ameemzie
i feel like both this and yakuza 6 were made to flex a lot of skills for rgg, but this was way more enjoyable than y6 even if it also had some bloat/pacing issues. i agree that the finale is a hard carry for the rest of the game, but i enjoyed my time with it. i'm also probably fond of it because the ending is also a great companion to yakuza 3 in terms of narrative, but also because takaya kuroda is also allowed to flex his range and give us another immaculate performance of kiryu at his most emotional.
docked some points for the mentioned bloat / deliberate slowdown with the pacing and also lack of new game plus. people want to replay short games that were gonna be dlc that were originally gonna be a small chunk of infinite wealth / a flashback, let them
docked some points for the mentioned bloat / deliberate slowdown with the pacing and also lack of new game plus. people want to replay short games that were gonna be dlc that were originally gonna be a small chunk of infinite wealth / a flashback, let them
genuinely wild that rgg studio was truly considering making kiryu's final game a glorified tech demo for the first outing of the dragon engine.
first time i have not enjoyed my time playing a yakuza/like a dragon game. great that everything is voiced until it feels like everything is being strung out to justify that. it just feels so slow and poorly placed, and i realized it was over when i actively avoided trying to activate substories, which should never happen. at least my dislike of yakuza 2/yakuza kiwami 2 was because the backhalf of it tanked my opinion. here i was fighting uphill from chapter 1.
i don't even have thoughts on controversial plot points other than 'that happened, sure' because i was just wanting to finish the game because i was bored. i shouldn't be bored playing these, i haven't been bored playing these until this one! again, it feels like a showcase for the new engine than prioritizing the usual aspects of the franchise (y4+5 pending, i'm moving onto gaiden and infinite wealth after this).
first time i have not enjoyed my time playing a yakuza/like a dragon game. great that everything is voiced until it feels like everything is being strung out to justify that. it just feels so slow and poorly placed, and i realized it was over when i actively avoided trying to activate substories, which should never happen. at least my dislike of yakuza 2/yakuza kiwami 2 was because the backhalf of it tanked my opinion. here i was fighting uphill from chapter 1.
i don't even have thoughts on controversial plot points other than 'that happened, sure' because i was just wanting to finish the game because i was bored. i shouldn't be bored playing these, i haven't been bored playing these until this one! again, it feels like a showcase for the new engine than prioritizing the usual aspects of the franchise (y4+5 pending, i'm moving onto gaiden and infinite wealth after this).
Gameplay flaws and all, but for me? This is a masterclass of gameplay and story integration and rolling out a new protagonist for such a long running franchise. Ichiban Kasuga, I fucking kneel.
I am so glad Ichiban isn't Kiryu 2.0. From the contrast of their looks (we love the reversed color palette!), to their temperaments, to even the small shit like how they're addressed (the menus might call him Kasuga, but we're all on a first name basis with him, that's Ichiban vs. everyone who says Kazuma is dead, say Kiryu), both of them are so distinct from each other and I think this is one of the best protagonist switch ups I've experienced. I love that Ichiban's personality traits, built up through battles, substories, party chats, etc., are actual things seen in his actions with kindness and passion being the lead ones (charisma for days as well, don't forget that!). I love that all of his Hero support skills, his best class by the way, are multitarget abilities because he loves his friends and their influence is vital to everything he does. The description for Hero's Embrace, his best healing skill? "Emanate an aura of genuine love, restoring all allies' HP". GOD SO TRUE, YOU GET IT, RGG. Yes, going from real time combat beat em up style to turn based RPG is a wild switch and there are issues, but it makes sense for Ichiban. It's not just Dragon Quest being his favorite game of all time and being a hero, it's also just nice to watch him assemble a circle of friends around him and have his party grow. He's well liked enough in his opening chapter, people are fond of him, but it absolutely warmed my heart to see him connect with people who care for him and will also protect him. Solid signs of a good party dynamic, I love everyone in this bar, all my fellas, etc. etc.
It did not take that long for him to be my favorite character in this game and in this franchise. One of the all time greats. I push back on people who say they made him too old when the game keeps telling you that it's not too late to get a fresh start and live life to its fullest. BUT, RGG please, maybe relax on setting each game within a year of release, maybe the next one can be in 2024 even if it doesn't come out until 2028. I would like to spend as much time with Ichiban as possible. Kiryu, love you too, but god, hold that #2. Speaking of, I am so excited for their team up in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the smaller stuff between them here and the comparisons made me absolutely fucking feral for more.
In terms of story, I think this is one of the best of what I've played in the series so far. I spent about 70 hours on the game and was surprised by how fast some chapters moved. There are multiple gameplay choices made in the absolute final battle that fucking floored me and even though the fight is not at all difficult and you can say it's basically story mode, you can't lose, that didn't matter to me because what it meant for the characters involved. It just highlights what I love about this series and again, I have to say I think this game excels at tying story and gameplay together.
Although the English dub is great, Kaiji Tang fucking hard carries as Ichiban Kasuga for me, he does what a lead VA should do. He excels at the big emotional scenes, but he also nails the smaller moments, many voice lines in the party chats and drink links had me shrieking with laughter or smiling at how cute Ichiban is. My biggest compliment to the dub is that I'm genuinely going to struggle with choosing between English and Japanese for LAD: IW. Tang is Ichiban to me like how Takaya Kuroda is Kiryu. Hopefully by the time I hop on IW, I will have some idea of Ichiban v. Kiryu centric chapters and can just switch between languages if I'm unable to make an actual decision.
This is my fifth game in the franchise and my genuine main complaint across all entries is when the hell is RGG going to learn proper music mixing and how to release some of the more melodic tracks officially, oh my god. Such good music, learn how to do a proper fade out and transition to the next thing, someone please, we've needed an intervention for years!!!
Gameplay-wise, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the direct follow up to this game, looks like it takes great steps forward with the turn based gameplay that was presented in this game. You can move your character around to take advantage of positioning, which has always been important in this series. Normal attacks can restore MP for all jobs not just mage-like jobs, which was the biggest change in Y:LAD that baffled me as for all intents and purposes, Mental Points is basically equivalent to heat and skills are basically heat actions. All characters can pick up and use weapons, instead of it being RNG and limited only to Ichiban. Kiryu can switch to real time combat for a limited time (call that a limit break slaps knee), a sensible approach compared to the demands of some that the game be split down the middle of two gameplay modes. Character and job levels seem to be more balanced, making job switching more viable and less grind heavy. There is probably more I'm missing, but I'm looking forward to that. Which is probably why I'm not harping on the gameplay flaws here as I knew them going in and might have felt differently about it if I had played upon release in 2020.
As I played this before and during IW's release window, I've been seeing a lot of comparisons between the two and the one sentiment that stands out is people frequently saying Y:LAD to LAD: IW is basically the leap between Kingdom Hearts I and II in terms of gameplay refinement. That makes a lot of sense to me and may be true (even though there are combat aspects in KHI I like better than KHII vs. LAD seems a step up in all regards). However, I don't know if I'll like LAD: IW as much as this. Which is also how I feel at the end of the day with Kingdom Hearts I v. II where the first is just something that can't be captured again and has my heart and soul. IW can be a 10/10 banger, but god, this one is just something special to me as a first outing for Ichiban and building this entire system around him. I'm looking forward to it, I've been excited since it was announced in late 2022, right before I dove into Yakuza 0, but man. This is going to be so hard to beat. Flawed, but had me in an absolute vice grip.
Ichiban Kasuga, my hero from rock bottom, who always crawls back up to the top. We're really in it now. On to the next.
