my ps5 decided to delete my save file because echoes of the fallen didn't download properly somehow. so i had to replay the game bit by bit. honestly, i think i hated the worst parts of the game less this time around, in terms of the experience of actually engaging with the "content". but then the spectacle did not wow me at all like the first time, so overall a surprisingly worse experience. hate the story still, has no idea what it wants to be and fumbles due to mixed metaphors all over the place and cowardice in approaching conversations about race and prejudice. it is what it is. easily my least favourite game in the series, as enjoyable as the combat is (which, despite impeccable gamefeel is still substandard in mechanics on a casual engagement level - i understand there is "tech" but basic engagement with combat in this game is just MMO rotations) i come to this series for compelling melodrama, interesting characters and thoughtful and new approaches to sci-fi and fantasy fiction which this game just does not give me. "we have a god to kill" 🙄. even at its most "attack and dethrone god" moments in the series there's usually something texturally there beyond this sort of "indomitable spirit of humanity" trite shounen anime approach. there's just so much more to the fal'Cie or the Occuria or Yu Yevon in comparison to Ultima as far as their animation of the thematic material within their respective games. i shan't get started on the "politics". it has none (in the sense of in-fiction political mechanics, of course there's so much "politics" in creating art, even a work as empty as this one) it's just a weird aesthetic layer of terminology and maps that ultimately don't really matter. i don't expect the dlc to impress me very much, but i will be keeping an open mind.
ughhhh i didn't know DLC is region locked, i have a japanese disc copy of the game, but i bought the expansions on the european store. this is the second time mr yoshida naoki has cheated me out of my money after giving away FF14 starter edition a month before the expanded free trial
ughhhh i didn't know DLC is region locked, i have a japanese disc copy of the game, but i bought the expansions on the european store. this is the second time mr yoshida naoki has cheated me out of my money after giving away FF14 starter edition a month before the expanded free trial
This review contains spoilers
i thought the opening 2 hours were incredibly boring, then they decided to kill off the boring characters. i was shocked by this, and it made me incredibly invested. that, including the bit where you rescue jill got me super hyped. however i found myself waning with the story as it went on, i got to the part after you fight garuda(about 1/5th through according to ps5) and im just not invested anymore. ive never been the biggest fantasy nut, nor final fantasy fan, so all the big guys fighting is boring to me lol. it looks cool, i guess. mmm budget. im sure ill pick it up another time, but i wont be finishing right now. this doesnt even mention the combat which i found quite button mashy and unsatisfying.
FFXVI is an incredibly frustrating game because there are moments where it CAN be really good but it's so insistent on dragging itself down at every opportunity. I wish my problems with it were as simple as "it's an action game and not an rpg".
At best the "RPG elements" of FF16 are ultimately meaningless and feel like going through the motions. Sure, as you progress the numbers get bigger. Once in a while you go to the blacksmith to craft new weapons or armor, that sometimes you use for exactly one battle before better ones turn up, that make the numbers bigger but have zero meaningful effects on combat. There's ostensibly a crafting system but it will never ask more of you than maybe doing a side quest or hunt to get a key item as you'll never be at risk of running out of regular crafting items.
At its worst the rpg side actively makes the game worse. So much of the game is comprised of doing "quests" where you warp to the closest fast travel point, follow an objective marker through a lifeless world, and occasionally fight one of the small handful of repeated mob types. There really is nothing to do in the world besides following objective markers; you will never come across something new organically as every side mission is marked on your map ahead of time (outside of hunts) and every time you go out of your way your grab a bit of treasure it will without fail be yet more shit crafting material or an absurdly small amount of gil. The hunts will spawn in the world as soon as they're available on the hunt board and checking the hunt board doesn't queue an objective marker, so there is some small amount of exploration and potential discovery when dealing with them - not much as the hunt board will typically tell you directly where they are, but it's something. You have party members, but besides Torgal you have zero influence on their actions and they mostly serve to just steal kills.
The action side of this action rpg is pretty underwhelming too. Your basic moveset is fairly limited with just a simple four swing string on the ground and the air, a stinger and helm splitter, a dodge, a charged sword attack and chargeable projectile magic. You can time magic presses between swings in your string, which can give the impression of complexity but doesn't really lead into much besides tacking on more damage or charging your projectile. The aerial combat is weak overall with pretty limited options for actually staying in the air and a very awkward to use launcher in Torgal. You get a devil trigger partway through the game too, though it's about as basic as they get dealing more damage and healing while it's active.
The Eikon abilities and attacks are the big new ideas and they're also a pretty mixed bag. The problem with the abilities is how unbalanced they are compared to each other. Utility abilities like Garuda's Nero snatch grab and Titan's royal guard block/parry are far and away the best abilities to have on you, while I found the chargeable attack abilities like Ramuh's BbS shotlock and whatever Bahamut's got going on are borderline useless since the time it takes to charge could be far better used.
The Eikon attacks have everybody's favorite modern action game trope - arbitrary cooldowns! These are usually at least a bit interesting and it can be a bit of fun to mix and match them once you upgrade them to be used when any Eikon is equipped, tho they largely fall into attacks that do big damage or attacks that do big stagger damage.
