on that scale, all the way to dmc imo
edit i do agree with toups below, it’s definitely much more ffxv/viir than dmc. but it’s waaay more not pso than it is not dmc. lol
yeah, I’m consistently impressed by the music. it feels like the first post-uemetsu final fantasy soundtrack to reach the same kind of tones and moods that were, in my mind, signature to the identity of the series in the 16 bit era. but it also never feels particularly derivative of him, either. it’s confidently doing its own thing.
the whole game is characterized by this studious attempt to recapture the magic of the 16 bit games, and I think it’s more or less successful. I think I’m maybe halfway through now. the first several hours really blew me away but where I am now the storytelling/characterizing feels a little too dry for its own good. the combat is so good that it carries the whole thing, though I wish it was more difficult. I also don’t like how the difficulty assist features are represented as in-game equipment that you get in your inventory no matter what… which is confusing because there is also a menu option for that as well? and I don’t like how when you die your only options are to load a save or restart the fight from a checkpoint (which is often mid-fight if it’s part of a length boss fight), but they just give you more potions and hi-potions. just feels bad, though I’m grateful that you have the option to restart from a checkpoint instead of doing an entirely hour-long fight over again. just wish it didn’t give you the extra resources whether you like it or not. it’s just a shame because the combat is carrying the entire experience for me, and while I’m content with it, I wish it was just a little more pure.
my other problem with the game is that it seems pathologically dedicated to removing friction and streamlining the experience, like item pickups are automatic, activing waystones is automatic. the sidequests are very overly structured and hand-holdy, and rarely require any kind of actual puzzle solving or adventuring. you just walk around until you find the next objective marker for the sidequest. I don’t mind any of those things on their own, but together they leave me feeling somewhat robbed of the experience of actually playing as these characters. I feel a ton of agency in combat but basically zero in the story. and while this is basically true of every final fantasy game, they have never been this frictionless, and combined with the breathless narrative pacing (and honestly this is probably the fastest paced final fantasy narrative since IV), I haven’t really felt like I’ve had time to soak in the world or spend time with its characters. final fantasy vii remake had this problem to a lesser extent, but it wasn’t paced so aggressively either and had more interesting sidequests.
it’s a minor complaint I guess, none of this ruins the experience for me, and it still feels like a game I’ve been waiting my entire adult life for, so I’m happy. I just wish the game would let you touch it in more meaningful ways.
it has kind of forced me to consider what unifies all final fantasy games, and I feel like the real throughline is the (lol) user experience. the tone and style of the UI, the way things are tutorialized, the extent to which combat is abstracted or literal. and this game is very much a final fantasy game, in terms of the aesthetics of the whole user experience, despite being mechanically so different. but this is why I feel like the extreme focus on quality of life enhancements has an outsized effect. I doubt any of these things would bother me if it wasn’t bearing the final fantasy name.
to be clear though I’m grateful that it’s paced the way it is because that alone makes it such a better narrative experience than game of thrones. it plucks plot and characterization elements from that show, for sure, but fundamentally this is still a fucking final fantasy story, and I’m so grateful for that.
20 Likes
also while the combat is very much in the character action template it doesn’t really feel like devil may cry to me. it honestly feels like it’s right in the middle of final fantasy vii remake and final fantasy xv, and honestly it’s more enjoyable than either. there still is a focus on tactical decision making over precise button presses. you generally don’t get punished for spamming dodge and that kind of thing, but you do get punished for not using the right abilities at the right time, and poorly managing this game’s version of the stagger mechanic. it just feels wrong to say it’s a dmc-like, and I feel like that could put people off from playing it. it is not demanding of twitchy skill in the way those games are. I guess another comparison would be nier automata. if you could handle the combat in that game you can handle it in this game too.
