Feel like it’s headed that way and wonder how some of us old timers feel about this direction.
Personally I hope with each title they don’t just create a new story, characters, and universe, but also experiment with turn based again given the success of OT2
I like all sorts of battle systems. There’s some nice perks to the battle systems they used in the likes of 15 and 16, but I really do love turn based combat and perhaps what I absolutely miss the most is control over my party members. Heck, I wish we could even just have a gambit system like 12 so that I can at least control my party member’s strategy, even if not them (though 12 also did let you take control of anyone – just it was too tedious to do for anything other than infrequent moments).
Most specifically, I’d love to see a battle system like 10 return. It was one of my favourite for battle systems. Sure, ATB is nice and perhaps the most Final Fantasy, but the dynamic turns of 10 was very cool. I also really liked that it let me take time to think and plan out my moves. I could take a look at how each possible move would affect the upcoming turns. The whole turn order was super strategic. Being able to see when your enemies would attack was a big part of that (I don’t recall any variant of ATB allowing that), because I could do stuff like “I have 3 turns before the enemy, so I can just press the attack instead of healing”. Actually, I dunno why 10’s battle system has never been used in any other game I’ve played (if you know any, lemme know!).
The mobile final fantasy game DFFOO uses that turn system. You can see when the big baddie is going to have a turn, and in their system you can also delay or delete their turn giving yourself more time.
Plus you can play as any character FFX included. It’s a lot of fun.
It’s their franchise. Personally I appreciate when a creative director makes decisions based on their personal vision.
That said, I’m a turn based fan. There’s been plenty of games in the genre that I have enjoyed recently. Midnight suns, fire emblem, like a dragon, and persona have all scratched the itch for me.
We probably still see ocationaly some turn based game like in world of final fantasy, but the series experimenting with it’s battles systems since Final Fantasy XII or maybe even since FFX. It’s no simple turn based for many years now and that how the series goes on. I don’t mind it anymore because i like some of theses system and some are quite unique. There are still other games that stay turn based to i let the ff devs do what they like.