Eikons also change your magic's color. There's no elemental weaknesses or anything despite the game revolving around elemental beings so this is an entirely cosmetic change.
The biggest problem with the Eikon system is the distribution throughout the game. Throughout the first half of the game you only have access to Phoenix and Garuda and you only get Bahamut, Shiva, and Odin in the last fifth of the game - meaning for the vast majority of the game I just had Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan equipped with little incentive to switch them around until I got Shiva (as its ability is almost a straight upgrade on Phoenix's) and then Odin (by far the most mechanically interesting Eikon) barely an hour or two later, at which point the game is almost over. There's nothing wrong with saving the coolest abilities for near the end of the game to carry over into NG+ of course, but this much of the ability set and at the end of a full size RPG instead of a shorter action game is pretty egregious.
The real killer of the combat is just how lacking the enemy design and variety are. Virtually every fight can be boiled down to cycling through your Eikon attacks to tear through mobs or using your Eikon attacks that tear through the stagger bar of bigger enemies while dodging and counterattacking then using all your big damage Eikon attacks when it's staggered. Rinse and repeat for roughly 50 hours. Because of how limited the combat mechanics are practically nothing changes about the enemies as they get reskinned and reused throughout the game because practically nothing can change - you can't tweak what kind of damage they do or can take like reskinned enemies in most other rpgs when that's not even a factor. The hunts are largely reskins of enemies and minibosses from the main game as well, just a bit tankier.
The major bosses still rely on roughly the same gameplay loop as every other enemy with a stagger bar but do throw out slightly harder to dodge strings. However there is a huge over-reliance on MMO-style AoE attacks where the ground will light up in a pattern and you have a few seconds to stand in the right spot to avoid damage - this just isn't very compelling action game boss design. I'm not a FF14 or MMO in general player so I might be completely off base on this, but along with the tedious quest design and constantly cycling through cooldowns this is where it feels most like this is an MMO dev team trying to apply what they know and what works in an MMO to a traditional action game and it just really doesn't work.
I've been extremely harsh so far but it's all important to understanding what I do like about FF16 - when it cuts out the bullshit and embraces its true calling as a big money dumb action game powered by sheer maximalist presentation.
The dedicated action stages don't fix the core limitations of the combat by any means, but they are much more fun than the standard encounters found through quests and in the world. While I've detailed why I think the combat does not hold up across an RPG length and framework it IS very fun to smack enemies around with big fuck off moves in an environment that has a consistent forward momentum and pace.
But what really saves the game are the Eikon battles. Massive kaiju on kaiju action setpieces where you can see that Square Enix mainline Final Fantasy big budget come in with a level of scale not seen since the likes of Asura's Wrath or God of War 3. Fundamentally these don't change much about the combat but the sheer presentational hype is enough to carry them into being by far the highlights of the game. It would never fly with the expectations of AAA games today, but there is perhaps another timeline where FF16 was a 12-18 hours long straightforward action game and while it wouldn't stack up to the depths of the Devil May Crys and Ninja Gaidens of the world it would be much better for it.
I've focused largely on the gameplay but I want to touch on the story a bit too. Overall it's... ok. The sheer presentation of the big story beats carry it into being hype at parts but it doesn't really tread any new ground and the parts where it's trying to be a serious medieval fantasy story are frankly kind of embarrassing. The worldbuilding and slavery analogue feel pretty sloppy, since you're teleporting all over the place to do shit quests and people will just show up places as the story requires any story beat that relies on "it's going to be a long journey" falls flat, because of that aforementioned issue and how barren the world is in gameplay the world feels so tiny, and any scene with Anabella or Benedikta is almost shocking in how juvenile they feel. (like I'm gonna keep it honest with you FF16 it's kinda weird that 2 out of 4 of your major female characters are evil sexy women who use sex to be evil because they're insecure). The English writing can also reallyyy feel like it's trying too hard sometimes and every time a quest name or item description has a "cheeky" joke in it I want to gag. I don't play FF14 so I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations about Koji Fox's localization style but I can't say I'm a fan of it here. FF16 clearly wants to remind you of Ivalice but the worldbuilding and writing are a far cry from the likes of Tactics or FF12.
The game is absolutely gorgeous though - while combat can occasionally have readability issues because of all the blinding HDR particle effects flying around the cutscenes could have easily passed as the big budget pre-renders RPGs had ten years ago. I opted to play the game in its quality mode - mostly because the dynamic resolution in the performance mode turns the game into a blurry mess when battles start and while it isn't as smooth the quality mode feels fine to play - so I got to enjoy the shiny graphics even more. I gotta say tho - Clive's outfit is kind of ass and the actual designs of the Eikons are pretty boring.
The music is pretty good, it does blend together for me a bit but when it steps out of its orchestral comfort zone it can really shine - I wish more tracks were as out there as Typhon or Titan Lost's themes.
This was a lot of text to basically repeat what everyone else has said - FF16 is a game of high highs and low lows. Unfortunately more lows than highs but I do truly think the highs are worth enough to push through the pretty dire low points.
