Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

True. Anyway, it seems they are aiming for end of 2023, beginning of 2024. A ways away yet but kind of what I was expecting.

Read that Ever Crisis is mobile only, and is F2P with gacha style weapon mechanics. Which is a shame because it looks like an even more faithful port of the original, completely with chibi graphics and turn based mechanics. Shame really. I'd easily just pay full price without any of that mobile monetization garbage tacked on.

I knew Ever Crisis is mobile only so far. Where did you see the gacha stuff? It's been hard for me to find any info anywhere.

I saw it in a Reddit comment, but the actual source appears to be from an interview:

https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-7...

Any word on whether my PS4/PS5 FF7R save file can somehow be imported into a Steam copy of the game? That would make or break my willingness to double-dip.

Dangit, I literally just bought it on Epic like two weeks ago.

Looks like a Final Fantasy XVI embargo dropped, with several interviews dropping where Naoki Yoshida talks a bit more about the game. A few highlights I've seen so far:

  • Battles will feature one or more AI companions
  • It won't be open world
  • Summon vs summon battles will each feature unique mechanics, and the "fighting game" style UI shown in the trailer was more an accident that came from them removing UI elements to avoid spoilers
  • They're avoiding supplementary lore material - they want this to be a complete game in terms of story and lore
  • New trailer coming in the fall showing off the world, story, and characters
They're avoiding supplementary lore material - they want this to be a complete

Lesson learned I guess.

Uh, not to be pedantic, but I believe it's spelled "Our Boy Naoki Yoshida."

beanman101283 wrote:

Looks like a Final Fantasy XVI embargo dropped, with several interviews dropping where Naoki Yoshida talks a bit more about the game. A few highlights I've seen so far:

  • Battles will feature one or more AI companions
  • It won't be open world
  • Summon vs summon battles will each feature unique mechanics, and the "fighting game" style UI shown in the trailer was more an accident that came from them removing UI elements to avoid spoilers
  • They're avoiding supplementary lore material - they want this to be a complete game in terms of story and lore
  • New trailer coming in the fall showing off the world, story, and characters

Just to expand on this, here's a great reddit comment I found with more highlights, bold emphasis mine:

  • The team played a lot of different modern AAA games to get a feel for what people like these days and for reference. (this shouldnt come as a surprise as Yoshida has always said that the biggest fault of Square devs and devs in general is that they dont actually play games their competitors are making and thus often make outdated design choices.)
  • NOT fully open world aka one seamless map. Instead will have Big Areas that are basically different parts of the continent(s) of Valisthea to give players a better feel of a truly “global” scale.
  • "In the 35-year history of the Final Fantasy series, it’s always been the guiding policy that each new installment has to be the very best game that the director at the time can put together, no matter how the game world, the characters, or the battle system might change. Because of this, gamers and Final Fantasy fans around the world have very different ideas of what a Final Fantasy game should be—but to me, it’s those elements I mentioned."
  • Team started as a small core team split from XIV team and then eventually grew over the course of several years as dev continued. Didnt want this to have any impact on XIV's continued development.
    the game is fully playable from start to finish. Currently doing multi language VO, fine tuning difficulty, final touches on cutscenes, full scale debugging etc
  • His fav summon is Bahamut
  • Jump straight from story cutscenes into real-time battles and back again without any loading times thanks to the power of PS5
  • The titan battles are only a small part of the full experience. That said, each titan battle itself is long, with different phases, stages changing all in real time. One of these battles is reminiscent of a 3D shooting game, another feels like a pro wrestling match, while another, like the one with Titan, incorporates an entire area as the battlefield.
  • You control Ifrit
  • There ARE party members. You do not control them, but they do actively take part in the combat and you can issue them commands
  • Some UI was removed from the trailer for spoiler reasons
  • One of the main themes explored in Final Fantasy XVI's narrative deals with the inevitable clash of values and ideals when you get multiple different people with different ideals in the same room; what is truly right and what is truly wrong?
  • No plan for any tertiary content. XVI will be a complete experience.
  • We follow the life of Clive Rossville through three different stages: his teens, his 20s, and his 30s.
  • Lots of background lore, and reading material in the game itself.
  • Game is rated 18+/M for mature because they felt it was necessary to allow us to explore those more mature themes that the game tackles.
  • Combat is fast paced and you'll switch between different summon abilities on the fly (sounds kinda like weapon/style switching from DMC). Allows for a lot of customization and personal creativity.
  • FFXVI is more medieval because of the personal preference of lead devs on the game. They saw a lot of people finding the modern settings of FF kinda static so decided to use this as a chance to go the other way instead.
  • Already working on readying a third trailer for release this fall.

