Final Fantasy XVI

[Duraframe300]

But this is the most progressive FF yet with its gay romances.

Yosharian

So, I just (carefully, avoided any spoilers) checked and......

Dion does not seem to be not gay. There are hints (which is probably where the whole thing started from), but nothing explicit.

The ban was probably because of some other sex scene.

No gay sex scene mentioned at all in leak discussions.

False flag unless there's something at or towards the end of the game. (Which might be, dunno).

 

[Duraframe300]

But this is the most progressive FF yet with its gay romances.

Yosharian

So, I just (carefully, avoided any spoilers) checked and......

Dion does not seem to be not gay. There are hints (which is probably where the whole thing started from), but nothing explicit.

The ban was probably because of some other sex scene.

No gay sex scene mentioned at all in leak discussions.

False flag unless there's something at or towards the end of the game. (Which might be, dunno).

Yosharian

Scratch that he's gay, with his second in command, they kiss.

So, as before. It's 40+ hours before any gay stuff happens and the guy in question is someone you fight whatever the circumstance
(and like 99% chance he dies).
If that bothers you, skip.

 

[Taurist]

most ff villians were implied gay

 

[James_xeno]

Ok my alarm bells are fully going off at some of the info/spoilers coming out. It sounds like they turned this fully into "Game of Fantasy XVI". In terms of gritty edgelord grim-dark nihilistic hopelessness type stuff. But it doesn't seem like they have budged much on the sex/skin mentality.. (well except rape and threats of it) At least when it comes to main characters. (we are still dealing with anime/JRPG MC..... indifference tropes with such things... They literally manage to work in a 'MC resisted kiss attempt' and 'interrupted kiss' tropes between the MC and MFC... Both at different times... Even kisses are too much for mid story Game of Fantasy. With rumors that despite the chemistry between them, we may be getting a 'lone wondering hero' ending trope.) Which would go along with the appeal to edgelords they seem to have going on here.

They seem to think that western gamers want GoT and are going all in on it. (well the violence and edge at least) Hard pass!

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic"..

 

[Duraframe300]

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic".. I don't play, watch or read fantasy and fiction to interact with reality, and certainly not stories/worlds even worse than reality. lol It just seems like more and more media chase this anti-ideal of super selective "realism".

That's fine and I do understand the sentiment.

But I on the other hand, as I wrote before, have been waiting for FF to get darker again for over 20 years since Tactics.
So, we're coming at this from a different perspective.

CBU3 won't make the next Final Fantasy anyway, so assume business going back to normal. It's not like (as much as I dislike it) the FF7 remake series isn't making tons of money so this won't be a permanent shift in tone either and I really don't see the Nomura/Kitase side of things going for gritty. (Except Tabata, but Tabata ain't at Square Enix anymore anyway)

 

[Yosharian]

But this is the most progressive FF yet with its gay romances.

Yosharian

So, I just (carefully, avoided any spoilers) checked and......

Dion does not seem to be not gay. There are hints (which is probably where the whole thing started from), but nothing explicit.

The ban was probably because of some other sex scene.

No gay sex scene mentioned at all in leak discussions.

False flag unless there's something at or towards the end of the game. (Which might be, dunno).

Yosharian

Scratch that he's gay, with his second in command, they kiss.

So, as before. It's 40+ hours before any gay stuff happens and the guy in question is someone you fight (and like 99% chance he dies).
If that bothers you, skip.

Nah it doesn't bother me, I was just curious

 

[Yosharian]

Ok my alarm bells are fully going off at some of the info/spoilers coming out. It sounds like they turned this fully into "Game of Fantasy XVI". In terms of gritty edgelord grim-dark nihilistic hopelessness type stuff. But it doesn't seem like they have budged much on the sex/skin mentality.. (well except rape and threats of it) At least when it comes to main characters. (we are still dealing with anime/JRPG MC..... indifference tropes with such things... They literally manage to work in a 'MC resisted kiss attempt' and 'interrupted kiss' tropes between the MC and MFC... Both at different times... Even kisses are too much for mid story Game of Fantasy. With rumors that despite the chemistry between them, we may be getting a 'lone wondering hero' ending trope.) Which would go along with the appeal to edgelords they seem to have going on here.

