I know that Final Fantasy started off as a pseudo medieval setting with some scifi elements but ever since the steampunk setting of FFVI, the games have explored more futuristic settings and characters. With FFXV over the horizon, do you think we will see a return to those medieval settings?
SPOILERS Do you think we will see a return to the medieval Final Fantasy games?
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Isn't the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI pretty close to that with it's Game of Thrones/fantasy visuals? I wouldn't call it Hard- Fantasy like GoT as it has Summons and Crystals etc. but the worlds set up is very medieval fantasy with it's kingdoms and hierarchy.
I felt like Final Fantasy IX touched very closely with those medieval roots. I suppose the Terran aspect might closely touch the line of sci-fi, but honestly the entire game felt very close to it's origins of the earlier games prior to FFVII. Like Vivi-Gamer pointed out, FFXVI seems to be reaching back to those roots as well, and I'm very excited about that! It's a bit more serious (especially compared to FFIX as I mentioned earlier) but it'll still be interesting to see how things will go with that.
I feel like medieval settings have a possibility of coming across a bit boring, but I felt IX did that really well. The earlier games I felt hit that 'boring' aspect but I fault that to the time period of gaming & graphics. I really hope FFXVI does this justice.
Also wanted to mention FFXIV. I'm sure someone who has played a lot more than me can attest to this though, but I definitely feel like that XIV hits those notes as well.
I feel like medieval settings have a possibility of coming across a bit boring, but I felt IX did that really well. The earlier games I felt hit that 'boring' aspect but I fault that to the time period of gaming & graphics. I really hope FFXVI does this justice.
Also wanted to mention FFXIV. I'm sure someone who has played a lot more than me can attest to this though, but I definitely feel like that XIV hits those notes as well.
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I'm glad you referred to sci-fi in the first post. It may have been understated in the earliest releases, but pretty much every Final Fantasy game includes science fiction influences. Final Fantasy I was a 'medieval fantasy', but it included airships, floating cities, and, let us not forget, time travel.
That's the very first game.
FFIV had interstellar travel, robots, bigger robots, its own Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, and so on.
So when it comes to defining a game as ‘medieval’ as opposed to ‘science fiction/futuristic’ we are primarily talking about the dominant aesthetics instead of purely the plot's genre, which is always a blend. As Vivi-Gamer pointed out, FFXVI is heading back in the direction of having a 'medieval-inspired' world, aesthetically speaking. And, perhaps, even in a plot sense too. Not only is there talk of courtly tournaments, but certain descriptions and character names invite us to recall the English War of the Roses (Jill Warrick is pretty close to Warwick, as in the historical Earl of Warwick "the Kingmaker", and Rosfield in one proposed etymology could effectively mean 'field of roses'), and so on.
By all of this I mean what we very loosely call 'medieval' in Final Fantasy. It almost always has incorporated early modern elements even when it has been categorised a ‘medieval-looking' game.
This medieval-fantasy aesthetic in the Final Fantasy franchise became, on the whole, less popular once graphics improved and enabled more complicated and more unique environments. Some of the medieval feel of the original games wasn’t just tied to the fantasy genre (aforementioned sci-fi elements express that SE were already interested in breaking these bounds), but it was also tied to the simplicity of the graphics, relatively speaking, and how it was easier to reuse/reshuffle tilesets for various towns in the games. Stone castles and medieval buildings were easier to render than complicated, modern or industrial structures (to say nothing of individualised cultural landmarks, art, statues, etc). FFVI (which was graphically a sizeable step up in itself from previous games) experimented quite a bit more, but then FFVII with 3D took it to an entirely new level.
But FFIX and FFXII have both demonstrated that it is possible to do well with the 'medieval' approach, combined with breathtaking environments and rich, unique, complex and interesting cultures. These games aren't confined to castles and dragons with multiple cave-like dungeons. They are divided into different continents and countries, and different species, which look and feel unique.
FFXIV is too much of a blend of medieval, modern and futuristic to really be contained under any single category, in my opinion.
We don't have much to go on for FFXVI yet. One of the main criticisms the teaser/reveal trailer received was that all we could see was a castle (with little in terms of defining features), and fields, woods, etc. And yet, the artwork looks quite stunning, and the lore on its website seems very fascinating. It is in great hands too, so, while early days, we might be set for a very enjoyable adventure in a 'medieval-fantasy' world once again.
I forgot to consider Tactics. You're right. It has the religious schisms, heresy, crusades, and other hallmarks characteristic of the medieval period, in addition to visually drawing influence from it. They did a great job with the localisation to bring in archaic speech patterns of a sort as well.
