Final Fantasy Omnibus

[NoFistsJustFlips]

As a predominantly XBox user I've always been bummed the FF7 Remake didn't end up on XBox. But what did end up on XBox is the PSP Crisis Core Remake. I picked it up this week and so far I am enjoying it. It's cool to expand on this world I spent so much time in 25 years ago. Really wish The Remake would end up on XBox. I don't even need it free on Game Pass. Just make it available to purchase and I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

As far as Crisis Core the only complaint I have is it seems like you never get a party. You just get Zack. Wish there were more playable characters.

[John E. Dynamite]

Playing a little FFV. Fourth time starting it? Never beat it. All these new job classes on the GBA version and I can tell half of 'em are junk.

It's got me thinking - I'm not really on board with the FF7 Remaster stuff at this point in time. Like, I only beat Crisis Core two years ago and I'm sure I'll get around to it once the whole thing's completed. But I am going to be watching with no small amount of interest when the Cat Sith name pronunciation bomb drops. If every bewildered millennial who didn't bother to learn it's pronounced "Ket Shee" loses their minds about it, I MIGHT jump on the series. Anything else and I'm waiting for a $20 compilation of every chapter on PS6.

Edited February 28, 2023 by John E. Dynamite

[Ramo2653]

To piggy back off of your last point, so many AAA games seem like a better wait and see option all the time now. Would I have enjoyed FF15 as much had I got it when it first released and before all of the updates and expansions? I only played the Royal Edition so my view is way different than someone who played it in 2016.

[odessasteps]

Quote

PlayStation State of Play set for this Thursday April 13th at 2 PM PT, featuring 20 minutes of FFXVI gameplay

 

[Craig H]

I'm a little annoyed that this one is going to be M for mature and part of that are sexual situations and nudity. My daughter was really wanting to get it to fill the void until FF7-R2 comes out. Since she started expressing she might be queer, she gets really uncomfortable or totally turned off by anything sexual in games, TV, or movies so now she's not really interested in the game. I'm sure she's not the only one. Me personally, I don't know if FF needs sexual situations and nudity in it. I get that this is their stab at Game of Thrones and all, but Game of Thrones and FF don't seem like a decent marriage to me.

I'll probably still get it and maybe she'll give it a spin too if it looks good enough to her.

[Chaos]

Just now, Craig H said:

I'm a little annoyed that this one is going to be M for mature and part of that are sexual situations and nudity. My daughter was really wanting to get it to fill the void until FF7-R2 comes out. Since she started expressing she might be queer, she gets really uncomfortable or totally turned off by anything sexual in games, TV, or movies so now she's not really interested in the game. I'm sure she's not the only one. Me personally, I don't know if FF needs sexual situations and nudity in it. I get that this is their stab at Game of Thrones and all, but Game of Thrones and FF don't seem like a decent marriage to me.

I'll probably still get it and maybe she'll give it a spin too if it looks good enough to her.

I kind of agree with this as well. I've always enjoyed the FF games being a serious T or Campy T rating and never felt an M rating was needed. I also am not sure how I feel about the combat going more Devil May Cry for this one with 100% character lock. I get they've been trying to find the right balance on the combat since FFXII, but I thought the happy medium between action and turn based was fine. I actually enjoy the combat in both FFXV and FFVII-R. 

[Craig H]

I thought the combat in FF7-R was so much fun and aside from FF14, it's maybe my favorite combat ever in a FF game. Especially with Tifa. That's when shit gets so much fun and you're just a combo machine. 

One of these days I'll have to actually play FF15. I've had it downloaded and ready to play on my PS5 for about forever now, but still haven't jumped into it.

[Ramo2653]

I love FFXV. My only gripe about the game is the combat in areas with a lot of trees/shrubs since the camera can get in the way and that based on certain weapons it's too tempting to use spam the warp feature. But for me it's a great balance of combat and story and gives you enough leeway to explore and progress the story. Maybe the room got a little dusty during the final campfire scene.

I want FFXVI but based on the history of FFXV, they're going to tweak and make changes to the game so it'll probably be better to hold off. What's the consensus on 13? I wasn't a fan so I dropped off until a friend told me to check out 15 since it was part of the PS5 collection. 

