Folks, please. Final Fantasy will never have turn-based battles anymore, just let it go. This is a series that keeps on reinventing itself in each and every instalment with only minor common themes and recurring elements, and the battle system is certainly not one of them. What Final Fantasy has always been is a tech showcase. Every single game in the main series is meant to push the hardware on which it was first developed on to the max. SE knows this, and the fans know this as well. Fans even expect every Final Fantasy game to be cutting edge, or else it's not worth it. This very thread is proof, every now and then someone complaints about the graphics just being barely okayish but not groundbraking. The series has driven itself into this corner and is unable to leave it anytime soon. Now imagine a game like this with cutting edge hyper realistic graphics but with slow, clunky and menu-driven turn-based combat which pauses the entire battle whenever the player is meant to input a command? Seriously, this doesn't fit at all.

In my opinion a game with an art-style like this needs to have an action-based combat system, otherwise it would feel terribly disconnected. Turn-based combat systems work best with whimsical, stylized graphics like in Octopath Traveler for example, or Bravely Default, or even World of Final Fantasy.

Unless y'all want a different approach to the entire art style, I mean. Imagine Final Fantasy XVI in the same setting but with a more lighthearted and stylized fashion. Somehow interesting, but then everybody would hate it for not having cutting edge graphics. So pick your poison, you can't have both.

Anyway did see a ton of channels react to it and most people in chat were really enthousiastic about the trailer, being medievil themed old school makes it even greater.
If i want aesthetics over substance i will just replay FF15 again but this project seems to spread its focus and i like that,also ivalice,also darker themed and a chance of the ff7 remake gameplay but more fluid hack and slash in between.

Yeah, too right, I'm tired of playing Halo as an FPS, it should be a 3rd person tactical shooter, it's still a shooter, people who don't like it should just let it go.

The setting I like, it seems good and the gameplay seems good too, for a DMC game. I look forward to see how it does.

I can see your point. You say changing things for the sake of changing isn't always a good thing, and I agree with that. However, sometimes a series needs to evolve. GTA would still be in top down view otherwise. Zelda BotW would be a completely different game. Pokemon wouldn't be visibly jumping through high grass. Assassin's Creed wouldn't have ship battles. Metal Gear Solid V introduced a somehow open world. And so on. Sometimes, changing a basic formula works very well and helps to keep the games fresh.

Contrary, some series do not evolve at all like Dragon Quest, but again, Dragon Quest has a completely different art direction and I think that it is indeed the art direction in Final Fantasy XVI that demands an action heavy combat system. Visuals like the ones we see in Final Fantasy XVI just don't work with a turn-based combat system.

But anyway, I think deep in our hearts we all want this game to be good and to lift the series back up to where it once used to be, so that's probably a reason why there are so many worries everywhere.

Saying Dragon Quest doesn't evolve is not true it's in fact one of the main examples of a game series that evolves, evolution is not just fully changing something it's also adapting something to a new era and this is something the DQ series has done really well.

Small tweeks to how a game feels based on how the industry has progressed over 2 decades is different to base gameplay. Pokemon has improved on so many aspects over it's lifetime but in the end is still a turn based RPG, the biggest of them all, and it isn't trying to change to try to be flashy or an action game to appeal to gain an audience it doesn't need. I look at Legend of Zelda, then to BotW and you can see how the game has evolved in the right way over 3 decades, top down perspective with limited 'screens' has changed to a 3rd person open world (FF has done this), this is a natural progression of the industry. You look at older Zelda's to now though, the gameplay is still exploration, generally hack and slash with dungeons, puzzles and getting items to further the plot.

My thoughts on modern FF are like this. Tekken (one of my favourite games series) is an 3D fighter where each of 4 main buttons was assigned to a limb and from there you could do combos or various moves, over the years it's adapted as the industry changed. We no longer just have big open spaces to fight in (arenas now include walls or change as you fight), characters are far more detailed, juggling was added to be a more central game mechanic, "supers" were basically added to the game most recently but down to the base of it each button still assigns to a various limb to do combos. If they suddenly changed this to be like SF, 2d plane fighter with a different move setup, while still a fighter. I probably wouldn't buy it. I like Tekken and it's gameplay, not SF. I like FF and it's gameplay (well what it used to be).

I certainly do not believe just the graphics in what we saw does need action combat. There is nothing in the knight fight early on that shows it needs to be up like DMC or Souls combat when a party feeling moving and taking turns to have an action wouldn't also work. But alas, it's not what we are getting.

Also keep in mind saying "to just get over it." is very condescending.

Have you heard of Bravely Default? It has taken classic Final Fantasy and wrapped it up in new IP,  that is new in name only. You should pick it up if you havent.

I have noticed that there is a lot of bitching about the little bits of battle system we saw, based off that it reminds you of XV, without considering the idea that the lead combat designer for the DMC games is charge of the battle system. Square Enix understands that some did not like the action based battle system of XV and are putting somebody more knowledgeable in the field in charge. Is there a reason that there is a lack of consideration for that .... or is it just a cover for " Its not turn based"?

On the battle system of FF for me personally the problem wasn't it being action based the problem was the execution it was an odd action automated system which didn't know what it wanted to be or what the main point of depth was the game would have been better off sticking with the KH like system it started off with.

I don't mind controlling one character as long as you can switch to others like in VIIR, the trailer of XVI does show another character in combat with you if you look closely the's another knight fighting with the main character in a few seconds of footage so I'm sure the will be a party system.

I think that pic sais it all. On this day and age turn base combat is more asosiated with low budget. Something you see on a spin off handheld. As well as you say with chibi art style. 

Alright I'm definitely no expert in Dragon Quest.

I'd like to answer your post upside down.

Also keep in mind saying "to just get over it." is very condescending.

You're right. Sometimes I don't notice how my words can be interpreted. I'm sorry.

Third paragraph: Perhaps. It might work, I guess it's just me, then. I like to think that Final Fantasy always trys to reinvent itself, that's why it changed it's battle mechanics in every game. Sometimes the changes are subtile, sometimes they're fundamental, but they'are always a bit different from one another. I believe that the action focused direction which the series is currently taking had already been settled with FFXIII and especially FFXV.

Second paragraph: I understand and I feel you on this, I am a huge fan of the old FF games myself. With FFXII and then XIII the battle system was changed fundamentally, but I still liked them both even though I was a bit sceptical at first. So maybe I will like ths one as well if I just give it a go. Maybe you'll end up enjoying at as well, who knows.

First paragraph: Now here is the thing: This Final Fantasy XVI will still align quite well into the entire series, maybe even better than FFXV did. We are still getting an epic tale of kingdoms and empires, alliances and betrayals, magic and technology, dramatic battles and large areas to explore. It's all there. All infused with series staples like typical job classes (we've seen knights, a dragoon, and summoners), classic Summons like Titan, Shiva, Phoenix and Ifrit, and of course Chocobos. Let's imagine that this, along with this new battle system, is the evolution that Square Enix has in mind with the series.