This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy XVI is a game I have VERY complicated opinions on. I can probably sum this review up as "a 7/10 game that really could've been a 10/10", which I guess doesn't sound too bad, but man I had so many high hopes for this game, especially after that incredible demo. I would be insane to call this a bad game, as it's anything but and has so many high highs, but I also can't deny the overwhelming disappointment I feel thinking back on the experience.
This review will be littered with spoilers as I'd rather not go "ah yes that thing I will not specify, yes it was so <adjective>!", so RUN if you haven't finished the game.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room—the gameplay. At the time of writing I haven't even played FF games past VII (unless you count the Remake), so I'm not going to prattle on about what Final Fantasy should be and blablabla turn based something something, and while character action games aren't necessarily my thing, I do find them decently fun. The combat in this game is pretty fun all in all: there's a good amount of moves you can pull off, and while it takes forever to start opening up, it gets really fun once you have a ton of Eikons to play around with. I also think the Eikons offer good variety, with each having its own strengths that make it worthwhile to use. Odin was my favourite for how broken it was (Zantestuken has never been so satisfying for me), but I also enjoyed the emphasis on stagger Garuda offered, generally all-round usability of Phoenix/Ifrit, and Shiva literally freezing the enemies. If I was more into these games, I probably would've gone wild with discovering combos in the training arena. Overall while the game is quite easy (I don't think I ever died in the main story), the hunts do offer a good challenge and I like how the boss fights force you to play differently. Enemy variety I guess isn't the best, especially with how passive the mobs are, but I wouldn't say it ruined anything for me (though the Akashic reskins were definitely pushing it).
Exploration... yeah it's pretty linear. This isn't an issue for me, I love linear, but I do think the implementation leaves a few things to be desired. Firstly, the purely linear stages really could've used a map due to how samey the rooms are, and I pretty much spammed Torgal's animal instinct every time I finished a battle. The open-areas are nice in theory, but there's no reason to explore them outside of sidequests/hunts as the 'rewards' are almost always crappy crafting materials you have too much of. Speaking of which, crafting feels so unnecessary, it really felt like a bit of a waste of time to me with how you're formulaically upgrading your weapons/armour to have all-so-slightly better stats. We also have the Xenoblade 3 issue of money being almost pointless, I mean it basically just exists to save up for orchestra rolls and neat accessories you're probably never going to use as the three slot competition is tight.
Sidequests, from a gameplay perspective, are kinda bad. I don't mind going around talking to people, but it got so tedious when almost all of them had filler battles against enemies you've already fought a gazillion times, plus travelling around is pretty slow and tedious even after you've unlocked Ambriosia (my beloved). Story-wise I have the exact opposite opinion of them, but I'll talk about that later. The lack of a party system in this game, from a gameplay perspective, I don't think is too bad. I would've liked to be able to play as more characters, but I understand that would be pretty tricky to implement, and I do at least appreciate having them hang around to help out with chip damage. Plus, Torgal can be fun for combos.
Visually FF16 is astonishingly good, I think that goes without saying. Lighting is beautiful, areas are reasonably varied and look super nice, character models are pretty great (particularly in cutscenes), and man the cutscene direction... it's incredible. They handle animations so well, using subtle facial expressions and gestures to communicate details, that makes for a super immersive experience. It's pretty much a well-directed movie in game-form. Of course the in-game cutscenes for side-ish content don't look anywhere near as good lol, with some really uncanny valley animations (Clive sheathing his sword looks so bizarre to me), but I personally don't mind too much. I suppose it could've been nice to have more fantastical areas, or hell at least a snowy area, but I'm satisfied with what we got. I guess the lack of cities to explore was disappointing too, considering how nice they look from the glimpses we see of them.
Unfortunately the performance is... very questionable. While graphics mode seems decently consistent, the motion blur was so overkill that I could never stomach it (granted never tried it after the patch to turn motion blur off), and I much prefer the relatively high frame rate for battles in frame rate mode. But as we know, frame rate is ridiculously inconsistent and chugs pretty hard, which is unfortunate. It's obviously no Pokemon SV, but it's a bit of a shame coming from a PS5 game. Also while I'm very grateful that they let me turn motion blur after an update, I was most of the way through the game at that point, and already got used to barely ever moving the camera so I didn't get motion sick. Seriously, the initial motion blur was so bad—I never get motion sickness in video games.
As for the music, well what do you even say here. It's the one 10/10 aspect of this game that never disappoints, I have zero criticisms. There's a good amount of variety, from intense battle music to peaceful area music, motifs are everywhere and used very effectively, and sometimes you're treated to some really unexpected genres like in the Titan Lost battle. Actually I guess I have one complaint: why isn't the official soundtrack available yet! Badly need to listen to that over and over and over.
The presentation of lore is pretty great, I really appreciate being able to quickly clarify what the hell all this fantasy jargon is mid-cutscene, and there's a lot of content if you're like me and really want to dig into the world building. It's pretty bizarre how long they take before giving you a proper map/character chart, but they're pretty great once you have them.
Ummm... oh no. I have to talk about the characters and story now. Surely I don't have to do that yet, I can talk about how much fun it is to pat Torgal, and uh... okay fine, let's just get this over with, because this is going to take up most of the review.
