Board 8 > Final Fantasy XVI Trailer

(+) Yeah! (+)

This Final Fantasy could turn me off Final Fantasy.

Really love XII, XIII and 7R's battle systems personally

Played the entirety of ARR and it was not fun. Heard from many users that the expansions are the best part but didn't try yet because I didn't have the desire to do so.

Yes, there are many users who have been singing praises about FFXIV left and right, but there is nothing wrong with that. They are just passionate about it like how we are all passionate about the things we like, let them be. Nobody is holding anybody at gunpoint or blackmailing anybody to do anything.

This board would be a much nicer place if people can just stop turning every little discussion into malicious statements that ultimately lead to toxic arguments. And certain users to stop being so overly sensitive about every and any little thing that gets said. Like for example, the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard topic also devolved from people just discussing the case and rightfully rooting for Johnny Depp and hating on Amber Heard (also rightfully so if you actually follow the case) to a political agenda that nobody implied but just certain users dug into.

As for this topic, Macaroni or whatever your user name is. Just stop being such a jerk dude. I doubt this is the way you speak to people in real life because if it is then you must be one sad lonely guy. So it is certainly. Be nice. It is not that hard. There is really no reason to be rude unless someone is being rude to you in the first place.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

Nobody is holding anybody at gunpoint or blackmailing anybody to do anything.

LtM did to me

And it worked

I'm not beholden to turn-based combat, and I think the little they've shown us of the combat here looks good. But nothing I've heard of the story, the setting, or the characters has been particularly appealing to me thus far.

ninkendo posted...

Really love X-2, XIII and 7R's battle systems personally

*Fixed

I think all three XIII games do combat well!

andylt posted...

I think all three XIII games do combat well!

I agree all three have great battle systems but I personally think Lightning Returns has the best battle system out of the three. XIII and XIII-2 are nearly identical.

Really love XII, XIII and XV's battle systems personally

7R was a let down though

hype for XVI

This game looks great.

Also, while nobody should be pushed into playing a game they dont think theyll enjoy, you also shouldnt immediately discount games based on a sub-genre that has little by way of uniting characteristics, it really discounts the diversity of MMOs that exists today. So you dont need to play or like FFXIV, but it being an MMO shouldnt be the reason.

A much more valid criticism is the slow start, it is a time investment. I will say, personally I enjoyed ARR, it picks up after level 35, and I played it before they significantly streamlined it. Its good not great, but I was enjoying myself basically once I got out of the tutorial area. Its not that long. IMO, the bigger block is not how long it takes to pick up, but how long it takes for you to catch-up. Its basically marathonning five JRPGs plus DLC for each in terms of length and content. Thats no different from any series of games though.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Unironically yes, FF14 is "a Homestuck" in the same way that the MCU is "a Homestuck." I will not derail this topic further by elaborating.

Let me tell you about Homestuck Made This World, a podcast where two academics recap Homestuck and talk about how it effectively invented modern fandom and fan discourse. Just about everything with a dedicated fanbase is a Homestuck these days as I believe youre getting at.

To make matters more confusing, Homestuck is a Lost!

ya well 24 > Lost

Lightning Strikes posted...

Let me tell you about Homestuck Made This World, a podcast where two academics recap Homestuck and talk about how it effectively invented modern fandom and fan discourse. Just about everything with a dedicated fanbase is a Homestuck these days as I believe youre getting at.

To make matters more confusing, Homestuck is a Lost!

Oh I'm aware. I was trying to stop myself from going even further off the rails with this exact rant lmao. But now that someone else has taken the bait: yes! HMTW is excellent and people should really give it a listen, even if (maybe even especially if) you never read or cared about Homestuck. It's the best way to never read Homestuck. The hosts have a ton of insights about how fiction and mass media culture work in general and are using Homestuck as a way to examine them.

you can even listen to it in the background while doing fetch quests in ff14

Wait. Are we seriously entertaining the idea that Homestuck, specifically, fundamentally changed fandoms as a whole in some way that wasnt already happening due to the widespread adoption of social media and wikis?