They seem to think that western gamers want GoT and are going all in on it. (well the violence and edge at least) Hard pass!

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic"..

wat

 

[Doktor Best]

Spoiling yourself the whole storyline because you fear the gay so much...

 

[cvv]

But I on the other hand, as I wrote before, have been waiting for FF to get darker again

I've been waiting for ANY Japanese game to be dark and realistic and immersive but it seems the Jap devs have forgotten how to do this, due to severe kawaii poisoning in the last few decades.

You watch Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Kagemusha or Ran and it's just about the most raw, immersive entertainment experience you can find. Even later Jap master directors like Kitano still keep the glorious tradition.

But I have yet to play a truly raw, dirty, low-key Japanese videogame, without squeaky lolis, cat ears, ridiculous weapons or anime hair. The omnipresent goofiness seeps in even the most grounded Jap games like Dark Souls or Phantom Pain, in the form of oversized weapons or farcical giant robots.

P.S.: I guess Death Stranding would be the most grounded Jap game now but it's endowed with the trademark retarded Kojima writing so you still can't take it seriously.

 

[Duraframe300]

Spoiling yourself the whole storyline because you fear the gay so much...

Didn't. Just searched for *gay* in a related thread.

I got spoiled on I think two things and both are pretty obvious stuff where execution matters to me way more than that it happens.

So, I'm good.

Edit: On that note, execution has personally been FF's biggest problem story-wise in the past 20 years rather than any originality of the plot.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Tried the demo. I rate it somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.

Ultimately I think I took damage only a couple of times on "action focused mode". I died twice to the same QTE right at the end where it wasn't clear that I had to do anything. So it's actually a pretty easy romp. That's probably fine for this game.

The dialogue to me seemed ok but a bit weak in places. A lot of poorly disguised exposition coming out of characters mouths.

Young version of the main guy looks like he just stepped out of a Japanese host club and/or J-POP boyband.

He looks considerably less cringey as an adult though, which will be his character model for the majority of the game presumably.

It's obviously taking a lot of cues from GoT in the setup of the plot. Perhaps the ending of the demo makes it slightly more interesting. I think the entire "present day strand" was completely unnecessary from the point-of-view of a demo and personally would have omitted it.

The environmental art direction is really good. Shame that they were so linear but I suppose it's the game prologue.

Performance was only mildly shite. Clearly not able to sustain 30fps on the machine it was designed for but it does basically work. Perhaps that will improve after a couple of patches. That is stellar compared to many recent AAA releases.

The mini lore codex on the pause menu was cool. Made me slightly more invested in the world.

Probably get it at some point out of curiousity but not gonna part with £70 for it. The review embargo lifts on Wednesday and I'm curious how that shakes out. My prediction is that it mostly gets 9s because game journos fundamentally do like this type of game at lot.

Square do seem to have managed the project much better than other recent instalments. I've read that the game has been basically stable and content locked for nearly a year. So that's a good sign that it doesn't turn to complete shit halfway.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The omnipresent goofiness seeps in even the most grounded Jap games like Dark Souls or Phantom Pain, in the form of oversized weapons or farcical giant robots.

Akulakhan, also called the Second Numidium[1], is the name of the machine god built by Dagoth Ur under Red Mountain. Using the divine influence of the Heart of Lorkhan to power Akulakhan, he planned to use it to drive all outlanders out of Morrowind, cast down the Tribunal, spread Corprus, and eventually take over all Tamriel.[2] Dagoth Ur also planned to establish a theocracy based on the worship of Akulakhan with his Ash Vampire brothers serving as the god priests of Akulakhan.[3] But, in 3E 427, the Nerevarine arrived in Vvardenfell, recovered Kagrenac's Tools—the Dwemer artifacts Wraithguard, Sunder, and Keening—and led an assault against Dagoth Ur's stronghold. Using the power of the tools, the Nerevarine was able to destroy the tonal enchantments on the Heart, killing Dagoth Ur and destroying Akulakhan.[4]

 

[Jackpot]

I'm interested in this game, a shame its a PS5 exclusive.
I ain't buying a console for a single game, no matter how much sex they put in it.