So, that prologue. I haven't touched ASOIAF/GoT, so anyone dreading those comparisons can breathe a sigh of relief lol, but I have read a good bit of western fantasy—from Hobb, to Abercrombie, to Sanderson (and like 30+ other authors I can't be bothered listing). Needless to say, the narrative direction of the prologue is exactly what I'd expect from a highly-acclaimed (if not slightly grimdark) fantasy novel—it sets the stakes, the flaws/motivations of the characters, the themes, the world, all so so well, it's such a powerful hook. Obviously it's nothing particularly ground-breaking, as it takes some pretty common western fantasy tropes, but the execution—aka the most important part—is pretty much perfect. I sorta went into it expecting a shallow copy of western fantasy, so this was a very pleasant surprise for me! I especially loved Annabella, they sold her so well as a strong villain with interesting motivations born from the society she was raised in.
Then when I bought the game, everything was immediately ruined and it all was terribl—nah, just kidding. While I'm not going to talk about every micro narrative element at length, as we'd be here all day, I think the following scenes are story segments are still really strong. Cid is established as a charismatic, lovable and interesting force of nature, Clive's motivations are engaging and believable, and the hideout introduces us to a ton of likable and eccentric side characters. They also do a good job at quickly giving us multiple perspectives on bearers and their situation in an organic way, which I thought was pretty cool.
Since FF16 is pretty monster-of-the-week (one of its many problems if I'm honest), let's start with Benedikta. Immediately an engaging villain with charisma, interesting motivations, trauma, a connection to Cid, it's hard not to find her pretty awesome. The build up to the confrontation with her is very good, and we are presented with plenty of scenes that got me, for lack of a better term, pretty damn hyped and intrigued. We also get to know Gav, who's quite charming, and also has a lot of... interesting interactions with Cid that make you wonder if they're in bed together LOL. But yes, the Benedikta confrontation itself is quite good, and I think it's a good introduction to the Eikon system. However, where I start to have problems is what comes next: Benedikta, during her desperate escape, is attacked by brigands and almost assaulted. This brings back memories of what seems to be a past SA incident Cid saves her from, and in her despair and helplessness, she gives into Garuda and goes berserk. We get a pretty cool Eikon battle to introduce us to Ifrit, and... she dies, just like that.
I honestly think this is such a huge disservice to Benedikta, it's almost kind of icky? Like to bring up last second SA trauma and then have her lose herself and die feels so hugely tragic, and the narrative barely gives it the weight it deserves—unless you count Cid reflecting on the path she took (I really would've liked to learn more about this? What specifically was going on between her and Barnabas?). This isn't helped by a later scene, where Benedikta (I assume her head?) is delivered to Hugo in a nice box, fridging her quite nicely. Not exactly the greatest look for your only SA victim in the game, not to mention one of the only two female Eikons. Not to mention they don't even clarify that a Waloeder emissary delivered it in English, which makes it impossible to put two and two together that Cid obviously never sent it and it's all a plot setup by Barnabas (not that they properly clarify this either???)
On the positive side, I absolutely love how Clive reacts to the (admittedly rather obvious) twist of him being Ifrit, the way they handle his suicidal ideation and self-loathing is really good, helped by Ben Starr's absolutely fantastic performance. I did find it kind of hilarious how Clive is... naked and in chains for some reason, when the other prisoner doesn't get the same treatment and priming does not remove clothes—looking a bit sus there Cid. The reunion with Jill, while I found it a bit odd she was unconscious for so long, is very nice, and I was really engaged in her tragic story with the Iron Kingdom. Their trauma-bonding scene in Eastpool is great too, and while the implied romance admittedly felt a bit sudden (unless you assume the protag and heroine must always get together lol), I wasn't against it either. Sadly a glaring issue with sidequests becomes more apparent here, where your party are yeeted from existence, and it's super jarring. I really think Jill would have greatly benefitted from participating in these sidequests, so we could see more sides of her and how she interacts with the complex social issues we're presented with there.
I'm sure some people find the whole "face yourself" section very anime and cliched, and well it is, but I also love it cause the execution is awesome. On top of the fight being really satisfying from a gameplay perspective, it's really great to see Clive facing his inner fears and growing as a person. I've seen this trope mishandled over and over, so it's really nice to see a story nail it as well as FF16 does. Interestingly though, this seems to mostly resolve Clive's arc, which is a rather daring choice for such a laser protagonist-focused story. Ah well, I'm sure they have plenty more planned for him, as adulthood can offer many unique challenges! (oh how naive I was)
I guess there's Joshua being alive, which was pretty obvious but good as he would've been pretty wasted otherwise, and he's for some reason not saying hi to Clive? I assumed there would be an explanation for this later, but in retrospect it seems like plot convenience lol. Oh well.
Focus shifts to destroying mothercrystals now, which was earlier than I expected—to my relief tbh, was kinda obvious the crystals were causing the Blight from the start. They do a pretty good job at showing how Sanbreque treats its Bearers horribly, though if I'm nitpicking, I feel they make everyone so comically antagonistic and sadistically cruel to them it feels kinda cartoonish. Like why should I save Moore from monsters when everyone I've met there is an evil bastard whose past-time is malicious fantasy racism and slavery, lol. Huge shame we don't get to see much of Oriflamme, considering the architecture and culture seemed interesting, but I guess that wasn't a priority for the budget this game. Cid's death is pretty sad albeit expected with the amount of death flags her raised, and I was sad to lose his wit and charisma in terms of cast dynamics. Typhon fight really upped the ante for Eikon fights, showing that they can be more than just QTEs and spectacle. We're also introduced to Ultima... was it just me, or was this introduction super weird? He kind of just randomly appears in a way that feels confusingly comicial, idk it really threw me off. Joshua sealing Ultima away was a pretty great and really builds up tension on whether he's going to survive this, along with further setting up his eventual reunion with Clive.
