I kind of wanted to just drop a review akin to just "The Industry yearns for Asura's Wrath" and just leaving it there but I feel like that would be a disservice to the game. There's not gonna be any major spoilers I'll just mention a few story beats here and there that have been talked about publicly.

I'm going to get the negatives out of the way because there's a lot to gush about this game. One complaint I have is the odd performance issues with this game where it kind of chugs sometimes. Plus with all the weird shit you get from being on performance mode. I think my biggest complaint about the game overall is the story, it's really fucking weird. I think the whole analogy of slavery with the bearers is really fucking weird at the minimum. I think the best way I can describe the plot is to paraphrase a polygon article "This is Game of Thrones without any of the satire". Thankfully the game fucking forgets about the slavery subplot about a good bit in but it means you kinda just have to sit there and hear about it for like 15 hours. I think even past that subplot the writing isn't the craziest well written story. I think an article that talks about the story well is the article I mentioned which I'll just link here: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23767374/final-fantasy-16-review-ff16-new-game-plus

Now onto the positives. I have a lot of gush about the game because god does it feel fucking amazing to play. I still think the game could only get better if they just let you break the rules and just put on like more then 3 Eikons but the depth you get with the rules that are set is still great. I love the freedom of being able to mix and match abilities once you start to upgrade more of your abilities. Also I am a simple woman so my monkey brain lit up when I realized this game had dmc4 jump cancelling and I went "alright this game fucking rocks". The game feels so responsive and when you're in fights with groups of enemies has abilities to kind of deal with the fact that groups don't feel so oppressive. An extension of gameplay is I fucking adore the boss fights in this game. The line I said earlier about Asura's Wrath is so true because there was multiple boss fights where I literally started to uncontrollably giggle over how fucking cool it was. Even past the big cinematic Asura-like qte fest boss fights the normal boss fights are also so fucking fun. This game really lets you know "hey this is a fucking boss fight and we're going to make it feel special". The boss fights are also all just memorable designs as well and look so fucking cool. That extends into the general overworld design. The game is one of the most gorgeous games I've ever experienced. Who would've thought you can make a gorgeous game and also just make a great video game (looking at you Callisto Protocol). A lot of environments I had to just sit back in my chair and take it all in. Despite the gripes with the story I think the characters do extreme heavy lifting of it. The voice actors put their all into these fucking roles. With obviously Clive's VA doing his all for being the protagonist. With Jill and Cid's VAs being right behind. I think another VA that stuck with aswell so much was Barnabas' VA being such a massive standout especially later on in the game. I think the overall presentation for this game just does so much for it.

Tears of the Kingdom came out this year but with how this year is looking, plus how this game stuck with me so hard. So far this game and RE4 Remake is neck and neck when it comes to my game of the years. Despite the story beats and odd framerate performance even on this game made me so fucking happy. As somebody who has only played FF7R and this game I can't tell if a final fantasy game is going to like this game but from what I've heard, final fantasy hasn't "felt final fantasy" with every entry since like original FF7. This game was such a fucking joy and I'm probably going to get platinum on it.