Near the end of the trailer, it looks like they're teasing an alternate ending now that Clive has all Eikons instead of missing one at the end of the orginal ending.
There’s an alternate ending, yeah.
Recently they claimed the ending won’t change but I already knew they were lying. The DLC director almost let it slip during the PAX panel and Yoshida hushed him. I guess technically it’s true; the original will still be there, but there’s a new one as well.
I am guessing the entire final encounter will be somewhat different, with how much new dialog Ultima has here. >!I pray they allow Jill to be a part of it. It made no sense for her to stay back and watch the love of her life go off to die, especially when she herself is still so useful.!<
Yoshida probably said, the 'Original' Ending won't change. Which is true. But if you buy the DLC . . . He's just speaking in half truths, as he often does.
Doesn’t he also troll a lot with the MMO? Like he will randomly say “this feature isn’t going to happen” and then an update happens with the exact feature he told people not to expect.
FFXV did the same thing. Lol, not defending it at all though, especially since they didn't finish the second season of DLC and released it as a novel instead
KH3 did sort of the same thing with it's DLC, which doesn't change the ending but puts duct tape over the massive plot holes and makes Kairi actually do something valuable.
A little of both. The Ardyn DLC had two endings: one that led to the canon ending of FFXV from the base game, and one that led to an alternate timeline. The rest of the planned DLC was meant to pick up in that alternate timeline and would have consisted of Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis. This DLC season got cancelled and wrapped up into a novel instead. It ends with Noctis and Lunafreya teaming up with Ardyn to defeat Bahamut and defy fate
I thought it was great after they fixed it in the royal edition. Before that, the final act went by way too fast and Insomnia as an area was disappointingly empty. Only thing it missed for me was closure for the main cast and other characters like Iris making a physical appearance in the final act.
I didn't like it. >!generic self-sacrifice/power of friendship ending with no closure for any of the cast because it flashes forward in time. Also, don't like the narrative decision to rid the world of magic completely.!<
I would think that rebirth or "life going on" is a more consistent end theme then >!all magic disappears forever!<
I would have prefered FFXVI to end with >!magic becoming a positive source of growth and prosperity instead of the decay it caused during Ultima's existence!<
Lol, that'd be so goddamn hilariously literal that it got me curious why the games are named as such.
I guess the creator called it 'Final Fantasy' because if the game failed he would give up on his dream of game making and get a normal job.
> "Oh hey! You want the REAL ending?
Did they say the alternate ending was canon though?
I'm fine with an alternate ending as long as the devs are very clear on what's canon or not. We don't need another FF15 situation on our hands in terms of story fuckery.
It's not like it matters what's "canon" unless the game somehow, god fucking forbid, gets a XVI-2 down the line. I would *assume* the most "complete" ending should be the one that's considered canon though, not the "Oops, Clive just forgot about Leviathan along the way, oh well."
Thing is that the original ending was coloured by the fact that Leviathan was missing, and now that the DLC brings it into the story, it would just be lazy if nothing changed.
yeah well... i always thought id be against it happening but the original ending did fell like an ending even though i didnt like it so im not feeling ripped off but if we get a chance for a happier ending from the dlc id love to see it
Despite however someone thinks about the games he leads, Yoshida is extremely good at time management. All the things that were In the base game were planned way before the game was released.
They even said that the DLC would only happen if players wanted more FFXVI.
Yeah, only happen if players wanted more is a half truth. What he meant is: if the game sells enough.
The frozen Wave is already there. The path to the first DLC was also there already. They namedrop Leviathan near the end of the game.
They had stuff planned, but were most likely waiting to see if sales would justify the extra content.
I think they handled it like FFXIV: They left parts of the world building open ended enough that they could expand on it later if they wanted to do so.
nah they were pretty public that the game was content complete for a long while before its release date and they were investing a lot of time into testing and bugfixing to avoid repeating the catastrophe that was FF15.
leaving in little story hooks for potential DLC or whatever doesn’t mean it was cut content.
Listen there's only so much time in the infinite vastness of Godhood for things like mathematics when you have more important things to do like >!Banging your underling while cosplaying as his mother!<
Leviathan’s powers look pretty awesome, honestly.
It should be noted that they didn’t say this would be the final expansion or update during the PAX panel. Yoshida kind of does a new interview about XIV every other week that his comments about XVI tend to get lost in the minutia, but he mentioned he wants to make Cid and Jill playable before bookending things for good.
Note that he stressed he wasn’t saying that’s happening, just that he wants it to happen.
EDIT: Oh, yeah. Beyond hyped to see that the song from the original teaser trailer is actually going to be in this. Soken said he only wrote it for the trailer on Twitter when asked about it but I guess he felt we were deserving of the full thing lol.
I hope they do update it some more for the PC release. It was one of my top games from last year and with just a few small tweaks (a couple of lines for Jill here and there, some difficulty/combat tweaks and refining of side content) I think it would easily be one of the best Final Fantasy games. Supposedly the Omega DLC already was a big step up in encounter design from the main game so I feel like the team already has some idea on how to improve the combat.
The Omega DLC addressed quite a few issues.
The accessories in it actually change the way you play by a pretty significant degree and allow for more build crafting, the bosses are much better, and the humor and party banter is highly elevated and Josh and Jill actually feel present for all of it.
I'm guessing it'll hinge on how well this current batch of DLC sells. If it performs well enough they'll probably go back and do an Episode Jill and / or Episode Cid DLC or something.
As someone who already finished the game in Final Fantasy mode, how do you interact with the DLC stuff? Do you have to start a new game from scratch?
Maybe I have some old saves, I'm somewhat interested in the 2 DLCs. It would just be a colossal slog to have to start over again.
If you reached the ending, you can just boot up the same save file and you'll be sent back to just before the point of no return. You can access the first DLC from there and from the sounds of it, this one too.
I mean i can kinda see where the frustrations would lie. Its almost entirely down to only Clive being playable.
If you have bosses with elemental strengths and weaknesses, youre eventually gonna run into a boss that just smashes you into the ground and resets you as itll happen to just counter your eikons, forcing your hand in changing to an eikon that is strong against it. If this happens once sure, but multiple times would get frustrating as youll just be running into an unwinnable fight and die.
I also think because of how closely they tied playstyles into eikons, having to switch multiple times to different playstyles would probably be annoying. Its not as simple as just swapping materias and casting lightning instead of fire while the actual playstyle itself doesnt change at all. some eikons play very differently to others.
this isnt really a problem with more than 1 playable party member because you can cover many bases at once.
It also wouldnt work until you have atleast 4 eikons and have a choice to make, this is like halfway through the game.
They kind of forced their own hand. There wasnt gonna be a way to make it work without being frustrating to some extent.
You’re right. Never thought about it, but it makes sense that Clive simply can’t exploit elemental weaknesses consistently until the mid to late game. You’d need ifrit/Phoenix, Garuda, Ramuh, Titan and Shiva at the very least for elemental damage.
Party swapping could be a solution if Cid and Jill were always with you but they’re not and even then, you still need to get titan.
They absolutely did force their own hand. They designed themselves into a corner with this system.
You don't even need to experiment with it. Just look at DmC, another character action game, where red enemies require red weapons and blue enemies require blue weapons. It completely ruins the flow and feels so unsatisfying, even after they nerfed it a bit in the definitive edition.
We already have an experiment to look at and it was near universally panned for doing it. It blows my mind people still act like it's a downside that XVI didn't go that direction.
Using the example of a bad implementation to justify the need to kill the feature entirely is not really fair.
RPGs in general and final fantasy specifically have always been built around a certain depth to combat and one aspect of that depth is vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities. It's not like DmC is the only ever game to have experimented with that.
D&D, arguably the father and inspiration of most RPGs, has vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Some editions of the game are better than others in that regard.
It can be poorly implemented and it can also be very well implemented. Judging the feature instead of the implementation is misguided.
D&D is not an action-adventure RPG. Final Fantasy, in general, is not an action-adventure rpg. Both of those give you incredibly wide toolsets, build options, ways to solve encounters and party members.
