Yoshi P talks Rising Tide FF16 expansion, PC release in final stages demo soon, and more.

I personally don’t want to see an ending change but there’s a somewhat large contingent of fans I think is a fair way of categorizing them that, I think they fairly point this and some other stuff out to be true, if Clive had Leviathan before facing off against ultima he would’ve in fact been the complete vessel. And we know Rising Tide takes place before the final fight at origin. Now would him having leviathans power and all 8 eikons have changed anything letting him channel and control ultimas power without killing or at the least severely crippling himself? Idk I think it’s fair to argue either way and don’t seee the harm in slightly tweaking the final fight to include Leviathan and make it a super boss where you get an alternative outcome for winning but it’s not cannon

I love FF but I absolutely hated this game and I'm dreading the idea of coming back for a DLC I'm just such a fan of the franchise that I can't imagine missing an entry but I genuinely do not find this game enjoyable

I feel like I need to bring this up for proper context whenever stuff like this is brought up. The game doesnt have a boring combat or bad battle system problem. In fact its one of the most impressive in depth and flash ive ever seen for a character action game. The game suffers from one thing and it suffers from it massively which brings miasma of problems with it and its just way too easy. You never really need to even get half way into the depth of the fighting system because playing on the hardest mode itll allow your first run is like easy mode. I found the actual really complex stuff you can do with it on NG+ playing the game only using the eikons id have available me story wise at that time and in ultimaniac mode in the arcade. It does have have the chronolith trials and expert modes of those but its far too little far too late.

Ive said this before they wanted so bad for it to be "approachable" to fans of FF. Well then dont make a character action game. Commit to your vision. If you want an easy mode with the rings that literally play it for you I see noe issue with that its not fromsoft, you cant not cater to one end and not the other. Personally id have set up the difficulty like this

Easy mode or Story whatever
Normal but actually balanced better so its harder
Final Fantasy mode available first run this would be your typical hard in another game but not a lazy up the damage done and health of enemies actually change layouts of mobs and AI aggression and movesets

Then for NG+ I would've made that the Ultimaniac difficulty in place of FF difficulty is now. As it stands Ultimaniac is almost completely wasted because for months the arcade mode and leader board they wanted to flaunt was so busted, the best way to get the highest score was to take as long as possible then no one came back after it was eventually fixed

quote:

---

I don't disagree with your point about the difficulty curve but I do disagree that it's the only thing the game suffers from. I personally have FF16 as my lowest rated FF ever. I think the game suffers from a disturbing lack of anything to do. There is literally NO gameplay other than walking, fighting, and watching cutscenes. That's it. There's zero variety to it. Yes, the plot is pretty interesting and there's cool fight setpieces, but that's literally all the game has to offer. The sidequests are terrible MMO-level sidequests that feel like they're there to punish completionists rather than deliver any sort of narrative interest or unique ways to play.

---

I think Final Fantasy 14 is the best Final Fantasy game since the PS2 days, but I was amused at how the devs for 16 literally made what was basically a FF14 expansion with the bare bones of a platinum games combat system into a standalone game. I expected more from them.

That game would have been better served to do away with the side quests completely.

The combat system needed a bit more going on in order for it to remain interesting. Yes, there were additional combos you could unlock but between those and the Eikon abilities, that's pretty much it.

I don't think the side quests in Rebirth are much better. While the characters that give you the side quests actually emote, a lot of the quests just serve as wrappers for the open world content (ie. scan x number of things in order to unlock location of y to scavenge for z) or ask you to locate specific items based on a treasure map or a photograph. Not exactly Witcher 3 by any means.

The open world itself is pretty barren of any interesting activities. It's mostly just go here and scan this thing to unlock more things to scan. Sometimes you have to fight a monster or group of monsters that are standing in front of the thing. Again, most of the "?" in Witcher 3 were far better than this or even the open world activities in a Ubisoft title like Far Cry or Assassin's Creed.

The open world is not that fun to explore either. It's chock full of invisible walls. It's like in Skyrim where you need to get to a spot but there's constantly a giant mountain in between you and the quest location.

At least it has towns though. This is the first Final Fantasy game to actually feature real towns since 12 (not counting the MMO). The towns in Rebirth are some of the best towns I've seen in a JPRG in a long time.

I was playing Tales of Berseria right before Rebirth, and honestly something like that or Dragon Quest 11 is how you design a 3D world in a modern JPRG.

You don't need an open world with a checklist of activities. You just need open expanses of land to get from point A to B with combat serving as the challenge in between.

Agree with all of your points there and I'll just add, 16 is just my lowest FF, I genuinely disliked it, but I don't think that means it's the objective worst. Just my personal opinion.