I am so glad Ichiban isn't Kiryu 2.0. From the contrast of their looks (we love the reversed color palette!), to their temperaments, to even the small shit like how they're addressed (the menus might call him Kasuga, but we're all on a first name basis with him, that's Ichiban vs. everyone who says Kazuma is dead, say Kiryu), both of them are so distinct from each other and I think this is one of the best protagonist switch ups I've experienced. I love that Ichiban's personality traits, built up through battles, substories, party chats, etc., are actual things seen in his actions with kindness and passion being the lead ones (charisma for days as well, don't forget that!). I love that all of his Hero support skills, his best class by the way, are multitarget abilities because he loves his friends and their influence is vital to everything he does. The description for Hero's Embrace, his best healing skill? "Emanate an aura of genuine love, restoring all allies' HP". GOD SO TRUE, YOU GET IT, RGG. Yes, going from real time combat beat em up style to turn based RPG is a wild switch and there are issues, but it makes sense for Ichiban. It's not just Dragon Quest being his favorite game of all time and being a hero, it's also just nice to watch him assemble a circle of friends around him and have his party grow. He's well liked enough in his opening chapter, people are fond of him, but it absolutely warmed my heart to see him connect with people who care for him and will also protect him. Solid signs of a good party dynamic, I love everyone in this bar, all my fellas, etc. etc.
It did not take that long for him to be my favorite character in this game and in this franchise. One of the all time greats. I push back on people who say they made him too old when the game keeps telling you that it's not too late to get a fresh start and live life to its fullest. BUT, RGG please, maybe relax on setting each game within a year of release, maybe the next one can be in 2024 even if it doesn't come out until 2028. I would like to spend as much time with Ichiban as possible. Kiryu, love you too, but god, hold that #2. Speaking of, I am so excited for their team up in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the smaller stuff between them here and the comparisons made me absolutely fucking feral for more.
In terms of story, I think this is one of the best of what I've played in the series so far. I spent about 70 hours on the game and was surprised by how fast some chapters moved. There are multiple gameplay choices made in the absolute final battle that fucking floored me and even though the fight is not at all difficult and you can say it's basically story mode, you can't lose, that didn't matter to me because what it meant for the characters involved. It just highlights what I love about this series and again, I have to say I think this game excels at tying story and gameplay together.
Although the English dub is great, Kaiji Tang fucking hard carries as Ichiban Kasuga for me, he does what a lead VA should do. He excels at the big emotional scenes, but he also nails the smaller moments, many voice lines in the party chats and drink links had me shrieking with laughter or smiling at how cute Ichiban is. My biggest compliment to the dub is that I'm genuinely going to struggle with choosing between English and Japanese for LAD: IW. Tang is Ichiban to me like how Takaya Kuroda is Kiryu. Hopefully by the time I hop on IW, I will have some idea of Ichiban v. Kiryu centric chapters and can just switch between languages if I'm unable to make an actual decision.
This is my fifth game in the franchise and my genuine main complaint across all entries is when the hell is RGG going to learn proper music mixing and how to release some of the more melodic tracks officially, oh my god. Such good music, learn how to do a proper fade out and transition to the next thing, someone please, we've needed an intervention for years!!!
Gameplay-wise, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the direct follow up to this game, looks like it takes great steps forward with the turn based gameplay that was presented in this game. You can move your character around to take advantage of positioning, which has always been important in this series. Normal attacks can restore MP for all jobs not just mage-like jobs, which was the biggest change in Y:LAD that baffled me as for all intents and purposes, Mental Points is basically equivalent to heat and skills are basically heat actions. All characters can pick up and use weapons, instead of it being RNG and limited only to Ichiban. Kiryu can switch to real time combat for a limited time (call that a limit break slaps knee), a sensible approach compared to the demands of some that the game be split down the middle of two gameplay modes. Character and job levels seem to be more balanced, making job switching more viable and less grind heavy. There is probably more I'm missing, but I'm looking forward to that. Which is probably why I'm not harping on the gameplay flaws here as I knew them going in and might have felt differently about it if I had played upon release in 2020.
As I played this before and during IW's release window, I've been seeing a lot of comparisons between the two and the one sentiment that stands out is people frequently saying Y:LAD to LAD: IW is basically the leap between Kingdom Hearts I and II in terms of gameplay refinement. That makes a lot of sense to me and may be true (even though there are combat aspects in KHI I like better than KHII vs. LAD seems a step up in all regards). However, I don't know if I'll like LAD: IW as much as this. Which is also how I feel at the end of the day with Kingdom Hearts I v. II where the first is just something that can't be captured again and has my heart and soul. IW can be a 10/10 banger, but god, this one is just something special to me as a first outing for Ichiban and building this entire system around him. I'm looking forward to it, I've been excited since it was announced in late 2022, right before I dove into Yakuza 0, but man. This is going to be so hard to beat. Flawed, but had me in an absolute vice grip.
Ichiban Kasuga, my hero from rock bottom, who always crawls back up to the top. We're really in it now. On to the next.
2023
the children yearn for the days of ratchet and clank (2002). it's me, i'm children. also a dash of kingdom hearts which was also 2002, what a good year that was for my formative gaming memories. anyway, this did indeed live up to the hype and i'm glad to close off 2023 with this utter gem. audio design integrated with gameplay is just so accomplished.
2016
i cannot force myself to continue playing this knowing the story is built around the movie and the plot and characterization are utterly inferior to the charm and wit of the 2002 version. gameplay improvements aren't enough for me. bring back ratchet and clank's soul.
2022
wish this had a more optimal release date in 2023 so it could have gotten more attention from outlets and what not.
gameplay is the strongest element of this. enjoyed the overdrive system for battles, though the sky armor battles were definitely the weaker element and didn't enjoy the implementation there. the skills level up system is integrated very well and there are non-story opportunities to progress that which i appreciate.
plot and characters are fine. i found the secondary characters more engaging than glenn and lenne at the end of the day. sienna, amalia, and victor ended up being my favorites and i think the localization gave them actual unique cadences / speaking quirks than others. i know some people pointed out translation issues when this initially released, but i think those got cleaned up by the time i picked it up. i believe everything on this was done by one person, so while i understand, this might have benefitted from a localizer able to help give the characters more character to put it simply.
the music is great to listen to, i will be adding it to my favorite game ost tracks playlist. looking forward to what matthias linda puts out next.
gameplay is the strongest element of this. enjoyed the overdrive system for battles, though the sky armor battles were definitely the weaker element and didn't enjoy the implementation there. the skills level up system is integrated very well and there are non-story opportunities to progress that which i appreciate.
plot and characters are fine. i found the secondary characters more engaging than glenn and lenne at the end of the day. sienna, amalia, and victor ended up being my favorites and i think the localization gave them actual unique cadences / speaking quirks than others. i know some people pointed out translation issues when this initially released, but i think those got cleaned up by the time i picked it up. i believe everything on this was done by one person, so while i understand, this might have benefitted from a localizer able to help give the characters more character to put it simply.
the music is great to listen to, i will be adding it to my favorite game ost tracks playlist. looking forward to what matthias linda puts out next.
2018
Yakuza 3 is where RGG Studio finally hits the emotional heights this series is known for in the present day. Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 may play better than Yakuza 3, but since I started with 0, neither of those two tore my heart out. At the end of it all, I felt like something vast was missing (YK1) or actively angry at how things ended (YK2).
It'll be the game I put the least amount of hours into with me clocking in only 23 hours, but I'm fine with that. I understand the gameplay complaints of the block heavy enemies stringing along combat time (grabbing didn't seem to break blocks so I stopped trying) and agree. I played it on easy so had a quicker time of it, but I get it.
