Can't do an open world? I'm not buying it

[ShinGundam]

In retrospective, Final Fantasy never were an open world compared to games like DQ3 and Ultima series so why it needs to be open now ? I don't recall any past FF like that ?

[Wolf Kanno]

I think most people agree its the "illusion of freedom". While the FF series hasn't really been open world since FFII and FFXII most recently, the games always offered a few little treats for going off the beaten path. In FFIV, you can discover a chocobo forest before you ever get to Mist Cave, and later there are entire dungeons and towns that you will never see if you don't go off the beaten path. VIII and IX both have a few quests that require you to backtrack to earlier locations at certain points in the plot and both also had some optional locations to visit. Hell, even just discovering locations of rare monsters like the Intangir and Brachiosaur in VI or the Vlakorados in VII.

The pre-PS2 titles always had some minor diversions and secrets to discover that made you less aware that once you leave the dungeon, your only option is to go to town and then the next dungeon. It still creates the sense of being a large open world while also encouraging the player to look around and check everything before going to the next stage of the game.

[Rostum]

Honestly, I would not mind if they just went back to big world map with tiny chibi-versioned characters running around it. It can be done a hell of a lot better than the PS1-era games, too.

[Jiro]

I agree with Rostum entirely.

[Elpizo]

It's doubtful they will do that, though. It's not "adult" or "modern" or "fast-paced" enough. <_<

[VeloZer0]

Didn't SE state that they weren't going to move the FF series in an adult/mature direction anyways?

[Jessweeee♪]

Didn't SE state that they weren't going to move the FF series in an adult/mature direction anyways?

That would be a neat change to see. I usually end up liking the little experiments they do with Final Fantasy.

[clowd]

Honestly, I would not mind if they just went back to big world map with tiny chibi-versioned characters running around it. It can be done a hell of a lot better than the PS1-era games, too.

I believe I read Nomura tried this with vs XIII but didnt like how it looked. Are games all about eye candy now? Are we somehow past the shrunken cities on a world map era? I dont think so. Who cares if it looks odd, at least initially, in high def. Its still superior to static point and click maps that teleport you anywhere without no feeling of travel or adventure.

[ShinGundam]

Honestly, I would not mind if they just went back to big world map with tiny chibi-versioned characters running around it. It can be done a hell of a lot better than the PS1-era games, too.

I believe I read Nomura tried this with vs XIII but didnt like how it looked. Are games all about eye candy now? Are we somehow past the shrunken cities on a world map era? I dont think so. Who cares if it looks odd, at least initially, in high def. Its still superior to static point and click maps that teleport you anywhere without no feeling of travel or adventure.

Why are you trying to make it sound like these changes are bad or about eye candy? Did we even see the world map system in that game ? No, it might be justified from their prospective.

[dambaz]

loved the world map but after playing 7,8,9 wif it 10 was a dont really know differant but in a good way maybes the idea of alternating them after a couple or every series would be an idea

[Flying Arrow]

Nothing needs to be open and I don't think anyone really believed in actual freedom in an FF game (or even the 'illusion' of it) until interesting world design was removed from the series entirely. I think people just want a game where the world isn't as predictable as a straight line. A few hours into X or XIII and it becomes really obvious that This Is It. The Calm Lands and Gran Pulse were exceptions but those were some damn awfully integrated exceptions.

EDIT: Thinking on it, there is quite a bit of freedom in the older games. Not at all times, but that's really also why FF game worlds are so exciting. In a single game you can be on the run, adventuring forward at your own pace, exploring a town, or even traveling back and forth between towns interacting with NPCs and making little connections between everything. You can even go back into old dungeons and find some chests, or grind for monsters, or whatever you want. By the end, you can really kind of go anywhere you want, and it's usually why a lot of people (me, I guess) get frustrated with VIII or IX when they block off locations during the endgame with some kind of cop-out plot excuse.

[ShinGundam]

Nothing needs to be open and I don't think anyone really believed in actual freedom in an FF game (or even the 'illusion' of it) until interesting world design was removed from the series entirely. I think people just want a game where the world isn't as predictable as a straight line. A few hours into X or XIII and it becomes really obvious that This Is It. The Calm Lands and Gran Pulse were exceptions but those were some damn awfully integrated exceptions.

EDIT: Thinking on it, there is quite a bit of freedom in the older games. Not at all times, but that's really also why FF game worlds are so exciting. In a single game you can be on the run, adventuring forward at your own pace, exploring a town, or even traveling back and forth between towns interacting with NPCs and making little connections between everything. You can even go back into old dungeons and find some chests, or grind for monsters, or whatever you want. By the end, you can really kind of go anywhere you want, and it's usually why a lot of people (me, I guess) get frustrated with VIII or IX when they block off locations during the endgame with some kind of cop-out plot excuse.

Personally, i don't see that big gab between Snes/PSX and X~XIII style. In case of X~XIII, they didn't even have a role of level designer in teams, they let art director and art teams handle levels just like Snes/PSX era.

[Flying Arrow]

That's fine, but what I'm saying is that there are a lot more ways for the player to interact with the game worlds of the older games than in X or XIII. XII is very much like the older games in the way I described them in my previous post. X gives you some options later in the game (via a list), but the game world is still pretty stripped back. XIII lets you return to a big, barren area for sidequests and that's it. The game doesn't provide a cohesive, existing world in the way the older games do, and traveling through its areas is done using the most basic of inputs.

[Mirage]

I understand it's only the illusion of nonlinearity that's gone but I think it's an important illusion nonetheless. I didn't realize how linear FFX was until I played FFXIII, and to me, that's the mark of a great game, considering FFX's field screen design is almost identical to FFXIII. I can't really tell what it was that disguised it in FFX, was it the pacing, the presence of towns, or even ATB Random Encounters???

All three contributed somewhat. Also the presence of Blitzball provided a nice distraction. Similarly with mini-games, side stories, and the cloister trials.

And the ability to go back to previously explored areas. In FF13 it's like there's a ton of explosives in each area that demolishes every place you visit once you're past it.

[Bolivar]

I agree with Flying Arrow, and would like to throw in that Gran Pulse was a pretty bad way to compensate for everything they did up to that point. It makes it even worse because it's so obvious what they were doing. In fact, I thought the game fell off a little after Gran Pulse, because although everything was linear, it was focused, and it didn't arbitrarily fall back on mark hunts as a way of saying 'i'm sorry.' That was just like a slap in the face, not to mention the character interaction and development drops off at about that time, too.

Still an awesome game, though!