[Robert S]

6 hours ago, Chaos said:

I kind of agree with this as well. I've always enjoyed the FF games being a serious T or Campy T rating and never felt an M rating was needed. I also am not sure how I feel about the combat going more Devil May Cry for this one with 100% character lock. I get they've been trying to find the right balance on the combat since FFXII, but I thought the happy medium between action and turn based was fine. I actually enjoy the combat in both FFXV and FFVII-R. 

If you look beyond the graphic style, the early FF games contained some dark shit. FF VI had mass murder (Kefka poisoning the Doma castle) and fucked up human (sorry, esper) experiments, for example. If you would try to do the same game now just with up-to-gate graphics, I assume you would end up at the M-rating level (I am not familiar with the US rating system, admittedly).

[Matt D]

2 minutes ago, Robert S said:

If you look beyond the graphic style, the early FF games contained some dark shit. FF VI had mass murder (Kefka poisoning the Doma castle) and fucked up human (sorry, esper) experiments, for example. If you would try to do the same game now just with up-to-gate graphics, I assume you would end up at the M-rating level (I am not familiar with the US rating system, admittedly).

The trick is going back to pixel graphics then.

[Robert S]

8 hours ago, Matt D said:

The trick is going back to pixel graphics then.

I mean there is Octopath Traveler. Also later versions of DQXII had a pixel mode. OT has sold 3 mio copies, FFXV 10 mio. Though I assume FFXV cost infinitely more to develop.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Robert S

[JLSigman]

15 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

What's the consensus on 13? I wasn't a fan so I dropped off until a friend told me to check out 15 since it was part of the PS5 collection. 

13 is where the fandom really splits hard. I liked it, did not like 13-2 and never even tried Lightning Returns. Some people didn't like 13 but liked 13-2. Re-reading some guides reminded me there's a lot of "hidden" mechanics in the game in regards to weapon upgrading that annoyed a lot of people.

[Chaos]

8 hours ago, Robert S said:

I mean there is Octopath Traveler. Also later versions of DQXII had a pixel mode. OT has sold 3 mio copies, FFXV 10 mio. Though I assume FFXV cost infinitely more to develop.

FFXV also had the advantage of being one of the first massive games of that generation. 

[Ramo2653]

23 hours ago, Robert S said:

If you look beyond the graphic style, the early FF games contained some dark shit. FF VI had mass murder (Kefka poisoning the Doma castle) and fucked up human (sorry, esper) experiments, for example. If you would try to do the same game now just with up-to-gate graphics, I assume you would end up at the M-rating level (I am not familiar with the US rating system, admittedly).

This reminds of the Kamen Rider shows in Japan where the shows are dark as hell but there's guys in big metal suits and bright colors so you can pass it off as a kids show. 

[Craig H]

Hrmm, so you only play as Clive...and companions are only controlled by AI. 

I think this won't be a day 1 purchase for me. I'll have to see just how well AI controls your companions.

[Raziel]

On 4/13/2023 at 8:49 AM, JLSigman said:

13 is where the fandom really splits hard. I liked it, did not like 13-2 and never even tried Lightning Returns. Some people didn't like 13 but liked 13-2. Re-reading some guides reminded me there's a lot of "hidden" mechanics in the game in regards to weapon upgrading that annoyed a lot of people.

yeah, I forced my way through 13, and never finished 13-2.  I wasn't thrilled by the systems in 13 and unlike 12 and 8, the story didn't really make up for the mechanics not being great.

 

I know I'm in the minority that hated 15.  The open map was fine, but some of the big plot hits were seriously underserved, the DLC's were necessary to fill in the gaps, and there was a massive lack of explaining things.  I dug the world traversal and there was a lot of potential in the mechanics, which is what kept me playing even if when it became obvious that they painted-by-numbers the story and didn't bother explaining anything.

Visually I'm digging 16, but nothing I'm hearing about mechanics or story is hooking me.  I'm more waiting to see what happens in FF7R2.  

Edited April 14, 2023 by Raziel

[Kevin Wilson]

1 hour ago, Raziel said:

yeah, I forced my way through 13, and never finished 13-2.  I wasn't thrilled by the systems in 13 and unlike 12 and 8, the story didn't really make up for the mechanics not being great.

 

I know I'm in the minority that hated 15.  The open map was fine, but some of the big plot hits were seriously underserved, the DLC's were necessary to fill in the gaps, and there was a massive lack of explaining things.  I dug the world traversal and there was a lot of potential in the mechanics, which is what kept me playing even if when it became obvious that they painted-by-numbers the story and didn't bother explaining anything.