What I will absolutely disagree with and go to the floor fighting for is the inclusion of the Morning Glory orphanage and the kids. Oh God, I love them so much, I love seeing Kiryu being a father and just wanting to do that and not anything yakuza related, even half heartedly telling Rikiya to cut down on calling him aniki because what example does that set for his kids?! Also every time he said 'my kids' I wanted to cry. I only put a few hours into this game so I wasn't anywhere near deep with the substories, but I did love the game making you spend time with them. It does a great job of fleshing out Kiryu and reinforcing that he so strongly wants to be done with the gang shit, he just wants to see these children grow in a loving family and protect them from a world that shuns them and exploits them. Fantastic writing, I love gameplay as character development. I am so sad to hear that this is their only major appearance and they are out of focus for the rest of the series it seems.
I love Okinawa, I love the Ryudo family, I adore Rikiya and his relationship with Kiryu. I'm so glad I did his substories and again I have to say that I'm glad that we got substories involving people other than Haruka to show Kiryu making more connections. We didn't have that with Kaoru, a principal character in Y2, which is very odd looking back now and just a cherry on that game being emotionally flat to me. Also, I didn't realize there was an entire chapter of exposition until I read a review on here and like I get it, but I thought the pacing was fine.
I am anti-Kiwami 3 purely from a performance standpoint unless by some miracle they can just entirely rip the audio from this game as is. Takaya Kuroda is amazing at everything he does, he can still hit the emotional beats, but nothing is going to beat the first run of things. And we have proof of that if you compare his performance of Kiryu becoming 4th Chairman in Yakuza 1 and Kiwami 1. The Y1 delivery was raw, Kuroda's rent was due, all those compliments the kids give when they're impressed by a performance. Kiryu's conviction blows me off my feet. The YK1 delivery is fine on a technical level, but it's missing the rising flare and drama of the original. I don't think a re-recording of Chapter 11 in a hypothetical Kiwami 3 will be anywhere near the level that Kuroda had in 2008 and that makes sense because we're more than a decade and a half later. So just let it be, we don't need that. The only argument for Kiwami 3 I'd accept is that RGG has finally settled on an engine and face rendering so Kiryu would still retain his expressiveness from the original and wouldn't be subject to the perma scowl of K1 or facetune of K2.
It'll be the game I put the least amount of hours into with me clocking in only 23 hours, but I'm fine with that. I understand the gameplay complaints of the block heavy enemies stringing along combat time (grabbing didn't seem to break blocks so I stopped trying) and agree. I played it on easy so had a quicker time of it, but I get it.
What I will absolutely disagree with and go to the floor fighting for is the inclusion of the Morning Glory orphanage and the kids. Oh God, I love them so much, I love seeing Kiryu being a father and just wanting to do that and not anything yakuza related, even half heartedly telling Rikiya to cut down on calling him aniki because what example does that set for his kids?! Also every time he said 'my kids' I wanted to cry. I only put a few hours into this game so I wasn't anywhere near deep with the substories, but I did love the game making you spend time with them. It does a great job of fleshing out Kiryu and reinforcing that he so strongly wants to be done with the gang shit, he just wants to see these children grow in a loving family and protect them from a world that shuns them and exploits them. Fantastic writing, I love gameplay as character development. I am so sad to hear that this is their only major appearance and they are out of focus for the rest of the series it seems.
I love Okinawa, I love the Ryudo family, I adore Rikiya and his relationship with Kiryu. I'm so glad I did his substories and again I have to say that I'm glad that we got substories involving people other than Haruka to show Kiryu making more connections. We didn't have that with Kaoru, a principal character in Y2, which is very odd looking back now and just a cherry on that game being emotionally flat to me. Also, I didn't realize there was an entire chapter of exposition until I read a review on here and like I get it, but I thought the pacing was fine.
I am anti-Kiwami 3 purely from a performance standpoint unless by some miracle they can just entirely rip the audio from this game as is. Takaya Kuroda is amazing at everything he does, he can still hit the emotional beats, but nothing is going to beat the first run of things. And we have proof of that if you compare his performance of Kiryu becoming 4th Chairman in Yakuza 1 and Kiwami 1. The Y1 delivery was raw, Kuroda's rent was due, all those compliments the kids give when they're impressed by a performance. Kiryu's conviction blows me off my feet. The YK1 delivery is fine on a technical level, but it's missing the rising flare and drama of the original. I don't think a re-recording of Chapter 11 in a hypothetical Kiwami 3 will be anywhere near the level that Kuroda had in 2008 and that makes sense because we're more than a decade and a half later. So just let it be, we don't need that. The only argument for Kiwami 3 I'd accept is that RGG has finally settled on an engine and face rendering so Kiryu would still retain his expressiveness from the original and wouldn't be subject to the perma scowl of K1 or facetune of K2.
the only 2D mario games i've played are super mario world and yoshi's island on the SNES, so i do not have the baggage with the new super mario bros series and its creative limits. i'm sorry y'all suffered, but am so glad we have this game. it is absolutely wonderful as they say. the art design is phenomenal, the level design for regular worlds is great. i'm glad the timer was done away with, so greater exploration is encouraged and discovering secrets is so fun. worlds are so unique and felt myself grinning from ear to ear with some of the world mechanics. i enjoy platformers but am not at all skilled at them, so while most may consider this game easy, i found it very forgiving and never got so frustrated that i wanted to quit. online runs super well, i was playing on wifi and never had any slow downs in world.
flaws: biggest one is that minus the final boss, boss fights were lackluster. i got so tired of bowser's badass little boy at the end of it. the music is great but i wish there were more unique tracks, though that might be a 2D staple and the music diversity is just for the 3D titles.
flaws: biggest one is that minus the final boss, boss fights were lackluster. i got so tired of bowser's badass little boy at the end of it. the music is great but i wish there were more unique tracks, though that might be a 2D staple and the music diversity is just for the 3D titles.
2022
had a year to think about how the camp and power fantasy of the game gets reduced heavily once bayonetta becomes the ideal traditional mother (i.e., biological) despite acting as a maternal figure in the previous two games (to herself, to an older child). bayo becoming less ridiculously sexual once she has a blood successor despite that being a beloved element of the series because of her ownership of it? that's a bit fucked up!
speaking of viola, this a completely fumbled their attempt at a protagonist switch where you don't play even half the game as viola and they had to make her parry window more forgiving in updates. absolutely done dirty, i cannot see this holding. you had dmc as a blueprint, but decided no.
giving luka powers when his likability rested on him being an every man that somehow always managed to survive these crazy situations because comedy was a choice. oddly enough i'd buy him and bayo having. a kid together if i was a wacky comedic sperm donor situation, but as an actual couple, as a family unit? man, what.
again, my enjoyment of the game was heavily based on gameplay elements, i think less of the plot and characterization as time goes on.
speaking of viola, this a completely fumbled their attempt at a protagonist switch where you don't play even half the game as viola and they had to make her parry window more forgiving in updates. absolutely done dirty, i cannot see this holding. you had dmc as a blueprint, but decided no.
giving luka powers when his likability rested on him being an every man that somehow always managed to survive these crazy situations because comedy was a choice. oddly enough i'd buy him and bayo having. a kid together if i was a wacky comedic sperm donor situation, but as an actual couple, as a family unit? man, what.
again, my enjoyment of the game was heavily based on gameplay elements, i think less of the plot and characterization as time goes on.
not a botw/totk duology lover or hater but a third thing: absolutely respect what the team did with this and totk especially, but as someone who has bounced off almost every zelda title except one (wind waker, my assumed beloved), making this open world repelled me (i have how many choices to approach climbing the cold mountain? oh god i'm overwhelmed, i gotta go) and will continue to do so for my lifetime most likely because they're going to continue this formula and i say why not? they're the highest selling titles of the franchise, no shit, keeping printing money.
