Square's problem is they keep budgeting games like they'll sell 15 million copies and then make them exclusive to an install base of like 2 million people on a good day.
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Even if ff16 were the perfect game every ps5 owner is not going to buy 5 copies. That's not how things work.
tbf, a lot of main entries have their own play styles. 12 is different than all the others, 8 has its Junction and level-scaling stuff, 15 is real-time combat for the first time, etc.12 pulled its combat style from 11 which was only released a few years before it was developed. 12s problem was the BTS drama between highers up at SE and Matsuno. He set it all up for them then they pushed him down so much then he bowed out and left SE. I know who the biggest culprit was. His last name starts with a T. I wont support a game hes involved with.
One of the things I like about FF is that each game kind of does its own thing. And with 16 in particular, the combat is really fun once it opens up enough.
Square's problem is they keep budgeting games like they'll sell 15 million copies and then make them exclusive to an install base of like 2 million people on a good day.This is a great summary. The actual main story imo is one of the better ones and the game has some pretty strong characters. In particular, Clive,
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Even if ff16 were the perfect game every ps5 owner is not going to buy 5 copies. That's not how things work.
That being said, still did okay, I think. Pretty solid 8/10 spectacle fighter with bad pacing.
The non MSQ stuff though is MMO quality, which makes sense given the team but that is not a compliment. The vast majority of the side quests suck outside of the final lot, at which point most players have stopped doing them.Even the final batch was mostly still the same junk and weren't necessarily fun. And that batch also throws a ton of them at you at once, making it even more exhausting to even see pop up. But the exploration is pretty terrible too. Pretty much all the gameplay that isn't combat is just bad.
The far superior Final Fantasy difficulty is locked behind completion, along with a lot of RPG elements.I was personally a victim of that. By the time I beat the game, I was done . No desire left in me to tackle a replay for higher difficulty at all. And base game difficulty was a snooze fest for anyone who actually plays action games. They really should have done the legwork to apply difficulty options.
Speaking of elements, they're absent from combat which can lead to said combat getting rather stale. While the action system is decent, it tries too hard to be DMC while not actually going far enough at the same time. When compared to FF7 Remake/Rebirth and their approach to integrating real time combat into FF, the difference is night and day.It feels like it wanted to be DMC but was kneecapped. And considering what they wanted it to be, "decent" isn't good enough. They needed to either lean into the RPG more heavily a la Remakes, or they needed to cut the RPG elements entirely and let it be an action game. If it was pure action, they could have easily implemented difficulty options and trimmed the fat of bad MMO style side quests. I say this as someone who wants Final Fantasy to be menu RPG again: this would have been a better game as a pure, stage based action game.
I don't think the game is fundamentally flawed in the same way that 13 was, there is a good core here. What Squenix needs to do here is just refine the style rather than throw everything out. Also, they really need to let Soken off the leash with the music.I'm less sure here. There's a lot that's good about XVI but I feel like all the places it really succeeds aren't in the gameplay. I don't know if a full scrap is in order but I feel like it needs a lot of work to get the gameplay to a good place.
Square's problem is they keep budgeting games like they'll sell 15 million copies and then make them exclusive to an install base of like 2 million people on a good day.
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Even if ff16 were the perfect game every ps5 owner is not going to buy 5 copies. That's not how things work.
That being said, still did okay, I think. Pretty solid 8/10 spectacle fighter with bad pacing.
But those games sold great when they finally got ported years later on the PC, switch and xbox. That was the point I was making, not that it was exclusive to the PS4 originally. Why didn't FF16 do the same when it eventually became available on the PC and then finally the xbox if the game being on the PS5 only was that big of a reason why it didn't sell as well?
i now realize there are people who did all the quests before they patched in the immediate tp to quest npc on completion.I didnt mind tbh
being forced to travel back to the npc every single time would have pissed me off to no end.
game pass like I didnt buy it because its on gamepass and I think gamepass for pc tooYes, I know how gamepass works, =/ FF16 wasn't on gamepass when the PC release came out (all it had was a epic store and steam store release), and didn't come to the service until the xbox version first dropped. The game just straight up significantly underperformed on PC, which the vast majority of it's numbers coming from the PS5 side.
you dont buy the game its like renting
Yes, I know how gamepass works, =/ FF16 wasn't on gamepass when the PC release came out (all it had was a epic store and steam store release), and didn't come to the service until the xbox version first dropped. The game just straight up significantly underperformed on PC, which the vast majority of it's numbers coming from the PS5 side.