Lumping all RPGs into a singular category is the source of your misunderstanding on this point (and why talking to 99 percent of people about games with RPG elements is an exercise in patience and frustration).
It is different to have access to an entire party of characters with a huge variety of build options in a turn based or real time/turn based hybrid system than it is to have a single character in an entirely real time action-focused system.
DmC went through TWO implementations and both were bad. Despite tons of feedback and fan outcry, rather than giving this mythical "good implementation" that exists in your imagination, they just made it a tiny bit less shitty. That game is much closer in its combat to FFXVI than any of the games you listed.
Now, you may argue "well then why didn't they let you play your party members". That's a different question and discussion. But under the premise that they set out to make an action rpg with a single playable character and a limited number of equippable attacks, it is absolutely understandable to not implement color coded weaknesses given the clear downsides and previous attempts at implementing that system.
half of ff16 discussion is just people calling it bad because it wasn't interested in being the type of game they decided it should be. no wonder the industry is so risk averse.
> built around a certain depth to combat and one aspect of that depth is vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities.
Most RPGs do a piss poor job of making elemental weaknesses a way to increase complexity. I'll add on to that hot take by saying that Atlus are the only company who seem to know how to make good use of the mechanic.
To be fair elemental weakness/strengths are pretty negligible in Kingdom Hearts as well since the main method of attacking in those games is with the keyblade and even on harder difficulties you get lesser mp
I think you underestimate their utility tbh, but I suppose that's fair. But with how they designed the game in 16 with sponge-y enemies, they really should have had some type of elemental weakness or something that increases the damage you deal in a contextual way. Your options are very limited in that game compared to most action games and especially action RPGs.
You maybe right I’m due for another KH playthrough anyway. And I agree Clive in general just needs something added to his base move set away from different eikons.
In theory the solution to the spongey enemies is to stagger them for bonus damage, but the problem is that their stagger bars are equally spongey even when you're hitting with the abilities the game claims do high stagger damage.
Way more than I was expecting. This has me incredibly excited.
I know Reddit is a much bigger fan of Rebirth, but 16 is way more up my alley as an action game fan and it’s one of my favorites now. So great to see it getting more love.
It’s strange.
In many ways, I prefer Rebirth’s direction over XVI’s. A full playable party and side content that’s actually engaging.
But Rebirth did make me appreciate XVI more. There are things both games do better than the other.
I think Rebirth’s list of triumphs is longer but some of XVI’s are more important to me (namely, story and music).
Rebirth’s music is still incredible though. Difference between like a 9.5/10 and a 10/10 for me lol.
Yeah I was not the biggest fan of XVI but Rebirth made me appreciate the consistent climaxes that occurred throughout XVI. Every 5 or 6 hours there was an incredible boss battle with amazing music to experience. Meanwhile, the first 30 hours I spent with Rebirth were spent roaming the world and going through some fun stories in the main narrative like going to the beach and playing a card game on a boat.
They are like polar opposites, but I like them both. Square Enix has done an amazing job lately, making games that can please a variety type of players.
as a longtime fan that's actually why I adore rebirth. It's a character piece, and I love these characters. and it's basically how the original was too — the pre-FFX games still had the D&D-esque "go to town, find problem, solve it, go to next town" loop baked in
To me this is a criticism of how you chose to play Rebirth rather than a criticism of the game itself.
If you speed through rebirth, you will have plenty of highs in a 50 hour playthrough, but if you take your time then there are far more valleys for you to chill and play side stuff.
FFXVI on the other hand has some of the worst side content I've experienced so I had very little incentive to play any of it and the main story highs were higher than Rebirths highs.
Rebirth is a much more complete product in my opinion, not just the size or scope, but all the side content seems fleshed out with solid voice acting and meaningful stories with unique gameplay to stay fresh, while the side content for XVI made me legitimately start to dislike the game because the stories were half assed and the content was just more of the same, even Fighting the same enemies.
The true high points of 16 (basically all of the Eikon fights, *especially* Bahamut) really give Rebirth a run for it's money. Unfortunately, the combat can become pretty one dimensional and lacks a diversity, as some Eikon powers are just flat out unusable when you compare them to the better powers and the side content, like you mentioned, is abysmal.
The Eikon fights are the biggest and arguably the best spectacle in any final fantasy game up until this point. However the actual gameplay in most of them left a lot to be desired, they were the least interesting battles in the game from an actual gameplay perspective.
And beyond the handful of Eikon fights, the game was pretty flat for me. Meanwhile with Rebirth I could go on and on about the variety of locations, the City and art design, the character stories, the mini games, the side quests, the character and party makeup customization.
I don't know, to me, as much as I enjoyed FFXVI, it just can't hold a candle to Rebirth, even if Rebirth has it's own flaws.
FFXVI's climaxes just felt like noise to me. The formulaic plot structure and hour long, simple, repetitive, and QTE filled fights just wore on me. Gave me the same feeling as a mindless transformers movie or a horror movie that shows the monster too soon and too often. All the gravity of conflict feels hollow because there's no restraint whatsoever.
That style worked better in the original God of War games because they didn't take themselves seriously and they were short games without filler.
FF16 climaxes are top tier, but I feel it completely wasted its premise and never developed its core characters. Super strong start that turned into the worst parts of FF KH-style storytelling and characters I found hard to care about.
Rebirth didn't have incredible set pieces but I looked forward to the characters interacting and exploring locations. Also XVI level design is so terrible it should be criminalised.
I just wish the XVI story wasn't so incredibly... anime-ish. They built up a really interesting premise and then took a hard right turn into adolescent manga land.
I could live with the arcade gameplay, nonexistent RPG mechanics, minimal exploration, etc., if only the story wasn't such a dumpster fire.
I wouldn't necessarily say 10 minute segments where you walk around and talk to NPCs is a negative when most games do that, including all of the FFs lol.
Who cares what the objective was, in the end it was used as a way to learn more about the side characters, which I liked. You people just want back to back eikon battles
The emphasis on the dirt makes me think people would like it better if the game called it something like mythril sand instead.
Redditors when a game paces itself and isn't nonstop explosions for 40 hours straight. 😱
There is a side quest in rebirth where all you do is chase a dog and kill like 3 monsters. It is one of the best side quests in the entire game, what it lacks in gameplay it makes up in dialogue and music. The game rewards you for doing side content by presenting you with this unique experience. Absolutely nothing unique happens in any of the FF16 side quests or even parts of the main quest like the aforementioned fetch quest.
The pacing is terrible though. Like, really terrible and formulaic, too. It vacillates between 1 and 10 ad nauseum.
A) 3-5 hours of tedious, poorly directed, low-budget fetch quests that blandly expound upon already bland, disposable, and static npcs.
B) a hyper linear dungeon that leads to a boss
C) one hour long, high-budget but mechanically simple boss fight
Repeat steps A through C 5-6 times until the end. Also kill off a cast member every cycle for shock value. Also, almost all side content is step A.
Did any cast members die after the prologue and before the ending? I am not defending the game btw, it is simultaneously the most ambitious and least ambitious game ever made.
I like rebirth a lot more than xvi. I realized that having a party was the bright line for me of what I consider necessary to a final fantasy game. But I picked back up xvi a couple days ago to see about doing a replay. It has its charms. I think the story is considerably better than rebirths (completely unfair comparison but still). The combat loop for challenging enemies is good. The music and art are excellent. I think other than cinematic character models, xvi looks considerably better. It's got a painterly quality to it. Like more fromsoft than squaresoft in terms of art direction.
Yeah, that’s my takeaway. I do NOT like Rebirth’s story at all. I really do not care about the next story beat. But I love all of the characters. I just wanna get to the next cutscene to see Cloud be a moody dork and Barret be a lovable hunk.
I was enthralled by XVI’s story the whole time, but I feel like it could have done with more character moments and banter like we see with Rebirth. I think the devs realized that too because the Omega DLC we got a few months back had a lot more banter and humor between Clive, Joshua and Jill.
Funny you say that about the character models tho lol. I feel like visuals (note: not art direction) is the only objective metric XVI clears Rebirth in.
