(No spoilers)

I went into this game with fairly high expectations in certain aspects. Those being story, characters, gameplay, and spectacle. And while those are some of the most important parts of a good video game, it does fall short in things that I consider minor but others may not. This review focuses on a lot of the negatives, but I want to make it clear that they do not outweigh the positives and I now consider this one of my favorite games of all time.

My biggest problem is the pacing of the main story quests. This game reaches some of the highest highs I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a video game, but in the second half it frequently it pulls you back down with menial fetch quests that do nothing but keep you busy while the next spectacle is prepared. There is a precedent to this style of storytelling, giving you time to breathe before going all in on the next major event (for an example of expert story pacing, see the Resident Evil 4 remake), but it happens far too often and does nothing to properly engage the player. While they are relevant to the plot, they also lack any urgency or importance. These kinds of things should be relegated to side quests, not the main story.

Regarding side quests, they are by and large not very good. They do an okay job of building on the world around you, but there is just nothing particularly fun about going to a location and holding X to gather materials (especially egregious that some of these instances happen during the MAIN quest). I shouldn't be surprised since this is a developer known for their MMO work (a genre where side quests are mainly a means to get XP) but I can't help being a little disappointed.

As far as other side content goes, the developers explained there are no minigames or life skills like previous entries in the series as Clive's story is not a happy one and it wouldn't have made sense. I just don't agree, and it sucks that they aren't here. Outside of that, the bulk of side content lies in the hunts, arcade mode, and Chronolith trials. If you're fiending for combat, these are here for you. These are extremely good, and go along with my other biggest praise of the game.

The general combat and individual encounter design is some of the best I have ever played. There were many, many boss fights and hunts that I did in my 30+ hours (so far) and not once did I feel like an attack was poorly designed. It is absurdly fun weaving through telegraphs and interacting with so many cool Eikon abilities.

I have so much more experimenting I need to do, but it's clear from what I've used that every ability is strong in one aspect or another. The mastery system lets you mix things up pretty significantly and there is a lot more player choice here than I had initially thought. The combat itself also has a lot of hidden depth. My one tiny little complaint is toppling enemies with Garuda is so damn good I feel like I'm leaving damage on the table if I'm not using it, which brings me down to only two Eikon slots. Regardless, there are a staggering number of ways to initiate and hold a combo, whether using Eikonic feats or even commanding Torgal. Sure, you CAN beat the game by button mashing--which keeps the barrier to entry low--but there's no way I'm going to do that.

As a side note the itemization in this game is weak, and the crafting system is basic. But this has never been a strength of the series, so I'm okay with a couple stat sticks and damage/cooldown passives.

Rounding off this review with a final look at the positives, I found the story incredible when things were actually happening. It hit every emotional beat and by the end of it I was fully invested and felt the full force of its impact. The sentiment from other reviews is that it goes fairly off the rails in the final act, but personally I feel like it does so in a way that isn't alien to the JRPG genre. Not to dismiss any flaws, but there wasn't anything I was blindsided by and it never really breaks the mold on this type of story. It does fail to address a few things by the end, but not in a way that hindered my experience. The main villain is good but doesn't reach the same heights the best in the franchise do.

The Eikon battles are the peak of the game. When I mentioned highest highs, this is what I was referring to. I went in hoping they weren't just button mashing and QTEs, and it blew my expectations away. These are incredible, immersive battles between titans where scale and spectacle just kept getting bigger. I found myself finishing these and wondering how the next one could possibly be better--but it was every time. These encounters always happened at major story points, and the accompanying cutscenes never disappointed, with smooth transitions between cinematics and gameplay paired with, overall, some of the best English voice acting in video games. I never felt like the line delivery was flat or out of place.

The characters are amazing. There are some real gems in this cast, Clive, Dion, Cid, Byron, and one unnamed character in particular shone the brightest for me. Barnabas is propped up as one of the most powerful characters in the game, and he delivers on that with every moment he takes the screen. Jill unfortunately does not reach the heights that other major female characters in the series do, but I loved her relationship with Clive and she does have her moments. The side characters found in your main hub also fell short for me. They just weren't very interesting.

Creative Business Unit III, known best for their work on Final Fantasy XIV for the last decade, transfers a lot of their storytelling and game design experience to XVI, for better or worse. It's not perfect, but still holds a high score for me.

Thanks for reading if you did.

The soul of Final Fantasy, It's never a mercy to forget

In an era where video games have extremely super serious narratives, deeply complex characters and extremely dense world building comes a game like Stranger of Paradise that comes in like a breath of fresh air of a bygone era of Square's history. A new vision for Final Fantasy that comes closer to what it actually is than you might think too as Team Ninja manages to do the Final Fantasy name in good service here with the great and engaging gameplay, great soundtrack, the narrative that takes its time but pays off in spades and a one note protagonist with one of the roughest exteriors with a lot of heart: Jack Garland.

I've never really played any of Team Ninja's action games beforehand but I can say I love the pacing of the combat and how responsive it is. A less methodical approach and rewards perfect reaction: the mechanics all work in tandem and when it clicks, it truly clicks. Soul shielding is one of the most rewarding parrying mechanics along with it being pretty easy to use too which lets people that aren't versed in action games a feeling of accomplishment when you pull them off perfectly. I haven't really paid much attention to gearing in my playthrough but it'll probably be more important in the "endgame" activities but the loot system works like a traditional one seen in most games these days with enemies dropping loot with colored rarities. The job system which actually seen in much in Final Fantasy anymore makes a return here and the number of jobs and weapons is staggering. Almost every iconic job here bringing something different to the table with unique abilities each to the point I'm actually surprised they pulled off mages in an action game pretty well. The soundtrack is overall great here with some remixes to old familiar songs from the Final Fantasy series if you can hear them out and some of the combat themes remind me of XIII's music with the way the strings present themselves (you'll see in the main combat theme and the first boss fight). The story doesn't actually deliver much but it does deliver things in fragments but then when it all comes together makes for one of the best endings in a game and something you'll love if you played the original Final Fantasy and with that said, I really do recommend playing the first Final Fantasy to get the most of this story because what you'll appreciate here is really good and for someone that hasn't played it or at least know the premise, a lot of it will be lost on you.

One thing I'm sorta disappointed about is the levels in this game. As you may or may not know, each level or area in the game is based on a previous Final Fantasy title. While the areas visually look good, the levels themselves are sorta disappointing in terms of seeing them not as realized and not giving as much fan service as this title was willing to utilize areas from the previous final fantasies. I was hoping for a little bit more or some unique monsters from each game but the game other than the passing dialogue mentioning each area. I don't really care about graphics but the PC port is pretty bad and for what it gives, it's not worth the tradeoff at all but in my personal experience, I only really had slowdowns during the executions so it never really impacted my gameplay and the game ran at a smooth sixty frames a second 95% of the time but it's still not excusable so it's something to keep in mind. I still think the story is great but it does keep its cards close to its chest to the point some people might find it lacking for a good while and I can understand that even though the ending made up for it and especially if you're a Final Fantasy fan.

Stranger of Paradise isn't a perfect game and it won't be for everyone but honestly what is here is a fun action game in the end of the day. The story and ending hit really hard for me to the point I can't see this game as nothing more than a celebration of what Final Fantasy has become for a lot of people. It's really rough around the edges but the heart of the series is in full force here just like with Jack Garland.

He really did it his way.