With the back to back blockbusters that have come this year, one tends to forget that there are still a lot more major titles yet to drop. Among them is Final Fantasy 16, and boy, has it been looking good. While most people are probably busy exploring Hyrule, fans of the series will be waiting to visit the realm of Valisthea.
However, as is with video games, plenty of people already had opinions on the game before it even launched. Among the online feedback given to producer Naoki Yoshida and team was that the game's UI didn't quite fit the theme of Final Fantasy 16. Instead it looked like it belonged to a sci-fi title, or a fighting game (thanks, VGC).
"We definitely heard the feedback when we released that first trailer and people saw the UI, and then gave a lot of feedback about how maybe it looked too much like a fighting game,” said Yoshida in an interview with Final Fantasy Union. “It was too sci-fi, [it] didn’t fit the style of the game."
He went on to say that the team took this feedback into consideration, but later felt that the new style didn't quite fit right. If you've seen the gameplay trailer, you know there's a lot going on on the screen during combat, and the new UI was blending into it too much. And so, Square Enix decided to go back to the original.
“In the end, Final Fantasy 16 is an action RPG and the action is very fast, and things are moving. And so you need those numbers and those graphics to pop out or you’re going to miss them in the heat of the action.
“And if they’re too blended in and fit the world too well, then you won’t be able to see them and won’t be able to know what’s going on. So we decided to go back to what we originally had because that fit the best."
Yoshida continued saying that the devs eventually realised that the UI does stand out a bit at first, but once they get used to it, players will realise that the UI is just as it should be in the game.
In terms of features, Final Fantasy 16 will not include an airship, or any kind of modern vehicle really. You'll have to travel by foot or by Chocobo if you want to get around in Valisthea. According to director Hiroshi Takai, the game is "based on that main world map and travelling from that world map and doing fast travel from that, we found that there wasn’t really a need for any kind of expanded type of traversal systems."