Topic: General Final Fantasy Thread

It's funny I've heard it said FF9 was Square making a sort of homage to the games' classic medieval roots before abandoning it and moving on. And while it's certainly a homage to classic FF, it's not strictly medieval. It has a lot of non-medieval tech. It's more steampunk than medieval in tech and probably more renaissance in style and culture.

FF16 looks decidedly medieval.

So FFXVI is M rated huh

Honestly this is pretty exciting. The large majority of the games have basically only gone as far T for Teen but if this game is going to touch on adult subject matter and have something meaningful to pull from that I'm pretty excited for what can happen with the plot here

Also I managed to fully revive my 9 year old PSP by installing a new battery pack and I even found my old physical copies of FF1-4 as well as Dissidia

I may need to go and buy Crisis Core again though

@TheFrenchiestFry

Where on earth did you find a new PSP battery pack? Those were notoriously bad and hard to find good ones.

@Dezzy Third party. Came from a brand named Ostent,

It costed like 12 bucks and works even better than the first party packs since it hasn't cracked or swollen as of yet.

Not sure how I feel about the new FF aiming for an "M" rating.

Not that I have anything against "Mature" games in particular (God of War was probably my favorite title of 2019, which is the year I played it), but it clearly seems to be inspired by gritty western fantasy franchises like the Witcher & Game of Thrones, and while there's nothing wrong with those titles in an of themselves, if there's one thing that the PS360 gen taught us, it's that Japanese developers trying to westernize their franchises rarely works out. One of the reasons that Japanese games have made a big resurgence this gen is that while they may have taken some notes from western devs, their games are unequivocally Japanese.

I think there's definitely an element of them chasing that Witcher/Game of Thrones (also Lord of the Rings and Elder Scrolls) audience. They can't avoid noticing that a game like the Witcher 3 is vaguely similar to a Final Fantasy game, and yet has sold about 3 times as many copies as the typical Final Fantasy.

If that's what they're thinking though, I think they'll need to take into account how important the open-world is for the success of those games. Open-world games just sell more. It's probably why FFXV sold so many more copies than anyone expected (it's sold over 9 million at this point, putting it at 2nd highest in the series after the original ff7 at around 10 million. Not counting remasters.)

@Dezzy They've been trying since long before XVI to appeal to the Western audience. The whole reason they went from turn based in VII-X-2 to a real time combat system in XII was for that very reason. It's also why they made spinoffs like Dissidia, or tried to mesh fantastical elements into a setting reminiscent of our own world to mimic other narrative driven adventure games made by the West for FFXV.

@TheFrenchiestFry

Well it's been a primarily western audience ever since FF7 in terms of the sales numbers. But it's never got passed that 10 million mark for a single release (not including ports years later).

I don't know how much the action combat is about appealing to westerners, and how much of it is just they want something that makes really flashy epic trailers (they have said something like that on several occasions).

I think proper open-world is a huge issue though. Those games do sell more. I dunno how much it really suits this series though.

@Dezzy I feel like the action combat has been pretty divisive among the Western audience

I think they just need to strike a good balance between incorporating the tactical elements of turn based FF combat while not making the real time combat feel so reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts. FFVIIR definitely reminded me more of Dissidia than anything else

@TheFrenchiestFry

The FF7R combat system was fairly popular. The youtube channel FF Union did a massive poll on this and the combat system got 4.5/5 from the audience:

@Dezzy VII Remake probably has the best combat system of any of the ARPG or even modern Final Fantasies in general.

It's an excellent hybrid between the strategy and methodical approach of the ATB system and the flashier attacks and spells in stuff like Dissidia, Crisis Core and FFXIII onwards

It's been pretty divisive among a group of people online who miss their childhood and talk about video games 24/7, while most people who play modern FF games don't care. (or at worst, moved on to other RPGs)

And I say that as someone who actively wanted XVI to be turn based.

FF7R has a good combat system. If they stick with the basics of that they'll be fine. I like turn-based RPGs, but other developers still make them. You can get all that 90s era RPG feels with tons of new games. FF is fine as an action RPG. They just have to get it right.

@justis

I don't think anyone liked the hand crane! Lol it was only there because you could see it in the original game and they wanted to make it feel like the same area.

Did anyone else get stuck in the crater in FF7? Stuck as in can’t leave the area? I can’t climb up the pillar in the area and I think I’m screwed because I cannot go back out to replenish supplies and buy upgrades for some of the characters.

I've heard of a save glitch inside the crater, but never being unable to leave (barring I guess the endgame when you can't save in).

btw, don't use save crystals to save over your current file. Unless they've fixed it in the more modern ports.

Well, I thought it was only if you used the save crystal in one room but it certainly makes sense to save in a different slot, just in case ....

I haven't played nearly enough Final Fantasy games. By which I mean I played through the original FF1, and I played through the Midgar portion of FF7 (and a little, but not much, farther). And a small amount of the DS port of FF3. And that's it. Shameful, really.

Anyone have a recommendation of a good one to pick up in 2020, as an almost-starting-point?

@Raylax, FFX gets my vote. It still feels modern enough not to feel particularly dated, but it still gives you pretty classic gameplay with it's turn based battle system. While there may be some nostalgia on my part, even after playing the HD remaster on Switch recently I think it stands up there with the better modern JRPGs I've played like DQXI, XC2, & Ys VIII.

I also really loved FFVII Remake (I'd say it's probably the best game I've played this year), but with it's more real time based combat it probably won't prepare you for the older titles.

@Raylax

Either FF9 or FF10 are the best to start with. Both easy enough to get into, both very highly regarded by the fanbase, both available on every modern platform, and both have aged incredibly well.