I don’t hate this game. On the surface it had potential, the combat can be solid although it has questionable choices such as not having a proper hard lock on so moves like stinger and a launcher are left to other buttons or a combination of buttons. Torgal and items being tied to the DPAD is already another issue because by the end of the game you have up to 6 styles and you can only access three with 6 moves. Had they chosen to utilize a proper hard lock on and the DPAD for the styles, Torgal could have had his own button and the skill ceiling could have slightly climbed up. However it’s not like the enemies in this game would have accommodated for this with how it’s pushed towards either stomping on ants or wailing away on a break gauge until you dump all your damage into a DPS race like an MMO boss because the game blew it’s enemy load about 20 hours in and there’s roughly 70 hours worth of game here. So with enemy variety and variation out of the question you’d think that level variety and scenario variety would be a focus but you’d be wrong as well. There’s no more than a single usage of the Blighted areas that could have limited your abilities which would require the team to focus on non magic spells. This lack of variety on all levels both gameplay and scenario paints this game in a lackluster light. Normally I have no problem with questing but FF16 throws too many quests at the wrong time. After a large exposition dump I might want to cool off with world questing but after an emotional moment? I’d rather not and I shouldn’t have done it. Another bizarre choice is that quests at the end that actually detail the turmoil in their respective cardboard cutout towns are left to the end and not when the towns are being introduced. Meaning it’s too late to care at this point. FF16 is thematically, narratively, d mechanically just all over the place and it didn’t really have to be like this. Calling Ryota Suzuki the “DMC5 combat director” guy was a huge annoyance to me and many others because that’s just a barebones basic generic overlook of what action combat could be and makes me look at this game with more scrutiny when I see that this was all that was accomplished? Not to mention that I don’t get a strong impression of Yoshi P after this game. Insert generic Yoshi P wiki knowledge here, I can respect a man for working hard to save a game and make it his swan song. But that doesn’t translate to making another title, one that is single player focused with personal mechanics about a series that has a core theme be about bonds with people. There’s DLC coming and I don’t think it’ll change anything. This game is far from terrible and I’m not trying to doom post. But even though the ending caused me to cry, I still don’t think I’ll remember this game all too well as the years go on and it’s just Clive’s final fantasy.