Thank Goodness Remaining Fantasy 16 Is not Remaining Fantasy 15
It’s been a little bit of a hike. Clive’s chocobo is exhausted. Our hero, joined by heroine Jill and mentor Cidolfas, heads to mattress for the evening at a roadside inn. Simply as he’s about to nod off, Cid gasps, lifting a chunk of declaratory parchment from a desk.
“Clive, your dad is useless. So is your brother. The Iron Kingdom has invaded. Or one thing. It was dangerous. It in all probability ought to have been the start of this recreation, nevertheless it isn’t. There’s a film. Why didn’t you watch it?” Thank goodness Remaining Fantasy 16 isn’t Remaining Fantasy 15.
Look, I get pleasure from Remaining Fantasy 15 for what it’s. I’ve defended it, warts and all, for years. Until subsequent yr’s Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth lets me drive round in a automotive whereas listening to FF soundtracks on the radio, Remaining Fantasy 15 will stay my bastion for that very particular want. However even the sport’s most ardent followers will admit it’s a large number.
Remaining Fantasy 15 isn’t Remaining Fantasy Versus 13, however you’d be forgiven for assuming in any other case. The latter was revealed all the best way again in 2006, and it starred a blue-haired man named Noctis and his leather-clad entourage of fairly boys. Tetsuya Nomura’s deliberate epic ultimately went darkish, and was rebooted with the 2013 announcement that it will out of the blue be FF15. Noctis was nonetheless there. The beautiful boys have been nonetheless fairly boys. However the recreation that Hajime Tabata would direct in the end took fairly a unique path.
FF15 was a multimedia challenge first, a mainline installment in a storied sequence of RPGs second. The inciting occasion, when the Empire of Niflheim breaks a peace treaty to invade the Kingdom of Lucis, ought to have been the sport’s opening chapter. In reality, preliminary trailers for the sport had precisely that notion. As a substitute, the would-be opening was reworked right into a CG movie, main Noctis to study his nation’s demise, his father’s demise, you understand, all of the stuff I lampshaded initially of this text… by a newspaper in a lodge.
Say what you’ll for Hajime Tabata’s staff. They’d the unenviable job of reimagining Nomura’s deliberate Versus trilogy epic right into a single recreation, they usually had about three years to take action. That’s not sufficient time. We received a street journey simulator with a lot of enjoyable moments, with a plot that completely falls aside, and will get advised in a number of items of media. Weirdly, the ending is ideal. Go determine.
Naoki Yoshida, producer of Remaining Fantasy 16, shouldn’t be Hajime Tabata. Neither is he Tetsuya Nomura. And never simply because these are completely different names. Nomura’s a dreamer, a visionary, a man who wished his quartet of male fashions to go on a three-game tragic journey. Tabata’s a sensible, get-it-done man, the guy who salvaged the bits of Versus that have been ever even made and turned them right into a flawed however finalized challenge. Yoshida is the director of Remaining Fantasy 14, a beloved MMORPG with tens of millions upon tens of millions of gamers and a beloved behavior of placing out expansions which might be ridiculously good.
Yoshida is a component visionary, half pragmatist. He is aware of one thing of salvaging misplaced causes – that is the dude who turned the failed authentic FF14 into the gem it’s immediately. Yoshida didn’t settle when A Realm Reborn reversed Sq.’s fortunes on that entrance, and he wasn’t going to accept letting Remaining Fantasy 16 develop into a multimedia circus like 15, with a lodge and a newspaper and a blockbuster film with a 35 ranking on Metacritic. ‘No’, thundered Yoshida’s booming voice, ‘FF16 will stand by itself, as video video games ought to’.
As a substitute of Cid discovering that piece of paper in a medieval inn with the offscreen revelations, Clive will expertise the autumn of his native Rosaria firsthand, by a several-hour playable flashback shortly into the story the place we see all of it firsthand. That pivotal flashpoint is the supposed starting of FF16’s plot, simply as the autumn of the Crown Metropolis in FF15 was the supposed starting of its plot. The builders of Remaining Fantasy 16 know the way essential it’s for gamers to forge an actual and significant reference to its sweeping storyline, and particularly with Clive Rosfield.
Let’s take this thought experiment a bit additional. Think about if Remaining Fantasy 16 was developed in the identical vein as its predecessor. What else could be carved from its narrative for the sake of time? Clearly, the sport isn’t really out but, so I can’t empirically say that will probably be a narrative well-told. However we all know the sport went gold weeks in the past, we all know the staff was within the ultimate sprucing phases for a superb very long time – we all know that, whether or not we find yourself agreeing or not, Naoki Yoshida and his friends consider they’ve constructed an entire story with a starting, center, and finish.
If Remaining Fantasy 16 was Remaining Fantasy 15, Clive’s core companions would require episodic downloadable content material in an effort to broaden their roles from bantering blokes to individuals who really issue into the story. Jill’s historical past would barely be touched upon, till Episode Jill, at which level we discover out she’s Shiva. Cid wouldn’t be the chief of the Hideaway, a spot for the downtrodden of Valisthea to name dwelling – not till Episode Cid, that’s. And Torgal, candy Torgal… oh, who am I kidding, I’d pay good cash for an Episode Torgal.
Then once more, there’s one thing to be stated for selection. If there’s one factor Remaining Fantasy followers nonetheless appear nervous about with FF16, it’s a definite lack of selection. The fight isn’t simply the sport’s bread and butter. It appears to be its meat and potatoes, too. The latest State of Play confirmed some aspect quests, and I believe they appear cool, however I additionally assume we’re not going to get any main gameplay diversions like fishing, or chocobo racing, or card video games.
Remaining Fantasy 15 had fishing. It had a lot fishing, it received a spin-off recreation that expanded upon its fishing. It had chocobo racing, too, which is rarely unwelcome. It didn’t have a card recreation, however we are able to’t at all times have good issues, so no matter. Sq. Enix’s multimedia method could have wrecked that recreation’s try at telling an intensive story, nevertheless it additionally led to weird live-service issues like images contests and festival-style crossovers with different franchises and simply this complete slew of bizarre, bizarre stuff that makes the sport so oddly memorable, and I don’t assume Yoshida has it in him to be that bizarre.
So, thank goodness Remaining Fantasy 16 isn’t Remaining Fantasy 15, as a result of for the love of Bahamut, I might cry if its opening received the Kingsglaive remedy, and its characters received the season go remedy, and key late-game occasions received relegated to a dead-on-arrival on-line co-op… factor. However on the flip aspect, I want it was, in just a few little methods, within the realm of the funky, like diner mascot Kenny Crow, and the best way there’s a man with a New Yorker accent at a beachside resort actually saying the phrase ‘capiche’ to me, and look, I can put on a moogle on my head.
Possibly the proper Remaining Fantasy for me, personally, is a growth section helmed by Yoshida and his crew, however somebody secretly sneaks in and pours just a few drops of Tabata into the combination simply earlier than launch.