We need one more trailer that focuses a bit more on the characters. Especially Clive who hasn't even been called by name in any of these trailers. Give us something more to care about besides whatever happened that Joshua kid and we good.

Commenting scattershot, fuck dealing with 4 different quotes on mobile.

Oh man I had no idea there was a Homestuck podcast, I have to get on that shit.

SHINE I don't remember what the gun to the head was about FFXIV, but you're welcome.

I thought XIII had a fantastic battle system and it's why I give that game a pretty big pass.

FFX I just beat for the first time recently though, and I thought it was prettyyyyyyy boring front to back. Story combat, and characters mega bland all the way through. Definitely not a game I have any attachment for whatsoever like most people do.

I've made it no secret that I think XV is absolute guttertrash, so I don't think it's unfair to ask people to let us have one good mainline FF with action combat. Got hurt so much by the last one ;_;

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

We need one more trailer that focuses a bit more on the characters. Especially Clive who hasn't even been called by name in any of these trailers. Give us something more to care about besides whatever happened that Joshua kid and we good.

Yeah, I need a reason to care about what's going on, and they haven't provided that yet.

FF games tend to have pretty solid battle systems, so I don't really worry about that. I'm not saying they're all great, but they don't actively detract from the experience for me.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

SHINE I don't remember what the gun to the head was about FFXIV, but you're welcome.

It was a gunblade

If I get even one Estenien then I'm good on the character front.

But yes as I said in the first place, I'm looking forward to learning about the characters. This seemed to be more like a re-announcement trailer. A damn good one, but still.

The game has woman who look like they'll be doing stuff so already a better cast than XV.

Hot take: I don't actually want a trailer that focuses on the story and characters. I'd prefer to experience all that as fresh as I can.

KamikazePotato posted...

Hot take: I don't actually want a trailer that focuses on the story and characters. I'd prefer to experience all that as fresh as I can.

You know this is a good point.

Can't say I don't want know, but given the creative team there a 0% chance it won't be good, so why not wait?

Same deal with the music, I wanna hear it, but I want to get hit with Soken's stuff in the moment. Really looking forward to people not in the know finally finding out that he's the greatest composer in the industry.

KamikazePotato posted...

Hot take: I don't actually want a trailer that focuses on the story and characters. I'd prefer to experience all that as fresh as I can.

Honestly...that's a good approach. I do all I can before releases to tune out all the noise. Just get a general "vibe" at first, but let the game decide for itself. I have the release window, so eventually, it'll all be sticking my head in the sand and hoping for the best.

redrocket posted...

Wait. Are we seriously entertaining the idea that Homestuck, specifically, fundamentally changed fandoms as a whole in some way that wasnt already happening due to the widespread adoption of social media and wikis?

No, hence LS saying "Homestuck is a Lost." It took what was already happening and is a hyper accelerated version of it, and also happened to be made by weirdos on the internet instead of huge corporations. The show is called "Homestuck Made This World" but the parallel conceit is that Homestuck Was Made By This World.

too learn more...listen to the podcast???

redrocket posted...

Wait. Are we seriously entertaining the idea that Homestuck, specifically, fundamentally changed fandoms as a whole in some way that wasnt already happening due to the widespread adoption of social media and wikis?

Its not that it changed it, just that it typified it and was for a variety of reasons the first big place that a lot of modern fandom interactions happened in a noticeable way. It is also a work (like Lost) that was uniquely for the time suited to that. This is getting really off-topic though!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

You know this is a good point.

Can't say I don't want know, but given the creative team there a 0% chance it won't be good, so why not wait?

Same deal with the music, I wanna hear it, but I want to get hit with Soken's stuff in the moment. Really looking forward to people not in the know finally finding out that he's the greatest composer in the industry.

