#Poor Jill got screwed over for a combat system that wouldn't even commit

[shuttershocky]

I got mutuals who love FF16 and I did at least have enough fun to play through the entire game so I'm going to try to not be too harsh on it, but I disagree with the statement that its battle system is great. I would wait for the PC version to release and for someone to make an inevitable "Use all Eikons at once" mod, because otherwise the combat becomes very, very stale halfway through. It makes me wish that they just stuck to Final Fantasy style ARPG combat, because when they went for being an action game they refused to commit to it.

I was having fun with it until halfway through the game where its limitations became very apparent: it was branding itself as the first Final Fantasy to become a full action game, but didn't want to leave behind ARPG's entirely and so they limited the number of Eikons you can have equipped so there's still a measure of making a "build" (equipment is literally just stat go up so there's no build choice there lmao)

This is fucking disastrous because Clive's moveset outside of Eikon abilities never expands ever. He has the DMC foundation (as Square Enix famously hired DMC5's combat designer) of having attack-based parries (you have to clash an attack with the enemy's rather than time a block), enemy step, timed dodges, a ground slam, a taunt button, etc, but it's just the foundation, and it never fucking grows.

You have one, ONE attack string for the entire game: Attack, Magic Burst, Attack, Magic Burst, Attack, Magic Burst, Attack, Magic Burst, and this goes for both on the ground and in the air, meaning the longest attack combo you can make on an enemy you can send flying is A, M, A, M, A, M A, M, Torgal attack, Phoenix Shift (which is just Dante's Trick btw) A, M, A, M, Torgal uppercut+ Enemy Step (because you'll fall before you finish this), A, M, ground slam, maybe another Torgal attack.

That's it. For the entire game. You can charge an attack to give yourself super armor to make parries easier or charge a magic attack (not that you can shoot one off midcombo as you need to be tapping magic to do magic bursts), but otherwise you're not exactly going to be seeing infinite creative possibilities.

Meanwhile the Eikon abilities are limited by three issues: They have cooldowns, there's only two ability slots per EIkon (not counting their base ability / Feat) with a max of 3 eikons equipped, and the strong Eikon abilities are much, much, MUCH stronger than the fun Eikon abilities.

You know who are fun Eikons? Titan and Garuda. Titan has the most satisfying base ability in Titanic Block with incredibly meaty feeling counter hits, while Garuda's the only Eikon that realized FF16 wants to be an action game and has abilities that create actual combos like Gouge and Wicked Wheel rather than one and done spellcasts.

But do you know who you actually need to deal with the significantly bloated HP bars in lategame? Odin (base Odin because of Arm of Darkness' incredible damage and clear, but also Dancing Steel) and Shiva (Cold Snap + Diamond Dust). You've got one Eikon slot left to bring for a favorite (but let's be real it's prooobably Phoenix for Phoenix Shift) and two or one slots left for fun (because you WILL have Gigaflare, Lightning Rod, Diamond Dust, Judgment Bolt and/or Dancing Steel).

"But you never play efficient in DMC" yeah because playing for style over efficiency is built into the system. There's a style meter that hypes up how cool you are, strong enemies can get ragdolled around, and most importantly YOU HAVE SO MANY OPTIONS. Dante has more possible avenues of attack than the human mind can comprehend, Clive has his basic moveset, 6 Eikon abilities, and 3 Eikon Feats maximum, and you have to commit the 6 Eikon abilities to a cooldown in order to use them.

Let's say you customize to look stylish and cool, you go Titan - Garuda - Phoenix and then you start with a Raging Fists counter into Phoenix Shift, basic attack string, Wicked Wheel to take it to the air, air attack string, enemy step, Gouge, ground slam, finish with Windup. Congratulations, 4/6 of your equipped abilities are on cooldown to do that one cool-looking combo, you were attacking one enemy the whole time, and you didn't even deal as much damage as Lightning Rod + Level 5 Arm of Darkness clearing all the trash in the fight while dealing way more damage to the boss, and all that's on cooldown is Lightning Rod.