That's the very first game.
FFIV had interstellar travel, robots, bigger robots, its own Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, and so on.
So when it comes to defining a game as ‘medieval’ as opposed to ‘science fiction/futuristic’ we are primarily talking about the dominant aesthetics instead of purely the plot's genre, which is always a blend. As Vivi-Gamer pointed out, FFXVI is heading back in the direction of having a 'medieval-inspired' world, aesthetically speaking. And, perhaps, even in a plot sense too. Not only is there talk of courtly tournaments, but certain descriptions and character names invite us to recall the English War of the Roses (Jill Warrick is pretty close to Warwick, as in the historical Earl of Warwick "the Kingmaker", and Rosfield in one proposed etymology could effectively mean 'field of roses'), and so on.
By all of this I mean what we very loosely call 'medieval' in Final Fantasy. It almost always has incorporated early modern elements even when it has been categorised a ‘medieval-looking' game.
This medieval-fantasy aesthetic in the Final Fantasy franchise became, on the whole, less popular once graphics improved and enabled more complicated and more unique environments. Some of the medieval feel of the original games wasn’t just tied to the fantasy genre (aforementioned sci-fi elements express that SE were already interested in breaking these bounds), but it was also tied to the simplicity of the graphics, relatively speaking, and how it was easier to reuse/reshuffle tilesets for various towns in the games. Stone castles and medieval buildings were easier to render than complicated, modern or industrial structures (to say nothing of individualised cultural landmarks, art, statues, etc). FFVI (which was graphically a sizeable step up in itself from previous games) experimented quite a bit more, but then FFVII with 3D took it to an entirely new level.
But FFIX and FFXII have both demonstrated that it is possible to do well with the 'medieval' approach, combined with breathtaking environments and rich, unique, complex and interesting cultures. These games aren't confined to castles and dragons with multiple cave-like dungeons. They are divided into different continents and countries, and different species, which look and feel unique.
FFXIV is too much of a blend of medieval, modern and futuristic to really be contained under any single category, in my opinion.
We don't have much to go on for FFXVI yet. One of the main criticisms the teaser/reveal trailer received was that all we could see was a castle (with little in terms of defining features), and fields, woods, etc. And yet, the artwork looks quite stunning, and the lore on its website seems very fascinating. It is in great hands too, so, while early days, we might be set for a very enjoyable adventure in a 'medieval-fantasy' world once again.
I forgot to consider Tactics. You're right. It has the religious schisms, heresy, crusades, and other hallmarks characteristic of the medieval period, in addition to visually drawing influence from it. They did a great job with the localisation to bring in archaic speech patterns of a sort as well.
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A counterpoint to my last post. Or, rather, a clarification.
I should have acknowledged that science fiction is not restricted to modern or futuristic settings even in literature. Although these shape our perception of it more often since science fiction is typically defined as forward-thinking (but not by everyone).
There was some science fiction (as we might now call it) of a sort as far back as antiquity. An often cited example would be the True Story of Lucian (2nd Century AD, a Hellenistic/Greek-speaking Syrian). This satire (in the same vein as Swift's Gulliver's Travels which would follow its legacy much later) concerns a narrator retelling a ridiculous and unbelievable journey. But important to us here is that in one leg of the adventure the narrator and his crew are swept up in a whirlwind and end up on the moon. They then witness a cosmic conflict between the inhabitants of the Moon and the inhabitants of the Sun. These cosmic bodies are considered here as planets rather than personified deities, and all sorts of weird, hybrid, alien creatures are involved in the war (which is a territorial dispute). You could say that it is more accurately a 'space fantasy' than science fiction (more like Star Wars than Star Trek), but there are people who define science fiction differently. We might compare this sort of story with the conflict of Gaia and Terra (FFIX), Jenova and the Planet (FFVII), and the two conflicting Gaias in Spirits Within, amongst other interplanetary disputes. And then we obviously have actual travel to an actual moon in FFIV, FFVIII (almost) and in the upcoming FFXIV expansion Endwalker.
Also the concept of a floating city (such as introduced in FFI but recurring in several games) was also contemplated in antiquity. In the escapist Old Comedy play The Birds (414 BC), the Athenian poet Aristophanes imagined a city built in the clouds by birds (and two Athenian men who have decided they've had enough with Athens). This city was none other than Cloud-Cuckoo-Land (as it is translated in English). Here they decide to usurp the gods themselves, and their city blocks the smell of the sacrifices from the ground below, so the gods begin to starve.