Then we timeskip? Five years? This I found really jarring, and honestly broke my immersion for the longest time. When it comes down to it, outside of world events, not much has changed for the characters and their relationships, and the parts that have (such as Clive succeeding as the next Cid) really would've benefitted from actually being developed on-screen. Hugo becomes your meme revenge villain, turning frankly comical in his simping ways, and they reallllly drag out this section before we get that insanely cool Titan Lost fight and say bye-bye to him.
The black shields sure do exist, before just becoming completely irrelevant lol (unless you count that sidequest... which had little to do with their motivations in the first place, and felt more like adopting an orphan plot point for something). I don't understand why this plot point existed, I got the point in Eastpool. Uncle Byron is a highlight at least, offering some much needed comedic relief and levity. Jill's arc in the Iron Kingdom is almost there, almost giving her something cool. Unfortunately Clive kind of steals the spotlight, and she doesn't get to do much with Shiva (as usual I suppose). While I did like how she killed the priest guy personally, it would've been nice to have fleshed out the background of this whole set piece more, especially when this is supposed to be your main heroine. They also do the women in the Iron Kingdom super dirty, shoving them off to god knows where after the arc is over, their fate unknown to us forever (come on at least bring back Jill's mother figure for something). Aaand since we can't have nice things, Jill gets to spend damsel time with Hugo in the next story segment—completely inappropriate addition to the story that strips her agency for no reason.
After being built up for so much of the story, I had extremely high hopes for the Bahamut arc, and honestly, it felt so promising after the kind of lacklustre Hugo arc. Dion was built up so well as a character, the empire's politics were decently interesting by this game's standards—overall it was very clearly the grand act 2 finale for the game. However I found the execution... sadly lacking. Turns out the Emperor was just being manipulated by his wife, who was in term probably being at least partially manipulated by her son who is also Ultima (???). This raises oh so many questions (since when was Olivier like this? from birth? how was the emperor convinced by Annabella? why is Olivier suddenly Ultima? why is he??? this is such a weird plot point), which of course get no answers. I do think Annabella's confrontation with Clive is good, and she gets an appropriate ending, but it was a little weird how minimal her relevance was up until now after that prologue. Brother reunion was very sweet, and of course Bahamut is hands down the best Eikon fight in the game, I did not expect us to go to space in some super combined Eikon mode lol, I love it.
Unfortunately, as I excited as I was to see an explicitly gay relationship in a jrpg of all genres (if only my kid self got to see the day of being represented in his favourite games), they really did Dion and Terence's relationship dirty. Terence kind of vanishes from existence after a certain point, and we never really get to see him comfort Dion or well, anything. Seriously where was Terence for this entire story segment, it feels so wasted to off-screen him at such an important stage of Dion's arc. Oh well, at least this is a good start—I GREATLY appreciate how the relationship is portrayed as wholesome, and Dion is allowed to be a cool important character immune from bad stereotypes. It's also not like this game does a particularly amazing job with its straight relationships either—I was kind of confused on whether they expected me to view Joshua and Jote as vaguely romantic or not, and Clive/Jill while nice at first... I felt kind of bored by after a while. They really could have used more interactions and moments together, because it felt kind of on the level I'd expect for an optional romance in a game that gives me a bunch of options, rather than the romance. The beach scene I guess is probably nice, but unfortunately I was so uninvested by that point, all I could think was "rip, guess Jill is losing what agency she had left". Speaking of which, very interesting how she gets kidnapped yet again so Clive can save her once more, hmmm? Right after she attempts to show some agency and help out too. If I didn't know better, combined with the treatment of Benedikta, Jote getting shafted to "plz come home Joshua 🙏" girl the instant Joshua joins you, and Annabella having so little screentime for what's supposed to be a major villain... I might be tempted to make some rather unfair assumptions on how the main scenario writer views women.
Waloed... what a waste. As much as I like the shock of reaching the place and seeing it in a post-apocalyptic state, it comes at a huge cost—we don't really get to see the culture or humanity of the entire continent of Ash. I did like the stuff with the pregnant woman at least. Barnabas himself, while I do find him interesting as a religious fanatic steeped into his delusions, truly believing he's right, does end up feeling a little undercooked. We never really get closure to his connections to Cid or Benedikta (who he was literally in a relationship with!), his lord commander ends up being a weird extension of himself, and while this all nails home the feeling of how isolated and lonely he is, it sort of comes at the cost of any kind of nuance/depth for Waloed and its political situation. On the positive side, the Odin fight was absolutely incredible—I'd heard this wasn't a proper Eikon fight, and assumed the budget would die or something, but nah this was insanely cool and fits Odin perfectly. I found it the toughest main story fight in the game actually. Unfortunately, fighting the Akashic in Ash over and over got kind of boring, as they're really no different to Ultima's thralls or his weird not!Fallen devices.