i was not expecting this game to be so fun. action combat is so satisfying and the job system is very expansive. so many choices, but not an overwhelming amount. so free to switch things up, though i just stuck to tyrant and liberator w/ axe at the end of things (tyrant the actual best class).
i only knew of this game through memes prior to purchasing it and initially wrote it off as people liking it ironically, but i have to say that i'm very glad that it's earnest in its plot and it did pull some genuine :('s and 'awwww's out of me. that's all i can ask for. not the most original and it kind of can't be as it's a tie-in / prequel to final fantasy i and that was not innovative in terms of construction, but i still cared about what happened to the characters at the end of the day and nothing ticked me off like in other games i've played recently, so a win is a win.
the music is a treat, honestly the select game/console home music (jack's theme) for this is a damn spectacle and has been stuck in my head constantly. naoshi mizuta nails leading the ost alongside hidenori iwasaki and ryo yamazaki and the arrangements for past final fantasy music are absolutely sublime.
core issues: i usually opt for easy when playing action games because i want to prevent myself from hitting a wall of frustration of frequent deaths but find that later on in the game, it's far too easy. main mission bosses would be over in about a minute unfortunately. while i realize this may be a consequence of having good builds especially with the expert classes (400% affinity tyrant baybeee), it felt unsatisfying even if the battle ending finishers were great. this seems to persist across difficulty levels so it's a consistent issue. i do wish i could have used the casual option in the action focused mode as well as i wouldn't have minded dying if i was able to keep the area upgrades. but that is a very me complaint i understand.
speaking of difficulty, i do not know if i will actually check out the dlc since people have said they're grindy and difficult and have no difficulty options.
there's too many items and i get why people do not care for the loot system. level design certainly exists, the lil map/distance cursor is not great and should not move around like that. i would have much preferred a minimap. also probably a skill issue, but i wish magic was a bit easier to use rather than through a scroll wheel. i'm not going to do multiplayer so i have no perspective on that.
i only knew of this game through memes prior to purchasing it and initially wrote it off as people liking it ironically, but i have to say that i'm very glad that it's earnest in its plot and it did pull some genuine :('s and 'awwww's out of me. that's all i can ask for. not the most original and it kind of can't be as it's a tie-in / prequel to final fantasy i and that was not innovative in terms of construction, but i still cared about what happened to the characters at the end of the day and nothing ticked me off like in other games i've played recently, so a win is a win.
the music is a treat, honestly the select game/console home music (jack's theme) for this is a damn spectacle and has been stuck in my head constantly. naoshi mizuta nails leading the ost alongside hidenori iwasaki and ryo yamazaki and the arrangements for past final fantasy music are absolutely sublime.
core issues: i usually opt for easy when playing action games because i want to prevent myself from hitting a wall of frustration of frequent deaths but find that later on in the game, it's far too easy. main mission bosses would be over in about a minute unfortunately. while i realize this may be a consequence of having good builds especially with the expert classes (400% affinity tyrant baybeee), it felt unsatisfying even if the battle ending finishers were great. this seems to persist across difficulty levels so it's a consistent issue. i do wish i could have used the casual option in the action focused mode as well as i wouldn't have minded dying if i was able to keep the area upgrades. but that is a very me complaint i understand.
speaking of difficulty, i do not know if i will actually check out the dlc since people have said they're grindy and difficult and have no difficulty options.
there's too many items and i get why people do not care for the loot system. level design certainly exists, the lil map/distance cursor is not great and should not move around like that. i would have much preferred a minimap. also probably a skill issue, but i wish magic was a bit easier to use rather than through a scroll wheel. i'm not going to do multiplayer so i have no perspective on that.
2017
me before finishing kiwami 2: i can't wait to see what's done and get to yakuza 3 and kiryu running the orphanage!
me finishing kiwami 2 and watching kiryu give up and make out with kaoru after they laugh about letting haruka down by choosing to die: maybe kiryu shouldn't go home to his kids!
i felt so insulted with that and though it wring some awwws out of me, the last minute kaoru and ryuji sibling bonding could have been built up much better (and again, we can see how they learned from this which is why Y0 is still the ultimate high for me in my play order). just a disappointing poorly written ending ending that focused more on twists and cheap elements that really soured me on the game which i was having a good time with. i know gameplay should matter most here, but this is also a series known for its dramatic writing so it really wiped me out. i know y3 is controversial in terms of gameplay, but hoping the plot meshes better.
me finishing kiwami 2 and watching kiryu give up and make out with kaoru after they laugh about letting haruka down by choosing to die: maybe kiryu shouldn't go home to his kids!
i felt so insulted with that and though it wring some awwws out of me, the last minute kaoru and ryuji sibling bonding could have been built up much better (and again, we can see how they learned from this which is why Y0 is still the ultimate high for me in my play order). just a disappointing poorly written ending ending that focused more on twists and cheap elements that really soured me on the game which i was having a good time with. i know gameplay should matter most here, but this is also a series known for its dramatic writing so it really wiped me out. i know y3 is controversial in terms of gameplay, but hoping the plot meshes better.
2023
This review contains spoilers
To start, I want to lay out my Final Fantasy play history as a way to inform where I'm coming from with this review. I have beaten Final Fantasy IX; completed somewhere between 75% to 90% of Final Fantasy VII and Tactics; I have played a few hours of Final Fantasy X (up to the first major blitzball game); and poked around a bit in Final Fantasy V, VI, XII, VII Remake, and Tactics Advance. Although I will refer to other games in this review (e.g., Final Fantasy XIII, XIV, XV), that will be based on knowledge I have compiled from fan reception and reviews, both positive and negative. I've also never watched an episode of Game of Thrones in my life and my friends who did reassure me that I'm lucky for that.
So, this was originally almost 6,000 words and that was basically a stream of consciousness. I've revised it down to be way more manageable, but it's still like 3.7K.
TL;DR: everyone involved should say I'm Sorry Women, pacing is very off, leave me alone side quests, clive's great but mixed bag @ everyone else, music is good, combat is good to fine. 3.5/5 is a solid score, actually.
Not-spoiler free at all.
Female Characters
Knew going in that the game would have fewer female characters compared to past entries, but still went in with an optimistic mind set and hoped we would still get good development for them. That did not happen, and I am genuinely disappointed with what I was met with. This feels so regressive for our current time point and also for this series. This was my longest section originally and still is.
Jill
Solo
Jill is certainly one of the female characters of all time. When people try to push back on how this game depicts women and they believe that she is one of the best female characters in the franchise, they will more than likely genuinely say 'she supports Clive and is there for him' and not realize why a woman's primary distinction being framed around a man should be off-putting and seen as out of whack not only in general, but in comparison with what we've had in the past.
Her arc leaves a lot to be desired and I have a hard time calling it that. Her revenge arc feels slapped on with the writers and devs remembering she was there rather than something that had been built up so far over the course of the game. The patriarch who abused her is a generic NPC, we find out she knew someone in her servitude, a connection she has outside of Clive, but don't get much there. In the prologue, we get a little section where we can play as Joshua (the only time we can play as him even though I truly thought we would again) and it would have been cool if we had a switch to her during this time. I can't speak for DMC, but for example, the very first Bayonetta had a section where you played as Jeanne in the lead up to the finale. Once I completed the game, I realized she is the only ally Eikon to not get an actual cinematic clash activation and is not involved in the boss fight for that section. You get that with Dion / Bahamut and while that's cool, it does make me more bitter about Jill. All she does is make the arena for Clive to fight in. Don't say 'Well she was dying / the curse!' They're all suffering from the curse, Joshua was dying because Ultima, he plays more of a direct role. Speaking of, if you don't read the active time lore, you still know that Joshua doesn't like carrots because it's shown in the prologue and then later on to progress the brothers being reunited and that's a neat little fact being integrated into the main narrative. I struggle to think of something similar for Jill and get even more disappointed about it.
