Also I didn’t love the FF7 demo either, but it made me realize that something FFXV doesn’t have is like, a meaningful built-in tutorial that gradually introduces you to the various components of the combat system and why they matter.
Instead it just throws you into it with a full party that don’t really seem to do anything and yet still require some kind of micromanagement. And then you level up and have to make a whole bunch of decisions that nevertheless seem to have no bearing on anything that’s actually happening during a fight.
The scaling of the numbers in the game is also really hilarious, this is something that FF7remake does too. All of the numbers could have an entire digit shaved off and I don’t think it would make any difference. Is having 1000 hp at level 1 supposed to make me feel powerful?
For me, it’s that I never feel like I am in control or understand what’s going on, despite the game reinforcing that I was good at it, it never let me in. I have a hard time with fighting games because I’m distinctly uncomfortable if I don’t understand why I’m performing move and FFXV uses spectacle to confuse what’s happening while being deceptively simple underneath.
The attack animations the game selects for the player bear little time relation to each other; it’s the Arkham combat style of animation-driven combat, but tightness in that mold requires very restrained animation times so the player knows when input is freed up. And they have absolutely no discipline and I just lose time waiting for an animation I can’t see to finish.
turn-based rpgs rule, “anything is better than turn-based” makes me shrivel my nose. i’ll say again that dragon quest xi came along not too long after ffxv and showed how good turn-based can still be. i think it’s so much more enjoyable there’s hardly a comparison. even the mmo combat of ffxiv feels better than ffxv’s flashy mush.
Yeah fair enough! :- ) I disagree obviously. I tried to be really cool and started FF VI after finishing the Remake but despite the very dramatic opening scenes and some great moments (the submerging castle!) I don’t think I can hack it anymore. I’m sorry select button ;___;
I may well give that latest Dragon Quest a go though. I think I have a specific issue with snes turn based rpgs because I just think I could be playing illusion of time or terranigma. My first turn based thing was the original ff7, after my snes days
Absolutely, there’s a huge difference between how drum-tight Dragon Quest (and its fangame Earthbound) can be and games like classic Final Fantasy. I think those work like Symphony of the Night – a million cool things you can do but no pressure or squeeze to do them.
There’s a ‘no level-ups’ hack of Chrono Trigger I’m going to mess with next time my Frog romanticism builds high enough
like nocturne, i get that same kind of pavlovian thing with the zelda “you did the puzzle right” jingle when WEAKNESS pops up and the demifiend’s punch sounds so fuckin’ crunchy and i’d take all that over many, many floppy sludgy real time systems
15 years ago i think a lot of folks who posted here (rather, on insertcredit) had a pretty derisive “numbers go up!” outlook on jrpgs (interrogating the meaningfulness of level-ups in rpgs) and have since perhaps changed their minds in some way. it was like growing pains, or something, idk. it’s interesting as part of a larger discussion about the benefits of a good real-time action system, at least as a thing to weigh stuff against, but reducing physicality to numbers and concepts is exactly what makes turn-based rpg combat compelling in the first place.
I still feel that way about jRPGs, or at least about the way my brain feels after more than half an hour of playing all but the best jRPGs. it’s always immediately apparent to me when I’m playing something that has a really thin / gross dopamine loop because a) despite my ambivalence about videogames generally, the ones I usually play aren’t nearly as bad as they could be and the contrast always smacks me in the face, and b) anything resembling “grinding” immediately sinks me into existential panic.
I think the insertcredit conversations were probably disproportionately inflected by many of us being +/- 19 and trying to figure out how much we hated ourselves, and upon reflection there are in fact many rewarding and novel turn based games out there (dragon quest 11 was great; I had never previously enjoyed a dragon quest game and I doubt I’d have been able to if I were at a different place in my life), but I do think turn based games still tend to lay bare the exploitativeness of this design loop where others don’t.
I’m sure it’s been much better presented->examined in this regard, but at their best I always felt the repetitious nature of random/turn based conveyed a sense exhaustion (from) adventuring. Traveling from place to place, much further places, the world is fantastic and perilous not entirely a tourist escape, or extended stroll. Maintaining numbers for the demands on a person and how they develop is applicable busywork.
DQXI fines this down to a super smooth flurry between most areas, but very few (mostly later game) veered toward feeling I’d just made a massive trek or area of growth. For much of it, growth occurs steadily and safely, granted you don’t avoid too many enemies.
I think XV gives a couple strong looks toward a new “adventuring” scale, which FF7R+ could greatly benefit from if they have means to create enough “sections”.
recognizing that i am virtually always in a state of existential panic/despair lends some credence to a (former) friend’s feeling that video games are for when you’re depressed—at least to the extent that maybe i just enjoy the comfort of a nice, basic, grindy old jrpg without feeling any more than usual like my life is swirling down the drain. but i mean i think even in my happier moments i enjoy games like that, though i’m probably feeling more engaged if there are interesting mechanics around the grind giving me goals beyond just ‘kill final boss’, keeping me feeling purposeful even as i wander and explore. e.g.: dqxi and its gathering/crafting system, metal slime hunting, the trials, messing with your party’s lineup and builds (and playing dress-up, once i can play the ‘definitive’ version), etc.
getting back to the conversation, ffxv’s combat feedback loop ends up feeling empty and weird to me in ways turn-based does not because i can never seem to get past the constant feeling of disconnect. i did like exploring, though, so fighting just became a thing to do while i look at stuff.
It’s not actually arkham combat is the thing. It’s just straight up action game combat where you have a couple of basic ‘mash x combos’ for each weapon type, plus maybe half a dozen additional moves that key off variant inputs. Each weapon class is self-consistent and the only real hazard is not having the game on wait mode, because wait mode gives you the luxury of actually choosing your targets instead of the game picking them at random for you.
That was overbroad, I’m referring to the short-range/medium-range/long-range | forward/back variants of attacks. Far to often I hit the attack button to watch my character fly across the screen to play a long-delayed greatsword attack, which was not where I expected it to be at that point in the chain.