When you think of RPG, Final Fantasy automatically comes to mind. The Japanese license has been with us since 1987 and although its main line has no less than 16 games, there are several parallel spin-offs that may make even the most unfamiliar of the saga dizzy. For this reason, and since Square Enix is tired of having to repeat that of “You don’t need to play the previous ones to understand this one.“, the idea of drop the numbering.
This is the opinion of Naoki Yoshida, producer of the imminent Final Fantasy XVI, who believes that it may be time to give a evolutionary leap in the series “It’s difficult for marketing because every numbered title we release in the series, we have to analyze it like, ‘Okay, you don’t have to play the rest,'” says the Japanese.
In fact, it is not only that the newest in the saga get lost among so much delivery, but that the numbering could override others games that don’t even follow the same genre, despite being Final Fantasy. “For example, you have Final Fantasy XIV. You have a new player coming into the MMO and they’re like, ‘Wait a minute, why do I have to play Final Fantasy XIV when FFXVI is out already? Just ditch the number entirely, and that will make it easier to understand“.
It would be a huge change, perhaps on the same level as the one that the saga gave when it went from turn-based RPG to live action RPG. Although we can understand it as a question of marketing, it is rather tradition. Although, as the producer adds, the idea is there: “It’s actually something that I have discussed with the higher ups. Maybe it’s about time we removed the numbers from the title.”
Final Fantasy XVI is a megaton
Although there is still a month left to return to Square Enix’s RPG, the colleague Alejandro Pascual has already been able to spend 4 hours with Final Fantasy XVI. It is, in his words, “more coherent and with a great exploration of the worldbuilding and the characters, which is precisely the current that literary fantasy has been living for several decades.”
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