At best the "RPG elements" of FF16 are ultimately meaningless and feel like going through the motions. Sure, as you progress the numbers get bigger. Once in a while you go to the blacksmith to craft new weapons or armor, that sometimes you use for exactly one battle before better ones turn up, that make the numbers bigger but have zero meaningful effects on combat. There's ostensibly a crafting system but it will never ask more of you than maybe doing a side quest or hunt to get a key item as you'll never be at risk of running out of regular crafting items.
At its worst the rpg side actively makes the game worse. So much of the game is comprised of doing "quests" where you warp to the closest fast travel point, follow an objective marker through a lifeless world, and occasionally fight one of the small handful of repeated mob types. There really is nothing to do in the world besides following objective markers; you will never come across something new organically as every side mission is marked on your map ahead of time (outside of hunts) and every time you go out of your way your grab a bit of treasure it will without fail be yet more shit crafting material or an absurdly small amount of gil. The hunts will spawn in the world as soon as they're available on the hunt board and checking the hunt board doesn't queue an objective marker, so there is some small amount of exploration and potential discovery when dealing with them - not much as the hunt board will typically tell you directly where they are, but it's something. You have party members, but besides Torgal you have zero influence on their actions and they mostly serve to just steal kills.
The action side of this action rpg is pretty underwhelming too. Your basic moveset is fairly limited with just a simple four swing string on the ground and the air, a stinger and helm splitter, a dodge, a charged sword attack and chargeable projectile magic. You can time magic presses between swings in your string, which can give the impression of complexity but doesn't really lead into much besides tacking on more damage or charging your projectile. The aerial combat is weak overall with pretty limited options for actually staying in the air and a very awkward to use launcher in Torgal. You get a devil trigger partway through the game too, though it's about as basic as they get dealing more damage and healing while it's active.
The Eikon abilities and attacks are the big new ideas and they're also a pretty mixed bag. The problem with the abilities is how unbalanced they are compared to each other. Utility abilities like Garuda's Nero snatch grab and Titan's royal guard block/parry are far and away the best abilities to have on you, while I found the chargeable attack abilities like Ramuh's BbS shotlock and whatever Bahamut's got going on are borderline useless since the time it takes to charge could be far better used.
The Eikon attacks have everybody's favorite modern action game trope - arbitrary cooldowns! These are usually at least a bit interesting and it can be a bit of fun to mix and match them once you upgrade them to be used when any Eikon is equipped, tho they largely fall into attacks that do big damage or attacks that do big stagger damage.
Eikons also change your magic's color. There's no elemental weaknesses or anything despite the game revolving around elemental beings so this is an entirely cosmetic change.
The biggest problem with the Eikon system is the distribution throughout the game. Throughout the first half of the game you only have access to Phoenix and Garuda and you only get Bahamut, Shiva, and Odin in the last fifth of the game - meaning for the vast majority of the game I just had Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan equipped with little incentive to switch them around until I got Shiva (as its ability is almost a straight upgrade on Phoenix's) and then Odin (by far the most mechanically interesting Eikon) barely an hour or two later, at which point the game is almost over. There's nothing wrong with saving the coolest abilities for near the end of the game to carry over into NG+ of course, but this much of the ability set and at the end of a full size RPG instead of a shorter action game is pretty egregious.
The real killer of the combat is just how lacking the enemy design and variety are. Virtually every fight can be boiled down to cycling through your Eikon attacks to tear through mobs or using your Eikon attacks that tear through the stagger bar of bigger enemies while dodging and counterattacking then using all your big damage Eikon attacks when it's staggered. Rinse and repeat for roughly 50 hours. Because of how limited the combat mechanics are practically nothing changes about the enemies as they get reskinned and reused throughout the game because practically nothing can change - you can't tweak what kind of damage they do or can take like reskinned enemies in most other rpgs when that's not even a factor. The hunts are largely reskins of enemies and minibosses from the main game as well, just a bit tankier.
The major bosses still rely on roughly the same gameplay loop as every other enemy with a stagger bar but do throw out slightly harder to dodge strings. However there is a huge over-reliance on MMO-style AoE attacks where the ground will light up in a pattern and you have a few seconds to stand in the right spot to avoid damage - this just isn't very compelling action game boss design. I'm not a FF14 or MMO in general player so I might be completely off base on this, but along with the tedious quest design and constantly cycling through cooldowns this is where it feels most like this is an MMO dev team trying to apply what they know and what works in an MMO to a traditional action game and it just really doesn't work.
I've been extremely harsh so far but it's all important to understanding what I do like about FF16 - when it cuts out the bullshit and embraces its true calling as a big money dumb action game powered by sheer maximalist presentation.
The dedicated action stages don't fix the core limitations of the combat by any means, but they are much more fun than the standard encounters found through quests and in the world. While I've detailed why I think the combat does not hold up across an RPG length and framework it IS very fun to smack enemies around with big fuck off moves in an environment that has a consistent forward momentum and pace.
But what really saves the game are the Eikon battles. Massive kaiju on kaiju action setpieces where you can see that Square Enix mainline Final Fantasy big budget come in with a level of scale not seen since the likes of Asura's Wrath or God of War 3. Fundamentally these don't change much about the combat but the sheer presentational hype is enough to carry them into being by far the highlights of the game. It would never fly with the expectations of AAA games today, but there is perhaps another timeline where FF16 was a 12-18 hours long straightforward action game and while it wouldn't stack up to the depths of the Devil May Crys and Ninja Gaidens of the world it would be much better for it.
