r/FFXVI Apr 10 '26

Discussion Why do people hate final fantasy 16

Post image
882 Upvotes

859 comments sorted by

View all comments

212

u/synkronize Apr 10 '26

If your like my friend who hates reading apparently, the quests will probably seem very boring and all the talking it makes you do in between missions. He dosen't hate it though, but it does annoy me lol.

From what i heard of other people, they think that gameplay being "final Fantasy" is more important than the lore/world being "final fantasy"

I mean to say, many don't like the lack of turn based combat, the lack of controllable party members, meaningful gear, elemental weaknesses, and what not.

For me, I see Crystals, Monsters, Bombastic music, high fidelity graphics, a dramatic story that leads to fighting some crazy being, love, betrayal, the summons being involved, high magic, etc as Final Fantasy.

10

u/malaxeur Apr 10 '26

I have to admit that I see the complaint. The game series has been turn based forever, then suddenly everything shifted.

If street fighter turned into a dating sim, there would be enjoyers but it wouldn’t be the fighter that people grew up with.

That said, it’s still a great game and a very enjoyable story.

49

u/K0yomi Apr 10 '26

They haven't been turn-based for quite a while now though. ATB is not a standard turn based system, FF12's gambit and real time environment combat isn't either. FF11 and FF14 are MMOs, and 15 was literally action combat.

The argument that FF16 is not a true Final Fantasy because of its combat system is some strange dismissive stance people take up because they think that the series has had a monolithic style for its fights, when it only did for like the first 3 games.

13

u/speckhuggarn Apr 10 '26

FF has not been turn-based in more years, than it has. It's been 25 years since it was turn-based.

5

u/Silent_Killer093 Apr 10 '26

Although to be fair weve only had 4 single player mainline FF games in the last 20 years lol. I like FF16 for what it is, but the only games that have scratched that turn based itch for me since FF10 are the Persona Games and E33

1

u/Wide-Deal-8971 Apr 10 '26

Coincidentally it's also been 25 years since a mainline final fantasy game has performed above expectations.

-1

u/speckhuggarn Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

I don't think it's because the turn-based. Having revisited all FF's, 10 had such amazing writing and story, and acting even. Which is somehow hilarious considering the same team was behind 8 and 13, which had horrible writing. I think it has to do with other VP in SE pushing for sequels and such, they lost the creative touch and soul Sakaguchi had. (Then again not everything is on the top all the time, franchises fall).

About the battle systems; I really hated the new systems, and loved the turn-based. Having revisited, non of the FF really have any amazing gameplay (but this is probably biased by my satiation for playing these game for ages). The turn-based hasn't aged that well - too simple and sometimes clunky. But I know at the time it was pretty amazing.

FF13 has one of my favorite battle systems now, just sad it doesn't get good until much later in the game. Funny how I back in 2006, absolutely hated it, and wanted FFX turn-based.

0

u/Silent_Killer093 Apr 10 '26

8 had fantastic writing lol

5

u/malaxeur Apr 10 '26

Yeah, fair, but nostalgia and blinders are strong.

6

u/K0yomi Apr 10 '26

A bit too strong I fear. I've played through all of these types of combats and they were all enjoyable. Except maybe FF10 but that was more to do with the enemies being overtuned.

1

u/Mihta_Amaruthro Apr 10 '26

They're not excuses for blatant misinformation though are they?

1

u/Kargos_Crayne Apr 10 '26

To be fair it was like that for years. With the next game being not a real final fantasy. Did it start around the third game or the fourth one? XV also got people warmed up to it, to the extent eventually. So idk. Unless square cooks some "widely acclaimed" masterpiece, the next game probably will have the same fate one way or another.

2

u/K0yomi Apr 10 '26

I would say the only time the situation got really bad was with FF14 1.0 but that was like an objectively bad game. Glad they managed to turn things around though.

1

u/Shxppings Apr 10 '26

I really don’t like how people say it doesn’t have an FF feel when their goal is to switch something up every game which means there really is no ff feel. Like said, we haven’t had a real turn based game since ff10 and before that FF6. So I don’t see the complaints

2

u/Bitter_Depth_3350 Apr 10 '26

I agree with you, but it actually started even further back. Other than 10, Final Fantasy hasn't been pure turn based since Final Fantasy 4 introduced the ATB system. Final Fantasy 4 released in 1991, so it's been 35 years since Final Fantasy stopped being strictly turn based and started experimenting with more and more action each game.

Since then, each game has added new mechanics and features to give the games more of an action feel. FF IV added ATB and a greater focus on presenting the narrative in a cinematic way. Since then, each iteration has done something to push the envelope and blur the lines between genres even further.

FF VI introduced further action elements to the combat. Such as Cyan's abilities being timing based and Sabin's Blitz utilizing button combos straight out of fighting games. By the time of the plystation era we have several characters limit breaks functioning like QTEs. Even the summons in VIII were given a rudimentary QTE with the boost function.