Platform: PS4, Xbox One, VR Compatible
Release Date: September 30th, 2016
Available both retail and digital download
The title sounds super bleak but in my heart of hearts that how I really feel about the franchise and the game as a whole. To catch everyone up who isn't familiar, Final Fantasy 15 (FF15) was formally known as Final Fantasy Versus before it was re-packaged into one of the numbered entries. This game has been in production for the last 10 years and is finally getting it's release on September 30th 2016. This game will also be the first game in the series to almost completely abandon the active turn based battle system in favor of a more action rpg like feel. This game is also set in a completely immersive and massive open world much like Witcher or Skyrim. And finally, but not really finally, this game has 4 male protagonists and no female characters to be a part of the main cast. We don't know if there will be a female guest NPC to play at some point but I guess we will see.
This game has so many red flags for me personally I don't even know where to start. To be fair, I am more of a traditionalist when it comes to rpgs. I love turn based combat and while I find some action rpgs enjoyable, for this series it almost immediately put me off. The creators released two different demos, FF15 Duscae and The Platinum Demo. I skipped the first one despite having brought Final Fantasy Type 0 to play it, but I did play the second demo because you can have the carbuncle join you in the game if you complete it. Who doesn't love a cute Carbuncle right? And the combat felt like Kingdom Hearts minus the Disney Property. Even the enemies looked like low level Heartless mobs from the game.
Plenty of publications came to the same conclusion as I did about the feeling of the battle system. In Final Fantasy it's not like them to have a recycled idea. Some people could argue that the turn based battle system is nothing but a giant rehash but SE has always managed to make it fresh. I couldn't get past Final Fantasy 13 but the paradigm shift battle system was fluid and seamless. A lot of people didn't like the Junction System in Final Fantasy 8 but that was also a different take on turn based combat. I could state the battle system for all the entries I have played but this was glaring to me.
The next thing is the open world. Most of the older titles had an overworld map or something similar. Final Fantasy 12 was probably the one that had the most open world feel in comparison to Final Fantasy 10 or 13. I believe that I am personally suffering from Open World Fatigue, a term i'm borrowing from Colin Moriarty of Kinda Funny Games Podcast/Channel. The term basically means that most of the games that have emerged have so much open world, space etc that you can literally get lost in doing side quests or your own thing that you never finish the main campaign or you may complete it but it will be after sinking a gajillion amount of hours into a game. That's more like MMORPG territory which is fine if that is what you signed up for. It's definitely a more western gaming idea that the East has been trying to adopt for some fucking reason. Personally I like a self contained environment that does not overwhelm me the possibilities of what I could do but gives me the freedom to play how I like. Bottom line is that I payed for creators or someone to make the game and tell me a story. I don't need to "make" my own, but that's just me and plenty of people will disagree.
And probably my last issue is the amount of pomp and circumstance they are putting into its release. They have an anime, and prequel movie, some VR elements that look half baked and some more gimmicky stuff. I have never needed that to sell me on a Final Fantasy and I think most of the FF fanbase hasn't either. I'm worried that the lore of the game is going to be mixed in with all of the other media that a regular gamer won't be able to truly grasp the story without exploring it as well. And the story sounds like it has the making to be epic but its over exposure is almost like the big movies that spoil things with the trailers. The stories and game have always spoken for itself and I guess I'm concerned that all of this marketing hype is hiding that this game is another dud in the series.
I really want to love this game. I really want the game to do well. If this is the direction that the series is going then maybe I may need to face the music that this series is not for me anymore but either way, we will see in September.
Until Next Time,
DreaPoetic
Source:
All images are property of SquareEnix
No comments:
Post a Comment