Final Fantasy 16

Droigan · Friday at 12:58 PM

Aazrael said:
I keep thinking of finishing this game. I fell off when you were supposed to go find some Mother Crystal or whatever.

Right now it feels like I need to restart as I dont remember anything about the story up until then.

But then I go play something else instead. First FF game I have not finished.

You're not missing much. Ending is terrible. Like others have mentioned, it gets worse as you go. I finished it, did everything in the base game, but no desire for any DLC and not a game I will ever replay.

It's like some people with a lot of power in Square have this vision of what they want these games to be, but they don't feel in line with the games that defined the brand at all. Other than the iconic chocobos and names of summons, the later FF games haven't had much that made me think of a Final Fantasy game. Change the names of the summons in FF 16 and it could be from any studio, named whatever and released as a generic ARPG. Nobody would go "Ohh, this looks like a new FF game!", neither from tone/feel, look or gameplay.

I'd would much rather they go back to turn based and visually something like

Rezz · Friday at 1:37 PM

I disagree on the world stuff. It felt very final fantasy from an aesthetic perspective. Chocobos, old timey castles and shit mixed with some ancient tech ruins, all the spells and stuff (Eidolens included) having the same flavor, etc. But the combat was Kingdom Hearts and not Final Fantasy at all. Even 13 had a much closer to FF feel to the combat - 16 was straight up action game with RPG elements.

When the entire game portion, however, doesn't feel like Final Fantasy? Yeah as a whole the game doesn't feel as Final Fantasy as I would like for sure. 15 had very similar problems, which probably contributed heavily to why 16 undersold. A lot of people I know were pretty bummed on the action combat swap they decided to lean into, especially when 15 was touted as having more RPG elements than it ended up having.

CaughtCross · Friday at 1:46 PM

Rezz said:
I disagree on the world stuff. It felt very final fantasy from an aesthetic perspective. Chocobos, old timey castles and shit mixed with some ancient tech ruins, all the spells and stuff (Eidolens included) having the same flavor, etc. But the combat was Kingdom Hearts and not Final Fantasy at all. Even 13 had a much closer to FF feel to the combat - 16 was straight up action game with RPG elements.

When the entire game portion, however, doesn't feel like Final Fantasy? Yeah as a whole the game doesn't feel as Final Fantasy as I would like for sure. 15 had very similar problems, which probably contributed heavily to why 16 undersold. A lot of people I know were pretty bummed on the action combat swap they decided to lean into, especially when 15 was touted as having more RPG elements than it ended up having.

With how well Persona 5 has sold and I think Expedition 33 is doing gives me hope Square will make the next FF turned based.

Droigan · Friday at 3:30 PM

CaughtCross said:
With how well Persona 5 has sold and I think Expedition 33 is doing gives me hope Square will make the next FF turned based.

Maybe, but consider Persona 5 released in September 2016, almost 10 years ago. FF 16 released in June 23, so nearly 7 years later. They had time to "learn" from that success for 16.

We won't see any Final Fantasy title to compete with FF7 part 3 which will have its earliest teaser perhaps this year at the game awards or a late year state of play. First trailer during / around the time of summer game fest in 26 with a possible release date at Q1 2027. Exclusive for at least 6 months + on PS5 with a possible late year release on PC, and I don't think FF 17 will even be announced before the last milking of part 3 on all platforms. Which makes the first teaser for 17 around summer 28? I assume they have another team working on it, but still 2029 release? Maybe?

Persona 6 will most likely be an "old" game before FF 17. I just hope they learn from FF 16 and don't do the "one party member" thing. It was bad in 15, and they went all in for 16. As I said, I think someone at the top of Square is way out of touch with the franchises roots.

Hateyou · Friday at 5:28 PM

Square seems to be clueless to me. Could have been releasing FFT games for the past 15 years and hasn’t, releases a remake and it’s the inferior ps1 version, while everyone online has been begging for psp version forever. Completely redid the beloved FF7 story. Turned FF16 into a soup delivery simulator with no gear. I’d be shocked if FF 17 isn’t another big turd.

Merrith · Friday at 6:04 PM

I'll defend a little more of 16, the story was actually pretty decent, just had really poor pacing in certain stages of the game. All of the stuff with kind of the "mini boss" of the story Barnabas felt a little out of order and dragged out. All of the shit up until the crazy fight with Bahamut was pretty fucking lit. Were a couple of the boss fights completely over the top? For sure, but it was so over the top it was mildly impressive.

