Final Fantasy 16

Chris · Jun 25, 2023

Not spoilers since it's 10 minutes into the demo stuff so should be safe for anyone to read but just in case:

Anabella has to be the most contemptable character in Final Fantasy history.

Having a mother hate her own child for no reason is just top tier antagonist material and I'm not sure I've seen that in fiction before. Fathers maybe, step mothers definitely but not actual mothers.

She's like a whole other level above Cersei Lannister, who at least unconditionally loved her children as her redeeming feature.

No idea where they go with her but would be amazing if she was the end boss somehow. Won't be satisfying to see her die without kicking the shit out of her first.

spronk · Jun 25, 2023

oh shit just accidently found a feature thats pretty fucking awesome, during a cutscene and maybe boss fight if you press the touchpad you get a little mini encyclopedia that tells you about the people talking and where you are. Its pretty awesome for people like me who forget names and shit

"who the fuck is this bitch? Active Time Lore to the rescue!"

that and the lore man are awesome

Fadaar · Jun 25, 2023

theres gonna be so much skanky cosplay of that blonde bitch and i cant wait for it

Chris · Jun 25, 2023

spronk said:
oh shit just accidently found a feature thats pretty fucking awesome, during a cutscene and maybe boss fight if you press the touchpad you get a little mini encyclopedia that tells you about the people talking and where you are. Its pretty awesome for people like me who forget names and shit

"who the fuck is this bitch? Active Time Lore to the rescue!"

that and the lore man are awesome

Later on you get a history teacher lol.

Malakriss · Jun 25, 2023

"Fiery youth" might be the new Katniss analogue.

Rajaah · Jun 25, 2023

Just defeated Garuda lady on the castle rooftop. Fight setup was pretty awesome, fight itself actually got on my nerves. It went on WAY too long. Dying, replenishing heals and starting back at the third of the boss' health that you were on... is just a weird gameplay loop, and feels super cheesy. I wish they would have just, say, tripled your amount of potions instead and done away with potion-restores and "HP checkpoints" so you have to actually win the fights normally. Though I guess that'd also mean having to repeat a lot of shit if you lose.

Right after that I had another really long fight with a griffon thing guarding a bridge outside. Not even a boss, maybe not even a miniboss, just a regular foe that took several minutes to bring down.

Seems like everything in this game has to be "sweeping" and "epic" and that often just translates to "way the hell too drawn out"

I like the game fine (story's great, visuals are nice) but I'm finding the battle system not really to my liking and the fighting is starting to become an annoyance more than anything else. It doesn't have the complexity or badassery of Devil May Cry and it doesn't have the strategy of a traditional FF.

And the major fights go on for so long that it actually gets kind of exhausting. Midway through the Garuda lady fight I just wanted to do something else and was wondering why this couldn't play more like an actual Final Fantasy game instead of whatever this is.

So at this point I'm still positive on the game but I'm also finding bones to pick with it.

Hateyou · Jun 25, 2023

Rajaah said:
Just defeated Garuda lady on the castle rooftop. Fight setup was pretty awesome, fight itself actually got on my nerves. It went on WAY too long. Dying, replenishing heals and starting back at the third of the boss' health that you were on... is just a weird gameplay loop, and feels super cheesy. I wish they would have just, say, tripled your amount of potions instead and done away with potion-restores and "HP checkpoints" so you have to actually win the fights normally. Though I guess that'd also mean having to repeat a lot of shit if you lose.

Right after that I had another really long fight with a griffon thing guarding a bridge outside. Not even a boss, maybe not even a miniboss, just a regular foe that took several minutes to bring down.

Seems like everything in this game has to be "sweeping" and "epic" and that often just translates to "way the hell too drawn out"

I like the game fine (story's great, visuals are nice) but I'm finding the battle system not really to my liking and the fighting is starting to become an annoyance more than anything else. It doesn't have the complexity or badassery of Devil May Cry and it doesn't have the strategy of a traditional FF.

And the major fights go on for so long that it actually gets kind of exhausting. Midway through the Garuda lady fight I just wanted to do something else and was wondering why this couldn't play more like an actual Final Fantasy game instead of whatever this is.

So at this point I'm still positive on the game but I'm also finding bones to pick with it.

