Final Fantasy XVI

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I'd consider every FF 1-9 as classic FF, despite the experimentation and changes that happened. 10 fucked the series and it hasn't been the same since. Mainline really should have just ended with IX.

What's with the consensus that X was that bad? It is certainly better than 2 or 8, and at least on par with a lot of other previous entries. Or is this another codex 'it's popular, so we are obliged to hate it' thing?

Absolutely linear, extremely anime, Wakka fucks Lulu, and YMMV on the feminist sequel.

 

[Snorkack]

I kinda get the criticism (although I don't mind those, I had a good time with X). It's just that all that was the case in VII already.

Fuck X-2, tho. No objections here.

 

[Optimist]

Guys, you have looked at the credits, right? The combat is going to be good as it's headed by the badass who worked DMC5 AND Dragons Dogma, and the project is being directed by the bro who did Last Remnant. Sometimes it's ok to stow the pessimism and look forward to something based on the facts in front of you.

I, for one, am quite optimistic about this.

 

[Jinn]

Or is this another codex 'it's popular, so we are obliged to hate it' thing?

I disliked X well before I joined the codex, back when I was a wee lad booting it up as my first game for the PS2 I had just gotten. Imagine my excitement as a huge fan of Final Fantasy - 1 being a game that I had started learning to read with - only to be met with a fucking sports star bimbo moron as my protagonist. I could live with that. I was having fun with the combat and Auron at least seemed cool. Then I walked, ran, and swam through corridor after corridor, cutscene after cutscene, just wondering when I'd be given my world map and even a slight sense of agency. My heart began to drop when I slowly realized it was never coming and I was trapped in this corridor with Tidus as my conduit to the dissatisfying world in front of me.

I think now that I'm older and more open-minded I'd be able to get more enjoyment out of X, especially with the help of the Japanese dub. The setting is unique and the combat is cool. Doesn't change the fact it fucked the series with its popularity. The games were always fairly linear, but there was usually some point you were given freedom to run around the world at will and find secrets that leant itself to a sense of exploration and adventure. Saying VII is just the same in structure isn't really honest either. X was a whole different feeling and it spawned a poor approach to JRPGs. Beyond that, I disliked pretty much all the characters, especially Tidus and boring ass Yuna. The main story hook of escort the priestess to her death equally bored me, with only the setting to carry it. And don't even get me started on blitzball.

I did quite like XII, though. But again, that should have been a spin-off or even its own IP.

 

[mediocrepoet]

What's with the consensus that X was that bad?

No idea.

Spoiler

Blitzball was cool though.

It is certainly better than 2 or 8

You shut your dirty whore mouth! Granted, I'm not sure I'd like 8 now if I went back and replayed it.

 

[Tehdagah]

X has one of the best combat systems in the series.

 

[Duraframe300]

X has one of the best combat systems in the series.

Best part about it how well the game utilized it, some of the best bosses gameplay wise I've seen.

FF is traditionally not great at encounter design too (gameplay wise). Combat wise it's either been the fun of the combat itself or build-porn (3+5) that carried it.

So, that's certainly something to praise X on.

 

[abnaxus]

X has best Shiva

 

[Snorkack]

It also has the best antagonists besides kefka, the best post game bosses and most fun ways to break the system once the game opens up. But if you don't like the cast and take issue in the lack of an overworld map I can see why you would not want to spend the time to get there.

Still, it is just another consequent and logical step in the direction that the series was heading towards way earlier already.

 

[Tigranes]

As Jinn alludes, X was the 'eureka' moment when a young RPG fan realises that the trappings of C&C, agency, exploration, and nonlinearity are slowly being taken away, and there comes some threshold moment when you realise that at this point, everything that remains is a pointless joke.

There is no tectonic jump in presentation that one saw in the last console leap. The formula is largely identical, but the world shrivelled into so many corridors that you no longer have any illusion about it. (Only afterwards does one go back to IX, for example, and realise that the series had been becoming steadily linear for some time before that, of course.) At least VIII filled a niche in terms of 'not-high-school' shenanigans, the best card game, and so on, but X also felt derivative in every way except the climate.

I felt some of the same later on with NWN1 / KOTOR - when you could simply have no suspense of disbelief anymore that this was anything other than a linear corridor full of self-serious cutscenes before grabbing four identical macguffins to open a door.

That X is a further step in the direction doesn't mean every step is the same. The PS1 entries have enough of a blend of influences that could support a minimum variety of experiences, but X was just a bore (despite combat improvements).

 

[Dadd]

Lulu is the hottest FF character

 

[Delterius]

I disliked X well before I joined the codex, back when I was a wee lad booting it up as my first game for the PS2 I had just gotten. Imagine my excitement as a huge fan of Final Fantasy - 1 being a game that I had started learning to read with - only to be met with a fucking sports star bimbo moron as my protagonist. I could live with that. I was having fun with the combat and Auron at least seemed cool. Then I walked, ran, and swam through corridor after corridor, cutscene after cutscene, just wondering when I'd be given my world map and even a slight sense of agency. My heart began to drop when I slowly realized it was never coming and I was trapped in this corridor with Tidus as my conduit to the dissatisfying world in front of me.