Combat itself wasn't bad, was fun to challenge higher level hunts at normal levels without grinding overly much. My biggest issue with it was the fact that it's really just single character, not a party (despite some little actions you can with dog/etc). Also while it does let you customize your skill loadout, offering a decent amount of options as you gain more eikons...most are extremely sub optimal, and it's pretty apparent quickly if you're paying any real attention to how much damage you can do/best skills for boss fights. Instead of having a few to a number of different loadout options to make the combat feel different depending on the build, there's just no level of balance to the skills to allow for all that. Quantity over quality.

Also while it was kind of cool to fully explore all the little section maps and you could find some small hidden items, the rewards were extremely small and rpg elements like gear loadouts/gear progression was so limited that was a big fail at feeling like a full FF game. Upgrading your sword every so often to a new cool look was nice for all of 3 fights then you didn't care about it anymore. No real elemental weaknesses in the game removes a lot of potential loadout viability and magic usefulness. Very little gear/relic/accessory slots to customize with different builds/setups.

It's a shame, some of the world building they did was really great, the whole lore codex keeping a constant record of important people and places/history was something that a game like Tactics would benefit so much from. Some of the side quests had pretty deep stories with good conclusions, and the "Fallen" ruins had a real vibe to it. It just felt like it was missing a lot of customization an actual party with real gear progression would allow. Only having the 3 accessory slots on one character just really didn't allow for much.

Just kinda feels like 60-75% of what could have been a pretty great game, and the super cinematic eikon fights are supposed to make up for the rest of it? They're cool, but not THAT cool.

Hateyou · Friday at 8:35 PM

Merrith said:
I'll defend a little more of 16, the story was actually pretty decent, just had really poor pacing in certain stages of the game. All of the stuff with kind of the "mini boss" of the story Barnabas felt a little out of order and dragged out. All of the shit up until the crazy fight with Bahamut was pretty fucking lit. Were a couple of the boss fights completely over the top? For sure, but it was so over the top it was mildly impressive.

Combat itself wasn't bad, was fun to challenge higher level hunts at normal levels without grinding overly much. My biggest issue with it was the fact that it's really just single character, not a party (despite some little actions you can with dog/etc). Also while it does let you customize your skill loadout, offering a decent amount of options as you gain more eikons...most are extremely sub optimal, and it's pretty apparent quickly if you're paying any real attention to how much damage you can do/best skills for boss fights. Instead of having a few to a number of different loadout options to make the combat feel different depending on the build, there's just no level of balance to the skills to allow for all that. Quantity over quality.

Also while it was kind of cool to fully explore all the little section maps and you could find some small hidden items, the rewards were extremely small and rpg elements like gear loadouts/gear progression was so limited that was a big fail at feeling like a full FF game. Upgrading your sword every so often to a new cool look was nice for all of 3 fights then you didn't care about it anymore. No real elemental weaknesses in the game removes a lot of potential loadout viability and magic usefulness. Very little gear/relic/accessory slots to customize with different builds/setups.

It's a shame, some of the world building they did was really great, the whole lore codex keeping a constant record of important people and places/history was something that a game like Tactics would benefit so much from. Some of the side quests had pretty deep stories with good conclusions, and the "Fallen" ruins had a real vibe to it. It just felt like it was missing a lot of customization an actual party with real gear progression would allow. Only having the 3 accessory slots on one character just really didn't allow for much.

Just kinda feels like 60-75% of what could have been a pretty great game, and the super cinematic eikon fights are supposed to make up for the rest of it? They're cool, but not THAT cool.

While the Eikon fights were ridiculous I thought they were pretty fun. Over the top as hell. The shit exploring, shit quests, shit gear/rewards and constant cutscenes just ruined the overall experience. I thought the start of the game was incredible. I swore off FF after 15 but the demo for 16 was so badass I bought it anyway. If they could’ve just killed all the terrible quests, made gear and exploring meaningful, I would’ve kept playing.

Merrith · Saturday at 1:17 AM

Hateyou said:
While the Eikon fights were ridiculous I thought they were pretty fun. Over the top as hell. The shit exploring, shit quests, shit gear/rewards and constant cutscenes just ruined the overall experience. I thought the start of the game was incredible. I swore off FF after 15 but the demo for 16 was so badass I bought it anyway. If they could’ve just killed all the terrible quests, made gear and exploring meaningful, I would’ve kept playing.