 

[Yosharian]

It'll be out on PC in six months, basically the PS5 players are beta testing the game for us

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[James_xeno]

Just reading some of the spoilers... just... wow! o_o

Also: lol more grounded lol (Not that it's a bad thing)

There is one thing we don't have to worry about though at least.

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic".. I don't play, watch or read fantasy and fiction to interact with reality, and certainly not stories/worlds even worse than reality. lol It just seems like more and more media chase this anti-ideal of super selective "realism".

That's fine and I do understand the sentiment.

But I on the other hand, as I wrote before, have been waiting for FF to get darker again for over 20 years since Tactics.
So, we're coming at this from a different perspective.

CBU3 won't make the next Final Fantasy anyway, so assume business going back to normal. It's not like (as much as I dislike it) the FF7 remake series isn't making tons of money so this won't be a permanent shift in tone either and I really don't see the Nomura/Kitase side of things going for gritty. (Except Tabata, but Tabata ain't at Square Enix anymore anyway)

Don't worry, I understand. I just wish it was another series or an original title. I'm not against dark games.. Hell, Xenogears is my favorite game of all time.

I hope. The last few games have really.. hurt the series name. And i'm getting really tired of these world on the brink from the beginning type stories. (to name just a few issues)

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Just reading some of the spoilers... just... wow! o_o

Also: lol more grounded lol (Not that it's a bad thing)

There is one thing we don't have to worry about though at least.

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic".. I don't play, watch or read fantasy and fiction to interact with reality, and certainly not stories/worlds even worse than reality. lol It just seems like more and more media chase this anti-ideal of super selective "realism".

That's fine and I do understand the sentiment.

But I on the other hand, as I wrote before, have been waiting for FF to get darker again for over 20 years since Tactics.
So, we're coming at this from a different perspective.

CBU3 won't make the next Final Fantasy anyway, so assume business going back to normal. It's not like (as much as I dislike it) the FF7 remake series isn't making tons of money so this won't be a permanent shift in tone either and I really don't see the Nomura/Kitase side of things going for gritty. (Except Tabata, but Tabata ain't at Square Enix anymore anyway)

Don't worry, I understand. I just wish it was another series or an original title. I'm not against dark games.. Hell, Xenogears is my favorite game of all time.

I hope. The last few games have really.. hurt the series name. And i'm getting really tired of these world on the brink from the beginning type stories. (to name just a few issues)

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

 

[James_xeno]

Just reading some of the spoilers... just... wow! o_o

Also: lol more grounded lol (Not that it's a bad thing)

There is one thing we don't have to worry about though at least.

I know this sounds more like a rant but.. I just get tired of the push to make everything edgy, gritty and dark.. or "realistic".. I don't play, watch or read fantasy and fiction to interact with reality, and certainly not stories/worlds even worse than reality. lol It just seems like more and more media chase this anti-ideal of super selective "realism".

That's fine and I do understand the sentiment.

But I on the other hand, as I wrote before, have been waiting for FF to get darker again for over 20 years since Tactics.
So, we're coming at this from a different perspective.

CBU3 won't make the next Final Fantasy anyway, so assume business going back to normal. It's not like (as much as I dislike it) the FF7 remake series isn't making tons of money so this won't be a permanent shift in tone either and I really don't see the Nomura/Kitase side of things going for gritty. (Except Tabata, but Tabata ain't at Square Enix anymore anyway)

Don't worry, I understand. I just wish it was another series or an original title. I'm not against dark games.. Hell, Xenogears is my favorite game of all time.

I hope. The last few games have really.. hurt the series name. And i'm getting really tired of these world on the brink from the beginning type stories. (to name just a few issues)

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

Indeed. That's really the last thing a series titled "Final Fantasy" should ever be to begin with.