3 Likes
i keep doing like
the reverse of the imagination thing of being a child playing videogames in the 80s. like, instead of looking at little pixels and imagining a greater, bigger, more enveloping world based off the key art and other illustrations, i am constantly imagining what FFXVI would be doing as a 16-bit game through all of its movements and elements. maybe my imagination is too generous, but it all seems to fit together and the game would function essentially the same, just with a walkable World Map and ATB, probably
16 Likes
hahaha now you all get to experience a soken soundtrack. he’s squares best composer ever
I am getting so much satisfaction out of this game being mid but whenever something great happens I can just say ITS FROM 14. I’ll never stop
11 Likes
idk i still think they were trying to be conservative as fuck because this needs to be a big hit with everyone to make square money
this trailer is great because a. who are half of these people i was completely lost until xavier woods appeared and b. SURE MAKES YOU WONDER WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE GAME ARE
7 Likes
they’re playing it silly #loveislove #equality
7 Likes
yeah it’s SO rough and mixed so flatly but like … it’s got the spark y’know
1 Like
this is my biggest complaint about this so far. it’d be great if there was an option for just going back to an actual checkpoint with your actual resources. they could give you the potions if you want. as it is, i’m having a good time with a boss fight but then press my luck a little too hard and die in the last seconds of it after carefully dodging and timing my attacks for the last 6 minutes. then the game restarts with the boss with half health and i have more resources than i started with, so replaying the back half of the fight just feels too easy, no tension.
2 Likes
As much as I’m enjoying this game I feel like I’m one trenchant hater post or dunk tweet away from my enthusiasm tearing apart like wet tissue paper.
I agree that the game desperately needs better difficulty scaling, but I’ve heard that there’s a hard mode new game+ type deal that people think is a lot better.
Has anyone messed with the arcade mode score attack challenges you can access from that thing in hideaway? Those are fun even if there aren’t really any benefits to doing them as far as I can tell.
The music revs me up in exactly the same way FF14 boss battles did. It’s the best.
Unfortunately I still find Koji Fox’s translated English dialogue to be basically unbearable. Just way too much mustard on each line. The item descriptions and incidental text are top notch though.
5 Likes
As someone who is virtually at the Point of No Return I can say I have enjoyed bashing out the same combos with the starter 3 Eikons with occasional swapping for abilities that absolutely trivialize most/all encounters (not that they were more sophisticated than smacking animated puppets for the most part)
I look forward to what NG+ is all about but will quickly ditch for every copy of DMC/Bayonetta I own in a heartbeat, where at least the skill ceiling isn’t anywhere near as low given the time/effort commitment
I can’t quite decide whether this game has any real layers of interest beneath its Eurocentric/Game of Thrones dressing but I do think it’s relatively bold of S-E to spend a bajillion dollars and some change for a console exclusive in a generation that most have yet to buy into…all to tell a story that is largely concerned with slavery and to a lesser extent class
11 Likes
I was like 80% in on this game but last night I did the fight with titan and now I’m 1000% in. the music is so fucking good!! three phases of bangers!
every now and then I’ll get annoyed with the writing but then I’ll imagine the lines appearing in a text box instead of being voice acted and think yeah that’s basically what it should be
8 Likes
soken is such a beast he did a bunch of the ffxiv soundtrack while he was being treated for cancer and no one he worked with knew except 1 or 2 people. like the lead writer of the game freaked out because she would nitpick timing in songs not matching up with story beats or whatever while he was hospitalized. its fucking awesome to have a whole other soundtrack of his to dive into even if i cant play the game yet
6 Likes
Surprised at how many similarities there are to Nier except if Nier was played more straight regular fantasy. Some of the more mellow and ambient music has the same wistful melancholy with memorable starry riffs everywhere. Both games have great music that constantly hits the right emotional tone. The quest design is also Nier-like in that it’s mostly tedious with the occasionally horrific quest like the little girl who uses bearers as pets and forces them into petrification out of ignorance. Nier similarities continue with the giant crater near Phoenix Gate resembling the Aerie after its destruction, the dour tone contrasted by relatively charismatic party members, superpowered party members that are fictionally huge liabilities/weapons of mass destruction, the evil shadow dude who wants our body etc.
