The DioField Chronicle - 22/09 Star Ocean: The Divine Force - 27/10 Harvestella - 04/11 Dragon Quest Treasures - 09/12 With the new Valkyrie game, the Crisis Core remaster and Nier Automata Switch all supposed to release this year too... SE really said I'm gonna pass on Nier since I already have the original, but definitely looking forward to all the others.
Playing World of Final Fantasy has me wondering: What is your favorite FF spin off game and what is your least favorite (out of what you've played)? I've only played two spin offs: World of Final Fantasy and FFX-2 (I know it's technically a sequel to FFX-2 but I don't consider it part of the main series). I definitely prefer World of Final Fantasy. It's so cute and charming while the latter is awkward. World of Final Fantasy is also pretty funny in a stupid slapstick and puns kind of way.
Sequels/spin-offs, let's see... The best World of Final Fantasy FFX-2 Fantastic FFXIII-3 (Lightning Returns) FFXIII-2 Theatrhythm: Curtain Call Great Type-0 HD (great gameplay, interesting world, but the characters are terrible) Chocobo: Mystery Dungeon DX (great fun but very repetitive) Chocobo Racing (haven't played this in years so hard to rank it, but I loved it at the time) So bad I returned it the day after I bought it Chocobo GP Never played any of the Tactics, Crystal Chronicles or Dissidia games, though always been curious to try them out.
Tactics Advanced was my childhood and it was such a great game. Same for Crystal Chronicles. The remaster is kinda awful though cause they botched the multiplayer so badly, but back in the day getting 4 Gameboy Advanceds hooked up to 1 Gamecube was near impossible. But when you did it, god it was fun.
Re: Triangle Strategy: WaiT at Spoiler Benedict snapping toward the end and turning into a Jorah Mormont type, obsessed with elevating Serenoa. I don’t know how any of you played through this game multiple times, though. The ceaseless dialogue is exhausting—and I usually like long cutscenes in games.
In no way a controversial opinion, I'm sure, but: Tactics is by and large the best FF spinoff. If anything I think it's probably the best Final Fantasy game, period.
Yeah that new trailer looks very good. Also the deluxe edition on PS platforms include Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth! The PSP port.
This looks very improved from the original trailer on a lot of levels. I think they picked some bizarre gameplay moments to show at times (there's some shot where the character is literally just standing doing nothing during combat, lol) but the gameplay and story look pretty great. They're leaning pretty hard into "this is a new world" / reboot idea, but between 1) Lenneth being re-released and bundled with the PS Deluxe and Spoiler: Non-specific series concept spoilers 2) this series' history with multiverses, I feel pretty confident we'll see Lenneth/Hrist/Silmeria at some point.
New IP would also likely get slaughtered in the Q4 rush. Giving it 3 more months of polish can only be a good thing.
It's always funny when those rumors that have been repeated by gamers for years as gospel truth are revealed to be entirely not true by devs later on. Reminds me of the years of chanting on how Final Fantasy 8 could never be remastered because the source code was lost.
So history hasn't changed, ok... So what does that mean when you think about that WTF scene where Genesis appears when he isn't supposed to, is that actually canon now? I hated that retcon, its the only thing that really annoyed me in Crisis Core, a prequel shouldn't mess with the original scene you already have seen.
I was pondering the fan reception to the series post-FFX and it got me thinking: could Square Enix get away with just delivering a classic JRPG experience like some fans want? One of the recent hallmarks of the series has been the extreme experimentation. After FFX, it seemed like every game drastically re-invented the wheel. I think they could get away with it if they were smart enough about it, but I also think that because of how big and influential the series is, Square Enix feels extreme pressure to innovate. A traditional Final Fantasy would feel extremely weird at this point. It's kind of like if Madonna decided to deliver a straightforward 80s pop album. And because Final Fantasy has been so synonymous with technical excellence, they can hardly take the approach that has worked for Tales of Arise, which is to keep the same formula but polish it to a sheen. Basically, I don't envy them. The series' legacy exerts enormous pressure on anything they release.
Not exactly the same, but I feel like they’ve already done that with Final Fantasy IX, no? That very much felt like a return to the series’ roots after VII and VIII.
We'll definitely never have another traditional mainline Final Fantasy again, it's just not compatible with the kind of massive sales SE is after. You need to have a very broad appeal - modern, action-y gameplay, realistic graphics, etc to be able to pull those kinds of numbers. That said, between remasters, spin-offs and other series like Dragon Quest and Bravely Default, SE still delivers a lot of traditional JRPG content, so it's not that bad.
Yeah, Final Fantasy IX was definitely that but the difference in that case was that the change was mostly aesthetic. Final Fantasy's VII-IX are very different in terms of visual style and FFVIII has the funky customization system but those three games are quite similar in terms of their overall structure. Even FFX doesn't feel too far removed from what the previous nine games had done. Whereas FFXII feels massively different, almost coming off more like an MMO than a traditional JRPG. I think the other thing to consider is that it felt like Square Enix's struggle with the direction of the series was very much impacted by the transition into high definition. I think enjoying their traditional content under the banner of other series while also enjoying whatever weird Final Fantasy main series curveball they throw is not a bad state of affairs!