I've focused largely on the gameplay but I want to touch on the story a bit too. Overall it's... ok. The sheer presentation of the big story beats carry it into being hype at parts but it doesn't really tread any new ground and the parts where it's trying to be a serious medieval fantasy story are frankly kind of embarrassing. The worldbuilding and slavery analogue feel pretty sloppy, since you're teleporting all over the place to do shit quests and people will just show up places as the story requires any story beat that relies on "it's going to be a long journey" falls flat, because of that aforementioned issue and how barren the world is in gameplay the world feels so tiny, and any scene with Anabella or Benedikta is almost shocking in how juvenile they feel. (like I'm gonna keep it honest with you FF16 it's kinda weird that 2 out of 4 of your major female characters are evil sexy women who use sex to be evil because they're insecure). The English writing can also reallyyy feel like it's trying too hard sometimes and every time a quest name or item description has a "cheeky" joke in it I want to gag. I don't play FF14 so I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations about Koji Fox's localization style but I can't say I'm a fan of it here. FF16 clearly wants to remind you of Ivalice but the worldbuilding and writing are a far cry from the likes of Tactics or FF12.
The game is absolutely gorgeous though - while combat can occasionally have readability issues because of all the blinding HDR particle effects flying around the cutscenes could have easily passed as the big budget pre-renders RPGs had ten years ago. I opted to play the game in its quality mode - mostly because the dynamic resolution in the performance mode turns the game into a blurry mess when battles start and while it isn't as smooth the quality mode feels fine to play - so I got to enjoy the shiny graphics even more. I gotta say tho - Clive's outfit is kind of ass and the actual designs of the Eikons are pretty boring.
The music is pretty good, it does blend together for me a bit but when it steps out of its orchestral comfort zone it can really shine - I wish more tracks were as out there as Typhon or Titan Lost's themes.
This was a lot of text to basically repeat what everyone else has said - FF16 is a game of high highs and low lows. Unfortunately more lows than highs but I do truly think the highs are worth enough to push through the pretty dire low points.
This is literally the coolest thing ever, and I think it fucking sucks.
Dragon Quest Owns You Lil Bro ...... #FuckYouKoichiSugiyamaYouOldFascistBitch
#YouPorn
I decided to pick this game up again and play it for almost a week straight, and I gotta say, it's such a good game, the game does sometimes get repetitive but it's still worth playing, the ending was beautiful
This review contains spoilers
Was craving some more Final Fantasy after the fantastic rebirth but this action focussed take on the franchise left me pretty diappointed.
The game starts off well enough, quickly introducing the player to the main protagonist Clive Rosfield and the Game of Thrones inspired world of high fantasy political drama. The rich lore of the gameworld is assisted by the welcome, if somewhat disruptive, Active Time Lore system which provides information on all the relevant concepts and characters in any given scene. However, after the exciting opening, the game's glaring pacing issues become increasingly apparent. For every interesting cutscene or bombastic Eikon battle, you get hours of mindless filler which sees you walk back and forth between boring npcs so they can deliver overly long speeches to justify why Clive, who has just battled a dragon god in outer space, should go and collect dirt samples from some riverbed. I quite enjoyed the main narrative, even when it turned into predictable "we have to kill god"-JRPG-fare by the end but the awful pacing made playing through it a lot less fun that it could have been.
The numerous sidequests are somehow even worse. In terms of gameplay, they are essentially all the exact same: listen to boring expostion - kill a group of monsters - more boring exposition and then the quest ends usually without any kind of meaningful reward. Occasionally the game likes to change things up a bit by eliminating the monster killing part altogether and just letting you play the errant boy who gets to carry messages back and forth between people. However the true crime here is the fact that there are actually a few missions that at least manage to deliver a good narrative and add some depth to the otherwise underdeveloped roster of characters, it's just that these quests are indistinguishable from all the other slop so good luck finding them.
Speaking of characters, I mostly liked the main cast, especially Clive, Joshua, Cid, Dion and Jill (before the game forgets all about her and she is relegated to being Clive's love interest/damsel in distress), and the story's willingess to kill off characters added some genuine narrative tension (though this arguably goes a bit too far, to the point where all the interesting villains are dead 2/3rds of the way through). Sadly, Clive's companions never feel like a real team due to how little interaction there is between the characters and the main antagonist does not have too much to offer aside from looking cool.
The same can also be said about the world of the game. Some of the locations are gorgeous to look at, and the monolithic mothercrystals are a looming symbol for the high stakes of the conflict, but when actually traversing them, the large hub areas feel empty and lifeless. Each of these locations is essentially just a large open field with some stationary enemies waiting for you to walk up to them. This is made even worse by the awful auto sprint which requires you to walk for five seconds in order to trigger it. A single area in rebirth offers significantly more in terms of both visuals and gameplay than all of the locations in XVI put together.
