Final Fantasy 16

[Dreiko]

I just figured out you can use dog combos too if you call Torgal with a magic burst timing after spells and skills, he has a bunch of variations to his moves, and the game never explains any of that! XD One of them reminds me of Akamaru's garouga from naruto lol.

 

[immortalfrieza]

RPG literally stands for ROLE-PLAYING game. Player agency is the core of an RPG.

No it's not. The vast majority of RPG games have zero player agency even today.
Any decisions you are prompted to make are extremely superficial at best. Like:

- "Do you want to go fight this bad guy?"

- "No."

- "Wait, you don't mean that/wait, what did you say?"

- "Do you want to go fight this bad guy?"

- "No."

- "Wait, you don't mean that/wait, what did you say?"

- "Do you want to go fight this bad guy?"

- "No."

- "Wait, you don't mean that/wait, what did you say?"

- "Do you want to go fight this bad guy?"

- "No."

Two hours later

- "Wait, you don't mean that/wait, what did you say?"

- Do you want to go fight this bad guy?"

- "...Yes."

- "Alright, go do it."

You are playing a role, one completely out of your control in the vast majority of RPG games but it's still a role.

Leveling and stats effected by this leveling is the bare minimum a game needs to be an RPG. Everything else is additions including player agency, and whether you're willing to call the game an RPG doesn't matter, they still are, this is a fact. What you consider to be an RPG is irrelevant, it doesn't make these games not an RPG just because you aren't willing to admit that they are.

 

[bluegate]

Played a very large chunk of the game at a friend's place over the weekend and a two things that jumped out for me were;

Weapons and Equipment ( Belt and Armband ) is boring and too simple. Weapons only seem to influence your Attack stat, they don't come with special buffs or abilities. Same goes for Belts and Armbands, they'll only influence your Defense stat. Oh, no, wait, I musn't lie, sometimes a Belt or Armband will also influence your Health. But rather than adding to a Vigor stat and giving you a decent Health boost, they'll add like +13 to your HP pool of 1000+. Virtually useless.

The game's pacing is rather annoying at times. The game has a penchant for sending you off on a little side mission right before you get to do the mission you actually came to a city for. Go to a place to do X, talk to the NPC that is supposed to allow you to do X, only for them to inform you that you'd have to do Y first.

 

[sXeth]

My only real annoyment about 16 being more DMC than FF is that SE made a bunch of stinker in a row and declared that the problem was that people didn't like turn based RPG anymore, but they never actually made a game that failed because it was turn based JRPG. 13 was awful for so many reasons, but the combat wasn't nearly at the top of the problem pile, story was just a bunch of random non sense stabled together sprinkled with awful character. 15 wasn't turn based, it was just a very poor action RPG, it was bad because they chopped the game up in a bunch of piece and expected people to gather them all up themselves... and then filed it with a bad story. With 16 doing well as ARPG, it pretty much guarantee there'll never be a TRPG as a mainline FF game and that's a shame because the system can work just fine, plenty of indie game comes out with variation of it that works just fine, like slay the spire. The execs at SE just sucked for a decades and then declared it wasn't their fault, it was the customer fault.

Eh, they've been outing turn based ones on their budget(*) branding.

*Budget for them, they still be charging full AAA prices for Octopath, Setsuna, et all

 

[Gyrobot]

But on the bright side, we now have a JRPG with a sex scene and can call ourselves mature

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

My only real annoyment about 16 being more DMC than FF is that SE made a bunch of stinker in a row and declared that the problem was that people didn't like turn based RPG anymore, but they never actually made a game that failed because it was turn based JRPG. 13 was awful for so many reasons, but the combat wasn't nearly at the top of the problem pile, story was just a bunch of random non sense stabled together sprinkled with awful character. 15 wasn't turn based, it was just a very poor action RPG, it was bad because they chopped the game up in a bunch of piece and expected people to gather them all up themselves... and then filed it with a bad story. With 16 doing well as ARPG, it pretty much guarantee there'll never be a TRPG as a mainline FF game and that's a shame because the system can work just fine, plenty of indie game comes out with variation of it that works just fine, like slay the spire. The execs at SE just sucked for a decades and then declared it wasn't their fault, it was the customer fault.

This all may be true but it's also clear that this is the game the devs/designers really wanted to make. I mean it certainly feels like a purposeful clear vision made real. This is why I like nitpicking it I guess.

 

[meiam]

Eh, they've been outing turn based ones on their budget(*) branding.

*Budget for them, they still be charging full AAA prices for Octopath, Setsuna, et all

Sure but they've given up making big budget turn base.

