FINAL FANTASY

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MisterHentai
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

I still can't believe it's been an entire decade for this game. :feel: :sweat:

For people who are still too young or lack the perspective, that duration of time is enough for many 2000's kids who would go through primary/elementary school all the way to secondary/highschool to even graduating. Hell, some of you lot did go through that phase and are in higher education still. :LOL:

And for the older folk myself or more, it's been one hell of a long and segregated road for sure.

Yeah we had the XIII series of games since 2006, but boy did they really split or destroyed the fanbase and legacy of the franchise, and really showed how much of a struggle the PS3/360 generation was for SE. XIV was a giant clusterfuck originally as well until they had to relaunch it. Crystal Tools really drained and killed them.

It's also interesting to compare it to previous generations, from the NES-SNES era, and especially since the advent of 3D polygonal graphics, like what FFVII and FFX did for the PS1 and PS2 generations respectively. Being able to see the impact and reactions to those games in the overall gaming industry, the evolution and direction of the series itself, and the effects it had for old fans or newcomers alike. Now it's set to repeat again with XV, but with this era's more tech savvy and ever trend changing generation, it's going to be tough and it already shows.


Any way, here's a trip down memory lane for the former Versus XIII. It's been through one hell of a turbulent time.



Dem PS3 Crystal Tools graphics looks like PS2 now. :LOL:

Makes me wonder how long it took to make and how much money was wasted for some of the CGI in this, most of which we will never see again or have been modifed immensely. :LOL:

And I actually prefer the HP/MP UI in the original too. It was and could've been somethign new at the time, but now we just have generic bland HD quairty text. :pi:
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

DF Retro with the nice timing on their look back at the game's development evolution. :lol:



So much ambition, so much waste. :pi:
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

Some wild armchair speculation time. :LOL:

Given the amount of allusions and nods to previous games each new FF tends to have, there also seems to be quite an obvious pattern with the way FFXIII and FFXV have turned out, which also mirrors FFVII and FFVIII respectively.

Examples....

XIII seems to really try to invoke alot of VII. Both have an opening sequence beginning on a train and then quickly thrust into some sort of chaotic event. XIII is also the most heavily futuristic Sci-Fi of all the mainline FF games thus far whereas VII at the time of it's release was the same with it's combination of post-industrial/steampunk/cyberpunk/Sci-Fi themes. Technological trends of the time also plays a huge part for each game the PlayStation systems they were on i.e. VII using the CD and also the advent of CGI cutscenes, and then you XIII with Blu-ray and it's ridiculous amount of HD content. And of course, the most infamous of comparison is the "Lightning is a female Cloud" thing which given their faces and SE's penchant for reused templates and girly boys, that's not too far off there. :lol:

XV has alot of VIII qualities. XV starts you off instantly going against Ifrit and VIII's first boss is Ifrit as well, where both are an Astral and Guardian Force, each game's respective terminology for the traditional series' Summon. The world setting of both games shares very similar aesthetics when it comes to the architecture, colour palette and even the in-world technology themselves i.e. roads and the cars especially. The mechanic of literately drawing magic from rocks and places in XV is practically VIII's Draw system! And the character designs .... oh boy the characters! This is when you really start to see the most Tetsuya Nomura of Tetsuya Nomura designs. XV's main cast are such Nomura-isms of pretentious agenda pushing fashion model J-Pop wannabes. Squall in VIII is pretty much Gackt and that ironically goes up it's own ass itself later in the future when he did become a character! VIII also had Irvine, a very American and cowboy-looking character. XV has alot of Southern Americanism's with it's desert gas stations and the stereotypical musicial melody associated with it ......and Cindy! :lol:


Anyway, I'm sure there are some more, but looking at the direction the series has gone lately, could it be that FFXVI, whenever the hell this may happen :LOL: , might follow in the footsteps of FFIX and we see them go back to classic fantasy? They've even hinted at the possibility. :please:
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by Vonman »

i thought Squall was David Bowie :LOL:

i agree tho FF15 made me reminisce so much about FF8... especially when you pop that Blue Field soundtrack on the regalia whilst travelling about.

13 hours into the game now, some small issues start to rear their ugly head;

1. dull uninspiring sidequests: they dont have any weight of story behind them unlike say, Witcher 3. basically theyre just "Go to X and kill Y amount of Z" type of quests, much like an MMOrpg. or some other silly little errands. i mean come on Squeenix.. Noctis is a royal prince why in the blue tortilla heaven does he has to be pushed around do all these common people measly demands that they could easily do themselves :?

2. Chocobo has a rental system which i found pretty annoying... i think it would be more suitable if they were to limit the chocobo usage via hunger meter, like you feed them greens and youll be able to use them for certain time instead of having to rent them cus it really sucks when the timer suddenly runs out while youre out in the open and no means to renew them.