Ehh. Your potions don’t restore if you don’t die…

Rajaah · Jun 25, 2023

Chris said:
Not spoilers since it's 10 minutes into the demo stuff so should be safe for anyone to read but just in case:

Anabella has to be the most contemptable character in Final Fantasy history.

Having a mother hate her own child for no reason is just top tier antagonist material and I'm not sure I've seen that in fiction before. Fathers maybe, step mothers definitely but not actual mothers.

She's like a whole other level above Cersei Lannister, who at least unconditionally loved her children as her redeeming feature.

No idea where they go with her but would be amazing if she was the end boss somehow. Won't be satisfying to see her die without kicking the shit out of her first.

Yeah, she's a pretty despicable antagonist. Where I'm at, she's been largely MIA since the first chapter, but maybe she'll be more of a presence as it goes on.

Given than the prince is "feeling ill" throughout the intro of the game, I question whether she poisoned him in some way to make sure he'd be too ill to make the journey, and thus left behind by the dad. She was frustrated when he went anyway. Maybe he was just ill because of Eikons or whatever but I think it's a much more interesting story if she poisoned him.

It's definitely uncommon and fresh to have the mother be evil rather than the father. I give them props for having the balls to do that in modern "men are bad" society. Then again Japan isn't like that at all and still retains a lot of their patriarchal values. Men should strive to be strong/noble, women are just as capable of evil as men, and so on. So for them this isn't really any kind of stretch.

Hateyou said:
Ehh. Your potions don’t restore if you don’t die…

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You essentially get rewarded for dying your way through a fight. Give the player 2x the potion max and have the game retain their current level of potions (at the current third of the fight) if they lose. Then each third really is just a "fight checkpoint" without a reward to it, instead of the game actively making it beneficial to lose repeatedly. I'm alright with the fights having checkpoints given how damn long they are, but I don't want to be given extra advantages if I lose.

The way I see it, a lot of boss fights for a lot of people are going to consist of them getting through the first two thirds of the fight, running out of heals and losing on the last third, then respawning and easily winning the last third with refilled potions. And it's going to feel like a very cheesy "win". That's the kind of thing that'd make me want to reset and do the fight over again just to have a clean fight and feel like I succeeded at it rather than just failed upwards.

Also, having dodge on R1 instead of circle like every game this generation is pretty annoying. My 200 hours of Elden Ring are really messing me up in this game because 4 out of 5 times my brain defaults to circle for dodge.

Zindan · Jun 25, 2023

Rajaah said:
Just defeated Garuda lady on the castle rooftop. Fight setup was pretty awesome, fight itself actually got on my nerves. It went on WAY too long. Dying, replenishing heals and starting back at the third of the boss' health that you were on... is just a weird gameplay loop, and feels super cheesy. I wish they would have just, say, tripled your amount of potions instead and done away with potion-restores and "HP checkpoints" so you have to actually win the fights normally. Though I guess that'd also mean having to repeat a lot of shit if you lose.

Right after that I had another really long fight with a griffon thing guarding a bridge outside. Not even a boss, maybe not even a miniboss, just a regular foe that took several minutes to bring down.

Seems like everything in this game has to be "sweeping" and "epic" and that often just translates to "way the hell too drawn out"

I like the game fine (story's great, visuals are nice) but I'm finding the battle system not really to my liking and the fighting is starting to become an annoyance more than anything else. It doesn't have the complexity or badassery of Devil May Cry and it doesn't have the strategy of a traditional FF.

And the major fights go on for so long that it actually gets kind of exhausting. Midway through the Garuda lady fight I just wanted to do something else and was wondering why this couldn't play more like an actual Final Fantasy game instead of whatever this is.

So at this point I'm still positive on the game but I'm also finding bones to pick with it.

Eh, kind of a quick take on the combat side of things. The combat will be as complex as you're ability to use combos and combine Eikon abilities... that is ALL up to you. This is a case where if someone says the combat sucks, it just means they suck. Now, if you're patient and open up more Eikons and start playing the various harder encounter like you're playing DMC for style points, but then still say the combat sucks.. well, its just not for you. =)

Rajaah You can change control types in Setting, though I don't think you can adjust them individually (yet). I think Control Type B has Dodge on Circle, and Melee/Magic attacks on R1/R2. That might not be the best, but it'll prolly help a bit.

