This review contains spoilers
My good pal goodchicken wrote a pretty extensive review of Final Fantasy XVI that I think covers many if not all of my major gripes with the story since I largely just agree with him.
https://backloggd.com/u/goodchicken/review/990179/
As an action game I think this game is like an 8/10, but the story is probably a 5 or a 6 out of 10, so I think it lands somewhere in the middle when you consider everything else. It took me ages to finish because I took a big break from it. When this game is good, it is absolutely fantastic and a breath of fresh air for the franchise, but what's funny is, simultaneously, it falls victim to some of the lamest, underdeveloped, half-baked anime tropes that do it no justice whatsoever. This is an evolutionary jrpg that transforms what a final fantasy can be into something new and exciting, so it should have and could have been better than the end result actually is which frustrates me, because I really wanted to love this one and instead I just think its a good game let down by a lot of things.
Creating a jrpg with a heavy action focus and fewer rpg elements than the rest of the series is not a bad thing at all, I don't resent this game for what it tries to be and I actually had a lot of fun with it. FFXVI is so clearly influenced by game of thrones and what is funny to me is that the holes it falls into aren't that dissimilar to it when you consider the similarities between ultima and the night king as big bads that take away all intrigue and drama from the characters, or when you consider how character arcs seemingly resolve themselves without really earning it, leaving a sour taste in my mouth (goodchicken covers this part far better than I could).
I love game of thrones seasons 1- 4, I grew up with it, its some of the finest television ever in recent years full of complex characters with mixed motivations and overlapping relationships with each other. Final Fantasy XVI clearly tries to replicate this with its world centred around noble families, warring nations and the inherent flaws of human beings, all carried along by a dark and gritty fantasy setting. There is even a very well implemented active time lore system you can access in and out of cutscenes and there's a 'lay of the land' encyclopedia & family tree type menu that presents you with waves of ever-updating information about the world and its inhabitants - which also shows character's bonds and opinions on each other, not unlike the interconnected web of characters and relationships found in GoT. But where this falls flat can be attributed to a couple of things but they boil down to - clive is the centre of attention at all times, a vast majority of characters with some notable exceptions like Cid are wholly secondary to Clive and the other thing is that Ultima's inclusion and constant puppeteering of the story and characters makes everything he touches less interesting as a result. I hate Ultima with a passion, he is such a lazy villain that never shuts the fuck up and yaps and yaps about making the 'perfect vessel' out of clive and creating a perfect new world. The nature of him pulling all of the strings and wanting Clive to destroy the mothercrystals, combined with the fact that his motivations are so flimsy cause him to be a complete wet flannel of a villain. There are better villains in daytime kids tv shows for real, I mean that 100%, he is a farcical, pointless, boring, uninteresting cunt and after he is introduced in the story it noticably declines. Also, why cast an actor as talented and brilliant as Harry Lloyd only to have him do his best salad fingers impression and talk in the most one-note boring ass voice for almost the entire game, he puts his all into it at the very very end when fighting clive but at that point I was just ready to be done with him. Ultima and his thralls like Barnabas are so uncompelling and make an otherwise fun and interesting game experience feel utterly nonsensical and dull. Anyway....
Despite FFXVI being a total zig-zag of quality, its highs are really high, notably its eikon battles, huge and beautiful setpieces, extremely well-animated cutscenes, powerful performances across its main cast and outstanding soundtrack, full of triumphant orchestral pieces and cozy serenades. The art design of FFXVI's world is phenomenal, taking you to all sorts of fantastical cities, dense forrests, sandy plains, blackened wastelands devoid of life and beautifully cozy little settlements dotted around the land. Its character designs and europpean influences in things like the architecture, costume designs and castles are perfection and there is a lot of complexity established in the games' main warring houses and nations to begin with, it is largely just thrown away later on and doesn't amount to much. Many characters have a short time to shine only to be cast aside when they're no longer relevant to Clive and its honestly crazy how little Clive interacts with Dion or frankly anyone from Sanbreque, y'know, the people that ransacked his homeland and killed most of his loved ones. As for Clive himself, I do really like him, I think he is one of the most interesting and genuinely human protagonists final fantasy has ever seen but they really work for that to happen since he undergoes a lot of trauma. Although, its trauma that isn't really explored that much, never is it really brought up how Clive spent 13 years as a slave having to kill innocent people because he's told to, nor do I feel like Clive's realisation that Joshua is alive and that he did not kill him after all is strong enough. Ben Starr's performance is totally killer and absolutely blew me away with how passionate and authentic his screams could feel, seriously best screams in the business, but it felt like the writing held him back. Similarly the writing hugely holds back its female characters and seems to refuse to allow them to shine, giving far too little screen time or development. Every female character exists on a surface level with maybe the exception of Annabella who is mostly only interesting because of her clear parallels with Cersei Lannister, but again, she lacks the development and complexity of Cersei in a big way and is far too underutilsed - oh she hates Clive, ok, is that going to amount to anything? Is Clive going to confront her about this? Is she going to try and stop him? Nope, because the game refuses to allow women to play any major part.
