Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
It was worse in FFXIII. The Player-Controlled character needed to be tank-ish, or at least not particularly squishy, because if that one character died it was "gg"
Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
Fights are markedly more difficult without them, but they don’t do a ton of damage without input from the player, only because that would be extremely exploitable; just play keep away while the NPCs do all the work. The alternative would be do enter a fail state of your party members were KO’d, but that’s a million times worse
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a good example of doing something right. AI characters set to tanking or healing would actually do their jobs competently. It was mind blowing to see, and also kinda sad that the bar has been set so low for AI party members.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I'm of two minds about making FFVII action combat. On one hand, it will probably get rid of the problem that I had with FFVII where the Materia system just kinda makes every character feel the same as every other character. On the other hand, I do really like turn based combat and it's sad to see that go.
An ironic reason that I like FF8 is that the magic system is much like FF7 in the sense that there is effectively nothing unique about the different characters outside limit breaks, but it's also quite easy to break said system so that you never have to deal with it enough to be a nuisance. I'll never understand why FF7 went with such a bland skill system when FF6 had a much better model, and then FF8 decided FF7's system was overcomplicated. Wasn't until FF9 that they brought back a decent skill system, and that was largely just a copy of FF6's system. How was it not obvious for two straight games that FF6 had a better skill system?
And definitely put me on board with a system like FF12's, that meshes turn-based and realtime while also making it really easy to turn trash fights into auto-wins. If the remake updates FF7's materia system to something like an actual skill system (and one that's actually good), it would take care of one of my biggest gripes about the game. The only thing I would adjust is to skip the stupid crap where you have to actually find different combat rules and whatnot, and just give the player all of that from the start.
Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
You know, I've never really thought about it like that before, and I wonder if at a certain point there's a design conflict between fulfilling single-player action combat and competent AI. I think Dragon's Dogma was pretty good in that regard, though sometimes your pawns just jump around doing fuck all while you're chasing down every wolf or harpy in the pack while other times your wizard/ranger duo basically one-shot enemy packs before you can get going into them. I think the danger there is that if you make the companions too competent then they take agency away from you as the player. Like, another example is Resident Evil 5 & 6. 5 had a stupid AI who would waste all your ammo and health items and was a total liability for single player games. 6 had an invincible crack-shot with infinite ammo and healing items (after an easy to accomplish upgrade) that mostly trivialized the game for you.
I thought KH1 (the only KH game I played) had a good feel to it, though Donald and Goofy spent a lot of the time dirt-napping IIRC. But I do agree with you that player controlled characters in action-combat games generally have those problems you mentioned.
Fake edit: Hold on, I just remembered... I think it was Tales of Destiny? It's been a long time but I remember that game's AI was pretty solid and always giving me a run for my money while at the same time not trivializing fights.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
If I'm stuck controlling Cloud only in FF7R, hard pass.
Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
It was worse in FFXIII. The Player-Controlled character needed to be tank-ish, or at least not particularly squishy, because if that one character died it was "gg"
Worst design decision in the game
I'm running into that with Persona 5 at the moment and I hate it. Especially when there's a non-zero chance that I'll run into some random encounter than one-shots me and causes me to lose 45-90 minutes of progress just because in-dungeon save rooms are few and far between.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
It was worse in FFXIII. The Player-Controlled character needed to be tank-ish, or at least not particularly squishy, because if that one character died it was "gg"
Worst design decision in the game
I'm running into that with Persona 5 at the moment and I hate it. Especially when there's a non-zero chance that I'll run into some random encounter than one-shots me and causes me to lose 45-90 minutes of progress just because in-dungeon save rooms are few and far between.
I decided to give Persona 5 a spin recently and I'm absolutely flummoxed as to how it has been reviewed so well. The characters are incredibly trite, it's harder to get a more no-stakes level of conflict than "fucking around with highschool drama", the level design is twenty years out of date, and the gameplay is basically a straight rip-off of Pokemon (which I do not at all consider a good thing, because the Pokemon combat system is way too bland to be entertaining). About the only thing I can give an actual thumbs-up to is the upbeat music and some of the more dynamic visual design. And apparently the NG+ is a draw for the game and I'm just like... fucking why?