This has increased my excitement for the game.

Celebrating Cids

What would FINAL FANTASY be without its Cids?

Almost every game in the series features a character with the name ‘Cid’. From cynical engineers to affable educators, each one is as distinct and memorable as the game he appears in.

It’s an important part of the series, so we thought it was long overdue to take a tour through the series to celebrate these fantastic FINAL FANTASY fellows.

It was announced a little while back that Final Fantasy Record Keeper would be ending service. It's a mobile game, F2P, I'd say mildly gatcha (only one real money currency, which only did one thing, and they were pretty generous with the free equivalent, such systems will always be fundamentally exploitative, but I feel the game was pretty good at ameliorating that), and...is there a term for these mobile games that are mainly about collecting characters from across a series? Mascot collectors, or something? Regardless, I've been playing it since launch in 2015 (even if just to hit auto and burn my stamina), and I got a friend to join not too long after, so we're planning some sort of wake before the end of September, when the servers will be shut down.

The game featured characters from across the series, and created sort of Cliff Notes versions of each main game (and Type-0, which got considered a mainline entry for some reason), rendered in 16 bit style, which was very fun and cute. You'd assemble a party of 5 and take on fights ripped as directly from the original as was possible--when I started playing XIV, there were several fights I actually knew quite well thanks to Record Keeper--with a variety of classic and riffs on classic skills while building up gauge to spend on super skills that, over the years, escalated and, frankly, bloated. It was fun, it was cute, it felt as un-crass as I think such a venture is capable of being, and it radiated love for the series. It's probably the last mobile game I'll ever play given what they've become, and I'll miss it for sure. Here was the menu music during the 2016 Christmas event (on tablet, there was a choir of sprites made up of different women across the series):

Aww, I played that for a while! It didn't hold my interest long-term, but definitely was a charming game. Sorry to hear it's folding up!

Stele wrote:

So I guess I could probably crush the final story boss now with an overdrive? I'm sure the dark aeons are still too tough to fight straight up, but I certainly feel closer with these aeons.

Some really great entrance and attack animations for the special 3 aeons too. Really glad I took the time to get them.

And of course that means I have Yuna celestial weapon finished now too. Damage break plus 1MP. I think she's just made Lulu irrelevant.

So... Omega Ruins, arena hunting, finish celestial weapons, or just beat the game? Arena and weapons feel way too grindy. So I'm leaning towards Omega or finish the game this weekend.

I'm tempted to poke my head in Omega and see. It sounds like I could beat the first one, 100k health, but maybe not the other with 1 million health. Only Tidus and Yuna with complete celestial weapons so far. But with those special aeons, should be enough maybe...

Stele wrote:

I got the last item Wakka needs for celestial weapon to pop up in blitzball. So I might play a few more games of that. Seems like there's always something else to do.

Maybe I should just beat it after all hehe.

So yeah these posts from March 2021... I did the thing where I fell off the game because I didn't beat it when I could have. Doh.

Which I mentioned in October...

Stele wrote:

I got sidetracked at end game and still need to finish X from months ago for the first time

I think I actually loaded my save up then and tried to fight Sin fins. But it had been so long I was a little confused.

Anyway this weekend I finally did those first 3 sin battles. And then Inside Sin, and good grief how much longer is endgame? Fighting Seymour again?!

Jeez.

Anyway looks like a whole other area then maybe finally at the actual end point of no return.

And I was right, was able to completely dominate the couple of story boss fights. Lulu does double cast flare 9999 every time since I never did do the lightning dodge for her weapon. Anima just did 20k regular attacks against everything. There was some enemy inside sin that does 7k when you kill it but I just killed it with Anima and shrugged off the damage instead of having a party wipe. Hehehe

Maybe I can push through this week and beat the darn thing finally.

The next time I play FFX, I want to do a 100% run against all the arena fights and Dark Aeons. I might have my previous save where I got most or all the Celestial Weapons, so part of me thinks I could just load that up and start at endgame. But I also just want to replay the story, so it might be fun to just start from scratch.

Is WOTV FFBE a good game under all the mobile/gacha madness?

Interesting read, and I agree a whole lot. Modern JRPGs are definitely too long for their own good, especially the ones with NG+ that want you to replay them. Replay your 100 hour game? No thank you.