Do you know what lategame FF16 combat looks like? You rotate through a selection of one and done spells like you're farming a dungeon in Genshin Impact, optimizing your rotation by lining up the cooldowns of your 3 characters (Eikons in FF16's case) to do as much burst damage in a window as possible. As soon as a boss hits 40% Break bar or less, you cast Lightning Rod, then Diamond Dust (Diamond Dust's first half will both destroy 40% of an enemy's Break Bar while the second half does so many hits you hit the maximum bonus Break damage immediately with just combining with Lightning Rod), then Level 5 Arm of Darkness, Dancing Steel, Rift Slip to cancel the animation after the last hit (one of the few extremely cool unique abilities that aren't just big damage nuke), Level 5 Arm of Darkness again which was recharged by Dancing Steel, Gigaflare, and if the boss is really tanky? Judgment Bolt. Feeling Spicy and want even higher Break damage? Have Bahamut equipped and charge a level 5 Megaflare (dodge attacks while charging so it doesn't take forever to charge) and then unleash that BEFORE Lightning Rod + Diamond Dust.

That's how you make the most of a Break in FF16, because doing a regular honest combo on an enemy you've Broken won't do anything substantial due to the game being balanced around how ridiculously powerful the endgame nuke rotation is. As meaty and fun as Titanic Block is, when you see it do 2% of the enemy's max HP as damage even after how crunchy and satisfying the 3 counter hits are, you get discouraged because now you're weighing the opportunity cost of having Titan equipped vs Odin.

You're not supposed to worry about that in an action game! You play inefficiently because you're toying with the enemy on purpose, and then you annihilate them with your ultra nuking moves as you please. You don't choose what moves you bring to a fight! You have ALL of them! The promise of unlimited creativity, fulfilling mastery, and the game hyping you up as the coollest motherfucker on earth implores you to play with your entire moveset, invites you to experiment. What you optimize is how flashy you can look, not how much damage you can inflict because you made moves a semi-limited resource in a character action game for some reason.

"Well putting a cooldown on moves and limiting how many you have is 16 just trying to preserve the RPG identity of Final Fantasy" Where??? 16 abandoned damn near everything! Jill gave her country, her powers, her body, and all her screentime to Clive and Clive can't even give her a potion?! You don't have job classes, your party exists to be sandbags for you, you can't interact with each other in battle, your only resources are potions to heal and stat buffs for just you, your equipment means nothing and you can't even so much as banter with your party members while traveling around because god forbid you start to look friendly with each other.

Nobody praised FF15's combat but the game threw everything and the kitchen sink at you to make you believe Noctis and his boys were a team, just like how a Final Fantasy party should be. You passed resources between each other, you leveled up together, even when you only controlled Noctis you could give orders to Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto, then the Royal Edition was like "hey wait a minute this is a Final Fantasy game" and let you freely swap control between Noctis and the boys in the middle of combat. It wasn't tight and precise but it worked at making you feel like a party, and Final Fantasy as a series IS about being in a party.

FF16's combat system removed all of that, slapped a Final Fantasy skin on top of a Devil May Cry foundation, and then forgot to be a Devil May Cry game anyway. Are you going to do a cool co-op move with Jill like in FF15? No. Are you even going to talk to each other mid combat as your relationship grows? No. She shuts the fuck up and throws attacks separately from you and won't talk to distract you from being a one-man army.

Are you at least going to be able to juggle a bandit in the air for 40 seconds with an array of moves that will have your hands shaking as the game starts hyping you up? Still no, that's not how we do things here in Final Fantasy. You throw someone up in the air and they're dropping after 10 seconds. We don't do that extended combo stuff here.

Lightning Rod. Will o Wisp. Gigaflare. Fuck you.

#it's funny because God of War 4 ditched just as much about old God of War as FF16 did with Final Fantasy and yet i like one but not the othe #Poor Jill got screwed over for a combat system that wouldn't even commit