Love having all my party members twiddling their thumbs defending and healing while one guy fails his steal rolls 10 times in a row
I extra love it if the steal move deals damage so you have to also worry about the target dying from too many failed attempts
I double extra love it when it’s a boss battle when on top of everything else the story momentum just grinds to a halt while you fuck with a stupid RNG for 5 minutes
First of all, I will not stand for this FF9 slander. It’s my favourite or 2nd favourite behind FF7 depending on what phase of the moon you ask me. Seriously though, replaying and playing through classic turn-based JRPGs as an adult has led me to realise the underlying gameplay systems just suck in general. The games are all piss easy and there’s basically zero skill or thought involved
I mostly just enjoy and evaluate them on aesthetics, music, characters and story. Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that’s actually good
Gonna make Final Fantasy nerds mad, every time they try a new system that isn’t just “select attack until you win, heal as needed” they get mad and claim that changing away from that system “dumbed it down” and “made it a mindless button mashing game” ironically.
My main issue with the action game mechanics is that it stops being an ensemble cast and turns into a story about one dude because turn-based is the only reasonable way to control an entire party
One thing I hate about a lot of classic Square JRPGs that you are strictly verboten from benching the designated anime boi hero. Let me run around town as Cid, Tifa or Red XIII you assholes
Yeah you either need the Chrono Trigger treatment or an ensemble cast like FF6.
I don’t mind having a forced party if it makes sense for the story. I don’t like it as much when it’s enforced for no apparent reason
Am I a joke to you?
Yeah, on reflection that was something they really got into with the PS1 games
Honestly FFXII is probably my favourite because it successfully merged real time with party control through the gambit system. Tell 'em what to do and you just need to switch around the characters for a bit of fine tuning. Having to unlock the gambits was bullshit but apart from that I had no complaints.
FFXV did a great job of telling a four character story with action rpg mechanics.
But dis it do a good job of feeling like you were playing the whole party?
The original release: absolutely not. Noctis is the clear protagonist and occupies 75% of the player’s attention
With the DLC or in the Royal Edition: Noctis occupies about 30% of the player’s attention. Each other party member gets their own lengthy side quest and returns to the main storyline as playable characters and with deeper motivations for their actions and contribution to the plot.
It’s one of those games where they solved many of it’s initial flaws way after the impression of the game was set in the public mindscape.
Yeah that’s a pretty fair criticism. The last couple have felt that way.
I thought the FF7 remake handled that pretty well
You’re looking for FFXV which pushed the limits of Final Fantasy innovation.
I liked that one a lot, though the latter half of the game felt a little rushed. It was pretty despised by a lot of old final fantasy fans though.
Yeah but when JRPGs try to do something different, they usually end up with incredibly contrived and bizarre nonsense, like the Dressphere stuff from FFX-2 or the Paradigm system from FF13. What I’m saying is: make a Fallout 1/2 style CRPG that looks like Xenogears
I liked the Paradigm system.
My absolute favorite turn based combat system is in Star Renegades. Never been more engaged in video game combat without real time elements than in that one, unfortunately it’s a roguelike.
9 has that in spades.
One thing that frustrated me with FFs starting at 12 was relative improvement to combat coming at the expense of more and more story beats. 15 was the worst offender, but it was all downhill after 10.
I haven’t played it but I struggle to imagine how it could be worse than FF13, a game that was nothing but a bunch of cutscenes strung along by narrow corridors
Give me my guy running around on a big globe map representation of the game world or give me death
I know I say this like every time it’s brought up, but I will reiterate yet again: FF13 is the ideal JRPG to play while drunk. The out-of-combat mechanics are “Hallway Simulator 2009.” The in-combat mechanics are “mash these three buttons in this sequence, unless it’s this slightly more annoying type of encounter, then use this other sequence instead.” The rest of it is forgettable cutscenes where Snow yells a lot over his shitty nu-metal leitmotif, and the story is so incoherent that it wouldn’t matter if you were sober anyway. Some people drink to forget; if you’re playing FF13, you drink to not remember in the first place, and it’s a better experience for it.
For all its sins, FF13 was a complete story that closed its loops. Not a great story, but it at least had FF vibes and a dramatic ending.
FF15 just kinda gives up on itself in the middle of the game. You can tell the developers were throwing up their hands and announcing “We don’t care anymore, just send it out the door”.
A ton of story beats are littered across the first arc that just get dropped. A bunch of story beats are introduced at the top of the third arc seemingly so they can immediately be resolved.
The Act 2 final fight feels like someone cobbled together a God Of War quick time fight over a long weekend.
FF13 is consistently mid from end to end. FF15 drops straight off a cliff once you leave the main continent.
Old ways are best ways
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That sort of thinking is what got us in the mess we’re in today, with everything being just shittier action game.
JRPGs were fine
Have you played Omori? It’s not rocket science, but I thought the emotion system was fun to play with.