3. All the other 3 party members feel the same. i thought they were gonna specialized them more like a tank, a healer, and a spellcaster but nope theyre the same just with different stats and skins. there is not even a way to tailor how the AI functions in battle like Dragons Dogma which led them to do stupid things, for instance Prompto keep getting real close to the enemies even tho his weapon is ranged.

4. Some jerky and weird animations on the NPCs.

5. Battles are too hectic, its always so difficult trying to see whats going on. i dont even know what im hitting most of the time :?


But still even with all these i couldnt put the game down :lol: theyre just minor issues getting in the way from time to time but overall experience is still pretty okay.
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

Janky animations and weird hit detection is probably one of my biggest gripes about this game. No amount of flashy graphics can hide the amount of :wtf: wonky crap in this.

The forced animations on some of the characters before or during gameplay and especially in the Link Strikes are just :wtf: at times.

I feel like they are really trying too hard on the "Let's make our boyband look kewl!" BS with some of the party's forced and wasteful poser animations which can at times get you killed or obscure the camera in ways it ruins your surroundings. And then there's some insanely hilarious whiffed/giltched attacks that just look :wat: :facepalm: i.e. looking at you Gladiolus! :pi:

The combat can look pretty damn cool at times, but there's also an equal amount, if not more, dodgy stuff going on. :okay:

And boy, one of the biggest dissapointments is once you reach the point when you get access to the flying Regalia. Talk about more jank! You can't even fly low in some parts before it gives you a game over screen. So much for the freedom of movement and making it feel like classic Final Fantasy. Seeing the scale of the world locations from high above does look nice, but knowing it's not exactly all mean't to be is so :okay: .

That leads to another big and open issue (Pun will be intended here!) and really the biggest farce of this game, the entire World Map scale. In one way, the seamless size and scale of each region and locale is pretty damn impressive for what they are trying to achieve, but quite honestly, it is a giant illusion once you look past it and compare it to previous games. It's not a true large world since it's not as accurately diverse in different climate and hemisphere locations as some may be lead to believe. XV's Eos is practically similar to the way XII's Ivalice is in terms of how the entire continental land is actually just a small section of what could be an even larger planet map. Sure they still managed to add a tropical beach, your mountainous and forestry areas, but ...... it still it really misses the point. :sadserah:

FFXV may win on the obvious specific area scale (Seeing Duscae in it's entirety is nice), but personally, I still think FFXII wins overall on true diversity, different climate regions and that sense of feeling from older FF's of discovery. If they rebuilt XII's world to the scale that XV could portray, then HORY SHEEEEET that will be something! :o ...and again, XII isn't even an entire planet either!

Oh well, it's a good thing FFXII HD will be soon, so people who missed out can appreciate the true revolution of the series. :mis:
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by raidergale »

It's also a shame you see those nice desert locations, snowy locations and Tenebrae in the last few chapters of the game and yet can't really explore any single one of them since you're stuck in a FFXIII-like linear corridor :okay:
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

I mean, when the party's home city, Insomnia, isn't even an explorable location, that kind of speaks for itself really. :LOL: :okay: :snarage:

It doesn't have to be ridiculous GTA levels of city scale, but at least give it a sizeable or some split up areas for some resemblance of an actual living place. :pi:

Just more evidence that this game tries way too many ideas, but falls flat in execution and so many missed opportunities. :okay:

SE going for the big ambition is seriously their biggest flaws for so many of their games in the past decade. For every new thing they try to achieve, they lose ALOT in what made them so good in the past.
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by Vonman »

I've just finished chapter 9.. What the actual fug..

Conan o brien was right, this game is a blue balled fest
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

:doge: -ma
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Re: FINAL FANTASY

Post by MisterHentai »

Japan first week sales comparison.
(2001) Final Fantasy X ÔÇô 1,400,00 (PS2)
(2006) Final Fantasy XII ÔÇô 1,764,266 (PS2)
(2009) Final Fantasy XIII ÔÇô 1,501,964 (PS3)
(2011) Final Fantasy XIII-2 ÔÇô 524,217 (PS3)
(2013) Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII ÔÇô 277,082
(2016) Final Fantasy XV ÔÇô 694,262 (690,471 PS4|3,791 XOne)
Image


It's quite funny and ironic really. For all it's JAHPAN pondering designs and nuances the game has, it can still only do this much in their home turf?! :LOL:

I mean technically it is still a success if you consider the current times and the terrible state of console gaming there, but my god it's just obvious! When near enough 700K is a GOOD number for PS4 in Japan, the bar has been lowered considerably.

It just goes to show how tarnished the FF brand is and all the amount of media marketing they do for the game and franchise still amounts for less. :facepalm:

SE seriously needs a good kick up their stubborn arse and wake the hell up.

Given all the recently announced post-release changes and stuff still to come for the game, it just goes to show how bad this unfinished/patch generation has become. 10 years in the making! :LOL:

Final Fantasy XV: International Astral Patched System. :mis:
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Steam | Pawn: Minami | Level: 200 | Vocation: Sorcerer | Inclination: Challenger/Ultilitarian
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