I agree, but not with the word "nearly". I feel certain it will be crap haha. But I'll be happy if I am wrong. I just don't expect to be in the slightest. I am not sure how much more convinced I am than Hian... that may prove interesting convo. I assume this is using FF15 engine and ethos... if so... this is what we have to look forward to:
Personally, I can't really rate my own conviction here. It could pan out in many different ways -
What I can speak to, is my worry and my anxiety, and they are off the charts when it comes to FF7R.
I am not at all sure that it will be bad - I am afraid that I will be bad. I am very afraid that it will be bad.
As for action systems - they generally don't work with party-centered RPGs, which is why I am usually opposed to them in party-centered RPGs.
They can work in single-player RPGs because you only have one bloke to worry about.
The moment you add more, it becomes cluttered - I mean, even if they're just NPCs, they're still a hindrance more often
than not, which is why even in action games, people usually loath missions where you have to keep an NPC alive
as you run through level.
Action systems require immediate focus and twitch sensibilities - that doesn't work well with party-play most of the time,
which is problematic when RPGs often try to tell stories about a party of people going off on an adventure.
Apart from table-top conventions and traditions, that's one of the reasons the JRPG turn-based system was made to
begin with - to allow players to control (strategical control at that) an entire party of characters by themselves.
The ability to micro-manage every move of your entire party is a prerequisite for successful party play,
unless it's a multi-player game, or the A.I is fantastic.
The problem with the former is that this creates a plethora of issues (what if you don't have any friends to play with etc.?),
and the latter is that A.I's simply aren't that advanced yet, and are probably never going to be as good as a character
with a human being the sticks.
The party dynamic was one of the things I loathed about type-0 - I am all choked up trying to fend for the character I am controlling -
too much so to worry about what the other characters are getting up to, and before I know it, they're dying like flies because they're fvcking incompetent (not to mention that this game doesn't have an efficient system for healing characters you're not controlling, since
the spell are next to impossible to target allies with, and going to the menu for items doesn't pause the game,
meaning that the enemy will keep attacking while you're frantically searching for healing items on the menu that covers
the entire screen).
You can side-step all of those issues simply by opting for a turn-based system - or like in the Star Wars - Knights of the Old republic games, add a pause function that still allows you to change characters, queue orders/commands, use items etc.
The issue here is that we know that Nomura is not going to opt for the old battle system - we know that it's likely (though not to what degree) that they'll opt for an action system. The problem is that SE and the FF teams do not have a good track-record of
developing action battle systems.
Every single FF game I've played with an action-centric combat system have been horrible.
Dirge of Cerberus had a miserable camera and a lack-luster combat system that felt like a botched and bastardized child
of early Syphon Filter and Devil May Cry as designed by a bunch of people who hadn't payed attention
to the development of 3d person action games the last decade before they decided to attempt to make one.
Type-0 was, in its most basic form, a joy to play on the PS Vita with two analogue sticks, but it was plagued by horrible
balancing issues, and contrived game-play mechanics like
- no proper means of revival in missions, except for
one spell, and a very limited supply of Phoenix Downs that resulted in the "reraise" state on party members for
a limited amount of time)
- Menu not pausing the game, and pausing the game not allowing you to browse the menu
- No proper way of targeting allies with quick items or spells
- Quick item slot defaulting to empty once you run out of the item you equipped, forcing you to go to the [unpausing] menu
to change it
- enemies getting kill-sight attacks on your party despite the fact that you have no proper revival options, or enemies
randomly going into "aggro" mode where they glow gold and can suddenly one-hit-kill your characters
- Not being able to exchange the 3 primary party-members for reserves unless one of them dies or if you're at
a save-point.
- Not being able to change skills/equipment except at save-points
and the list keeps on going.
FF15 is plagued by horrible camera, a contrived lock-on system, relatively flat combat with no real challenged except by
bosses with ridiculous amounts of HP and DMG.
In fact, the only FF action RPG that isn't horrible of the top of my head, is Crisis Core, but the combat there was limited to one
character, and was still pretty flat and repetitive most of the time.
So, point in case -
If they're going to remove the turn-based(ATB) system - and use an action system, the rate of failure increases exponentially unless they
A.) make Cloud the only playable character, which would be really fvcking boring in a game with a larger than life cast like FF7
B.) introduce a proper pause command menu
As a developer,
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the only system that I think could appeal to both old and new fans with FF7R
while retaining strategical party play is a semi-ATB action system -
Perhaps where moving about and attacking/dodging is done in free-time, while item/magic/limit break
are tied to a command menu that can only be opened for each individual character once their respective ATB gauge is filled,
and when opened either stops or slows down time to allow the player to make deliberate choices (also with
the possibility of slowing down or stopping down time whenever else too, such as when changing characters).
That way you could get best of both worlds.
You could even add an option in the menu to adjust the time or slowing of speed that happens upon opening the command menu
to be true to the adjustment of the battle-speed in the original game.
Add a possibility to tie certain skills/items/magic to a quick use function mapped to the d-pad or something to that effect
so the action freaks won't have to scroll through menus all the time to get to the spells they want to use, and you have
a pretty good system going.
You could be dashing about with Cloud in one moment, stop time, change to Barret, fire up the command menu, set up a fire spell,
change back to Cloud and then continue on dashing about without any issues what so ever.
Everybody is happy.
Will SE do this? Probably not.
Unfortunately, I don't think Nomura has the design sense, nor the creativity to actually imagine a system like that.