Hateyou · Jun 25, 2023

Rajaah said:
Yeah, she's a pretty despicable antagonist. Where I'm at, she's been largely MIA since the first chapter, but maybe she'll be more of a presence as it goes on.

Given than the prince is "feeling ill" throughout the intro of the game, I question whether she poisoned him in some way to make sure he'd be too ill to make the journey, and thus left behind by the dad. She was frustrated when he went anyway. Maybe he was just ill because of Eikons or whatever but I think it's a much more interesting story if she poisoned him.

It's definitely uncommon and fresh to have the mother be evil rather than the father. I give them props for having the balls to do that in modern "men are bad" society. Then again Japan isn't like that at all and still retains a lot of their patriarchal values. Men should strive to be strong/noble, women are just as capable of evil as men, and so on. So for them this isn't really any kind of stretch.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You essentially get rewarded for dying your way through a fight. Give the player 2x the potion max and have the game retain their current level of potions (at the current third of the fight) if they lose. Then each third really is just a "fight checkpoint" without a reward to it, instead of the game actively making it beneficial to lose repeatedly. I'm alright with the fights having checkpoints given how damn long they are, but I don't want to be given extra advantages if I lose.

The way I see it, a lot of boss fights for a lot of people are going to consist of them getting through the first two thirds of the fight, running out of heals and losing on the last third, then respawning and easily winning the last third with refilled potions. And it's going to feel like a very cheesy "win". That's the kind of thing that'd make me want to reset and do the fight over again just to have a clean fight and feel like I succeeded at it rather than just failed upwards.

Also, having dodge on R1 instead of circle like every game this generation is pretty annoying. My 200 hours of Elden Ring are really messing me up in this game because 4 out of 5 times my brain defaults to circle for dodge.

Do the second controller layout. It maps dodge to circle, changes the warp to L2, attack to R1, Magic to R2. Feels a lot better and should have been the default layout imo.

sukik · Jun 25, 2023

I wish I was better at timing things like parry and dodge counters, but I usually just settle for trying to be patient. Looking the abilities, there are a bunch of things I usually end up triggering by accident when trying not to get hit.

Malakriss · Jun 25, 2023

There are interactions you want to get good at because it vastly improves your cooldown / stagger. For example Rook's Gambit cooldown is 25 seconds, but that drops to 9 seconds if you successfully counter with it. Same deal with the abilities that deflect it provides more damage and stagger on top of massive CDR.

Rajaah · Jun 25, 2023

Hateyou said:
Do the second controller layout. It maps dodge to circle, changes the warp to L2, attack to R1, Magic to R2. Feels a lot better and should have been the default layout imo.

Yeah I can already tell this'll help.

Zindan said:
Eh, kind of a quick take on the combat side of things. The combat will be as complex as you're ability to use combos and combine Eikon abilities... that is ALL up to you. This is a case where if someone says the combat sucks, it just means they suck. Now, if you're patient and open up more Eikons and start playing the various harder encounter like you're playing DMC for style points, but then still say the combat sucks.. well, its just not for you. =)

Rajaah You can change control types in Setting, though I don't think you can adjust them individually (yet). I think Control Type B has Dodge on Circle, and Melee/Magic attacks on R1/R2. That might not be the best, but it'll prolly help a bit.

I platinumed the whole Souls series and would have probably gotten a platinum in Devil May Cry 3 if they existed yet at the time (2008 for me). I'm alright at action games. Though I'm early enough that I don't have a ton of options for approaching battles, so it's mostly been just "spam attacks, do specials, repeat" so far. Now that Garuda is unlocked, next time I play I'll probably have a lot more options. Need to get into the skill point menu too, only glanced at it early on and then wanted to make some story progress with my limited playtime this weekend (like 4 hours total).

There's also the mental component that I'd rather have a Final Fantasy game when I play FF, rather than a DMC game, but we knew what we were getting with this one.

Hateyou · Jun 25, 2023

Rajaah said:
Yeah I can already tell this'll help.