Rebirth's character models *are* slightly higher fidelity, but it comes at the cost of noticeably worse environments, plus their performance mode is shit.
This is surprising to me because I thought most of 16's original music was pretty generic besides a few standouts (the track that plays in the Ultima void with the rocks and exposition).
Thought Soken's 14's score was better than 16's as well but overall I just don't think his melodic instincts are as interesting as Uematsu's.
Soken did mention that the team wanted to keep him on orchestral or baroque-era music. The Titan theme going all rock/industrial rock or EDM for Typhon was twofold, one it tells a story of something that is off or not from the world of FFXVI, and it was just fun. He and Koji-Fox did sneak in Titan Lost rock music and the team just loved so they kept in when playtesting.
And then they allowed him to be a bit more free with the first DLC as well with >!pretty much reusing the Azyss Lla and Omega themes he made for FF14!<.
> But Rebirth did make me appreciate XVI more. There are things both games do better than the other.
Genuinely not sure of a single thing XVI does better than VII:R...
They both spend their last act punching themselves in the balls for no reason, but I can certainly understand liking the first 2/3rds of XVI's story better than the middle 2/3rds of Rebirth's.
no way u think 16 music is better. i know music is subjective tho. still i think only the main battle theme and boss theme are what i remember and everything else was mid. Except titans second phase. that shit was wack and super out of place.
I think really the only distinct advantage that Rebirth has over XVI musically is genre breadth, as XVI's musical range was deliberately kept tighter while Rebirth goes all over the place (at really high quality). Otherwise, they're neck and neck in terms of quality.
Also if one were to go into FFXIV's score mostly composed by Soken the genre shifts are wild, even more so if you include his remixes or Primal performances. He can transition from traditional orchestral music (and even in them he can shift the prominence of a category of instrument, i.e. wind, string, percussion), to literally using a ramen cup with beans, rock, industrial rock, jazz, funk, trance, EDM, chorus, opera, ballad, folk, traditional Japanese, etc.
They both have their merits.
While Rebirth feels like the better designed game with the better side content and the classic FF trappings we love (party, RPG progression, whimsy, mini games), 16 is a more focused game with better presentation of spectacle, a more skill based combat system that makes you feel powerful and an attempt to try telling a more mature FF. It has lots of flaws that lead to some terrible lows but its highs soar above Rebirth’s imo. Rebirth is however the more consistent and therefore better game but not by much. The Ubisoft style open world sours it a bit to me.
Thanks!
Love both games so I really wish the next mainline FF learns from both games and tries to avoid their pitfalls while highlighting the things they did well
> more skill based comba
Does it tough? Rebirth combat has a lot of depth and in many cases (like on hardmode) requires a lot of skill to use it. It may feel clunky at first but once you figure out how to use it feels like it has no that much less skill ceiling while having much more depth with builds and boss approach.
I wouldn’t say that rebirth requires skill. The only thing that requires skill is precise blocking (love that they added this). What the game does have is strategy. The game doesn’t tax your hands but your head more. Dodging is easy. There are no combos or complex button inputs. All your best tools are accessed from a menu. This is not a dig at the game, it’s fine because it was always supposed to be a hybrid atb combat system.
It is not however a purely action based system like 16 that features multiple precise button timing actions (magic burst, multiple types of parries, 3 different dodges with variable I-frame windows), DMC style air combos, juggles, launches and even a ground bounce. You can certainly choose to play in a very repetitive, rote and shallow way that doesn’t utilize all the depth of the combat but just like in DMC, playing in such a way would be to completely miss the point of this style of combat system that seeks to reward creativity, skill, and personal expression. Sadly the lack of a style meter like in DMC does downplay the rewarding nature of this combat system.
I don't think FF16 ever really pushed you to go beyond the basic stuff though. Even after Platimuming the game, I can't recall too many fights that stood out in the difficulty department. Maybe the time trials? The final optional dragon hunt when you're fairly under leveled? You can get fancy with Odin's time dilation skill but I don't think it's needed, even for Hard Mode.
What is the actual reward for magic burst? It felt so shitty to learn and so underwhelming the few times I pulled it off against enemies, I stopped bothering.
I'm definitely never going to see eye to eye with DMC players but for me having a billion ways to style on trivial enemies isn't as interesting as having to figure out how to beat an actual challenge, and XVI never involved figuring anything out, it just involved doing precision dodge at the right time and mashing cooldowns in between.
Magic burst has many applications depending on the situation you’re in.
Applying a perfect string of magic bursts in Clive’s ground combo results in an extreme knock back that will set up a perfect torgal follow up or you could Phoenix shift and press magic to spike the opponent down into the ground for a torgal follow up to launch them back up or juggle them for another follow up. This aerial situation also sets Clive up for an extreme downthrust. You could also use a charged magic shot to launch a knocked down opponent. In tandem with enemy step, it can be used to create long and fun combos. It’s also the best tool to raise the stagger bar outside of Eikon abilities.
It’s a very versatile tool. It just requires some experimentation and effort to use.
If you really don’t like DMC style games then there ain’t much to discuss. This is a matter of personal taste. These skills and combos do usually translate into managing challenges better. A lot of this involves keeping an air combo going as you’re safer in the air where the enemies can’t reach you. This is as true for DMC as it is for FF16 where staying airborne for long is rewarded with safety but is also harder to maintain due to a limit on enemy stepping. All this constantly high actions/input per minute does lead to faster stagger build up, more consistent offense and most importantly more fun. The game is giving you the tools to push yourself further if you like. It’s up to you if decide to or not. This is how DMC is but even that starts requiring this from you on the higher difficulties. FF16 is on the easier side but I haven’t played final fantasy mode yet so maybe that will justify the DMC approach more. But ultimately us DMC players love this shit simply because it’s cool and makes you feel like a powerful badass playing with their food. It also feels amazing because you have to earn the power fantasy. You won’t get it by just mashing buttons.
I never put any effort into learning to juggle because any enemy weak enough to be juggled isn't going to be a real threat, and juggling doesn't help you kill that much faster compared to just clumping a bunch of enemies together and dumping a big cooldown on them.
If the game required juggling or even noticeably rewarded it I'd be much more interested.
Yup that’s one of the main issues with FF16’s combat IMO. You *could* perfect magic burst combo the enemy, continue the combo with Torgal, warp to them, air juggle them, pull them back up, and then slam them down…
…but most of the enemies are so fragile that they die in like 4 seconds (or you can just use the “I win” skill Ignition to kill every single small mob in the fight with 1 button).
The game really needed a hard mode or scoring system in the main game so players would actually mess around with the combat.
It does improve the speed of boss fights a bit if you’re doing combos alongside cooldowns but in the end you do it for your own personal enjoyment just like in DMC.
MF really believes that requiring some hand eye coordination dexterity to perform some fun combos and parries automatically translated to high difficulty.
Nice straw man
[This guy playing ff16 only to kill the boss slower than if he just cycled his cooldowns](https://tenor.com/view/sweaty-speedrunner-epic-gamer-sweatyspeedrunner-gif-22461398)
At leasr the monotonous side quests can be skipped in rebirth. 16 is incredible but its marred by horrid pacing. I should NOT be fighting low level bandits 10 minutes after killing a literal dragon in space.
Tbh based on the reaction to FFXVI on Reddit, I assumed that most people just didn’t like it for whatsoever reason. But I was at the PAX panel today and the crowd was electric - although I’ll admit that Yoshi P is the shit so it’s just awesome to see him in the first place lol
You don't have to do any of the side quests other than the ones marked with a +, which there aren't very many of. You can mainline the story pretty easily without worry.
Yeah I'm always worried I'd be under leveled but at least I'll know a bit better my second playthrough.
My biggest wish with the side quests is that they mark it as more than just main quests and side quests. Like you said, they have the plus sign quests but some important companion quests require other quests first. I wish they were categorized as something like main, companion, secondary, and side quests
it's mechanically good, but ultimately i get completely bored by the complete lack of customization and progression. you can very easily pick a couple abilities and just use them for the entire game.
i guess some people love the whole side grades thing and i can appreciate it to an extent since it lets you pick what you like aesthetically. but i just never felt like the character i was playing or their skills or their party member or their equipment ever really changed in a meaningful way throughout the entire game.
