If you grew up playing Final Fantasy, you will surely remember the standard state from a long time ago, as well as other variants of turn-based combat. But the latter games in the series lack this, and it won’t be returning in the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI, as producer Naoki Yoshida explained in an interview with Famitsu (translated by VGC) like that.
Yoshida said that while he does understand the appeal of a turn-based system, younger gamers don’t:
“I’m from a generation that grew up in command and turn-based RPGs,” Yoshida said, “I think I understand how fun and immersive it can be. On the other hand, over the past decade or so, I’ve seen A lot of comments say “I don’t understand the appeal of command choice in video games”.
This opinion is only going to increase, especially for younger audiences who don’t usually play RPGs.
He went on to further explain his thoughts on this:
“With generations of consoles now, all character expressions can be done on the fly. Actions such as “press the trigger and your character will shoot” and “press the button and your character will swing their sword” can now be easily Express it without going through the command system.
Now, it’s common for gamers younger than me to enjoy games like this. So it seems pointless to make decisions in battle via command prompts (eg ‘combat’).
So, if he wants to sell more games, he has to make a Final Fantasy XVI action movie:
As I said, I believe I know the joys of command system RPGs and I want to keep developing them, but I think about the expected sales of Final Fantasy XVI and the impact we have to deliver.
Do you want Final Fantasy to return to turn-based combat again, or do you prefer action?