With this being said though, FFXVI puts a lot of time into humanising and developing Clive & Cid and it does this very well. Cid in particular won me over completely, I love him, many consider him the best incarnation of cid in final fantasy ever and for good reason, he is amazing, such a compelling character that gives purpose to Clive and Jill and drives the story in a big way for the time he is alive. He keeps the entire message of FFXVI alive and without him it would be an actively worse game, plus he's hot, has the best voice ever and points things out and acts with rationale in a way so many other characters don't for some reason? God I was so miffed when he died even though it was clearly telegraphed from the beginning, love that fucking guy, gonna frame his picture on my wall.
As for the combat and gameplay of FFXVI, although its more restricted and doesn't allow for a huge amount of exploration compared to previous entries and most traditional jrpgs, I do think its good, at least for an action game. Everything feels good and that's a really hard thing to do, because even when you're dodging or charging attacks it is a very active combat system especially since you also control torgal (which can make things a bit more hectic than they need to). But attacking and dodging both feel spot on and switching between targets and using your eikons is smooth and seamless, you can keep up the pressure constantly without getting punished too hard for it but you also get rewarded for paying attention to enemy tells, aoes and projectiles which feels hugely satisfying. You can also get a huge power fantasy literally just by mashing square and occasionally r1, its really beginner friendly. There definitely is some exploration in playstyle and how you build your eikons and special moves too so there's a level of replay value there, I particularly loved using odin who you unfortunately do not get until right near the end of the game, odin's quick slash attacks which build up a meter allowing you to perform an invincible combo with massive burst damage hits so hard for me, I ended up finishing the game using almost entirely odin. Getting new eikons and using them in battle works very well and is a ton of fun, it honestly makes this game more than worth it because the combat and action setpieces alone are so extra. You fight in the form of a giant fire god in space (twice) and tear giant kaiju monsters to pieces and it rips, the titan eikon fight in particular is peak action gameplay, that shit was utterly insane and felt like it went on for ages but I was never bored, it made me go silly.
Completely inconsistent and convoluted story that establishes a very cool world and then turns it into something completely contrived and one dimensional, Final Fantasy XVI deserves its praise but not in the narrative in my opinion. Its action gameplay, phenomenal art and audio direction and stellar performances carry it very hard, without Ultima it automatically becomes a better game. Its one that is worth playing and does a lot right for the series with its darker tone, grittier characters and dynamic, very involved combat that involves little to no menus, but its also hugely held back and stagnant because of the insistence of its lame BBEG and lack of development in its cast. I want to like this more, I really do!
https://backloggd.com/u/goodchicken/review/990179/
As an action game I think this game is like an 8/10, but the story is probably a 5 or a 6 out of 10, so I think it lands somewhere in the middle when you consider everything else. It took me ages to finish because I took a big break from it. When this game is good, it is absolutely fantastic and a breath of fresh air for the franchise, but what's funny is, simultaneously, it falls victim to some of the lamest, underdeveloped, half-baked anime tropes that do it no justice whatsoever. This is an evolutionary jrpg that transforms what a final fantasy can be into something new and exciting, so it should have and could have been better than the end result actually is which frustrates me, because I really wanted to love this one and instead I just think its a good game let down by a lot of things.
Creating a jrpg with a heavy action focus and fewer rpg elements than the rest of the series is not a bad thing at all, I don't resent this game for what it tries to be and I actually had a lot of fun with it. FFXVI is so clearly influenced by game of thrones and what is funny to me is that the holes it falls into aren't that dissimilar to it when you consider the similarities between ultima and the night king as big bads that take away all intrigue and drama from the characters, or when you consider how character arcs seemingly resolve themselves without really earning it, leaving a sour taste in my mouth (goodchicken covers this part far better than I could).
I love game of thrones seasons 1- 4, I grew up with it, its some of the finest television ever in recent years full of complex characters with mixed motivations and overlapping relationships with each other. Final Fantasy XVI clearly tries to replicate this with its world centred around noble families, warring nations and the inherent flaws of human beings, all carried along by a dark and gritty fantasy setting. There is even a very well implemented active time lore system you can access in and out of cutscenes and there's a 'lay of the land' encyclopedia & family tree type menu that presents you with waves of ever-updating information about the world and its inhabitants - which also shows character's bonds and opinions on each other, not unlike the interconnected web of characters and relationships found in GoT. But where this falls flat can be attributed to a couple of things but they boil down to - clive is the centre of attention at all times, a vast majority of characters with some notable exceptions like Cid are wholly secondary to Clive and the other thing is that Ultima's inclusion and constant puppeteering of the story and characters makes everything he touches less interesting as a result. I hate Ultima with a passion, he is such a lazy villain that never shuts the fuck up and yaps and yaps about making the 'perfect vessel' out of clive and creating a perfect new world. The nature of him pulling all of the strings and wanting Clive to destroy the mothercrystals, combined with the fact that his motivations are so flimsy cause him to be a complete wet flannel of a villain. There are better villains in daytime kids tv shows for real, I mean that 100%, he is a farcical, pointless, boring, uninteresting cunt and after he is introduced in the story it noticably declines. Also, why cast an actor as talented and brilliant as Harry Lloyd only to have him do his best salad fingers impression and talk in the most one-note boring ass voice for almost the entire game, he puts his all into it at the very very end when fighting clive but at that point I was just ready to be done with him. Ultima and his thralls like Barnabas are so uncompelling and make an otherwise fun and interesting game experience feel utterly nonsensical and dull. Anyway....