I like FF8 and will readily acknowledge it's skill/combat system is probably the worst of the series, but at least I can skip 99% of the tedious gameplay instead of the game reveling in the grind as some kind of insane feature. That alone would make me want to play the game a hundred times more than Persona 5.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
If I'm stuck controlling Cloud only in FF7R, hard pass.
The gameplay* footage they showed at PSX 2015 had the player controlling Barret during a battle, and I'm fairly sure they've mentioned in interviews that they're letting you switch between characters.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
FF7 also has Cloud dropping out of the party for a fair chunk of the game, so they'd have to put control somewhere else at some point. There's not really any reason to make Cloud the "main" character, especially when the original doesn't work that way.
And I don't think the game ever cares if Cloud gets downed over anyone else? Been a while, but I remember it treating all party members the same. Only way to get a game over was via total party down.
Remember. FF7 is the game that allows you to revive characters with phoenix downs, under the illusion that you're "unconscious" but when your main magic healing lady gets a katana dropped on her during the sad music, no amount of healing magic and items is going to save her ass.
EDIT: Also, while it was brought up last page, this is the comic for those who are in the "FFT was better than 7" camp. Personally? I'm FF7 over Tactics, but FF7 is far from my favourite in the franchise. It's actually probably right around 7th or 8th in the tier list.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
FFXV eventually let you switch characters so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
edited February 2019
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
It's because everybody is only mostly dead in those other cases, up to and including animations of planetary annihilation that leave the planet totally unscathed. Sephiroth's sword has the "totally dead" and "no backsies" traits.
Actually, that's another thing they could stand to reign in. Now that nobody gives a crap about fancy-ass summons and spell effects, they could do with getting rid of spells with animations that blow up continents and planets.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited February 2019
I love how Sephiroth destroyed the solar system like 3 times during our final fight to hit me for like 4000 damage.
Now that nobody gives a crap about fancy-ass summons and spell effects, they could do with getting rid of spells with animations that blow up continents and planets.
These are way too absurd and memorable (especially Sephiroth's) to not at least parody somehow.
Now that nobody gives a crap about fancy-ass summons and spell effects, they could do with getting rid of spells with animations that blow up continents and planets.
These are way too absurd and memorable (especially Sephiroth's) to not at least parody somehow.
If I want that scale of gratuitous destruction I can always go play Disgaea anyways.
It's because everybody is only mostly dead in those other cases, up to and including animations of planetary annihilation that leave the planet totally unscathed. Sephiroth's sword has the "totally dead" and "no backsies" traits.
Actually, that's another thing they could stand to reign in. Now that nobody gives a crap about fancy-ass summons and spell effects, they could do with getting rid of spells with animations that blow up continents and planets.
Alternatively, now the Bahamut summon will last 5 minutes and Knights of the Round will be released as a separate standalone Blu-ray.
Prior to Aerith, we had Leo in FFVI, though that can be excused by literally everyone else being unconscious when he was killed, almost certainly going past whatever timing threshold there is before they could do anything.
And in FFV, when a character has a dramatic death scene, the characters actually do try to use Cure spells, Elixirs, and the Raise spell, to no avail. Said character had previously been breaking the normal rules by continuing to fight at 0 HP, so he was thoroughly dead by the time he actually dropped.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Proceedings of the 284th Convocation of the Amdapori Council of Magi.
A Vote was called to settle on a Name for a potent and newly-fashioned Healing-Spell.
Being that said Healing-Spell was an augmentation of Curaga, erst the most potent Healing-Spell, the following Names were porposed by the Council.
Curago, Curaza, Curaja, Curagura
Finding the afore-written Names duly lacking in Gravity and the exiting Hierarchy of Spell-Names needlessly abtruse, the Council did vote by a margin of Seventeen to Three to do away with existing Naming-Conventions entirely and adopt a new system of numerical Spell-Names, as writ below, to be used henceforth.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Proceedings of the 284th Convocation of the Amdapori Council of Magi.
A Vote was called to settle on a Name for a potent and newly-fashioned Healing-Spell.
