The Ringer-Verse - Nintendo Direct News and 'Final Fantasy XVI' Spoiler-Free Reactions | Button Mash

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

It is time to boot up again and dive into the world of video games with Ben, Jessica, and Justin! In this episode, they discuss the latest news from this month's Nintendo Direct, and all of the news of remakes and remasters being worth it (06:29). Then, they break down their personal history with the 'Final Fantasy' series, and what staples from the JRPG genre have carried over into the modern era (28:49), all before giving their full spoiler-free thoughts on the latest numbered entry in the series, 'Final Fantasy XVI' (46:31). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Guest: Justin Charity Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello reality TV fans. I'm Juliet Litman and I want to tell you about our brand new ringer reality TV podcast. On the feed right now, we are covering the Bachelor franchise of Amelia Weddemire, the challenge with winner Johnny Bananas, Survivor with Survivor winner Tyson Apostle, and the Great British Bakeoff with my colleagues Amelia and Kate Hallowell. Plus, Callie Curry and I pop on there sometimes talking about our best love shows. So follow the Ring of Reality TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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thinking I was the uncertain one luckily two out of three of us have faith in you and it all starts here time to earn that menacing title Sid the vicious was it we're almost there anyone having second thoughts not me we're with you to the end then what are we right to hello And welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Belmondberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, as the old man in the legend of Zelda said, it's dangerous to go alone. And so I am joined once again by either my co-host or her secret scroll stand-in,

Jessica Clemens, hello, Jessica. Ooh, who knows? Who knows? Who knows he's here right now? You know. Yeah, you're the expert on secret invasion. I hope this is you. Either way, whether it's Skrull Jessica or normal Jessica, she's still a party. Yes, exactly. I mean, she would have to be to blend in, to be an imposter of the real Jessica.

Like Final Fantasy 16th, Clive, Jill, and Torgle, I want to be Torgle. We have formed a three-person party today because we are summoning a friend and Final Fantasy head whose takes are hotter than a freak. Ringer, senior staff writer, Justin Charity.

Justin, you joined us last time too. So thanks for responding so soon. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me, Ben. This is the second installment of the regular gaming pod. Jess and I are hosting here on the Ringiverse, and we still don't know its name. Jess, I guess we've got to get on that one of these days.

Yeah, we got to. I think we just got to do it. We just got to do it. I think the names I came up with are too corny, and so I'm like, any suggestions I will take. But then sometimes I think biting the bullet and also being like, even though I think it's corny, maybe someone else doesn't think it's corny. But I also will take any and all suggestions. We're desperate.

We're not really desperate, but we are definitely taking suggestions. I am desperate. We can't even whisper working title like Mal and Joe do because we haven't even come up with a working title yet. But we will pick something soon. For now, the suggestion box is still open. So if you want to give us a great title or request that we cover something or just say hello, please email us at Ring Reverse Gaming at gmail.com. Thanks to everyone who got in touch last time.

And look, we couldn't postpone this podcast until we knew what to call it because there's too much to discuss. Video game blockbuster season is upon us. First, today, we will react to some Nintendo news and announcements because, as it turns out, Nintendo is topping off the year of Metroid Prime Remastered and Tears of the Kingdom and the Super Mario movie with multiple Mario games, one of which is a remake of 1996 classic. Super Mario RPG, which has us wondering whether we've reached peak remake in gaming. And if so, whether that's good or bad, we will talk about it.

But mostly, we will discuss Final Fantasy 16. We will get into the evolution of the Final Fantasy franchise. We'll ask some deep existential probing questions. What is a Final Fantasy game? What is an RPG? Why are we here? Where do we go when we die without a Phoenix down? Why do you build knowing destruction is inevitable?

We can't answer all those questions, especially the one that was a Kafka quote for Final Fantasy 6. But we will answer some of them. I respect it. It's so hard. And we will also give you our extensive spoiler-free impressions of Final Fantasy 16. It is safe to proceed if you've not yet started or if you've just started. Finally, we will contemplate which other franchises we would want to try a Final Fantasy 16-style reinvent But ringerverse programming reminders.

On Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will react instantly to Secret Invasion Episode 2. And on Thursday, House of R will do their deep dive. This weekend, Jess will have her video breakdown. Just, I am lost. I really do need to know who the secret skulls are. So I hope that you are on top of the situation. Hey, I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be.

Also, stay tuned for a House of Midnight team up on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny coming to you Friday. I say this as someone who tends to trust review aggregators. The mediocre dial of destiny scores are a travesty. The movie is good. Jess, can you please back me up on this? No, 100%. I was going in with, which I try not to go too hard with reviews all the time, but I was like, oh, I heard the reviews about this. I understand. And going in as I'm not, when I say I'm not a huge fan of Indiana Jones, it's that like, I'm not like, I don't fan girl for Indiana Jones. I was like, this is very fun. I like it, but I don't really know too much in depth about it. But seeing the movie, I was like, no, this is very fun. What is everyone

talking about? And then when I left the theater, everyone was like, no, this was really fun. What was everyone talking about? And I think that's just the problem it had going into the CAMS film festival. You're going into a place that's ready for critics to blow up on your spot and a big motion picture like that. Oh, it's going to be pooped on. Yes. It's going to be pooped. But it was great. It lowered expectations. It was the reverse flash, right? I went in thinking, this might not be that good. And then it was great.

So don't choose poorly, choose wisely, go see Dial Destiny and then check your feeds for the pod. We are not going to talk about Indiana Jones today. Other than that, although there is an Indiana Jones video game coming from Bethesda. Someday, we will talk about that when it arrives. But today, we are talking about some other coming attractions. Last week, Nintendo laid out its release schedule for the Switch for the second half of the year, which had been basically a blank slate after next month's Pickman 4, which I am looking forward to playing, even though Pickman 3 co-op placed a significant strain on my marriage.

I don't know if you two have had this experience, but the right co-op game can be a beautiful bonding exercise. Like, it takes two, for instance, which is ironically about the end of a marriage, but other co-ops can get contentious. Co-op can tear people apart as easily as it can bring them together. So you need to pick your co-op partners and your co-op games wisely or else you might end up at each other's throats. 100%. I also think like it takes two, it takes a little bit of everybody. It takes too. It takes a little bit of everybody. But like there are some co-op games where I'm like, I feel like I'm pulling most of the weight and I need you to pull up some of it. I'm carrying this co-op team right now. You need to get it together. And then I get to a fight and then we break up as friends,

as a mother and daughter, what have you. And then I move on to the next. co-op game. The nice thing about that game is that you can each go your separate ways. You can wander around, right, because it was a design from the ground up as a co-op game, whereas other co-op games where you're both kind of warring with each other about, I want to go this way and I want to go that way. And you have to stay on the same screen and you have to coordinate. It just, it can get ugly, even if you're playing with someone you love. So be careful out there. So the switch is well into its seventh year. Hardware sales are slowing, but the user base is huge. and the first-party lineup post-Tiers of the kingdom is still going strong.