On the xbox, I would have figured there would have been some sort of straight up purchases that would make porting worth it to go alongside the game pass players using that to play the game.
Would more people have bought FF16 if the gameplay was like Expedition 33No, it would have sold the same.
Would more people have bought FF16 if the gameplay was like Expedition 33No. The whole turn based vs action thing isn't really something that matters to the gaming population at large.
ahhh I dont have PC so I dont know then again and correct me if Im wrong dont PC ports have like bad issues at first?
like I know monster hunter on PC gets a lot of complaints for being a bad port
The vast majority of games are just fine when they release on PC.
ahhh I dont have PC so I dont know then again and correct me if Im wrong dont PC ports have like bad issues at first?There has been a rough time of optimization issues as of late for certain games, but most PC releases like in general aren't dealing with issues so bad that it would actually effect a game's success. Most are completely fine. The ones that stand out for having a lot really stands out though.
like I know monster hunter on PC gets a lot of complaints for being a bad port
There has been a rough time of optimization issues as of late for certain games, but most PC releases like in general aren't dealing with issues so bad that it would actually effect a game's success. Most are completely fine. The ones that stand out for having a lot really stands out though.
FF16 in particular just did not have much interest overall no matter where it was released at post PS5. Like it did that initial 3 mill on the PS5, but all we can do is guess or read more social media posts across multiple sites in why this game didn't drum up much interest after it got ported.
EDIT: Actually, let me take a little bit of this back about FF16's PC port being fine on release. It does appear there was a good bit of unoptimized complaints about FF16's port.
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1hrv3lm/anyone_else_struggling_with_ff16_pc_port/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-foBOBq1I
was 16 one of the ones that were fine?
There were over 40 million PS5s sold at the time 16 released. There are over 80 million now. People just didnt want this game.
the FF fanboys keep defending it too because Yoshi-P was on the helm. Nobody wants the game, i know it's tough to hear but the fact it had absolutely 0 legs is proof enough lolLmaooo plz STFU when u say nobody
With all this talk about final fantasy in general (and the constant complaining about the battle system), square-enix doesn't seem to be sweating it and apparently had a recent milestone with the franchise in general making it over 200 million sales. Online forums like this one with the most vocal posters really wants to push the narrative that the final fantasy IP is crashing and burning (because of battle system drama).
https://x.com/nhamaguc/status/1900915879430549556
Thanks to the support of so many fans, the total sales of the Final Fantasy series has exceeded 200 million copies! I will continue to work hard to further develop this franchise.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/1ih03yb/mat_piscatella_on_amazing_rebirth_pc_and_ps5_sales/
FF7 Rebirth was actually the 10th best selling game in 2024. The only games that was ahead of it with money made was sports titles (especially college football, which was a long-awaited return after many years of not having any games available), call of duty, hell divers, and dragon ball zero sparking zero. All multiplatform from day 1 game releases btw.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/ff7dbd37.jpg
iirc they said that rebirth was the way they wanted to make games moving forward and that wa a after salesIt was a damn good game to me, and to be honest made my top 3 favorite games of all-time. (Phantasy star online episode 1 n' 2 and gears of war 3 will forever be my beloveds, lol)
but for the life of me I cant remember where I saw the interview
that being said I felt rebirth was 9/10 game
It was a damn good game to me, and to be honest made my top 3 favorite games of all-time. (Phantasy star online episode 1 n' 2 and gears of war 3 will forever be my beloveds, lol)
Putting the plot aside since that is the most hit or miss part, everything else about the game is straight up everything I actually want in a modern day jrpg. Dungeons that are actually fun to go through and aren't just corridors or cut n' paste textures (this is how I feel tales of dungeons ended up for a long time after it finally went full 3D with tales of xillia. Other lower budget jrpgs has this problem with actually making interesting dungeons). *The dungeon areas I really liked in rebirth was themythril mines, the entire mount corel segment, the gongaga reactor, and the cave of the gi* and Packed full to the brim with minigames and other time wasters. A actually interesting overworld. (Admittedly this is another one that is hit or miss depending on the player. I actually enjoyed going around and learning the lore with the local areas/region intels via doing the summon gate things, lifestream points and so on.
