The Direction of Final Fantasy (and JRPGs in general) [General FF & JRPG thread]

OP, JRPGs don't end or begin with Square Enix or frickin Final Fantasy. There are a lot of great titles coming from both Atlus and Level-5 lately. Particularly Atlus that adheres to old school traditional turn based combat and dungeon crawling with their Shin Megami Tensei, Persona and Etrian Odyssey games. Character and story are heavily emphasized in Persona, Atlus is where it is at, not to mention the astyle and quality they put into their games art design as opposed to just pumping up the graphics like Sega has been doing recently with their Yakuza games, meh.

You also got the upcoming Valkyria Chronicles 4, a series with great strategical turn based combat. I feel Japanese games are going incredibly strong recently compared to the likes of western RPGs. Another example is the Trails in the Sky games, which can all be found on Steam and Gog now. Check them out if you want some good games with great world building and old school combat.

I've come to realize that the combat choice in games doesn't matter much to me for the most part, so I'm impartial when it comes to the turn-based/action war in every FF thread on the internet. I can enjoy most combat paradigms, although mistakes in execution will affect my enjoyment. For instance, party systems (especially real time ones) should have an option to set up detailed tactics, even if many players will never use them, and even more essential, provide the player with the ability to issue commands about everything that matters mid-combat. Because of the annoying omission of this in DA:I and FFXV I ding the combat in both of those games in my estimation.

The story and characters are what matter to me much more, because most games get these wrong despite offering satisfactory combat. I think there's a third element that goes along with these and structures both of them, which is the game's ethos. A lot of games are guided by an ethos that is pretty narrow and status quo, not just in terms of the tropes, frames, narrative structure and the like employed, but also in terms of gender roles and relations; portrayal of sexuality; treatment of class, inequality and other social issues; and the nature of morality and good and evil. Very rarely do mainstream games do anything innovative in terms of characters or story, and almost never in terms of ethos. Instead of feeling moved by the experience of video games as I did the first time I played DA:O, e.g., I almost invariably roll my eyes throughout the main story of pretty much every game I play these days. Oh look, all of the world's problems are attributable to this one evil dude we can swing a sword at to kill and then solve them. Oh look, a chaste damsel devoid of agency or independent personality to be the motive love interest I don't give a shit about. Oh look, the forced melodrama of someone I was never given the chance to get to know or care about sacrificing themselves for me, for which I must feel something despite this being one of the most predictable cliches and stale turning points in any game main story.

Also, I don't see what pretty graphics, DLC content or merchandise have to do with any of this. They all vary independently from combat and story/characters/ethos as far as I can tell. Give me a narrative that isn't riddled with ineptitude, cliches and an unreflexive conservative worldview. Merch all you like after that.

I've played old and new, from FFIII to FFXV. I prefer the active system far more but I think FFXII struck a nice balance. However what appealed to me about FFXV were the aesthetics and lore. Even though FFXV botched a lot of things that had higher potential from VXIII and lacks a lot of screentime for characters who are supposed to be important, I still love it and enjoy it. I'd like to see Square either do a hybrid or have the option for old school and action style gameplay. Having said all that, I do not like the direction they're going with the dlc crap. Give the world a full, fleshed out game and maybe an expansion with significant content a few months or a year down the line. The only service game ought to provide is fanservice.