Given that exploring the world map for out of the way dungeons and towns with rare goods was a part of JRPGs in the past. While at first it might have seemed like a radical departure for a Final Fantasy game, making it open world, in practice it simply feels like a natural evolution of the franchise. You can run out of town and straight into the wilderness, or be out in the wilderness enter a cave and be in a dungeon without a change of screens. There are no longer a world map/town screen/dungeon screens. In other words evolving the series in this direction will more likely draw in a larger audience.Įxploration is done in one massive screen/interface, ala Grand Theft Auto. For instance, I think Trails of Cold Steel is a phenomenal game that uses a menu based combat system, but the game is also a little more niche, as opposed to a big flagship, bread and butter, franchise like Final Fantasy. Is this the only way to evolve the series? No, but for a flagship franchise like Final Fantasy, I think it's the correct way to go.

And this free roaming sort of action-style battle isn't anything that Square-Enix hasn't done before, I thought the system was very reminiscent of Star Ocean 3's. Having played though parts of, or the entirety of FFVI, FFVII, VIII, X, X-2, FFVII:CC, FFXIII and FF Type-0, I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Even in FFXV's prototype form, Final Fantasy XIII Versus, the battle system was to be more action oriented.

Given Final Fantasy Type-0 and before that Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, we could see the Square-Enix was starting to move away from the menu based combat interface. In terms of the gameplay, FFXV definitely moves the franchise forward, but there is still room for improvement.

Ffxv cat quest