The characters theirselves just receiving so much improvement with their characterization over their classic selves. Aerith and barret to me benefited the most by far. Still needs to be seen how cid and vincent will end up, but for the little bit we seen them I have high hopes.
Each playable character having their own detailed play style and goes far beyond the original FF7's games characters really only having a difference with their limit breaks. Kept in and actually doubled down on the humorous moments. The towns (another area I feel jrpgs started getting more bland with from the transition from 2D pixel art and 3D pre-rendered camera angles to lower budget full 3D) actually being lively and looking properly like towns. Challenging combat that makes me want to seriously think about my materia and equipment setups to get through the hardest fights.
Anything that actually has to do with a jrpg feeling like a jrpg and the gameplay they knocked it out of the park with FF7 rebirth, imo anyway.
As far as the plot goes, I just thought the first part's was ok (and did come off a little goofy at times. lolplot ghosts), but I actually liked where they was going with part 2's. Need to play part 3 to form my final opinion on the story part though.
With that said I still would rather see FF17 do it's own thing and wouldn't want that game to be a exact copy, but I really did enjoy what we got for FF7 remake part 1 and 2, and actually can't wait to read about the xbox and nintendo owners to try the games out too for the first time.
I honestly have some hope. The success of Clair Obscur and and Squenix's HD-2D games does make me hope that Final Fantasy will try going back to its roots for 17.The Sandfall devs did apparently meet with SE, but I doubt theyll do a turn-based modern FF.
So da problem isnt that the game doesnt sell enough, its that Square spends too much money on mainline fall fancy gaems?
So da problem isnt that the game doesnt sell enough, its that Square spends too much money on mainline fall fancy gaems?
I honestly have some hope. The success of Clair Obscur and and Squenix's HD-2D games does make me hope that Final Fantasy will try going back to its roots for 17.I think I responded to this somewhere when it came up (don't remember if it was here or the FFXIV forum). They made a comment on it after E33 started blowing up.
It feels like it wanted to be DMC but was kneecapped. And considering what they wanted it to be, "decent" isn't good enough. They needed to either lean into the RPG more heavily a la Remakes, or they needed to cut the RPG elements entirely and let it be an action game. If it was pure action, they could have easily implemented difficulty options and trimmed the fat of bad MMO style side quests. I say this as someone who wants Final Fantasy to be menu RPG again: this would have been a better game as a pure, stage based action game.Completely agree. As a genuine fan of the game, I feel they half assed 2 good systems into a single okay system, where they would have been better off committing to a single style.
Funnily enough, I played Forspoken earlier this year and it felt like the way it handled elemental kits was far better than XVI. It had its share of other problems with the combat, but having an arsenal of secondary abilities at my fingertips, quick switching, and tying your primary attack options into the elements was great. The Mastery system too I was particularly fond of, the mini tasks for a power up adding a lot of variety to how I approached combat.
PS5 might not be a complete flop but most of their and Xbox players are less keen on buying new games than playing liveI get that its cool to hate on Sony for various reasons and decisions,(their live service push) but saying that the PS5 flopped is factually wrong.
I get that its cool to hate on Sony for various reasons and decisions,(their live service push) but saying that the PS5 flopped is factually wrong.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c0d00d09.jpg
PlayStation 5 Sales Fall Short Of PS4, Even As Helldivers 2 Breaks Records
Sony predicts a quieter year, but online FPS Concord is still coming soon
Sony sold over 20 million PlayStation 5s in its last fiscal year, an impressive number that nevertheless failed to hit its original goal of 25 million, and even missed its revised target of 21 million consoles sold. The latest numbers make it clear that the next-gen hardware will probably never catch up to the sales of the PS4, even as Helldivers 2 crushes all expectations after becoming the fastest-selling Sony-published game in the companys history.