Agree the Eikon fights were fun, they did just get a tad ridiculous at times. The fight with Titan was fucking top tier spectacle. Bahamut in space just went a little beyond what felt natural. I don't mind cutscenes when they're telling a good story. The demo definitely helped it sell, no question. That was tightly paced and had a nice hook to it.

Rajaah · Saturday at 2:05 AM

Noodleface said:
Yeah I felt bait and switched honestly. I played the demo with no intention of buying it. The demo is like 3ish hours of absolute spiciness. Then I bought the game. And it sucked.

Yeah, the gap between FF16's demo and the rest of FF16 was probably the biggest gap I've seen since 1997 when I played the Bushido Blade demo to death, loved it, then got the full game and it was meh. The character outfits were all changed to worse outfits, none of the levels were as interesting as the expansive demo level, and it made the most sense to just quickly one-shot foes and move on. I returned it after a day or two and got FF Tactics which was probably the biggest single upgrade I ever got on any kind of return or trade.

Rajaah · Saturday at 2:21 AM

Hateyou said:
Square seems to be clueless to me. Could have been releasing FFT games for the past 15 years and hasn’t, releases a remake and it’s the inferior ps1 version, while everyone online has been begging for psp version forever. Completely redid the beloved FF7 story. Turned FF16 into a soup delivery simulator with no gear. I’d be shocked if FF 17 isn’t another big turd.

That new FFT is just a port of the PS1 version? I thought it at least had the PSP version's script.

The alterations to FF7's story in the remake proved how clueless they are. The original FF7 was Hironobu Sakaguchi dealing with the loss of his mom (and that comes though with things like Aerith and the overall pained nature of the story).

This new FF7 is...sanitized. They couldn't even get Dyne's suicide right, and had to give him this generic heroic death instead where he held off scores of Shinra soldiers like some kind of Marvel movie until eventually falling to their attacks. It meant nothing. In the original, Dyne losing all hope, and Barret walking away from it knowing he had to keep fighting on his behalf, meant something.

Then there's Aerith, and perhaps the most pivotal scene in video game history. What even was that? They cut away during the iconic moment where Sephiroth flies down. I don't think they even showed Cloud laying her to rest in the water. She kept popping up for the rest of the game, which I guess was Cloud seeing things, but it never really said that, so it seemed like Seph missed and she was fine, but it was ambiguous so instead of being happy that things were different, I was just fuckin' confused. Then of course it turns out she was indeed gone, but we never had a chance to feel it because she never fuckin' left.

It's pretty obvious the long-gone Sakaguchi had nothing at all to do with the FF7 Remake, and the people who picked up that torch have no idea what the point of the original was. Coping with grief, fighting onward even if you don't feel like it, things being worth fighting for even if you have one arm and they seem hopeless, and so on.

Merrith · Saturday at 5:55 PM

Rajaah said:
Then there's Aerith, and perhaps the most pivotal scene in video game history. What even was that? They cut away during the iconic moment where Sephiroth flies down. I don't think they even showed Cloud laying her to rest in the water. She kept popping up for the rest of the game,

Rest of the game? All that was after was end boss fight and ending cutscenes. There's some pretty obvious stuff going on with the Rebirth ending, too, although various theories apply. Some solid vids out there like subTXT on YT (although should warn LONG vid).

OG 7 was not primarily Sakaguchi, either. He's mainly credited with coming up with ideas/themes like the lifestream. Nojima was the primary scenario writer for OG 7, with input from Kitase and Nomura.

Rajaah · Saturday at 6:28 PM

Merrith said:
Rest of the game? All that was after was end boss fight and ending cutscenes. There's some pretty obvious stuff going on with the Rebirth ending, too, although various theories apply. Some solid vids out there like subTXT on YT (although should warn LONG vid).

Yes, the rest of the game. However long that is.

And yeah, I'm guessing the whole thing they're going for is "Cloud is crazy and seeing things" to lead into Part 3. TBH though, Cloud's mental illness was always one of the less-interesting parts of FF7 for me. And they botched Aerith's death for basically nothing. They should have actually shown the damn death scene, then have Cloud see her only during the very last scene and have Tifa ask who he's talking to, so we can go "damn, Cloud is seeing things, what's gonna happen next" or whatever their intention was.