High praise, considering people like Mitsuda and Meguro are still releasing great soundtracks. I just want Final Fantasy to follow Uematsu's approach of "riff based" compositions. FFXII had good "orchestral" stuff, but I never felt it got hooks into me. Hamauzu at least had that down, even if his songs weren't super amazing. I like catchy and simple.

Also one of the issues with the long announce to release cycles for games like this is far too many trailers. With MGSV it felt like you could probably piece together the whole narrative just from the trailers.

Eh, you can show off enough of the characters not to spoil the experience, and I'm not playing JRPGs just for the gameplay. I don't know that Square can assume people will play Final Fantasy just because it's Final Fantasy anymore, although XV does have excellent sales numbers, so who knows!

Lightning Strikes posted...

Also one of the issues with the long announce to release cycles for games like this is far too many trailers. With MGSV it felt like you could probably piece together the whole narrative just from the trailers.

Yeah, MGS in general is a good example of showing too much in their trailers. You could do the same thing with MGS3, too. They were literally showing stuff from the last boss in those trailers!

Just to jump on a point made earlier on in the topic: I think it's perfectly fine to say "I don't play MMO's and so I'm not playing FFXIV."

As much as the devs have done to make the game a single player experience, at its core it is an MMO in ways that can't be changed: the UI, the menus, the player character, the fetch quests. Though the trust system has allowed you to get away from playing with other players (which is nice for me) you are still locked in a Tank/Healer/2DPS party for the entire time, and thus you are expected to always "play a certain way." It's an experience I don't particularly care for. Maybe I shouldn't have chosen tank.

I think Mitsuda and Meguro are doing fantastic work, Meguro especially. They are industry titans. The sheer insanity of the XIV's decade long, 100s of full length tracks OST is difficult to convey to non players, though. So many motifs across a decade of compositions. So many tracks that need the full context of the narrative to understand. You can get a fucking cacophony of noise like Brute Justice and then a beutiful track like Flow Together and easily get just as pumped for both when you know the context.

The Average Joe can listen to Answers and feel nothing, but there's a reason it can start playing during a cutscene in Endwalker and grown men and women will start openly weeping on stream in front of thousands of people.

I absolutely love Meguro and Mitsuda, but I'm not tearing up while driving to the grocery store when one of their tracks hits my shuffle.

Lightning Strikes posted...

Also one of the issues with the long announce to release cycles for games like this is far too many trailers. With MGSV it felt like you could probably piece together the whole narrative just from the trailers.

There's a decent chance I enjoyed the trailers for MGSV more than the game.

And I LIKED MGSV, so I think that says more about how Kojima can cut a mean fucking trailer than anything.

Strife2 posted...

High praise, considering people like Mitsuda and Meguro are still releasing great soundtracks. I just want Final Fantasy to follow Uematsu's approach of "riff based" compositions. FFXII had good "orchestral" stuff, but I never felt it got hooks into me. Hamauzu at least had that down, even if his songs weren't super amazing. I like catchy and simple.

Good news: this is most of what Soken does. He recycles leitmotifs and makes catchy bangers. That's his bread and butter. It's like the modern Final Fantasy version of Toby Fox, if you are into that kind of style.

(And this is not just a random comparison I'm making because I have Homestuck on the brain: Soken literally put an Undertale leitmotif into FF14.)

Although, I'm not sure he'll have as much room to mess around with his huge variety of genre inspirations in a mainline game, I'm sure we're gonna get something good.

Leonhart4 posted...

Eh, you can show off enough of the characters not to spoil the experience, and I'm not playing JRPGs just for the gameplay. I don't know that Square can assume people will play Final Fantasy just because it's Final Fantasy anymore, although XV does have excellent sales numbers, so who knows!

FFXV feels like an anomaly. It was the first mainline FF in a long time, and its reputation for never coming out actually made it well-known among gaming as a whole. This led to it being a great chance for new people to get into FF for the first time - an opportunity that Square missed due to the game not being very good. I don't think they created many new fans with 15, if any. Remake was the very next game and I don't think it sold nearly as well despite being a Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

colliding posted...

