Ugh, CHRIST. No. Absolutely not. The one thing that Star Wars consistently gets wrong is all of the goddamn connections and over-explaining. In a universe so big Star Wars constantly makes it feel small by having exactly the sort of crap you’re describing.

...case of DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim, and offender)

Trepang2 came out this week on Steam, is rated “overwhelmingly positive” and is a single player FPS. If Doom (1993) and Quake are your jam, there are dozens of retro shooters on Steam that are single player as well.

Enough with the knee-jerk use of the term “grooming.” It sure sounds like she was/is a manipulative asshole, but was she using her celebrity status to entice minors into sexual activities with her?

“From body shaming to being sexualized on stage” is not grooming. Oversharing, verbal abuse? Not grooming.

The menu system comes from the series having its roots in Dungeon and Dragons tabletop ... which has a turn-based combat system. Action RPGs are not new in the slightest. The first Ys game came out in 1987, the same year as the first Final Fantasy, and the Mana series wasn’t far behind. It is a style, not a tech…

Okay, but not really? Like, if you want to compare it to other series it’s certainly not been any more experimental with its mechanics any more than Pokemon or Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil or The Legend of Zelda or even friggin’ Super Mario.

Okay, but that is not what we’re talking about.

I never mentioned a thing about graphics, it looks good, a bit generic medevil fantasy, but it’s certainly pretty. That’s not my issue, it’s a hack and slash action game with basically 0 RPG elements. That’s not Final Fantasy to me. No more parties mean if the main character is boring then too bad, you’re stuck…

No, but I’m also arguing that enthusiasts should be smart enough to recognize when they’re missing the forest for the trees. I am happy to talk about all the mechanical differences between different Final Fantasy games, but I’m also well aware that for the most part they aren’t really meaningful in the grander…

“ I am about so many people asserting that Final Fantasy games have always been about reinvention.”

That comparison really only works if we are considering “character action game” as the natural endpoint to “menu-based RPGs”, which despite your assertion I don’t believe is true nor do I think most people would agree with.

I don’t get why more people don’t understand this. Sure, it changes things up in more ways than a series like Tales or Dragon Quest or Phantasy Star would when looking at a series of games in a franchise but it has hardly ever not been within the framework of the JRPG genre (even if they may not like that term).…

Well said overall. I’m perfectly fine with people loving FFXVI, more power to them, but this odd assertion that this was a natural turn for the franchise, one seen coming based on previous games evolution over the decades, just doesn’t track.

If the next James Bond movie is a rom-com, is it actually a *James Bond* movie?
If the next Song of Ice and Fire book is a hard sci-fi action romp, is it actually a *Song of Ice and Fire* book?
If the next Final Fantasy RPG game is an action game, is it actually a *Final Fantasy* game?

JFC i’m so tired of people trying to convince me this is final fantasy 

I like football. If I go to an NFL game and they play Curling, that’s the issue.

I am way less annoyed by FFXVI becoming an action game than I am about so many people asserting that Final Fantasy games have always been about reinvention. Maybe that’s true in terms of setting & narrative (and I would argue you’d have to really stretch the idea of what narrative “reinvention” means in an anthology…

The other kid was cooler anyway.

Check him out wearing this sweet Neurosis t-shirt.

Diablo 2 is orders of magnitude slower to level in compared to Diablo 4. Diablo 3 made leveling a non-issue. Which then lead to a TON of negative feedback and thus paragon levels were added which never ends.

The OceanGate CEO definitely isn’t going to listen now.