I don't know what it is around the mysticism that surrounds PS2 games but this was yet another game that my older cousin had back in 2005 and I had to see it get played because I was like 6 years old but the theme that plays when you fight the first colossus made it more epic. The different colossus designs were just terrifying compared to a small human it was amazing seeing Wander defeating these once harmless creatures just to save the girl he loves. Hearing about the cut content that Nomad colossus put on his youtube channel and him getting all these different discs with early builds of the game when Sony was showcasing the game before it came out is interesting and makes me wish the stuff that was cut out was in the actual game the spider colossus and the devil colossus makes me wonder how they would've played it if they didn't get cut. Seeing the interviews from the creator back then saying if he was to remake the game he would try his best to put the cut colossi in the game. I was devastated when i heard about the remake coming on ps4 and they were just keeping the original 16 colossi from the ps2 release and not adding anything else. Plus the ambiguity of the ending makes me think there could've been more but im p sure once they saw the horned child that SotC was a prequel to Ico. The game is beautiful and the fact that it ran well on the ps2 is an amazing feat in video game history

Final Fantasy XVI recognizes Final Fantasy IV as the GOAT, as everyone should.

Alright, it took me a while to get through this game, and throughout it I had so many thoughts, impressions and the like that changed a bit over time. At the end of the day, I don't believe this is top-tier Final Fantasy, though it is filled with some top-tier moments. The game unfortunately does not balance the high highs of this game very well and the result is a game I really enjoyed, but do not completely love.

First and foremost, I'm of two minds with the combat. I believe there are moments where it's really fun to play and moments where it's a bit of a slog. I actually credit the trophy list with really getting me to explore many variations of the combat, thus opening it up to me an interesting way. But I can't pretend that I don't feel like I permanently damaged some controllers with how often I mashed the square button throughout this game (I'm exaggerating, but it was a lot). In particular, this game largely has wonderful boss fights, but some annoying in-betweens. Fighting a badass boss with a huge health gauge? Alright, sure. Fighting big dudes with stagger gauges amongst random hordes of enemies for the sake of prolonging the gameplay? Not so much.

As far as the narrative goes...unfortunately, I just wasn't that invested. I think the voice acting is really well done, I think the active time lore and ways to dig into the story are really cool features, but I got kind of bored with it. I think conversations with NPCs are largely too long, and that goes for main quest, side quests, and pretty much everything else. I think a lot of the side quests are very basic in their design, and frustrating in other ways. How many times was an objective 'go talk to this person' then 'go talk to that person' then 'go back and talk to that person'. It was a little too much.

That being said, the pure spectacle of the big moments in this game are admirable and take the game up a notch, along with the boss fights. I just wish the rest of the game held up as well for me. I debated giving this 3.5 stars or 4, and ultimately I went with 4 because I did enjoy a lot of my time with it, but I'm happy to be done with the main game. I'll play the DLC next but I won't go for the platinum, at least not right now. Playing through the game a second time and reaching an additional 30-40 levels sounds like a slog.

An adorable remake of the absolute classic from the SNES. This one is honestly one of my favorite Mario RPGs that Nintendo has released. And this remake does wonders at not only retelling the original's story, but in some ways surpassing the original in quality and gameplay changes.

+The Battle System has been improved for the better
The way you fight feels just as fluent as the original. The Mario RPGs have always been the “anti-button mashing” RPG and Mario RPG is a perfect example of that. Every attack, every dodge, every input in battle is player involved, and I think that’s one of the things that makes this game stand out, even today. The action commands are simple, yet always challenging to master. Making it so you’re spending most of your time in battles learning how to best optimize your timing, rather than just “getting through another battle”. But that’s just stuff that the original did, because the remake packs in a bunch of new battle features. The ability to switch party members on the fly was incredibly nice! It made battles more dynamic and added new levels of planning. That new mechanic in combination with the “action command meter” that would fill up as you gained a combo of action commands really made efficient battling rewarding. That in further combination with the ally super moves that changed depending on your party layout was just… The new system of battling far surpassed the original in terms of quality.

+The graphics look stellar and give the game a fresh new look
When I first saw the new art style in trailers I wasn’t quite sure if it was going to work or not. But after playing through the whole game. I can definitively say that the new style is a boon for the game. Rather than a curse. Everything, from the adorable cutscenes to the remake sprite animations to that cute little level up dance is just… GAH ADORABLE! It’s all ADORABLE and I love the style for this game!

+The remade soundtrack is very high quality
I wouldn’t say that it suprasses the soundtrack for the original. But it definitely served as a moderate replacement for the most part. The remade tracks all had good instrument choices and it didn’t sound “weaker” than the original. It all landed really well in my opinion.

