There’s been an undercurrent of opinion, ever since Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took audiences unexpectedly earlier this 12 months, that the strategy taken by the turn-based fantasy RPG is the treatment for all the pieces that ails Last Fantasy. It delivers an old-school tackle the style that’s a lot much less flawed than each Last Fantasy XVI and Last Fantasy VII Rebirth, garnering rave critiques, GOTY buzz, and spectacular gross sales for a first-time studio. Last Fantasy followers have been jealous.
“Jesus, I see what you’ve accomplished for Clair Obscur and I need that for us,” you possibly can virtually hear them pleading. There’s been a seek for what the Sq. Enix franchise, which Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur was impressed by, can study from the brand new child on the block. For some long-time followers, one of many takeaways has been that the Japanese collection ought to return to its roots as a turn-based recreation. Last Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida was requested about that at Anime Expo 2025.
“With this query of turn-based versus motion, it tends to isolate the gameplay to only the battle system,” he responded. “That doesn’t bear in mind what sort of recreation the creators need to ship to gamers. For instance, primarily based on a sure graphical high quality we need to current to our gamers, or the narrative we need to ship to our gamers, it pertains to how we arrange the sport’s techniques round it.”
Yoshida continued, “This consists of the battle system, recreation design, and gameplay really feel. It’s not a clear-cut reply, whether or not it’ll change into all turn-based, or if it’s going to change into extra action-based. [I’m] not essentially going to be on Last Fantasy 17, so we additionally don’t need to hinder or restrict our future director or whomever will probably be producing the video games like 17 and even 18. We don’t need to put them on a rail.”
The reply helped elucidate the entire issues that go into designing a sequel. You may’t simply decide issues from a listing and begin sticking them collectively. Every aspect, from the graphical type to the kind of story being advised to the gameplay mechanics, wants to go with each other and act in concord. Ideally, every factor may circulate organically into the following, making every new choice really feel like a pure consequence of the final relatively than one thing being arbitrarily inserted to please followers or shareholders.
One thing I believe a number of the conversations lording Clair Obscur over Last Fantasy’s head miss are that fight isn’t the place the latter has faltered in recent times. Last Fantasy XVI’s arcade-like real-time motion is flashy, exact, and extremely satisfying. The one actual shortcomings had been that it didn’t dive deeper into a number of the underlying techniques—extra Eikon skill synergies, elemental harm, extra various tools choices—and it wasn’t arduous sufficient . Every of these is well iterated on in a sequel, because the collection has accomplished all through its historical past.
Last Fantasy VII Rebirth gives a good greater rebuttal to the turn-based query in my thoughts as a result of that’s basically nonetheless what it’s. Last Fantasy fight has lengthy operated on a continuum between static and real-time, going again to the collection’ introduction of the ATB system to let enemies act impartial of participant decision-making. This is the reason Sq. Enix usually refers to Rebirth as a command fight system. Whilst you can transfer round in battles and positioning is necessary, crucial duties are all automated by the characters themselves and carried out by choosing them from a menu. There are dodges, parries, synergies, summons, and all the remainder, however at its core it’s already working off the identical logic as Clair Obscur’s fight system, and in rather more sturdy methods.
It’s completely high quality if followers simply need a new Last Fantasy that marries costly graphics with a standard turn-based system, although there are not any scarcity of different RPGs on the market, together with many from Sq. Enix itself, that already cater to these basic sensibilities. However the fight itself is way from the weakest a part of the fashionable entries within the franchise. What’s really holding it again, undoubtedly, are the tales. I’m not going to relitigate each flip in every of the sprawling adventures launch during the last decade. I’d argue Last Fantasy storytelling has been on the decline because the finish of the PS2 technology with FFXII, a still-stellar recreation for loads of different causes. Rebirth and FFXVI each had obvious points, although.
Rebirth is a world-class recreation in so some ways, from the cinematic presentation to the maximalist open-world design, nevertheless it bungles most of the authentic supply materials’s most necessary moments with out offering attention-grabbing new interpretations, tensions, or epiphanies in return. The Gold Saucer part is an ideal encapsulation. The theme park is fantastically and entertainingly recreated and chock stuffed with enjoyable distractions. However Barret’s backstory of getting his YIMBY idealism exploited by Shinra to show his hometown right into a Mako-harvesting dump will get quick shrift and feels hollowed out. His encounter with Dyne, the good friend whose life he by accident ruined, is overshadowed by a cartoony infusion of clear-cut moralism. It was one among many narrative misfires up and thru Rebirth’s weird ending.
FFXVI faltered much more continuously. For each nice character second between Clive, Joshua, and Cid, there was one thing within the bigger narrative about geopolitical rivalries and enslaved magic customers that was both straight-up dumb or borderline offensive. It by no means fairly grapples with the stakes of its grim worldbuilding earlier than ultimately ditching all of it for some old-school Last Fantasy guy-in-the-sky deus ex machina shit that undermines all the pieces gamers had beforehand change into so emotionally invested in. I say this with full love for the sport as an entire, which I’m presently taking part in a second time, however FFXVI lives as much as its Recreation of Thrones influences with a 3rd act that’s each bit as disappointing as the tip of the HBO collection.
My take away from Clair Obscur, then, will not be that RPGs should be turn-based to seek out love once more, however that even a turn-based RPG can win over fashionable audiences if the story, performing, and presentation are all high notch. There isn’t a cause the following Last Fantasy can’t do all of these issues on high of harnessing the franchise’s present fight techniques. For everybody else, properly, Dragon Quest XII shouldn’t be that distant.
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