Enemy variety is another of XVI's shortcomings, but even what little variety there is almost does not matter much, since every fight basically plays out the exact same. It doesn't really make any difference whether you are fighting a group of zombie soldiers or angry chocobos when there are no meanigful differences in terms of gameplay. Since Clive is the only playable character, there is little strategy involved as enemies do not possess elemental weaknesses and there are not status effects. Groups of enemies are best dealt with by using AOE skills and bosses by emptying their stagger gauge and then throwing all of your skills at them. There are no execptions to this. Fortunately, doing so feels and looks fun and the game is good ad drip feeding new abilites and Eikons in a way that never makes the fighting too repetitive, but it is a far cry from the rewarding combat of the remake series and just adds to the game feeling way too long. The midlessness of the combat also is not helped by the fact that the only difficulty option available on the first playthrough is extremely easy. In my 60 hour playthrough I did not die a single time and I don't understand the decision to lock the higher difficulty behind new game plus if this is the default option.
The only real change of pace are the handful of Eikon battles that are typically light on gameplay, often relying ridiculously generous QTEs. They are nonetheless enjoyable for the visual spectacle alone and accompanied by some of the best tracks from the game's excellent soundtrack make for some of the most memorable bossfights I've played recently.
Overall Final Fantasy XVI is a mixed bag. The highs are very high but getting to them can often be a chore. I hope this action focus does not become the new standard for the franchise as it is so much less interesting than what the remake series is doing.
The game starts off well enough, quickly introducing the player to the main protagonist Clive Rosfield and the Game of Thrones inspired world of high fantasy political drama. The rich lore of the gameworld is assisted by the welcome, if somewhat disruptive, Active Time Lore system which provides information on all the relevant concepts and characters in any given scene. However, after the exciting opening, the game's glaring pacing issues become increasingly apparent. For every interesting cutscene or bombastic Eikon battle, you get hours of mindless filler which sees you walk back and forth between boring npcs so they can deliver overly long speeches to justify why Clive, who has just battled a dragon god in outer space, should go and collect dirt samples from some riverbed. I quite enjoyed the main narrative, even when it turned into predictable "we have to kill god"-JRPG-fare by the end but the awful pacing made playing through it a lot less fun that it could have been.
The numerous sidequests are somehow even worse. In terms of gameplay, they are essentially all the exact same: listen to boring expostion - kill a group of monsters - more boring exposition and then the quest ends usually without any kind of meaningful reward. Occasionally the game likes to change things up a bit by eliminating the monster killing part altogether and just letting you play the errant boy who gets to carry messages back and forth between people. However the true crime here is the fact that there are actually a few missions that at least manage to deliver a good narrative and add some depth to the otherwise underdeveloped roster of characters, it's just that these quests are indistinguishable from all the other slop so good luck finding them.
Speaking of characters, I mostly liked the main cast, especially Clive, Joshua, Cid, Dion and Jill (before the game forgets all about her and she is relegated to being Clive's love interest/damsel in distress), and the story's willingess to kill off characters added some genuine narrative tension (though this arguably goes a bit too far, to the point where all the interesting villains are dead 2/3rds of the way through). Sadly, Clive's companions never feel like a real team due to how little interaction there is between the characters and the main antagonist does not have too much to offer aside from looking cool.
The same can also be said about the world of the game. Some of the locations are gorgeous to look at, and the monolithic mothercrystals are a looming symbol for the high stakes of the conflict, but when actually traversing them, the large hub areas feel empty and lifeless. Each of these locations is essentially just a large open field with some stationary enemies waiting for you to walk up to them. This is made even worse by the awful auto sprint which requires you to walk for five seconds in order to trigger it. A single area in rebirth offers significantly more in terms of both visuals and gameplay than all of the locations in XVI put together.
Enemy variety is another of XVI's shortcomings, but even what little variety there is almost does not matter much, since every fight basically plays out the exact same. It doesn't really make any difference whether you are fighting a group of zombie soldiers or angry chocobos when there are no meanigful differences in terms of gameplay. Since Clive is the only playable character, there is little strategy involved as enemies do not possess elemental weaknesses and there are not status effects. Groups of enemies are best dealt with by using AOE skills and bosses by emptying their stagger gauge and then throwing all of your skills at them. There are no execptions to this. Fortunately, doing so feels and looks fun and the game is good ad drip feeding new abilites and Eikons in a way that never makes the fighting too repetitive, but it is a far cry from the rewarding combat of the remake series and just adds to the game feeling way too long. The midlessness of the combat also is not helped by the fact that the only difficulty option available on the first playthrough is extremely easy. In my 60 hour playthrough I did not die a single time and I don't understand the decision to lock the higher difficulty behind new game plus if this is the default option.
The only real change of pace are the handful of Eikon battles that are typically light on gameplay, often relying ridiculously generous QTEs. They are nonetheless enjoyable for the visual spectacle alone and accompanied by some of the best tracks from the game's excellent soundtrack make for some of the most memorable bossfights I've played recently.
Overall Final Fantasy XVI is a mixed bag. The highs are very high but getting to them can often be a chore. I hope this action focus does not become the new standard for the franchise as it is so much less interesting than what the remake series is doing.
