Once again, a newFinal Fantasygame has reached players, and many diehard fans will likely have their hands tied with the lengthy adventure it offers for quite some time. For the last 36 years,FFhas been an incredible RPG series that has even spanned franchises within itself likeFinal Fantasy 7andChocobo’s Mystery Dungeon. These games tackle all kinds of subsections of the genre it’s based on, from turn-based tohack-and-slash gameplay as seen inCrisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunionand many more.
The fact thatFinal Fantasyhas gone through so many iterations and reinventions of its formula to where it’s broken the expectation for RPGs a few times in its long history isn’t lost on Square Enix. In fact, Yoshinori Kitase, Square Enix’s vice-president, has gone on the record to say that the company wouldn’t have any quarrels with making aFinal Fantasygame that played likeCall of Duty, which would certainly come out of left field for a franchise usually about gigantic yellow ostrich-like birds, crystals, and summoning a number of powerful dragons. That said, if aCoD-inspiredFinal Fantasygame is on the table, then perhaps anFFMonster Hunter-like gameshould be, too.
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Final Fantasy’s History With Trying New Things In RPGs
Final Fantasyhas made it a staple that each numbered title is something different, and that means each game is certainly going to do something that the last one would have never tried. For instance, whileFF15andFF16are both action role-playing games, the way the two of them operate as such is different. Alongside them isFinal Fantasy 7 Remake.It’s primarily an action RPG likeFF15, but had ways to slow the game’s speed, so it was as if the game ran as similar to the originalFF7as it could.FF16has earned high critical praise, in part due to how the developers learned fromFinal Fantasy 15’sshortcomingsto make the title that came after it.
Recently, manyFinal Fantasygames have danced along the line between realism and fantasy as if it were a tightrope, dipping and jumping into whatever suits its story and gameplay the most in specific moments. This is something the iconic monster-based Capcom franchise does quite well, too, asMonster Hunterfeatures realistic yet fantastical creatures, encouraging players to catch them with large, almost comedic weapons with real weight and stamina put to how long it takes them down.
Imagining a Monster Hunter-like Final Fantasy Game
Final Fantasyhas its own rather large bestiary of creatures and monsters that would serve a game like this rather well. There will likely need to be some magical elements to counter-act just how many of these beasts have magic of their own, such as the many Bahamuts, but it may excite a fewFFfans to think that they could take down these dragons and maybe even a few othericonicFinal Fantasysummonswith more practical methods than in other games.
Of course, there would need to be a number ofFFelements thrown in to balance out the gameplay and help the developers make it a true monster-huntingFinal Fantasygame. One of the biggest things that would set the game apart would be a party that assisted the player much like other players in aco-op game ofMonster Hunterwould. This would make the tall task of learning the strategy of the beast players a trying to catch much easier, and making sure the game had a strong party of characters would help the story of this hypotheticalFinal Fantasygame prosper. Overall, there’s plenty of potential in the idea if Square Enix were to pursue it.