Just to jump on a point made earlier on in the topic: I think it's perfectly fine to say "I don't play MMO's and so I'm not playing FFXIV."

Oh yeah I mean to comment on this in my post earlier.

I do think this is an ABSOLUTELY FINE OPINION TO HAVE.

I just always feel the need to stress though just how much I *vitriolically despised* the fact that MMO's even existed befire playing XIV. I really don't think anyone openly hated them more than me here.

So yeah, I just think it's possible to completely write a genre off.

But also, I think it's totally understandable that people DON'T have enough free time on their hands to deal with the game being mid for the first 75 hours. I started XIV when my two weeks of vacation began and it was literally me staying at home watching my parent's house and pets while they were away. I had 2 weeks COMPLETELY free to slack off. I think I still would have eventually gotten through ARR, but there's no doubt that colored my experience. Some people just don't have that time.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

(And this is not just a random comparison I'm making because I have Homestuck on the brain: Soken literally put an Undertale leitmotif into FF14.)

God this still fucking blows me away.

There's no way I can actually link to that track considering what it's name is but I just booted it up for 10 seconds and literally had to wipe my eyes lol.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The Average Joe can listen to Answers and feel nothing, but there's a reason it can start playing during a cutscene in Endwalker and grown men and women will start openly weeping on stream in front of thousands of people.

I absolutely love Meguro and Mitsuda, but I'm not tearing up while driving to the grocery store when one of their tracks hits my shuffle.

Ok I'm gonna have to call you out here though. Answers was composed by Uematsu, lmao.

The thing Soken did was remix it in about 50 other songs, establishing emotional connections to it in your brain that climax when the original plays in a dramatic moment. He is a master in his own way.

What were XV's sales numbers like BEFORE they started practically giving it away? Not trying to be snarky, I'm just genuinely curious. The game eventually got so cheap that I bought it even though I absolutely hated it just because it seemed like too good a deal to pass up in case I wanted to try again some day.

https://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-xv-sells-5-million-copies-on-first-day-fastest-selling-in-series-history/

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Ok I'm gonna have to call you out here though. Answers was composed by Uematsu, lmao.

The thing Soken did was remix it in about 50 other songs, establishing emotional connections to it in your brain that climax when the original plays in a dramatic moment. He is a master in his own way.

No you're right, but Soken's infusion of Answers variants throughout the series is why it hits so hard!

I doubt I'd be having to emotionally recover after "The Walk" if it was just "oh cool that song from the ARR OP".

But yeah base Answer still fucking slams so thank you Uematsu for setting the stage.

I think the biggest example of "You need context" is going to obviously be Footfalls. You aren't gonna feel anything when it goes to that heavy metal "STORM OF BLOOD" section if you don't know of said Storm of Blood, lol.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

but the actual meat of the system is style over substance

That's ATB. It's a turn based but made more messy and blurry by adding real time timing, just so you feel like it's more exciting and dynamic. But it's not, it's dirt simple and formulaic just like any turn based system. The timing aspect adds nothing and only takes away. X-2 was fun despite that because it had sweet animations (perfecting style over substance).

X perfected turn based by making the core actually good, and then adding the style as an extra layer on top. Persona does that great too but each character is kinda samey. In the late game it's a lot more interesting since you specialize everyone. But X gets weaker in the late game since everyone becomes samey too (if you do it right at least). Hard to say which is better.

KamikazePotato posted...

FFXV feels like an anomaly. It was the first mainline FF in a long time, and its reputation for never coming out actually made it well-known among gaming as a whole. This led to it being a great chance for new people to get into FF for the first time - an opportunity that Square missed due to the game not being very good. I don't think they created many new fans with 15, if any. Remake was the very next game and I don't think it sold nearly as well despite being a Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Which is another reason why I think it's important to establish how this is going to be different from XV, and focusing on the characters and the story is a way to do that.

Seeing all those summons you could almost convince someone unfamiliar with the series that this is a direct sequel.

foolm0r0n posted...