The way the final mothercrystal is dealt with is a little odd, but I at least liked the wacky Ultima dimension and the explanation of his past, the presentation was quite good. It's pretty bizarre how Dion tells Terence to go help the medicine girl, and then they just vanish for the rest of the story, and it's potentially-but-not-confirmed that they might've died in the awakening of Origin from the ocean. Are they setting up to DLC here? Or is this just another rushed/dropped plot point that they messed up on? Either way, a bit annoying. Leviathan the Lost feels like really blatant DLC bait too, which I guess could be good or bad, but at the moment it just feels a bit half-baked.
By this point I was kind of simultaneously bored and annoyed with the plot, entering my "well whatever happens, happens, I guess" mode, which is never a good sign for my enjoyment lol. Luckily (?) for me, the game didn't have much left to go, as I was misled by the game progress % (which apparently stops at 90 for a first playthrough? so weird). The final dungeon... oh wait it wasn't a dungeon, I mean the final battle was, hmmm how do I put this. I guess to start with, I found Clive, Joshua and Dion being the only ones heading there a bit boring, and ngl I rolled my eyes when Jill was left behind to 'pray' for Clive's safety. I mean come on, surely we're better than this in 2023. Anyway, first we get a weirdly unsatisfying death for Dion that I'm not realy sure whether to believe after his sidequest (and the lack of any closure for his relationship with Terence or the medicine girl), then Joshua dies (?), and we get a very emotional flashback segment, but huh? I mean it's not like I never expected these things to happen, but the execution felt so weird to me, and I'm not quite sure how to articulate how. I guess Joshua was built up to die from the moment he sealed Ultima away (which ended up just being one Ultima, lol), but the way he actually ends up being killed off feels like it happened because the plot said so. I think that's the problem I have—the deaths really stretch my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and it kind of felt like a whole lot of "that happened"—which is what stories technically are, but you've gotta at least keep up the illusion! Lol I apologise for my rambling, basically I don't like the finale all that much. Ultimalisfuowieijfowis fight was pretty cool, even if I was a bit bitter about the deaths to fully appreciate it, and I guess the ending is... fine, Clive probably isn't dead and probably wrote the book, because I did my sidequests like a good boy. We barely get closure for anything else, but I can't say I expected anything better tbh. I feel a little bad for saying this, as I'm not a fan of when people make no attempt to invest themselves in a story and make fun of shit in bad faith, but I really could not help but laugh at that post-credits segment, it felt so silly: "Wow magic what a silly fairy tale, anyway not!Clive go play with your brother not!Joshua." I guess it probably would've done something for me if I had any investment left.
I could go on about how I found myself bored of Clive after the second timeskip and wish the story was multi PoV, or how I thought Ultima was kinda okay-ish but dominated the plot too much and killed a lot of the nuance, or all the other ways I felt the story failed to deliver satisfying payoffs, but I think anyone who made it this far gets the idea already lol, so I'd like to talk about something positive amidst this doom and gloom: this game handles male relationships SO WELL. They hug. They cry. They bond. They show FEELINGS. The absolute almost systematic denial of all facets of toxic masculinity was very unexpected for me, I was so enthralled. I really hope more JRPGs take note from this.
And since I like to think of myself as an optimist, I've saved my favourite part for last—the sidequests. Wait, didn't I complain about them earlier? Yes I did... the gameplay at least. Because the stories these sidequests offer are soooo good. Sure the earlier ones are pretty simple, but they still do a damn good job at letting us get to know the npcs in the hideout, the situation in the world, and lots of small details I love in my world building—one of my favourite aspects of SFF. But man the later ones, they get so good, you get so many strong ones that I can't even list them all. Blackthorne, Charon, The Dame, Martha, Goetz, Mid (heh), L'ubor, Tarja, Gav—the entire side cast of this game is super good, and they get absolutely fantastic sidequests. In particular, the final two rounds of sidequests were absolutely amazing, and offered so much satisfying depth and closure. Even major characters get a piece of the pie—Dion, Jill and Joshua all get super good sidequests that frankly, I cared about way more than the stuff happening to them in the main story at the time. At the end of the game, I was laughing, bawling my eyes out, grinning, sombered, angered, filled with all sorts of emotions from these sidequests, it was such an amazing experience. In fact, I felt like I was emotionlessly finishing story segments just so I could get to the next round of sidequests lol, which is one of the strangest video game experiences I've had. It's been surprising to hear a lot of people skip the last round of the sidequests, when that was hands down the peak of my experience with Final Fantasy XVI.
Needless to say, I think I've made it quite clear why FF16 was a mixed and confusing experience for me! Thanks to anyone who actually read this far, I appreciate you reading my ADHD-addled ramblings as I soundboard my thoughts against an empty document to form what you could call a 'review' if you're generous, lol. Despite all my issues though, I don't regret playing this, and I'm happy I at least got to have such a high budget experience with the newest Final Fantasy. Excited to see what's next for the series, because I'll certainly be there.
Cons
- Performance issues
- Can't explore the cool-looking cities
- Female characters are treated poorly in the main story
- Plot bored me by the end and had a disappointing lack of payoffs
- Clive becomes a bit flat by the halfway point
- Main story romances are terminally underdeveloped
- Strange lack of maps/minimaps
- We need to hire a cleaner to pick up all these dropped plot points
- Mediocre ending
Pros
+ Absolutely gorgeous looking visuals
+ Letting men show emotions and bond in healthy ways? In my video games?
+ Wonderfully handled relationship between the brothers
+ Clive's arc early in the game is amazing
+ Side cast are amazing (especially the female characters!)
+ Torgal
+ GAY BAHAMUT!!!