So at this Nintendo Direct, which followed the PlayStation Showcase and the Xbox and Bethesda showcase now, it was Nintendo's turn. Another no-show for the mythical beasts that are the Switch Pro and Metroid Prime 4 someday, maybe. But as expected, we got an announcement of a new Mario game, Super Mario Brothers Wonder. See, I just lapsed from Mario into Mario. There's my New York Mario. pronunciation coming out involuntarily. But October 20th, 2023, Super Mario Brothers Wonder,

the first traditional side-scrolling Super Mario games since New Super Mario Brothers U in 2012. And Justin and I was thinking of this because when we did our second Zelda pod a while back, we were talking about the future of Zelda and how it would be nice if they could find a way to kind of mix and match and alternate between old school and new school style Zelda's, whereas it seems like they're just focusing on the new open world mold. And that's kind of in contrast with Mario, where you have a mixture of 3D increasingly open worlds like Odyssey and Bowser's Fury. And then you have these 2D old school side scrollers in between,

which is kind of nice. I think that's the model that I would kind of like to see for Zelda and a lot of things, maybe even Final Fantasy, but we'll get to that. Yeah, I read this whole piece, right, about how it seems like on the switch at least, Zelda as a franchise feels like it has kind of in a way overtaken Mario is the mascot of the Switch, right? But it does, it's kind of nice that on the Switch Mario gets to be more of a sandbox franchise

in a way. Like it gets to be just whatever it wants to be and it feels kind of like it's at a lower stakes point in the overall history of Super Mario Brothers. But that's nice, right? Like, I do spend a lot of time with my white playing, you know, Mario Party, right? And, like, that's cool, right? Like, yeah, I don't know. I feel, like, way more open to stuff, like, the remake stuff and the sort of alternating

between 2D and 3D stuff with Mario. Like, you know, it's all over the place and it's fine on the Switch. We also played some co-op Mario as well, I guess, new Super Mario Brothers, U-Dilux. And that didn't go so great either at times. I don't know. We just need to do a better job of our title selection. But this game's coming out in October. It looks fun.

And it means that if you thought the May and June video game release calendar was crowded, what we're dealing with these days going from Tears of the Kingdom to Diablo to Final Fantasy with no break in between. Just wait for the September October deluge. Because we've got cyberpunk DLC, Mortal Kombat 1, Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Assassin Creatorses, Mirage, Allen Wake 2, Spider-Man, too. This feels like where Mal and Joe would say, have you heard of it, lads, right? What are we going to do when all those games come out at one time?

I mean, you can't have all these games come out within a month. We need a month for each of these games. Yeah, you're going to have to choose wisely. Yeah. You're going to have to choose wisely. And I feel like with our job, it's like we're going to have to choose the one. Yeah, I was like, we're going to play as many as we can. But we're also going to have to choose the ones first that the audience would want us to play.

Maybe we can switch it up. we can take turns. Someone go, someone go with this way first. I choose Alan Wake. Let me do Alan Wake first. And then you, okay, I'll take Alan Wake.

I'll take Alan Wake. Oh, I throw away Mortal Kombat and Spider-Man. Okay, well, you know, I'm going to play those regardless. So those are going to be on the side. We'll follow the will of the people. We'll crowdsource it. I guess choosing wisely is the theme of this episode so far,

very last crusady. So good time to have a video game podcast, however we do it. Other Nintendo News, there's a new Princess Peach game coming out next year. And also, Daisy is making her playable debut in Super Mario Brothers Wonder. So some underserved women characters getting a little share of the spotlight here finally from Nintendo.

I guess Peach got a glow up in the Super Mario Brothers movie. And this is her first starring video game rule since the possibly sort of sexist Super Princess Peach in 2005. I had that game on my DS. I had the Princess Peach game. And I remember as a child loving it, but then going back to it, I was like, wait, why is her emotions charging a lot of the situations that are going on? Wait, point of order.

I literally until we passed around this outline for this episode, had never heard of this super princess beach game. What is this game? It was a Princess Beach game. That was basically kind of like the Mario game, but it was, it was, she didn't get any leverage that Mario got. Mario got like this big breath to do anything. And she,

It was very, like, you can do only a little bit, and your emotions are charging a lot of the actions in what you're doing. So if you get frustrated, you can't go forward for a minute and, like, a bunch of other weird stuff. But it came out on the Nintendo, I think it was the second DS. And I remember getting it, because my mom, my mom was just trying to get her little girl, any girl feminine games that she could play.

So between that and Nintendo dogs, I was like, I don't really like these games. But I still cheer for it. I'm still looking forward to it. I think a lot of also females that are women, people identify as women are feminine that love Peach would really, are really rooting for this. We wanted to go really far. When they even explore Daisy, I screamed at my screen because I love Daisy. We don't get a lot of representation in the Mario game.

So it's like, this is the best we're going to kind of get for a minute. That sounded really sad at the end. But I have hopes. I have hopes for this Princess Peach game. I think they're going to take the notes from the DS1 and go, oh, we should go the opposite route. We should go the opposite way. And then we'll wait and see when Zelda gets her game.

Now, we'll see when Rosalina gets her game. That's when the stakes is high. That stakes is high. Rosalina. I'm going to scream when she gets a game and I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to be, you guys will not hear from me for like two days fully. I'm going to be so excited when she gets her own game. Well, Waluigi's weight continues as well. Anyway, Detective Pikachu returns also coming.

WarioWare Move It is coming. Many multi-platform releases and ports Arkham trilogy. We'll see how that all runs on. switch vampire survivors, but maybe the biggest surprise is a remake of Squares S&S spin-off Super Mario RPG. That's coming in November, also announced for November an HD2D remake of Enix's 1998 PS1 RPG Star Ocean, the second story. So we have a new Square remake and a new EX remake before we even get to Square Enex's latest release, Final Fantasy 16, and Square Enoch's is in the midst of its own blockbuster remake trilogy with Final Fantasy

7 rebirth coming early next year. By the way, before we recorded, we debated how to pronounce square Enix slash edix. Jess is on team Edix. No, I understand. Hey, I understand now the situation. I was saying NX. I was saying, like, the letter N and X. It's defensible.

Yeah. Charity says Enix. I used to say Enoch, but then I went down an internet rabbit hole. and I came out thinking Enix is actually correct. So it's Ubisoft and Ubisoft all over again. I don't know if we might just

have a war of words on this podcast. I think the secret to this is like it's kind of like when people debate, you know, how to talk about like Diddy, Pete, and it's actually just puffy, right? You just got to go back to the original name.

And it's just so it's Square Soft. Just square. The correct name is Squaresoft. And that's what we're going with. That works for me. Yeah. You say Edix. I say Edix.

We'll just say squeeze. Yeah. So. So this is a huge year for remakes yet again. I mean, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, System Shock, advanced wars, one and two reboot camp, alone in the dark, possibly Silent Hill 2 at some point, many more on the way this year and in coming years,

including Cotor, maybe someday, a game we may revisit soon, 20th anniversary coming up next month. Obviously, you have sort of squishy distinctions between remakes and remasters and enhanced ports, etc. all kinds of terms for different versions of these games. You might just have a re-release like Metal Gear Solid Master Collection, which is coming soon, versus the MGS3 remake, which is kind of a ground-up reimagining,

sort of similar with Final Fantasy, right? You have your Final Fantasy pixel remasters versus the FF7 remakes, which are a whole different thing. So Wired just labeled this the golden age of video game remakes, and we just wanted to take a minute to discuss whether we're, happy or sad about that, whether we're tired of all the remakes, whether we want more. I think why it's happening, it's sort of similar to the trend toward remakes and reboots and sequels and prequels and spinoffs in movies and TV, right?

There's less risk in established brands and nostalgia. AAA game development keeps getting harder and longer and pricier. It's easier to remake something than to start from scratch. So is this good or bad? I know you have lots of thoughts on this charity. Well, yeah, because I actually disagree with you that remake culture and games works the way it does in movies or TV or anything like that. Because it's a huge part of it in games, right? I wrote a piece about this.