Whole ending was botched, but I shouldn't be surprised because FF7R-1 got really stupid during the last chapter as well.

Merrith · Saturday at 6:50 PM

Rajaah said:
Yes, the rest of the game. However long that is.

And yeah, I'm guessing the whole thing they're going for is "Cloud is crazy and seeing things" to lead into Part 3. TBH though, Cloud's mental illness was always one of the less-interesting parts of FF7 for me. And they botched Aerith's death for basically nothing. They should have actually shown the damn death scene, then have Cloud see her only during the very last scene and have Tifa ask who he's talking to, so we can go "damn, Cloud is seeing things, what's gonna happen next" or whatever their intention was.

Whole ending was botched, but I shouldn't be surprised because FF7R-1 got really stupid during the last chapter as well.

Fits right into a theory I have about how people reacted to the ending of Rebirth. If someone was always a big "Aerith's death is the most emotional moment in gaming!" (etc, also applies to many people who came to the game later on based on the hype her death scene has gotten over the years), they generally hate the ending, b/c they wanted something much more 1:1ish "faithful" to the scene in the original. On the other hand, people that felt the resolution of Cloud's broken mind in the lifestream sequence later in the game was the actual biggest moment seem to like Rebirth's ending quite a bit more, and most of them seem to agree with how you believe they are portraying it. I tend to agree with what you said, that they're going for him seeing things (for the most part).

fwiw, I bet we do eventually end up see him laying her to rest in the water in Part 3, as it likely already happened.

Caeden · Saturday at 11:53 PM

I enjoyed this game more than Tears of the Kingdom.

Droigan · Sunday at 7:23 AM

Merrith said:
fwiw, I bet we do eventually end up see him laying her to rest in the water in Part 3, as it likely already happened.

Most likely. But Part 3 is also probably where most "changes" from the original will happen. FF7 has already happened, the short books in between the original FF7 and Advent Children has happened (they've been confirmed canon) and the events of the movie Advent Children happened.

Remake, Rebirth and R.... are events that spawn from Sephiroth going back in time to get a better ending for himself. Titles seem to refer to him. Sephiroths remake of the world, Sephiroths rebirth and ....

If the books are canon, only one who can die to remove Sephiroth is Cloud. How they merge the timelines with Zack and the differences in that compared to the "new" original timeline is going to be some Nomura fuckery.

Example: in Zacks timeline, Cloud is already broken. So he dies there, Aerith comes back there, timelines merge, we play as Zack, defeat Sephiroth. Zack lives, Aerith lives, Cloud is dead but player given lore that he HAD to die, everything else is the "same" except the clonclusion of the world changes as Geostigma is avoided in the end, and by Sephiroths final and actual death since he can't reincanate without Cloud. The FF7 world gets its "Happy ending".

Not saying that is good/bad/whatever, just saying that I think Part 3 is going to be far more off script from the OG than Part 1 and 2.

Merrith · Sunday at 3:09 PM

Droigan said:
Most likely. But Part 3 is also probably where most "changes" from the original will happen. FF7 has already happened, the short books in between the original FF7 and Advent Children has happened (they've been confirmed canon) and the events of the movie Advent Children happened.

Remake, Rebirth and R.... are events that spawn from Sephiroth going back in time to get a better ending for himself. Titles seem to refer to him. Sephiroths remake of the world, Sephiroths rebirth and ....

If the books are canon, only one who can die to remove Sephiroth is Cloud. How they merge the timelines with Zack and the differences in that compared to the "new" original timeline is going to be some Nomura fuckery.

Example: in Zacks timeline, Cloud is already broken. So he dies there, Aerith comes back there, timelines merge, we play as Zack, defeat Sephiroth. Zack lives, Aerith lives, Cloud is dead but player given lore that he HAD to die, everything else is the "same" except the clonclusion of the world changes as Geostigma is avoided in the end, and by Sephiroths final and actual death since he can't reincanate without Cloud. The FF7 world gets its "Happy ending".

Not saying that is good/bad/whatever, just saying that I think Part 3 is going to be far more off script from the OG than Part 1 and 2.

That's an interesting idea, and one I had thought of after playing through Remake, the fact Sephiroth is so attached to Cloud, maybe he is the one that actually needs to die. Not convinced that's how it'll go anymore...as for all the theories about the ending of "did she or didn't she actually die?", feels like barely anyone has touched on the plot point/device of Aerith using Cloud and the other worlds to smuggle back into the main timeline a "full" white materia after hers appeared drained (which Cloud now conveniently possess, probably important). Knowing the Whispers drained her (and Red) of their future knowledge they both had in Remake, feels like that may have been Sephiroth's plot to change everything.

