seren
10 reviews liked by seren
It's been a year or so since I read this for the first time and I still can't believe how fucking incredible it is. This kinda shit is why the term "peak fiction" exists
The way this game absolutely emotionally crushes you into bits and pieces, you'd think you could never recover from it. The writing is absolutely top tier.
the only criticism i have of this game is that i now have to live with the fact that i will never write anything remotely as good and meaningful within my lifetime
If you are on this page because you have any interest in playing this game, I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to close this right now and buy it. Don't read the store page, don't look anything up online about it, just buy it and play it immediately. You need to go in 100% blind.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Excellent Combat with some of the best looking & feeling Boss Fights ever. Lacking in RPG elements and some story beats are a trudge to get through.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Kinda forgot I was playing this. Shelved it for about a week, realized I hadn't thought about it even once, couldn't convince myself to go back to it.
It's just boring. The little gameplay it offers (because for some reason every single piece of dialogue in the game requires a 10 minute cutscene) is derivative and dull. The enemies are repetitive and either mind-numbingly easy or still easy, but with a massive health pool that requires you to button mash the same 3-4 abilities off cooldown until it dies.
The story and setting were interesting and the world building was definitely there, but I reached a point where even that wasn't even a strong enough motivator for me to sit through another couple hours of drawn out cutscenes to progress the plot by an inch. Quest design was awful in a way I haven't seen since like early level World of Warcraft. Comparing them to MMOs does even MMOs a disservice as the quest design in FF14 is leagues above this.
Sucks because the characters are very charming and I did become invested in their stories, but I just cannot force myself to keep playing. I'll watch a cutscene compilation or something and maybe come back to it at some point in the future.
It's just boring. The little gameplay it offers (because for some reason every single piece of dialogue in the game requires a 10 minute cutscene) is derivative and dull. The enemies are repetitive and either mind-numbingly easy or still easy, but with a massive health pool that requires you to button mash the same 3-4 abilities off cooldown until it dies.
The story and setting were interesting and the world building was definitely there, but I reached a point where even that wasn't even a strong enough motivator for me to sit through another couple hours of drawn out cutscenes to progress the plot by an inch. Quest design was awful in a way I haven't seen since like early level World of Warcraft. Comparing them to MMOs does even MMOs a disservice as the quest design in FF14 is leagues above this.
Sucks because the characters are very charming and I did become invested in their stories, but I just cannot force myself to keep playing. I'll watch a cutscene compilation or something and maybe come back to it at some point in the future.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
This review contains spoilers
Positives [+] and Negatives [-]
+ Brand-new world (Valisthea) to the FF franchise. Prior FF knowledge not needed, can play this game fully blind to the franchise.
+ Mostly linear gameplay. As much as I love open-world games, it's nice to have one path to experience the plot.
+ Fun and engaging combat.
+ Zero bugs/glitches encountered. Not even frame drops, if I recall.
- Lack of QoL settings. No UI size slider, no HUD customization (turning off damage numbers, input prompts, etc); No full customization of controller mapping. It's 2023, developers should stop using "Layout A", "Layout B", etc and simply let the player choose what each button does individually.
- Large zones don't have much reward in exploring them, might as well just follow the main quest marker without detours.
- OST is not memorable for me other than the main theme. Can't even remember what the battle theme sounds like.
- Difficult to connect with the story and characters. Felt like I was trying to force myself to be interested in it.
- Side quests are uninteresting.
As a big Final Fantasy fan and Game of Thrones fan (the game is inspired by it), I thought this would be right up my alley. Being one of the rare ones to love the XIII trilogy, the obvious changes towards the franchise are nothing to be disappointed about, combat-wise. To address the elephant in the room, I have zero issues with the cutscene runtime; it's a story-heavy game, I would rather learn the story visually than having to read paragraphs of texts. Speaking of paragraphs of texts, the Active Time Lore is definitely not needed to understand the story; I stopped using ATL after early game and had no issues keeping up with what's happening.
About the story itself, it's very straightforward, but hard for me to actually care about what's happening. In my opinion, time skips are generally bad and difficult to get it right. We should have experienced Clive and Jill's journeys before they became adults to have a better connection with their characters. The worldbuilding is really dense, but dull at the same time. So much information about the world of Valisthea, it's hard to stay invested because it's going one ear and out the other.
I searched how many chapters there are, and I have done 41/68 chapters. 41 chapters and I don't feel connected with the story. I understand the appeal of this game, it's just not for me, or at least not in my current headspace/way of thinking.
+ Brand-new world (Valisthea) to the FF franchise. Prior FF knowledge not needed, can play this game fully blind to the franchise.
+ Mostly linear gameplay. As much as I love open-world games, it's nice to have one path to experience the plot.
+ Fun and engaging combat.
+ Zero bugs/glitches encountered. Not even frame drops, if I recall.
- Lack of QoL settings. No UI size slider, no HUD customization (turning off damage numbers, input prompts, etc); No full customization of controller mapping. It's 2023, developers should stop using "Layout A", "Layout B", etc and simply let the player choose what each button does individually.
- Large zones don't have much reward in exploring them, might as well just follow the main quest marker without detours.
- OST is not memorable for me other than the main theme. Can't even remember what the battle theme sounds like.
- Difficult to connect with the story and characters. Felt like I was trying to force myself to be interested in it.
- Side quests are uninteresting.
As a big Final Fantasy fan and Game of Thrones fan (the game is inspired by it), I thought this would be right up my alley. Being one of the rare ones to love the XIII trilogy, the obvious changes towards the franchise are nothing to be disappointed about, combat-wise. To address the elephant in the room, I have zero issues with the cutscene runtime; it's a story-heavy game, I would rather learn the story visually than having to read paragraphs of texts. Speaking of paragraphs of texts, the Active Time Lore is definitely not needed to understand the story; I stopped using ATL after early game and had no issues keeping up with what's happening.
About the story itself, it's very straightforward, but hard for me to actually care about what's happening. In my opinion, time skips are generally bad and difficult to get it right. We should have experienced Clive and Jill's journeys before they became adults to have a better connection with their characters. The worldbuilding is really dense, but dull at the same time. So much information about the world of Valisthea, it's hard to stay invested because it's going one ear and out the other.
I searched how many chapters there are, and I have done 41/68 chapters. 41 chapters and I don't feel connected with the story. I understand the appeal of this game, it's just not for me, or at least not in my current headspace/way of thinking.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Good story, epic ending, but padded like crazy. The game forces side content onto you where characters take like 14 Soprano episodes to hand something to each other, not to mention the actual side content. If I wanted that much padding I would’ve eaten the insulation in my walls 😒
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
A really solid action RPG and a strong new entry to the franchise. The music and combat were stellar throughout and the story was decent if a bit uninspired at times. I only really connected with around 4 or 5 characters which feels disappointing for a series which usually has really strong ensemble casts, even outside of the playable characters. This is a very personal opinion but I also found the joyless dark fantasy tone very draining after a while.
I can’t help but feel that somewhere amidst all the greatness and messiness of this trilogy lies a perfect standalone FFXIII that probably exists in a parallel universe somewhere. Having said that, I cried a lot during the closing cutscenes of this game, so I can’t allow myself to be anything but extremely happy and grateful that these games exist as they do. They’re far from perfect, but I love them.