Speaking of, every time she exerts herself feels like an attempt to explain why she's sidelined. In the next section, she is captured by Kupka which is a set up to reveal that Torgal is a Dominant of Fenrir, who is Shiva's loyal protector. However, Jill and Torgal do not have any substantial relationship in the narrative beyond them being inseparable as youths (as told by Clive, only shown through Jill carrying him in the prologue). Torgal's connection with Clive is the emphasized relationship with how Clive basically introduces his name, Torgal being the most persistent party member and 'banter' partner; Jill and Torgal get very little if anything. It's frustrating again to see something that should have been Jill's own that isn't.
Romance
Full disclosure: I love romance, got to be one of my favorite genres, something that I think is compatible with everything. Romance novels, manga, manhwa, webtoons, shows, movies, you name it. Another reason I find this game to be a bit regressive is that the writing seems to fall into that old trap of 'The romance can be up to 10-25% of the man's character, but the majority of the woman's character'. I know through the grapevine that there might have been more developments in the side quests, however, I think it should have been in the main quest.
The writing for Clive/Jill relies on past information being told rather than shown to cut corners on their development. They grew up together so no need to show the basis of their feelings. There were some moments such as Clive being hesitant to touching her in the prologue, which he continues to do frequently, which is neat. I like that kind of pining and I can read into that to my heart's content (does he refrain from touching her because he's internalized his mother's words about being a reject / stigma against magic users even if blessed by an Eikon? It's not just teenage awkwardness), but also, is there anything equivalent from Jill? This is an issue of the 5 year timeskip that pushes the last act forward and their relationship is still pretty stagnant other than Clive constantly saying that Jill has taken on his burden. Nothing has changed about them in that gap, and I don't understand why.
They basically gave us an outline of what could have been an interesting romance, but I'm left feeling that it's a burden on Jill's character more than anything. There's a love scene that functions as an equivalent for transferring Shiva's power, their love confession is a vehicle for Jill to stay back from the final battle (but Dion can come because... Clive just met him and okay?).
Benedikta
The biggest waste of potential in this game and the most interesting woman in the cast and I was not at all expecting this with the way she's introduced and used in the rest of the narrative. If I must bring up another point that people bring up to defend how FFXVI treats female characters, one is 'They're covered up! No cleavage!' and yet, she's in this tight leather bodysuit and secondly, and worse, all her relationships revolve around men. She functions as another point of the devs telling us 'This game is M for Mature! People fuck!' as the sexual nature of her relationship with Kupka is emphasized in her very first scene, we then see she has a sexual relationship with King Barnabas who she serves, and she has a relationship with Cid in the past. Did she and Cid have sex, maybe, who knows, and also once she dies, two out of the three times she shows up later, she's naked.
BUT the lost potential for her character comes from after her boss battle with Clive, where he takes Garuda's power from her. She completely falls apart, yelling for Clive to give Garuda back, and is unable to function properly in her scenes afterward, being dragged around by her soldiers. We see in a flashback (brought about with her men being killed by human traffickers and her being threatened with rape, again, another point of the devs wanting to emphasize this game's gritty nature), that she was freed from captivity from Cid before their falling out. I find it very interesting, with how Dominants have all this power, but are still stigmatized because they are still Bearers at the end of the day. This suggests that being Garuda's Dominant enabled Benedikta to reclaim her personhood and autonomy after being a slave, even if that was part of her servitude to Waloed / Barnabas. And that once it's gone, she's fearful of what will happen to her and her worth. That's so fucking intriguing. That does not have to inherently lead to a redemption arc, but it would have been a great opportunity to give her some depth and make her a compelling villain. Unfortunately, we'll never get that because she goes out of control and dies at the hands of an out of control Clive as Ifrit to further his plot.
Annabelle
She would not be a better character if this was a purely political narrative, that's how poorly written she is. She is cartoonishly evil which clashes with the serious nature of this story.
The writing has no interest in exploring how women might try to navigate political / class circles through lineage, so her explanation for her actions is not at all sympathetic. She just sends her guards to kill slaves, not because she knows Clive is alive and wants to stop him from revealing her past 'failure', but because she sucks. I am not left caring to question if she truly loved Joshua or Olivier, I am just happy when she died so we could get to other points of interest.
The Rest
Mid's the best side female side character, though I am a bit bitter that the revelation of being Cid's daughter happens in a side quest and that they do not actually interact in the main narrative. I think she's a delight, even with 1) her introduction to the story being attached to the worst pacing in the story and 2) being another example about how the major women in the story are reliant on their connection to me.
The rest of the women are mainly roles, rather than actual people. Jote had the most potential, but again, she does not exist outside of Joshua, and I get the feeling I'm supposed to be content with her having a title / job and ability to fight to fill in her characterization beyond 'cares about him'.
Moving Forward
Who does women worse, FFXV or FFXVI? I don't know, I haven't played FFXV, it almost seems apples and oranges in that they're both bad at women, but in different executions.
One day FFXIII will be free from the confines of the PS3 and ported to modern consoles so Square Enix can begin their We're Sorry Women apology tour and realize their takeaway from criticism of that game should be about gameplay / structure and not reducing the presence and focus of women.
Pacing / Side Quests
The pacing of the quests in the follow up after beating Titan completely killed any desire I had to complete side quests. The biggest high I experienced with the game, being the three part Titan fight, were brought to the crashing low of the game and I truly debated walking away it. It made the gameplay loop very obvious and obstructive to me and I started to understand the amount 'Talk to someone, go fetch things, lather, rinse, repeat'. The game is so consistent with maintaining that structure and I think it made the LEAST sense here in particular that it just ruined everything else. I did the side quests that were quality of life upgrades, but those were also repetitive. Shoutout to Blackthorne's existential crisis and depression after he saw a well-crafted item.
Story / Narrative
I am team fantasy and personal elements over political here. Was Ultima the greatest villain, no. But I very much enjoyed the focus on freedom of choice and being your own person and believe the development team did as well. The political elements seemed heavier handed to me and I found them at their best in the young Clive section than anywhere else.
Eikonic Battles
Let's open with my ranking: Titan, Bahamut, Typhon, Ultima, Phoenix v. Ifrit [Tutorial], Garuda, Ifrit v. Ifrit [the worst to me, but better gameplay], Ifrit / Phoenix / Bahamut v. Ultima [objectively least engaging]. This is obviously where most of the game budget went.
The double Ifrit battle is the lowest point to me as it's an abysmal conclusion to Clive's internal struggle that was set up so wonderfully beforehand. You end with a mash square fest, after that excellent narrative / gameplay integration of Press L3+R3 to Accept the Truth? An insane choice that I do not respect at all.
I do think that these battles can be overly long for no reason at all. The Titan fight is my favorite overall due to the combination of the battles' spectacle along with Soken's musical choices as a backing to the fight. As a fan of the series, I also did appreciate the Bayonetta photo finisher.
The Blessing and Curse of Our Party of One, Clive Rosfield
After initial reservations, I can proudly say that I enjoyed Clive as a character and protagonist. With the marketing, I do believe SE was trying to court broody roaring revenge protagonist enjoyers but was glad to see we got more from Clive than just that. If Behind the Voice is accurate, I am highly impressed that this is Ben Starr's second VO performance. He absolutely kills it as Clive and I hope he shows up in other things I'll play in the future. There's a give and take here because although I think Clive is a strong protagonist, this game being focused on a sole character and no genuine party means that his supporting cast is weaker.
