New Final Fantasy game style better than Old?

January 14, 2008, 5:11 PM

I was wondering why none of the newer Final Fantasy's have the same game set up as the older ones. You know where you can run on the world map, and then "enter" areas. With the new power of the systems you could make a Final Fantasy that has an extremely in depth storyline, and character make up, and add more features (like possibly no matter what type of item you put on the character its always visible, like shoes, helmets, etc.) while still making everything look top notch graphics wise.... What do you guys think? Would you like to see Final Fantasy's resort back to the old style or keep the newer type?

January 15, 2008, 6:15 AM

I like the new style because I really feel part of the world. I see what you mean but the FF series is evolving like the hardware that powers it. One of the redeeming qualities of FFXII was how immersed I became in the world. I found having an overworld would make the game kinda boring to travel between places. I loved going through passages, caves and deserts to go from one place to another. I only used the teleport crystals when absolutely needed but prefered to travel on foot because of how beautiful Ivalice was created.

I can only see FF further evolving. I'm not taking remakes into consideration with the above opinion.

January 16, 2008, 3:26 PM

They should resort back to the old style in terms of fun but nothing else. I am sort of torn as I started FF half way through the series so I've managed to play both but although I thought the old style was fun its not the way forward, as soon as SE find that fine line between fun and a great 'new' style you will have one hell of a game.

January 16, 2008, 3:48 PM

This thread has been moved to General Discussion.

January 16, 2008, 10:49 PM

No, they should keep in the way they are going. Sure the old way of battling, gameplay and such were great, but this new method that was showcased in FFXI, FFXII, and hopefully future games is adapting to the future of gaming. It's more real-life which is what the average game is hoping for down deep; the more realistic the game, the more it sucks you in.

Sure we all love the old stuff, but we can't just live in the past.

January 16, 2008, 11:58 PM

I liked the old style at times, but i like the new style better. it makes u feel more like u actually r the characters u're playing. i dnt want it to go back to the old style now that ive seen what direction there going in with the battle systems

January 17, 2008, 3:50 AM

*well the classics have a more adventurous aura to them when venturing through world maps,
so i guess it was better than the fixed area views on the new series.

*but hten again they made the venturing more easier and have high quality graphics to entertain us

*personnaly any new system or features they add are ok to me,cause if they left the old systems to play with itd be boring and wed see the same thing over and over in the new series to come

January 17, 2008, 4:46 AM

i think XII is closer to the older ones then X, as in XII you can explore the world, where as X is quite linear.
i think the only real difference is the quality of the graphics.

Quote:

You know where you can run on the world map, and then "enter" areas

thats still the same, the areas you could enter are towns ect, places of interest, like tomb of the unknown king. square spent money making these places look good, but didnt pay much attention to the outside of this, but in XII the world outside looks as good as the towns ect, so i dont really think that they have actually changed the style of the game

January 17, 2008, 5:21 AM

They can go along with the new style, but they should make them feel less like MMORPG's. And make it so that the games do not play themself.

January 17, 2008, 6:12 AM

Well, the point of the fully-rendered flowing environment is to make the game feel more immersive and realistic. From a certain point of view, the idea of the World Map and pre-rendered backgrounds is really shorthand for the kinds of traveling that goes on in FFXII.

eg. Areas like the Ozmone Plains or the Mosphoran Highwaste would likely have not existed - they would have just been an area of the World Map coded with different monsters and with different rendered elements.

Also, note that with the World Map, the battle system would have had to have been done with random battles, or with some kind of symbol system/metonymy like in KH: Chain of Memories.

I like your idea of the equippable items being visible on the characters, though I feel like Square would rather use the processing power for orgasmic FMVs rather than tidbits. It would make for some awesome easter-egg items (imagine Basch in wedding dress armor). For now they'll probably stick to only weapons being visibly different.

I really disliked the MMORPG feel of FFXII and would really like the older styles better, but I will say that I applaud Square for at least trying different stuff out. I think FFX was a great combination of traditional FF elements and more cutting edge aspects like the linear approach to location.