+Geno
Geno. 12 year old me who was obsessed with Geno being in Smash Bros would be very happy to know that Geno got acknowledgement in 2023. I still love Geno and it was very cool to see him alive and acknowledged.

-Frame drops and performance issues
For some reason there were quite a few frame drops that I experienced. Which was a little surprising considering that this game was made for the nintendo switch… Areas like Marrymore, The Sunken Ship, and a few others had small lagging issues. And I experienced lag a few times in battles as well. It wasn’t awful or anything, just a small issue in the grand scheme of things.

-Can’t Dodge Makes my blood boil
I guess this is an issue with the endgame mostly. Basically certain attacks instead of giving you a chance to dodge they’re basically undodgeable. And just display the text Can’t Dodge and give you guaranteed damage. Throughout most of the game this isn’t too bad of an issue. It’s used sparingly and the attacks never deal too much damage. But once you get to the last few areas of the game the bosses start having multiple of these “Can’t Dodge” attacks at one time. And instead of doing moderate to small damage like before. These attacks that you can’t see coming or predict, nor can you dodge. Start doing like 150 damage at a time. And idk man, when attacks that you can’t predict or try to see coming start dealing that much damage it starts feeling unfair in some ways.

I did have some small issues but overall I liked the Super Mario RPG remake. And I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a new, simple RPG to try. Or to anyone who wants to relive the classic in a brand new way.

4.5/5 A wonderful game, just not perfect.

Going into Final Fantasy XVI, I was insanely excited. It was the first mainline entry to release since I’d become a fan of the franchise, the trailers and previews made the game look like something great and it was being made by some of the same people as Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps my favourite entry in the franchise so far. Now that I’ve reached the end of my first playthrough, I’m delighted to say that (for me at least, I’m aware that this game is quite divisive in some FF fan circles) Final Fantasy XVI absolutely lived up to the hype!

While Final Fantasy is a franchise that’s never been afraid of changing & reinventing itself, XVI is probably the most radical departure from prior entries since VII moved from Medieval Fantasy to Science Fantasy & 2D pixel art to 3D graphics. While XV was the mainline entry that completed the franchise’s transition from menu/turn-based combat to action-combat, XVI moves even further away from the franchise’s turn-based roots. Traditional RPG elements like the concept of party members, mini-games or any semblance of post-game beyond New Game + and harder difficulties (although to be fair VII Remake is guilty of that last one too) being downplayed, heavily streamlined or omitted entirely.
This has sparked much debate and controversy in the Final Fantasy fandom as to what even makes a game a Final Fantasy game and whether XVI has strayed too far from genre norms to be even considered an RPG anymore (the latter debate also extending to RPG fan circles as a whole). I personally think it still feels like both an RPG & a Final Fantasy game, but I also won’t deny that, in stark contrast to VII Remake & XV, XVI puts a lot of emphasis on the Action part of Action-RPG (whereas XV & especially VII Remake put more emphasis on the RPG part).

But I think the tradeoffs CBUIII have made with XVI are worth it in exchange for the highs it’s combat & boss fights deliver that rival some of the most iconic boss fights in other action games like Asura’s Wrath, God of War or Devil May Cry. Plus I don’t think the story CBUIII wanted to tell & the world they’ve created would be particularly well suited to a combat system similar to VII Remake, let alone older entries. It certainly helps that the ever changing nature of Final Fantasy as a franchise means that it’s highly likely XVII will go in a different direction. It could be quite literally be anything from a turn-based RPG inspired by the likes of Persona & Trails of Cold Steel to a first-person shooter inspired by Call of Duty or Titanfall.

As for XVI’s combat, it really is a tight, fluid & stellar action-combat system to engage with. Knowing their inexperience with creating action-combat systems, CBUIII assembled a veritable dream team to help them on this front. Not content with just poaching one of the combat designers of Devil May Cry 4 & 5 and Dragon’s Dogma (Ryota Suzuki) from Capcom to be this game’s Combat Director and having Kenji Sudo, the designer of some of XIV’s most challenging Ultimate Trials & Savage Raids as one of the lead combat designers, CBUIII also enlisted the assistance of the Kingdom Hearts team over at CBUI & a team at Platinum Games led by those who’d worked with Square Enix previously on Nier Automata.