There were other characters that I enjoyed (biggest s/o to Uncle Byron for bringing some levity and being the only guest to not use a sword; Gav; Joshua; all my ire about women is aimed at the team, I do like Jill), but I do think Clive being The Guy hinders development of camaraderie and companionship between the characters and has the villain plot of 'break Clive's bonds so he succumbs to being Ultima's vessel' be a bit useless (and there's no real attempt to do so even though it is repeated a lot). Although I will always be hype at a 'use everyone summon/power [eikon] as your team supports you to face the final boss' moment because those are just cool no matter what, it still felt off because these relationships felt shoddily developed at the end of the day.
SE should have held off on the FF VII-Rebirth trailer until a month or so after this was released. Why? The dual attacks shown there make me wish such a mechanic existed here. If they had to have us control Clive, fine. An option to do team attacks with characters in the party would do so much for the supporting cast that are guest characters. The most you get is Torgal so you can launch from the ground or down airborne enemies and those are just standard animations. It would help with letting you remember these characters are fighting alongside you because they did not matter to my progress in battle except ending regular battles if I sat back and watched.
Again, I ask, why did we have a chance to play as Joshua, as a human, in the prologue, but never again? I thought for sure we would have had a chance in the final dungeon, but nope.
Music
Masayoshi Soken's score is good in that there weren't any tracks that irritated me, and it was pleasant to listen to in game. There is a quote from Soken that he composed 200+ tracks and I believe all of them, including unreleased tracks, will be included on the official release of the score. However, thinking back, I have a hard time even identifying the unique tracks within the game (Titan Lost theme, Find the Flame, ending vocal tracks, game's version of the FF theme). I do wonder how much of the released score will consist of original music and variants/arrangements of those songs. How many times did the FFXVI rendition of the franchise theme repeat? I do not know, it was nice, but wow. People say that Soken probably has more freedom with playing with the diversity in the FFXIV score, so I don't understand the restrictions here and wish there was more. Again, I need to emphasize that the score is quite good despite those shortcomings and am looking forward to the official release.
Gameplay
The combat in the game was more engaging to me in the earlier sections, ironically before Clive's tool kit opens up. I played the Eikonic Challenge portion of the demo before the full release, and the feat options of Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan were great. Ramuh's obvious KH shot lock was a downgrade in speed from KH's and I was miffed it was the 3rd option; Bahamut is not my thing; I actually ended up swapping Garuda for Odin's, but still believe that was a bit too late. I never tried out Shiva's and I probably should have since she can even freeze bosses.
Full disclosure: I used the evasion slowdown accessory. The accessibility accessories should have been an option in the menu rather than taking up an accessory slot. Difficulty options should have been a thing since the start of the game rather than being locked behind completion.
I have not played enough of FFVII Remake to really compare the stagger mechanics. What I will say is that after a while, the bosses here felt very damage resistant and thus boss battles weren't difficult, but long. Upgrading your abilities does not up their attack power but may affect how often they hit / the number of moves involved or range. There were certain techniques from Garuda and Phoenix that were good with lowering the opponents will, but the cool down mechanic meant you were not able to use them as much as you want. Additionally, you can only really juggle / combo overworld enemies and not bosses, which also made the battles longer. I appreciate that there is a training mode as that helped me getting the timing down on melee moves + magic bursts and commands for Torgal that get boosted at the end of a combo.
I do think their courting the attention of action game players (e.g., Maximilian Dood being a host / part of their SGF event) backfired on them a bit as people are pointing out the combat is easy and the pacing for picking up abilities is too strung out. I do agree with the game being easy as I only died once [vs. Kupka] and that was due to a lapse in attention when it came to my health, not using potions, and not realizing the attack I was being hit with was an AOE move. If your inspiration for combat are franchises where the completion time are around 20% of yours, you need to readjust by a lot for how you're approaching gameplay, which didn't happen here. Final Fantasy games are known for being long and engaging so I understand why that wasn't sacrificed here, but it made things a bit of a slog. Battles were not difficult, they were just long.
Miscellaneous
M-rated series that have a serious main story and engaging side quests and minigames exist and are also M rated. Hell, one of them went from an action game to turn based combat and took inspiration from the other half of Square Enix. Yes this is Like a Dragon / Yakuza praise. I will get to that in time, but in the future, we will see a long video essay from someone debating on which handled its genre shift better. Square Enix, please loosen up for FFXVII, if you must take cues from other series, look there.
I'm sure this game created new FFXIV players. As for me, absolutely not, I'm now a borderline hater if the side quests there are like how they are here in addition to my lack of interest in MMORPGs.
Concluding Thoughts
With the question of 'Is this a Final Fantasy game?' I'm on the side of yes, it is. To me, a lot of the series since FFVII has been about spectacle and there is plenty of it there. Additionally, I do think it has a lot of heart in places, so it definitely fits even with my various issues.
I do hope there are corrections that will be made in FFXVII (for the love god, please do better with your female characters) and despite the problems I note here, I do think they've laid a foundation for what comes next. I do think fans need to be less defensive of this game where they even try to quell on good faith criticism (re: sexist writing, lack of inclusion, pacing, etc.), but I do hope that the developers, whether this team or the next, and Square Enix take criticism into account and makes further strides forward in the next one. I might sound very negative here, but I did enjoy my time with this game. FFXVI gave me a lot to think and one of my goals has been to approach gaming with the same level of discernment and critical breakdown as I do with books and movies, and obviously, this game gave me a lot to talk about, so that matters to me. 3.5 / 5 is a solid score.
Will I replay this? I don't know. I do applaud the team for making a complete game on launch and having no plans for DLC and I'm fine with it. A whole lot better than what many teams do, even within their same company. If they change their minds, which is fine, I might check it out depending on what it's about and how it shapes up. Maybe I won't replay in the calendar year, but maybe down the line, I might pick this up again.
So, this was originally almost 6,000 words and that was basically a stream of consciousness. I've revised it down to be way more manageable, but it's still like 3.7K.
TL;DR: everyone involved should say I'm Sorry Women, pacing is very off, leave me alone side quests, clive's great but mixed bag @ everyone else, music is good, combat is good to fine. 3.5/5 is a solid score, actually.
Not-spoiler free at all.
Female Characters
Knew going in that the game would have fewer female characters compared to past entries, but still went in with an optimistic mind set and hoped we would still get good development for them. That did not happen, and I am genuinely disappointed with what I was met with. This feels so regressive for our current time point and also for this series. This was my longest section originally and still is.
Jill
Solo
Jill is certainly one of the female characters of all time. When people try to push back on how this game depicts women and they believe that she is one of the best female characters in the franchise, they will more than likely genuinely say 'she supports Clive and is there for him' and not realize why a woman's primary distinction being framed around a man should be off-putting and seen as out of whack not only in general, but in comparison with what we've had in the past.