+ Side quests have amazing stories later in the game
+ THAT MUSIC HOLY SHIT
+ Eikon battles are a treat
+ Highly impressive cutscene and voice direction
+ Incredible performance from Ben Starr
This review will be littered with spoilers as I'd rather not go "ah yes that thing I will not specify, yes it was so <adjective>!", so RUN if you haven't finished the game.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room—the gameplay. At the time of writing I haven't even played FF games past VII (unless you count the Remake), so I'm not going to prattle on about what Final Fantasy should be and blablabla turn based something something, and while character action games aren't necessarily my thing, I do find them decently fun. The combat in this game is pretty fun all in all: there's a good amount of moves you can pull off, and while it takes forever to start opening up, it gets really fun once you have a ton of Eikons to play around with. I also think the Eikons offer good variety, with each having its own strengths that make it worthwhile to use. Odin was my favourite for how broken it was (Zantestuken has never been so satisfying for me), but I also enjoyed the emphasis on stagger Garuda offered, generally all-round usability of Phoenix/Ifrit, and Shiva literally freezing the enemies. If I was more into these games, I probably would've gone wild with discovering combos in the training arena. Overall while the game is quite easy (I don't think I ever died in the main story), the hunts do offer a good challenge and I like how the boss fights force you to play differently. Enemy variety I guess isn't the best, especially with how passive the mobs are, but I wouldn't say it ruined anything for me (though the Akashic reskins were definitely pushing it).
Exploration... yeah it's pretty linear. This isn't an issue for me, I love linear, but I do think the implementation leaves a few things to be desired. Firstly, the purely linear stages really could've used a map due to how samey the rooms are, and I pretty much spammed Torgal's animal instinct every time I finished a battle. The open-areas are nice in theory, but there's no reason to explore them outside of sidequests/hunts as the 'rewards' are almost always crappy crafting materials you have too much of. Speaking of which, crafting feels so unnecessary, it really felt like a bit of a waste of time to me with how you're formulaically upgrading your weapons/armour to have all-so-slightly better stats. We also have the Xenoblade 3 issue of money being almost pointless, I mean it basically just exists to save up for orchestra rolls and neat accessories you're probably never going to use as the three slot competition is tight.
Sidequests, from a gameplay perspective, are kinda bad. I don't mind going around talking to people, but it got so tedious when almost all of them had filler battles against enemies you've already fought a gazillion times, plus travelling around is pretty slow and tedious even after you've unlocked Ambriosia (my beloved). Story-wise I have the exact opposite opinion of them, but I'll talk about that later. The lack of a party system in this game, from a gameplay perspective, I don't think is too bad. I would've liked to be able to play as more characters, but I understand that would be pretty tricky to implement, and I do at least appreciate having them hang around to help out with chip damage. Plus, Torgal can be fun for combos.
Visually FF16 is astonishingly good, I think that goes without saying. Lighting is beautiful, areas are reasonably varied and look super nice, character models are pretty great (particularly in cutscenes), and man the cutscene direction... it's incredible. They handle animations so well, using subtle facial expressions and gestures to communicate details, that makes for a super immersive experience. It's pretty much a well-directed movie in game-form. Of course the in-game cutscenes for side-ish content don't look anywhere near as good lol, with some really uncanny valley animations (Clive sheathing his sword looks so bizarre to me), but I personally don't mind too much. I suppose it could've been nice to have more fantastical areas, or hell at least a snowy area, but I'm satisfied with what we got. I guess the lack of cities to explore was disappointing too, considering how nice they look from the glimpses we see of them.
Unfortunately the performance is... very questionable. While graphics mode seems decently consistent, the motion blur was so overkill that I could never stomach it (granted never tried it after the patch to turn motion blur off), and I much prefer the relatively high frame rate for battles in frame rate mode. But as we know, frame rate is ridiculously inconsistent and chugs pretty hard, which is unfortunate. It's obviously no Pokemon SV, but it's a bit of a shame coming from a PS5 game. Also while I'm very grateful that they let me turn motion blur after an update, I was most of the way through the game at that point, and already got used to barely ever moving the camera so I didn't get motion sick. Seriously, the initial motion blur was so bad—I never get motion sickness in video games.
As for the music, well what do you even say here. It's the one 10/10 aspect of this game that never disappoints, I have zero criticisms. There's a good amount of variety, from intense battle music to peaceful area music, motifs are everywhere and used very effectively, and sometimes you're treated to some really unexpected genres like in the Titan Lost battle. Actually I guess I have one complaint: why isn't the official soundtrack available yet! Badly need to listen to that over and over and over.
The presentation of lore is pretty great, I really appreciate being able to quickly clarify what the hell all this fantasy jargon is mid-cutscene, and there's a lot of content if you're like me and really want to dig into the world building. It's pretty bizarre how long they take before giving you a proper map/character chart, but they're pretty great once you have them.
Ummm... oh no. I have to talk about the characters and story now. Surely I don't have to do that yet, I can talk about how much fun it is to pat Torgal, and uh... okay fine, let's just get this over with, because this is going to take up most of the review.
