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[The_Explorer]

I played this for a while, though its not a console exclusive. Can play it on PC too. Its pretty fun, I like being able to switch to any class I want on the same character. Definitely yeah wouldn't let kids play, the ERP scene is HUGE and I'd say most people probably run around with nude mods. I saw how many were downloaded, and its over 300k combined for just the nude various body mods. The most popular had 100k+ unique each downloads on one site, who knows how many more on others. They could probably ban all those people using them, but considering how many use them, one would see a very empty game. The only one I got is the pvp action combo thing, cause the hotbar had way too many abilities filled up for my liking and my hands don't have arthritis I dont think, but it sure made my hands hurt.

I didn't stick with it past my free month though. I like the story even early on, just wasn't a personal fan of the gameplay in general. And I doubt the gameplay gets better in further expansions. Dunno, but most MMOs I don't like anyway...I've tried many and only like LOTRO (sorta this ones a bit iffy for me to add), Asheron's call, WoW still I enjoy (except shadowlands)...thats it really. I kinda like Black desert, everquest and EVE, but heh dont play them long and EQ kinda too archaic for me even if I play super old games like morrowind still.

[Empty]

What is the person above me talking about?

Is it a bot?

[The_Explorer]

What is the person above me talking about?

Is it a bot?

no lol. I was half asleep and took pain meds last night. read the title briefly, looked through opening post (quickly) and read this as "FFXIV" which is the MMO xD so I thought this was talking about FFXIV. The lettering is almost the same too in this game title, only the I and V are switched

[Iduno]

Also, Chrono Trigger is by bar an underrated cult classic. Square has done some good but I would love if they would let the franchise see the light of day again.

Square has, and Enix has, but Square-Enix has done nothing good. To be fair, they were both already falling in quality by the time they merged.

[McTraveller]

Just a few weeks away. Still looks interesting. The Square Enix folks, if nothing else, know how to make trailers and other media material. Helps they have ridiculously good scoring.

Also apparently it's only PS5 exclusive for 6 months; after that it should be on PC and whatever the latest impossible-to-remember XBox name is.

[Horizon]

Also, Chrono Trigger is by bar an underrated cult classic. Square has done some good but I would love if they would let the franchise see the light of day again.

Square has, and Enix has, but Square-Enix has done nothing good. To be fair, they were both already falling in quality by the time they merged.

A fair point.

[McTraveller]

I just finished the Demo of FFXVI.  What a smart move by Square Enix - I do not normally pre-order games, but <shut up and take my money meme here>.

I mean, even though the demo didn't really show anything that wasn't already in the trailers... holy cow.

Aside from the technical feats - astonishing visuals, music, wow.

All I can say is - I have never, ever seen a game (or many other media types to be honest) build so much decent emotional involvement so quickly and robustly.  And this is even knowing what to expect from the trailers - I was surprised at how much the emotion hit me, even expecting it! I mean it's like their team actually pays attention to how to write dialog and build story - you get the story without exposition dumps, and what exposition there is feels like it's part of the natural speech patterns, not just "oh here's an excuse to exposition dump."

Gameplay is also good so far. I mean I'm not an action-RPG expert, but this feels way better and, despite the crazy flashiness for which these types of games are known, the combat feels much more sensible than earlier FF attempts.  I recall many instances in FFXV where I was just mashing buttons and didn't really understand what was happening¹.  So far in this one, there's a lot of combo, but it feels more grounded, rather than just noise.

They also address a lot of interesting things that I believe other games will adopt en masse now - for example something as simple as you no longer have to press a button to pick up world loot, just get close. I know FFXVI isn't the first to do this but - it's polished here.  One interesting observation is a surprisingly small inventory limit for consumables...should make for an interesting aspect not previously seen in FFs.

Spoiler: True Spoiler? (click to show/hide)

I want to know what the suspiciously red "star" is hanging out next to the moon.  I'm curious to see if the moon has phases, if the star sticks with the moon, or if it sticks with the general celestial field.

Spoiler: 1 (click to show/hide)

There was a boss battle in FFXV - in a kind of Imperial warehouse center or something, you were fighting a mech or something? I still to this day don't know how I beat that boss. It was a mess of ... everything.  Not to mention the boss just suddenly appeared, no character intro or anything, just random.  There was also that one battle with the water summon where I also don't know what was going on.

Contrast to FFXVI - the giant Eikon vs Eikon battle in the demo, even though it was almost like a rail-shooter, still felt grounded and even though there was constant screen movement - it didn't feel like noise.  My hat's off to the design team there.

EDIT: wow much incoherency repaired!

[McTraveller]

Anyone else playing this!?

So much to discuss...  I've never seen a game with a story like this.

[Folly]

Game is getting rave reviews over the story and combat...but I just can't get over the ugly character designs. Sure the giant spirit monsters have lots of fancy CGI, but then actual Cast are just a bunch of bland generic boys wearing bland generic clothes. By far the least interesting looking characters I can recall seeing in any FF game, and I just can't get excited for that.

[scriver]

I can't play it because I don't own the console, but I'm very untrusted in hearing what you have to say about it

[McTraveller]

As for "a bunch of bland generic boys" - are you sure you aren't thinking of FF XV, which is literally 4 guys all wearing matching black leather outfits? 

It's interesting reading reviews - they are very polarized. I think it's because people can't accept that a game may not be designed to what they wanted, but has other goals. It's a tough mismatch, and I don't envy the game producers and directors there - you can't be all things to all people.

Trying to not spoiler... especially if others haven't been playing...

