Every couple years there’s a new addition from a popular series you may of heard of, Final Fantasy. However, these latest games have been pulling away from its famous turn-based combat we’ve all come to love. Which now suffer, because the changes to combat have made them uninteresting and easy.

We have to wonder why there is this diverge away from the turn-based combat. The last Final Fantasy games to carry the turn-based combat was FFX and FFX-2 both of which condoned the best of turn-based combat. The formula was perfect, every new game they could alter the combat slightly by modifying the summons or adding chain attacks. Including other changes, such as how characters level up and gain skills to ensure enough of a change so annoying people, like me, wouldn’t bitch.

However, their new games, Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, have fell short of expectations due to their combat. Final Fantasy XII had you become a programmer so you could literally sit back and do nothing while you watched your beautifully organized party beat the monsters to hell. FFXII decided it was also a good time to ditch random enemy encounters and felt the need to add overpowered monsters in an area conveniently blocking your path. It’s those reasons that I have still never been interested enough to want to ever beat Final Fantasy XII.

Moving onto Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core a game that had potential, but gives very uneventful combat. Combat consists of spamming ‘Attack’ and running around in circles to get behind the monster. Spells like Blizzard and Thunder are incredibly easy to dodge (Fire is slightly more challenging) and bosses (should it be 1 on 1) are incredibly easy, considering the only time you should get hit is when they engage a limit break. This game gives us the closest idea of what FFXIII will be, so it’s sufficient to say that it will suffer from the same dull combat and that there will be no party members.

It’s a god damn shame that this style of combat is being phased out. I’d be more apt to accept these changes were they to come up with better alternatives. But as it stands now, I will continue to shout and pretend to be heard, “give me back my god damn Turn-Based Combat!” Until then, I guess there’s always Lost Odyssey…