FFXVI I think perfectly embodies the “we are so back” and “it’s so over” cycle.
Where I thought the linear story missions were fun to play through and quite literally every single main story boss fight was stellar in its presentation, the downtime segments in between could drag quite a bit. Granted there was only a few that were real culprits for this and It didn’t feel like that the entire time, but these instances stand out a lot.
What i just referred to is after you complete a big story beat you are tasked with telling people at your main hub area and going around asking about what to do next or fulfilling random errands for people that are mandatory. Yes all of these are needed for the story to progress (building the boat parts was the worst of them all) and I also understand that having downtime between big story beats so characters can interact and have a breather before the next big moment is crucial as it can’t always go 120 miles an hour.
But these moments feel fairly barren, the characters are alright but a lot of development they could’ve gotten is pushed to the side for Clive. I think Clive is a very good main character and has a decent bit going on with himself and his struggles along with the amazing vocal performance of Ben Starr really sells the moments it needs too. But with the focus being on Clive it can feel a bit strange for example in some quests and side quests, characters for example Jill may not even speak and just give confirmation dialogue. Don’t get me wrong I really like Jill and wanted to like her character more and I think the fewer moments she does get are great but she ends up falling flat a lot of the time because she’s kinda just, there.
Worst part is I’d say not only the best character is Clive, he even then is like a 6 or pushing a 7/10. A lot of his moments happen way to early and it feels like he really doesn’t change all that much throughout the game. His main driving motivation gets hazy later on for a number of reasons (trying not to spoil so I’ll leave it at that). The only other characters I really cared for are Jill, Dion and a few others. All the hub characters were also just there, inoffensive as they existed only to really do one thing and one thing only, but they were all just so uninteresting.
Despite me thinking the characters are eh (a decent amount of the main hub characters) to alright/good (Jill, Cid, Dion) they really make up for it in the performance for all these characters that does make the scenes they’re in very believable.
The areas you visit are again for me very polarising. The linear sections I think look beautiful and have such variation and in general great design to them yet the open ended areas boil down to 3 big areas that consist of fields and forests one of which is a bit more mountainous and the other big zone being a desert. These were fine going through the story and I had no problem with them it’s just traversing as Clive can sometimes be very slow and cumbersome especially in the early game and the lack of a sprint in towns can make doing quests a bit more dull.
Speaking of side quests about 60 or so of the 70 odd side quests in they game were entirely pointless, they didn’t add that much to the world building and all felt quite the same however some of the late game ones were pretty good for the game but I do think there was a tad to many.
Overall my main issues lie with pacing and how I’d like for those downtime segments to be more involved with some of the cast as well as having a much more fleshed out cast in general.
This games combat and music are the main selling points for me. Even if the combat can be boiled down to “small combo, chain special moves” and doesn’t need too much thought it’s still satisfying to play. I will admit the lack of weakness variety, unique inputs for moves, spell variety (not counting Eikon skills) and team related attacks was a pretty big letdown but Clive himself can be very fun to play. Coming up with different ability set ups that make everything just work for every situation to be able to pull of an absurd stagger damage number is fun to do and it helps that the moves in general are so visually striking.
This doesn’t factor in the games Eikon fights, which I would say are the game’s highlights. Without spoiling some of these are genuinely some of the coolest boss fights I have ever seen in an action game and has one of my favourite fights in a game based purely on the fight alone (if I was to include character and story weight to the fight it practically wouldn’t be there).
I’m writing this as the credits roll and I will say Soken did an amazing job on this soundtrack. Even if I wished the team let him create more of his unique tracks like Titan and Typhoon I still think the rest of the music is very solid. Every Eikon fight getting their own theme was nice and made the fights more memorable because of it.
I do think this game is good despite its off pacing at times and rough out of combat exploration. I still feel this game is worth the play though and commitment to see it through. Just maybe don’t do all the side quests, because it’s a genuine difference of about 15 hours at least.