Although ironically, while everything sort of points to the whole idea Sephiroth from after Advent Children traveled back in time, there's nothing yet that explicitly confirms this theory. I do think Part 3 will end up seeing the most changes, if only because it's the final part and I do think they will be going for the "mega happy ending" (possibly minus Aerith surviving).

Droigan · Sunday at 7:25 PM

Merrith said:
That's an interesting idea, and one I had thought of after playing through Remake, the fact Sephiroth is so attached to Cloud, maybe he is the one that actually needs to die.
Although ironically, while everything sort of points to the whole idea Sephiroth from after Advent Children traveled back in time, there's nothing yet that explicitly confirms this theory.

It's in the short stories in between FF7 and Advent Children. Aerith is in the lifestream, and finds Sephiroth, there she learns that as long as any part of Cloud remembers Sephiroth, he can reincarnate. So the only way to get rid of Sephiroth is for Cloud to die. Basically Cloud is Sephiroths phylactary.

As to this being after Advent Children, while it doesn't explicitly state it as you said, what really pushes this are the three whispers that turn into the last whisper Harbinger. Three entities confirmed to be from the "future". Most likely then Kadaj, Liz and Yazoo. All created by Sephiroth in Advent Children.

Whisper Rubrum.
Fights with a sword arm manifested in his left arm. Kadaj fights with a sword in his left arm. Cloud does not.

Whisper Viridi.
Fights barehanded but in his right hand has a glove weapon. Loz carries a gun but fights most of his battles barehanded with a bulky metal glove weapon in his right hand.

Whisper Croceo.
Has two gun arms and is stated that it fights with guns to protect the future that gave shape to it. Yazoo, carries a single gun but on more than one occasion takes Loz gun and fights with two.

Also then makes sense why Cloud in the Remake has flashbacks/flash forwards to events that hasn't happened yet in Remake, but has in the original.

But, guess we will find out in a year or two.

Rezz · Sunday at 8:12 PM

Merrith said:
That's an interesting idea, and one I had thought of after playing through Remake, the fact Sephiroth is so attached to Cloud, maybe he is the one that actually needs to die. Not convinced that's how it'll go anymore...as for all the theories about the ending of "did she or didn't she actually die?", feels like barely anyone has touched on the plot point/device of Aerith using Cloud and the other worlds to smuggle back into the main timeline a "full" white materia after hers appeared drained (which Cloud now conveniently possess, probably important). Knowing the Whispers drained her (and Red) of their future knowledge they both had in Remake, feels like that may have been Sephiroth's plot to change everything.

Although ironically, while everything sort of points to the whole idea Sephiroth from after Advent Children traveled back in time, there's nothing yet that explicitly confirms this theory. I do think Part 3 will end up seeing the most changes, if only because it's the final part and I do think they will be going for the "mega happy ending" (possibly minus Aerith surviving).

I think Aerith fading into the lifestream is kind of just how the reality in the games works. It's something that eventually has to happen so that the world can heal. Even in an alternate timeline she would eventually have to enter the lifestream, thus completing her cycle.

I could absolutely see as a sort of unlocked ending that you get to see her survive and live for a life, but she eventually still enters the lifestream, and probably before she's ancient(lol) because the world can't heal until she does.

Rajaah · 2025-06-30T11:25:46-0400

I mean, do we really trust the modern devs with all of the above convoluted story bits?

I was open to FF7R rewriting things. At this point though I'm with the folks who just wanted it to be a remake of the original game. Turn-based battles would have been nice too.

Merrith · 2025-06-30T18:50:51-0400

Honestly I still trust them, but I'm kind of on the "I like what they've been doing to highlight Cloud's issues for the obvious payoff coming in part 3" side of the fence...assuming what seems pretty obvious there is what they are going for (if its not, then what the fuck?). I've liked all the added story line behind Wutai/Empire "war", too. The Sarruf reveal should be pretty funny if some haven't figured it out, yet.

I'd definitely like to see more turn based FF still. But I also think Remake/Rebirth combat is fantastic and I'd like to see them keep iterating on systems like that, as well.

Final Fantasy 16

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