Her arc leaves a lot to be desired and I have a hard time calling it that. Her revenge arc feels slapped on with the writers and devs remembering she was there rather than something that had been built up so far over the course of the game. The patriarch who abused her is a generic NPC, we find out she knew someone in her servitude, a connection she has outside of Clive, but don't get much there. In the prologue, we get a little section where we can play as Joshua (the only time we can play as him even though I truly thought we would again) and it would have been cool if we had a switch to her during this time. I can't speak for DMC, but for example, the very first Bayonetta had a section where you played as Jeanne in the lead up to the finale. Once I completed the game, I realized she is the only ally Eikon to not get an actual cinematic clash activation and is not involved in the boss fight for that section. You get that with Dion / Bahamut and while that's cool, it does make me more bitter about Jill. All she does is make the arena for Clive to fight in. Don't say 'Well she was dying / the curse!' They're all suffering from the curse, Joshua was dying because Ultima, he plays more of a direct role. Speaking of, if you don't read the active time lore, you still know that Joshua doesn't like carrots because it's shown in the prologue and then later on to progress the brothers being reunited and that's a neat little fact being integrated into the main narrative. I struggle to think of something similar for Jill and get even more disappointed about it.
Speaking of, every time she exerts herself feels like an attempt to explain why she's sidelined. In the next section, she is captured by Kupka which is a set up to reveal that Torgal is a Dominant of Fenrir, who is Shiva's loyal protector. However, Jill and Torgal do not have any substantial relationship in the narrative beyond them being inseparable as youths (as told by Clive, only shown through Jill carrying him in the prologue). Torgal's connection with Clive is the emphasized relationship with how Clive basically introduces his name, Torgal being the most persistent party member and 'banter' partner; Jill and Torgal get very little if anything. It's frustrating again to see something that should have been Jill's own that isn't.
Romance
Full disclosure: I love romance, got to be one of my favorite genres, something that I think is compatible with everything. Romance novels, manga, manhwa, webtoons, shows, movies, you name it. Another reason I find this game to be a bit regressive is that the writing seems to fall into that old trap of 'The romance can be up to 10-25% of the man's character, but the majority of the woman's character'. I know through the grapevine that there might have been more developments in the side quests, however, I think it should have been in the main quest.
The writing for Clive/Jill relies on past information being told rather than shown to cut corners on their development. They grew up together so no need to show the basis of their feelings. There were some moments such as Clive being hesitant to touching her in the prologue, which he continues to do frequently, which is neat. I like that kind of pining and I can read into that to my heart's content (does he refrain from touching her because he's internalized his mother's words about being a reject / stigma against magic users even if blessed by an Eikon? It's not just teenage awkwardness), but also, is there anything equivalent from Jill? This is an issue of the 5 year timeskip that pushes the last act forward and their relationship is still pretty stagnant other than Clive constantly saying that Jill has taken on his burden. Nothing has changed about them in that gap, and I don't understand why.
They basically gave us an outline of what could have been an interesting romance, but I'm left feeling that it's a burden on Jill's character more than anything. There's a love scene that functions as an equivalent for transferring Shiva's power, their love confession is a vehicle for Jill to stay back from the final battle (but Dion can come because... Clive just met him and okay?).
Benedikta
The biggest waste of potential in this game and the most interesting woman in the cast and I was not at all expecting this with the way she's introduced and used in the rest of the narrative. If I must bring up another point that people bring up to defend how FFXVI treats female characters, one is 'They're covered up! No cleavage!' and yet, she's in this tight leather bodysuit and secondly, and worse, all her relationships revolve around men. She functions as another point of the devs telling us 'This game is M for Mature! People fuck!' as the sexual nature of her relationship with Kupka is emphasized in her very first scene, we then see she has a sexual relationship with King Barnabas who she serves, and she has a relationship with Cid in the past. Did she and Cid have sex, maybe, who knows, and also once she dies, two out of the three times she shows up later, she's naked.
BUT the lost potential for her character comes from after her boss battle with Clive, where he takes Garuda's power from her. She completely falls apart, yelling for Clive to give Garuda back, and is unable to function properly in her scenes afterward, being dragged around by her soldiers. We see in a flashback (brought about with her men being killed by human traffickers and her being threatened with rape, again, another point of the devs wanting to emphasize this game's gritty nature), that she was freed from captivity from Cid before their falling out. I find it very interesting, with how Dominants have all this power, but are still stigmatized because they are still Bearers at the end of the day. This suggests that being Garuda's Dominant enabled Benedikta to reclaim her personhood and autonomy after being a slave, even if that was part of her servitude to Waloed / Barnabas. And that once it's gone, she's fearful of what will happen to her and her worth. That's so fucking intriguing. That does not have to inherently lead to a redemption arc, but it would have been a great opportunity to give her some depth and make her a compelling villain. Unfortunately, we'll never get that because she goes out of control and dies at the hands of an out of control Clive as Ifrit to further his plot.
Annabelle
She would not be a better character if this was a purely political narrative, that's how poorly written she is. She is cartoonishly evil which clashes with the serious nature of this story.
The writing has no interest in exploring how women might try to navigate political / class circles through lineage, so her explanation for her actions is not at all sympathetic. She just sends her guards to kill slaves, not because she knows Clive is alive and wants to stop him from revealing her past 'failure', but because she sucks. I am not left caring to question if she truly loved Joshua or Olivier, I am just happy when she died so we could get to other points of interest.
The Rest
Mid's the best side female side character, though I am a bit bitter that the revelation of being Cid's daughter happens in a side quest and that they do not actually interact in the main narrative. I think she's a delight, even with 1) her introduction to the story being attached to the worst pacing in the story and 2) being another example about how the major women in the story are reliant on their connection to me.
The rest of the women are mainly roles, rather than actual people. Jote had the most potential, but again, she does not exist outside of Joshua, and I get the feeling I'm supposed to be content with her having a title / job and ability to fight to fill in her characterization beyond 'cares about him'.
Moving Forward
Who does women worse, FFXV or FFXVI? I don't know, I haven't played FFXV, it almost seems apples and oranges in that they're both bad at women, but in different executions.
One day FFXIII will be free from the confines of the PS3 and ported to modern consoles so Square Enix can begin their We're Sorry Women apology tour and realize their takeaway from criticism of that game should be about gameplay / structure and not reducing the presence and focus of women.
Pacing / Side Quests
The pacing of the quests in the follow up after beating Titan completely killed any desire I had to complete side quests. The biggest high I experienced with the game, being the three part Titan fight, were brought to the crashing low of the game and I truly debated walking away it. It made the gameplay loop very obvious and obstructive to me and I started to understand the amount 'Talk to someone, go fetch things, lather, rinse, repeat'. The game is so consistent with maintaining that structure and I think it made the LEAST sense here in particular that it just ruined everything else. I did the side quests that were quality of life upgrades, but those were also repetitive. Shoutout to Blackthorne's existential crisis and depression after he saw a well-crafted item.
Story / Narrative
I am team fantasy and personal elements over political here. Was Ultima the greatest villain, no. But I very much enjoyed the focus on freedom of choice and being your own person and believe the development team did as well. The political elements seemed heavier handed to me and I found them at their best in the young Clive section than anywhere else.
Eikonic Battles
Let's open with my ranking: Titan, Bahamut, Typhon, Ultima, Phoenix v. Ifrit [Tutorial], Garuda, Ifrit v. Ifrit [the worst to me, but better gameplay], Ifrit / Phoenix / Bahamut v. Ultima [objectively least engaging]. This is obviously where most of the game budget went.
The double Ifrit battle is the lowest point to me as it's an abysmal conclusion to Clive's internal struggle that was set up so wonderfully beforehand. You end with a mash square fest, after that excellent narrative / gameplay integration of Press L3+R3 to Accept the Truth? An insane choice that I do not respect at all.
I do think that these battles can be overly long for no reason at all. The Titan fight is my favorite overall due to the combination of the battles' spectacle along with Soken's musical choices as a backing to the fight. As a fan of the series, I also did appreciate the Bayonetta photo finisher.