Visually I'm digging 16, but nothing I'm hearing about mechanics or story is hooking me.  I'm more waiting to see what happens in FF7R2.  

I always wonder (even though I am QTing you, just in general) how many people that didn't like FF XV played it at launch vs. when it was all done with DLC, patches, new ending, etc.  My brother played it at launch and beat it, but told me it wasn't very good so I skipped it. I played it three years later or so after it was in its 'final' condition and I loved it so much I platinumed it, which was the first platinum I ever got. But I never played it at launch, didn't follow along with the complaints of it, the drama, the bad original ending, etc. and just dove in when it was all done. I told my brother to replay it but he was still annoyed about its condition at launch and never did.

That's one reason I am not jumping on XVI at launch. I am going to wait at least until Christmas and see how its doing, since they did so much to "fix" XV after launch I don't really trust them to have it fully ready.

[Chaos]

5 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

That's one reason I am not jumping on XVI at launch. I am going to wait at least until Christmas and see how its doing, since they did so much to "fix" XV after launch I don't really trust them to have it fully ready.

I wonder how much of that will happen with XVI. It sounds like XV maybe released prematurely to meet a date. Even then, it came out a very functional and fun game. XVI went gold two months before its release date. It just feels like this one is in more of a final state. 

[Raziel]

See, I played XV Royal Edition, which had the "fixes" and the DLC, and I'm still not sure why I was supposed to care about anything Luna did, the Pompto reveal, or anything about Ardyn.  And yeah, I didn't touch the DLC's, as I'm in the mind of "I shouldn't have to play the DLC to understand the main game".  DLC should be supplements or cleanup of loose ends, not "Shit, we forgot to actually tell you why you're supposed to care about this stuff, so here's some paid content to fix that", or worse in XV's case, "Oh, we hid a lot of the stuff we used to actually do in random background conversations and text files that are super easy to miss."  like yeah, I know that playing a Final Fantasy, or any JRPG, requires a lot of time and checking everything, but I did that and STILL managed to miss a ton of exposition.  That's just lazy development. 

[Ramo2653]

19 hours ago, Craig H said:

Hrmm, so you only play as Clive...and companions are only controlled by AI. 

I think this won't be a day 1 purchase for me. I'll have to see just how well AI controls your companions.

So like FF15 before the DLCs and updates?

8 hours ago, Raziel said:

I know I'm in the minority that hated 15.  The open map was fine, but some of the big plot hits were seriously underserved, the DLC's were necessary to fill in the gaps, and there was a massive lack of explaining things.  I dug the world traversal and there was a lot of potential in the mechanics, which is what kept me playing even if when it became obvious that they painted-by-numbers the story and didn't bother explaining anything.

Visually I'm digging 16, but nothing I'm hearing about mechanics or story is hooking me.  I'm more waiting to see what happens in FF7R2.  

I played FF15 Royal Edition so with the DLCs but I didn't feel that they filled in too much story, you got the Prompto reveal in the main story, and Ardyn explained that he's part of the family before the crystal consumed Noctis. Also it might just be an online thing, but I don't see a lot of love for FF15, most things I see are negative but that could be based on my pocket of the internet.

[odessasteps]

Sony is releasing a Japan only PS5 bundle with FF XVI artwork and controller. 

[Chaos]

Has anyone touched the 16 Demo? I'm still debating getting this at launch or not.

[Casey]

2 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Has anyone touched the 16 Demo? I'm still debating getting this at launch or not.

I downloaded it and finished the demo + the action mode or whatever it’s called.

I like it, and the combat is fun (enemies are sponges though). Opening hour or so is confusing at first but there’s an OH OKAY moment towards the end that wraps it all back around. I’m intrigued, which is more than I can say for anything that hasn’t been related to the pixel remasters, 7, 10 or 13.

I don’t know if I’m intrigued enough to pay $70 or whatever at launch. But the story does give Game of Thrones vibes, and I’m into it.

[Craig H]

If not for Diablo 4 and Tears of the Kingdom and knowing Fight Forever comes out this month, I probably would take the leap and get this.

I'll probably get it at some point if word of mouth is strong.

[Ramo2653]

I'm going to get it, it's just a matter of now or after the DLCs come out.