'No party' is going to became as painfully tired as BotW 'no dungeons' as if it's some great sin to change up gameplay templates after 30 years.
FINAL FANTASY XVI - Official Trailer #2 (Summer 2023)
- Thread starter vestan
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Yeah in this modern video game landscape swapping a diverse cast of characters for a single white guy is really brave.
Muted color pallet has been something the FF series has been dabbling in since Advent Children, the most drab-colored FF property EVER.
Though I mentioned, in another thread, FFXI was probably the first mainline FF to go the "earthy color scheme" route. I didn't care for aspects of FFXI's art direction, but I'd still acknowledge it as a valid FF...
And back in the golden days for pre-FFXV, when Versus was a thing and people were fapping hard over it, that game was pretty muted, hard on color-grading as well:
Some of that style carried over to FFXV, but you also have rather popping scenes of green grass and blue skies. That said, who's saying FFXVI won't have that as well. Most of the shots we see are taking place in driry weather (grey skies), sunset, heavily clouded skies on sunset or night. The scene in the royal chambers of Oriflamme and interior scenes are dark and bathed in warm light because the only thing they have lighting those locations are candles. That's probably how it realistically would look in the medieval times when all you had to light your dwellings was candles or torches (mainly castles). We DO see a scene that is more fully lit (I'm guessing it's on a clear, sunny day, as the color is as bright as it is and the reflective light seems to be more white in color):
Don't know how much they've changed it, but in the first trailer, this place was pretty popping...
(taken from a Scotia post, all credit due to them)
While they could've changed it (depending on the lighting system and if there's a day & night system, it could look different at different times of day), even back when the Awakening trailer, people were saying this looked too colorless.
I think back to what I said when people were harping on FFXV, "They've only released various slices of what they have in store for the full game." As it is, the spell effects (especially with the Eikons) are very vibrant and pop beautifully. There's also this, which is the only outdoor shot from the newer updated game footage that seems to be in broad daylight, blue sky, no clouds and it looks fine:
One can argue about how earthy the rock formations are, or how dry the grass looks, but that seems pretty realistic for that sorta climate (I'm guessing it's somewhere within the Dhalmekian Republic). And I still think love this pictuer...
... looks beautiful and lush as fuck. I hope we get some lush, thick forests in this game. Might be a longshot as well, but I hope there are Moogles living somewhere in there. Realistic ones that don't look like the koala ones of FFVIIR or the cat ones of FFVIII, but a mixture with Ewok-esque stature, like slightly taller versions (roughly the size of the FFXII Moogles) ones from the FFV artwork:
Make them an actual tribe with lore and culture. Hell, I'd be pleasantly surprised if they were one of the "beastmen tribes" in the Ash continent. Give me some warrior, forest-dwelling Moogles.
…because he can't meet diverse characters on the road who can join as temporary party members?
You're being wilfully stupid if you really think we're going to roll around solo for 100 hours.
16 actually looks less FF than FF15 in some ways, but it looks like a far better game
That's so funny to me, because I think this looks *so* Final Fantasy, at least in terms of setting and narrative. I think its because I started the series with Final Fantasy IV, which is pretty much straight grim medieval fantasy up until it goes real crazy in the later acts, so that kind of setting is still my default thought when I think "Final Fantasy".
Setting sure, I'm looking at it 100% from gameplay perspective
FFI-III and X were the only TB games. Hiroyuki Ito the creator even when out of his male ATB because he wanted to add a real time element to standard FF combat. The combat since FFIV have hybrids no matter how you want spin it and that definitely not what turn based is.
FF had parties but SE had messing with composition in every FF game. FFI had a party not no real characters. If that desperate for multiple characters you will take 4 drones with no dialogue as a party I don't know what to say.
The also reduced increased the amount of playable characters and how many could field (3-4), changed the setting D&D high fantasy, to fiuturitisc, to modern, to steampunk and every step of the way vocal fans were complaining this wasn't FF. Your post is no different. Hell you don't even know if FFXVI will have an airship or not.