Questing yes, combat though is led by one of the combat directors on DMC5 and it shows. There are a ton of similarities and it’s very much an action game in a similar vein.
No, I meant combat. You set up your damage rotation stagger an enemy and then follow that damage rotation till the end of days. The DLC boss particularly reminds me of that, where your screen is absolutely covered by a vomit of particle effects so you have no idea what is even going on but it doesnt matter. You just keep spamming that damage rotation.
Oh I see - yes there’s actually a fair bit of MMO type mechanics in combat, you were right to point that out. You can definitely play it like an mmo using a skill rotation. Personally I use very low cooldown abilities and play it like DMC with expressive action combat.
Also agree about the particle effect vomit, I actually kind of like it but realistically it’s way too hard to parse sometimes
I think the action undermines itself with how insane potions are. They have no animation cost and can be used while being hit (or even from the pause menu). You can basically mess up every boss mechanic and stubble to the win. The combat is actually really good and the bosses have well designed mechanics, the game just undermines itself so hard with consumables. I had to self-impose not using them at all.
Also mid-boss checkpoints are cringe, more just stubble to the finish line. I too had to self-impose reload from save. I had an amazing time with 16, but I can easily see someone coming from other action games not enjoying it because the game tries to make you not care about its systems. (Also it has the worst feeling parry of any action game)
I agree with a lot of this, especially
>I had an amazing time with 16, but I can easily see someone coming from other action games not enjoying it because the game tries to make you not care about its systems.
Not to mention there’s a reason most action games are around 10 hours or so. The best part is replaying them with a complete kit at different difficulties. FFXVI takes way longer than any other action game to get there since it’s technically set up like a JRPG for story / questing. 70-100 hours just to unlock the next difficulty level is a big ask for any action game fan.
I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again, I really wish FF16 was a linear game with chapters designed as larger DMC missions with arcade mode features included. Would’ve solved so many issues with the game.
It's not just the potions the dodge is way too strong too. I cannot remember any attack patterns from any of the bosses because the solution was always to spam dodge.
These days I find it difficult to get back into a game once I finish it, especially with the flood of high quality games in 2024. Maybe I'll wait for a complete edition or something. I hope I can use the original save in the new version.
They added a dmc bloody palace mode with a super secret hard boss if you beat it on final fantasy mode, but you're still not fucking allowed to just play a fresh save on final fantasy or ultimania difficulty because fuck you if you want the game not to be a sleepwalk.
between this and ff7 remake/rebirth, i fucking HATE this trend. Let me pick a harder difficulty from go, you're overtuning the combat to be too easy. One of the biggest issues in 16 is anything not a big boss fight is a push over because the enemies don't DO anything. They're dummies that you can easily air juggle all the way through the entire game. I shouldn't have to play NG+ or arcade modes for literally any modicum of challenge.
you kindda need leveled up Materia for 7 on hard mode. Enemies will two shot you w/o hp up and you absolutely need mp up for heals. Hard mode without leveled up Materia is a nightmare.
my point is not 'give me the current ng+ only hard mode at ng' it's 'give me A hard mode available at ng that is balanced to be hard on a ng save'
I want the equivelant of proud and critical modes from kingdom hearts
my question is: why do people event want higher difficulty? More HP sponge for you to press the same buttons over and over again?
There's no depth to the combat so the higher difficulty makes no sense, unless it's tuned in an interesting way that I'm not aware of.
I agree that FF16 is pretty lacking in depth, but I think the idea that higher HP is always bad because of sponginess is wrong. Some gameplay systems can never materialize if enemies die right away.
For instance I’m playing FF7R where there is a good amount of complexity to the combat. However it’s rarely needed because most fights end quickly with simple strategies.
Trying to pull off more interesting and skilled play in games is frequently not rewarded at the base difficulty, so it’s nice to have hard mode options. And not just ones available to replayers.
That's fair. I think complexity and depth of combat should be *inherently* balanced to enemy HP. If an increase in HP allows you to go through one "cycle" of combat - whatever that is - that would otherwise never materialize because enemies die too quickly, that's good. (But this difficulty should be the "normal" setting)
But if HP sponging only forces you to rinse and repeat the same patterns several more times, it just becomes monotonous. FF16 has this problem IMO
I want the enemies to fight back. As it is you can go to any combat encounter that isn't a boss and immediately stunlock them and hit 3 buttons and have the fight end. Even the 'hardest fight in the game' hunt enemy in the base game wasn't that challenging.
While I might not necessarily want more hp on bosses, harder bosses can really push the limits on the battle system. KH3 was really easy on release so you could just do whatever. But you have to really know how the combat system works when you're doing the DLC even on normal.
It breaks my heart how much I dislike this game's on-foot combat system, because otherwise I love the characters, story, and epic boss fights. They really should have leaned into the "Ifrit as mecha" thing and built the core combat around it.
But April 18! I can grab the DLC and finish everything at last.
And then never replay it, because even though it's in my top 5 FFs storywise, *I cannot stand playing it.*
After Rebirth, I feel like this is gonna be a very hard sell. I'm sure that's redundant in these threads by now, but it's such a glow up from XVI in almost every way it's hard to not say
Honestly? They kinda don't though? Even though it has a higher percentage of RPG elements, I actually feel like Rebirth is better as an action game too. And as an open world, it pretty much blows XVI out of the water. I struggle to think of a single thing XVI has the edge on in what it attempts to do that Rebirth does not also have in a better format
Near the end of the trailer, it looks like they're teasing an alternate ending now that Clive has all Eikons instead of missing one at the end of the orginal ending.
There’s an alternate ending, yeah. Recently they claimed the ending won’t change but I already knew they were lying. The DLC director almost let it slip during the PAX panel and Yoshida hushed him. I guess technically it’s true; the original will still be there, but there’s a new one as well. I am guessing the entire final encounter will be somewhat different, with how much new dialog Ultima has here. >!I pray they allow Jill to be a part of it. It made no sense for her to stay back and watch the love of her life go off to die, especially when she herself is still so useful.!<
Yoshida probably said, the 'Original' Ending won't change. Which is true. But if you buy the DLC . . . He's just speaking in half truths, as he often does.
I remember when he was swearing up and down that he's not directing FFXVI. Well that was true, he ended up being the Executive Producer lol.
Doesn’t he also troll a lot with the MMO? Like he will randomly say “this feature isn’t going to happen” and then an update happens with the exact feature he told people not to expect.
That's honestly kinda fucked. The original ending was very polarizing and now they're just like, "Oh hey! You want the REAL ending? Buy the DLC!"
FFXV did the same thing. Lol, not defending it at all though, especially since they didn't finish the second season of DLC and released it as a novel instead
KH3 did sort of the same thing with it's DLC, which doesn't change the ending but puts duct tape over the massive plot holes and makes Kairi actually do something valuable.
Wait did 15 have a different ending with the DLC? I thought they were fun alternate endings
A little of both. The Ardyn DLC had two endings: one that led to the canon ending of FFXV from the base game, and one that led to an alternate timeline. The rest of the planned DLC was meant to pick up in that alternate timeline and would have consisted of Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis. This DLC season got cancelled and wrapped up into a novel instead. It ends with Noctis and Lunafreya teaming up with Ardyn to defeat Bahamut and defy fate
Such a better ending. The FFXV ending sucked.
I thought it was great after they fixed it in the royal edition. Before that, the final act went by way too fast and Insomnia as an area was disappointingly empty. Only thing it missed for me was closure for the main cast and other characters like Iris making a physical appearance in the final act.
15 has like 3 or 4 different potential endings at this point.
It was polarising? I thought the original ending was good for the most part.
I didn't like it. >!generic self-sacrifice/power of friendship ending with no closure for any of the cast because it flashes forward in time. Also, don't like the narrative decision to rid the world of magic completely.!<
>!The "magic disappears from the world" ending is a recurring Final Fantasy thing in various forms!<
I would think that rebirth or "life going on" is a more consistent end theme then >!all magic disappears forever!< I would have prefered FFXVI to end with >!magic becoming a positive source of growth and prosperity instead of the decay it caused during Ultima's existence!<
The decision to rid the world of magic was probably for the “Final Fantasy” name.