It's really funny because. Here's the thing. Where I grew up computer piracy and parts were too expensive, consoles weren't cheap but piracy was easy even without internet. Most games that reached my ears were console games. Computers were for RTS, builders, and eventually MMOs. So far as I was concerned 'you play an anime story with stats' is what videogame RPGs were, and hopefully one day we'd have more customization, just like on tabletop!

And yet even I was stumped by X. Not because I disliked it (I couldn't even read english much less understand the story lol) but because a lot of local magazines talked about how incredible EXPLORATION is in it. Me and my folks we were like: uh, that's literally the one thing this game doesn't do. It's a corridor with a quest arrow.

But I do disagree that X fucked the franchise on it's own. I think it was an evolutionary mistake. Over time the designers over-emphasized certain aspects. Sure, 7 opened up at some point. But if you're coming from the point of view that JRPGs are games where you play an anime story, then the opening up is an extra. Eventually the inbreeding for extreme traits gave us not only X, but XIII as well.

 

[Jinn]

But I do disagree that X fucked the franchise on it's own. I think it was an evolutionary mistake.

I should have been less extreme in that statement. Of course, I don't believe X fucked the series on its own, but it was the symbol of the very intentional turn away from that Final Fantasy "feel". And that's probably the biggest reason why X rubbed me the wrong way so bad, was that it didn't even feel like a Final Fantasy anymore. Yes, it was evolutionary. Yes, even back then I recognized the mostly linear nature of all the games in the series. But this extreme take - or "logical next step" as Snorkack roughly put it - on the essence of the games took something very important away from what I loved about the series, among other extreme steps the game took in moving away from what the series was. Final Fantasy was always about experimentation and trying something new with each game, but there was a central soul that always remained regardless up until X. It's of course just what happens when teams change and developers move away from a series. Doesn't change the fact that's what I felt at the time, and the feeling lingers.

I will give X another shot at some point. I've actually been doing a series "historical" replay in chronological order over the past year or so, kind of tracing the evolutions and changes going on with each iteration first hand. It's really been great.

 

[Machocruz]

X just felt breezy and effeminate to me, very little sense of red-blooded adventure, something made for middle school girls. Mechanically it was alright, I liked having visible turn orders in FF. Solid TB system undermined by allowing only 3 party members in action at a time, which has always been decline. Some neat monster and summon designs. Exploration... It's not about linear or open, but about whether the world at least feels like a continent or landmass, or gives a visual illusion of such

 

[Palomides]

It is very popular with Japanese women, apparently.

 

[Tyrr]

It is very popular with Japanese women, apparently.

Women love stories where

Spoiler

the male dies at the end. Like in Titanic.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The franchise lost is focus on exploration with FF7. By that point, it became about walking down the corridor to the next battle or cutscene. FFX removing the world map was a formality. If there had been a world map, the game functionally wouldn't have played any differently than the prior 3 games.

Over the years, I have started 3 playthroughs of FF10 on the PS2. Never finished any of them. Always stalled out by the snow area or the first Seymour fight. I can't quite put my finger on why I always stall out. Maybe it's a pacing issue, and/or I just wasn't getting to discover new kingdoms and stuff.

 

[Dadd]

It is very popular with Japanese women, apparently.

Women love stories where

Spoiler

the male dies at the end. Like in Titanic.

Must be why they love Kurt Cobain

 

[GhostCow]

Lulu is the hottest FF character

She's not even the hottest girl in her own game. Rikku is way hotter.

 

[Dadd]

Lulu is the hottest FF character

She's not even the hottest girl in her own game. Rikku is way hotter.

 

[abnaxus]

Lulu's not even in top 10

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Watching the most recent presentation I kind of couldn’t help bu think how odd it is Square Enix and Final Fantasy got to what is essentially open world (even if it is zones) Devil May Cry before Capcom and Devil May Cry. Like yeah, sure, the director of the DMC game along with his DMC team made Dragon’s Dogma for Capcom; but Dragon’s Dogma’s combat isn’t as heightened as the DMC combat, where this games’s combat looks very much like Devil May Cry 3 - 5.

I’ve got to imagine this game is going to end up having an influence on the next Devil May Cry. Or at least some series from Capcom that’s clearly DMC, but not DMC. I have thought it would be interesting to get an open world Devil May Cry for like a decade now.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

So sorry, grandma.

The main problem with FF7 R is not that it wasn't turn-based, but rather that it was so fucking boring. Did you like the city of Midgar while playing the original? Well, in the remake the city is reduced to a bunch of bland corridors, which you'll be forced to run back 'n forth through, while doing the most boring ass mundane sidequests you could possibly imagine.

Also, I hope you like those long 'slow walking and talking sequences' that you can't skip. Game has a ton of those.

The biggest problem with Final Fantasy 7 Remake is the gameplay, which while having some good ideas also comes off like a half assed Dragon’s Dogma that for whatever bizarre reason they didn’t take more from.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake probably should’ve just been a new Final Fantasy game that took what it wanted from 7 while also doing its own thing. Which I guess could be said is what they did, but nobody would complain about like they do with it being called a remake of FF7 if it was FF16.

 

[jungl]

The game so far looks very forgettable. Dragon age inquisition ff15 size maps with devil may cry snooze combat.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm witholding judgement until I get to play the demo.

I was disappointed by XIII, but beat it anyway. I played XV for seven hours before deleting it.