I'm not a fan of the ff games but this is a very good game
A really fun game with a very mediocre story. I really love experimenting with skill loadouts and finding a good mix of what works and fun. While not as challenging as other action RPGs, the flashiness and skill expression makes up for it. Shame about the story though
i can’t tell if this game is underrated or rated just fine and i like it more than most
I don’t care what anyone says this is one of the best game of 2024 and one of the best final fantasy’s. Literally the reason I have a ps5
This is the first RPG where I felt compelled to every single side quest and monster hunt. Final Fantasy 16 has a gorgeous world and soundtrack that doesn't overstay its welcome. The story gripped me the whole way through and even brought me to tears at some points. However, the sidequests for the most part feel like they came out of an MMORPG and that is not a good thing.
Final Fantasy if it was DMC
GooeyScale: 7/10
GooeyScale: 7/10
This game is much more enjoyable once you abandon the copium of a full classic RPG experience. That is probably dead for the mainline FF franchise going forward. Once I embraced that fact a whole halfway into the game, my overall enjoyment from the game increased. I feel this game is much, much more comparable to the recent GoW games; a AAA action/adventure title with some light rpg progression elements sprinkled in. But unlike many of those games, the rpg elements actually make sense given the history of this game's franchise. I love a good cutscene, especially ones created by the technical masters over in SE's visual department, but even I got occasionally burnt out by little gameplay their was in between the movies the game played for me. Unfortunately, when those gameplay segments did finally arrive, they were all way too piss easy, even without the absolute baby mode creating accessories the game gives you in the beginning. Still, decent enough combat and a great, engaging story makes FF16 a good game despite its shortcomings. And what really makes 16's story great is the incredible acting from the game's cast. Byron especially is an immediate standout performance. Finally, a touch I personally appreciated was how absolutely comprehensive the lore database in this game is. A lesson I think any story driven game with at least a little bit of lore should learn. The Active Time Lore feature you can pull up DURING cutscenes is absolutely genius, and I literally wish every single game ever had it. I'm the type of player that loves reading through chunks of lore so the ATL, lore master in the hideout, and Vivian Ninetails were all wonderful aspects of the game that added a considerable amount of time to my playtime just by me flipping through mountains of paragraphs pertaining to the lore of the universe. (also Cid is daddy)
I cant believe I did every side quest, I need to do something more with my life.
Imma just say im a asshole before i start so like yeah this game got me into final fantasy and also simultaneously made me not consider myself a fan nor associate with them cus I genuinely dont understand how you play this game and 1 complain and say how you prefer the old turn based more too this shit like I get opinions and shit but imma be that guy and say thats fucking stupid and if genuinely believe the franchise is better off sticking to the same old shit atb system that lets be honest never even felt good to begin with is insane to me man I don't understand well I kinda do since now I know they hate anything not related to seven but still i can't comprehend it man I hate people final fantasy fans deserve less genuinely I have the same problem with them as I do with fnaf fans but I'm starting to sound retarded so imma stop hating now anyway the actual game imma start off with the shit i dont like uhh I dont like how theres only 1 alternative costume for the squad uhh I hate how slow it is to navigate everything and those fuckass chochbos or however you spell that doesn't really help it like doesn't take long to like call and hop on em but still like does ion know how to explain maybe I'm just autistic uhh the sidequests are kinda mid and slow especially if you don't really fw the characters or story but like I do heavy so it was never really a problem for me and I just kinda accepted that and I personally looked at it as slow in a good way since the main missions and especially the eikons more than make up how boring the sidequests but they lowkey kinda made the other missions kinda better because of that like everything else felt more like treat for suffering through helping gordick help pooplop with his dishes so yeah I'm not including the hunt tho they were great (if you had a YouTube guide like deadass how tf you supposed to find any of those) and uh I wish Dion had more scenes ig I like him he's my fav character and yes its because hes gay fuck you and yeah that's bout it other than the fact that the game runs like ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT LIKE CONSISTENTLY OTS CRAZY but like searched it up and apparently my ps5 dusty so uhh 😐 anyway yeah I love everything else in this game like deadass got me back into games and made me view games as art again like all Imma say is "titan lost" like holy fuck man if I could like eat a video game sequence it would be that and lowkey replaying the game I like bahumet just as much if not more like my first playthrough forever had Joshua saying he'll burn the world stuck in my head bro dions tuff af and I think this is the only final fantasy game that deserves to drop the title like imma be that guy again I think this the best final fantasy will be and will forever stay that way but ay it is what it is uhh to end off I think clives also the best protag in like all of fiction unlike clouds bitch ass (in the original he's way better in the remake since he actually has a character full offense to the original) and I stand by that just wish he wasn't British but we can't have everything 10/10
A visually stunning game with exhilarating combat and epic set pieces, though it falls short with repetitive fetch quests and underdeveloped characters. The lead shines, but the main antagonist and some supporting roles lack depth. Despite these flaws, it captures the magic and spectacle of a next-gen experience.
Concerteza é um final Fantasy
Podría pasarme esta review comparándolo con FFVII Rebirth o FFXV y hablando de cómo echo de menos algunos de los pilares clásicos de la saga que sí están presentes en esas otras entregas, pero no serviría de mucho.