Being that said Healing-Spell was an augmentation of Curaga, erst the most potent Healing-Spell, the following Names were porposed by the Council.
Curago, Curaza, Curaja, Curagura
Finding the afore-written Names duly lacking in Gravity and the exiting Hierarchy of Spell-Names needlessly abtruse, the Council did vote by a margin of Seventeen to Three to do away with existing Naming-Conventions entirely and adopt a new system of numerical Spell-Names, as writ below, to be used henceforth.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Proceedings of the 284th Convocation of the Amdapori Council of Magi.
A Vote was called to settle on a Name for a potent and newly-fashioned Healing-Spell.
Being that said Healing-Spell was an augmentation of Curaga, erst the most potent Healing-Spell, the following Names were porposed by the Council.
Curago, Curaza, Curaja, Curagura
Finding the afore-written Names duly lacking in Gravity and the exiting Hierarchy of Spell-Names needlessly abtruse, the Council did vote by a margin of Seventeen to Three to do away with existing Naming-Conventions entirely and adopt a new system of numerical Spell-Names, as writ below, to be used henceforth.
Phoenix Down is smelling salts for unconscious people, not dead people.
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Proceedings of the 284th Convocation of the Amdapori Council of Magi.
A Vote was called to settle on a Name for a potent and newly-fashioned Healing-Spell.
Being that said Healing-Spell was an augmentation of Curaga, erst the most potent Healing-Spell, the following Names were porposed by the Council.
Curago, Curaza, Curaja, Curagura
Finding the afore-written Names duly lacking in Gravity and the exiting Hierarchy of Spell-Names needlessly abtruse, the Council did vote by a margin of Seventeen to Three to do away with existing Naming-Conventions entirely and adopt a new system of numerical Spell-Names, as writ below, to be used henceforth.
Cure I, Cure II, Cure III, Cure IV
It is recorded.
Gubal Library?
Yup.
Well, given how badly they screwed up at magic their pronouncements should probably be considered suspect. I prefer more descriptive names. Like "Leeches".
I just miss characters having skills that were as cool as the variety found in FFVI. Limit breaks alone being different was a real detraction for me from most of the the rest of the FF casts. It's probably why I like IX and X so much.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I imagine they can rebalance things to keep the Materia system and still incentive use of the whole party. Make the stats matter (and work...) and you'd have a compelling reason to vary the party up. I think XV did a pretty good job with the stat differences among the boyband.
I can't see an action RPG being nearly as character-agnostic when distance and animations actually effect how the game plays. Barret being able to hit things at a distance suddenly means something for example, as would Tifa needing to move in to connect blows vs. Cloud having a bit more reach with a buster sword and the occasional energy blast from it. Not to mention it looking utterly bizarre if Tifa's fist attacks aren't on average much faster than cloud swinging a sword around. As long as they force the characters into their iconic weapon types, which seems almost certain since they are actually iconic, then there's bound to be a pretty big difference in their basic movesets.
Kh3 is proof they can do very good action combat, and they’re both on the same engine.
When I think of FF combat I'm expecting a party of characters working together, each character fulfilling a traditional role or two (dps, heal, buffing, tanking, etc).
Action combat as I've always seen it does two things I don't want in FF:
1) The player controlled character is always doing all the work.
2) The player controlled character is usually doing all the damage. You can't be the tank, or healer, or anything else.
I didn't play KH3, maybe it was better in that regard? Are Donald and Goofy important to fights or is it just the Sora show?
In other words, I'd like to see an action combat system that allows the player character to be a healer, tank, or even ranged dps, and having the AI characters actually do the other jobs competently.
This. And this was one of my biggest gripes with XV. Even when targeting a single enemy in a pack, the bros would still die all the time due to their inability to dodge/parry the other enemies and a complete lack of any crowd control (I have no idea if any of them had CC skills because the skill tree UI was terrible... If they did, I never unlocked them). So every fight devolved into me running around trying to revive them because they were incapable of surviving without me.
I really don't want another game like that.
I agree that a Xenoblade-esque system would likely be the best option for a party based 'action' RPG, but it would require SE shoring up their character AI while also giving the characters skills to excel in certain roles. Torna really has a great combat system that has an interesting flow with multiple levels of combos that are, conceptually, like concentric circles. Its AI is also top notch. A FF twist on it could be interesting.