7/10
Where I thought the linear story missions were fun to play through and quite literally every single main story boss fight was stellar in its presentation, the downtime segments in between could drag quite a bit. Granted there was only a few that were real culprits for this and It didn’t feel like that the entire time, but these instances stand out a lot.
What i just referred to is after you complete a big story beat you are tasked with telling people at your main hub area and going around asking about what to do next or fulfilling random errands for people that are mandatory. Yes all of these are needed for the story to progress (building the boat parts was the worst of them all) and I also understand that having downtime between big story beats so characters can interact and have a breather before the next big moment is crucial as it can’t always go 120 miles an hour.
But these moments feel fairly barren, the characters are alright but a lot of development they could’ve gotten is pushed to the side for Clive. I think Clive is a very good main character and has a decent bit going on with himself and his struggles along with the amazing vocal performance of Ben Starr really sells the moments it needs too. But with the focus being on Clive it can feel a bit strange for example in some quests and side quests, characters for example Jill may not even speak and just give confirmation dialogue. Don’t get me wrong I really like Jill and wanted to like her character more and I think the fewer moments she does get are great but she ends up falling flat a lot of the time because she’s kinda just, there.
Worst part is I’d say not only the best character is Clive, he even then is like a 6 or pushing a 7/10. A lot of his moments happen way to early and it feels like he really doesn’t change all that much throughout the game. His main driving motivation gets hazy later on for a number of reasons (trying not to spoil so I’ll leave it at that). The only other characters I really cared for are Jill, Dion and a few others. All the hub characters were also just there, inoffensive as they existed only to really do one thing and one thing only, but they were all just so uninteresting.
Despite me thinking the characters are eh (a decent amount of the main hub characters) to alright/good (Jill, Cid, Dion) they really make up for it in the performance for all these characters that does make the scenes they’re in very believable.
The areas you visit are again for me very polarising. The linear sections I think look beautiful and have such variation and in general great design to them yet the open ended areas boil down to 3 big areas that consist of fields and forests one of which is a bit more mountainous and the other big zone being a desert. These were fine going through the story and I had no problem with them it’s just traversing as Clive can sometimes be very slow and cumbersome especially in the early game and the lack of a sprint in towns can make doing quests a bit more dull.
Speaking of side quests about 60 or so of the 70 odd side quests in they game were entirely pointless, they didn’t add that much to the world building and all felt quite the same however some of the late game ones were pretty good for the game but I do think there was a tad to many.
Overall my main issues lie with pacing and how I’d like for those downtime segments to be more involved with some of the cast as well as having a much more fleshed out cast in general.
This games combat and music are the main selling points for me. Even if the combat can be boiled down to “small combo, chain special moves” and doesn’t need too much thought it’s still satisfying to play. I will admit the lack of weakness variety, unique inputs for moves, spell variety (not counting Eikon skills) and team related attacks was a pretty big letdown but Clive himself can be very fun to play. Coming up with different ability set ups that make everything just work for every situation to be able to pull of an absurd stagger damage number is fun to do and it helps that the moves in general are so visually striking.
This doesn’t factor in the games Eikon fights, which I would say are the game’s highlights. Without spoiling some of these are genuinely some of the coolest boss fights I have ever seen in an action game and has one of my favourite fights in a game based purely on the fight alone (if I was to include character and story weight to the fight it practically wouldn’t be there).
I’m writing this as the credits roll and I will say Soken did an amazing job on this soundtrack. Even if I wished the team let him create more of his unique tracks like Titan and Typhoon I still think the rest of the music is very solid. Every Eikon fight getting their own theme was nice and made the fights more memorable because of it.
I do think this game is good despite its off pacing at times and rough out of combat exploration. I still feel this game is worth the play though and commitment to see it through. Just maybe don’t do all the side quests, because it’s a genuine difference of about 15 hours at least.
7/10