I am not impressed with this to be honest.... the outdoor stuff looks way better but still not on par with the very original footage they released.

awesome visuals destroyed by abysmal voice acting. yup...this is a FF game alright.

combat looks half decent this time around though. bit like kingdom hearts.

Whose idea was it to apply depth blur every time you hit an enemy?

...That comment on the last video about them looking like a japanese boy-band. Can't un-see it now, lol. It's like watching the Backstreet Boys sword fighting. Yes, innuendo.

Also i hope you can play it with japanese VOs and subtitles.

about the japanese boy band stuff, as far as I can remember all the past FF games have had pretty blurred gender lines lol. If you don't like over the top cheesy dramatic troubled teens then FF isn't for you. The story lines have always been fairly silly with characters that seem to be written to appeal to a very young crowd.

I can appreciate certain aspects of the JRPG genre, but the overall style has always been a major turn off for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed FF 7-10 back in the day, but even way back then I found them to be very cheesy.

If all goed well there will be a Japanese voices option in the game. I think i read that. English is terrible in JRPG.

It's just...they even dress coordinated, you know? I don't mind the anime aesthetic, it just looks a bit funny this time. It really looks like someone coordinated all their wardrobes for a video shoot or something. I don't think any other FF game has done this :)

What original footage? Looks much better than it looked in E3 2013...Anyway, I think the rock geometry is very nice and the lighting is pretty much second to none in this type of game.

people keep ignoring the elephant in the room which is the terrible voice acting.

I think the true elephant in the room that weeaboos have been ignoring for way to long in jRPGs is the god-awful writing. The problem isn't that the VOs are bad (even though they are) the problem is that usually, it's IMPOSSIBLE to deliver the stupid shit said in a FF game without sounding like a complete idiot. Sounds less idiotic in Japanese, i think, because we are used to that kind of japanese tradition of storytelling, and it just doesn't seem as ridiculous in the language it was intended or in text form. But when a person tries to actually speak and emote these insane and awkward scripts...yeah.

Wow music is fantastic. They've never disappointed in that area.

That's why we should always get the Japanese VO option, this way you just read those lines while listening to an unknown (for most people) language. It's perfect. Good writing in a jrpg would feel awkward anyway.

Very much this.


I played FFXIII for about 10 hours and it was the worst game I bought in the entire span of the Gen. Yes, tube levels and a very shallow fighting systems were bad enough, but those were not the main reason my stomach grumbled in anger.

The cheesy lines and the ridiculous stances and moves in the cut-scenes made me hate EVERY character of the game.
No matter how sad or dramatic they tried to be, I couldn't take none of it seriously.

Yeah, I kind of agree with a lot of this. I do think it has gotten worse however. I thought the VA and story in FFXII were in general pretty well done. Certainly the plot and the way it played out was a lot more entertaining than say Dragon Age Inquisition, which is a good game, but very bland. FFXIII was terrible. I do think this will be better though. I just hope it is dual audio.

I don't know. I think that when we see good writing in a jRPG people love it. Compare the clusterfuck of something like FF8 with, say, Chrono Trigger. FF8 has a really dumb, convoluted plot with retarded characters and the shittiest shamalamalam twists ever. Chrono trigger is a straight forward adventure, with a clear villain and and great adventure feel to it. One of them is a well told story, the other is a disaster. I think more people remember Chrono Trigger fondly than FF8. Same with something like Suikoden 2, it has sensible writing that fits the scope of the game. The problem with a lot of jRPGs is that they try to be mroe than just fun adventures. They go for this stupid ass pseudophilosophy which is clearly more than what the writers can handle and it turns in to an incomprehensible mess.

jRPGs just need to simplify their stories and be more straight forward and bam, the genre would be revived. That's why i still love a lot of older jRPGs. Phantasy star, Lunar, Chrono Trigger and Suyikoden. They have a simple focus; telling an adventure story. That makes them easy to like. How are you supposed to like a game that makes a David Lynch film seem coherent?

But that's what jrpgs often do and you either like it or hate it. I love ff8 or Xenogears as much as I love Grandia or Lunar. But I always had a soft spot for Japanese ridiculousness, just don't ever dub it.

Coordinated outfits? Cause they're all wearing black (mostly)? Ignis is in a suit, prompto has a studded leather jacket with some kind of flannel kilt thing that is red/brown in the light. Gladiolus has a black leather jacket over black jeans. You might be bandwagoning a bit there. Either way, sure it's a bro-venture, but hopefully we're all secure enough with our sexuality to not pull at threads that aren't really there eh? I find it amusing that people are flipping out over there being only guys etc...while forgetting that in FFVII your main character dresses up as a girl and tries to seduce don corneo. Japanese games are weird, we all know this.

I think FF7 has a shite story too, so i'm in the clear there. No worries.

Yeah, it doesn't look natural to me. They look like they were designed as a group, not as characters. If that makes any sense to you. If you want to make the comparison with FF7, just look at the characters there. They really look like a rag-tag group that just kinda happened, whereas these guys look like they are ready to do a dance number to a pop song. Compare Cloud, Barret and Cid to well...guy in black, guy in black with tattoo and guy in black with vest. It's like if the entire cast of FF7 was Sephiroth, only with different hair and shirt (though still black mind you).

It's obvious they were designed as a group. Especially since you already have these four guys from the get go. You don't meet them and recruit them one by one like you used to in previous ff games. It bothers me that there's only four of them, I'd like to see some more characters (maybe there will be more), but this game still looks very promising compared to the abomination that was ff13. Even if the story sucks we still might get a big world that is fun to explore. That was the case with ff12 which IMO was pretty weak story and character wise, but was really fun to play and I sunk 150 hours into it.