Or, they could make the next game a solo experience if they want to forgo parties. Why not be FF Ezio, Batman, or Boba Fett? I mean, if they want to make an action RPG, why not lean all the way into it? While they're at it, let me pick my character's sex and customize their appearance. Final Fantasy Effect in Arkham/Italy/Nar Shaddaa.
I can't see an action RPG being nearly as character-agnostic when distance and animations actually effect how the game plays. Barret being able to hit things at a distance suddenly means something for example, as would Tifa needing to move in to connect blows vs. Cloud having a bit more reach with a buster sword and the occasional energy blast from it. Not to mention it looking utterly bizarre if Tifa's fist attacks aren't on average much faster than cloud swinging a sword around. As long as they force the characters into their iconic weapon types, which seems almost certain since they are actually iconic, then there's bound to be a pretty big difference in their basic movesets.
On the flip side, you can make sure enemies aren't doing attacks that move them large distances (unless that's a specific part of their challenge/design), and have those melee characters performing superhuman leaps and whatnot as part of their attack abilities. The old turn-based approach is an abstraction of what these people are supposed to be able to do, after all, and everyone in the party is supposed to have combat ability well above and beyond the normal human.
The result would be a game where each character's combat style would actually matter, as opposed to the original game where the only effective differences are the attacks animations and limit breaks. And with putting cooldowns on every attack, including basic attacks, it would actually work in a turn-based element as well.
FFXV eventually let you switch characters so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.
Ehh, multiple patches and nearly a year into that product's life cycle means most early adopters / early haters like myself never saw that. I played it day 1. Took the week off work, because I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. Platinumed the game in the first week, hated every minute of it, and have never looked at it again. So no, for me the rest of the party was never playable or controllable.
That might be the experience of people now, but that's not how the game was originally designed and that's not the game many of us played.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
FFXV eventually let you switch characters so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.
Ehh, multiple patches and nearly a year into that product's life cycle means most early adopters / early haters like myself never saw that. I played it day 1. Took the week off work, because I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. Platinumed the game in the first week, hated every minute of it, and have never looked at it again. So no, for me the rest of the party was never playable or controllable.
That might be the experience of people now, but that's not how the game was originally designed and that's not the game many of us played.
I mean...yeah but that doesn't really change what I said.
I don't think I could "platinum"--well, in my case, get 100% achievements--a game that I was hating every moment of playing. Unless it was about 20 minutes long.
I would just stop playing at at some point. I do that to games I don't even hate, just merely dislike.
Maybe that's evidence of insufficient force of will.
All things considered, the XV plat was very easy. It didn't really require going that far out of your way to do it. You have to beat the Adamantoise, which is the worst fight I had the displeasure of participating in in that game. It really highlights how bad and finicky the targeting, warp strike, companion AI and all the other combat issues are. The game just can't handle combat at that grand of scale. But that's getting off topic. On the topic of the plat, I never felt like it was a huge burden to pickup the trophies as I was just playing the game.
One of the trophies is to collect all the upgrades for the car, which is something I wanted to do anyway. I wanted a fully tricked out car. In hindsight, having a fully tricked out car is pretty useless, but I didn't know that as I was doing it.
But that's an entirely different issue with XV. Many of the best upgrades happen so late into the game that they're nearly worthless. Like the super bright headlights for the car that makes it pretty safe to drive at night. By the time you get those you aren't doing a lot of night driving anyway because you are on the path to beating the game at that point.
I love how Sephiroth destroyed the solar system like 3 times during our final fight to hit me for like 4000 damage.
Fun fact: that move is actually capable of missing entirely.
Also, unless I'm misremembering, it's also Sephiroth's version of Fallen One-- it will always drop the party to critical HP but can't actually kill them.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I love how Sephiroth destroyed the solar system like 3 times during our final fight to hit me for like 4000 damage.
Fun fact: that move is actually capable of missing entirely.
Also, unless I'm misremembering, it's also Sephiroth's version of Fallen One-- it will always drop the party to critical HP but can't actually kill them.
