Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
Eh, I kinda liked how FFXV did it. Each character had their own playstyle, their own fights that they excel at.

Gladio was excellent against big, predictable bosses to block and counter against. He used two energy bars where one regenerated constantly to block things, and the other depleted constantly that grew from blocking damage and increased how much damage he dealt (I think that's how it worked).
Ignus massacred swarms of enemies, especially if they had an elemental weakness (since he was a master at all of them). He charged up energy by dealing elemental damage to enemies and then released it into one big explosion.
Prompto could kite enemies around terrain and tear them to shreds if they were too slow to do anything about it. He had a reload system using his 4 guns that each had their own reload timer to require regular swapping between your weapons.
And Noctis...was good if the enemy was weak to swords.

They all had a very valuable niche and very tight controls that felt like you were able to play almost completely different games. Although I've found that, between Ignus and Prompto, there really isn't much that can't be solved by spamming favorable elemental damage or kiting behind corners to shoot a rocket launcher at dinosaurs. I only ever used Gladio if I was caught out by giant demons at night who'd otherwise kill my other characters in seconds.

Not sure why they made Noctis so friggin' weak compared to his friends, but whatever. All of his "epic" weapons have huge penalties that rarely make them worthwhile, and he take so much damage and deals so little in return. Simply just trying to dodge everything quickly drains your energy into uselessness.

From what I've seen of the FFVII rework, the combat honestly looks like a worse/clunkier version of FFXV, which just seems really odd to me.

The original game only had Noctis as playable. The other characters were ported in well after release, most likely from the multiplayer stuff. The balance was built entirely around Noctis which is why the others have such an advantage.

Noctis isn't bad by any stretch though. His mobility makes him functionally immortal, and you can string warp strikes for massive single target damage. He can also stay airborne forever.