Final Fantasy XVI (Summer 2023, PS5)

[GhostCow]

I don't recall FFX having "good buildporn". The Sphere Grid gives you no meaningful progression. +2 def isn't an interesting talent and such trite stat sticks is what all of the nodes are.

Furthermore, you hardly have any actual choice. FFX is a case study in how devs can use fancy presentation to dazzle the player at a first glance, making them think they're looking at a really complex and indepth system, but when you straighten out the trees you realize there is no complexity or depth. You pick one of six lines to go down and then you get tiny stat increases from that line.

The combat was fun, though.

Well I did say it was good buildporn, not great. It's certainly not Troubleshooter. Which version of the sphere grid is this? The one from the international version and the new HD rerelease have a different grid that's a lot more open

 

[S.torch]

A Final Fantasy that doesn't look like Final Fantasy at all.

 

[Duraframe300]

A Final Fantasy that doesn't look like Final Fantasy at all.

See this is what I don't get.

This absolutely looks like a Final Fantasy. Art Style is series established, Summon design take inspiration from earlier games, story wise its much closer than either 13 or 15. And from all the recent info its also much closer to earlier titles than recent titles were in general.

Yet somehow this is the biggest departure for the series? What?

 

[mediocrepoet]

A Final Fantasy that doesn't look like Final Fantasy at all.

See this is what I don't get.

This absolutely looks like a Final Fantasy. Art Style is series established, Summon design take inspiration from earlier games, story wise its much closer than either 13 or 15. And from all the recent info its also much closer to earlier titles than recent titles were.

Yet somehow this is the biggest departure for the series? What?

I agree with you about the art and stuff but how is it closer to the earlier titles? It looks like 7R to me, but I haven't been following it closely either.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The only other mainline FF game to have bland, photorealistic art direction that FF16 is going for is FF15 (the FF15 we got, not the Versus XIII that Nomura had envisioned, which was more along the lines of FF13). That's definitely not a series norm.

 

[Duraframe300]

The only other mainline FF game to have bland, photorealistic art direction that FF16 is going for is FF15. That's definitely not a series norm.

This is not remotly the same artstyle as FF15 apart from similarities by modern tech and about as much going for *photorealistic* as FF12 did on PS2 already.

Which isn't surprising considering the art is lead by the same guy that did all Ivalice titles beforehand.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

FF12 did not have a photorealistic artstyle either. It had that handpainted texture look, even on people's faces, continuing down the same path that FF11 had done before.

 

[Duraframe300]

A Final Fantasy that doesn't look like Final Fantasy at all.

See this is what I don't get.

This absolutely looks like a Final Fantasy. Art Style is series established, Summon design take inspiration from earlier games, story wise its much closer than either 13 or 15. And from all the recent info its also much closer to earlier titles than recent titles were.

Yet somehow this is the biggest departure for the series? What?

I agree with you about the art and stuff but how is it closer to the earlier titles? It looks like 7R to me, but I haven't been following it closely either.

Like the art world building is very ivalice and its general structure from the sound of recent interviews does make it sound like more like classic FF structure.

That said there's some hopeium in there as one of my recent worries about the game exactly was something more corridory like FF7R with the recent trailer. The recent talk about the bigger and smaller zones as well as the talk about the more global scale alleviated that at the moment.

 

[S.torch]

This absolutely looks like a Final Fantasy.

No.

Color wise this is more similar to a series like Game of Thrones, with the extremely sober color palette which rejects brighter tones.

Characters and summons are on ultra photorealistic levels. When from all time Final Fantasy had highly stylized character designs. Two of the main designers in the series Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura have some of the craziest designs in the world. Just take a look at Cloud or Terra.

Environments look extremely dry and realistic instead of fantastical.

You can like this? Sure, I guess.
This looks like Final Fantasy? Definitively not.

 

[Duraframe300]

This absolutely looks like a Final Fantasy.

No.

Color wise this is more similar to a series like Game of Thrones, with the extremely sober color palette which rejects brighter tones.

Characters and summons are on ultra photorealistic levels. When from all time Final Fantasy had highly stylized character designs. Two of the main designers in the series Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura have some of the craziest designs in the world. Just take a look at Cloud or Terra.

Environments look extremely dry and realistic instead of fantastical.

You can like this? Sure, I guess.
This looks like Final Fantasy? Definitively not.

A: Nomura can suck it.

B: I was clearly referring to the Ivalice titles (Tactics/12) / Minagawa's Art. If that's not your thing, sure.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The characters in this game are not realistic looking. They are not going for photorealism. They're very anime looking characters that just happen to be textured in a more realistic way. Visually it's not out of line with the CGI cutscenes they did in the PS2 era.

If they were going for actual photorealism as opposed to a stylized realism this game would have characters that look more like the Forspoken game they're also making.

 

[S.torch]

B: I was clearly referring to the Ivalice titles (Tactics/12) / Minagawa's Art.

In Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance the main designer for characters was Akihiko Yoshida, this seems zero like something from him. And since these games look nothing like each other I will just assume you're talking bullocks and you actually meant Final Fantasy XII only. Which amounts to one game only and that hardly counts like the "established style" of the series.

