Square Enix’s flagship series has been on an uptick over the past few years, thanks in part to the success of titles likeFinalFantasy 15andFinal Fantasy 7 Remake. However, if the long-running developer wants to keep fan appreciation for thestoriedFinal Fantasyserieshigh, thenFinal Fantasy 16may need avoid attempting to ride modern success and look back at the series' roots.
This wouldn’t be the first time thatFinal Fantasyhas looked back at earlier entries in the series in order to reach back for success by keeping to the core themes and mechanics that made the series what it is in the first place. One of the most important of these themes is the “fantasy” aspect of the series, a focus that Square Enix has taken before in highly successful titles likeFinal Fantasy 9and should replicate inFinal Fantasy 16.
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Final Fantasy 9’s focus on Fantasy over Sci-Fi
Before Square Enix had even finished wrapping up the PS1 release of the heavily sci-fi themedFinal Fantasy 8, work had already begun on what would eventually become the heavily fantasy basedFinal Fantasy 9. However, during this development, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi made the decision that this newest installment needed to return to the high-fantasy concepts of earlier games. At this point, bothFinal Fantasy 7and8had been grand science-fiction adventures, and Sakaguchi reportedly feared that this might cause the games to become repetitive and unoriginal if the next entry in the series continued this trend.
To a degree, the same situation is now repeating itself again before thearrival ofFinal Fantasy 16, withFinal Fantasy 15and7 Remakeboth being heavily sci-fi themed with only a minor focus on high-fantasy. The most recent installment to lean on those previous fantasy themes has beenFinal Fantasy 14, which originally launched almost a full decade ago in 2010, although the currentA Realm Rebornversion released in 2013. This means that it’s been almost 10 years since a new fantasy based title has launched from theFinal Fantasyseries that are more than expansions to the franchise’s most recent MMO.
Improve Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s ATB gauge
Looking at theinfluenceFinal Fantasy 7 Remakemight have on future games in the series, it’s important to note how the core mechanics that setsFinal Fantasyapart from other JRPGs have aged. One mechanic in particular, the Active Time Battle guage, or ATB, is easily one of the most iconic features that has made combat in this series much more active and require quick decisions in the otherwise slow, turn-based system. This is something that the recent remake has managed to bring into modern gaming with a heavy focus on hack and slash action, while still maintaining many of the turn-based tenants that made the original so popular.
All that being said, the system is far from perfect, especially when it comes to the active input required to bring the ATB up for party members, and the connection between keeping on the offensive and healing. An improvement on the aggression of AI companions would go a long way towards streamlining combat in any other games that continue to implement theFinal Fantasy 7 Remakecombat system, hopefully includingFinal Fantasy 16. There is clearly an intentionally crafted balance when it comes to how enemy aggression relates to which character is currently being controlled, but the rarity of freely available ATB bars bleeds into hindering features from healing to summons.
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Keep Summons Simple
One of the features that madeFinal Fantasy 10so popularamong fans of the series involved the mechanics surrounding summons, powerful monsters that can be called in to attack enemies. However,Final Fantasy 10was the first main installment in the series to let players control these monsters, called Aeons in the game, and use them for multiple turns throughout a battle. Previously, these creatures would be summoned for a single attack before leaving the field and leaving the rest of the battle to act itself out without their continued interference.
More recent installments in the series have repeatedly tried to lean towardsFinal Fantasy 10’s “summoned ally” system to varying degrees of success thatFinal Fantasy 16should do its best to avoid. Unfortunately, none of these attempts to bring a temporary ally into the battlefield to fight alongside the player has quite matched up to how they felt the first time this system appeared. Even summons as strong asBahamut inFinal Fantasy 7 Remakejust don’t feel as satisfying to call out as Ifrit in either the original game, or theFinal Fantasy 10variant, felt to rain fire on a group of enemies.
An Enjoyable Airship
Far and beyond the summons, one of the largest changes inFinal Fantasy 10that had previously been a staple for the series, is the new way that the airship works as less of a flyable vehicle and more of a map with a menu. This is due largely in part to the way thatmore recent titles have been built around traveling through interconnected maps in order to give theworlds ofFinal Fantasya much more natural and realistic feel. As a result, it has become impossible to make the airships as mobile as they had previously been without the open landscape dotted with towns and dungeons to zoom around the sky in.
The only exclusion to this rule in the last decade and a half has beenFinal Fantasy 15with Noctis' Regalia, specifically with the Regalia Type-F that can be unlocked after hunting down pieces through a number of quests. However, whileFinal Fantasy 15does have an airship, only available long after most of the open world has been left behind by the story, it certainly isn’t as fun to fly around in than the vehicles found in titles fromFinal Fantasy 2through9. While it might be a big ask for an entertaining airship inFinal Fantasy 16, utilizing the capabilities of Next-Gen consoles and pushing the open world design could allow for some of the best experiences putting players in the sky in the whole series.
Final Fantasy 16is rumored to be in development now.
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