Outside of humorous classics, even the epic poet Homer contemplates what we might interpret today as robot-like contraptions. Hephaestus has self-moving tripods on wheels, and he also crafted himself some golden maids to serve as his servants.
Anyway, the basic point of all of that is that the medieval-fantasy setting (or even an ancient-fantasy setting, if they'd ever be so bold) would not need to interfere too much with the science fiction elements. They aren't always really at complete odds, despite the fact that when we think of science fiction we do tend to think of futuristic worlds or the technology of the future, whether near-future or far-future.
I should have acknowledged that science fiction is not restricted to modern or futuristic settings even in literature. Although these shape our perception of it more often since science fiction is typically defined as forward-thinking (but not by everyone).
There was some science fiction (as we might now call it) of a sort as far back as antiquity. An often cited example would be the True Story of Lucian (2nd Century AD, a Hellenistic/Greek-speaking Syrian). This satire (in the same vein as Swift's Gulliver's Travels which would follow its legacy much later) concerns a narrator retelling a ridiculous and unbelievable journey. But important to us here is that in one leg of the adventure the narrator and his crew are swept up in a whirlwind and end up on the moon. They then witness a cosmic conflict between the inhabitants of the Moon and the inhabitants of the Sun. These cosmic bodies are considered here as planets rather than personified deities, and all sorts of weird, hybrid, alien creatures are involved in the war (which is a territorial dispute). You could say that it is more accurately a 'space fantasy' than science fiction (more like Star Wars than Star Trek), but there are people who define science fiction differently. We might compare this sort of story with the conflict of Gaia and Terra (FFIX), Jenova and the Planet (FFVII), and the two conflicting Gaias in Spirits Within, amongst other interplanetary disputes. And then we obviously have actual travel to an actual moon in FFIV, FFVIII (almost) and in the upcoming FFXIV expansion Endwalker.
Also the concept of a floating city (such as introduced in FFI but recurring in several games) was also contemplated in antiquity. In the escapist Old Comedy play The Birds (414 BC), the Athenian poet Aristophanes imagined a city built in the clouds by birds (and two Athenian men who have decided they've had enough with Athens). This city was none other than Cloud-Cuckoo-Land (as it is translated in English). Here they decide to usurp the gods themselves, and their city blocks the smell of the sacrifices from the ground below, so the gods begin to starve.
Outside of humorous classics, even the epic poet Homer contemplates what we might interpret today as robot-like contraptions. Hephaestus has self-moving tripods on wheels, and he also crafted himself some golden maids to serve as his servants.
Anyway, the basic point of all of that is that the medieval-fantasy setting (or even an ancient-fantasy setting, if they'd ever be so bold) would not need to interfere too much with the science fiction elements. They aren't always really at complete odds, despite the fact that when we think of science fiction we do tend to think of futuristic worlds or the technology of the future, whether near-future or far-future.
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Was gonna mention FF16 until you did.
Yeah, I saw the trailer. Definitely looks medieval.
Man, I sure hope so! I’ve been a die-hard FF fan for the last 20 years now, but these last few installments in the franchise just didn’t cut it for me. Heck, I didn’t even ever finish Final Fantasy 15, and I bought it the week it came out! I believe Final Fantasy XII was the last one I truly enjoyed and loved, and that came out 15 years ago.
I’m hoping there’s a FFIX or FFXII feel to the next one, but I honestly believe it will be more along the lines of 13 and 15.
I’m hoping there’s a FFIX or FFXII feel to the next one, but I honestly believe it will be more along the lines of 13 and 15.
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In terms of its aesthetics, FFXVI definitely does seem to be closer to FFIX and FFXII. Although we aren't getting the cutesy character designs of FFIX, the setting looks set to resemble that game more than FFXIII and FFXV (although a small part of the trailer does resemble FFXV's Kingsglaive and summons). We are to head to a medieval realm for sure.
No doubt there will be science fiction themes aplenty, but they'll be coated with a medieval fantasy paint, just like FFIX. FFIX has interplanetary travel, artificial beings, cloning, etc, after all. The two combine well.
This will end up looking like a combination of FFIX, FFXII and aspects of FFXIV, if I was to hazard a guess. But it'll also, hopefully, be its own thing too. We've only seen a very small glimpse of the game so far, but it looks like it'll be quite a dark game. I'm sure it'll be balanced, as always.
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I hope we'll see a remake of FF IX for Nintendo Switch (my fav medieval's game)