I disagree, i think 12 had the strongest story and cast in a looooong while in a FF game. It had such a wider scope than anything the other games in the main series has done. Also the characters are way more interesring than the teen angst we usually see. Well, Vaan aside. He sucks. Real hard.

What can I say. It seems you're not big on final fantasy at all. I love fft or Vagrant Story very much and I like plots like that (and they were way better than ff12), but final fantasy kinda is about angsty teens, love and all that crap and I like it that way. And of course I expect ff15 to deliver all the angst and teen drama I crave for .

I see a lot of people bashing JRPGs' stories, and some defending, so can anyone that have played (and actually remembers) the stories or some key moments in these games honestly say their stories sucked?:

FFI-IX and Tactics, Suikoden I-III, Chrono Trigger and Cross, Xenogears, Grandia I and III, Valkyrie Profile, Tactics Ogre, Breath of Fire III-IV, Vagrant Story, Persona 3-4, Xenoblade Chronicles, Tales of Vesperia, Dragon Quest VIII, Lunar: Silver Star Story, Rogue Galaxy, Dark Cloud 2, Fire Emblem, Earthbound and Dark Souls, just to name a few of many, many more.

There are a lot of JRPGs with extremely bad story, sure - I will never forget Star Ocean: The Last Hope, specially in recent times, but a lot of the old JRPG games have incredible stories - and gameplay.

I believe GamesRadar's "Best JRPGs" article describes it best:

"There was a time that Japanese RPGs were the pinnacle of game design, with developers constantly one-upping each other with better storylines, combat systems, and mechanics. Now, the art of the traditional JRPG is all but dead".

Just because Lolita Fantasy 13(x3) and Gay Fantasy 15 - sorry for the jokes if it offends any fans - didn't or doesn't seem it will, respectively, live up to their heritage, doesn't mean they all sucked, like a few people have pointed out.

I know the JRPGs' genre is not what it used to be, but that's why if someone is looking for great JRPGs, you can never go wrong by going backwards/retro.

Below is a list of links to articles and forums' threads that recommend a lot of great JRPGs, be it overall or story and gameplay wise (also, a nice discussion on NeoGAF about what makes a good JRPG story):

The Top 10 JRPG Stories:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/17/the-top-10-...

The 20 JRPGs You Must Play:
http://kotaku.com/the-20-jrpgs-you-must-play-12222...

Ten Modern JRPGs Worth Playing:
http://kotaku.com/5984618/ten-modern-jrpgs-worth-p...

Best JRPGs:
http://www.gamesradar.com/best-jrpgs/

Top 25 Best Japanese RPGs of All Time:
http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/16096/article/...

NeoGAF - NeoGAF's Essential RPGs - 2015 edition:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95176...

NeoGAF - Which Ps1 RPGs have the best storylines?:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85772...

NeoGAF - Best Scifi JRPG's:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10013...

NeoGAF - What Makes a Good JRPG Story?:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61056...

NeoGAF - Your Top 5 JRPGs of this Generation?:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44732...

NeoGAF - Best Story in a PSP RPG?:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43677...

Giant Bomb Forums - Recommend me a JRPG with an excellent story:
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion...

Giant Bomb Forums - What's the best story you experienced in a JRPG?:
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion...

The Best JRPGs For Beginners:
http://kotaku.com/the-best-jrpgs-for-beginners-157...

The Escapist Forums - Recommend the two best JRPG's in history:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.3962...

For me i think the entire idea of jRPG being some sort of sub genre in storytelling what sucks. So many games just keep on regurgitating the same boring shonen crap weve already seen a billion times.

That said, i think storytelling in games in general is pretty terrible. Most games dont do it well, not just jRPGs.

He is talking about footage of it way back when it was called Versus XIII and he is right. Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRF_4Ewaxt4
I will stress again, this is nothing more than a PS3 developed game at full 1080p.

@Nietzsche That is just the way the world is today. Gamers complain about the most mundane things that weren't even looked at as much years ago. Even down to the combat of the game. It was announced way back in 2008 that this would play more like Kingdom Hearts but tomorrow some moronic gaming "journalist" website will still run an article about how shocked and completely caught off guard they were with the combat in this game.

Agreed. Unfortunately, a lot of games with great story/narrative tend to disappoint in a lot of very important areas, like gameplay mechanics and game design, which makes most of them not so popular.

Best example is Telltale's The Walking Dead series, the story is superb, but as much as I love it, it doesn't offer much gameplay wise - though it's very popular and sold very well.

The contrary is also true, a lot of games with great gameplay mechanics and game design have terrible to average story/narrative, i.e. Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

So there's this very thin balance zone between these areas that is very easy to miss in games of any genre, not just JRPGs. And it seems mostly indie games are getting it right nowadays.

Still, if a lot of RPGs - which are best known for their story and lore - in recent times are lacking in the story department, what does that say about the state of story telling in games in general?

There are some great articles, video panels and discussions about story telling/narrative in games, story telling vs gameplay and etc. I really recommend Ken Levine's, Sony's, and Bethesda's ones - drawing a blank on any others right now.

Some great articles on the subject:

IGN - The Future of Video Game Storytelling:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/13/the-future-...

Kotaku - Storytelling and Gameplay in Video Games:
http://tay.kotaku.com/storytelling-and-gameplay-in...

6 Storytelling Problems Video Games Still Can't Fix:*
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-video-games-...

*Sociopathic Heroes; Cartoonish Villains; Inappropriately Mute Heroes; Lore Spiraling Out of Control; Padding the Missions Just to Make the Game Longer; and Introducing Big Thematic Ideas, Then Ignoring Them

PS. I also hope Link never speaks, because hearing some of the dialogue in a The Legend of Zelda game in English wouldn't be any better than those cheesy dialogue in Final Fantasy XIII.