What do you want out of the next Final Fantasy

[Raspberry]

If they ever make a Final Fantasy 16, what do you want to see?

Here's what i want to see.

1. Ever since FInal Fantasy XIII, i always wanted to see how a character would evolve if the roles of Hope and his mother were reversed where Hope would die, and instead his mother lived on. So in the next main Final Fantasy, I want to see a mother-figure lead character. We've seen father-figure characters in other games, and young adults, and even young children. But i have yet to see a full mother take the role of a lead character. Perhaps she's not the perfect mother, or maybe she lost a child, or maybe something terrible had happened in the past that has scarred her.

2. A very versatile combat system that allows me to play as all of my party members in real time. And i get to choose their attacks and see how much of an impact a single attack makes. I also want it to allow to have certain characters in your party able to unlock areas in the map. I also want the class system to be used again. Even if certain classes can't be fully customized, i would like each character to have a "range" of classes that they can use. For example: if character A can't be a white/black/red mage, then she can be a monk, or knight. And vice versa.

2. I want the Unreal Engine 4 or even Unreal Engine 5 to be used. Luminous/Crystal Tools/White Engine was a mistake. They can keep using Luminous Engine for spin-offs but not for the next mainline FF.

3. I want to see a world where Airships are predominantly used again. And not these sci-fi looking airships we have been getting since FF7. The airships that we get from the early days of Final Fantasy where they looked more boat-like. Something closer to treasure planet's style. Perhaps in this world, instead of "ocean" it's all just a big sky, and land are literal floating continents.

4. I don't want to see "Crystals" again as part of the main storyline. I want something original. I also don't want to see another "Lifestream" allegory

5. Obviously an explorable world, with optional dungeons. However each dungeon adds something to main story.

6. What i don't want out of the next Final Fantasy is that it is overtly "Japanese" personalities. No more Prompto's, no more Vanille's, no more Hope's. i know this is a tall order, but for once i would like to see another FF12, where the voice acting and expressions are subtle. If anyone is familiar with Vagrant Story, in that game, all the actions and expressions the characters made were very realistic despite being a ps1 game with no voice acting.

7. I want to see real emotional themes with no censorship or holding themes back. That if there is a message to say, then it should say it loudly.

8. i doubt this is going to happen since Final Fantasy games come from japan and square enix. but just in case. i don't want games to be "woke".

 

[Dionysos]

I think having a mother as a protagonist is a great idea. Our very own Linnaete wrote a lovely article about the gap in the market there, and how Final Fantasy doesn't really depict mothers prominently at all (see Timber Maniacs issue 3 pages 23-31). It would be interesting to see this explored in a Final Fantasy game.


I would love to see the return of airships. I personally don't mind whether that would be the classic 'airship' (the floating boat) or the futuristic, spaceshipy style airships of later games. I like both styles. For me it comes down to function. I want to be able to explore in them and fly in them with full control. I don't want to select my coordinates from a limited number of choices on a map. I want to fly. FFXV allowed this again, but flying that car was a true nightmare. My only game over in that game was from crashing the car whilst attempting to land.

By its very nature the Final Fantasy franchise will never be completely free from Japanese tropes. In my opinion, however, these have never been too prominent when compared with other Japanese games. Since its inception, Final Fantasy has been heavily influenced by the Western market, Western tropes, cultures, and so on. There are the hyper characters like Vanille, but they haven't appeared to me to be the norm. I'd be happy with a varied cast of characters which are all unique in their own ways and have interesting backgrounds. Final Fantasy usually delivers this.

On the subject of censorship, I'd very much like to see dark themes tackled. FF does this quite well in certain games, but struggles with others. I want gritty grey areas. Something which makes us think about what we are doing.

 

[Raspberry]

I think having a mother as a protagonist is a great idea. Our very own Linnaete wrote a lovely article about the gap in the market there, and how Final Fantasy doesn't really depict mothers prominently at all (see Timber Maniacs issue 3 pages 23-31). It would be interesting to see this explored in a Final Fantasy game.

I'm glad someone else thinks this is an idea worth investing.

I would love to see the return of airships. I personally don't mind whether that would be the classic 'airship' (the floating boat) or the futuristic, spaceshipy style airships of later games. I like both styles. For me it comes down to function. I want to be able to explore in them and fly in them with full control. I don't want to select my coordinates from a limited number of choices on a map. I want to fly. FFXV allowed this again, but flying that car was a true nightmare. My only game over in that game was from crashing the car whilst attempting to land.

i just want airships to have a distinct design that separates from the plethora of generic sci-fi designs. The classical boat-like were more fantasy and iconic in my opinion. But really if it can create a unique and distinct style of airships, i wouldn't mind if they were on the sci-fi spectrum. Ever since FF7, i felt airships have never been as iconic as they once were.

Then again, i dont want FF to forget its roots.

By its very nature the Final Fantasy franchise will never be completely free from Japanese tropes. In my opinion, however, these have never been too prominent when compared with other Japanese games. Since its inception, Final Fantasy has been heavily influenced by the Western market, Western tropes, cultures, and so on. There are the hyper characters like Vanille, but they haven't appeared to me to be the norm. I'd be happy with a varied cast of characters which are all unique in their own ways and have interesting backgrounds. Final Fantasy usually delivers this.

Honestly, Vanille, Snow, and Prompto's personalities were so unrealistic that i couldn't even believe their backstories. It also has to do with some of the english directors trying too hard to match the same energy of their Japanese counterpart. These characters have all been in the latest Final Fantasy.