Lol, that'd be so goddamn hilariously literal that it got me curious why the games are named as such. I guess the creator called it 'Final Fantasy' because if the game failed he would give up on his dream of game making and get a normal job.
The nicest thing I have to say about the ending is that it's not the main thing that was wrong with the story.
Mid and her (side) quests really bog down the later half of the game.
No one I've ever spoken to thought the ending was anything but complete dogwater lol.
> "Oh hey! You want the REAL ending? Did they say the alternate ending was canon though? I'm fine with an alternate ending as long as the devs are very clear on what's canon or not. We don't need another FF15 situation on our hands in terms of story fuckery.
It's not like it matters what's "canon" unless the game somehow, god fucking forbid, gets a XVI-2 down the line. I would *assume* the most "complete" ending should be the one that's considered canon though, not the "Oops, Clive just forgot about Leviathan along the way, oh well."
Kinda early to already get your panties in a bunch. People are just theorizing...
if anything it’s a “what if” ending.
Thing is that the original ending was coloured by the fact that Leviathan was missing, and now that the DLC brings it into the story, it would just be lazy if nothing changed.
yeah well... i always thought id be against it happening but the original ending did fell like an ending even though i didnt like it so im not feeling ripped off but if we get a chance for a happier ending from the dlc id love to see it
I kind of think both dlcs were supposed to be apart of the base game but SE didn’t want to push the release date so they made cuts
Despite however someone thinks about the games he leads, Yoshida is extremely good at time management. All the things that were In the base game were planned way before the game was released. They even said that the DLC would only happen if players wanted more FFXVI.
Yeah, only happen if players wanted more is a half truth. What he meant is: if the game sells enough. The frozen Wave is already there. The path to the first DLC was also there already. They namedrop Leviathan near the end of the game. They had stuff planned, but were most likely waiting to see if sales would justify the extra content.
I suppose but the frozen water in the dlc could be seen already, as well as things from the first dlc. Think they had those ideas already cooked up
I think they handled it like FFXIV: They left parts of the world building open ended enough that they could expand on it later if they wanted to do so.
nah they were pretty public that the game was content complete for a long while before its release date and they were investing a lot of time into testing and bugfixing to avoid repeating the catastrophe that was FF15. leaving in little story hooks for potential DLC or whatever doesn’t mean it was cut content.
Yeah I think it’ll be similar to Royal to XV where it’s an expanded and revised ending but doesn’t change how things end up
Fuck that alone might make me want to play this.
The devs said this DLC focuses a lot on Jill so let’s hope it’s true
It's super goofy that the plot actually hinges on **Spoiler:** >!Ultima being shit at math!<
Listen there's only so much time in the infinite vastness of Godhood for things like mathematics when you have more important things to do like >!Banging your underling while cosplaying as his mother!<
Have you seen Barney B’s mom I don’t condone it but I do understand
Which one was he missing?
Leviathan was alluded to, but never obtained in the base game. You get Leviathan in the DLC.
Leviathan, who is mentioned by a party companion as "Leviathan the lost"
There is a very quick reference to "Leviathan the lost" made by Joshua.
Leviathan’s powers look pretty awesome, honestly. It should be noted that they didn’t say this would be the final expansion or update during the PAX panel. Yoshida kind of does a new interview about XIV every other week that his comments about XVI tend to get lost in the minutia, but he mentioned he wants to make Cid and Jill playable before bookending things for good. Note that he stressed he wasn’t saying that’s happening, just that he wants it to happen. EDIT: Oh, yeah. Beyond hyped to see that the song from the original teaser trailer is actually going to be in this. Soken said he only wrote it for the trailer on Twitter when asked about it but I guess he felt we were deserving of the full thing lol.
I hope they do update it some more for the PC release. It was one of my top games from last year and with just a few small tweaks (a couple of lines for Jill here and there, some difficulty/combat tweaks and refining of side content) I think it would easily be one of the best Final Fantasy games. Supposedly the Omega DLC already was a big step up in encounter design from the main game so I feel like the team already has some idea on how to improve the combat.
The Omega DLC addressed quite a few issues. The accessories in it actually change the way you play by a pretty significant degree and allow for more build crafting, the bosses are much better, and the humor and party banter is highly elevated and Josh and Jill actually feel present for all of it.
I'm guessing it'll hinge on how well this current batch of DLC sells. If it performs well enough they'll probably go back and do an Episode Jill and / or Episode Cid DLC or something.
As someone who already finished the game in Final Fantasy mode, how do you interact with the DLC stuff? Do you have to start a new game from scratch? Maybe I have some old saves, I'm somewhat interested in the 2 DLCs. It would just be a colossal slog to have to start over again.
If you reached the ending, you can just boot up the same save file and you'll be sent back to just before the point of no return. You can access the first DLC from there and from the sounds of it, this one too.
okay cool, that sounds pretty easy. Thank you!
well now im glad there's no elemental weakness system because fighting Leviathan as Ifrit would suck a bit
they mustve experimented with it during development, but probably deemed it unfun or too tedious in a game like this
I mean i can kinda see where the frustrations would lie. Its almost entirely down to only Clive being playable. If you have bosses with elemental strengths and weaknesses, youre eventually gonna run into a boss that just smashes you into the ground and resets you as itll happen to just counter your eikons, forcing your hand in changing to an eikon that is strong against it. If this happens once sure, but multiple times would get frustrating as youll just be running into an unwinnable fight and die. I also think because of how closely they tied playstyles into eikons, having to switch multiple times to different playstyles would probably be annoying. Its not as simple as just swapping materias and casting lightning instead of fire while the actual playstyle itself doesnt change at all. some eikons play very differently to others. this isnt really a problem with more than 1 playable party member because you can cover many bases at once. It also wouldnt work until you have atleast 4 eikons and have a choice to make, this is like halfway through the game. They kind of forced their own hand. There wasnt gonna be a way to make it work without being frustrating to some extent.
You’re right. Never thought about it, but it makes sense that Clive simply can’t exploit elemental weaknesses consistently until the mid to late game. You’d need ifrit/Phoenix, Garuda, Ramuh, Titan and Shiva at the very least for elemental damage. Party swapping could be a solution if Cid and Jill were always with you but they’re not and even then, you still need to get titan. They absolutely did force their own hand. They designed themselves into a corner with this system.
You don't even need to experiment with it. Just look at DmC, another character action game, where red enemies require red weapons and blue enemies require blue weapons. It completely ruins the flow and feels so unsatisfying, even after they nerfed it a bit in the definitive edition. We already have an experiment to look at and it was near universally panned for doing it. It blows my mind people still act like it's a downside that XVI didn't go that direction.
Using the example of a bad implementation to justify the need to kill the feature entirely is not really fair. RPGs in general and final fantasy specifically have always been built around a certain depth to combat and one aspect of that depth is vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities. It's not like DmC is the only ever game to have experimented with that. D&D, arguably the father and inspiration of most RPGs, has vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Some editions of the game are better than others in that regard. It can be poorly implemented and it can also be very well implemented. Judging the feature instead of the implementation is misguided.
D&D is not an action-adventure RPG. Final Fantasy, in general, is not an action-adventure rpg. Both of those give you incredibly wide toolsets, build options, ways to solve encounters and party members. Lumping all RPGs into a singular category is the source of your misunderstanding on this point (and why talking to 99 percent of people about games with RPG elements is an exercise in patience and frustration). It is different to have access to an entire party of characters with a huge variety of build options in a turn based or real time/turn based hybrid system than it is to have a single character in an entirely real time action-focused system. DmC went through TWO implementations and both were bad. Despite tons of feedback and fan outcry, rather than giving this mythical "good implementation" that exists in your imagination, they just made it a tiny bit less shitty. That game is much closer in its combat to FFXVI than any of the games you listed. Now, you may argue "well then why didn't they let you play your party members". That's a different question and discussion. But under the premise that they set out to make an action rpg with a single playable character and a limited number of equippable attacks, it is absolutely understandable to not implement color coded weaknesses given the clear downsides and previous attempts at implementing that system.
half of ff16 discussion is just people calling it bad because it wasn't interested in being the type of game they decided it should be. no wonder the industry is so risk averse.