This all may be true but it's also clear that this is the game the devs/designers really wanted to make. I mean it certainly feels like a purposeful clear vision made real. This is why I like nitpicking it I guess.

Was it? They literally had to get an outside dev to make the game for them.

 

[CriticalGaming]

But on the bright side, we now have a JRPG with a sex scene and can call ourselves mature

Ive not seen any sex yet. Im very upset by this. I was promised a titty maybe, but ive seen no titties!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So I'm in the late game... or latER game, I dunno.. and one thing about the side quests is they do sort of connect and progress character and world arcs, so that's good. Unfortunately the quests are still lame and the characters are all tropes so it's... whatever, but it's something, and it's there. Which is yet another thing it has in common with certain other action games of franchises that I shall not mention for a while.

I've also started playing more of the abilities and some of them are cool as hell. I'm also hitting a weird point of balancing- sometimes I'll take out a swarm of enemies in flash and sometimes my fingers burn from drag-out fights with sponges. But this too is typical of these games, with level numbers and all that.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Dogs and chocobos are immortal in this game. Torgal is like 18 years old or something and still can fight like he's in his prime.

 

[Hawki]

Still talking about real RPGs?

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Yo, lemme tell you about the most bullshit thing in this game.
You know those hunts, those beasts you gotta find, the cool fights? Well twice this bullshit happened to me:
I back away from their area of effect or huge range attacks, but step outside the battle arena, which isn't clearly marked. This resets the whole fight.
What... the... fuck. No, no... just, games should not do that, this isn't fair. And I mean reset as in... it gets its health and poise meters back up to full, but I do not, and my consumable are gone.
The first time this happened to me I was taking on a beast at a higher level- you know, for the challenge. At the moment I put aside my complaints about the game's weaknesses to focus on its strengths- the combat, the encounters, the enemies- it failed in a basic way, punishing my desire to genuinely engage with its best systems. What crap.

The only thing worse is that "sex scene" y'all been talking about. Woo boy.. but, maybe your tolerance for JRPG nonsense will let you enjoy it more if you're more into that stuff than me. I was lmao the whole time.

I haven't talked about, like, graphics and level design yet? I am playing on whatever "quality" mode is because I want all the damn graphics I paid, I don't know how many frames or whatnot. Obviously this thing is gorgeous as it has been presented in the marketing.. obviously. Level design and aesthetic is, unfortunately, pretty rote medieval fantasy stuff. Brown villages and green fields, nothing particularly interesting. All the visual creativity went into the eikons (I love how when the humans turn into their eikon the eikons kind of look like them but godlike? that is my jam, artistically).

The thing about levels struck me in a big main quest culminating in one of the big eikon fights and it's just identical room to identical room with combat area... really lame, actually. Then awesome boss fight... it's like this game picked the few things it would excel at and Comet Azured its energy into those and kind of farted on the rest. Fortunately those few things are worth it.

edit to add that that when you first engage with one of them monster hunts, the intro looks like Bayonetta. I know there's some shared DNA with the devs and u/Brawlman is A #1 fan of that series 'round here so, that's cool. It's a good gimmick.

 

[sXeth]

Well, as a series goes:

You can have a series of disconnected stories in a similar genre. This typically requires a framing device though (a la the Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, the Dark Pictures Games, etc). FF is not really doing that becase they flip around the genre too much and there is no framing anchor point.

You can have a specific universe that tales take place in (a la Forgotten Realms, or Star Wars, or whatnot). Again, FF is not doing this, at tenous best maybe 5 or 6 out of 16 times have the vaguest easter eggs you could fan string theory some idea of a connection between.

You can have a specific character to follow. This is one of the most common ones in videogames (intentionally or unintentionally, as Mass effect, Metal Gear, and other sundries have found out.

Or you can have an ongoing storyline to follow. Also pretty popular, but the AAA venture capitalist mentality doesn't allow this to exist properly because stories have ends and brands must be forever.

Or the most baseline, you can anchor on gameplay concepts. Where genereally your genre won't actually shift.

They aren't all mutually exclusive. But for a series to have an identity is have to have some anchor, and ahaving played every one except 15, I can't say that FF really has one, or has had one in literal years (which is to say, the current wailing about it is about 25 years too late)


As the RPG or not debate goes, that's getting close on 35 lol. Probably hearkening back ot the first Zelda (not an RPG, for my own two cents on that. And most of its descedants in fantasy setting action games really aren't either) if not earlier.

The earliest wave of the RPG video games (your Ultimas, Wizardry, Might and Magics. the gold box D&D era) still did offer some distinctive choice elements though. The narratives weren't complex or deep but you generally created your choice of character(s) and got set loose in what was generally also the earliest examples of open worlds. Free to pursue things in whatever order (provided you could defeat the relevant Beef Gate enemies). Actual story progression was always kind of in the same sequenece but thats basically always gonna be the case.