Despite FFXVI being a total zig-zag of quality, its highs are really high, notably its eikon battles, huge and beautiful setpieces, extremely well-animated cutscenes, powerful performances across its main cast and outstanding soundtrack, full of triumphant orchestral pieces and cozy serenades. The art design of FFXVI's world is phenomenal, taking you to all sorts of fantastical cities, dense forrests, sandy plains, blackened wastelands devoid of life and beautifully cozy little settlements dotted around the land. Its character designs and europpean influences in things like the architecture, costume designs and castles are perfection and there is a lot of complexity established in the games' main warring houses and nations to begin with, it is largely just thrown away later on and doesn't amount to much. Many characters have a short time to shine only to be cast aside when they're no longer relevant to Clive and its honestly crazy how little Clive interacts with Dion or frankly anyone from Sanbreque, y'know, the people that ransacked his homeland and killed most of his loved ones. As for Clive himself, I do really like him, I think he is one of the most interesting and genuinely human protagonists final fantasy has ever seen but they really work for that to happen since he undergoes a lot of trauma. Although, its trauma that isn't really explored that much, never is it really brought up how Clive spent 13 years as a slave having to kill innocent people because he's told to, nor do I feel like Clive's realisation that Joshua is alive and that he did not kill him after all is strong enough. Ben Starr's performance is totally killer and absolutely blew me away with how passionate and authentic his screams could feel, seriously best screams in the business, but it felt like the writing held him back. Similarly the writing hugely holds back its female characters and seems to refuse to allow them to shine, giving far too little screen time or development. Every female character exists on a surface level with maybe the exception of Annabella who is mostly only interesting because of her clear parallels with Cersei Lannister, but again, she lacks the development and complexity of Cersei in a big way and is far too underutilsed - oh she hates Clive, ok, is that going to amount to anything? Is Clive going to confront her about this? Is she going to try and stop him? Nope, because the game refuses to allow women to play any major part.
With this being said though, FFXVI puts a lot of time into humanising and developing Clive & Cid and it does this very well. Cid in particular won me over completely, I love him, many consider him the best incarnation of cid in final fantasy ever and for good reason, he is amazing, such a compelling character that gives purpose to Clive and Jill and drives the story in a big way for the time he is alive. He keeps the entire message of FFXVI alive and without him it would be an actively worse game, plus he's hot, has the best voice ever and points things out and acts with rationale in a way so many other characters don't for some reason? God I was so miffed when he died even though it was clearly telegraphed from the beginning, love that fucking guy, gonna frame his picture on my wall.
As for the combat and gameplay of FFXVI, although its more restricted and doesn't allow for a huge amount of exploration compared to previous entries and most traditional jrpgs, I do think its good, at least for an action game. Everything feels good and that's a really hard thing to do, because even when you're dodging or charging attacks it is a very active combat system especially since you also control torgal (which can make things a bit more hectic than they need to). But attacking and dodging both feel spot on and switching between targets and using your eikons is smooth and seamless, you can keep up the pressure constantly without getting punished too hard for it but you also get rewarded for paying attention to enemy tells, aoes and projectiles which feels hugely satisfying. You can also get a huge power fantasy literally just by mashing square and occasionally r1, its really beginner friendly. There definitely is some exploration in playstyle and how you build your eikons and special moves too so there's a level of replay value there, I particularly loved using odin who you unfortunately do not get until right near the end of the game, odin's quick slash attacks which build up a meter allowing you to perform an invincible combo with massive burst damage hits so hard for me, I ended up finishing the game using almost entirely odin. Getting new eikons and using them in battle works very well and is a ton of fun, it honestly makes this game more than worth it because the combat and action setpieces alone are so extra. You fight in the form of a giant fire god in space (twice) and tear giant kaiju monsters to pieces and it rips, the titan eikon fight in particular is peak action gameplay, that shit was utterly insane and felt like it went on for ages but I was never bored, it made me go silly.
Completely inconsistent and convoluted story that establishes a very cool world and then turns it into something completely contrived and one dimensional, Final Fantasy XVI deserves its praise but not in the narrative in my opinion. Its action gameplay, phenomenal art and audio direction and stellar performances carry it very hard, without Ultima it automatically becomes a better game. Its one that is worth playing and does a lot right for the series with its darker tone, grittier characters and dynamic, very involved combat that involves little to no menus, but its also hugely held back and stagnant because of the insistence of its lame BBEG and lack of development in its cast. I want to like this more, I really do!
goodchicken
4 months ago