On the subject of censorship, I'd very much like to see dark themes tackled. FF does this quite well in certain games, but struggles with others. I want gritty grey areas. Something which makes us think about what we are doing.

Hopefully FF7 remake reminds Square Enix what made it amazing in the first place.

 

[Linnaete]

1) FFVII Remake is basically treated as the "next" big Final Fantasy release, and in conjunction with Final Fantasy XV a few years earlier, we're about to look at two consecutive offline releases with heavily modern settings and backdrops. I've absolutely nothing against more modern settings and I'm far from insinuating that they're unable to captivate me, especially as FFVII's Midgar (if done properly and expanded upon in the ways I'd like!) is so laden with visual and thematic traits of the cyberpunk genre that I can literally write an entire magazine article about it. But perhaps it's time for the next big installment to move away from concrete jungles, freshly tarmacked roads and vintage roadworthy vehicles for something a little different. Let's drop the fantasy based on reality thread for at least one release and be as whimsically fantastical as can be. Final Fantasy XIV's Eorzea is a solid example of what I'm asking for. It's a setting of relatively limited technology, where anything mysteriously high-tech originate from a forerunner civilisation, and it's a land utterly steeped, shaped and impacted by a variety of magical disasters. It's a land with diverse individual city states rife with their own individual problems and social issues that lend this otherwise alien, fantastical world something somewhat relatable and grounded, such as the city of Ul'dah, where ordinary folks eek a living disenfranchised from the oligarchical political process.

2) I'd rather the next installment veers as far away from the type of terrible shōnen anime that came to plague the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. I don't want to see another doofus like Snow acting like a kids' Saturday morning anime cartoon protagonist who got lost on the way to his own show. Stay away from that trope of the young teenage girl who is actually hundreds of years old and who gives off so many suggestive sounds in battle that would almost attract the attention of the FBI. It doesn't mean Final Fantasy can never take any inspiration from anime, because the thought of a Japanese developer utterly rejecting any and all inspiration from an entire domestic medium that like any other form of entertainment, has just as much good as it does the abominable, would be wholly unreasonable and disrespectful. Just...can we not take inspiration from the type of material that the otaku crowd incessantly crave for? Can we have a premier JRPG series on the market that doesn't attempt to gun heavily for that audience while alienating people like me who are sick and tired of the umpteenth oversexualised female character designs?

3) We've had countless teenage/young adult male protagonists. Let's aim for something more unique, and something relatively unconventional to the genre. The overwhelming positive reaction to John Wick older Noctis tells me there is indubitably a considerable demand for an older protagonist - preferably one who's already grown accustomed to a lot of the world's nonsense and wishes to do something to fix it. Turn that traditional setup of a young hero journeying with others as part of growing up on its head - have an older protagonist having already grown up, has witnessed countless injustice happen around them, and whom seeks to deliver meaningful change, because they believe adults have a positive duty to do something as opposed to act all jaded and incessantly cynical. And let's fill that party lineup with more unconventional choices. Let's have more non-human playable characters, because humans ultimately suck anyway. Let's have more parents in the party, especially mothers. It's about time video games stop sidelining or killing mothers off and put in more effort to give them a lot more agency in fantasy tales. Give us a prominent mother character in the party able to relay her personal experiences about motherhood, along with the emotions, journey and strife that come with being a mother.

4) FFXV had a great idea of an "overworld" but with oft-concealed entrances to dungeons that the player loads into seamlessly without the need of a loading screen. They should keep that and build on it to reward player exploration. The best RPGs are ones that let the player go off to discover things on their own and the last thing I want is to be completely railroaded to a corridor, doomed to only prance through fancy wallpapers masquerading as scenery without ever gaining the opportunity to interact with anything beyond.

5) JOBS SYSTEM. It's the best. I'm not even fussed about whether it's another action-oriented battle system or something more akin to traditional ATB. I just want a versatile jobs system that opens up a wealth of potential player options in battle. Bonus points if this system is versatile enough to allow me to choose whatever job I want for each character without feeling compelled to make McMusclehead here a burly, tanky warrior instead of a white mage just because they're innately higher in physical attack and defence.

6) I could list smaller wants, but I think ultimately the most important request at this point is for the next production to not be a complete headache able to give even the most stalwart of creative heads a total nervous breakdown. Since FFXII, at least three key figures within SE were either forced off their projects or ultimately decided to leave the company to avoid halving their remaining life expectancy. Heck, I'm not a fan of Hajime Tabata's games by any means, but the man must have poured ten years of vitality down the drain as producer just to turn the amorphous blob that was Final Fantasy Versus XIII into something resembling a playable product worthy of release (despite the litany of cut content, woeful storytelling and other curious and poorly executed directing decisions). No work environment like that can be physically and mentally healthy for anyone, much less when there's internal crisis within the company and they actively want to cultivate new talent for senior positions. There's a good chance they may announce Final Fantasy XVI this year to appease investors going into the next generation - in which case I hope it's not so early into production that we're about to witness a repeat of entering into both the 7th and 8th generations.

 

[Lysith3a]

I'm not sure modern FF is for me tbh. I haven't truly enjoyed a FF game since X. Sure I've been thrilled with the remakes and remasters for VII - X, but XII didn't do it for me when released, XIII I can live with but I don't really see it as a FF game per se, and I haven't even bothered playing XV.

I'm just hoping that VII:R reminds Square what made the series great and we see more of that influence going forward.