Square Enix's flagship series has been on an uptick over the past few years, thanks in part to the success of titles like Final Fantasy 15 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. However, if the long-running developer wants to keep fan appreciation for the storied Final Fantasy series high, then Final Fantasy 16 may need avoid attempting to ride modern success and look back at the series' roots.
This wouldn't be the first time that Final Fantasy has looked back at earlier entries in the series in order to reach back for success by keeping to the core themes and mechanics that made the series what it is in the first place. One of the most important of these themes is the "fantasy" aspect of the series, a focus that Square Enix has taken before in highly successful titles like Final Fantasy 9 and should replicate in Final Fantasy 16.
Final Fantasy 9's focus on Fantasy over Sci-Fi
Before Square Enix had even finished wrapping up the PS1 release of the heavily sci-fi themed Final Fantasy 8, work had already begun on what would eventually become the heavily fantasy based Final Fantasy 9. However, during this development, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi made the decision that this newest installment needed to return to the high-fantasy concepts of earlier games. At this point, both Final Fantasy 7 and 8 had been grand science-fiction adventures, and Sakaguchi reportedly feared that this might cause the games to become repetitive and unoriginal if the next entry in the series continued this trend.
To a degree, the same situation is now repeating itself again before the arrival of Final Fantasy 16, with Final Fantasy 15 and 7 Remake both being heavily sci-fi themed with only a minor focus on high-fantasy. The most recent installment to lean on those previous fantasy themes has been Final Fantasy 14, which originally launched almost a full decade ago in 2010, although the current A Realm Reborn version released in 2013. This means that it's been almost 10 years since a new fantasy based title has launched from the Final Fantasy series that are more than expansions to the franchise's most recent MMO.
Improve Final Fantasy 7 Remake's ATB gauge
Looking at the influence Final Fantasy 7 Remake might have on future games in the series, it's important to note how the core mechanics that sets Final Fantasy apart from other JRPGs have aged. One mechanic in particular, the Active Time Battle guage, or ATB, is easily one of the most iconic features that has made combat in this series much more active and require quick decisions in the otherwise slow, turn-based system. This is something that the recent remake has managed to bring into modern gaming with a heavy focus on hack and slash action, while still maintaining many of the turn-based tenants that made the original so popular.
All that being said, the system is far from perfect, especially when it comes to the active input required to bring the ATB up for party members, and the connection between keeping on the offensive and healing. An improvement on the aggression of AI companions would go a long way towards streamlining combat in any other games that continue to implement the Final Fantasy 7 Remake combat system, hopefully including Final Fantasy 16. There is clearly an intentionally crafted balance when it comes to how enemy aggression relates to which character is currently being controlled, but the rarity of freely available ATB bars bleeds into hindering features from healing to summons.
Keep Summons Simple
One of the features that made Final Fantasy 10 so popular among fans of the series involved the mechanics surrounding summons, powerful monsters that can be called in to attack enemies. However, Final Fantasy 10 was the first main installment in the series to let players control these monsters, called Aeons in the game, and use them for multiple turns throughout a battle. Previously, these creatures would be summoned for a single attack before leaving the field and leaving the rest of the battle to act itself out without their continued interference.
More recent installments in the series have repeatedly tried to lean towards Final Fantasy 10's "summoned ally" system to varying degrees of success that Final Fantasy 16 should do its best to avoid. Unfortunately, none of these attempts to bring a temporary ally into the battlefield to fight alongside the player has quite matched up to how they felt the first time this system appeared. Even summons as strong as Bahamut in Final Fantasy 7 Remake just don't feel as satisfying to call out as Ifrit in either the original game, or the Final Fantasy 10 variant, felt to rain fire on a group of enemies.
An Enjoyable Airship
Far and beyond the summons, one of the largest changes in Final Fantasy 10 that had previously been a staple for the series, is the new way that the airship works as less of a flyable vehicle and more of a map with a menu. This is due largely in part to the way that more recent titles have been built around traveling through interconnected maps in order to give the worlds of Final Fantasy a much more natural and realistic feel. As a result, it has become impossible to make the airships as mobile as they had previously been without the open landscape dotted with towns and dungeons to zoom around the sky in.
The only exclusion to this rule in the last decade and a half has been Final Fantasy 15 with Noctis' Regalia, specifically with the Regalia Type-F that can be unlocked after hunting down pieces through a number of quests. However, while Final Fantasy 15 does have an airship, only available long after most of the open world has been left behind by the story, it certainly isn't as fun to fly around in than the vehicles found in titles from Final Fantasy 2 through 9. While it might be a big ask for an entertaining airship in Final Fantasy 16, utilizing the capabilities of Next-Gen consoles and pushing the open world design could allow for some of the best experiences putting players in the sky in the whole series.
Final Fantasy 16 is rumored to be in development now.