Cada FF es de su padre y de su madre, así que prefiero valorar este juego por lo que es. No un RPG de acción, como se suele vender, sino un juego de acción bastante simpático, por un lado, y un RPG bastante malo por otro.
FFXVI es un juego hecho para no causar ninguna fricción. Cómodo, servicial, "disfrutón". Un juego en el que ese "algo más" nunca terminaba de llegar. Quizás llegaba cuando volvía a ver las peleas de eikons en Youtube, que son increíbles, pero precisamente porque creo que están más hechas para verse que para jugarse.
Un juego así, que sacrifica gran parte de la expresividad propia del jugador en pos de que este se deje llevar por la espectacularidad y la acción cinematográfica (nada en contra de eso, la verdad, de hecho no es algo raro en Final Fantasy) al final para mí depende de lo involucrado que me haga sentir en la historia que me quiera contar.
Y aunque la (bastante formulaica) épica general no me ha engatusado, sí que reconozco que me ha ganado con las relaciones humanas que presenta la historia. Especialmente, y como no podía ser de otra forma siendo el punto focal de la trama, la de los dos hermanos protagonistas.
Es curioso porque, echando la vista atrás, ese "algo más" que echaba en falta quizás siempre estuvo ahí. No en forma de combate hack and slash con numeritos, ni de peleas de kaijus gigantes, sino en forma de NPCs con pequeñas historias capaces de desprender calidez y humanidad de la única forma que el juego sabe: a golpe de fetch quests dignas de WoW vanilla.
Al final (fanta sí), FFXVI va de gente que, a pesar del tiempo, de la distancia y de las adversidades de un mundo cruel, todavía se quiere. Gente que necesita desesperadamente que un apuesto señor tetudo les ayude en todo y que les haga volver a creer en la reconstrucción y en el amor. Y si para eso hace falta que vaya a recoger unas hierbas y a matar 4 bichos random a no sé donde, no te preocupes mi rey que yo me encargo.
Aún tengo que reflexionar un poco más sobre esa escena poscréditos, porque creo que es la que más tiene que decir de todo el juego. También me faltan por jugar los DLCs, y ya dependiendo de las ganas que tenga, el modo difícil. Tengo esperanzas en que esto último me haga reconciliarme con la parte más "jugable".
Cada FF es de su padre y de su madre, así que prefiero valorar este juego por lo que es. No un RPG de acción, como se suele vender, sino un juego de acción bastante simpático, por un lado, y un RPG bastante malo por otro.
FFXVI es un juego hecho para no causar ninguna fricción. Cómodo, servicial, "disfrutón". Un juego en el que ese "algo más" nunca terminaba de llegar. Quizás llegaba cuando volvía a ver las peleas de eikons en Youtube, que son increíbles, pero precisamente porque creo que están más hechas para verse que para jugarse.
Un juego así, que sacrifica gran parte de la expresividad propia del jugador en pos de que este se deje llevar por la espectacularidad y la acción cinematográfica (nada en contra de eso, la verdad, de hecho no es algo raro en Final Fantasy) al final para mí depende de lo involucrado que me haga sentir en la historia que me quiera contar.
Y aunque la (bastante formulaica) épica general no me ha engatusado, sí que reconozco que me ha ganado con las relaciones humanas que presenta la historia. Especialmente, y como no podía ser de otra forma siendo el punto focal de la trama, la de los dos hermanos protagonistas.
Es curioso porque, echando la vista atrás, ese "algo más" que echaba en falta quizás siempre estuvo ahí. No en forma de combate hack and slash con numeritos, ni de peleas de kaijus gigantes, sino en forma de NPCs con pequeñas historias capaces de desprender calidez y humanidad de la única forma que el juego sabe: a golpe de fetch quests dignas de WoW vanilla.
Al final (fanta sí), FFXVI va de gente que, a pesar del tiempo, de la distancia y de las adversidades de un mundo cruel, todavía se quiere. Gente que necesita desesperadamente que un apuesto señor tetudo les ayude en todo y que les haga volver a creer en la reconstrucción y en el amor. Y si para eso hace falta que vaya a recoger unas hierbas y a matar 4 bichos random a no sé donde, no te preocupes mi rey que yo me encargo.
Aún tengo que reflexionar un poco más sobre esa escena poscréditos, porque creo que es la que más tiene que decir de todo el juego. También me faltan por jugar los DLCs, y ya dependiendo de las ganas que tenga, el modo difícil. Tengo esperanzas en que esto último me haga reconciliarme con la parte más "jugable".
yes, it's better than valorant
DMC if it had dogshit mmo side content
The longest feeling game I’ve played in a long time. I felt exhausted by the 30 hour mark.
This review contains spoilers
finished ng+, got the plat. like i said in my other review genuinely a life changing experience. this is absolutely one of my top 5 favorite games of all time dude this game is wonderful clive rosfield you are the greatest to ever do it
Fun to play.
Nice story, decent gameplay.
A bit too linear - the side quests are too simple, and the hunts not as entertaining as in XII.
Nice story, decent gameplay.
A bit too linear - the side quests are too simple, and the hunts not as entertaining as in XII.
