thedarkstark

Nah dude it's hard. You have to both micro-manage your actions (block, dodge, be positioned correctly) and macro-manage your health/MP and plan several steps ahead. And it's not a short fight either, it's like 10 minutes long. If you legitimately have zero interest in ever playing it you should watch a video of the fight on youtube.

Relative to other games in the same genre (action RPG as opposed to turn-based) yeah they're pretty dead. Persona 5's 7.5 million to Witcher 3's 50 million. As much as I hate it these companies only exist to make money, why would a studio as big as Squenix dump the kind of budget into a game with an almost 10x smaller player base?

Final Fantasy 16 Cutscenes Longer Than Entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy Runtime GAMERANT.COM Square Enix producer Naoki Yoshida reveals that the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 will have several hours of cutscenes. Even if it's all rendered in-engine that's a lot of time & a lot of dialogue

So here's the thing if we're talking about a mainline FF game, we know they're spending tens of millions if not hundreds of millions on CGI sequences alone, it's just what they do and it's part of what makes Final Fantasy unique. How many copies would a game with that type of budget need to sell to break even? 5 million? 8 million? I know it's a fucking lot. DQ11 - a little surprised by those numbers but I know it's way more popular in the East so not shocked but again miniscule budget. Persona 5 - Does that number include all 13 different versions that they've released? Again definitely way lower budget than FF17 would be. Yakuza - I think this is the one that comes closest in budget, but no actual numbers would definitely be curious. The rest don't count, either totally different genre or not a full priced game. It's not that I think there's zero interest in a turn-based game, but they don't really have the casual gamer appeal that action RPGs have garnered (Witcher 3 hit 50 million, Elden Ring is at 20). Again the main thing that would keep a true turn-based mainline game from being viable is cost/sales ratio. I'd love to be wrong but as long as they keep pumping out lower budget bangers like Bravely Default I'll be happy.

Pokemon is such an outlier though, it's one of the most recognizable things in pop culture period. Like you could ask 10 random people on the street and 9/10 would be able to name at least 1 pokemon. No other RPG of any kind has ever or will ever have that type of mainstream appeal. It was already very popular but the cartoons and trading cards vaulted it into the stratosphere. I definitely agree budget & marketing have a lot to do with how successful a game would or could be but like the most successful turn-based game I can think of in the last 15 years is Fire Emblem 3 houses sold 4 million copies and then the very next entry in the series (Engage) is right back to normal sales (1.5 mill) With how bloated production costs on a massive mainline FF game I don't really see them being able to generate a profit on a turn-based game anymore but I'd love to see it happen.

I really like the bravely games and I agree it'd be great if they made more but like octopath BD2 only sold just over a million copies. I'm sure with the much lower budget they're still getting nice profit but they may not see it as priority because they can make some shitty mobile game with 99% reused assets for 1/10th the cost and get the same or better ROI.

Not a full price $70 game, nowhere remotely close to a billion people playing.

Same, and yeah I agree 15 wasn't a good game and 12 also had my favorite battle system but that's just not what big budget rpgs are anymore and I've come to terms with that. I'm just glad they finally have a director with a vision that they stuck to and they hired very competent people to work on the battle system. We'll see how it turns out soon.

Except you're wrong. I prefer the turn-based games better but it's pretty much a dead genre that mostly only older gamers play. Final Fantasy 15 sold nearly 11 million copies, 2nd only to FF7. FF11 & 14 also sold extremely well and are the most profitable. Obviously it doesnt have the same budget or name recognition but compare that to the paltry 1 million units Octopath 2 sold it's pretty obvious what the majority of gamers want in 2023. We're just old. I think 99% of new music especially mumble rap is dogshit, but that's what sells. Yelling at clouds ain't going to change that.

I think like 95% of video game stories range between horrendously bad & corny but entertaining. Ocassionally there are some gems like the Last of Us but I don't really understand the "play video games for the story" crowd. Netflix originals wouldn't even throw money at this garbage 😴 It seems like they put a heavy focus on the story in this one but I have very low expectations.

like 1-2 days a week, unless I get really invested in something then it's like 24/7 for a bit.

