The classic RPG series goes open world - Final Fantasy XII vs. Final Fantasy XV

"Square's Final Fantasy franchise has come a very long way since its humble beginnings on NES so let's see which of these newfangled entries with expansive worlds will take home the gold chocobo." - A.J. Maciejewski from Video Chums

[VideoChums]

Make sure to vote for your favourite at the bottom of the article! 🎮😄

[FalconofLucis98]

FF12s open world was better than FF15s which was just empty.

[AK91]

But it’s always been open world?

[NecrumOddBoy]

You're correct. I don't know what is up with the disagrees. It's almost ALWAYS been open world, but the story gates off the exploration and freedom when needed. FF7 was the best at giving you a narrow path that widened to full exploration as you progressed. FFXV was the first Ubi-open world or Wide Sandbox (I don't know if there's a correct term yet).

[FalconofLucis98]

FF was always linear, it was just super well hidden. The overworld was just an illusion leading you down the next path. Youre just too blind to see that. FF10 in story structure was not different in any way from its predecessors. Youre forced to go down a certain path at the beginning and middle of the game and then the world opens up to you at the end just like before. The linearity was just better hidden and more illusory in its predecessors, in FF10 its pretty much the same just minus the illusion. I guess some people prefer being brainwashed and have linearity just sugar coated as open-world. In FF10 towards the end you dont travel across the overworld, you just teleport to the theoretical overworld areas that opens up like before.

The overworld was just a glorified town selector. It was never a 1:1 scale so it cant be an open world. It just held your hand feeding the illusion.

[BlahBlahWhatever]

Both are trash & neither deserve to be called Final Fantasy but if you wanna hear my opinion about which is the better trash then that's FFXII for sure, it had better cast of characters & better exploration, still for an FF the characters was forgettable, also you couldn't even distinct which was the main char.. & ofc the worst part about it was the battle system, it was horrible no need to say anything else, about FFXV my suggestion is paint it blue & throw it in the sea & just leave it there, let's forget this game is even exist.

[nitus10]

Personally, I liked FFXII's gambits to control your party members although it is possible to use turn-based combat if IMHO you are a masochist since you get into hundreds/thousands of fights. Of course, when you face a tough enemy you do have the option of turn-based combat, or you can pause and reprogram your gambits. An interesting feature of combat was the ability to position your party members in the field (no other FF game allows you to do this)* and by doing this you can actually swing the tide of a battle.

* Not sure about FFXV and I have not played the online games.

BTW. I found the targeting lines annoying but thankfully you can turn them off.

As for FFXV I purchased the game (got it cheap) a few months ago and I tried playing it a week ago. I tried the tutorial and after an hour I just gave up and went back to Horizon Zero Dawn. I will go back to the game eventually but I have too many games that I would rather play first.

I won't deny that FFXV is a very pretty game and it does support 4K HDR visuals but then again HZD does as well. Even if you have a standard PS4 (which I have) and a 4K HDR display (I also have) the picture even at 1080p with HDR does look stunning. My 32" monitor does an excellent job of scaling 1080p to 4K.

IMHO FFIV, FFV and FFVI had some of the most interesting characters although I still liked all the other FF games.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I don't really care for either game myself (I don't see much reason for me to participate in the poll), but I'd give the edge to FF12.