Final Fantasy XVI is a five-star movie embedded in a three-and-a-half-star video game.
Writing, story, and characters are the strong suit here, unsurprising as it's helmed by Naoki Yoshida and the wider team behind Final Fantasy XIV, where the same elements also shine. XVI being one of the most visually striking games I've ever played also goes a long way in elevating those factors.
It's a shame then, that the gameplay of XVI didn't reach match those high standards for me. The game is certainly fun, no doubt about that, but combat has the long-term depth of a puddle - mainly thanks to Clive's moveset not evolving beyond the first quarter of the story. The regular introduction of new Eikons and abilities helped somewhat with this but the core hack-and-slash gameplay becomes repetitive before long.
The side quest design and pacing are also fairly questionable. Don't get me wrong, some of them are excellent and do a fantastic job of getting across the Bearers' plight. But many, particularly the massive bunch that gets dumped on you all at once before the final main quest, feel like monotonous MMO-esque fetch quests - perhaps a side effect of the dev team coming from long-time MMO development.
Writing, story, and characters are the strong suit here, unsurprising as it's helmed by Naoki Yoshida and the wider team behind Final Fantasy XIV, where the same elements also shine. XVI being one of the most visually striking games I've ever played also goes a long way in elevating those factors.
It's a shame then, that the gameplay of XVI didn't reach match those high standards for me. The game is certainly fun, no doubt about that, but combat has the long-term depth of a puddle - mainly thanks to Clive's moveset not evolving beyond the first quarter of the story. The regular introduction of new Eikons and abilities helped somewhat with this but the core hack-and-slash gameplay becomes repetitive before long.
The side quest design and pacing are also fairly questionable. Don't get me wrong, some of them are excellent and do a fantastic job of getting across the Bearers' plight. But many, particularly the massive bunch that gets dumped on you all at once before the final main quest, feel like monotonous MMO-esque fetch quests - perhaps a side effect of the dev team coming from long-time MMO development.