When I heard that the Team Ninja guys behind Nioh were making a Final Fantasy game, I was super excited because Nioh is frankly fucking fantastic and Final Fantasy is also usually pretty awesome too. What could go wrong if you married the two IP's together? As rumored the game was revealed to us at E3 and it looked nothing like i expected. Meme's instantly generated around the main protagonist Jack, as people were very confused as to why he looked like a normal dude in T-shirt and Jeans.
Turns out that's because this game is like Nioh in some ways, and nothing like it in others.
Namely there is loot, and like in Nioh, there is a lot of it. Jack looks boring for about 13 seconds until the loot starts dropping and you get badass looking cloaks, boots, pants, helms, gloves, and all that shit. So the loot system instantly explains away why the dude is pretty generic in the reveal footage.
The loot is about where the comparisons to Nioh have to stop though which saddens me, but might make other people happy. Firstly there is no stamina system in place here, you can attack and dodge all you want. Additionally there is no currency system that is lost on death like with Nioh and the Souls games that inspired it. Enemies do come back after you die or when you touch a checkpoint but that's really about it.
Combat plays like a slower Devil May Cry honestly. You attack with a combination of R1 and R2 and depending on how you intermix these buttons depends on the combos you do. And the game heavily suggests you should memorize your combo patterns, because it's the big final attack of the combo that will yield the most result. Enemies can die 1 of 2 ways. You can either just finish off their health, or you can break them. The break system is a yellow bar under their health and if you break them then you can do those cool finishers you saw in the trailer. Basically the reason to do this is to generate mana which you use to do a couple of different things.
So the basic breakdown seems to be this. Break enemies to build your mana up, then use mana to do any of the following:
1. Pressing circle when an attack connects will either parry and attack or catch an enemies projectile attack and hurl it back at them. (These attacks are announced by purple names over enemies heads)
2. Using full mana you can enter a "Lightbringer" state which is basically living weapon from the Nioh games, you deal more damage and are invulnerable to incoming damage however taking damage will break you out of this state.
You can also use your mana parry to block basic enemy attacks and doing so will generate mana instead of spending it. Parrying also prevents taking any damage, whereas blocking only reduces damage. The problem here is that parries have to be fucking perfect, the window seems even tighter than it was in Sekiro making parrying for me pretty much a waste of time. I only ever pulled it off a couple of times.
The other part of combat is your "job". Like in FF14 and other RPGS with job systems, your main weapon dictates your job. Each job has a talent tree you can spend skill points in to gain new combo attacks or raw stats. Though each skill tree follows a fairly limiting pathway so there isn't much freedom here. I mentioned above that there is no experience system like Souls or Amrita that is lost upon death, and that is half true. You level up in this game like a typical RPG, killing enemies grants exp for your equipped jobs and you can have two jobs equipped at once. The game starts you with a greatsword wielder but quickly gives you a mallet that turns you into a mage for some reason. The mage has access to a spell wheel that you bring up and select in real time (which is a big fucking problem I'll explain in a second). Later in the demo you get a halberd that turns you into a spear wielding dragoon of sorts.
So here is the biggest problem with the game from the Demo so far. Your attacks and your character are way too slow for the enemies. Most enemies are fucking fast, darting around you or charging through you so quickly that you might as well just be trying to attack the floor. On top of that I'm fairly convinced that enemies are reading your inputs because even when you are far away, the second you press the heal button (an animation that takes way too long) they rush you as quickly as they can.
I mentioned spells being useless above, that's because to cast a spell you have to hold a button, move the stick to that spell you want on the wheel, then release those buttons to cast it and wait a bit longer still for the casting animation. Meanwhile the game isn't slowed or paused so these fast as fuck enemies are still attacking you through this. And your spells are directional, so the chances are that your fucking spell will miss anyway. So it's fucking pointless.
But that doesn't mean the greatsword or the halberd are any better.
This becomes extremely apparent with the boss fight against Chaos. He attacks so often that I could only get him to half health and the only way i was able to do that was to dodge his attack hit him ONCE, then dodge the next attack, and repeat. So the game spends the entire lead up teaching you combos and letting you learn abilities, only to have to throw them out to have success against the boss itself. He is exceptionally aggressive and there are no openings like in Dark Souls games. He attacks the moment his animations reset. If you back away for distance he has a screen length charge attack that is incredibly fast and will get you before your healing animation finishes.
At half health he becomes faster and has an entirely new move set, which on paper is cool. But I really don't know what to do about it. He seems designed to counter everything the game tries to teach you up to that point. Maybe i didn't level up enough, I dunno, but it definitely felt a bit overtuned. There also might be a mechanic I'm just missing.