So, that prologue. I haven't touched ASOIAF/GoT, so anyone dreading those comparisons can breathe a sigh of relief lol, but I have read a good bit of western fantasy—from Hobb, to Abercrombie, to Sanderson (and like 30+ other authors I can't be bothered listing). Needless to say, the narrative direction of the prologue is exactly what I'd expect from a highly-acclaimed (if not slightly grimdark) fantasy novel—it sets the stakes, the flaws/motivations of the characters, the themes, the world, all so so well, it's such a powerful hook. Obviously it's nothing particularly ground-breaking, as it takes some pretty common western fantasy tropes, but the execution—aka the most important part—is pretty much perfect. I sorta went into it expecting a shallow copy of western fantasy, so this was a very pleasant surprise for me! I especially loved Annabella, they sold her so well as a strong villain with interesting motivations born from the society she was raised in.
Then when I bought the game, everything was immediately ruined and it all was terribl—nah, just kidding. While I'm not going to talk about every micro narrative element at length, as we'd be here all day, I think the following scenes are story segments are still really strong. Cid is established as a charismatic, lovable and interesting force of nature, Clive's motivations are engaging and believable, and the hideout introduces us to a ton of likable and eccentric side characters. They also do a good job at quickly giving us multiple perspectives on bearers and their situation in an organic way, which I thought was pretty cool.
Since FF16 is pretty monster-of-the-week (one of its many problems if I'm honest), let's start with Benedikta. Immediately an engaging villain with charisma, interesting motivations, trauma, a connection to Cid, it's hard not to find her pretty awesome. The build up to the confrontation with her is very good, and we are presented with plenty of scenes that got me, for lack of a better term, pretty damn hyped and intrigued. We also get to know Gav, who's quite charming, and also has a lot of... interesting interactions with Cid that make you wonder if they're in bed together LOL. But yes, the Benedikta confrontation itself is quite good, and I think it's a good introduction to the Eikon system. However, where I start to have problems is what comes next: Benedikta, during her desperate escape, is attacked by brigands and almost assaulted. This brings back memories of what seems to be a past SA incident Cid saves her from, and in her despair and helplessness, she gives into Garuda and goes berserk. We get a pretty cool Eikon battle to introduce us to Ifrit, and... she dies, just like that.
I honestly think this is such a huge disservice to Benedikta, it's almost kind of icky? Like to bring up last second SA trauma and then have her lose herself and die feels so hugely tragic, and the narrative barely gives it the weight it deserves—unless you count Cid reflecting on the path she took (I really would've liked to learn more about this? What specifically was going on between her and Barnabas?). This isn't helped by a later scene, where Benedikta (I assume her head?) is delivered to Hugo in a nice box, fridging her quite nicely. Not exactly the greatest look for your only SA victim in the game, not to mention one of the only two female Eikons. Not to mention they don't even clarify that a Waloeder emissary delivered it in English, which makes it impossible to put two and two together that Cid obviously never sent it and it's all a plot setup by Barnabas (not that they properly clarify this either???)
On the positive side, I absolutely love how Clive reacts to the (admittedly rather obvious) twist of him being Ifrit, the way they handle his suicidal ideation and self-loathing is really good, helped by Ben Starr's absolutely fantastic performance. I did find it kind of hilarious how Clive is... naked and in chains for some reason, when the other prisoner doesn't get the same treatment and priming does not remove clothes—looking a bit sus there Cid. The reunion with Jill, while I found it a bit odd she was unconscious for so long, is very nice, and I was really engaged in her tragic story with the Iron Kingdom. Their trauma-bonding scene in Eastpool is great too, and while the implied romance admittedly felt a bit sudden (unless you assume the protag and heroine must always get together lol), I wasn't against it either. Sadly a glaring issue with sidequests becomes more apparent here, where your party are yeeted from existence, and it's super jarring. I really think Jill would have greatly benefitted from participating in these sidequests, so we could see more sides of her and how she interacts with the complex social issues we're presented with there.
I'm sure some people find the whole "face yourself" section very anime and cliched, and well it is, but I also love it cause the execution is awesome. On top of the fight being really satisfying from a gameplay perspective, it's really great to see Clive facing his inner fears and growing as a person. I've seen this trope mishandled over and over, so it's really nice to see a story nail it as well as FF16 does. Interestingly though, this seems to mostly resolve Clive's arc, which is a rather daring choice for such a laser protagonist-focused story. Ah well, I'm sure they have plenty more planned for him, as adulthood can offer many unique challenges! (oh how naive I was)
I guess there's Joshua being alive, which was pretty obvious but good as he would've been pretty wasted otherwise, and he's for some reason not saying hi to Clive? I assumed there would be an explanation for this later, but in retrospect it seems like plot convenience lol. Oh well.
Focus shifts to destroying mothercrystals now, which was earlier than I expected—to my relief tbh, was kinda obvious the crystals were causing the Blight from the start. They do a pretty good job at showing how Sanbreque treats its Bearers horribly, though if I'm nitpicking, I feel they make everyone so comically antagonistic and sadistically cruel to them it feels kinda cartoonish. Like why should I save Moore from monsters when everyone I've met there is an evil bastard whose past-time is malicious fantasy racism and slavery, lol. Huge shame we don't get to see much of Oriflamme, considering the architecture and culture seemed interesting, but I guess that wasn't a priority for the budget this game. Cid's death is pretty sad albeit expected with the amount of death flags her raised, and I was sad to lose his wit and charisma in terms of cast dynamics. Typhon fight really upped the ante for Eikon fights, showing that they can be more than just QTEs and spectacle. We're also introduced to Ultima... was it just me, or was this introduction super weird? He kind of just randomly appears in a way that feels confusingly comicial, idk it really threw me off. Joshua sealing Ultima away was a pretty great and really builds up tension on whether he's going to survive this, along with further setting up his eventual reunion with Clive.