And so I was finally able to put my hands on the newest FF addition to the numbered series, and being a huge FFXIV fan (being playing since 2015), I was extremely hyped for a single player experience from CBU3. 60 hours later, I can say that this game takes a while to take off, but when it does, oh boy, it`s a wild ride indeed. At first glance, this seems different than other FF games, especially combat wise, so veteran players can feel a bit odd at the beggining, but it evolves into something magical as the game progresses.
It honestly felt like I was playing FFXIV single-player; Yoshi-p takes a lot of inspiration from the mmo into building this game and a lot of stuff hit closes to home for me: the map layout and how it functions it`s just like XIV, the "hub" in this game could well be in one of the expansions of XIV, the hunt boards and the different ranks akin to the difficulties of those beasts, hell, even the sprites of the items used for crafting are the same from the items in XIV.
Speaking of similarities, one of those that deserves mentioning and a (whole) lot of praise is the music. And coming from XIV, I`m really happy that more people are finally able to enjoy the masterpieces that come from this weird, funny guy (Soken, I love you <3). The soundtrack and epic and memorable, every piece just feels like they were made for that scene and it`s something you can listen for hours and hours and not get tired of. When creating the OST, you can really see the references that he made from his work in XIV; for, example the combat theme from XVI is just an alternate version of the Eureka theme from Stormblood.
The combat suffers from the same as the story - it takes a while to get good. At the beggining, it can be really boring as you`re just basically mashing the attack button, using a skill here and there and dodging when necessary. However, as you progress further in the game, you can mix your skills however you see fit, as long you keep upgrading them, and you can make some really sweet and powerful combinations later on. What I disliked here is that the game is really easy, even on the harder boss fights - I get that they probably wanted to make the game accessible for everyone, but it wouldn`t hurt to make a few of the encounters harder to dodge.
Alas, the story; it goes through the same as the combat. The beggining is painfully slow and even boring at some points and it takes a while to really get interesting. The political trama part is amazing, and it takes a lot of inspiration from the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones, but with a little twist of the FF magic and the way the mixed that up at the end with the usual Final Fantasy wacky stuff is just great. Also, the game features that explains the story more that they added is awesome and honestly should be a staple of the franchise from now on - the war table, the whole thought thing and the conexions between every character from the plot.
The ending is ambiguous on purpose, and the whole lore on Valisthea is so interesting that it leaves you wanting for more. Yoshida and his crew delivered one of the most interesting single player experiences from recent times, and it`s an amazing entry point for the franchise to those who never played a FF game before - trust me, you`ll be amazed from what you gonna see.
It honestly felt like I was playing FFXIV single-player; Yoshi-p takes a lot of inspiration from the mmo into building this game and a lot of stuff hit closes to home for me: the map layout and how it functions it`s just like XIV, the "hub" in this game could well be in one of the expansions of XIV, the hunt boards and the different ranks akin to the difficulties of those beasts, hell, even the sprites of the items used for crafting are the same from the items in XIV.
Speaking of similarities, one of those that deserves mentioning and a (whole) lot of praise is the music. And coming from XIV, I`m really happy that more people are finally able to enjoy the masterpieces that come from this weird, funny guy (Soken, I love you <3). The soundtrack and epic and memorable, every piece just feels like they were made for that scene and it`s something you can listen for hours and hours and not get tired of. When creating the OST, you can really see the references that he made from his work in XIV; for, example the combat theme from XVI is just an alternate version of the Eureka theme from Stormblood.
The combat suffers from the same as the story - it takes a while to get good. At the beggining, it can be really boring as you`re just basically mashing the attack button, using a skill here and there and dodging when necessary. However, as you progress further in the game, you can mix your skills however you see fit, as long you keep upgrading them, and you can make some really sweet and powerful combinations later on. What I disliked here is that the game is really easy, even on the harder boss fights - I get that they probably wanted to make the game accessible for everyone, but it wouldn`t hurt to make a few of the encounters harder to dodge.
Alas, the story; it goes through the same as the combat. The beggining is painfully slow and even boring at some points and it takes a while to really get interesting. The political trama part is amazing, and it takes a lot of inspiration from the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones, but with a little twist of the FF magic and the way the mixed that up at the end with the usual Final Fantasy wacky stuff is just great. Also, the game features that explains the story more that they added is awesome and honestly should be a staple of the franchise from now on - the war table, the whole thought thing and the conexions between every character from the plot.
The ending is ambiguous on purpose, and the whole lore on Valisthea is so interesting that it leaves you wanting for more. Yoshida and his crew delivered one of the most interesting single player experiences from recent times, and it`s an amazing entry point for the franchise to those who never played a FF game before - trust me, you`ll be amazed from what you gonna see.
State of the art graphics, story abit everywhere and far too long. Combat really good when it gets going
life changing experience
Bad
A lot of people rag on this game saying it doesn’t feel like FF. It doesn’t. And that’s okay. It’s all about war and the summons and the crystals. The FF elements are there it’s way more action packed though. I had a lot of fun with this one.
When I saw the trailers and all the hype around it, I contained myself to follow this current. I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised on how I loved the story and the gameplay. I could have played it for more 20-30 hours (not counting DLCs). The only thing that was a little drag sometimes was that summon fight, I would prefer it a little shorter. Still my favorite RPG of the year.