High points:
I have more emotional attachment to characters in this game that I've ever had in a game, so quickly.  Even though the story is predictable in parts (I'm not quite halfway through? The joys of being an adult with young kids and other responsibilities - I can't play for more than maybe 1-2 hours an evening, if that evening is even free in the first place), it makes you feel for the plight of the world.

The story is about crystals and their impact on the world - another Final Fantasy staple.

Tech wise - the world is beautiful. I've heard people complaining about frame rates. Young people, I swear    I've heard complaints about the skybox looking low-res. Have people not seen fluffy clouds? They look blurry like that - maybe Valisthea has a climate that just always has those fluffy clouds?  I feel like we're in blessed times, what we can do with tech.

They finally made summons playable - it's really fantastic and epic. Supposedly they took some cues from Evangelion, and it shows.  Like most Final Fantasy games, the magic effects are ridiculous.

I also like the fact that they still avoid other JRPG tendencies like characters constantly talking during battles (Tales of Arise and Star Ocean, I'm looking at you - seriously the constant play-by-play during combat is a bit much).

I think it's exploring some pretty timely topics - environmentalism, weapons of mass destruction and the general awfulness of war, how people treat "others¹", and the like.  I wouldn't say the story is any darker than any other FF (FFVI and VII have some serious dark tones), but they just "show everything" instead of hinting at it or making it cartoony.

Downsides: I am really bad at dodging.  I don't use the QoL accessories, and to me the game is challenging - moreso than any other FF.

There's still a bit of a tech glitch with field-of-view; sometimes the engine can't figure out foreground from background, so a bit of background is not blurred around the edges - most notably this seems to be around weapons, which are the one variable graphics piece of equipment in the game.

I do agree that the matching of facial motion to voice is sub-par, compared to other games I've seen.  I can't quite tell why... Horizon seemed to do way better, and even Witcher III didn't seem so odd.  Maybe it's a stylistic choice, maybe cultural with the animation team?

I think overall people just have an unhealthy attraction to controversy. To me it's a great experience. I keep wanting to play more to find out what happens to the characters, I love just staring at the landscapes and scenery and listening to the great music, trying to figure out the motivation of the Big Bad. And get my dodge timing down, dangit!

I don't think this game needs sixteen configurable equipment slots, or having to micromanage enemy weak/strong elemental matrices, or the like². Complexity doesn't equal depth... the configurability in XVI is in the freeform combat, not in equipment, and I guess some people don't vibe with that.

Spoiler: 1 (click to show/hide)

I don't understand the vitriol over "there's a strong theme of slavery here, how could they have that and not include people with dark skin in the game!?"  I think if they had dark-skinned slaves it would also be derided - how dare they portray that people as slaves!?" But maybe I'm just being privileged...

Spoiler: 2 (click to show/hide)

I didn't realize how... annoying that is to have to manage that stuff, until it wasn't present. Does this make it "less" of an RPG? I don't think so.

Perhaps the only "RPG" complaint I have is that it seems like there are few meaningful choices in the game - but I don't think any FF has ever had choices that gave alternate endings or anything.  There was one choice in a side quest, but I don't think that choice had major world or personal implications.

[LuuBluum]

It's my understanding that the facial capture is matched to the voiced dialogue in English, which was also recorded first.

[McTraveller]

It is, and I watch in English.  Some characters' animations are just bad. Clive's is middling - sometimes good, sometimes bad. Cid's is... disturbing. Oddly enough Jill's is pretty consistently good.  Many of the random NPCs... I'd rather just have them have "puppet lips" it would be less strange.

[Dostoevsky]

Anyone else playing this!?

So much to discuss...  I've never seen a game with a story like this.

Waiting for the PC version, pretty much.

[McTraveller]

As I progress slowly (about 60% complete due to not having copious amounts of free time) through the game I occasionally read forums with responses to the game.

Some interesting observations, not related to FFXVI specifically, though prompted by it:

The game is pretty polarizing on what constitutes "RPG elements" and "are the side quests and exploration good or bad?"  The RPG elements discussion seems muddy, but the common theme I've seen with the side quests and exploration is less so: that those that don't like it say "the quests and exploration are dumb, the rewards aren't worth it."

To that I say - shouldn't the exploration itself, or the world-building, be the reward, not getting some stat-boosting item or tons of gil or whatever?  Is the current generation of gamers so split between those that want to get a dopamine hit and those that enjoy just seeing new things?  That is - if you are exploring just to get a treasure... what's the point?

I'm not a game designer, to be sure, but I find the exploration and landscapes in this game to be quite compelling - a varied enough collection landscapes and biomes; some of the best coastal areas I've ever seen in a game specifically (Seems more realistic than Forbidden West to me... I think it is the color saturation choice? I know FFXVI gets panned for being unsaturated, but it works for me). Just standing on a cliff overlooking an ocean.  And wow has tech improved to make seas look way better.  Only thing missing really is good sound of the surf (Hrm. I'll have to turn down BGM and see if it's there and I just missed it...)

Also the endless discussions about skin-color diversity - I realized that there's this oddity that seems to say that the cultures in a fictitious game world should match our own - why would we expect there to be the same cultures and skin tones there as here?  Funny thing is there is diversity in the FFXVI world culturally and economically. Why is "range of skin pigment" the sticking point?  There's even notable diversity in sexual expression, without beating it over your head.

I guess people just like to complain...

For me, though, it's a grand experience.

I do have to say though, whoever was in charge of this one area - gotta fix those couple textures with z-fighting