I want to say like six months ago, right, about how you have this huge problem in gaming of, you know, take a game like Resident Evil 2, the original Resident Evil 2. If you wanted to play the original Resident Evil 2, great. How do you plan to do that? Right. There's nothing you can play it on. you can emulate it, right? But there's no way for you to play it, right? It's all because of how hardware works,

how, you know, what it means for there to be console generations. Even if you're talking about a PC game, like sometimes, I don't know. Like, it's games don't always sort of like age well technologically. And it's not even a matter of like, what if a game is 20 years old. Sometimes a game that came out five years ago, you can have a hard time literally playing it. So in a lot of, in gaming culture, you end up at this problem of like, Remaic culture is trying to solve this actually really practical problem of rights issues and code bases and all of these other things sort of getting out of date and getting kind of like swept up and companies going bankrupt and stuff like that, right?

It's like it's trying to solve that practical problem of not being able to play old games and kind of just remaking them, right? rather than finding a way to bring them into the present. And I find that kind of like sad and fascinating. But it makes it a little more complicated than, you know, why are you making, you know, another version of the Batman origin story, right? In film. But I also think it's, I've come around to remade culture and games because I just like a lot of how the projects I'm most likely to care about turn out.

I like how the Resident Evil stuff has turned out, right? Like two and three. A lot of people dump on the three remake. I like three remake. I love Four remake. I love Final Fantasy Seven remake so far. It's like hard for me to argue with the results, even if I want to be a bit skeptical or even cynical

about the motivations for a lot of it, you know? It works with some games, but I could see like what, because behind it, different companies come with different agendas. And I guess it's not like an agenda, but I'm like, my biggest fear is like, okay,

is this for profit? Are you doing this for like trying to make it more accessible? And I get into that issue a lot where I'm playing a lot of, well, I mean, I play Final Fantasy 7 of the remake and I loved it. So I mean, I'm still playing like,

there's a lot of games I play that are remakes, but in some of them I'm like, you're just doing this for the money. I was like, yeah, you've got my money out of this. What's going on? Yeah.

If there's just another like HD clone, It's just kind of a cash in. I mean, do we need another last of us? The last last of us still looks for. If you enjoyed that, great. It's no skid off my teeth, I guess. But I just don't have a huge appetite for that. 100%.

I think, which I agree with you to charity about, is for me specifically, it was more so like I was very, very, very young for the original Final Fantasy 7. And so the remake really got me there when I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to play this. My brother was a big fan of Final Fantasy.

I got to watch him play it because I was too young to play it. You can play games at all ages. I want to say that right now. It's just more so I was like, I don't know how to work controller. So I played Final Fantasy 7 the remake and I was like, I love this. This is so much fun. This is so great. And then I went back.

And I was like, I like having that accessibility to be able to not, because a lot of these games I didn't get to play as a young child because my brother would either hog the console or I just couldn't get access to it because we could only pay for so many games. and now being able to play them as an adult that has the money or has the resources to do it. I'm like, oh, I love playing these remakes, and I will try to find a way to go back. But games like South Park that played on the Nintendo 64, they never made a remake. But I tried playing that again, and I cannot play that game to save my life.

It does not work. The controls are backwards as hell. I think South Park was like, we're not going to touch this at all. We're just going to give you the stick of truth. We're going to give you a stick of truth, and you'll be over it. But I genuinely was like, if you remade that game that was really strong in my childhood, I will play it again. I just cannot play it on that 64.

You need to remake it for something else for me to play it on. So those two options. Some games were the original look or style are part of the charm and part of the appeal. And others were the technology of the time held the originals back. It's like, well, we would have done this if we could have. You know, something like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, where it's sort of the expression of the original Ledges of Zelda, maybe. then I'm more in favor of it.

Or if you can go back and introduce some quality of life fixes, right, and just add some more modern amenities, like a save system that just doesn't drive you mad, right? Some of that stuff is nice. Or yeah, if you're just introducing it to a new audience, like, I mean, I never played Super Mario RPG. I just missed it, right? I've played Paper Mario.

I've played Mario Luigi. It's just everyone has holes in their gaming background, and that's one for me. So that game is a little less inaccessible than some, but I'm still more likely to play it in this new version than I was just to say, hey, why don't I play Super Mario RPG today, right? So I think that there's definitely a lot to that preservation aspect, although I will say that replacement isn't necessarily the same as preservation, right?

So ideally it would be nice if you could make both versions available, as opposed to just sort of, you know, shouldering the original off. And now the new version is what everyone's, thinks of as that version. Well, did you preserve the creator's intent with that? Were the creators involved in it? Does it change it in some ways that are meaningfully different or not as good, right? Obviously, you have your sloppy ports and remakes and remasters, too.

I think as long as you're not ending up with a lot less original IP, as long as it's not just, hey, why make something new and create something when we could go back and remake this game that people already liked, that would be kind of depressing. People can disagree even on an individual title about the quality of life thing you brought up, Ben, right? When, like, one remake people like is the original Capcom remake of Resident Evil One, right? I guess that was a GameCube. I can't remember what console that was for, right? And the original Resident Evil One remake is kind of, right, it's displaced the original Resident Evil Evil for a lot of people, right?

Like, that's the game people think about it. If you say Resident Evil, the first one, people are actually thinking of the first remake. And even if you kind of hear people from Capcom over the years talk about it, they kind of talk about it like you said, Ben, with that sense of, oh, that's kind of the game we wanted to make, you know, the first, first Resident Evil. We were limited by all this stuff.

We didn't have the budget. You know, it was just the beginning of the 3D, you know, the PlayStation generation, yada, yada, yada. And that hurts to hear as somebody who played on the first PlayStation, the original Resident Evil One and loves how terrible that game looks, loves how badly it controls, loves how terrible the English localization is, right?

And it's sort of... So again, it's sort of... That's where I kind of agree with your point of... In an ideal world, we would have this remake culture, but we would also have the ability to play both versions of a thing more easily, you know, rather than having to choose

and rather than having to live with the idea of the later version of a thing necessarily supplanting the older version of a thing. That's what I don't love. Yeah. And I do wonder whether this onslaught of remakes will slow down just because with each successive hardware generation, the graphical leaps get less pronounced, right? So I feel like you almost have to have, I don't know, like a three generation limit at this point. If you want to do a Blue Point-style ground-up remake of a PS2 game on PS5, okay, like, that's justified. That's a big leap. But if we're talking about a PS4 game to PS5 or even PS6 someday, is that noticeable enough to really justify that investment or to make me want to go back and replay it if I didn't already?

So I wonder whether we'll kind of work through the low-hanging fruits or whether this will just be a constant churn of remakes and remasters forever, which I, guess takes me to the last thing I wanted to ask quickly, are there any remakes or remasters that are on your most wanted list that they have not yet gotten around to? They did the Master Chief Collection. That probably would have been weirdly at my top because I'm a huge Halo head. What else? They're already doing Jet Set Radio. One I wanted just got announced, which was Persona 3.

Because they just, the Atlas finally announced. And I think there are problems with Persona 3. And so it'll be interesting to see how they kind of tackle, I think, story elements about the original Prisona 3 that kind of bug me in terms of the writing and kind of acting in that. And then I guess the other would be sort of the eventual sort of remaking of some of the metal gear stuff, which is also actually we are getting around to finally. Yep. Yeah.

I just, I want Windwaker on Switch. That's what I want. I don't need a remaster. Certainly not a remake. It still looks great. But give me Wind Waker on Switch, please. I would like Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is kind of a legendary. tough to play a game. I had to emulate it when I finally play it, although supposedly the source

code may be missing. And another game in that vein, another Sega game, Skies of Arcadia, which is probably my favorite RPG of all time. And it just has been really tough to play. I wanted my wife to play it. And I had to go back to my mom's house and find my dreamcasts in a big box of old stuff. And I miraculously still had it. And Skies, which is expensive if you have to buy it now. So again, that's just, I don't need a new version necessarily. I just want to play the old one. Just give me the old one. It's great.

