So I take it you’ll join me in Eorzea once I get there Like aside from what you said, I heard the lead writer from Tactics was actually a writer on XIV up until Heavensward - so it’s quite likely they actually drafted him to XVI at that point. Here’s hoping. As for the combat, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. If the quests, workd and plot are engaging enough, I can even get through the game if I don’t like the battle system
I haven't played XIV either, but I've heard good things. I mean I know people who swore off the series with either XIII and XV, but will gush over XIV. I've heard some people even say the story of Shadowbringers should have been XVI. It's plot takes some cues from the idea of the Warriors of Darkness from FFIII trying to stop a world being overrun by a Flood of Light. It will be interesting though. If combat works a bit like the earlier builds of XV, I can see a party being doable. They just wouldn't be playable. They could also take a page out of The Last Story or Kingdom Hearts and simply have the other party members work as a support unit while your MC does all the work. I can see some possibilities. My bigger concern is like I stated in the thread. The combat will be super flashy but not exactly riveting or challenging. Not helping me is the fact I'm replaying Dark Souls 1 right now and playing an a good Action-RPG that understands tactical fighting that goes beyond "dodge the thing, hit the thing" just makes the combat look weaker to me. Of anything, this looks more like the combat fans were expecting from Versus XIII.
Yeah, your probably right. I’m most interested in how the story plays out, since we’re long overdue for more personal drama in a political story. XV was a beautiful story with strong themes and a very realistic main cast, but it really was more of a fairy tale than anything all things considered. Haven’t played much if XIV (hope to change that with my marathon) but considering it’s nature as an MMO I feel it can probably do a good job on the political side but not as much on the character side - at least with regards to the mute player made protagonist. For me to believe that XVI can do it though, I need to see something more about the protagonist. I’m not saying it can’t be done since that would be hypocritical of me - the Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia is, on the surface, a typical male power fantasy, but it very quickly comes out just how nuanced, dorky and likeable he is. So yeah, I’m hoping our MC has a wider range of emotions than sad mad. AKA smad. Also, I’m currently not expecting a party at all. From the looks of it, this is going to basically be just a character action game with some RPG elements. Kinda sucks for me since I’m not good at those and preferred the button holding from XV, plus if I do finally get it on PC it’ll probably run slow as molasses and I’ll be at a disadvantage lol. But I still wish there was a party. There might be, but I still doubt it’ll be a very fleshed out party in terms of gameplay. I was hoping they’d finally go back to gambits, but I don’t think it’d work here
Welcome to me back on this forum when XIII got announced. Was pretty much underwhelmed by both XIII and Versus XIII but everyone around me acted like it was the second coming. Not helped that my faith in the franchise had been restored with the previous entry. I do agree that FF is still chasing trends instead of making them though, but I blame that on the fact that no one at SE is a good visionary like Sakaguchi was. Nomura tries, but I feel he's too eccentric for the task, and Kitase and Toriyama are more of a follow the leader types. Yoshida is like Tabata, he just wants to make the fans have an enjoyable experience, so he takes in user feedback more than the guys above. It will be interesting to see if the game may actually undergo some changes based on the mixed reaction to the trailer. May explain why we won't get more info until next year. Honestly, I've felt like FF has had it's own aesthetic touch for so long thanks to Nomura's influence, that seeing something a bit more basic feels refreshing to me. Course, I also feel we're only seeing the iceberg edge and we could be greeted by more fantastical elements and races in future trailers. This one was a teaser about a premise, so it has more to reveal at a later time. I mean we got to look at some combat, but we didn't get to see any towns or travel yet. Most of the locales we've seen are in very limited cutscenes. So there may be more to look forward to.
I just feel weird because like, on paper, this should be the FF I’ve been asking for as well. And it’s true, the more I read about the team and their relationship with the Ivalice titles, the more excited I am for this. So it’s all the more weird how that trailer just completely failed to capture my imagination. I’m literally just struggling to make sense of this. A lot of the discourse around XV has been that SE are no longer making trends but chasing them, and at first glance this looks to be the case - gritty dark fantasy and action gameplay is in, so that’s what they’re doing. Which is why I wonder whether hearing Sakimoto’s trademark chimes or seeing a pair of assless chaps or a potholder on someone’s breastplate would’ve made me more excited. As it stands, I think I agree with you in general. Maybe now that I’m older now it’s just harder to get excited. The last time SE announced new mainline games I was 16, so maybe that’s the biggest issue here. Maybe I just got too cynical for my own good and in my desire to see art be diverse any instance of derivation just immediately makes me think “lowest common denominator”. Idk. It’s hard. I really want to be excited, and so many people are, and like that makes it all the harder to really sort out for myself.