Speaking of looking back at FF4, New Frame Plus just released their video on the animation of FF4 last week. Dan is going through each Final Fantasy game in order and talking about the evolution of the animation in the series. It's really good.

Here's the link to the playlist if you want to see FF1-3 as well. He doesn't release a lot of videos on this channel but they are all very good.

Random on-topic post, I finally wrapped up the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy II, which is the last of the mainline singleplayer franchise entries I had not finished.

Still very much not a fan of the "leveling" system, as the grind to try to get any skills past level 12 is simply too tedious to be worthwhile. Yes, it's unnecessary, but IMO it's simply fun to try to pick at least one iconic skill or trait or something for each party member in an FF game and maximize it. Can't really do that without a truly absurd amount of grind in FF II.

I do like how they tried to shake it up after the simplicity of FF I, but it just never quite gelled with me.

Without reading the FF4 article I can tell you, that game always had a special place in my heart for feeling so quick and easy to move forward. I watched an LP of the pixel remaster and it certainly felt that way, too.

Agreed with the above. As a JRPG it totally keeps its pace moving forward, and the story feels appropriately epic without the immense weight that a lot of the subsequent FF games have had. I recognize that FF6 does some really neat things, both technically and artistically, and has an award-winning storyline*, but given a choice, I'd replay FF4 from start to end before picking up FF6 again.

Spoiler: *

I don't know if it actually won any awards for story, but it probably should have.

Edit: The more lighthearted nature of FFX-2 is probably why I love that game so much, too. Also, Dressspheresss. I should replay it again one of these days.

I never understood why time to completion became such a selling point. Lots of artists have trouble with pacing, but most don't brag about it.

Distant Worlds put on a concert of Final Fantasy music with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Saturday. It was AWESOME! The program was specially curated by one Nobuo Uematsu. It had individual selections and medleys from all the roman numeral games. They had a screen up that had both scenes and gameplay from the game it was from. At the end, they played the ending theme for their own credits that rolled. The second encore was One Winged Angel with a full choir to finish the night. They're scheduled keep touring through April of 2023 so you might want to check it out if they're coming to your city.

merphle wrote:

Agreed with the above. As a JRPG it totally keeps its pace moving forward, and the story feels appropriately epic without the immense weight that a lot of the subsequent FF games have had. I recognize that FF6 does some really neat things, both technically and artistically, and has an award-winning storyline*, but given a choice, I'd replay FF4 from start to end before picking up FF6 again.

FFIV (US:2) is also probably one of my nostalgic faves. One of the things I liked about it was that you never really had to make choices for your party. FF3/6 is awesome, but I definitely ran afoul of the "these are my favorites... oh crap, i need 3 parties of decently leveled / geared people?" in the endgame.

It has been a long time since I played FFIV, but from memory it definitely solved the problem of "giant cast of characters, but I only use these 3-5."

FFIV kind of introduced me to JRPGs. I think I may have messed around with the first one or maybe Dragon Quest before that but didn’t really know what I was doing. FFIV just amazed me at the time. And maybe is why I never had a problem with a game controlling you was in my party at any given time. I liked the way it connected to the story.

Grenn wrote:

Distant Worlds put on a concert of Final Fantasy music with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Saturday. It was AWESOME! The program was specially curated by one Nobuo Uematsu. It had individual selections and medleys from all the roman numeral games. They had a screen up that had both scenes and gameplay from the game it was from. At the end, they played the ending theme for their own credits that rolled. The second encore was One Winged Angel with a full choir to finish the night. They're scheduled keep touring through April of 2023 so you might want to check it out if they're coming to your city.

I had a ticket, I very much wanted to go as I missed the last go-around of the concert tour, but between work being an unmitigated sh*tshow lately (so putting in some extra time over the weekend was nearly essential) and parental obligations, I had to miss out.

My disappointment is immense.

The Crisis Core Remake is out December 13th

Grenn wrote:

Distant Worlds put on a concert of Final Fantasy music with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Saturday. It was AWESOME! The program was specially curated by one Nobuo Uematsu. It had individual selections and medleys from all the roman numeral games. They had a screen up that had both scenes and gameplay from the game it was from. At the end, they played the ending theme for their own credits that rolled. The second encore was One Winged Angel with a full choir to finish the night. They're scheduled keep touring through April of 2023 so you might want to check it out if they're coming to your city.

I haven't been to one of those concerts lately but they definitely put on a good show. I wanted to make it to the Chicago show but couldn't make it work. Glad that you enjoyed the show!