NM, link not working and can't upload image.

 

[Duraframe300]

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

I mean I doubt its grounded unless you very much stretch the definition.
Even FF: Tactics had the Lucavi. Vagrant Story had the dark and all the mental shit. Ditto FF12.
Has more to do with the political manoeuvring around the high fantasy backstory.

And this is a game about giant summons fighting each other in the first place.

 

[James_xeno]

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

I mean I doubt its grounded unless you very much stretch the definition.
Even FF: Tactics had the Lucavi. Ditto FF12. Has more to do with the political manoeuvring around it.

And this is a game about giant summons fighting each other in the first place.

Oh yeah, it's about as far from that as you'd expect and then some. I only brought that up because people have been hyping it as a darker "more grounded" FF. lol

Meant to add this to my first post in here today:

Spoilers about main male&female characters (you've been waned)

https://i.4cdn.org/v/1687203974115825m.jpg

 

[La vie sexuelle]

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

I mean I doubt its grounded unless you very much stretch the definition.
Even FF: Tactics had the Lucavi. Vagrant Story had the dark and all the mental shit. Ditto FF12.
Has more to do with the political manoeuvring around the high fantasy backstory.

And this is a game about giant summons fighting each other in the first place.

I hadn't on mind kitchen sink realism, that for sure I had thought more this was - FF is game witch summoning naked giantess, so game likes that cannot be too close to real world by its stylistic. FFXV, except real-time fights, lost me on this too real-too dumb art style.

 

[Duraframe300]

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

I mean I doubt its grounded unless you very much stretch the definition.
Even FF: Tactics had the Lucavi. Ditto FF12. Has more to do with the political manoeuvring around it.

And this is a game about giant summons fighting each other in the first place.

Oh yeah, it's about as far from that as you'd expect and then some. I only brought that up because people have been hyping it as a darker "more grounded" FF. lol

They were really drinking up the TV GoT talk then.
Matsuno games had that element and I didn't expect Maehiro to be different in that regard, especially considering the premise.
The *grounded* part comes in the charachters, in the political manoeuvring, the initial state of the story and so on.
Where it ends up should really be no surprise if you're familiar with the games.

 

[Jinn]

They were really drinking up the TV GoT talk then.
Matsuno games had that element and I didn't expect Maehiro to be different in that regard, especially considering the premise.
The *grounded* part comes in the charachters, in the political manoeuvring, the initial state of the story and so on.
Where it ends up should really be no surprise if you're familiar with the games.

One of the few even-keel and reasonable voices in this thread. Bro-fucking-fist, my good sir.

 

[FreshCorpse]

It'll be out on PC in six months, basically the PS5 players are beta testing the game for us

Yeah, it will be on the PC at some point, with no doubt absurd minimum specs and probably a few new bugs. It's not like the FF16 "Windows Edition" or whatever is going to run on a £500 machine though, even at the 25-30 fps that the PS5 version seems to run at.

And it will be priced at £70 again.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

"Grounded Final Fantasy" sounds like "non-alcoholic vodka". But still, I have good feelings about this one.

I mean I doubt its grounded unless you very much stretch the definition.
Even FF: Tactics had the Lucavi. Ditto FF12. Has more to do with the political manoeuvring around it.

And this is a game about giant summons fighting each other in the first place.

Oh yeah, it's about as far from that as you'd expect and then some. I only brought that up because people have been hyping it as a darker "more grounded" FF. lol

They were really drinking up the TV GoT talk then.
Matsuno games had that element and I didn't expect Maehiro to be different in that regard, especially considering the premise.
The *grounded* part comes in the charachters, in the political manoeuvring, the initial state of the story and so on.
Where it ends up should really be no surprise if you're familiar with the games.

I understand how it's going, but still we have many level and forms of distancing from reality. I think Square want to make a departure from anime and gobble a bigger part of the cake with (apparent) realism, because for core American players a game MUST be "real" (only "real" games they could take seriously). It's not real realism nor seriousness, but the market probably works that way.