But point the point Sakaguchi & co didn't care. FFX-XV is as part of series FF I-IX to them airships or not and they never defined the series identity in the way you do. That same Sakaguchi also supports FFXVI as an FF. If you don't like that than you totally welcome not continue with rest of the games but FF creators have shared that mindset from the beginning of the franchise.
I still remember the days on GFAQs when posters said FFVII was not FF for abandoning high fantasy settings, having 3 member battles & 3D characters instead of sprites, looking anime etc.
FF fans have always been ridiculous with this. That's one truly few consisent things about the games.
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I still think of ATB as turn based, your turn is just based on time instead
Yeah, temporary AI companions, those definitely make up for playable women and PoC in FF being relegated to spinoffs, remakes, and character creation in MMOs for the past decade.
But I guess I should not worry, there is always the next FF (in like 2030?). Just like if we did not like the all male party of FFXV it was just one game, surely FFXVI would have female party members, haha.
Ok, but the creators don't think so. The point of ATB was to creator a faster and more dynamic combat system that still resembled enough to FFI-III on the surface. But your and the enemies are not taking turns in ATB, the is explicit and violates the norms of TB games that were spawned from Tabletop RPGs. The Sakaguchi wasn't attached to TB and he didn't think FFI was that special compared to DQ which they admitted cribbed s lot from.
Are being obtuse on purpose?
We all already female party and that was trashed most of fanbase when came including the very people on GAF/resetera. FF is last series we should taking about diversity and have earned more than enough goodwill to do whatever.
Besides fallacy to say not a having playable party means the cast will not be diverse. FFI had 4 playable drone was least varied game in tty he series and FFII was not much better. And don't need to talk about FFXV. I can pull out other examples on the series. There is no correlation between the two concepts.
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Well you can't attack whenever you want, you can only attack when it's your time/turn is up so
Sorry, do you have a source where we can read more about this? Thanks
The point of TB that supposed to apply to all parties in battle not just your characters. You are not supposed to attacked when picking your options. Moreso you can multiple characters acting but you can only pick one command at a time fir each character making you slow than enemies. ATB actually disadvantaged the player against A.I which could attack you lightning fast was one of major criticism about it from TB fans. FFX got rid of aspect and brought back real turn based system with CTB.
ATB does have order to its combat but based priority not turns.
Anyone who played older FFs like FFI could immediately tell the difference between it and FFIV-IX since they did not start with FFIV or FFVII for example.
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Its something I read years ago so I don't have link offhand, but Ito said that his intent for FFIV was create a battle system more dynamic and faster previous FFs. Inspiration for ATB was actually race driving. The gauges and abandoned ment of strict turns was due to that which makes sense with the results.
Since from what I understand, each character becomes a classic summon (I'm purposely avoiding detail breakdowns to contain hype) I hope there'll be bosses/optional bosses that use summons from previous games or bosses from previous games repurposed into summons. Like FFTs Cuchulainn used in XII.
The core lineup is cool and essential but XIV has been using these iterations for years now and it'd be nice to see some oddballs thrown in the mix.
The core lineup is cool and essential but XIV has been using these iterations for years now and it'd be nice to see some oddballs thrown in the mix.
This game looks gorgeous.
Edit - I don't know how to embed tweets from mobile. :/
Wait wait wait, are you honestly using NES games from the eighties to prove your point about parties lacking characterization? No shit the series has evolved since then. And FFXV fucking up its party composition was the entire point--FF is actually no longer in a good position when it comes to playable diversity, following up FFXV with FFXVI. It has backslid, and it is disappointing FFXVI is furthering this.
And FFX-2 was a cheaply made sequel, the exact same realm playable female characters have been relegated to for the past decade--side series, remakes, and player controlled avatars.
I just want to say that I've watched this trailer a gigillion amount of times and will watch it a gigillion amount more.
EVERYTHING is top notch. Especially the music, I just can't get enough of it.
I need help.
EVERYTHING is top notch. Especially the music, I just can't get enough of it.
I need help.
