Final Fantasy XVI expanded the franchise to new and younger players - Square Enix

[JAHGamer]

The previous games required far more brainpower than FF16, which was as brain dead of a button masher as you could get, unfortunately. The game takes zero skill.


Yeah that's ... not how those older games worked. At all. At least not once "Active Time Battle" became a thing in part 6. You had to actually balance character growth, strategy, and your choices in order to win. I recently replayed FF6 with the pixel remasters, and it is better than FF16 in every conceivable way, outside of how "advanced" the graphics are. Yet I'd take the art and world design of 6 over 16 in a split second. 6 is also harder. Even though I've finished it many times, I still died more going through it again than I did on 16 the first time through (I think I died twice, and that was at the very end of the game).

FF16 you press attack, and then dodge when you see attacks coming in. That is the entirety of the "strategy." It's simple minded pap.

This idea that action games are harder or more engaging than games based on turns is just plain ol' false, and it's so easy to show, that I don't see why this argument even keeps coming up. Chess (among other classic turn based games) is going to outlast every console maker, every video game that exists, and every person on this board.

There are plenty of people who see FF16 for what is though, thankfully. Plenty of people here and on other game boards telling it like it is. I am firmly in the camp that believes if it wasn't an exclusive the perception from a lot of people would be quite different, and they would evaluate it for what it is. Same with Starfield actually.


Six is still the best FF game ever made. Best characters, music, story, themes, and overall game play. Have you played it?

Older Final Fantasy games were far from complex, but even they were more complex than 16, and that's sad. You can't tell me that stripping away equipment attributes and having them only increase your stats is an improvement over having equipment with different effects such as haste on Hermes sandals or cursed ring that gives better than average stat boosts but comes with costly drawbacks. Y'know, things that add a layer of strategy to the game. The fact that you can attack a bomb type enemy with a sword called firebrand and deal regular damage rather than healing it, or even use fire magic on bomb type enemies and deal regular damage, shows that it's stripped down to be as dumb as possible for people like you who just want to mash buttons and see pretty flashes of color on the screen. They traded unique weapons, armor, and accessories for a garbage color coordinated equipment system like something you'd find in any generic game that's been released since like 2014. There's absolutely no thought or strategy involved in selecting new equipment. If you get a new sword that has slightly higher attack than your current sword, you're going to switch to it without a second thought. In the older games, that new sword might have better attack, but it might have an elemental affinity that heals monsters in the upcoming dungeon, or maybe the new weapon has higher attack but doesn't offer the same boost to magic that your current weapon has. These are all things that involve some thought. FF16 makes Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, aka the dumbed down FF game made for western audiences who couldn't handle JRPGs, look like an incredibly complex and difficult game. If I wanted baby's first Devil May Cry clone, I would've just popped DMC into the console.

It’s so hard to take these posts seriously grasping for straws at its finest.

 

[Vertigo]

Good beginners action game. Terrible RPG.

Worst side quest design like ever. Useless exploration. No dungeons. Non-existent build crafting aside from “numbers go up.”

Would’ve been better if it was straight up stage based and not brain dead easy.

Still better than 15. At least I was able to finish it but everything it tries Ragnarok does 100x better.

 

[ethomaz]

If you are not overleverd.

Turn-based or ATB FFs are harder and needs more strategy than action FF that doesn’t matter the level at all.

I like to play games with the best way possible so for example in FFVI I don’t level up until got the first Esper (to get status bonuses per level
up).

Even after that I hold most of the level up until get the +2 Espers… after that I start to level up normally.

While I avoid most random battle the bosses that are unavoidable are crazy hard and require really unusual strategies.

Now if you are overleveled except FF2 and FF8 (but here the Junction system is broken that make you overpowered even underleveledl) that has level scaling the others will become very easy.

 

[Box]

If you are not overleverd.

Turn-based or ATB FFs are harder and needs more strategy than action FF that doesn’t matter the level at all.

I like to play games with the best way possible in so for example in FFVI I don’t level up until got the first Esper (to get status bonuses per level
up).

Even after that I hold most of the level up until get the +2 Espers… after that I start to level up normally.

While I avoid most random battle the bosses that are unavoidable are crazy hard and require really unusual strategies.

Of the ATB games FF13 had the best battle system. It's a shame the internet hivemind chose to attack that game i would have really liked to see that system developed further.

I like to play RTS and Tactics games like fire emblem. The turn based combat in older final fantasies was never hard at all even when i was a kid i was able to blitz my way through FFX

 

[Airbus]

Good beginners action game. Terrible RPG.

Worst side quest design like ever. Useless exploration. No dungeons. Non-existent build crafting aside from “numbers go up.”

Would’ve been better if it was straight up stage based and not brain dead easy.

Still better than 15. At least I was able to finish it but everything it tries Ragnarok does 100x better.

SE think turn based rpg are dead, baldurs gate 3 proves them wrong. Anyway sales wise the game still doing well so i dont expect them to change course anytime soon.

 

[Kokoloko]

People saying FF16 lost fans.


Theres no reason why FF16 would lose more fans than FF15.

FF15, 12, 11, 14 arent the usual battle system either. FF13 wasnt great too.

FF16 was definitely the best FF in a long time.

 

[JAHGamer]

Biggest issue with FF16 was the lack of elemental and status effects. Seeing Clive shooting fire magic at a Bomb and the Bomb taking damage from fire ain't it. Other than that, the characters, music, world, anime-ness all of that is Final Fantasy. Just because the gameplay is more action oriented doesn't take away from everything else that is Final Fantasy about the game.

I said the same thing when I played it, this is pretty much the only valid critique about the game.

it catered to me, I loved it. No elemental damage was a dumb oversight though, my only gripe with the game besides performance. Would've been a great way to incentivize using different Eikons. The gameplay is amazing though, especially the last Eikon abilities, they're so fun, the gameplay definitely has a lot of depth,