It can also inflict random status ailments.
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
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It was worse in FFXIII. The Player-Controlled character needed to be tank-ish, or at least not particularly squishy, because if that one character died it was "gg"
Worst design decision in the game
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Fights are markedly more difficult without them, but they don’t do a ton of damage without input from the player, only because that would be extremely exploitable; just play keep away while the NPCs do all the work. The alternative would be do enter a fail state of your party members were KO’d, but that’s a million times worse
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An ironic reason that I like FF8 is that the magic system is much like FF7 in the sense that there is effectively nothing unique about the different characters outside limit breaks, but it's also quite easy to break said system so that you never have to deal with it enough to be a nuisance. I'll never understand why FF7 went with such a bland skill system when FF6 had a much better model, and then FF8 decided FF7's system was overcomplicated. Wasn't until FF9 that they brought back a decent skill system, and that was largely just a copy of FF6's system. How was it not obvious for two straight games that FF6 had a better skill system?
And definitely put me on board with a system like FF12's, that meshes turn-based and realtime while also making it really easy to turn trash fights into auto-wins. If the remake updates FF7's materia system to something like an actual skill system (and one that's actually good), it would take care of one of my biggest gripes about the game. The only thing I would adjust is to skip the stupid crap where you have to actually find different combat rules and whatnot, and just give the player all of that from the start.
You know, I've never really thought about it like that before, and I wonder if at a certain point there's a design conflict between fulfilling single-player action combat and competent AI. I think Dragon's Dogma was pretty good in that regard, though sometimes your pawns just jump around doing fuck all while you're chasing down every wolf or harpy in the pack while other times your wizard/ranger duo basically one-shot enemy packs before you can get going into them. I think the danger there is that if you make the companions too competent then they take agency away from you as the player. Like, another example is Resident Evil 5 & 6. 5 had a stupid AI who would waste all your ammo and health items and was a total liability for single player games. 6 had an invincible crack-shot with infinite ammo and healing items (after an easy to accomplish upgrade) that mostly trivialized the game for you.
I thought KH1 (the only KH game I played) had a good feel to it, though Donald and Goofy spent a lot of the time dirt-napping IIRC. But I do agree with you that player controlled characters in action-combat games generally have those problems you mentioned.
Fake edit: Hold on, I just remembered... I think it was Tales of Destiny? It's been a long time but I remember that game's AI was pretty solid and always giving me a run for my money while at the same time not trivializing fights.
I'm running into that with Persona 5 at the moment and I hate it. Especially when there's a non-zero chance that I'll run into some random encounter than one-shots me and causes me to lose 45-90 minutes of progress just because in-dungeon save rooms are few and far between.
I decided to give Persona 5 a spin recently and I'm absolutely flummoxed as to how it has been reviewed so well. The characters are incredibly trite, it's harder to get a more no-stakes level of conflict than "fucking around with highschool drama", the level design is twenty years out of date, and the gameplay is basically a straight rip-off of Pokemon (which I do not at all consider a good thing, because the Pokemon combat system is way too bland to be entertaining). About the only thing I can give an actual thumbs-up to is the upbeat music and some of the more dynamic visual design. And apparently the NG+ is a draw for the game and I'm just like... fucking why?
I like FF8 and will readily acknowledge it's skill/combat system is probably the worst of the series, but at least I can skip 99% of the tedious gameplay instead of the game reveling in the grind as some kind of insane feature. That alone would make me want to play the game a hundred times more than Persona 5.
The gameplay* footage they showed at PSX 2015 had the player controlling Barret during a battle, and I'm fairly sure they've mentioned in interviews that they're letting you switch between characters.
And I don't think the game ever cares if Cloud gets downed over anyone else? Been a while, but I remember it treating all party members the same. Only way to get a game over was via total party down.
EDIT: Also, while it was brought up last page, this is the comic for those who are in the "FFT was better than 7" camp. Personally? I'm FF7 over Tactics, but FF7 is far from my favourite in the franchise. It's actually probably right around 7th or 8th in the tier list.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Softs cure petrification tho, and it's fucked up they don't toss Seto one.