I don't just use SNES I used the modern games too. FFX-2 quality or lack of does not negate that was a female led with zero male party members but that game was plenty diverse because of overall cast.
Even the Zelda games despite only having Link as only playable character has motley set of unique characters of different genders and races. Same other games like Horizon or even heck DMC.
How many playable characters there are or not does not correlate with diversity unless the game supposed to have a party and the game pick nothing but a bunch of same guys to fill the roster. In single character game that doesn't matter because you all have one to begin with no matter what and diversity comes from the characters intertwine themselves with protagonists. Otherwise why bother having setting or characters at all?
It's bad faith arguement to say FFXVI won't be diverse because it will have one controllable character is also bad argument to claim a game diverse because it has party. We already live in world both statements broken. If anything your telling SE the don't add female or POC characters because only Clive being playable means the world doesn't exist for some reason. It's not an excuse not to full a world with different people, locals and cultures.
Unless have some sort of male hate boner SE is perfect fine structure party composition however they want because they have past playing around with it. They have no problem with demi human protaginats (Zidane), female protagonists (Terra, Lightning) same sex parties (FFX-2, FFXV), drone parties ( FFI and FFIII) or now a single playable member. They have nearly done it all they will keep doing so. That what makes SE diverse and creative when handling their games. If anything a lot are arguing to opposite and simply fill up quota just because rather trying achieve a specific vision while leaving a bit of wiggle room for other additions to their ideas. Diversity should naturally no matter what they are doing. So I expect Clive to meeting all kinds of people and getting to know them as per FF and that hasn't required characters to join you permanently.
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It hasn't been confirmed, but so far its looking like there at least won't be a playable party in the traditional sense of other FF games. We're seeing mid-level gameplay in the trailer, with no visible party members fighting with Clive and no UI elements indicating any sort of character switch or party control mechanics.
On the other hand, we see from the character bios that other characters will be "joining" with Clive, and we also see Shiva assisting Clive during a boss battle (outside of Eikon vs Eikon fights).
My personal guess is that there will be a "party", but they won't be actively playable, instead function as supers. The Eikon Dominants will be able to be called in and perform their respective Eikon's Supers, kind of like this game's version of the limit breaks.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XV is my least favorite game in the series.
XV has very shallow action combat (coming from someone who loves good action combat), a fractured and obviously rushed story, and an open world littered with meaningless quests. But, with that said, the main characters are likable and the story can be affecting, even if it's obviously a mess in terms of execution. So it really depends on what you're looking for.
FFXV has a BAD story. Having said that, I'd still play it to see what's up. Other than that, FFXIV, even though it's an mmo, the story of the expansion Shadowbringers is imho one of the best in the franchise, and my favorite since FFIX.
You also have the Pixel remasters to replay the classics
I'm not saying the game isn't gonna pop, or is gonna be bad, or even that it doesn't look like Final Fantasy, just that there's visual continuity that people could identify as having been broken. (also I think that particular bit in the grassland with the orc looks muted as heck lol)
Not saying it's not Final Fantasy or that Final Fantasy can't look like this, or "shouldn't" or whatever. All I'm saying I can see how people would go 🤔 at what they've shown. Because it's also not just the muted colours, it's the tone of the trailers, the clothing aesthetics, the way summons are shown, etc. There's space there for people to find jarring.
this is basically where I am at with the whole thing, it feels bad that we've gone from a series that consistently had multiple playable women and varied characters to.... not that
there is a difference between having playable characters and meeting characters that help out once in a while
and they've shown no indication so far that you won't roll around solo for 100 hours either, no need for name calling
mind it's perfectly possible that we'll get travelling companions but they haven't shown that at all
I don't think arguing that a 20 year old spin-off sequel had an all-female party partly for male-gaze-y reasons makes it so that it's "fine" that we might get two whole mainline games without playable women is as good as argument as you think it is
because there's no indication that there will be
I think they're only showing what they want to show. There's still a long way until release after all.
Approx 1:54 in the trailer, against the Liquid Flame boss. You can see that Clive's UI is still up while Shiva uses Diamond Dust.