The Blessing and Curse of Our Party of One, Clive Rosfield
After initial reservations, I can proudly say that I enjoyed Clive as a character and protagonist. With the marketing, I do believe SE was trying to court broody roaring revenge protagonist enjoyers but was glad to see we got more from Clive than just that. If Behind the Voice is accurate, I am highly impressed that this is Ben Starr's second VO performance. He absolutely kills it as Clive and I hope he shows up in other things I'll play in the future. There's a give and take here because although I think Clive is a strong protagonist, this game being focused on a sole character and no genuine party means that his supporting cast is weaker.
There were other characters that I enjoyed (biggest s/o to Uncle Byron for bringing some levity and being the only guest to not use a sword; Gav; Joshua; all my ire about women is aimed at the team, I do like Jill), but I do think Clive being The Guy hinders development of camaraderie and companionship between the characters and has the villain plot of 'break Clive's bonds so he succumbs to being Ultima's vessel' be a bit useless (and there's no real attempt to do so even though it is repeated a lot). Although I will always be hype at a 'use everyone summon/power [eikon] as your team supports you to face the final boss' moment because those are just cool no matter what, it still felt off because these relationships felt shoddily developed at the end of the day.
SE should have held off on the FF VII-Rebirth trailer until a month or so after this was released. Why? The dual attacks shown there make me wish such a mechanic existed here. If they had to have us control Clive, fine. An option to do team attacks with characters in the party would do so much for the supporting cast that are guest characters. The most you get is Torgal so you can launch from the ground or down airborne enemies and those are just standard animations. It would help with letting you remember these characters are fighting alongside you because they did not matter to my progress in battle except ending regular battles if I sat back and watched.
Again, I ask, why did we have a chance to play as Joshua, as a human, in the prologue, but never again? I thought for sure we would have had a chance in the final dungeon, but nope.
Music
Masayoshi Soken's score is good in that there weren't any tracks that irritated me, and it was pleasant to listen to in game. There is a quote from Soken that he composed 200+ tracks and I believe all of them, including unreleased tracks, will be included on the official release of the score. However, thinking back, I have a hard time even identifying the unique tracks within the game (Titan Lost theme, Find the Flame, ending vocal tracks, game's version of the FF theme). I do wonder how much of the released score will consist of original music and variants/arrangements of those songs. How many times did the FFXVI rendition of the franchise theme repeat? I do not know, it was nice, but wow. People say that Soken probably has more freedom with playing with the diversity in the FFXIV score, so I don't understand the restrictions here and wish there was more. Again, I need to emphasize that the score is quite good despite those shortcomings and am looking forward to the official release.
Gameplay
The combat in the game was more engaging to me in the earlier sections, ironically before Clive's tool kit opens up. I played the Eikonic Challenge portion of the demo before the full release, and the feat options of Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan were great. Ramuh's obvious KH shot lock was a downgrade in speed from KH's and I was miffed it was the 3rd option; Bahamut is not my thing; I actually ended up swapping Garuda for Odin's, but still believe that was a bit too late. I never tried out Shiva's and I probably should have since she can even freeze bosses.
Full disclosure: I used the evasion slowdown accessory. The accessibility accessories should have been an option in the menu rather than taking up an accessory slot. Difficulty options should have been a thing since the start of the game rather than being locked behind completion.
I have not played enough of FFVII Remake to really compare the stagger mechanics. What I will say is that after a while, the bosses here felt very damage resistant and thus boss battles weren't difficult, but long. Upgrading your abilities does not up their attack power but may affect how often they hit / the number of moves involved or range. There were certain techniques from Garuda and Phoenix that were good with lowering the opponents will, but the cool down mechanic meant you were not able to use them as much as you want. Additionally, you can only really juggle / combo overworld enemies and not bosses, which also made the battles longer. I appreciate that there is a training mode as that helped me getting the timing down on melee moves + magic bursts and commands for Torgal that get boosted at the end of a combo.
I do think their courting the attention of action game players (e.g., Maximilian Dood being a host / part of their SGF event) backfired on them a bit as people are pointing out the combat is easy and the pacing for picking up abilities is too strung out. I do agree with the game being easy as I only died once [vs. Kupka] and that was due to a lapse in attention when it came to my health, not using potions, and not realizing the attack I was being hit with was an AOE move. If your inspiration for combat are franchises where the completion time are around 20% of yours, you need to readjust by a lot for how you're approaching gameplay, which didn't happen here. Final Fantasy games are known for being long and engaging so I understand why that wasn't sacrificed here, but it made things a bit of a slog. Battles were not difficult, they were just long.
Miscellaneous
M-rated series that have a serious main story and engaging side quests and minigames exist and are also M rated. Hell, one of them went from an action game to turn based combat and took inspiration from the other half of Square Enix. Yes this is Like a Dragon / Yakuza praise. I will get to that in time, but in the future, we will see a long video essay from someone debating on which handled its genre shift better. Square Enix, please loosen up for FFXVII, if you must take cues from other series, look there.
I'm sure this game created new FFXIV players. As for me, absolutely not, I'm now a borderline hater if the side quests there are like how they are here in addition to my lack of interest in MMORPGs.
Concluding Thoughts
With the question of 'Is this a Final Fantasy game?' I'm on the side of yes, it is. To me, a lot of the series since FFVII has been about spectacle and there is plenty of it there. Additionally, I do think it has a lot of heart in places, so it definitely fits even with my various issues.
I do hope there are corrections that will be made in FFXVII (for the love god, please do better with your female characters) and despite the problems I note here, I do think they've laid a foundation for what comes next. I do think fans need to be less defensive of this game where they even try to quell on good faith criticism (re: sexist writing, lack of inclusion, pacing, etc.), but I do hope that the developers, whether this team or the next, and Square Enix take criticism into account and makes further strides forward in the next one. I might sound very negative here, but I did enjoy my time with this game. FFXVI gave me a lot to think and one of my goals has been to approach gaming with the same level of discernment and critical breakdown as I do with books and movies, and obviously, this game gave me a lot to talk about, so that matters to me. 3.5 / 5 is a solid score.
Will I replay this? I don't know. I do applaud the team for making a complete game on launch and having no plans for DLC and I'm fine with it. A whole lot better than what many teams do, even within their same company. If they change their minds, which is fine, I might check it out depending on what it's about and how it shapes up. Maybe I won't replay in the calendar year, but maybe down the line, I might pick this up again.
i made a good honest college try and then put it down because the card system did not jive for me and to be honest, i emulated this back when it first came out on the GBA and cheated the fuck out of it, so i'm too used to coasting when i was 13
2023
my irks are restrictions regarding your party (i am fine with the protagonist lock until story completion; however, i believe exp should be shared across active and reserve members, we don't have to stick to that archaic restriction despite the visual aesthetics; once party formation is free to use w/o the taverns, they still don't treat it as if you can interact with all of them); wish the game speed went up to 3x; no clear data / new game plus option :(
i did not play the first octopath traveler beyond the demo, but i'm glad that party interaction went up a bit here with the crossed paths and travel banter (wish that was voiced). the battle system is great and i like the customization options, though adding additional job slots can be bit out the way depending on types. played in english and think the voice acting was top notch and quite like some localization choices (rendering partitio's kansai-ben as a southern accent >>>). music is great, they need to put it on spotify. plot is nothing special, but i enjoyed what it had to offer.
i did not play the first octopath traveler beyond the demo, but i'm glad that party interaction went up a bit here with the crossed paths and travel banter (wish that was voiced). the battle system is great and i like the customization options, though adding additional job slots can be bit out the way depending on types. played in english and think the voice acting was top notch and quite like some localization choices (rendering partitio's kansai-ben as a southern accent >>>). music is great, they need to put it on spotify. plot is nothing special, but i enjoyed what it had to offer.