline single player Final Fantasy games I didn't like, to the point that I didn't even finish them, were II and XIII, so I'm confident I'll enjoy XVI as well. I've liked everything I've seen.
Also, I guess I'm one of the minority that never had a problem with XV. In fact, I plan to replay it this week in anticipation of XVI.
IS the PC version worth it? I played it long ago on xbox but I got bored really after a couple of hours.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
So, there are reports about lagging pre-order numbers compared to FF15 and FF7 Remake, even accounting for exclusivity

Yeah, we're totally going to believe the vague "report" from a former journalist who's totally not trying too hard to draw attention to his thin patreon about how many pre-orders a game has 😂

According to this dude, Square Enix talked about the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth because of FFXVI's (alleged) pre-order situation and totally not because it's been a year from its reveal and it may have naturally been high time to say something. 😂

and I'm now fully vindicated

If someone saying something on the internet without a shred of evidence or even logic makes you feel "fully vindicated" it's very easy to make you happy. Good for you! 😂

but I maintain that what the game is displaying isn't blowing anyone away.

I played a few hours of it, and it certainly blew me away. Way more than any turn-based game Square Enix made in the past several years as a matter of fact. And I love turn-based games (without being a mindless fanatic about a game mechanic, which is extremely irrational).

So here's one, which makes your statement factually wrong. 🤗
 
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attribute it to FF15 in particular being a disappointment.
this is a huge factor.

remember that 15 was built-up from Versus XIII As the only hope after the shitshow that was the lighting saga.

People are skeptical. and FF has had pretty lackluster story-telling for a long time now.....this is why, the most important thing for FF16 is to have a pretty mind blowing story; that feel well made and COMPLETE.

In terms of gameplay....if welk executed we could see new fans giving this franchise a chance for the first time. (God of war 2018)
 

Madflavor

Member
So, there are reports about lagging pre-order numbers compared to FF15 and FF7 Remake, even accounting for exclusivity (and I don't think that's accounting for much), and people have already started taking that, missing for the "accounting for exclusivity" and the entire FF7 Remake half of the point, and misdiagnosing the problem here within an hour.

Some, for obvious platform fanboy reasons, blame exclusivity on PlayStation, others bizarrely attribute it to not being turn based, and others attribute it to FF15 in particular being a disappointment.

I said before that the hype was muted, and I'm now fully vindicated in that. Far be it from to also say I'm totally vindicated in the why, but I maintain that what the game is displaying isn't blowing anyone away.

Nope. Sounds like good ol' fashion confirmation bias rearing it's ugly head here.

Let me set the record straight. The Final Fantasy Franchise's sales have stagnated over the years for a number of reasons. First is because it's hard to maintain momentum when there's 6-7 years between your last mainline entry. Second because from 2010 onward, the quality of the franchise noticeably dropped, and has only recently been recovering and gotten better. Third, JRPGs are more niche in the modern era than they used to be. All three of these reasons combined have made a contribution to FFXVI's lack of hype on the same scale as say other big IPs.

But let's go back three years and talk viewership and interest.

FFXVI struggled to get high trailer views since it was first revealed back in 2020. FFVII:R on the other hand, had quadruple the amount of views when it was revealed. FFVII:R was the most hotly requested remake for a game that was legendary amongst the gaming community. Yet despite all of this, it only sold 5 million in 3 months, and we haven't heard a thing since. Developers and Publishers almost never shy away from flexing their commercial sales muscles if a game is selling well. Their silence on FFVII:R's sales these past 3 years has been deafening, and tells you all you need to know. If FFVII:R didn't do exceptionally well with sales, it was clear XVI was going to have an uphill battle. None of this is surprising when you look at Final Fantasy over the past decade or so. FFXIII was very divisive and it's sequels ate up the entire 7th gen. FFXIV 1.0 was an unbelievable disaster. And FFXV, while better received than FFXIII, didn't live up to the hype and was an uneven mess. FFXVI was always going to be a game that would rely more on great reviews and word of mouth in order to generate good long term sales.
 
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sigmaZ

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I think the ideal system going forward needs to maintain some of the more strategic elements even if it is essentially an ARPG. I would like to see a battle system where you string basic attacks using button combos ala the Soul Caliber series and then have an ATB gauge like in the ff7 remake that let's you commit more strategic attacks and magic. I think FF16 will be fine but I have my doubts to as how dynamic it will feel. My biggest concern is how spongey enemies will be and how that will play out over the course of the campaign. I don't want to be constantly stuck fighting simple enemies that take a million hits. These days there's a lot of games I set to easy just because minor enemies are so spongey.
 
I think the ideal system going forward needs to maintain some of the more strategic elements even if it is essentially an ARPG. I would like to see a battle system where you string basic attacks using button combos ala the Soul Caliber series and then have an ATB gauge like in the ff7 remake that let's you commit more strategic attacks and magic. I think FF16 will be fine but I have my doubts to as how dynamic it will feel. My biggest concern is how spongey enemies will be and how that will play out over the course of the campaign. I don't want to be constantly stuck fighting simple enemies that take a million hits. These days there's a lot of games I set to easy just because minor enemies are so spongey.
this is an interesting aspect. i forget how FF was a "menu selection game" some people played it for the story alone. and "action" games were not their thing.

but one a franchise has failed in one way or another so consistently over the years the only thing to hope is a revulsive for the entire franchise.
 
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