Oh definitely. And anyone who plays FFXIV knows that this studio *loves* trailer misdirection.
We don't actually see Clive, but at 1:53 the player has Phoenix equipped yet Shiva is attacking the enemy (Liquid Flame), and Shiva's attack is underlined in red (like an enemy attack and unlike a player attack, which would be in green)
Do we ever see an Eikon attack (as in, performed by an Eikon) with a green underline? We see Clive use some version of Diamond Dust with a green underscore, but Shiva doesn't appear to be there for it. Is it possible that the Red Underline is an indication of an Eikon heavy attack (whether enemy or not), with Green being a standard "Clive did this attack" signifier? Actual question, because I may have just missed a Green underlined Eikon attack!
I feel like yall are purposely misconstruing what that user is saying. It's like 3 posts of that now lol. They're talking about how party makeup has little to do with cast diversity. They used X-2 as an example of a party that was all female yet still had a diverse cast of characters. They're not using it as an example of it being fine.
If they wanted to do that they would've just used the XIII trilogy since the vast majority of those games is spent exclusively controlling a female character. Like, the point that user was making is nowhere close what you insinuated in your post
Except playable party makeup, I argue, is important for "diversity". Not just overall cast diversity (which imo, is also not looking good).
Playable characters are important.
maybe i'm just being obtuse
EDIT: No wait i'm not, that's exactly what they meant
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And I would argue that there are a shitload of games without parties that do a much better job with diversity than most party based games I can think of. We've seen all male parties in FF with little diversity. We've seen solo player games with a ton of diversity. A cast of characters is a cast of characters. Whether or not diversity exists doesn't hinge on the existence of a party. I'm not even talking specifically about XVI since there's basically no info to go off regarding characters, but the idea that a party is integral to diversity is just bs imo.
Really, this is all hinging from "well, FF traditionally has a party." Horizon 2 just came out and did a better job with diversity than any JRPG I can think of (not without its problems) by several orders of magnitude. If the trailer for XVI had shown a vibrant, diverse cast of characters but also no party would the same calls about lack of diversity be happening? That'd be dumb as hell far as I'm concerned
I say all this wishing Clive was anything but white. Hell, I wish he resembled a black Dominican man so I could convince my dad that video games are dope lol
Oh, absolutely, I totally get where you're coming from. A diverse and interesting cast doesn't require a bunch of playable characters.
The whole thing (for me) stems from being disappointed that the cast looks so... middling and that there's no playable characters other than Clive. It's like the worst of both worlds. Because with mediocre casts like sayXIII's at least you get to play with and follow a diverse, rag-tag bunch of characters with different motivations and stories.
This I agree with completely. The cast so far, design wise, leaves a lot to be desired for me. Idk if these are good characters or not (obviously) but they're already on the wrong foot with all of em being fair skinned except for the one lightskin guy. Just hope that the writing team, if we do get poc, doesn't completely fuck up the representation. I don't see any black writers on the team so I'm definitely taking the "wait and see" approach if they reveal more black characters.
Speaking as someone who was fairly down on this game before the new trailer dropped because Iooked to much like FFXIV, thought Yoshi -P was good but a tad overrated and dislike the passive aggressiveness his fans used work to attack Nomura, I think showcase showed a ton of promise regardless how FF looked or felt according anyone taste. Even someone was unhappy with a single playable character or it being a ARPG instead of TB FFXVI looks a lot like what older FFs have been like if they had this level visually quality. It why the whole its too brown and black or there isn't enough diversity, because I went I go back look at older FF from NES, SNES, PSX, PS2 or PS3 I don't see anyway couldn't make same arguments about them during their initial offerings as FFXVI. FFXIII showed just Lightning in battle within a futuristic rundown area with small fraction of people who inhabit her world and mostly just soldiers. But nobody claimed that game would just that.
Its like saying the entirely of FFXII's only looked like this:
I mean cmon!? FFXII has lot fantastical locations but also had plenty of normal looking places too. And somehow FFXVI won't have that and varied color because Clive is the only playable character and we only know 4 character from two trailers?
