I have an idea lets make a game that embodied the spirit of the successful versions, lets stop trying to court devil may cry/elden ring fans and get back to making a turn based rpg or similar to ff10.
It doesn’t have to be turn-based. FFXI and FFXII are also great. I feel the bigger issue is that making a story heavy game while everyone else is also making story heavy games makes it no longer unique.
I wouldn’t mind going back to ATB, but I don’t think that would win back an audience except for nostalgia points.
I enjoyed all of them and FFXVI too. I think it’s okay to reinvent FF combat every iteration to keep it fresh. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy a turn based combat today like I enjoyed it 20 years ago.
Love this idea. The turn-based system in FFX was my absolute favorite, and I was really sad they didn’t follow this direction further (even for FFX-II, like WTF).
imho I have never experienced really good writing in any FF mainline game. Like they all have very creative and cool story arcs but it's the execution that ruins it for me. The dialogues and characters are always so cringe af, you can basically tell that the writers have based their writing framework solely on lowbrow manga. Which is fine when the dialogues weren't voiced since you could speed read trough the dialogues. Like I thought 6 and 7 were decent and 9 was okay (8 was annoying emo teen angst drama). But once they started voicing the dialogues and added longer cut scenes the bad writing just stuck out like a sore thumb. 10 was just really bad even though I loved 10 for the gameplay. I even skipped 12 because of that. With 13 they improved a bit, but with 15 they slid back almost to the level of the dialogues of 8. I haven't played 16 yet but from the trailers I've seen and based on opinions of my friends who've played it I don't have hope that the dialogues are any better.
And also Octopath and Forspoken just proofs that Square just can't write good characters and dialogues. Even when they hire non-Japanese writers. They need to look at Naughty Dog and Larian for how it's done. Neil Druckmann adheres to "Simple story complex characters" with his writing which makes his stories always compelling. While Square, and Japanese video game writers in general, always does the opposite.
It might be a good time to revisit some other long-running series that have managed a very good “reset” after running dry. Some examples that come to mind are Resident Evil 7, God of War, The Legend of Zelda, maybe some others.
At least for RE7 and God of War, it does feel like their overall goal was to reduce the action-packed scope, and focus more closely on something character-focused. RE7 doesn’t have crashing helicopters, and God of War doesn’t have you killing gods in the first 30 minutes. It definitely felt like an overall goal for FF16 was epic, bombastic scope and throwing around their budget, which obviously drove sales…but not as much lingering popularity as they hoped.
(Oh yeah, and plan a Steam release already. The world is not as console-obsessed as Japan)
I wish they would stop with the weird hack&slash/ATB combat. Also, with PC ports they should use standard PC control scheme and menus. And i get it, PC is not big in Japan, but they are selling the games to western audiences.
As a big fan of the old FFs I really enjoy the new ATB and hack and slash combat. 16 is fun and I think 7R is a great middle ground as well as being a true extension of the classic ATB stuff.
People seem to forget that the ATB stuff started to come in at IV/V. I’m not sure I want the turned based mechanics and gameplay of games like FFII for the sake of misplaced nostalgia. Give me ATB any day over that.
Any return to turn-based would probably have to be careful about it. Persona 5 managed it well, but it easily reaches criticism of being too much of “Use fire on ice”. Ideally, every decision a player is making in their infinite-time turns should have some form and consequence to it. I have always hated the “solution” wherein you can turn on an Auto-Battling system. It fixes the problem, but doesn’t acknowledge that the problem is battle decisions always being completely unnecessary and routine, which itself is something that can be fixed using more intelligent game design.
fyi: SMT and Persona based their combat system on weak points way earlier than P5. I’m not saying it is immune to criticism, but it’s a series standard by now
Persona’s combat system, if tweaked correctly can be a tremendous strength: there’s a chance to have a great turn-based system in which elements play the role of the main “puzzle” to strategize over with both your demons and your party cast. I agree that Persona 5 had very little strategy in it, let’s hope for future entries to be better.
I wonder what kind of battle system the new Atlus JRPG will have
I think they brought up p5 specifically because it’s a super-modern turn based RPG, so the same kind of thing a new, turn based, ff would be. This modern game, despite being overall well received, got some criticism for its turn based system being too much of the “use obvious elemental weakness” style strategy, and not more novel ideas.
The Final Fantasy series has many loved entries in which recurring characters, archetypes and items make a looping comeback. It is very fun to see how different those elements are handled in different entries. They just need to step back and realize not every FF needs to be a game that pushes its platform to its hardware limit. That may have worked well for them up to the PS2 era, but it’s not a thing anymore. You don’t need extreme ultra realistic eye twitching for your game to be grandiose.
First of all, I don’t see how a series where each and every entry is unique and has nothing to do with the previous ones (apart from a few recurring names) could be “well past done”. They don’t even share the same gameplay or combat system.
And also, Square has “tried something new” pretty much all the time. Triangle Strategy, Live a Live, Nier, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean, SaGa, Mana series (with an upcoming title next year), Dragon Quest, Octopath Traveler… I’m just listing a few, but I could go on. It’s not even a thing they suddenly decided to do. Even a few gens back, I remember playing Star Ocean, Last Remnant, Resonance of Fate and other lesser known titles. If you want to go back to the PS1 days, Vagrant Story and Threads of Fate come to mind, but there are surely a lot more I’m currently forgetting. EDIT: Xenogears too! I don’t know how I could forget that one.
I played Lost Odyssey and very much liked it, but it’s not Square.
It was made by Mistwalker with MS backing, after Sakaguchi left Square.
Actually, re-reading my list, I noticed that I mentioned Resonance of Fate, which wasn’t Square, either! It was published by Sega. The other titles should be correct.
Mistwalker is the company founded by Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. It should come to no surprise that the game is really evocative of many early FF titles.
Why though? Each Final Fantasy has its own world and whatnot. FF15 played a lot differently than FF13 which played a lot differently than FF12 which played a lot differently than FF9. They‘re all JRPGs of course but I don‘t see why they should throw away the brand recognition for the heck of it. It‘s not like they’re FIFAing. It seems to me like whoever is gonna develope the next game isn‘t gonna be held back by the name.
Honestly, I picked up on that and wasn’t offended by what they said. Shame that others didn’t and they’re being downvoted for what was supposed to be a joke.
Add comment