I think I'm trying to think. I was trying to think of games I played as a child that I know that no one's going to touch for a very long time. And I think I want them to remake backyard baseball and up the antics, up that, make it look great, do some storytelling behind each character. Because that was one of the most diverse video games I've ever played. And I got it from like a cereal box originally. So I think if somehow we could touch that game, touch it up a lot. bring it back. I think it would sell a lot. Hear me out. Everybody that listens

to this podcast. Someone pitch it quick. I know you'll make a lot of money off of that game. You got it from a cereal box. You know, we should remake the Checks Mix game. That's what they should remake. The Checks Mixed? Bro. Oh my God. Square Enix could do it.

They could do it. They could do it. Make an RPG. You know what? Just bring back all the weird games that I got from food. From food. And I'm talking Sneak King, by the Burger King as well. Bring back all the weird games from everybody.

I'm here for it. Listeners, let us know what games you want to go back and play again or play in some new revised form, Riggerverse Gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories,

and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

From a game that asks what if Mario but with RPG elements, Super Mario RPG, we transition now to a game that asks, what if Final Fantasy, but without RPG elements, Final Fantasy 16. So let's do a little bit of Final Fantasy background. And last time we talked about Street Fighter, a franchise that dates back to 1987, now we're

talking about Final Fantasy, which also debuted that year. So, man, between Metroid and Zelda and Mario and Street Fighter and Final Fantasy, it's a great time for series that are as old as or older than we are. And I would never really have thought to comp Street Fighter and Final Fantasy, but Street Fighter just got more RPG-ish with the world mode. And now Final Fantasy got more Capcom, right? by actually hiring a Capcom Combat Desider, and now these games are more like than ever.

So Final Fantasy, I would say, the most acclaimed, prominent, prolific RPG franchise, maybe the most synonymous with RPGs, the most mainstream. So quickly, our experiences with Final Fantasy, I think Jess and I are, our Final Fantasy experiences are a little more spotty, which is why we had to get Justin on here

to bring the veteran presence. So what's your final fantasy? fantasy experience, Jess. I watched my brother play six. I went back to seven just to see what I missed when I played the Final Fantasy Seven remake. And still great, especially for the time, I was like, this is insane. This is incredible. This is very fun. So mainly those two, and then jump to 16. Jump to 16 for me. Yeah. The first Final Fantasy I played was 10 somehow, which was great. Love 10. But again, it was just a hole I had before then. And yeah, I've kept up a little more with the series since then, but I definitely do not have an encyclopedic firsthand knowledge of Final Fantasy. And Justin,

that's what we wanted you for, because you go back a bit. My patch is the other way. Mine is 11 through 14 are the ones that I haven't played. I'm pretty good on everything else. Okay. All right. So let's go now. Well, you will win this one. Aside from a few direct sequels, Final Fantasy games are largely unconnected to each other, though they share some common traits. So that raises the question, what makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game aside from the name? So, Justin, since you have more experience here, is it the cosmetics, the surface stuff? Is it Chocobos and Mugals and Gill and crystals and summons and spell and item names and hair that defies physics and guys named Sid and Biggs and Wedge?

That's a lot of things I listed. Or is it the narratives, the coming of age stories, the evil empires, saving the world? What makes Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy for you? Yeah, it's funny. The quote that Yoshi P gave to Kataku that they ended their review with was very cute. And like on point about, look, you just got to throw some chokobos and muggles in there and just, you know. It's funny when I did this big feature like a while ago about, you know, kind of. of the state of online multiplayer gaming.

And I talked to a bunch of people at Squarionix, including Yoshi P. And he gave a similar quote because I posed that question to a few producers there about like, what is Final Fantasy? Just explain it. Because at this point, you got a multiplayer game. You got these long 60-hour single-player games, right? What is the unifying concept? And it really is that.

At this point, it's a franchise that over time and now over formats is unified, really, I think, by design tropes and character tropes and story tropes, right? And it's sort of even if Final Fantasy 16 sort of all the marketing for it, everything you've heard about it, makes it sound super different, it's like you boot the game up. And immediately you're seeing like summons that looks super familiar to you from whatever the first Final Fantasy game you play it is. And that's, you just know, you're like, oh, yeah, this is Final Fantasy.

It doesn't matter if everyone's like, this plays more like God of War than Final Fantasy ever has. It's like, oh, that's Phoenix. That's it for it. Like, okay, I get what this is. This is Final Fantasy because I recognize these tropes. Yeah, and some of those tropes are present here. Some are jettison.

Some are altered. The official definition from the PlayStation website of Final Fantasy says each main game features an exciting story, often centered around defeating a powerful enemy set on destroying the world. You can expect epic fantasy settings, a memorable cast of characters, magic-infused combat that usually involves calling forth summons, and a few recurring elements, which I guess is pretty odd point. I guess that would also describe a lot of games. Yeah, yeah, I was just saying, that sounds like a lot of games, but also it is on point. It is on

point for Final Fantasy, specifically if you've played the game, you hear it, but that sounds a little very vague. You've got to keep it pretty vague to encompass Final Fantasy because it can mean so many different things. I mean, I feel like that's, you know, Webster's dictionary defines Final Fantasy as I'm just, I'm quoting from the PlayStation website, but I'm trying to come up with a working definition here. And Final Fantasy has always evolved. That's why it's tough to pin down. So one of the constants is that it's always changing. It's different from game to game with few exceptions. Now, one thing that originally distinguished Final Fantasy games and a lot of RPGs was turn-based battles, right? But the battle system has evolved dramatically over the years and iterations,

too. So you had your traditional turn-based battles, which was really just the first few Final Fantasy games. And, you know, I'm going on book learning here, Justin, you lived these battle systems. But there would be different terms for each of these, right? Active time battle. That was really from Final Fantasy 4 to 9 and then 10-2 and then also sort of the seven remake, right? And then there's the conditional turn-based battle in Final Fantasy 10, and there's the real-time battle in Final Fantasy 11, and there's the active dimension battle in Final Fantasy 12 and the Command Synergy Battle in 13 and 132,

and the active cross-battle in 15. And now, I don't know if there's a name for what Final Fantasy 16 is. It's just full action. So it's been, I guess, a decades-long progression from your old-school turn-based battle to just throwing away any conventions from that, which is where we are now. So for you, Justin, who I guess skipped a few of the more modern games

but saw that progression originally, is this as much of a leap? Is this jarring? Or does it feel like a natural extension of where the series has been headed for some time? Well, can I say with Final Fantasy battle systems, right? When you write them out like you have on this outline, it does look a little ridiculous.

I do think from one title to the next. I've never felt, not never, but most of the time never feel like it's that jarring. I remember Final Fantasy 10 feeling like it was kind of a leap from Final Fantasy 9. But I'd say in this case, I actually did feel like Final Fantasy 16 does feel like it's pretty continuous with 15s battle system. It definitely feels more streamlined. It definitely feels like they did a much better job of integrating magic.

I think one of the huge problems with 15's battle system and the way they tried to... 15 was really a game where they were trying to make the transition into we need to be an action RPG because that's clearly where JRP... Like, that's clearly... Unless you're going to be persona, right? And just really stick to...

You know, we are standing still and going through menus. Like, we... They tried to do it, but they just made it really kind of burdensome. And this feels like a more streamlined version of what they were doing in Final Fantasy 15. It feels good to me. And it doesn't feel like that huge of a leap from the last. Yeah, I really like this combat system,

and we're going to talk about it more in depth in a moment. I'd say the only thing that kind of put me off when I was reading some of the creators talking about the motivation for the change, for fully embracing the action, they put it pretty plainly that it's about reaching more players. It's about selling more games, right? And so, Yoshi-Pee, who you mentioned, that's Naoki Yoshida, who's the producer of the game.