And, in my opinion, that assistance paid off and has resulted in the best action-combat system in the entire franchise (although TBF I haven’t played Type-0 yet). Even the encounters with more basic enemies didn’t ever truly get old for me. Not to mention the amazing boss fights that may have ruined me on other games’ boss fights because of the sheer scale, spectacle & epic feeling this game’s boss fights have. Although I do agree that the game (at least on first playthrough) is at least a little too easy. I only really died once in the 52 1/2 hours it took me to finish the main story & all the side-quests. Even the Hunts I did do, while posing some challenge, never posed enough difficulty to kill me. But nevertheless, that didn’t impact my enjoyment of XVI enough to offset what this game does well. I’m very much looking forward to my second playthrough on Final Fantasy mode & attempting to make XVI my first Platinum trophy.

Speaking of things you need to do for the Platinum, let’s talk about those side quests. These side quests are something that XVI has gotten a lot of flak for. While I won’t argue that the design & what you do in them is all that special (really it’s not that great and does inherit almost all of the shortcomings of previous entries like XIV & VII Remake’s side quests), where XVI’s side quests shine is in the stories they tell and how they further flesh out the lore & world of Valisthea. Most of the later side quests in particular were tearjerkers for me. You do have to play the earlier side quests that aren’t so great though, so take that how you will…

While we’re on the topic of story, let’s talk about the main story. I personally loved it, although I understand that the darker & less colourful tone CBUIII went for isn’t for everyone. The game is also very much Clive’s story rather than an ensemble like most other FF games aside from Lightning Returns and spin-offs like Crisis Core. But other than those two sticking points this is very much a Final Fantasy story & bears many of the franchise’s recurring tropes (including some that XV forwent). Not that this is a bad thing. Instead, XVI is able to deftly weave them in with its own ideas & themes about slavery, clashing ideals, empathy & living on your own terms in ways that can & likely will bring you to tears at times. Sure, there are some pacing issues at times (although nothing that wouldn’t be expected if you’ve played a lot of XIV), some things aren’t conveyed well & the demonization of slavery could have been a bit more subtle, but this is overall a very well-written & told story set in a fascinating & fleshed-out world that I certainly wouldn’t mind revisiting in a sequel, prequel, DLC or spin-off of some sort. The game does certainly leave enough open-ended that such things are feasible…

That brings us to voice acting, where XVI is pretty different from the last couple of single-player FF games. Unlike most other Final Fantasy games, XVI’s English dub uses a London-based voice cast rather than the typical California-based voice actors most games use. Another deviation from the norm is XVI’s prioritization of said dub to the point where the facial capture was done with the English cast & the Japanese script was rewritten to incorporate stuff from the English script & better fit the lip sync from the aforementioned facial capture. And it definitely paid off! The majority of the English cast give solid performances, but special mention has to go to Ben Starr as Clive. With how much this story focuses on Clive, if he (or any of the other actors voicing him in the dubs) gave a bad performance, the whole game falls apart. And for a newcomer to voice acting, he gives one hell of a performance. He definitely deserves to be in consideration for some Best Performance nominations come awards season.

As for the technical side of things, they are superb, with some caveats. The audio side of things is great. The surround sound is really immersive & I’d imagine that translates well to the PS5’s 3D Audio capabilities. The DualSense is decently well utilized, although Astro’s Playroom, Gran Turismo 7 and Forspoken are better showcases in my opinion. The graphics, as is to be expected of a mainline Final Fantasy game, are superb and, combined with the boss fights, make the game feel like one of the first games to truly utilize the PS5 hardware.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy XVI is an an excellent character action-RPG with unforgettable boss fights, a tight & fluid action-combat system & an amazing story that quickly proves itself to be more than just Game of Thrones-lite & brings it’s own distinct feel separate from anything that came before it in the Final Fantasy franchise while still feeling like a Final Fantasy game (especially if you got into the franchise with XIV like I did). A true testament to the flexibility & ever-changing nature of the Final Fantasy franchise. Shame about the lacking difficulty & early side quests though…
Ratings
Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 9.5/10
Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 8.5/10
Business Practices score: 6/10 (points mainly detracted for the whole PS5 timed exclusive thing)
Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 9.5 out of 10

Man I just kinda am not into this, huh? Got pretty far in and finally got my first game over on one level where I listlessly tried to do the same jump the same way about eight times in a row and realized I was barely even paying attention and I didn't care to continue playing. Not especially fun or challenging or engaging imo.

The final nail in the coffin was when I got to a point where there was apparently some alternate exit to a level and I had to put on a special badge that let me "sense" it and I got to roughly where it seemed to be but it wasn't obvious to me within about three seconds what to do and I thought "yeah I don't care to figure this out actually" and turned the game off.

It's like I was going down a slide stone-faced and got stuck on a flat bit and someone yelled "push a little bit to keep going!!" and I got off instead. Just not doing it for me.

Liked some of the Wonder Flower... events? And I like the bubble power-up.