 

[mediocrepoet]

B: I was clearly referring to the Ivalice titles (Tactics/12) / Minagawa's Art.

In Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance the main designer for characters was Akihiko Yoshida, this seems zero like something from him. And since these games look nothing like each other I will just assume you're talking bullocks and you actually meant Final Fantasy XII only. Which amounts to one game only and that hardly counts like the "established style" of the series.

If what you're saying were true, you wouldn't be able to pick out the various summons from their appearance alone before their names are announced, but I did. They very much look like the previous incarnations from earlier games because even though some of the styles change such as from chibi pixel characters to 3D models, etc. through the years, there is a unifying theme and set of characters and elements anyway.

 

[somerandomdude]

I am getting Stranger in Paradise vibes from this game. Whether that's a bad thing or not, I don't know. Stranger in Paradise was alright for what it was, a spin-off game, and the game didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was on the surface - an edgy beat-em-up looter. I don't think that's what people want for a mainline game though. I did think Stranger in Paradise was better than FF XV though.

 

[Duraframe300]

B: I was clearly referring to the Ivalice titles (Tactics/12) / Minagawa's Art.

In Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance the main designer for characters was Akihiko Yoshida, this seems zero like something from him. And since these games look nothing like each other I will just assume you're talking bullocks and you actually meant Final Fantasy XII only. Which amounts to one game only and that hardly counts like the "established style" of the series.

If what you're saying were true, you wouldn't be able to pick out the various summons from their appearance alone before their names are announced, but I did. They very much look like the previous incarnations from earlier games because even though some of the styles change such as from chibi pixel characters to 3D models, etc. through the years, there is a unifying theme and set of characters and elements anyway.

He's not wrong in saying that Yoshida was the charachter designer for those games. It's just ignoring that Minagawa was his boss and the art director. FFXVI's charachter designer is Kazuya Takahashi who's somewhat of an understudy of Yoshida which is why their art is very similar.

What I will say though is that Minagawa's direction is more apparent in the old trailer than the new one. See:



But that comes down to tech/lightning/effects.

 

[mediocrepoet]

B: I was clearly referring to the Ivalice titles (Tactics/12) / Minagawa's Art.

In Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance the main designer for characters was Akihiko Yoshida, this seems zero like something from him. And since these games look nothing like each other I will just assume you're talking bullocks and you actually meant Final Fantasy XII only. Which amounts to one game only and that hardly counts like the "established style" of the series.

If what you're saying were true, you wouldn't be able to pick out the various summons from their appearance alone before their names are announced, but I did. They very much look like the previous incarnations from earlier games because even though some of the styles change such as from chibi pixel characters to 3D models, etc. through the years, there is a unifying theme and set of characters and elements anyway.

He's not wrong in saying that Yoshida was the charachter designer for those games. It's just ignoring that Minagawa was his boss and the art director. FFXVI's charachter designer is Kazuya Takahashi who's somewhat of an understudy of Yoshida which is why their art is very similar.

What I will say though is that Minagawa's direction is more apparent in the old trailer than the new one, but that comes down to tech more than anything. See:

I wasn't very clear in what I meant. I was meaning more about art style between games rather than person responsible. I don't follow staff minutiae the way some of you guys do, my point really could be summed up by, "Ifrit/Shiva/Ramuh/etc. are identifiable between games just by looking at them, therefore Final Fantasy has identifiable visual characteristics between games whatever the art style."

 

[Dhaze]

Is it so much visual characteristics as in "art style between games," or rather visual characteristics as in 'the general attributes of certain creatures'? Genuinely asking, because I can't make up my mind; I feel like there's a distinct difference between the two but I can't exactly put my finger on it.

Shiva for example I only recognised because she manipulates ice and the trailer is titled Final Fantasy. But put her in an untitled trailer, and my mind's definitely not going straight to Shiva.

If I take a step away from that, I recognise the Malboro because it's a Malboro, but it's definitely not the art style per se I recognise:

That Malboro could be in a completely different art style (say, Bob's Burgers?) and I would still recognise it for what it is.

But if I take one step further back, when on screen there's no creature closely associated to Final Fantasy, I honestly could never guess that it is in fact Final Fantasy:

With these, tell me it's a new Korean M.M.O. and I'll believe you. Though I've not played a Final Fantasy beyond 13-3, so I guess I'm not at all familiar with the new FF style.

 

[Alex]

Action combat isn't the issue here you troglodytes. It's the fact that I can't see SHIT behind the all the god damn particle effects and numbers. It's a visual mess.



The hell am I looking at here? Also notice the top left corner UI element, which looks exactly the same as NIOH 2's UI.

I would say action combat is a pretty big issue. I remember they tried that in some game after FFX and it was both awful and pointless. They should stick with the stuff that worked when FF was popular, back on the days of SNES and playstation 1.

