There’s been an undercurrent of opinion, ever since Clear obscure: Expedition 33 took audiences abruptly earlier this 12 months, that the method taken by the turn-based fantasy RPG is the treatment for every little thing that ails Remaining Fantasy. It delivers an old-school tackle the style that’s a lot much less flawed than each Remaining Fantasy XVI and Remaining Fantasy VII Rebirth, garnering rave critiques, GOTY buzz, and spectacular gross sales for a first-time studio. Remaining Fantasy followers have been jealous.
“Jesus, I see what you’ve carried out for Clear and I would like that for us,” you possibly can virtually hear them pleading. There’s been a seek for what the Sq. Enix franchise, which Sandfall Interactive’s Clear was impressed by, can be taught from the brand new child on the block. For some long-time followers, one of many takeaways has been that the Japanese collection ought to return to its roots as a turn-based sport. Remaining Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida was requested about that at Anime Expo 2025.
“With this query of turn-based versus motion, it tends to isolate the gameplay to simply the battle system,” he responded. “That doesn’t bear in mind what sort of sport the creators need to ship to gamers. For instance, primarily based on a sure graphical high quality we need to current to our gamers, or the narrative we need to ship to our gamers, it pertains to how we arrange the sport’s methods round it.”
Yoshida continued, “This contains the battle system, sport design, and gameplay really feel. It’s not a clear-cut reply, whether or not it would change into all turn-based, or if it’s going to change into extra action-based. (I’m) not essentially going to be on Remaining Fantasy 17so we additionally don’t need to impede or restrict our future director or whomever shall be producing the video games like 17 and even 18. We don’t need to put them on a rail.”
The reply helped elucidate all the issues that go into designing a sequel. You possibly can’t simply choose issues from an inventory and begin sticking them collectively. Every aspect, from the graphical type to the kind of story being instructed to the gameplay mechanics, wants to go with each other and act in concord. Ideally, every factor would possibly circulation organically into the subsequent, making every new determination really feel like a pure consequence of the final relatively than one thing being arbitrarily inserted to please followers or shareholders.
One thing I believe lots of the conversations lording Clear over Remaining Fantasy’s head miss are that fight isn’t the place the latter has faltered in recent times. Remaining Fantasy XVI’s arcade-like real-time motion is flashy, exact, and extremely satisfying. The one actual shortcomings have been that it didn’t dive deeper into a number of the underlying methods—extra Eikon capability synergies, elemental injury, extra diverse gear choices—and it wasn’t exhausting sufficient . Every of these is definitely iterated on in a sequel, because the collection has carried out all through its historical past.
Remaining Fantasy VII Rebirth presents an excellent greater rebuttal to the turn-based query in my thoughts as a result of that’s primarily nonetheless what it’s. Remaining Fantasy fight has lengthy operated on a continuum between static and real-time, going again to the collection’ introduction of the ATB system to let enemies act unbiased of participant decision-making. For this reason Sq. Enix typically refers to Rebirth as a command fight system. When you can transfer round in battles and positioning is necessary, crucial duties are all automated by the characters themselves and carried out by deciding on them from a menu. There are dodges, parries, synergies, summons, and all the remaining, however at its core it’s already working off the identical logic as Clear’s fight system, and in far more strong methods.
It’s completely wonderful if followers simply desire a new Remaining Fantasy that marries costly graphics with a standard turn-based system, although there are not any scarcity of different RPGs on the market, together with many from Sq. Enix itself, that already cater to these traditional sensibilities. However the fight itself is way from the weakest a part of the fashionable entries within the franchise. What’s truly holding it again, surely, are the tales. I’m not going to relitigate each flip in every of the sprawling adventures launch during the last decade. I’d argue Remaining Fantasy storytelling has been on the decline for the reason that finish of the PS2 era with Ffxiia still-stellar sport for loads of different causes. Rebirth and Ffxvi each had evident points, although.
Rebirth is a world-class sport in so some ways, from the cinematic presentation to the maximalist open-world design, nevertheless it bungles most of the authentic supply materials’s most necessary moments with out offering attention-grabbing new interpretations, tensions, or epiphanies in return. The Gold Saucer part is an ideal encapsulation. The theme park is fantastically and entertainingly recreated and chock stuffed with enjoyable distractions. However Barret’s backstory of getting his YIMBY idealism exploited by Shinra to show his hometown right into a Mako-harvesting dump will get quick shrift and feels hollowed out. His encounter with Dyne, the buddy whose life he unintentionally ruined, is overshadowed by a cartoony infusion of clear-cut moralism. It was certainly one of many narrative misfires up and thru Rebirth’s weird ending.
Ffxvi faltered much more regularly. For each nice character second between Clive, Joshua, and Cid, there was one thing within the bigger narrative about geopolitical rivalries and enslaved magic customers that was both straight-up dumb or borderline offensive. It by no means fairly grapples with the stakes of its grim worldbuilding earlier than finally ditching all of it for some old-school Remaining Fantasy guy-in-the-sky deus ex machina shit that undermines every little thing gamers had beforehand change into so emotionally invested in. I say this with full love for the sport as a complete, which I’m at present enjoying a second time, however Ffxvi lives as much as its Sport of Thrones influences with a 3rd act that’s each bit as disappointing as the top of the HBO collection.
My take away from Clear obscure, then, is just not that RPGs have to be turn-based to seek out love once more, however that even a turn-based RPG can win over fashionable audiences if the story, appearing, and presentation are all high notch. There is no such thing as a motive the subsequent Remaining Fantasy can’t do all of these issues on high of harnessing the franchise’s present fight methods. For everybody else, properly, Dragon Quest XII shouldn’t be that far-off.
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