He said, I'm quoting here, creating a Final Fantasy, a numbered Final Fantasy, has become such an endeavor to the point where your development costs can go upwards of $100 million just to create one game. And so to recoup that development cost,

you need as many people playing your game as possible. And while a lot of the older fans are used to what Final Fantasy had in the past, a lot of younger players have never played a Final Fantasy game. They grew up playing first-person shooter, They grew up playing games like Grand Theft Auto where basically you press a button and something happens immediately.

And so to get that group to come in and introduce them to the series, we decided to go down this route. Action was pretty much the only way. They flambated them, actually. They roasted them, bro. They came for me. They came for me.

I'm not to be. Lighten them up. I was the audience. I was playing Grand Deft Auto and Halo and Call of Duty. I was simple. Y'all play with Auto Assist. Damn assist. He came for us.

And it hurt my feelings, but it's true. As soon as I played this 16 without spoiling, I was like, yeah, this gives me the same feel as the newest street fighter where I'm like, yeah, it's a lot accessible for like brand new players. I was like, you brand new touching the game, this is great for you. You can just do the world tournament stuff. Like, this is so fun. You can build your own character and just work your way up. Learn everything. Oh, my God.

He came from me. Which I'm not like mad, but I'm like, he, I guess he knows the audience. He's like, hey, my audience now is this. I, it like shook me a little bit as soon as you said that because I was like, no, it's not me. It's my brother. I'm like, usually my brother loves playing these games. But no, Final Fantasy 16 is definitely great for newcomers into Final Fantasy. I think that was my biggest, like, definition for Final Fantasy is like they're all so different that you can jump in at any time.

And it's very fun regardless. But this one is like, if you're brand new, maybe try this one. because this one holds your hand through a lot of the stuff. Which, and I think important context for that was, to what I'm saying about the shift from Final Fantasy 15, like, Ben, I'm more bullish on 15 than a lot of people, but one of the, I think, more negative thoughts I have is, is when I first started playing that tutorial,

and I was in your apartment, Ben. Yes, rich. We were playing kind of the review copy. And the tutorial of it makes the combat seem one way. And I've actually played through Final Fantasy 15 twice. And it's like, if you play that game long enough, you realize that combat system has a lot of depth. And the game does not teach it to you explicitly at any point. So it's like one of those games that has a really good combat system, but you have to do all of the work of figuring out that it even exists and how to use it. And there are

entire fights that don't make sense until you realize that the game has just like not explained properly how to do this sort of movement and combat in that game. And so I think 16 is kind of like an over correction to that. And I do think this game maybe sometimes feels a little mashy

you know. Oh yeah, it is. It is. Oh, no. But that's the alternative to 15 which felt a little opaque, frankly. Fifteen, you can still customize your team, right? Yeah, you couldn't control them. It wasn't like Final Fantasy 7

remake where you could switch and you can actually control like Defend Barrett, but you could at least like, oh wait, no, you could. Because you could choose people's, yeah, you could. Because you could choose people's, um, there's special moves and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually you could. You could. Yeah, the only thing that kind of concerns me about that quote and similar quotes that the creators have given, again, I enjoy the results. I'm not unhappy that they went in this way. But if because of the rising costs of developing these games, and this game was in development for, you know, seven years or more, right? So if you're putting hundreds of, of millions of dollars into these games and spending years and years on them, and you need to justify that investment by reaching the widest audience possible, does that just make all big budget games more homogenous, right? Does that make them seem too similar? Because it's like, well, we know what the audience wants. They want this one thing. If we stray from that one thing, then this will be ruinous because we have just spent more than the, you know, most of a decade working on this thing. And we have so much money in it that we can only kind of go middle of the road, kind of chase trends instead of striking off or taking risks.

And I guess this is something of a risk for Final Fantasy, but it's a risk of going in an even more mainstream direction. So it's sort of like we were talking about with the remakes, where it's like, do you want to invest all that time and effort and money in making something new, or do you want to fall back on what works and remake something that's proven? That's kind of the nefarious aspect to this. And again, you still have plenty of traditional RPGs out there. You certainly have indie games that are more of an homage to the S&S era, right?

So it's not like you can't find that genre and that style of game out there, but this does make me wonder and worry about all of the big budget games kind of converging in this one sort of samey type of genre, right? Because there's this debate now about what is an RPG when action games are incorporating RPG elements and RPGs are incorporating action elements? right. They're almost indistinguishable. They've blended. I don't know if that's bad or good, right? But it's definitely kind of breaking down the barriers between genres in a way that I think might pay off sometimes and then other times might just feel like we're following the crowd. But can I give some pushback to that point, at least in, I mean, like if you take the local context, right, of Final Fantasy, you know, even though I would say that 16 system, at least so far from me, feels a little mashy, a little button. mashy, right? It's easier for me to forgive that, right? Because 16 is not the only sort of big thing that

Squarionix has going in terms of Final Fantasy, right? Like, I really love the system that they have for Final Fantasy 7 remake, right? Where that is sort of, that's very inspired by the OG Final Fantasy 7 ATB system where even though you were doing action movement, you're doing that kind of real time running around, switching between characters in an arena. you still have to kind of, you know, slow down time, scroll through menus, you know, pick which one at Tifa's uppercut you want to do, pick somebody's limit break, right? And, you know, so you've got, think about it, you've got Final Fantasy 14, that's one thing, and that's a live game. You've got 16 out now. You've got Final Fantasy 7 remake, right? You've got these three things that it's like, it's sort of like Screen is in a position now where they have enough balls in the air. that they can actually cover a lot of bases, right?

So when Yoshi-P says that, I think I would more so agree with you if there was just kind of one thing on the table and we were in that maybe more Zelda mode where it's like, okay, this is the one game you're going to have for the next six years. But I think the fact that there actually is, like, you have choice right now,

I think in the context of Final Fantasy. That makes me feel a bit more forgiving of them trying to figure out like, yeah, let's try a few different ways of going about securing the longevity of this thing and this genre. Right, yeah. And they've even kept open the possibility that they might do throwback style games, right? They might make sort of smaller scale retro style fantasy games. And of course, there are many kind of copycats, I guess would be the unkind term of that kind of game out there.

But there is this ongoing debate right now about what, I guess, the companies, Square, Enix slash Enix, and what Final Fantasy fans want the franchise to be, because, you know, is it a crisis of identity or is it an opportunity? It's funny, Justin, you mentioned when you open this game up, you can tell that it's Final Fantasy right away. I think that's true when you look at the title screen. I mean, it does say Final Fantasy for one thing, but my wife, when she saw me playing it the other day, she was like, what is this? I was like, is this Final Fantasy 16? She was like, this is Final Fantasy 16? She thought it was Dragon Age or something.

So there's definitely, I think, a bit of a different look. That's fair. I mean, I think that, yeah, you're right. If there are multiple streams of Final Fantasy going on at once, then you can't please everyone. But maybe you can please more people. Because with these debates, I mean, you get like gatekeeping. Like, this is not the true father's Final Fantasy, right? This is not your daddy's Final Fantasy.

I mean, everyone, I guess, it's like your favorite SNL cast or something, right? It's like the first one you saw. Like, that's what it's supposed to be, right? This is the true Final Fantasy and everything else's heresy and some deviation from that. So some of that is going on. And some people just might not like the new direction in just a good faith way. They tried it. It's not that they're liking.