Then we timeskip? Five years? This I found really jarring, and honestly broke my immersion for the longest time. When it comes down to it, outside of world events, not much has changed for the characters and their relationships, and the parts that have (such as Clive succeeding as the next Cid) really would've benefitted from actually being developed on-screen. Hugo becomes your meme revenge villain, turning frankly comical in his simping ways, and they reallllly drag out this section before we get that insanely cool Titan Lost fight and say bye-bye to him.
The black shields sure do exist, before just becoming completely irrelevant lol (unless you count that sidequest... which had little to do with their motivations in the first place, and felt more like adopting an orphan plot point for something). I don't understand why this plot point existed, I got the point in Eastpool. Uncle Byron is a highlight at least, offering some much needed comedic relief and levity. Jill's arc in the Iron Kingdom is almost there, almost giving her something cool. Unfortunately Clive kind of steals the spotlight, and she doesn't get to do much with Shiva (as usual I suppose). While I did like how she killed the priest guy personally, it would've been nice to have fleshed out the background of this whole set piece more, especially when this is supposed to be your main heroine. They also do the women in the Iron Kingdom super dirty, shoving them off to god knows where after the arc is over, their fate unknown to us forever (come on at least bring back Jill's mother figure for something). Aaand since we can't have nice things, Jill gets to spend damsel time with Hugo in the next story segment—completely inappropriate addition to the story that strips her agency for no reason.
After being built up for so much of the story, I had extremely high hopes for the Bahamut arc, and honestly, it felt so promising after the kind of lacklustre Hugo arc. Dion was built up so well as a character, the empire's politics were decently interesting by this game's standards—overall it was very clearly the grand act 2 finale for the game. However I found the execution... sadly lacking. Turns out the Emperor was just being manipulated by his wife, who was in term probably being at least partially manipulated by her son who is also Ultima (???). This raises oh so many questions (since when was Olivier like this? from birth? how was the emperor convinced by Annabella? why is Olivier suddenly Ultima? why is he??? this is such a weird plot point), which of course get no answers. I do think Annabella's confrontation with Clive is good, and she gets an appropriate ending, but it was a little weird how minimal her relevance was up until now after that prologue. Brother reunion was very sweet, and of course Bahamut is hands down the best Eikon fight in the game, I did not expect us to go to space in some super combined Eikon mode lol, I love it.
Unfortunately, as I excited as I was to see an explicitly gay relationship in a jrpg of all genres (if only my kid self got to see the day of being represented in his favourite games), they really did Dion and Terence's relationship dirty. Terence kind of vanishes from existence after a certain point, and we never really get to see him comfort Dion or well, anything. Seriously where was Terence for this entire story segment, it feels so wasted to off-screen him at such an important stage of Dion's arc. Oh well, at least this is a good start—I GREATLY appreciate how the relationship is portrayed as wholesome, and Dion is allowed to be a cool important character immune from bad stereotypes. It's also not like this game does a particularly amazing job with its straight relationships either—I was kind of confused on whether they expected me to view Joshua and Jote as vaguely romantic or not, and Clive/Jill while nice at first... I felt kind of bored by after a while. They really could have used more interactions and moments together, because it felt kind of on the level I'd expect for an optional romance in a game that gives me a bunch of options, rather than the romance. The beach scene I guess is probably nice, but unfortunately I was so uninvested by that point, all I could think was "rip, guess Jill is losing what agency she had left". Speaking of which, very interesting how she gets kidnapped yet again so Clive can save her once more, hmmm? Right after she attempts to show some agency and help out too. If I didn't know better, combined with the treatment of Benedikta, Jote getting shafted to "plz come home Joshua 🙏" girl the instant Joshua joins you, and Annabella having so little screentime for what's supposed to be a major villain... I might be tempted to make some rather unfair assumptions on how the main scenario writer views women.
Waloed... what a waste. As much as I like the shock of reaching the place and seeing it in a post-apocalyptic state, it comes at a huge cost—we don't really get to see the culture or humanity of the entire continent of Ash. I did like the stuff with the pregnant woman at least. Barnabas himself, while I do find him interesting as a religious fanatic steeped into his delusions, truly believing he's right, does end up feeling a little undercooked. We never really get closure to his connections to Cid or Benedikta (who he was literally in a relationship with!), his lord commander ends up being a weird extension of himself, and while this all nails home the feeling of how isolated and lonely he is, it sort of comes at the cost of any kind of nuance/depth for Waloed and its political situation. On the positive side, the Odin fight was absolutely incredible—I'd heard this wasn't a proper Eikon fight, and assumed the budget would die or something, but nah this was insanely cool and fits Odin perfectly. I found it the toughest main story fight in the game actually. Unfortunately, fighting the Akashic in Ash over and over got kind of boring, as they're really no different to Ultima's thralls or his weird not!Fallen devices.
The way the final mothercrystal is dealt with is a little odd, but I at least liked the wacky Ultima dimension and the explanation of his past, the presentation was quite good. It's pretty bizarre how Dion tells Terence to go help the medicine girl, and then they just vanish for the rest of the story, and it's potentially-but-not-confirmed that they might've died in the awakening of Origin from the ocean. Are they setting up to DLC here? Or is this just another rushed/dropped plot point that they messed up on? Either way, a bit annoying. Leviathan the Lost feels like really blatant DLC bait too, which I guess could be good or bad, but at the moment it just feels a bit half-baked.
