a severely flawed game, but still a good one. its many flaws mainly come from one of two sources: the director's MMO background, and the conservative attitude in development. This game is very blatantly catered towards what people call 'casuals', or generally people who dont play many final fantasies. I do not say that as an insult, but simply something i noticed throughout my playthrough. The game is piss easy, and only has 2 'difficulties', story mode, and action mode. You unlock 'hard mode' in new game plus after beating the game which is stupid.

The gameplay itself is fun but simple. It is a bit beyond button mashing and you can combo, and it is satisfying to get a boss down to 'stagger' as u spam abilities and do huge damage, but it is like i said quite simple. If you have experience with DMC or bayonetta, it may be too simple to be satisfying.

The RPG elements to the game are also pathetic and ignorable, not helped by the easy nature of the game. Despite being a game about elements, there are no noticable elemental advantages, aka use the fire eikon against a water themed enemy etc, and no elemental attunements for weapons. This is a missed opportunity to add depth to the game, but the game is geared towards casuals and Yoshi-P wanted it to be as simple as possible to get more people into the series.

Another issue i had was the lack of a real 'party'. Characters go in and out so frequently its difficult to care about them. I have next to no love for ff15 but one thing it did well is the main party- i truly cared about all four of them. They completely abandoned that for 16. Instead, they have a smattering of half-likable dudes who join and fuck off only to rejoin later then fuck off again in a cycle. No character besides Clive is easy to latch onto or care about because of this, and the game suffers for it. The worst offender of this is the main romance, Jill. She has nothing going on story wise or personality wise. She is a very bland, uninteresting chracter with no interesting dynamics, and a muted, boring personality. She gets almost no development beyond one scene, where afterwards she is immediantly sidelined. A complete waste of a character.

Yoshi-P's MMO background strikes again in the quest design, which frequently boils down to MMO-like 'go to town talk to person do thing come back to hideout' which is very boring, especially in how the NPCs blab the fuck on forever for uninteresting dialogue.

Moreover, there is virtually nothing to do besides the main story and the 'hunts' (hunting monsters). The sidequests are notably very poor, and Yoshi-P refused to put in the FF-staple card/minigame in the game because he was being a pretentious asshat and thought the world was 'too serious' (but not too serious to have a sidequest where you deliver soup of course). There is no notable exploration as well. So if the man story doesent grip you, you will find nothing for you in this game

But im being quite negative. Why did i complete the game then?

For one, while the gameplay is simple, it is quite satisfying, much in the same way a fast food burger is simple and satisfying. Its just fun to play, even if it is barebones. And the story was quite interesting and led me to wonder where it was going. The pacing is very wonky and for much throughout (especially the third act) i was simply put quite exhausted, but it kept me intrigued.

The lore is extremely rich, and info is very easily accessible through many means. The game takes painstaking efforts to make the complex world its in easily graspable, which was commendable and very impressive. You can spend literal hours reading the in-game lore through the historian or hippocrates. Was very interesting.

The boss battles are another notable positives- holy hell are they phenomenal. They are, for lack of a more 'refined' term, awesome as fuck, and give me the same feel as i did mashing action figures together when i was young. It really made me feel like a kid again in the best way.

Overall, this is a huge step-up from the disaster that was 15. The game, almost as much as it sets out to just be a 'good game', set out to re-introduce the world to Final Fantasy. FF hasnt really had a 'great' mainline single player game in 22(!) years, since FF10. FF, once a paragon of quality, had fallen on dark times. So, i somewhat forgive the game. It was trying to punch above its weight and reintroduce the world to the series while pleasing longtime fans. It did an admirable, if not perfect job of it, even if it isnt my ideal FF.

6 or 7/10

Very mixed on this game.

The pacing is very strange, the first case you do both an investigation and a trial for is the fucking FOURTH(!) which is the second to last case, which is insane.
The main prosecutor, Van Zieks, whose name i nearly forgot, is very boring and unmemorable. His constant wine-throwing was honestly kind of cringey and really lame. "Pray forgive me..." Bro shut up, jesus. It felt like they were trying to make edgeworth 2 and failed.
The games highlights were nowhere near the highs of other ace attorney games, but the lows were also not very low. Usually ace attorney has 1 or 2 dogshit cases per game and the worst case in this game was the simply 'mid' first case where we wasted time arguing about how to eat a steak for like twenty minutes
The summation examinations were obnoxious. They were mentioned as this incredibly rare legal loophole/footnote that is never really used. In reality, it is a flawless get-out-of-jail-free card that Naruhodo abuses twice in every case. If its so rare, then why do we use it every fucking time, multiple times? Why does it have to be 'rare'?
Cast is overall really solid. Holmes is funny and charismatic, seemingly built for tumblr bisexuals to thirst for. Iris is just a borderline mary sue, a young cute girl competent at everything who knows multiple languages, makes inventions, can cook, is emotionally mature, raises herself, etc. Maybe not a mary sue but jesus give her SOME flaw.
The game very much leads into its sequel the likes of which no other AA does but im just reviewing the game on its own merit. Probably below every of the original trilogy but above apollo justice and AAI1 (i have not played AAI2 or the other 2 games as of now)

The writing is better then in 999. It is able to communicate equally interesting and complex philisophical ideas without the writer going "WAIT! STOP THE STORY! I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ALBERT PENISPANTS AND HIS MAGICAL THEORIES ABOUT THE GALAXY!!!!!" like what was done multiple times in 999. Even when things like that are done, it feels far more naturally, and blissfully brief.

The characters however are a significant step down from 999's great cast. Quark is an utter waste of a character who does literally nothing and is a walking plot device. Phi is not 'sassy' she is just kind of a dick. Clover has been reduced to a bimbo who only does what her master Alice says. And Alice is jsut about the most unlikable bitchy character you can imagine, with zero positive or likable qualities. Dio is a likably hatable slimy villain character, Tenmyouji is a respectable granddad type, but for me Luna was the highlight, which i wont spoil.

The story is a lot longer than 999, and, very impressively, still maintains constant intrigue throughout, even with the do-your-own-route style of pacing. The concurrent mysteries were always interesting and i was very excited to see what happens next. It has the reverse issue of 999 where that game started out bad but was salvaged by a fantastic final third, this game is consistent throughout but is greatly soured by a terribly overdone ending, spewing word salad and confusing the player beyond all beleif, and even inexplicably ending on a fucking cliffhanger, an absolutely awful writing decision making this story literally incomplete, and hinging on a third game that was never promised, and was in fact canceled before it was revived beyond death with band aids and paperclips through Kickstarter funding.

Other then the tryhard ending and the game's ruining of the character of Clover, i recommend this. I think i like it more then 999, but they are both so maddeningly, severely flawed games that its a bit difficult for the obvious internal genius to shine through the pounds of caked-on shit.