 

[bluegate]

I back away from their area of effect or huge range attacks, but step outside the battle arena, which isn't clearly marked. This resets the whole fight.
What... the... fuck. No, no... just, games should not do that, this isn't fair. And I mean reset as in... it gets its health and poise meters back up to full, but I do not, and my consumable are gone.

I have seen a red line on the ground several times, isn't that what this is for?

 

[BrawlMan]

Final Fantasy 16 is the fifth biggest UK boxed launch of 2023 (so far) | UK Boxed Charts

Sonic Origins Plus debuts at No.3 in the UK

www.gamesindustry.biz

UK Charts: Unsurprisingly, Final Fantasy XVI Knocks Zelda: TOTK Down A Peg

Battle of the Eikons

www.nintendolife.com

 

[CriticalGaming]

I didnt get as far into the game as i had hoped. Because after the epic eikon battles i found myself needing a break. And im not sure that is a bad thing. The highs and crazy moments are fucking wild and awesome. But each one left me needing to go do something else for a while.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I have seen a red line on the ground several times, isn't that what this is for?

Yes. In some battles there are red lines, and you can't cross those red lines, locking you into the battle.
The monster hunts are different because you can actually run into the monsters on your own- the hunting boards are just clues and lore. This way you have the option to flee the battle. So no red line.

And I actually like that- it was the source of one of the best moments, where was doing some other side quest and tried to shortcut map traversal by fast traveling to another waypoint, and encountered one of the bounties that was higher level than me and is basically a glorified version of an enemy type you encounter elsewhere. I decided to just fight it one time and if I'd fail, just avoid it, finish the mission and find it later. But I beat it with like no health and no potions left and I felt like a rock star. You know, fun video game stuff.

So... I unlocked the last set of abilities and am at the final main quest. I'd like to share my thoughts about the combat and abilities now that I've experienced its full breadth but I don't wanna spoil nothing for nobody...
Of course before I finish the campaign I want to do all the side stuff, monster hunts, etc- and a LOT of side stuff only becomes available at this point, so even thoug I'm almost done I'm not gonna be done.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Yeah I think there are more universally hated FF games, than universally liked. I'd say 13 is probably most hated and X is the most liked if I had to pick ones. But either way there is always debate.

X over VII….? You of all people saying this… . Guessing it must be because of VA.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

I didnt get as far into the game as i had hoped. Because after the epic eikon battles i found myself needing a break. And im not sure that is a bad thing. The highs and crazy moments are fucking wild and awesome. But each one left me needing to go do something else for a while.

Those are what keeps me going, honestly. I find the british accents and the constant swearing and pine forests and the medieval villages a bit tedious, but then I got to the Ifrit fight and I was almost elated that despite the games devotion to a type of fantasy fiction I don't like very much is still a JRPG at heart. You know, by every standard of conventionally "good" writing a scene like that, where the protagonist comes to terms with his own guilt, would be played as a quiet, introspective moment.

That FF XVI turns it into a three phase bossfight where you fight a giant monster, then yourself and then yourself in Devil Trigger mode in the middle of a burning crater shows me that despite the gritty tone and the attempts to portray plotlpoints like slavery and war with some degree of gravity, it's still as unconcerned with restraint and subtlety as ever. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[CriticalGaming]

X over VII….? You of all people saying this… . Guessing it must be because of VA.

I feel like VII falls kind of in 2nd or 3rd place in terms of FF games overall. I might be wrong based on the response to the 7 Remake though. But I feel like older gamers like 6 better, and the slightly younger gamers favor 10, because 6 and 10 seem to pop up more as the "best" FF games in the series more often.

Those are what keeps me going, honestly. I find the british accents and the constant swearing and pine forests and the medieval villages a bit tedious, but then I got to the Ifrit fight and I was almost elated that despite the games devotion to a type of fantasy fiction I don't like very much is still a JRPG at heart. You know, by every standard of conventionally "good" writing a scene like that, where the protagonist comes to terms with his own guilt, would be played as a quiet, introspective moment.

That FF XVI turns it into a three phase bossfight where you fight a giant monster, then yourself and then yourself in Devil Trigger mode in the middle of a burning crater shows me that despite the gritty tone and the attempts to portray plotlpoints like slavery and war with some degree of gravity, it's still as unconcerned with restraint and subtlety as ever. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

These moments are such peaks, that I need a cooldown period lol. They are great and the build up is wonderful, but when the fire fades I need a break....or a viagra.