We literally have one of concepts arts recreated in game!
Not even FFXII brought its locations to life as well this and concept arts fro both titles where done by the same person
I'm just not following any of teh logic here, I just seen kneejerk reactions based nothing but anxiety.
Using the age of game to downplay my argument due SE development problem between gens convenient and inconsequential point. I'm talking about game from conceptual and implementations stance. Also bringing up male gaze is pretty silly since that present in ealrier before and after it. So this does not negate that. JIll and Benedkita are already more respectfully dress then Lulu even if they aren't playable.
I really like Clive design (it's basically a FF Belmont fit), and I think Benedikta is 10/10 compared to the absolute majority of women in JRPGs.
Huge is meh, everyone else (Joshua, Jill, all the other noble characters) are ok-ish and fitting for the setting, which I appreciate enormously compared to the mish mash of styles some previous FFs have had in terms of outfits. Cid is also average from what I saw (but still hot, so people will be thirsting over anyway).
But yeah, sign me up for more diversity of POC and genders, and even different races, every day! And I don't think the structure of the game should automatically mean we won't be getting any of this.
Huge is meh, everyone else (Joshua, Jill, all the other noble characters) are ok-ish and fitting for the setting, which I appreciate enormously compared to the mish mash of styles some previous FFs have had in terms of outfits. Cid is also average from what I saw (but still hot, so people will be thirsting over anyway).
But yeah, sign me up for more diversity of POC and genders, and even different races, every day! And I don't think the structure of the game should automatically mean we won't be getting any of this.
VII Remake is a small 15% of the original game and it still manages to be a more complete story than XV. It also has much tighter, reactive, and strategic combat.
XV does have good vibes in the open world segment though and the general road trip bits are enjoyable. It does also have a lot of flash in places if you're into that. It features the best realized designs of Yoshitaka Amano's FF monsters too. I'd say check it out if you can get it on one of the subscription services or for under $20.
If you don't mind turn-based combat then I would suggest FFX instead although of course it won't scratch the specific itch that XVI's trailer has created other than also heavily featuring summons.
edit: I just realized you probably have played the games before just not XV lol
I would like at least some gender "swapping" between Dominants and Eikons, would have been cool to see a female character summoning Titan and a male one Shiva or Garuda but looks like they're going with the traditional route of having a big guy summoning the earth Eikon and so on.
Right.
I don't why we are bringing up but "that game was 20 years ago" as some kind of counterpoint. That hasn't changed that it happened and and SE has mixing up what kind of party and cast an FF could have before and since then. There was never a FF wth al male cast before FFXV for example. If this means SE opened to other types of characters and party configurations headlining their game stories and it is entirely up to creators vision for that.
Yeah, like if actual game has massive lack of divesity go ham. Just don't use the fact that Clive is only playabe as reason for it. If the team can make characters like Bendekita and Hugo different enough from Clive while making them important the plot there no excuse for it. Fortunately on the site we have mentions of other races and such too and given the games members of this team has worked on before I am not worried personally.
Another frustrating aspect of the lack of diversity is that you can't just blame it on the teams not communicating with each other, for example "Oh if we had known XV was an all male cast we definitely would have included playable women", they have a FF committee and a brand manager and they still allowed it to happen
It happened because the team wanted a all main male cast and everyone was fine with it. They did all female cast in past before so they aren't going be against the idea here. FFXV was also conceptually to be a story about brotherhood and with a road trip vibe. it wasn't accident it was an intentional as anything they have done. Frankly compared to all of FFXV's other problems that was the least of its issues and a more standard cast wouldn't have saved it. Luna being much less important than she was intended is just another product of the game's mess development cycle that forced a lot of its ambition to be canned just so that the game could come out on time. The brotherhood theme was probably one of the few things storywise the game did well enough.
I should note that I liked FFXV overall, but its clear that game never achieved the level of cohesiveness its team wanted with all its elements.
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Mmh, we don't see an Eikon attack with a green underline indeed 🤔
Not much room on the map to travel by water really. But I don't mind. Maybe air travel will be a thing though.