Games Inbox: Final Fantasy as the best JRPG series

The Monday letters page is upset that Fable may still be years away from release, as one reader has a gut feeling Switch is out this year.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Fantasy ranking
I’ve seen the hype building for Final Fantasy 16, and I realised that I’ve never actually played any of the games. I’m not a big fan of role-playing games in general but I’ve never been interested in Japanese ones in particular, because I have no love for anime. I don’t hate it so much that I would refuse to play any game that looked like one, but somehow the fates have conspired so that I have never be in the position to buy or play one.

So I’m curious as to which Final Fantasy entries readers would recommend and how they think they would compare to the few Western role-players I’ve played, namely The Witcher 3 and Skyrim? Also, is Final Fantasy still regarded as the best Japanese role-playing series?

It obviously thinks it is but I hear it spoken about with increasingly less reverent tones lately and the general impression I get is that it’s passed its best. Is that true though and if it isn’t the best then what is better? Persona, I’m guessing?
Goldie

Fabled release
So hang on, the Fable reboot that we first heard about six years ago is still ‘miles away’?! What is happening at Microsoft? Is there anyone that would try to argue that they are not failing horribly with their first party games? They’re releasing virtually nothing and even when stuff like Halo Infinite does come out it’s a disaster. I honestly don’t think they could be doing worse than if they tried.

All we get is endless promises about everything getting better at some vague point in the future and it never happens. We still don’t even have a date for the Starfield direct, let alone the game itself!

He might play the role of the friendly, fellow gamer well but as far as I’m concerned Phil Spencer has been a disaster for Xbox. He’s been in the job for nearly a decade and in terms of exclusive games he’s achieved almost nothing, while all the money in the world has been thrown at Game Pass and buying studios and it’s come to nothing.

I sorely regret ever buying an Xbox Series X/S and as far as I’m concerned the whole situation is completely indefensible.
Myles

Gut feeling
So I guess one theory now is that the Pokémon DLC is Nintendo’s big game for Christmas, but I don’t buy that. I’m sure it’ll make money but you can’t have that as your main reason to buy a Switch this Christmas, it’s just too niche and abstract a concept to market to casual gamers out buying gifts.

I know there’s not much evidence for it but I just feel in my bones that Nintendo are going to announce and release the Switch 2 this year. They know fine well you can got 12 months without any major new games or releases – they’ve made that mistake more than once in their past – and there clearly isn’t any magical, almost finished game waiting to be released in November.

My bet is a late summer announcement and a pre-Christmas launch. I fully admit that’s based on nothing but my gut feeling but I claim 200 internet points if I’m right.
Focus

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Sufficiently powered
I did have a bit of wait for Metroid Prime Remastered as I wanted the physical cartridge. But oh wow, how good is Metroid Prime?

It looks totally awesome. And plays just as awesomely. It is an early contender for game of the year for me.

I did clock it on the GameCube many years ago. And I have Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii. And this time through it is even better.

A lot of comments frequently mention the Switch being ‘underpowered’. But this game on my 4K TV looks better than a whole lot of Xbox X/S or PlayStation 5 games.

Does the video games industry really need a Switch 2?
Si

Undead hordes
There was an interesting Reader’s Feature a few weeks ago talking about how The Last Of Us TV show would prove to be very bad for gaming, in terms of putting an emphasis on story over gameplay. I generally agreed with it but one thing I don’t think has been talked about much so far is what it’s influence is going to be on zombie games.

I finally thought we were seeing the end of the fad but now I fear it will be back, bigger than ever. Especially with the whole prepper angle to The Last Of Us. I know I shouldn’t complain about things I don’t like but the endless hordes of these games just gets me down sometimes. They’re so unoriginal, in terms of the zombies themselves and the fact that they’re always just rip-offs of the two or three good zombie games that started it all.

We’ll see how Dead Island 2 does. If it does well, which I suspect it will, we will likely see the whole merry-go-round start again. Could be that getting delayed was the best thing ever for that game.
Josh

Evil choices
I don’t imagine anyone was out in the streets celebrating but it was the 14th anniversary of Resident Evil 5 on Sunday. The game is clearly nowhere near as a good as Resident Evil 4 but I still had a good time with it and it’s a lot better than 6. But would Capcom make that their next remake?

On the one hand it would benefit from a redo, especially that section in the tribal village, but on the other where do you stop? Resident Evil 6 remake would have to be a completely different game to be any good and CODE: Veronica would be more interesting than either, and yet I think they’ve already pretty much given up any hope of doing that.

The only other obvious route to me is remaking Resident Evil 1 but is the smaller scale and scarier atmosphere really going to sell as well as the crazy excess of Resident Evil 4, or even 2? Personally I’d be happy if they stopped with 4 and just did Dino Crisis instead but I fear that boat has probably sailed too.
Roton

Story awards
I don’t really see the point of the BAFTA awards, all they ever do is vote for story-based games above everything else and, if at all possible, British games. I don’t think they mean it but the whole ends up being so biased against Japanese games it’s kind of gross.

They always ignored Nintendo and now they seem to be doing the same with FromSoftware and Elden Ring. For me there is just no impression that they’re treating things impartially.
Jasco

Crime simulators
With all the talk about GTA 6 at the moment has anyone noticed how rare similar games are getting? As in open world games set in the present day or something close to it? Both the new Saints Row game and the latest Watch Dogs were flops and now there doesn’t seem to be anything else similar except GTA itself? Maybe this Crime Boss: Rockay City thing but I’m not really clear what it is exactly and it’s PC only at first.

Spider-Man 2 seems like it might be the next one and that barely counts at all in my book. Thing is though, I’m not sure if this is because the concept is now unpopular or because it’s just a case of all the recent games being bad?

GTA 6 will obviously be huge whatever happens, so in a way it’s not even a good indication of whether the concept is popular. After all, it’s not as if Red Dead Redemption has made cowboy games popular, it’s just the Rockstar games themselves that people like. I can’t imagine that pretending to be a gangster isn’t still widely popular but you’d never guess to look at recent games.
Whisham

Inbox also-rans
Finally made the purchase of XCOM 2 when I saw it was 85% discounted on Nintendo Switch, after a little google I stumbled across your review for it and thought the £5.99 is a bargain! Looking forward to playing this!
Damien

Is Microsoft being so useless with getting games out, with Fable being the latest example, them pretending to the governments that they’re not very good at first party games? If that was the aim then you can tell them it worked perfectly.
Olumiab

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was inspired by reader Xane, who asks what famous game or franchise have you never played?

Many video games may be considered all-time classics but which ones have never played yourself? Did you avoid the game on purpose or is it just something you never got round to – or were unable to play because it was on a format you didn’t own?

Do you make an effort to play critically acclaimed games even if they don’t seem quite your sort of thing? Have you ever been surprised by a classic game because it was something different to what you assumed?

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The small print
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