It's not about skill, it's about the fact that it's overused when it comes to Latin chanting. Somnus is a better track, but it doesn't stop the very idea of how overused Latin chanting is to make my eyes roll. My knee jerk reaction to anyone trying to impress me is skepticism. I feel that's part of the reason why the trailer worked better for me, because the game wasn't trying to wow me out of the gate. As for the graphics, it's always tough to tell when jumping gens these days. I mean Death Stranding looked the same to me as MGSV on the PS3, so hell if I can tell. I did hear some speculation that the reason other SE projects were shown first was due to the games running on in house development tools, whereas XVI is likely on the Unreal Engine. At the end of the day, I find the game's premise shows promise. And with the team working on it, and the guys I don't like not working on it, I have a bit more hope this game can land the idea better. That matters to me more than whether the visuals or audio have character to them. I've played a lot of stuff by SE brimming with "character" and it didn't help any of them at the end of the day. It's a bit like the video essay on KH you linked to me. Where he's kind of being an apologist for the games bad writing by falling back on the fact the game is childish fairy tale and the only thing that matters is the DE FEAELLLZZ!!! But that stuff isn't important to me, the stuff that is awful was what drew me in initially. So I can't ignore the fact that despite all the wacky fun the series is built around, the stuff that matters to me gets worse with each installment. I can't forgive them for taking such a neat premise like the Nobodies and smurfing it up. Yes, I am still salty about this, and nothing you or anyone else can say anything that will change that. So for me, XVI basically hits most of what I was hoping for. An interesting premise, no smurf up brigade, headed by a team with strong clout, a heavy Tactics vibe, something that isn't mostly modern/sci-fi, not an MMO. I lost out on battle systems but I kind of felt that shipped sailed a while back. So I have reason to be excited for this one. At least I'll have something to look forward to while everyone else continues with the VIIR nonsense.
Yeah I do hope that he gets some pore personality later because his design now, especially as his older self, is painfully generic. And honestly, the vanilla Latin chanting in this trailer and Somnus are like completely different beasts, with the language being the only commonality. But then I think that’s to be expected, since Shimomura’s a far more accomplished composer and stands out from the crowd more. But what can you do. This background music made me realize just how big a part Sakimoto played in making Ivalice feel unique. As for the character designer, I’ve seen people speculate it’s actually Masao Tsubasa, who’s worked alongside Yoshida on the Tactics Ogre remake and FFXIV, and I think that’s very likely, since his art was more down to earth of the two. Again, I’m hoping we see more interesting visuals later because as things are now, it all looks painfully dull, aside from maybe the Eikon designs. I think a big part of that might be the fact that they’re just using a modified version of the XIV engine. And idk if this is just me being old or something, but I literally cannot tell the difference between PS4 and PS5 graphics. I was really surprised when the trailer said this was a PS5 game
I mean we've only seen a handful of the cast at this point, and judging the more basic designs he did for XIV, it doesn't look too off from his style. Just looking at the armor design and noble dress, the art style is very reminiscent of his work on FFTactics. Not to mention the lead character looks like how I imagine Larsa would look if he bulked up as he got older. I actually liked the subtlety of the music. Having the violin arrangement of classic FF themes gave it a familiar feel while still matching the tone of the piece. Not as excited by the Latin chanting section, but I think that's just because SE and several other games/films/tv shows have kind of overused that type of stuff. Another reason why I wasn't exactly bothered by Somnus getting replaced in XV as the main theme. As I said, this trailer was really more about a low key seduction. It wasn't quite ready to flash it's naughty bits right out the door like the last three numbered FFs. So I feel there is room for more surprises to be shown in the future. I'm curious to know what these summoner hunters are and whether the tattoo's they sport have more to offer than just signaling their group. I'm curious to know if this Blight spoken about will be a real plague or perhaps another star-scourge. We don't even have a name for the protagonist yet and knowing Yoshida, their could be a lot of surprises in store for fans because he tends to leave hints and, but also loves surprising fans. I did like the Dragoon design, even if the fight was a bit too reminiscent of the Aranea fights from XV.
Yeah, I hope later trailers convince me. I think there’s still a chance for it to prove that it’s not another generic grimdark fantasy thing that’s just the default today. FF has always offered something unique so I guess I just expected it to at least somewhat go against the mold. As of now it just feels like SE is chasing trends instead of having its own unique identity. But yeah, I’m also happy that Toriyama is too busy to touch this. Though I’m not as upset with Nomura, personally. I also think a different choice of music could have made this better for me. Aside from just being an arrangement of the prelude and FF theme, the music was just completely unremarkable. But then I guess that’s what you get when the only composers left are Ishimoto and Soken, which I’m pretty certain is one of them (those strings sound very much like Ishimoto’s work). Shimomura’s busy with KH, Uematsu’s pretty much retired, Mitsuda can’t write more than five tracks a year without overexerting himself - plus he’s busy with Xenoblade I guess, Hamauzu and Suzuki are out of commission for many years I assume because of the remake, and I imagine the no name XV composers that filled up for Shimomura’s due to her schedule skips are working on that Luminous division game. Tbh I think Sakimito’s more cinematic style could have really brought out the Ivalice quality of this setting, but alas, it looks like he’s completely jumped ship alongside Matsuno. Also, if this is actually Akihiko Yoshida’s art, it’s one of his least inspired so far. Like I usually there’s a very unique approach to color in his work, alongside the very risqué designs for both men and women, while it’s all just much more vanilla here. I miss the inherent queerness of his art, so to speak. But again, it might be revealed it’s not him (though those monster designs feel kinda him) or that we’ll see some more inspired designs in later trailers. We’ll see, I guess.
See and I never understood the appeal of Versus XIII. Yes it showed more promise than XIII's trailer, but the only thing the trailer said to me was that this game was going to be "mature and edgy" in the way only a thirteen year old could possibly think it would be. Large part of why the projects implosion never bothered me. In fact, I don't think I've been impressed by a trailer for an FF project in ages, so that's probably helping me here not feel disappointed by this one. I feel the one thing saving XVI for me is knowing Toriyama and Nomura have no part in it. So I can hold out a little more faith the game will be interesting and none of their "creative" bulltrout is going to be touching it. I also just feel like this game hasn't shown it's full hand yet. This reeks of a teaser trailer, not a full on trailer. So I feel their is more to uncover in the next few years of development.