By this point I was kind of simultaneously bored and annoyed with the plot, entering my "well whatever happens, happens, I guess" mode, which is never a good sign for my enjoyment lol. Luckily (?) for me, the game didn't have much left to go, as I was misled by the game progress % (which apparently stops at 90 for a first playthrough? so weird). The final dungeon... oh wait it wasn't a dungeon, I mean the final battle was, hmmm how do I put this. I guess to start with, I found Clive, Joshua and Dion being the only ones heading there a bit boring, and ngl I rolled my eyes when Jill was left behind to 'pray' for Clive's safety. I mean come on, surely we're better than this in 2023. Anyway, first we get a weirdly unsatisfying death for Dion that I'm not realy sure whether to believe after his sidequest (and the lack of any closure for his relationship with Terence or the medicine girl), then Joshua dies (?), and we get a very emotional flashback segment, but huh? I mean it's not like I never expected these things to happen, but the execution felt so weird to me, and I'm not quite sure how to articulate how. I guess Joshua was built up to die from the moment he sealed Ultima away (which ended up just being one Ultima, lol), but the way he actually ends up being killed off feels like it happened because the plot said so. I think that's the problem I have—the deaths really stretch my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and it kind of felt like a whole lot of "that happened"—which is what stories technically are, but you've gotta at least keep up the illusion! Lol I apologise for my rambling, basically I don't like the finale all that much. Ultimalisfuowieijfowis fight was pretty cool, even if I was a bit bitter about the deaths to fully appreciate it, and I guess the ending is... fine, Clive probably isn't dead and probably wrote the book, because I did my sidequests like a good boy. We barely get closure for anything else, but I can't say I expected anything better tbh. I feel a little bad for saying this, as I'm not a fan of when people make no attempt to invest themselves in a story and make fun of shit in bad faith, but I really could not help but laugh at that post-credits segment, it felt so silly: "Wow magic what a silly fairy tale, anyway not!Clive go play with your brother not!Joshua." I guess it probably would've done something for me if I had any investment left.
I could go on about how I found myself bored of Clive after the second timeskip and wish the story was multi PoV, or how I thought Ultima was kinda okay-ish but dominated the plot too much and killed a lot of the nuance, or all the other ways I felt the story failed to deliver satisfying payoffs, but I think anyone who made it this far gets the idea already lol, so I'd like to talk about something positive amidst this doom and gloom: this game handles male relationships SO WELL. They hug. They cry. They bond. They show FEELINGS. The absolute almost systematic denial of all facets of toxic masculinity was very unexpected for me, I was so enthralled. I really hope more JRPGs take note from this.
And since I like to think of myself as an optimist, I've saved my favourite part for last—the sidequests. Wait, didn't I complain about them earlier? Yes I did... the gameplay at least. Because the stories these sidequests offer are soooo good. Sure the earlier ones are pretty simple, but they still do a damn good job at letting us get to know the npcs in the hideout, the situation in the world, and lots of small details I love in my world building—one of my favourite aspects of SFF. But man the later ones, they get so good, you get so many strong ones that I can't even list them all. Blackthorne, Charon, The Dame, Martha, Goetz, Mid (heh), L'ubor, Tarja, Gav—the entire side cast of this game is super good, and they get absolutely fantastic sidequests. In particular, the final two rounds of sidequests were absolutely amazing, and offered so much satisfying depth and closure. Even major characters get a piece of the pie—Dion, Jill and Joshua all get super good sidequests that frankly, I cared about way more than the stuff happening to them in the main story at the time. At the end of the game, I was laughing, bawling my eyes out, grinning, sombered, angered, filled with all sorts of emotions from these sidequests, it was such an amazing experience. In fact, I felt like I was emotionlessly finishing story segments just so I could get to the next round of sidequests lol, which is one of the strangest video game experiences I've had. It's been surprising to hear a lot of people skip the last round of the sidequests, when that was hands down the peak of my experience with Final Fantasy XVI.
Needless to say, I think I've made it quite clear why FF16 was a mixed and confusing experience for me! Thanks to anyone who actually read this far, I appreciate you reading my ADHD-addled ramblings as I soundboard my thoughts against an empty document to form what you could call a 'review' if you're generous, lol. Despite all my issues though, I don't regret playing this, and I'm happy I at least got to have such a high budget experience with the newest Final Fantasy. Excited to see what's next for the series, because I'll certainly be there.
Cons
- Performance issues
- Can't explore the cool-looking cities
- Female characters are treated poorly in the main story
- Plot bored me by the end and had a disappointing lack of payoffs
- Clive becomes a bit flat by the halfway point
- Main story romances are terminally underdeveloped
- Strange lack of maps/minimaps
- We need to hire a cleaner to pick up all these dropped plot points
- Mediocre ending
Pros
+ Absolutely gorgeous looking visuals
+ Letting men show emotions and bond in healthy ways? In my video games?
+ Wonderfully handled relationship between the brothers
+ Clive's arc early in the game is amazing
+ Side cast are amazing (especially the female characters!)
+ Torgal
+ GAY BAHAMUT!!!
+ Side quests have amazing stories later in the game
+ THAT MUSIC HOLY SHIT
+ Eikon battles are a treat
+ Highly impressive cutscene and voice direction
+ Incredible performance from Ben Starr