That's fine. But there is sort of this existential struggle right now over the future of the franchise. Maybe you're right, though, that no one way has to win. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. This episode is brought to by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means

pointing your whole day around it, presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Boar's Head. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Borershead committed to craft since 1905. So let's talk about some of the specifics in this game. Final Fantasy 16. It's out for PS5.

It'll probably be out for PC someday. It has been well received. It has an 88 on Metacritic right now. I would say some aspects of it obviously have gotten rave reviews. Others not so much. They've been kind of divisive. I like this game. I'm also fascinated and sometimes perplexed by this game. So it stars Clive Rossfield, who starts the game as a member of the ruling family of Rosaria. And in this world, some people like Clive can use magic. But these bearers, as they're are not honored or venerated for their abilities. They are enslaved. They are downtrodden. They are feared. So we follow Clive through sort of a Final Fantasy style arc and narrative. And it's not just about him and his family and his friends, but also about the empire and

about good and evil. If you've played a Final Fantasy before, you probably have some sense of where it's going. It is produced by Yoshi P. who is credited for saving Final Fantasy 14 and possibly the series itself, that's one of the all-time turnarounds in the annals of gaming. The battle designer is Ryota Suzuki, who's a Capcom veteran who had worked on Devil May Cry, so you can tell. You can tell. Yeah, they should just put some of the DMC 5 tracks over like that early fight with the Marlboro. I would have loved it, to be honest with you. Yeah, the narrative is very inspired by Game of Thrones. They have acknowledged that debt. And even if they hadn't, it would be

pretty obvious. Again, not spoiling anything, but just the language, the setting, the violence, the brothels. The sexy. It's not quite Game of Thrones level, but it was shocking for me for Final Fantasy. I was like, wait, wait a minute. Five Final Fantasy standards. Yeah. And some of it is like very much like, we can say fuck now. Let's say fuck a bunch of times. It's kind of funny when they were in trouble. Right. And, you know, some of the early plot twists seemed reminiscent of some Game of Thrones plot twist. There's basically a Hodor character and a dire wolf and someone named Old Nan. Like, it's not subtle. And, you know, there was a pre-release backlash to the extremely white cast of this game of Final Fantasy. So white, right? And Yoshi P, his justification for that was basically like, well, this is medieval Europe and it's sort of an insular place. And we thought it would be, weird or distracting or inconsistent to have people from multiple races and that explanation didn't go over all that well. So you can know that going in. I would say that the demo got people

hyped. I don't know if you played the demo, but demos were kind of in decline over the past few years. You know, there were think pieces about what happened to the demo. And maybe it's partly because we have early access, right? And there's a risk that comes along with demos of people don't like it, then it backfires, right? But I kind of like the idea that maybe demos are making a comeback. You know, you had this demo, you have Pickman 4 has a demo this week. PlayStation Plus does these two-hour trials for a lot of games. And Final Fantasy 16 had kind of a tailor-made intro section that was just perfect for

play a couple hours and get introduced to the game. And I thought that went over really well. And again, there were so many questions about how does this play and what is it like that it felt like the perfect game to kind of give people a taste in a sample and say, here it is, here it is. This is what it's like, and it seemed like people responded to it. So how far

into the game have you two gotten? Jessica, where are you in this game? Without spoiling? Yes. Yeah, if you can. I am on my way back to Phoenix Gate. Okay, okay. That's all right. Not as No, I don't think that's a spoiler.

I was like, I'm afraid to say who I'm with too because I'm like, I don't know if that's, I don't think it's a spoiler to say who I'm with, but just in case, I'm not going to say. She's cool? I'm a little further than you. I think I'm somewhere between 15 and 20 hours. I'm, you know, maybe a third of the way, maybe a little more than a third as far as I can tell without having spoiled myself. Charity, how far have you gotten? I'm probably at least far because I'm like not that far after like meeting Sid. Okay. Okay. Well, that's the important thing.

We've got to meet Sid. So let's talk about the combat system, the much-discussed combat system. It feels a little like Kingdom Hearts to me, which I guess is not super surprising. And there is a lot of mashing. I would say that by the time I get to the stage where I am now, which is there's a point of no return for those of you who have played. and I've played past that point of no return and a little bit beyond. But the combat system, it starts to get deeper. You start to get more options,

but there is still certainly a lot of pressing the same buttons over and over again, which I have a lot of tolerance for. So I'm fine with it. So how are you responding to it so far? I'm having fun with it. I'm also, I'm more, like I said last podcast, I love the story parts, the visual storytelling parts. So I'm very into those long cuts in between.

Right. But yeah, I'm not minding it. I also like building my person to be as best as they can. So it's like a lot of me without, this is not a spoiler. It's just me. I'm just second guessing myself. But a lot of me like choosing which abilities are best and what I want to do. I've had a lot of fun doing.

And that, yeah. Yeah. I like the game. Let it be known. Even if it sounds like I don't. I really like the game. Yeah, I would say, like, if you take set piece fights in this game, One thing I really like about them, even if they're not the most high execution, like, combat scenarios, right?

It's that I think the game, I think everything is just very well designed in terms of sound and music, like the sequencing and the sense of escalation. Like, I don't know. There's just this very tight choreography to the sort of larger battles in the game in a way that kind of, kind of, makes the battles feel like greater than the sum of their parts, right? Like anything I can kind of say about sort of what I'm doing with the controller like I could nitpick it, but it's

sort of, it doesn't really necessarily capture how good the fights feel when you're actually in them and when you actually have like your good headphones on and you're like, wow, this soundtrack is actually pretty this soundtrack actually rips.

The soundtrack's always good. They do that to a T. It's very, I can't I mean, they've been cinematic for a while, but this one is purely cinematic. I was like, ooh, this is a movie. So I had fun looking at it, too. Yeah, some of the climaxes of those boss battles, it does get, like, pretty epic, right? I mean, that's overused, but I think it applies here. And, you know, there's, like, particle effects just shooting every which way.

Like, you can barely see your character sometimes. It's very animated. They really are good at that Shonen thing. Like, there's so many moments where, like, they name. like they nail that kind of anime Shonen thing. Yes, definitely. Yes. And the music,

I should have listed that earlier when talking about Final Fantasy characteristics, you know, that classic sweeping orchestral score, right? That's here. The story, I'm into it so far. You know,

the cutscenes vary, right, because some of them are in-engine cutscenes, and it doesn't look quite as good, right? Like the facial expressions are sort of stiff, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

And then others are just, much more fully animated, right? Like movie quality, and those are really a treat. But there's a lot. I mean, this game is like, what, a third cutscene roughly? So settle in because you're going to be watching a lot of this game, which, yeah, I mean, I don't mind. Justin, I know you have a new philosophy of cutscene watching slash skipping, which please lay out for everyone. I don't know whether this game falls into the category that you're talking about there.

So I will start this with the caveat that, look, we're professionals, right? So we're obviously like we have a job to do, right? So I'm not speaking for us, but I'm saying that from a perspective, either when I'm playing a game and I'm not necessarily talking about it on Ring or Verse or writing about it for the site or you as a listener, right? This episode, it's like if you find yourself in that position where you're kind of like, oh, okay, this game is cool, but these cutscenes, bro, right? People have been complaining about it since Sons of Liberation. right? And I always want to remind people. I've awakened to this idea, right? It's like, we live in the era of YouTube. Just skip the cutscene, bro. Like, if you know what I mean? There's some games where I have to engage with them with that sense of like, I'm skipping every

single one of these cutscenes. One, it'll be Friday night later this week and I will go on YouTube and watch this later. That's true. That's true. And I think it's valid. I think that actually is like if you sort of lean into that, that's just got to be a mode you let yourself engage with video games sometimes. Because like sometimes it really does feel like a hostage situation when you're playing one of these JRPs

and they try to hit you with the 40-minute cutscene. Or they hit you with the nesting cutscenes. This game has the nesting cutscenes where you if you try to skip, you just get hit another cutscene. And if you skip that one, you can hit another cutscene. Get ready. Oh, brother.

