Former Square Enix executive Jacob Navok has shared his thoughts on less-than-expected sales of the latest Final Fantasy games. He also tried to explain why people mistakenly think that the Japanese publisher is simply setting unrealistic goals for its products.
I was excited for Persona 5, but not FFXVI. I think they’ve headed a bit too far down the road of Western imitation - going full medieval look, action combat (which I’m sorry, they’re not good at and it’s still confusing), etc.
The main thing I’ve expected from JRPGs is having a story and world that surprises me. There was something signature about the look of a guy with an oversized sword in a steampunk grungy city that pulled me into those games.
I know they poured a lot of budget into FFXVI, but it feels unplanned and vision-less. Like they could have been making the eikon fights in one team before writing the rest of the story, like how studios will film a car chase in one country and then work it into their action movie’s plot however they want.
I don’t feel that way about ffVVI at all. The story was fantastic. My only complaint was that some of the fights just felt like the eikons were damage sponges.
I’d love to play XVI, the story sounds amazing and the graphics are cutting-edge Square but two things keep turning me off:
The fighting system is way too close to DMC which I absolutely hated, I want a JPRG not an action game
it’s platform exclusive, talk to me when it’s on Steam
So really they’re doing it to themselves here. Their comment about “we’re modernizing the game to bring it to more people” just rings of BS, especially with their sales recently, and if they really cared about that they’d be fast tracking and announcing a date for XVI on the PC.
I thought the fighting was really fun in ff16. I’m not familiar with DMC though. All a matter of taste I suppose. Second point is fair, I happen to own a ps5, so I was able to play it right away, didn’t even realize it was an exclusive.
I was excited for Persona 5, but not FFXVI. I think they’ve headed a bit too far down the road of Western imitation - going full medieval look, action combat (which I’m sorry, they’re not good at and it’s still confusing), etc.
The main thing I’ve expected from JRPGs is having a story and world that surprises me. There was something signature about the look of a guy with an oversized sword in a steampunk grungy city that pulled me into those games.
I know they poured a lot of budget into FFXVI, but it feels unplanned and vision-less. Like they could have been making the eikon fights in one team before writing the rest of the story, like how studios will film a car chase in one country and then work it into their action movie’s plot however they want.
I don’t feel that way about ffVVI at all. The story was fantastic. My only complaint was that some of the fights just felt like the eikons were damage sponges.
I’d love to play XVI, the story sounds amazing and the graphics are cutting-edge Square but two things keep turning me off:
So really they’re doing it to themselves here. Their comment about “we’re modernizing the game to bring it to more people” just rings of BS, especially with their sales recently, and if they really cared about that they’d be fast tracking and announcing a date for XVI on the PC.
I thought the fighting was really fun in ff16. I’m not familiar with DMC though. All a matter of taste I suppose. Second point is fair, I happen to own a ps5, so I was able to play it right away, didn’t even realize it was an exclusive.
I’ve only ever played a demo for DMC and I hated it. But I loved XVI’s combat, which actually evolves quite a bit as you get more abilities.