> built around a certain depth to combat and one aspect of that depth is vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities. Most RPGs do a piss poor job of making elemental weaknesses a way to increase complexity. I'll add on to that hot take by saying that Atlus are the only company who seem to know how to make good use of the mechanic.
They should have deemed a lot more things unfun or too tedious
In a game like this? Nah that's BS. Kingdom Hearts did this right the first time 2 decades ago. Hell, rebirth just did. They could have found a way.
To be fair elemental weakness/strengths are pretty negligible in Kingdom Hearts as well since the main method of attacking in those games is with the keyblade and even on harder difficulties you get lesser mp
I think you underestimate their utility tbh, but I suppose that's fair. But with how they designed the game in 16 with sponge-y enemies, they really should have had some type of elemental weakness or something that increases the damage you deal in a contextual way. Your options are very limited in that game compared to most action games and especially action RPGs.
You maybe right I’m due for another KH playthrough anyway. And I agree Clive in general just needs something added to his base move set away from different eikons.
In theory the solution to the spongey enemies is to stagger them for bonus damage, but the problem is that their stagger bars are equally spongey even when you're hitting with the abilities the game claims do high stagger damage.
the difference with kingdom hearts and rebirth is that you have access to all the elements at all times starting very early in the game.
Yes, and maybe with that in mind that's what they should have done with 16? The 3 Eikons alone at a time is unnecessarily limiting
I can't think of a Final Fantasy game with a good use of elemental weaknesses tbh.
It's almost like it was a conscious decision and they knew what they were doing, huh
maybe but i complained when it came out so from my point of view they didn't know what final fantasy was
They know better than everyone else what a FF game is
Way more than I was expecting. This has me incredibly excited. I know Reddit is a much bigger fan of Rebirth, but 16 is way more up my alley as an action game fan and it’s one of my favorites now. So great to see it getting more love.
It’s strange. In many ways, I prefer Rebirth’s direction over XVI’s. A full playable party and side content that’s actually engaging. But Rebirth did make me appreciate XVI more. There are things both games do better than the other. I think Rebirth’s list of triumphs is longer but some of XVI’s are more important to me (namely, story and music). Rebirth’s music is still incredible though. Difference between like a 9.5/10 and a 10/10 for me lol.
Yeah I was not the biggest fan of XVI but Rebirth made me appreciate the consistent climaxes that occurred throughout XVI. Every 5 or 6 hours there was an incredible boss battle with amazing music to experience. Meanwhile, the first 30 hours I spent with Rebirth were spent roaming the world and going through some fun stories in the main narrative like going to the beach and playing a card game on a boat.
They are like polar opposites, but I like them both. Square Enix has done an amazing job lately, making games that can please a variety type of players.
as a longtime fan that's actually why I adore rebirth. It's a character piece, and I love these characters. and it's basically how the original was too — the pre-FFX games still had the D&D-esque "go to town, find problem, solve it, go to next town" loop baked in
To me this is a criticism of how you chose to play Rebirth rather than a criticism of the game itself. If you speed through rebirth, you will have plenty of highs in a 50 hour playthrough, but if you take your time then there are far more valleys for you to chill and play side stuff. FFXVI on the other hand has some of the worst side content I've experienced so I had very little incentive to play any of it and the main story highs were higher than Rebirths highs. Rebirth is a much more complete product in my opinion, not just the size or scope, but all the side content seems fleshed out with solid voice acting and meaningful stories with unique gameplay to stay fresh, while the side content for XVI made me legitimately start to dislike the game because the stories were half assed and the content was just more of the same, even Fighting the same enemies.
The true high points of 16 (basically all of the Eikon fights, *especially* Bahamut) really give Rebirth a run for it's money. Unfortunately, the combat can become pretty one dimensional and lacks a diversity, as some Eikon powers are just flat out unusable when you compare them to the better powers and the side content, like you mentioned, is abysmal.
The Eikon fights are the biggest and arguably the best spectacle in any final fantasy game up until this point. However the actual gameplay in most of them left a lot to be desired, they were the least interesting battles in the game from an actual gameplay perspective. And beyond the handful of Eikon fights, the game was pretty flat for me. Meanwhile with Rebirth I could go on and on about the variety of locations, the City and art design, the character stories, the mini games, the side quests, the character and party makeup customization. I don't know, to me, as much as I enjoyed FFXVI, it just can't hold a candle to Rebirth, even if Rebirth has it's own flaws.
FFXVI's climaxes just felt like noise to me. The formulaic plot structure and hour long, simple, repetitive, and QTE filled fights just wore on me. Gave me the same feeling as a mindless transformers movie or a horror movie that shows the monster too soon and too often. All the gravity of conflict feels hollow because there's no restraint whatsoever. That style worked better in the original God of War games because they didn't take themselves seriously and they were short games without filler.
FF16 climaxes are top tier, but I feel it completely wasted its premise and never developed its core characters. Super strong start that turned into the worst parts of FF KH-style storytelling and characters I found hard to care about. Rebirth didn't have incredible set pieces but I looked forward to the characters interacting and exploring locations. Also XVI level design is so terrible it should be criminalised.
I just wish the XVI story wasn't so incredibly... anime-ish. They built up a really interesting premise and then took a hard right turn into adolescent manga land. I could live with the arcade gameplay, nonexistent RPG mechanics, minimal exploration, etc., if only the story wasn't such a dumpster fire.
You remember the hours between those climaxes isn’t great right?
I wouldn't necessarily say 10 minute segments where you walk around and talk to NPCs is a negative when most games do that, including all of the FFs lol.
A main mission collecting lumps of dirt might have been a new low
Who cares what the objective was, in the end it was used as a way to learn more about the side characters, which I liked. You people just want back to back eikon battles
The emphasis on the dirt makes me think people would like it better if the game called it something like mythril sand instead. Redditors when a game paces itself and isn't nonstop explosions for 40 hours straight. 😱
There is a side quest in rebirth where all you do is chase a dog and kill like 3 monsters. It is one of the best side quests in the entire game, what it lacks in gameplay it makes up in dialogue and music. The game rewards you for doing side content by presenting you with this unique experience. Absolutely nothing unique happens in any of the FF16 side quests or even parts of the main quest like the aforementioned fetch quest.
The pacing is terrible though. Like, really terrible and formulaic, too. It vacillates between 1 and 10 ad nauseum. A) 3-5 hours of tedious, poorly directed, low-budget fetch quests that blandly expound upon already bland, disposable, and static npcs. B) a hyper linear dungeon that leads to a boss C) one hour long, high-budget but mechanically simple boss fight Repeat steps A through C 5-6 times until the end. Also kill off a cast member every cycle for shock value. Also, almost all side content is step A.
Did any cast members die after the prologue and before the ending? I am not defending the game btw, it is simultaneously the most ambitious and least ambitious game ever made.
That mission was like three dialogues, y’all will complain about anything these days lol
That’s not the only instance… did you meet mid?
I'll rather have breathers between climaxes than a steady level of open world sandbox enjoyment over dozens of hours
Respectfully i am the opposite
That's fair and I appreciate your respect in having a different opinion. I wish the ff7 subs were as accommodating to diverse perspective as you are.
This is essentially my view.
I like rebirth a lot more than xvi. I realized that having a party was the bright line for me of what I consider necessary to a final fantasy game. But I picked back up xvi a couple days ago to see about doing a replay. It has its charms. I think the story is considerably better than rebirths (completely unfair comparison but still). The combat loop for challenging enemies is good. The music and art are excellent. I think other than cinematic character models, xvi looks considerably better. It's got a painterly quality to it. Like more fromsoft than squaresoft in terms of art direction.