Final Fantasy does not want you to skip those. It's so wild because I genuinely, I'm like, I like this, but I understand a lot of other people don't. And also, I'm going to find the stories, like people breaking down the stories before I'm going to see the gameplay anywhere. So it's like, make it, they should have made it you able to skip it. Yeah, I will, I'll fast forward. I mean, if it's just a dialogue and I can skip to the next line, I will do that. But I wouldn't want to skip. I don't think beyond that in this game, especially you can't. skip Sid, right? I mean, Sid is the breakout star of this game. And really, of this summer,

yeah, that's Lorethe and Diablo Four, right? Ralph Inison, who is the voice of Lorath and also of Sid, the latest incarnation of Sid in Final Fantasy 16, these games happen to come out, you know, within a month of each other. And suddenly everyone's talking about Sid and Lorath and Ralph Ineson and that gravely voice he has. So that's great. I'm enjoying the story so far. From what I've heard and read, maybe it runs off the rails a little at the end. Again, Haven't seen that myself, but if so, then I guess that would just be another homage to Game of Thrones, right? Maybe it's intentional. Damn.

I've enjoyed it so far. I will say the pacing sometimes gets me, right? Because everything other than the cutscenes and the combat, there's a lot of fetch quests or delivery quests, just like extremely boring, menial tasks, just like go somewhere, press X to pick something up, go back. It's like I was just fighting a massive fire beast. And now I'm going to like press X on a piece of wood. A piece of wood. I was about to say, yeah, they're making me go get wood to bring back. I guess they're doing it so you know what to do.

But I was also like, I know what I'm doing. I was like, I don't need this wood. I don't know. My completionist impulse and my desire for experience points is just like intention with my boredom with most of these side quests. So I feel like, the environments are kind of inert also. It's just like, you know, you're going down a path from one fight to the next,

and I kind of just want to skip to the fights. So a lot of the other stuff I don't love, like, what I like is good enough to keep me going. Like, it propels me forward. The other stuff, I feel like the in-between stuff is sort of the weaker connective tissue of this game. I agree. It's, yeah, there is a lot of, now that you guys are saying it out loud, I'm noticing it because during the game

I was like yeah it's just gonna take 12 hours to get through the story part but then there are parts where I'm like

why am I running from this farm to the castle why can't I just jump to the castle there is nothing I need to see between here

and the castle I'll go I'll find it but because I'm gonna leave the castle but you know you're not

going to leave the castle sorry spoilers but go play the game and go play the game you'll leave the castle soon yeah and you can't

fast travel once you've been somewhere, so that's nice. But I was just going to say, last thing, I think, and I was arguing with Steve about this before we started recording, so I don't know if you will agree with me or not,

but I don't know how often I've said this or even thought this about a game, but I think Final Fantasy 16 has phenomenal menus and tutorials, too. Like, I just, I feel like I know what I'm doing and what my options are, and just at all times,

whereas often you feel overwhelmed. Granted, there's a learning curve and then you get over it and you master it and maybe that's satisfying. So maybe the fact that this is simple enough to pick up right away means it's simplistic, right? There's not enough depth to it. There's not enough RPG left in what used to be an RPG.

But I feel like I can find everything. I think this might be because... That's your favorite thing. I love finding things, right? Like when we were talking about Diablo as like the inventories, He's like, it's big. I can't find things.

You're like, it's fine to me. I didn't have any trouble. I think it's because I'm coming off the heels of Zelda and Diablo, where there's so many items and there's just so much stuff and so many systems and everything. And in this game, it's like you go to the forge and you can only upgrade like one thing at a time. I was like, weeping with gratitude. It's like, oh, I can only do one thing. This is amazing.

Like they just they took like the paralysis by analysis out here like there's only one thing I can do. I'll just do it and I'll feel like I'm powered up and then I will move on. And probably a lot of Final Fantasy veterans are like, no, like this is dumped down. This is too simple. Wait, no. I just want to customize. A lot are. A lot are.

My, okay, don't come from my roommate. Do not come from my roommate. Nobody looked them up. No one looked them up. But they were there like watching me play it and then they got it. And they were like, is it Final Fantasy Mythic Quest? Oh, Mystic Quest?

The one from the... Yeah, they were like, this is Mystic Quest. They were like, this is Mystic Quest. Oh, that's a drag. Okay. And Al-His friends are also very big fans of Final Fantasy. They've been playing their entire lives, and they're like, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.

And I was like, what is going on? Yeah, that's, no. It's like the skill trees. That's harsh. There aren't a lot of branches on the skill trees. But, no, it's an interesting. criticism just because I think that, one, I'll say that of all the ways that people try to pit Japanese RPGs and Western RPGs against each other, I actually think one truly,

you know, overarching Carl Weathers's, you know, meme thing is that they just all have these ungodly menus, right? And it's like, I definitely think this one is, is looking at the ways in which Final Fantasy 15's menus drove me personally insane, right? Right? In trying to be like, all right, we're going to, we're going to streamline this a little bit, right? And it's definitely, yeah, if I think back to sort of all of the menu creep in Final Fantasy, right? Like, you know, seven was cool. Material menu is pretty easy.

But then eight with the card game and then nine got bad. And then 10 had the skill tree. And then you get to, again, you get to 15. It's bad. 16 is definitely like relatively straightforward in a way that I think is like, pretty refreshing, but I, and in a way that I'm surprised

that I would think a lot of Final Fantasy fans would appreciate that for once somebody at Skrionix was like, bro, we have to get this under control. We have to get the deficit under control. You know what I mean? Like, there is like a problem here.

Honestly, and commend them for, I commend them for it because I'm like, do you know how many games I play that I would love for this to just be an option? Just to make it easier on myself. Do you know how much stuff I'm, carrying around in every game I play and you guys make it so hard. I agree with you, Ben,

where it's like, yeah, it's convoluted. I think we just trained ourselves to get so adjusted to it and work through it that we're dealing with it. And then when we get, we're given an option that's a little bit easier, you're like, oh, shoot, I didn't know it was possible. That's how I felt. I was like, oh, I was like, this is nice. Yeah, great. Yeah, it's a whole new world.

Wow, it didn't realize this was an option. Yeah. And, and, you know, there are a lot of, like, other accessibility options or ease of use options in the combat, which is not super complicated to begin with, but you can streamline it or simplify it further, right? So, for instance, you can equip things that enable you to have certain things be automatic or more automatic, you know, torgle your, your trusty dog sidekick. You can just have him controlled automatically instead of directing him manually or, you know, you can have a prompt when you're supposed to dodge instead of having to figure out how to dodge yourself,

right? So there's a lot of, you know, and there's story mode and combat mode. It's like if you just want to go along on this journey and see what happens, that option is available to everyone. You can make it more complicated. But I feel like not convoluted, you know, complicated but but not convoluted. That's, I think, the distinction to me.

It's just the point of justice room, it's just like I will, I do see the perspective a bit though because I do think that like, are, you know, as JRP's like are about that kind of, If you're embodying characters or you're managing the sort of cast of characters, it's about customization, especially if you're the kind of player that carries a torch for that kind of, you know, the old job system, right? If you're thinking back to Final Fantasy 5, right?