Some miscellaneous notes I’ve made while playing:
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Gloucestershire accents are frequently used which is amusing since my mum lives in that area and I’ve heard them a lot in more mundane situations.
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Clive’s guilt-acceptance as a boss battle feels like a very classic FF scenario. It’s been noted before but the game really does feel like it was forged in a 16 bit mould.
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I want more Jill backstory. She feels undercooked and her culture is one that is briefly hinted at near the beginning, but her life could do with some context through at least a flashback or two. Otherwise, she feels a bit staid, especially when she shares the screen with Cid and Clive, which is always. The scene where Clive is in maximum brood mode is nicely interrupted by her interjecting that she’s likely done a lot worse as Shiva’s dominant. Expand!
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Active Time Lore is a feature I’ve actually come to appreciate given how many proper nouns are tossed out. Harpocrates is my guy.
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The kill-confirm noise when you defeat an enemy is some PS2 ass noise, I love it. Readability over sonic verisimilitude.
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Does the game have super dark lighting for anyone else? Really struggling to see in certain sections of the game especially when set at night. Just end up seeing myself on the couch.
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Later in the game there’s a scene where the Emperor of Sanbreque has a meeting with his council and they splutter like 4 or 5 variations of ‘Well, I never’ all on top of each other when he suggests going to war. It was cartoonishly British and reminded me of some meetings I’ve had. He also has an attendant come over with a dish for him to put his flower on which tells you far more than a bunch of expository dialogue can in the same time. There’s a lot communicated through gesture and framing and the story is tight and moves apace.
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The blacksmith blurts “ Wojjawon’ ” which makes me laugh every time. The dialects are tickling me.
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Fucking Ultima
One aspect of the lore I wish was more developed would be how dominants have been used and controlled historically. Like surely there have been rogue Eikons who just genocided people or went mad with power? Or just lost control, there’s tons of precedent for it. Yet people seem to respect or demean them rather than rightly fear them. How is the landscape of Storm not just full of evidence of literal titans fighting one another? Also, losing a dominant would seem like a major power shift and two nations lose theirs in a matter of days but the consequences aren’t really mentioned. Maybe this is forthcoming idk. Just feels like a lot of potential for a really twisted world to be built up further.
I’m at the midgame after the second timeskip. Cid turning to ecoterrorism was fun though the pseudo-namedrop of ‘an inconvenient truth’ when hypothesising about the mothercrystals felt maybe too cute. We finally go to the desert kingdom of Dalmasca Dhalmekia and it’s basically Persia but full of white people. I like taking Cid’s name and becoming a folk hero and am curious to see more.
8 Likes
creative business unit 3 love regional british accents, there’s an expansion of ffxiv full of northerners it whips
5 Likes
It’s interesting playing this concurrently with Diablo IV because they share similar approach to combat but Blizzard has made an art form out of the monotonous gameplay loop of Diablo, whereas FFXVI feels so insecure about the approach and muddles the whole experience trying to make it “epic”.
Diablo just knows what it is, they partnered with KFC whereas FFXVI paid a bunch of athletes to schill for their game and be like “oh it’s NOT a one player game cause your FWENDS will be with you!” Thanks George Kittle! Thanks random college basketball player! What?!
5 Likes
I’d still honestly rather play this than any diablo game though
that said, my problem with this game is that like… there’s an enormous amount of game, but very little play. it’s too rigid. in a way, I guess this is in line with a certain model of final fantasy game, but because the entire experience is so dry as it is it’s particularly grating here.
1 Like
i just discovered yesterday that there isn’t much point to mastering the majority of Abilities in this game unless you want to customize the Eikons, so all of a sudden i have way too many Ability points
4 Likes
yeah it’s unfortunate because there are potentially a lot of interesting build options from mixing and matching ability sets but the game has given me zero reason to care about that so far.
2 Likes
i’m near end game and have decided on (uhh…Eikon spoilers i guess) Shiva, Garuda, and Odin as my main picks and i’ve subbed out one of Shiva’s moves for Gigaflare because i’m tired of hitting buttons
1 Like