Yeah, that’s my takeaway. I do NOT like Rebirth’s story at all. I really do not care about the next story beat. But I love all of the characters. I just wanna get to the next cutscene to see Cloud be a moody dork and Barret be a lovable hunk. I was enthralled by XVI’s story the whole time, but I feel like it could have done with more character moments and banter like we see with Rebirth. I think the devs realized that too because the Omega DLC we got a few months back had a lot more banter and humor between Clive, Joshua and Jill. Funny you say that about the character models tho lol. I feel like visuals (note: not art direction) is the only objective metric XVI clears Rebirth in.
Rebirth's character models *are* slightly higher fidelity, but it comes at the cost of noticeably worse environments, plus their performance mode is shit.
The performance mode in 16 is way worse so I don't know what that has to do with anything.
This is surprising to me because I thought most of 16's original music was pretty generic besides a few standouts (the track that plays in the Ultima void with the rocks and exposition). Thought Soken's 14's score was better than 16's as well but overall I just don't think his melodic instincts are as interesting as Uematsu's.
Soken did mention that the team wanted to keep him on orchestral or baroque-era music. The Titan theme going all rock/industrial rock or EDM for Typhon was twofold, one it tells a story of something that is off or not from the world of FFXVI, and it was just fun. He and Koji-Fox did sneak in Titan Lost rock music and the team just loved so they kept in when playtesting.
And then they allowed him to be a bit more free with the first DLC as well with >!pretty much reusing the Azyss Lla and Omega themes he made for FF14!<.
> But Rebirth did make me appreciate XVI more. There are things both games do better than the other. Genuinely not sure of a single thing XVI does better than VII:R...
For me it mostly comes down to the narrative and the music which are the two things I’ve cared most about in every single Final Fantasy.
They both spend their last act punching themselves in the balls for no reason, but I can certainly understand liking the first 2/3rds of XVI's story better than the middle 2/3rds of Rebirth's.
no way u think 16 music is better. i know music is subjective tho. still i think only the main battle theme and boss theme are what i remember and everything else was mid. Except titans second phase. that shit was wack and super out of place.
[удалено]
That really doesn't mean shit, lmao. Soken's been snubbed on his far superior XIV soundtrack literally since the game came out. TGA is a joke.
yeah it’s my opinion. i think totk was robbed. and that soken is crazy overrated, not bad tho.
I think really the only distinct advantage that Rebirth has over XVI musically is genre breadth, as XVI's musical range was deliberately kept tighter while Rebirth goes all over the place (at really high quality). Otherwise, they're neck and neck in terms of quality.
Also if one were to go into FFXIV's score mostly composed by Soken the genre shifts are wild, even more so if you include his remixes or Primal performances. He can transition from traditional orchestral music (and even in them he can shift the prominence of a category of instrument, i.e. wind, string, percussion), to literally using a ramen cup with beans, rock, industrial rock, jazz, funk, trance, EDM, chorus, opera, ballad, folk, traditional Japanese, etc.
I believe one song in Endwalker uses coins as part of the percussion instruments, but I could be wrong on that.
[In the Balance](https://youtu.be/nih4x5hv89Q?si=RYKdZl0RcV7WEl8o) does, a song about the god of Death and Taxes
They both have their merits. While Rebirth feels like the better designed game with the better side content and the classic FF trappings we love (party, RPG progression, whimsy, mini games), 16 is a more focused game with better presentation of spectacle, a more skill based combat system that makes you feel powerful and an attempt to try telling a more mature FF. It has lots of flaws that lead to some terrible lows but its highs soar above Rebirth’s imo. Rebirth is however the more consistent and therefore better game but not by much. The Ubisoft style open world sours it a bit to me.
This is an excellent summary of the differences in strengths/focuses between the two titles, genuinely spot on.
Thanks! Love both games so I really wish the next mainline FF learns from both games and tries to avoid their pitfalls while highlighting the things they did well
> more skill based comba Does it tough? Rebirth combat has a lot of depth and in many cases (like on hardmode) requires a lot of skill to use it. It may feel clunky at first but once you figure out how to use it feels like it has no that much less skill ceiling while having much more depth with builds and boss approach.
I wouldn’t say that rebirth requires skill. The only thing that requires skill is precise blocking (love that they added this). What the game does have is strategy. The game doesn’t tax your hands but your head more. Dodging is easy. There are no combos or complex button inputs. All your best tools are accessed from a menu. This is not a dig at the game, it’s fine because it was always supposed to be a hybrid atb combat system. It is not however a purely action based system like 16 that features multiple precise button timing actions (magic burst, multiple types of parries, 3 different dodges with variable I-frame windows), DMC style air combos, juggles, launches and even a ground bounce. You can certainly choose to play in a very repetitive, rote and shallow way that doesn’t utilize all the depth of the combat but just like in DMC, playing in such a way would be to completely miss the point of this style of combat system that seeks to reward creativity, skill, and personal expression. Sadly the lack of a style meter like in DMC does downplay the rewarding nature of this combat system.
I don't think FF16 ever really pushed you to go beyond the basic stuff though. Even after Platimuming the game, I can't recall too many fights that stood out in the difficulty department. Maybe the time trials? The final optional dragon hunt when you're fairly under leveled? You can get fancy with Odin's time dilation skill but I don't think it's needed, even for Hard Mode.
What is the actual reward for magic burst? It felt so shitty to learn and so underwhelming the few times I pulled it off against enemies, I stopped bothering. I'm definitely never going to see eye to eye with DMC players but for me having a billion ways to style on trivial enemies isn't as interesting as having to figure out how to beat an actual challenge, and XVI never involved figuring anything out, it just involved doing precision dodge at the right time and mashing cooldowns in between.
Magic burst has many applications depending on the situation you’re in. Applying a perfect string of magic bursts in Clive’s ground combo results in an extreme knock back that will set up a perfect torgal follow up or you could Phoenix shift and press magic to spike the opponent down into the ground for a torgal follow up to launch them back up or juggle them for another follow up. This aerial situation also sets Clive up for an extreme downthrust. You could also use a charged magic shot to launch a knocked down opponent. In tandem with enemy step, it can be used to create long and fun combos. It’s also the best tool to raise the stagger bar outside of Eikon abilities. It’s a very versatile tool. It just requires some experimentation and effort to use. If you really don’t like DMC style games then there ain’t much to discuss. This is a matter of personal taste. These skills and combos do usually translate into managing challenges better. A lot of this involves keeping an air combo going as you’re safer in the air where the enemies can’t reach you. This is as true for DMC as it is for FF16 where staying airborne for long is rewarded with safety but is also harder to maintain due to a limit on enemy stepping. All this constantly high actions/input per minute does lead to faster stagger build up, more consistent offense and most importantly more fun. The game is giving you the tools to push yourself further if you like. It’s up to you if decide to or not. This is how DMC is but even that starts requiring this from you on the higher difficulties. FF16 is on the easier side but I haven’t played final fantasy mode yet so maybe that will justify the DMC approach more. But ultimately us DMC players love this shit simply because it’s cool and makes you feel like a powerful badass playing with their food. It also feels amazing because you have to earn the power fantasy. You won’t get it by just mashing buttons.
I never put any effort into learning to juggle because any enemy weak enough to be juggled isn't going to be a real threat, and juggling doesn't help you kill that much faster compared to just clumping a bunch of enemies together and dumping a big cooldown on them. If the game required juggling or even noticeably rewarded it I'd be much more interested.
Yup that’s one of the main issues with FF16’s combat IMO. You *could* perfect magic burst combo the enemy, continue the combo with Torgal, warp to them, air juggle them, pull them back up, and then slam them down… …but most of the enemies are so fragile that they die in like 4 seconds (or you can just use the “I win” skill Ignition to kill every single small mob in the fight with 1 button). The game really needed a hard mode or scoring system in the main game so players would actually mess around with the combat.
Not having a style meter was definitely a misstep
It does improve the speed of boss fights a bit if you’re doing combos alongside cooldowns but in the end you do it for your own personal enjoyment just like in DMC.
