I have heard the criticisms aimed at this game and agree with pretty much all of them. However, my opinion of the game is not nearly as negative.
For starters, the story at first implies there is going to be a complex story with medieval politicking, lots of scheming, backstabbing, etc. But it ends up being as complicated as a heisei Kamen Rider show. Even the main villain reminds me of "Evolt" from "Kamen Rider Build", a character who's motivations were at first mysterious, but in the end was just an evil alien that wanted to blow up the Earth. The lead writer, Kazutoyo Maehiro, also worked on FFXIV A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward, both of which have similar issues to this game. The most prominent of which is the fact that some characters that seem like they should have bigger roles just don't have much of a presence in the story. He also tends to have characters show up just to die for dramatic purposes, if you are familiar with FFXIV you probably know what I mean. Regardless, I enjoyed just being fantasy Kamen Rider, the story didn't piss me off or annoy me or anything, it was just a bit too dry for its own good and would have been better if it were more anime/tokusastu.
I agree with the complaints that the combat is too easy, it definitely could have used an additional, harder difficulty level in the beginning. The fact that the trash enemies barely fight back while the larger bosses are the real opponents make this closer to a Dynasty Warriors game rather than Devil May Cry. Now this isn't too big an issue, because Final Fantasy games tend to be easy. I can't recall ever struggling with any of the ones I've played. Hell, I beat FFXV (FF15, my least favorite) barely engaging with the combat. After finishing the much more intense DLC campaigns, I'm more optimistic about action Final Fantasy, and wouldn't mind FFXVII also being an action RPG, assuming they don't make another MMO. (Please SquareEnix don't do another MMO, you do some dumb stuff but you're not nearly as bad as ActiBlizz.)
Another issue is the padding, the sidequests could have been trimmed a bit, maybe even merged some of the hunts with the sidequests. Most of the sidequests felt like MMO busywork, not really adding much to the setting. In addition, the areas weren't that interesting to explore (Again, like an MMO).
Anyway, this is much more than I would normally write. Overall, I'm more disappointed in the fact that the game is only good, when I wanted it to be amazing. Better luck next game? In a franchise this old? Who knows.
For starters, the story at first implies there is going to be a complex story with medieval politicking, lots of scheming, backstabbing, etc. But it ends up being as complicated as a heisei Kamen Rider show. Even the main villain reminds me of "Evolt" from "Kamen Rider Build", a character who's motivations were at first mysterious, but in the end was just an evil alien that wanted to blow up the Earth. The lead writer, Kazutoyo Maehiro, also worked on FFXIV A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward, both of which have similar issues to this game. The most prominent of which is the fact that some characters that seem like they should have bigger roles just don't have much of a presence in the story. He also tends to have characters show up just to die for dramatic purposes, if you are familiar with FFXIV you probably know what I mean. Regardless, I enjoyed just being fantasy Kamen Rider, the story didn't piss me off or annoy me or anything, it was just a bit too dry for its own good and would have been better if it were more anime/tokusastu.
I agree with the complaints that the combat is too easy, it definitely could have used an additional, harder difficulty level in the beginning. The fact that the trash enemies barely fight back while the larger bosses are the real opponents make this closer to a Dynasty Warriors game rather than Devil May Cry. Now this isn't too big an issue, because Final Fantasy games tend to be easy. I can't recall ever struggling with any of the ones I've played. Hell, I beat FFXV (FF15, my least favorite) barely engaging with the combat. After finishing the much more intense DLC campaigns, I'm more optimistic about action Final Fantasy, and wouldn't mind FFXVII also being an action RPG, assuming they don't make another MMO. (Please SquareEnix don't do another MMO, you do some dumb stuff but you're not nearly as bad as ActiBlizz.)
Another issue is the padding, the sidequests could have been trimmed a bit, maybe even merged some of the hunts with the sidequests. Most of the sidequests felt like MMO busywork, not really adding much to the setting. In addition, the areas weren't that interesting to explore (Again, like an MMO).
Anyway, this is much more than I would normally write. Overall, I'm more disappointed in the fact that the game is only good, when I wanted it to be amazing. Better luck next game? In a franchise this old? Who knows.