Sure, but I also know Cure2, maybe Cure3, by this point (it's been ages). I think I can heal that stab wou... no? I can't? The game won't let me? Oh, okay then. I mean, she only had the best Limit in the game, I suppose, but okay.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Actually, that's another thing they could stand to reign in. Now that nobody gives a crap about fancy-ass summons and spell effects, they could do with getting rid of spells with animations that blow up continents and planets.
These are way too absurd and memorable (especially Sephiroth's) to not at least parody somehow.
If I want that scale of gratuitous destruction I can always go play Disgaea anyways.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Alternatively, now the Bahamut summon will last 5 minutes and Knights of the Round will be released as a separate standalone Blu-ray.
And in FFV, when a character has a dramatic death scene, the characters actually do try to use Cure spells, Elixirs, and the Raise spell, to no avail. Said character had previously been breaking the normal rules by continuing to fight at 0 HP, so he was thoroughly dead by the time he actually dropped.
What you're looking for is Curagamaja.
Gubal Library?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yup.
Well, given how badly they screwed up at magic their pronouncements should probably be considered suspect. I prefer more descriptive names. Like "Leeches".
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
This. And this was one of my biggest gripes with XV. Even when targeting a single enemy in a pack, the bros would still die all the time due to their inability to dodge/parry the other enemies and a complete lack of any crowd control (I have no idea if any of them had CC skills because the skill tree UI was terrible... If they did, I never unlocked them). So every fight devolved into me running around trying to revive them because they were incapable of surviving without me.
I really don't want another game like that.
I agree that a Xenoblade-esque system would likely be the best option for a party based 'action' RPG, but it would require SE shoring up their character AI while also giving the characters skills to excel in certain roles. Torna really has a great combat system that has an interesting flow with multiple levels of combos that are, conceptually, like concentric circles. Its AI is also top notch. A FF twist on it could be interesting.
Or, they could make the next game a solo experience if they want to forgo parties. Why not be FF Ezio, Batman, or Boba Fett? I mean, if they want to make an action RPG, why not lean all the way into it? While they're at it, let me pick my character's sex and customize their appearance. Final Fantasy Effect in Arkham/Italy/Nar Shaddaa.
On the flip side, you can make sure enemies aren't doing attacks that move them large distances (unless that's a specific part of their challenge/design), and have those melee characters performing superhuman leaps and whatnot as part of their attack abilities. The old turn-based approach is an abstraction of what these people are supposed to be able to do, after all, and everyone in the party is supposed to have combat ability well above and beyond the normal human.
The result would be a game where each character's combat style would actually matter, as opposed to the original game where the only effective differences are the attacks animations and limit breaks. And with putting cooldowns on every attack, including basic attacks, it would actually work in a turn-based element as well.
Ehh, multiple patches and nearly a year into that product's life cycle means most early adopters / early haters like myself never saw that. I played it day 1. Took the week off work, because I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. Platinumed the game in the first week, hated every minute of it, and have never looked at it again. So no, for me the rest of the party was never playable or controllable.
That might be the experience of people now, but that's not how the game was originally designed and that's not the game many of us played.
I mean...yeah but that doesn't really change what I said.
I would just stop playing at at some point. I do that to games I don't even hate, just merely dislike.
Maybe that's evidence of insufficient force of will.
One of the trophies is to collect all the upgrades for the car, which is something I wanted to do anyway. I wanted a fully tricked out car. In hindsight, having a fully tricked out car is pretty useless, but I didn't know that as I was doing it.
But that's an entirely different issue with XV. Many of the best upgrades happen so late into the game that they're nearly worthless. Like the super bright headlights for the car that makes it pretty safe to drive at night. By the time you get those you aren't doing a lot of night driving anyway because you are on the path to beating the game at that point.
Fun fact: that move is actually capable of missing entirely.
Also, unless I'm misremembering, it's also Sephiroth's version of Fallen One-- it will always drop the party to critical HP but can't actually kill them.
It can also inflict random status ailments.
Man, you have an interesting definition of something not being a burden!
Maybe I do! I just found the XV plat to be very easy in the grand scheme of things.
Having platinumed other games that were truly a challenge, XV felt like a cakewalk.