 

[Duraframe300]

Is it so much visual characteristics as in "art style between games," or rather visual characteristics as in 'the general attributes of certain creatures'? Genuinely asking, because I can't make up my mind; I feel like there's a distinct difference between the two but I can't exactly put my finger on it.

Shiva for example I only recognised because she manipulates ice and the trailer is titled Final Fantasy. But put her in an untitled trailer, and my mind's definitely not going straight to Shiva.

With these, tell me it's a new Korean M.M.O. and I'll believe you. Though I've not played a Final Fantasy beyond 13-3, so I guess I'm not at all familiar with the new FF style.

Shiva alongside Ramuh and Titan is one I instantly recognized. Crown and everything.

I guess she should be bluer? Fair enough.

Also

That's just a straight up Judge.

You're free to disagree of course. It's just the similarities I see.

 

[Dhaze]

Given the spear and what seemed like jumping attacks I actually thought about a potential dragoon. But no, I admit I don't see a Judge there.

 

[S.torch]

If what you're saying were true, you wouldn't be able to pick out the various summons from their appearance alone before their names are announced, but I did.

That's because you're familiar with it, not because they're similar. In the same way you can recognize the word hello written like this and HELLO written like this because of familiarity, but not because I wrote them the same. I could even write the world like H3ll4 and hEELL0 and wouldn't change the fact that you can read it still.

It's just ignoring that Minagawa was his boss and the art director

Massive stupid argument. But since you appear to be serious with it, I will answer.

If we took your own logic, what you said would still be false. Because in FF Tactics the main director was Yasumi Matsudo and in FF Tactics Advance it was Yuichi Murasawa (with Matsudo like producer), in the latter Minagawa didn't even featured like art director and just like artistic supervisor (a position he shared with Akihiko). They would be the "boss" of Minagawa in both games, and following your argument the ones who actually dictated the style of the games based on the hierarchy of their artistic position. This is in contrast with FF XII, in which Minagawa was both general and art director at some point.

But the whole thing is very smooth anyways, because Akihiko Yoshida has worked in other games after FFT like Bravely Default or Nier with different people and he still retained his characterised style. So is pretty weak to attribute that style to any director with he worked in particular.

Independently of who was in what position, is more than evident that there's a giant difference between this:



And what we saw in this trailer here. If you can't really see it, is because you're lost to the decline itself already.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

But if I take one step further back, when on screen there's no creature closely associated to Final Fantasy, I honestly could never guess that it is in fact Final Fantasy:
...
With these, tell me it's a new Korean M.M.O. and I'll believe you. Though I've not played a Final Fantasy beyond 13-3, so I guess I'm not at all familiar with the new FF style.

The aesthetics shown in those three videos isn't far removed from Dragon's Dogma.

As for the Final Fantasy series, in the dozen years since FF XIII there's been only a single main series game, but Squaresoft keeps pumping out spin-offs or other material with the Final Fantasy name, so there really isn't such a thing as an "FF style" these days.

 

[Dhaze]

But if I take one step further back, when on screen there's no creature closely associated to Final Fantasy, I honestly could never guess that it is in fact Final Fantasy:
...
With these, tell me it's a new Korean M.M.O. and I'll believe you. Though I've not played a Final Fantasy beyond 13-3, so I guess I'm not at all familiar with the new FF style.

The aesthetics shown in those three videos isn't far removed from Dragon's Dogma.

As for the Final Fantasy series, in the dozen years since FF XIII there's been only a single main series game, but Squaresoft keeps pumping out spin-offs or other material with the Final Fantasy name, so there really isn't such a thing as an "FF style" these days.

Oh in case it wasn't clear I wasn't saying that disparagingly, as the aesthetics are fine—not exactly my thing and not something that, to me, evokes Final Fantasy, but of course perfectly fine.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I'll never stop being butthurt that they forgot how to make good games after FFX. If it's not a classic turn based jrpg it shouldn't be called final fantasy

I feel like a modern turn based Final Fantasy (that isn't an iOS game) with a nice sized budget is an inevitability. In the last half decade we've been seeing more turn based RPGs coming out of Japan again, and Final Fantasy 13 was still a greatly anticipated game in 2009 (despite conventional wisdom being at the time [and really even since the early/mid 2000s] that turn based games wouldn't sell) that sold well despite all its problems...if it didn't have the issues it did have, and the bad word of mouth that came from them, it probably would've sold even better than it did.

Square Enix could probably spend a little less and still sell the same numbers with a turn-based Final Fantasy (ATB or not) as they have the recent action ones.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'll never stop being butthurt that they forgot how to make good games after FFX. If it's not a classic turn based jrpg it shouldn't be called final fantasy

I feel like a modern turn based Final Fantasy (that isn't an iOS game) with a nice sized budget is an inevitability.

I don't know, Squenix leadership seems to be retarded unless their goal is to run all their IP other than Dragon Quest into the ground. Still though, I think you're right that it would probably sell fairly well and be welcomed by their traditional fans.

With what we've seen though, it seems to me that they've got some sort of company diversification thing going on where DQ is aimed at traditional JRPG fans whereas FF is pushed even further into the cutscene cinematic action trash subgenre.