Any place that has food that sits out in those little tin pans for hours, or has 16 years olds working in the kitchen is a major food poisoning risk, chipotle has both soooo yeah.

No it's on my wrist but now that you mention it I am considering getting a 2nd...

Hey man... don't be rude to those of us who actually have a barcode tattoo and no it has nothing to do with Hitman or Idiocracy, it's on my wrist, I got it when I was 18 it's the only tattoo I have and I don't regret it at all other than the stupid questions I occasionally get.

I haven't played but there's like no chance it doesn't have RNG loot drops (some with exceptionally low %) and paid cosmetics. When I played WoW I was obsessed with getting all the mounts, I spent an ungodly amount of time running dungeons/raids and staking out the ultra-rare spawning ones (time-lost proto-drake, phosphorescent stone drake). And this was all before games were intentionally malicious. Just because you personally aren't susceptible to the fomo doesnt mean it doesn't exist. That's why damn near every game now has a battle pass, they want your $10 but what they really want is your time because studies have shown the more time you play the more likely you are to spend money on things like cosmetics. I want to go back to the days where people were outraged at horse armor. Sorry for ranting I'm sure ff14 is one of the least egregious offenders. I'm just really annoyed at the state of gaming and late-stage capitalism.

Yes, that's exactly the issue. These games are intentionally designed to prey on people with addictive tendencies and monopolize their time with fomo. Like they literally have conferences on the human psyche and how to prey upon it which again the loot box games are even worse because they're looking for "whales" who might be spending every dime they have. Gambling addiction is a very real thing that runs a lot if lives. I've never gambled in my life because I know what type of personality I have, but I've played a few of the "ultimate team" modes in sports games and ended up spending hundreds of dollars I wont buy another. The daily login and fomo stuff scratches a similar itch for me and many others, but it eventually just becomes literally a job that is not fun but you do it because sunk cost. I'm not going to judge anyone who plays these games maybe they have more restraint than I do but again they're intentionally designed to target people who don't.

I'm a blue-chip recruit, I need to be wooed and you're out here trying to make me do searches? I will do it next time I log in

Send me an invite breh

Neither. Wired headset in 2023 is laughable and Meta is a steaming pile of shit. Forget about the privacy stuff don't really care about that, but needing to login/update every god damn time I use the headset is the most annoying thing in the world and much like the facebook interface it just gets more and more bloated and slow with every update. The actual hardware is great but fuck Meta, fuck DRM.

Live service games are a 2nd job, I'll never play one ever again. They can be fun but because there are so many people who no-life it, they have to pad out content by making things extremely grindy, and by having daily login rewards etc. "F2P games" like Genshin are even worse because they're loaded with micro-transactions and lootboxes, which is going to cost the average person $100's of dollars a month to keep up. Meanwhile people will defend it being like "I'm F2P and I have everything bro!" while they sit in their mom's basement playing 80 hours a week. Yeah no shit you have everything, you haven't had a job in 10 years Travis and please wash your Hatsune Miku body pillow it fucking stinks!

Yeah I know about stagger, it works fine in FF13, & 7 Remake (Xenoblade 2 had a similar system aslo), but it works in those games because they aren't pure action games,. They don't require you to be on your toes and have nearly perfect reactions for such an extended period of time. DMC3 is probably my favorite action game and boss battles are like 3 minutes max and almost every action game I can think of falls relatively in line with that. Maybe it works great, all the previews have been gushing about it, so I'm still hyped until I have a reason not to be.

If I have a complaint/worry, it's that enemies seem a bit spongy. If it's a full on action game battles shouldn't be lasting 6-7 minutes. Other than that everything I've seen looks fantastic.

Haters: Seriously if you think it's going to suck so much why are you wasting your time talking about a bad game? If it sucks everyone will find out in like 2 weeks, and nobody is going to give you a cookie for "calling it." Like it's actually kind of getting a bit sad.

People who participate in the culture war bullshit are just the lowest IQ clowns who live in completely insular communities. They're not even worth arguing with or trying to rehabilitate, just ignore them & let them live in their miserable little existence of their own making.

Mario is Liam Neeson, change my mind.