Final Fantasy and Turn Based Combat

[Wolf Kanno]

Found this interesting video:

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Discuss. :wcanoe:

[maybee]

I don't see them heading back to Turn Based anytime soon, because FFXV was a success and a bigger success than Persona 5. The only thing Persona 5 did was make them sweat a little.

The only way that Final Fantasy XVI goes Turn Based as if a Turn Based game comes out and manages to sell more than FFXV, then they *might* go back to basics. Square firmly believes at the moment that Action RPG is the future.

Maybe if Dragon Quest XI does well in the West, something might change.

It's depressing because Square are not the RPG leaders anymore, and they are just sheep following the crowd, and they feel like the must do so to survive. Persona 5 has a low chance of making them go Turn Based, BUT it might make them feel like they can take more risks when it comes to their manline titles, and one of those risks might included going back to basics.

[Psychotic]

I'd be happy if Brave Exvius was XVI, it has a great story :shobon:

I'd honestly love for Square to go back to their roots, they've had numerous hints that it's more popular than they think with the likes of Bravely Default and Persona 5 selling great guns. I just don't have faith in them doing that.

[Wolf Kanno]

It will come down to the director. I think one reason why a lot of people would be interested in seeing Ito work on a new mainline FF if only as the Battle Designer is because he's said in interviews in the past that he has more ideas for ATB. Not likely to happen, but who knows, stranger things have happened at SE in the past ten years.

[Psychotic]

It's a shame that the directors SE have at the moment are not at the levels of Kitase or Sakaguchi.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's because Sakaguchi and Kitase were making it up as they went along cause there was no standard at the time. The new people all adore them and try too hard to think how they would do something instead of just being ambitious and try whatever they want.

I also just get the impression that back then, these people still did all of this for fun, and didn't place as much importance on bottom line sales. It's easier to let loose and come up with something imaginative when you don't have stockholders, CEOs, and marketing breathing down your neck that it has to sell so many copies to be considered a profit.

[MJN SEIFER]

The video might explain this for all I know (can't see it at the moment), but I really need to check what "turn based" means, because people call games like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII turn based, but I don't think they are.

Turn based would literally mean you take turns, but in ATB you can be attacked while selecting, so it's not really turn based. Or do they mean each of your characters take their turns? Either way, if I get my RPG done, I'm aiming for ATB, as it's part of the style/era I'm recapturing.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's more of a be all term for menu based combat as opposed to mapping the swinging of a sword to a button like most action games.

[MJN SEIFER]

It's more of a be all term for menu based combat as opposed to mapping the swinging of a sword to a button like most action games. Makes sense, thanks. I'll try to remember that next time I see people use the term.

[Spuuky]

Different people mean different things by "turn-based." I would not call ATB games "turn-based" because they aren't.

[Loony BoB]

I don't want turn based. ATB, if done right, sure. But I really enjoyed FFXV, so I'm keen to see what else they can do with it. For ATB, WoFF showed FF is still able to do really good ATB if you are up for it. The fast forward button was amazing in that game, too, which takes out 50% of the grief ATB/TB games get from players.

Persona 5, as big a success as it was, still hasn't hit that point that you can call it mainstream for me, which is what FF wants to be. Sometimes I wonder if people want Final Fantasy to be a global success or just a personal success. They say they want FF to be like it used to be "during the golden age" as if that will put FF back on top, but doing so is more than likely to alienate people.

FFXV won back fans, I think we'll see more action than turn based in the near future.

Gotta admit, going back to turn based games can be a tiresome experience at times. I think it's great if done right but in retrospect I can see the drawbacks. Either way, I'm looking forward to whatever the next game is so I can enjoy it for what it is, not for what I'm wanting. I mean if I got what I was wanting, it would be something completely unlike what most people would think is Final Fantasy (regardless of modern or old viewpoints) so hey. It'd basically be an exploration based sci-fi-fantasy game with chocobos, and could even be called No Man's Final Fantasy Citizen: Co-Op Edition: Heavensward.

[maybee]

FFXV won back fans


Did it ? Because I've (Personally ) only seen disappointment and frustration for it.

[Fynn]

Plus, Persona 5 is the JRPG that’s hit the closest to mainstream in recent times - no other JRPG, not even FFXV, reached that level of exposure and positive feedback in recent years

[Wolf Kanno]

Also Persona 5 just reached 2 Million in sales, which is not a whole lot compared to XV, but you have to also remember that Atlus/Sega are now the powerhouse distributor that Squenix is, so reaching that many people on meager promotion and more on word of mouth sort of speaks to how much P5 is not only an excellent game, but catching up with the FF brand. I mean Squenix asked fans on a survey which they would buy first, signalling this game out specifically, which shows that even SE knows they have a competitor on their hand.

[Loony BoB]

FFXV won back fans


Did it ? Because I've (Personally) only seen disappointment and frustration for it.
I've no idea where you've been looking but outside of EoFF's older grumblers, the wider gaming audience saw FFXV as a commercial and critical success from all ends, including user critics as well as paid critics. I haven't seen as much positive feedback for a single player FF since FFX (actually, scratch that, WoFF was up there too... still think FFXV got better praise from players than FFXII did at the time, though).

[Lamia]

I think a return to "turn-based" combat could work out really well. And I think now is the best time. Companies are now starting to cater more to their fans. Look at the Mortal Kombat series that went downhill when it was trying to be 3D because that was the trend at the moment. That series came back, and that was thanks to going back to its roots with a 2D fighting plane. Smash [Bros will finally have Ridley in it. SE themselves have been doing turn-based smaller titles. Mega Man 11 is coming!



And by "turn-based" combat I don't mean combat like in either XII or XIII. Technically, only FF I-III and X are turn based. But that's not the point. The point is how people perceive the combat. The strength of the combat systems in I-X is that the player feels in-control of all the decisions made. XII and XIII, in their own ways, took away that feeling. So even though these games are technically the same ATB system, they feel different to fans. XII is all preparation, and watching the effects of that prep in combat, with some micromanagement if you choose (I only put on gambits for auto-attacking and healing because I wanted to preserve some of that FF feeling). XIII's big mistake is that you can only control one character in battle and also focusing on macromanagement. People want to make decisions DURING battle, at the micro level.

There is still room for turn-based combat to evolve. We are already seeing them do interesting things in Project Octopath and Bravey Default with turn-based combat. They did a lot of great things with the combat in Final Fantasy X, the last mainline FF to have combat that was perceived as traditional. And again, they showed that they had more ideas in X-2... And I think it's somewhat regrettable that they stopped there. Things were starting to look interesting. My argument it is that turn-based combat still has room to be improved upon and modernized.


To bring it to modern standards, the new turn-based combat system should NOT have screen transitions or random battles. It should be seamless. FFXIII was weirdly archaic in that regard. New shiny battle system, and no random encounters, but still had screen transitioning. Felt like a step backwards after the seamless experience in FFXII. But seamless and "characters standing still in a formation" can be done together and it's been done before - look at Chrono Trigger!


If done correctly I think it could succeed and make a lot of people happy.