That's ATB. It's a turn based but made more messy and blurry by adding real time timing, just so you feel like it's more exciting and dynamic. But it's not, it's dirt simple and formulaic just like any turn based system. The timing aspect adds nothing and only takes away. X-2 was fun despite that because it had sweet animations (perfecting style over substance).

I'm well aware. The "mess" is good actually. I legitimately think the unpredictability of enemy attacks and reactive nature of ATB add more tension to random battles than FFX's very small increase of strategic complexity. I think if you added ATB to FFX, so that it had both small strategic complexity and a time crunch, it would be a lot more engaging.

This is basically why I like FF7R's combat so much, though it goes even farther into action gameplay, that's what it's doing.

the problem with summons is that they need to focus more on new ones and less on the staples

summons are a part of every final fantasy game but they shouldn't be the main focus

colliding posted...

the problem with summons is that they need to focus more on new ones and less on the staples

summons are a part of every final fantasy game but they shouldn't be the main focus

Actually, this sentiment, alongside this:

Mac Arrowny posted...

Showing the summon names was so cringe

Is the exact opposite reaction I saw on the other places I checked out. People were excited about the big summon battles, and I saw multiple comments about the name chanting in the trailer going being the part that brought the most hype.

Weird, because I didn't realize they were chanting summon names until the last two or three, and I was just like "why"

X also perfected turn based by doing these things

1. Super snappy combat and animations/swapping characters for free
2. Turn order/agility/changing order via moves/status effects
3. Everyone except Kimarhi having a favored enemy, making them useful

Persona, Yakuza 7, Atelier, and (I assume) Trails all have their flavor on it, but X still has the quickest and easiest system to just "play" without thinking.

FFX was the last time I think Square just had a game that seemed so effortless, but explained every detail without coming across as too heavy handed or lacking context. The only nitpick I can possibly think of that wrecks the game flow at all is using the Sphere Grid after every fight....

KamikazePotato posted...

Is the exact opposite reaction I saw on the other places I checked out. People were excited about the big summon battles, and I saw multiple comments about the name chanting in the trailer going being the part that brought the most hype.

oh I have no doubt that FFXVI is going to be a critical and commercial success. they're making the right choices to get huge global audiences involved.

but will I like it? looking unlikely at this point. my opinions are definitely in the minority and I recognize this.

Strife2 posted...

Persona, Yakuza 7, Atelier, and (I assume) Trails all have their flavor on it, but X still has the quickest and easiest system to just "play" without thinking.

This is exactly what I don't like about it lol. They added all these snappy moving pieces but it's very straightforward so it just ends up feeling like I'm doing extra fiddling around. It's a good baseline, I guess.

def better than Y7 though, the issue there is low strategic variety but high bloat. It's even more mindless and not as snappy. Game is still good overall, just not that battle system!

That and characters getting stuck behind benches and grass when running after enemies...

Strife2 posted...

3. Everyone except Kimarhi having a favored enemy, making them useful

I actually wasn't a fan of this!

Yeah it makes them have a niche, but it starts to feel like busy work.

Also having the favored enemy system but also no backline EXP gain is a completely contradictory design goal and I absolutely hate it.

My main issue is not Square Enix trying action or weird special shit is bad. I just spent 10 games (or more counting X-2) doing turn based or ATB. You can see Square developers straining against the confines of it over and over. I think the guy who make Secret of Mana left FF4's development for said reason.

But just make different franchises of you want to try things. Persona is more life sim, SMT isore combat focused. Same or similar teams, but both viable. They even made Catherine because "lol let's do a QBERT game!". Judgment has Yakuza's brawler combat so it's not like the people wanting it will never have old Yakuza stuff again.

I just feel FF is left to be the standard bearer for "we always try new shit, so shut up and fucking deal." Rather than using spinoffs to do that. It's like they forced Bravely games down the old school path, and then get surprised that the games they excelled at for 15 years still had an audience.

KH has a giant audience, and they are not FF at all. Just make new IPs if you want to Stranger it up