I platinumed the whole Souls series and would have probably gotten a platinum in Devil May Cry 3 if they existed yet at the time (2008 for me). I'm alright at action games. Though I'm early enough that I don't have a ton of options for approaching battles, so it's mostly been just "spam attacks, do specials, repeat" so far. Now that Garuda is unlocked, next time I play I'll probably have a lot more options. Need to get into the skill point menu too, only glanced at it early on and then wanted to make some story progress with my limited playtime this weekend (like 4 hours total).

There's also the mental component that I'd rather have a Final Fantasy game when I play FF, rather than a DMC game, but we knew what we were getting with this one.

Yeah I would absolutely love this game if it was just a FF12-like system laid on top of these graphics, story, and cinematics. Just like ff15 and 7r it’s a halfassed action game. Still digging it but the combat keeps it from being a truly great game for me.

Lumi · Jun 25, 2023

Hateyou said:
Yeah I would absolutely love this game if it was just a FF12-like system laid on top of these graphics, story, and cinematics. Just like ff15 and 7r it’s a halfassed action game. Still digging it but the combat keeps it from being a truly great game for me.

Eh the combat is quite good imo and so was 7r. It's challenging and fast paced. I guess it helps I'm good at these kind of games and I can see they're not for more casual players. The upgrades and ability choice selections are also pretty good too. I don't get the hate with it, it's very good imo.

Rajaah · Jun 25, 2023

Hateyou said:
Yeah I would absolutely love this game if it was just a FF12-like system laid on top of these graphics, story, and cinematics. Just like ff15 and 7r it’s a halfassed action game. Still digging it but the combat keeps it from being a truly great game for me.

Same

Lumi said:
Eh the combat is quite good imo and so was 7r. It's challenging and fast paced. I guess it helps I'm good at these kind of games and I can see they're not for more casual players. The upgrades and ability choice selections are also pretty good too. I don't get the hate with it, it's very good imo.

It is good, it's just not very Final Fantasy like.

If they made Devil May Cry 6 a turn-based ATB game, it could still be awesome but a lot of DMC fans would be like "uhhh"

And yeah, if this had an FF12 gameplay system it'd probably be my favorite game since Elden Ring without much trouble.

Zindan · Jun 25, 2023

Dang.

The Oriflamme / Typhon / Ultima / Phoenix sequence was really well done.

Soygen · Jun 25, 2023

I bought this on a whim(because I hate myself, I guess) and while I really like the combat and the English voice acting and characters are probably my favorite in recent memory...why the fuck is this game like 25 fps on "framerate mode". This is pathetic performance.

Rajaah · Jun 25, 2023

I really wish this game had multiple party members. It'd be perfect, and new for the series, if each character was represented by an eidolon.

Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Garuda, Titan, Asura, Leviathan, Phoenix. Got eight characters right there. Six of them are already in the game. I'd have the duke and his evil wife be Leviathan and Asura.

Bahamut could be the main villain's eidolon.

Soygen said:
I bought this on a whim(because I hate myself, I guess) and while I really like the combat and the English voice acting and characters are probably my favorite in recent memory...why the fuck is this game like 25 fps on "framerate mode". This is pathetic performance.

I just put it on graphics mode. Framerate dips a lot in framerate mode anyway and graphics mode gives you some pretty sweet ray-tracing and light effects / details on surfaces. The FPS kinda sucks though.

Zindan · Jun 25, 2023

Soygen said:
I bought this on a whim(because I hate myself, I guess) and while I really like the combat and the English voice acting and characters are probably my favorite in recent memory...why the fuck is this game like 25 fps on "framerate mode". This is pathetic performance.

Game plays really smooth on Graphics, which I hated at first and couldn't play at all in the Demo, but now is great.

To everyone else, especially those with fond memories of previous FF games, where are you at in this game? I haven't read a single complaint from any of you that makes much sense. I just got my 3rd Eikon, and its so good. I'm even seeing some nifty accessories now. I'll just chalk it up to FF fans being weird. =)

Final Fantasy 16

Potato del Grande

FPS noob

That guy

Potato del Grande

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Honorable Member

Not Great, Not Terrible

Honorable Member

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Not Great, Not Terrible

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Honorable Member

Not Great, Not Terrible

Vyemm Raider

Honorable Member

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One

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Ahn'Qiraj Raider