If that's kind of your era, then yeah, like you look at the kind of mashy qualities, the kind of streamlined qualities of a game like this. And yeah, I get how you see this, you know, you say this is more Mystic Quest than Final Fantasy 5. Yeah, right. It's different for sure. He loves it. He loves playing it, but he also said that. And I'm not letting it slide.

I'm saying it. I'll laugh for you guys. Call them on the carpet. Hold them to account. Yeah, the creators, they've kind of rejected the JRP label. You know, they've said, like, it's just an RPG. Like, we don't want to be limited by Japanese RPG and the conventions and expectations that go along with that.

Or in the past, you know, decades ago, maybe it was even kind of like a discriminatory thing or kind of a condescending thing, oh, it's a JRP versus a Western RPG, right? So, again, that's just along with the melding and the blending of action and RPG and these distinctions being broken down. But I appreciate that. And I also love the active time lore, which for those of you who have not played yet, it's basically like you're watching a cutscene,

someone shows up or someone mentions someone else, and you're like, wait, what was that again? Right. And instead of having to go to a wiki or YouTube, or Google it, you can just press the menu button and it will call up sort of a wiki style summary of the main characters and plot lines that are being discussed at that time.

It's like when you're watching something on Amazon Prime video and you recognize an actor but you can't place them. It's like, what do I know that from? You press pause and their name pops up. It's like that, but for lore and mythology, it's like pop up video. Like, I want this for everything now.

It's like, what if nerd culture itself made a video game or invented video games it's kind of like the Papa video is a good example I was like it felt like when you're watching stuff on Amazon and then you pause it and then it shows up and I was like oh

this is nice did I read all of them absolutely not but and Steve was saying off air you know it kind of conditions you to keep pressing that which is true like once I do it and I get the dopamine hit it's like oh I understand I follow everything Now it's like I'm paranoid that I'm missing something at all time, so I'm constantly pressing the active time lore. Oh, you're better than me.

And this is something that the creators put in the game because they wanted to track the lore themselves, and they found that it was a useful summary for them. And I find it's useful, too. I kind of hope that this spreads. So generally, we like the game. You know, there's some questionable decisions. There's some bold decisions. But I think it works.

I think it pays off for me. I'm definitely going to keep going. And so, you know, I've seen this described by some people as like a midlife crisis for Final Fantasy. You know, I don't know that it needs to be derogatory. I mean, it is at the age where it would be having a midlife crisis, I guess, just about, as are you and I charity. So that's a sobering thought.

But I would be fine with them. I don't know if there's any further you could go in this direction, but at least, you know, porting elements of this, if they were to make a Final Fantasy. Fantasy 16-2, I'd probably play it. And as you said, they don't have to be confined into any one version of Final Fantasy. They can keep experimenting or they can keep delivering via different media, different series, different versions of the franchise. So I'm in.

I will continue to play and like this game, I think. My hard take on the Midlife Crisis thing is that like... I like it. And I guess we can end just with one question, which is what other games? game series, would you want to see switch up something integral or traditional a la Final Fantasy 16 ditching the last vestiges of turn-based battles? So some long-running series, yeah, not a spinoff like Super Mario RPG or the many other Mario spinoffs, but a significant change to like a mainline entry in an ongoing series. And, you know, it could be a game going open world,

like Breath of the Wild or Halo Infinite, or it could be a, uh, perspective or camera change like Super Mario 64 or Metroid Prime or it could be like Castlevania Symphony of the Night really going all in on exploration in Metroidvania or Grand Theft Auto 3 going from top down to fully 3D world right or Resident Evil 4 ditching the fixed camera or call of duty ditching the World War II setting with modern warfare or persona 3 for that matter to invoke another game of yours, Justin, and all the social aspects of that. So sometimes, you know, a game will switch something up and it will be a classic and that will determine the new direction of the series. Sometimes it will backfire and it will be a mistake and they will

never do it again. And sometimes it's just like, what if we did the same series, but super gritty and dark now? And it's kind of a drag. But is there a series? Is there a franchise that you can think of some sort of Final Fantasy 16 style pivot where you're like this, but with that. I'm a big horror fan. I don't know if you could, if it would work. This is me coming off the top of my dome. But if somehow we turned little nightmares

into much more of an open world so that way we can see all of the crazy stuff that happens in it and also just choose our own adventure versus having to follow a set one, I would be very into. And as like a little character, meeting other little characters in the world and teaming up and be like,

come with me on this quest, that's, like, not getting hacked into pieces by, like, a weird librarian. That'd be fun to me. I like little nightmares. So make it bigger. I just want to turn something that probably shouldn't be, like, turned into a turn-based thing into a turn-based thing. Something super ill-advised, like, give me turn-based Resident Evil or something.

You know what I mean? Just yolo this, right? Like, I don't know. Something like that. I get so mad at a turn-based resident-a-based. Something that, like, if you shared a screenshot that looks at a screenshot that looked like a leak from the development would drive a subreddit to insanity, right? Just like a menu open, you know, attack, defend, guard, that kind of, but it would have to be,

again, with like Jill Valentine standing. Something like that, you know what I mean? Yeah. This gave Clive Russell and Jill work, very resonantity-eful style fantasy, fantasy names and files fantasy 16. But I was thinking along the same lines, I guess, inspired by Supermarry. RPG, give me Zelda RPG, right? I mean, I know Zelda's sort of RPG adjacent as it is, but go all-end, right?

I mean, give me some sort of light skill trees or upgrades that you can determine as opposed to that you just find in the world, right? And you wouldn't want to be too specialized because you want everyone to be able to do everything in a Zelda game, but let me enhance certain abilities over others and choose how I want to play the game in that sense. And, you know, I could see some sort of turn-based battle system or some kind of combat revamp for the Wedged of Zelda at this point. I would say hasn't been the strong suit necessarily in the recent titles, the complexity of the combat or how satisfying it feels. The creativity of it, certainly. The actual mechanics of it, not as much. But, you know, give me,

like, I don't know, branching dialogue options. I don't need link to talk necessarily, but tell a little more sophisticated story, maybe give me a little more agency in that world, possibly. Again, it would be a departure, but that's the premise for this hypothetical, right? So Zelda RPG, that's what I want. It could either be open world or it could be more of a throwback 2D style. Obviously, you're both in, all in on this pitch. All right. Look here. If I had to give him some notes, I want him to talk. And that is my only note. And I can't wait to hear him talk for 20 minutes straight. Yes. I know. And when Chris Pratt voices him in the Zelda movie, then we'll hear him to. I didn't say that one.

All right. More big games. Keep coming out. We've got to go whittle away at our piles of shame. So we will end this episode here. Justin, thank you for fulfilling our fantasy of having you on this podcast again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Jess. Can't wait to do this with you again. It's going to be interesting when we don't have a gigantic game to talk about every time we do one of these podcasts. We'll have to get a little creative. Yeah, we'll go back and then we'll choose like a game from back in the day. There's anniversaries. There's birthdays.

We can choose one. Yeah, it'll be fun. Thanks to Steve Almond for producing and for suppressing his rant. Somehow I know he was just stewing and fuming in silence in the background there. The menus are bad. Thanks to our Judah, Remkepah. for clearing room for us on the busy ringerverse schedule. Remember to return to the ringerverse for full court press, audio, and video coverage

of secret invasion and a house of midnight on the delightful Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. And remember to email us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com to let us know how your final fantasy journey is going and to suggest potential topics for the pod or to help us pick a podcast title. To paraphrase squal from Final Fantasy 8, we'll be here. We'll be waiting for you. If you come here, you'll find us.

You promise. Talk to you next month. Bye. But nothing ever gets through. The world is simply not ready to listen. So to hell we're talking. If they won't give us a say, we'll decide our fate's another way.