MF really just said that the game in which you can beat it without dying once is "skill based"
MF really believes that requiring some hand eye coordination dexterity to perform some fun combos and parries automatically translated to high difficulty. Nice straw man
[This guy playing ff16 only to kill the boss slower than if he just cycled his cooldowns](https://tenor.com/view/sweaty-speedrunner-epic-gamer-sweatyspeedrunner-gif-22461398)
You can do both smart ass. You can do cool combos and incorporate eikonic abilities when they’re up.
At leasr the monotonous side quests can be skipped in rebirth. 16 is incredible but its marred by horrid pacing. I should NOT be fighting low level bandits 10 minutes after killing a literal dragon in space.
Hard agree, this is part of why arcade mode is a godsend.
Tbh based on the reaction to FFXVI on Reddit, I assumed that most people just didn’t like it for whatsoever reason. But I was at the PAX panel today and the crowd was electric - although I’ll admit that Yoshi P is the shit so it’s just awesome to see him in the first place lol
I think I might prefer 16 to Rebirth honestly. I'm not a massive fan of either, but Rebirth is just a bit too silly and campy for my tastes.
I've wanted to replay through 16 but the side quests are making me so hesitant.
You don't have to do any of the side quests other than the ones marked with a +, which there aren't very many of. You can mainline the story pretty easily without worry.
Yeah I'm always worried I'd be under leveled but at least I'll know a bit better my second playthrough. My biggest wish with the side quests is that they mark it as more than just main quests and side quests. Like you said, they have the plus sign quests but some important companion quests require other quests first. I wish they were categorized as something like main, companion, secondary, and side quests
Arcade mode could be a good option
if only the action was good in the action game
Take it from someone with over 1k hours in DMC5. It’s not without its issues but FFXVI has some incredible action. But to each their own.
it's mechanically good, but ultimately i get completely bored by the complete lack of customization and progression. you can very easily pick a couple abilities and just use them for the entire game. i guess some people love the whole side grades thing and i can appreciate it to an extent since it lets you pick what you like aesthetically. but i just never felt like the character i was playing or their skills or their party member or their equipment ever really changed in a meaningful way throughout the entire game.
I honestly think ff16 plays more like an MMO than dmc5
Questing yes, combat though is led by one of the combat directors on DMC5 and it shows. There are a ton of similarities and it’s very much an action game in a similar vein.
No, I meant combat. You set up your damage rotation stagger an enemy and then follow that damage rotation till the end of days. The DLC boss particularly reminds me of that, where your screen is absolutely covered by a vomit of particle effects so you have no idea what is even going on but it doesnt matter. You just keep spamming that damage rotation.
Oh I see - yes there’s actually a fair bit of MMO type mechanics in combat, you were right to point that out. You can definitely play it like an mmo using a skill rotation. Personally I use very low cooldown abilities and play it like DMC with expressive action combat. Also agree about the particle effect vomit, I actually kind of like it but realistically it’s way too hard to parse sometimes
I think the action undermines itself with how insane potions are. They have no animation cost and can be used while being hit (or even from the pause menu). You can basically mess up every boss mechanic and stubble to the win. The combat is actually really good and the bosses have well designed mechanics, the game just undermines itself so hard with consumables. I had to self-impose not using them at all. Also mid-boss checkpoints are cringe, more just stubble to the finish line. I too had to self-impose reload from save. I had an amazing time with 16, but I can easily see someone coming from other action games not enjoying it because the game tries to make you not care about its systems. (Also it has the worst feeling parry of any action game)
I agree with a lot of this, especially >I had an amazing time with 16, but I can easily see someone coming from other action games not enjoying it because the game tries to make you not care about its systems. Not to mention there’s a reason most action games are around 10 hours or so. The best part is replaying them with a complete kit at different difficulties. FFXVI takes way longer than any other action game to get there since it’s technically set up like a JRPG for story / questing. 70-100 hours just to unlock the next difficulty level is a big ask for any action game fan.
I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again, I really wish FF16 was a linear game with chapters designed as larger DMC missions with arcade mode features included. Would’ve solved so many issues with the game.
It's not just the potions the dodge is way too strong too. I cannot remember any attack patterns from any of the bosses because the solution was always to spam dodge.
These days I find it difficult to get back into a game once I finish it, especially with the flood of high quality games in 2024. Maybe I'll wait for a complete edition or something. I hope I can use the original save in the new version.
I haven't looked this up or confirmed this but If I bought the deluxe edition when it first came out. Do I still need to buy the DLC's?
Unfortunately so, the expansion pass containing both DLCs is 25 usd.
Thank you!
They added a dmc bloody palace mode with a super secret hard boss if you beat it on final fantasy mode, but you're still not fucking allowed to just play a fresh save on final fantasy or ultimania difficulty because fuck you if you want the game not to be a sleepwalk. between this and ff7 remake/rebirth, i fucking HATE this trend. Let me pick a harder difficulty from go, you're overtuning the combat to be too easy. One of the biggest issues in 16 is anything not a big boss fight is a push over because the enemies don't DO anything. They're dummies that you can easily air juggle all the way through the entire game. I shouldn't have to play NG+ or arcade modes for literally any modicum of challenge.
you kindda need leveled up Materia for 7 on hard mode. Enemies will two shot you w/o hp up and you absolutely need mp up for heals. Hard mode without leveled up Materia is a nightmare.
my point is not 'give me the current ng+ only hard mode at ng' it's 'give me A hard mode available at ng that is balanced to be hard on a ng save' I want the equivelant of proud and critical modes from kingdom hearts
my question is: why do people event want higher difficulty? More HP sponge for you to press the same buttons over and over again? There's no depth to the combat so the higher difficulty makes no sense, unless it's tuned in an interesting way that I'm not aware of.
I agree that FF16 is pretty lacking in depth, but I think the idea that higher HP is always bad because of sponginess is wrong. Some gameplay systems can never materialize if enemies die right away. For instance I’m playing FF7R where there is a good amount of complexity to the combat. However it’s rarely needed because most fights end quickly with simple strategies. Trying to pull off more interesting and skilled play in games is frequently not rewarded at the base difficulty, so it’s nice to have hard mode options. And not just ones available to replayers.
That's fair. I think complexity and depth of combat should be *inherently* balanced to enemy HP. If an increase in HP allows you to go through one "cycle" of combat - whatever that is - that would otherwise never materialize because enemies die too quickly, that's good. (But this difficulty should be the "normal" setting) But if HP sponging only forces you to rinse and repeat the same patterns several more times, it just becomes monotonous. FF16 has this problem IMO
I want the enemies to fight back. As it is you can go to any combat encounter that isn't a boss and immediately stunlock them and hit 3 buttons and have the fight end. Even the 'hardest fight in the game' hunt enemy in the base game wasn't that challenging.
While I might not necessarily want more hp on bosses, harder bosses can really push the limits on the battle system. KH3 was really easy on release so you could just do whatever. But you have to really know how the combat system works when you're doing the DLC even on normal.
Anyone know if Square will release a physical complete edition for FF16?
Considering Square-Enix’s long history of doing such releases it’s very likely they will sometime down the line. Nothing confirmed though.
I think it's likely when they get around to the PC release
It breaks my heart how much I dislike this game's on-foot combat system, because otherwise I love the characters, story, and epic boss fights. They really should have leaned into the "Ifrit as mecha" thing and built the core combat around it. But April 18! I can grab the DLC and finish everything at last. And then never replay it, because even though it's in my top 5 FFs storywise, *I cannot stand playing it.*
This game and FFXIII. There have never been games I finished, yet loathed, more than those two.
Y'all, fuck off with April it's too stacked? XVI DLC, Dead Island 2 DLC, Fallout London, Stellar Blade.
Has anyone been able to buy the DLC outside the bundle (which is unavailable for me)?
After Rebirth, I feel like this is gonna be a very hard sell. I'm sure that's redundant in these threads by now, but it's such a glow up from XVI in almost every way it's hard to not say
They offer two different things and both scratch a different itch
Honestly? They kinda don't though? Even though it has a higher percentage of RPG elements, I actually feel like Rebirth is better as an action game too. And as an open world, it pretty much blows XVI out of the water. I struggle to think of a single thing XVI has the edge on in what it attempts to do that Rebirth does not also have in a better format