Final Fantasy has lost its way

[happydolphin]

Soriku said:

They didn't change the genre...it's still an RPG. It's just an action RPG now. But Versus/XV has been an action RPG for like 7 years now. Actually the game was never intended to be a mainline title from the beginning  because of its concepts/direction, but they just decided to name it XV now. It's not indicative of where the series as a whole is going. They're still going with the original idea they've had for years.

As for your last question, it's a case by case basis. Obviously in a FF game I don't want the same characters and setting all the time. They change it up every title. The modern setting is part of XV's original concept (again, conceived years ago) and that hasn't changed. The gameplay always changes too. The last mainline FF (excluding games like X-2) that was traditionally turn based was FF X...which came out 12 years. FF XII had a real time command-based battle system, FF XIII uses some turn based + action hybrid. They're trying a full on action battle system now, but the game is being made by the old Kingdom Hearts team, so it's a question of what do you expect? As for music, pretty much any style of music can be good depending on the composer, and with different games comes different music. XV is composed by Yoko Shimomura, you shouidn't worry about the soundtrack.

We both agree that apart from FFXI and XIV which are MMOs, this is the first time FF becomes an action RPG. Call it a genre, call it a sub-genre, it radically alters the game at its foundation. It is now more about speed and agility than it is about strategy. It will still be about strategy, but from what we saw in the video that is now shared with something much more important: 3 dimensional space gameplay, real-time dodging, parrying and blocking. This has little to do with what we had before.

About music, I wasn't worried for FFXV, I was giving that as an example of how a game can become irrecognisable by a player where he asks himself if this is the game the label says it is. You can call Tony Hawks a Final Fantasy, but that doesn't make it a final fantasy. You can call Mass Effect Final Fantasy, but that doesn't make it Final Fantasy. What makes a game a Final Fantasy is, so far, a turn-based game set in a fantastical worlds, with certain staple monsters and recurring musical themes and icons. A lot of that is being challenged. I understand that there are reasons for all this, but that doesn't justify the fact that this is no longer final fantasy. Unless I'm not seeing it right, or unless there is much more to the game that likens it enough to final fantasy to forgive the differences.