Anyway the game seems alright. It's an action-looty RPG that feels like it still needs a lot of work. Hopefully it'll see some changes before release to smooth out the curve so to speak.
Turns out that's because this game is like Nioh in some ways, and nothing like it in others.
Namely there is loot, and like in Nioh, there is a lot of it. Jack looks boring for about 13 seconds until the loot starts dropping and you get badass looking cloaks, boots, pants, helms, gloves, and all that shit. So the loot system instantly explains away why the dude is pretty generic in the reveal footage.
The loot is about where the comparisons to Nioh have to stop though which saddens me, but might make other people happy. Firstly there is no stamina system in place here, you can attack and dodge all you want. Additionally there is no currency system that is lost on death like with Nioh and the Souls games that inspired it. Enemies do come back after you die or when you touch a checkpoint but that's really about it.
Combat plays like a slower Devil May Cry honestly. You attack with a combination of R1 and R2 and depending on how you intermix these buttons depends on the combos you do. And the game heavily suggests you should memorize your combo patterns, because it's the big final attack of the combo that will yield the most result. Enemies can die 1 of 2 ways. You can either just finish off their health, or you can break them. The break system is a yellow bar under their health and if you break them then you can do those cool finishers you saw in the trailer. Basically the reason to do this is to generate mana which you use to do a couple of different things.
So the basic breakdown seems to be this. Break enemies to build your mana up, then use mana to do any of the following:
1. Pressing circle when an attack connects will either parry and attack or catch an enemies projectile attack and hurl it back at them. (These attacks are announced by purple names over enemies heads)
2. Using full mana you can enter a "Lightbringer" state which is basically living weapon from the Nioh games, you deal more damage and are invulnerable to incoming damage however taking damage will break you out of this state.
You can also use your mana parry to block basic enemy attacks and doing so will generate mana instead of spending it. Parrying also prevents taking any damage, whereas blocking only reduces damage. The problem here is that parries have to be fucking perfect, the window seems even tighter than it was in Sekiro making parrying for me pretty much a waste of time. I only ever pulled it off a couple of times.
The other part of combat is your "job". Like in FF14 and other RPGS with job systems, your main weapon dictates your job. Each job has a talent tree you can spend skill points in to gain new combo attacks or raw stats. Though each skill tree follows a fairly limiting pathway so there isn't much freedom here. I mentioned above that there is no experience system like Souls or Amrita that is lost upon death, and that is half true. You level up in this game like a typical RPG, killing enemies grants exp for your equipped jobs and you can have two jobs equipped at once. The game starts you with a greatsword wielder but quickly gives you a mallet that turns you into a mage for some reason. The mage has access to a spell wheel that you bring up and select in real time (which is a big fucking problem I'll explain in a second). Later in the demo you get a halberd that turns you into a spear wielding dragoon of sorts.
So here is the biggest problem with the game from the Demo so far. Your attacks and your character are way too slow for the enemies. Most enemies are fucking fast, darting around you or charging through you so quickly that you might as well just be trying to attack the floor. On top of that I'm fairly convinced that enemies are reading your inputs because even when you are far away, the second you press the heal button (an animation that takes way too long) they rush you as quickly as they can.
I mentioned spells being useless above, that's because to cast a spell you have to hold a button, move the stick to that spell you want on the wheel, then release those buttons to cast it and wait a bit longer still for the casting animation. Meanwhile the game isn't slowed or paused so these fast as fuck enemies are still attacking you through this. And your spells are directional, so the chances are that your fucking spell will miss anyway. So it's fucking pointless.
But that doesn't mean the greatsword or the halberd are any better.
This becomes extremely apparent with the boss fight against Chaos. He attacks so often that I could only get him to half health and the only way i was able to do that was to dodge his attack hit him ONCE, then dodge the next attack, and repeat. So the game spends the entire lead up teaching you combos and letting you learn abilities, only to have to throw them out to have success against the boss itself. He is exceptionally aggressive and there are no openings like in Dark Souls games. He attacks the moment his animations reset. If you back away for distance he has a screen length charge attack that is incredibly fast and will get you before your healing animation finishes.
At half health he becomes faster and has an entirely new move set, which on paper is cool. But I really don't know what to do about it. He seems designed to counter everything the game tries to teach you up to that point. Maybe i didn't level up enough, I dunno, but it definitely felt a bit overtuned. There also might be a mechanic I'm just missing.
Anyway the game seems alright. It's an action-looty RPG that feels like it still needs a lot of work. Hopefully it'll see some changes before release to smooth out the curve so to speak.
