Shallow and milquetoast experience defined by its incredibly basic and repetitive combat, weak storytelling and impressive production values and music.

The games defining feature is a contrived and meek story that teases complexity/maturity, but refuses to ever engage with any of the potentially interesting dynamics of its world state in any meaningful way.

The story feels like a 5th grader's interpretation of game of thrones- it has slavery, large scale war, implied sexual violence, class based discrimination and other dark fantasy mainstays, but fails catastrophically to analyze the impact of these cruelties on the individual. They are used to titillate and as shallow flavor text, rather then the focus of the story.

We, the player, play through an entire game where the main character is a literal child soldier slave presumably subjected to horrible abuses while conscripted in a foreign occupying empires armies (the same army that killed your family/friends and stole your kingdom) and the game never bothers to discuss and examine Clive's feelings on the matter. It even goes to great lengths to show the lack of impact of these events on Clive, and his relative indifference to the other general cruelties of the world, by refusing to revisit these formative past experiences and constantly introducing similar events which Clive has the literal power to impact, yet chooses not to. It's almost nihilistic in this approach, which is wildly inconsistent with its overall main story and Clive's frequent intercessions with less morally imperative problems.

Oh, my mother, the most villainous person in my life, who is singularly most responsible for destroying my metaphorical world, is sending roaming death squads across my home country to murder marginalized people like me and commit pogroms? Eh, I just can't be bothered to do anything- what could I, a simple average joe, the rightful heir to the most prosperous country in the world and a literal demigod (with literal demigod friends) who has destroyed cities and slain other demigods, possibly do about this minor societal ill?

The pathetically small amount of emotional capital Clive is allowed is wasted on a revenge story that lasts 10% of the story before being discarded. Clive, as a character, has a perfect rational for righteous anger and pessimism re: the human condition (which ties perfectly into his chosen-one kaiju power by the way), yet the game keeps him a hollow shell of a character who has no opinions or strong feelings about literally anything. If Clive was defined by his (understandable) anger at the world he may have been a compelling character, but the game refused to give him any meaningful positive or negative qualities or traits. He is a hollow nothing of a character, which they might have gotten away with (using him a mechanical POV) if the supporting cast were present, interesting and drove the story forward but... they don't. At all. The supporting cast is as weakly written, motivation-less and shallow as Clive is.

The story seems to be the worst of both worlds; it lacks the introspection re: sorrow/despair and pessimistic world view of true dark fantasy, while also missing the whimsical levity and irrational optimism of traditional high fantasy. I don't care about the cruelties endured by any of the characters in the story because the game doesn't care; they make no effort to show how this dark and unforgiving world has impacted people, so what we are left with is cruelty for cruelty's sake, divorced of meaning, that almost appears comical at times.

There is a lot to be said about the shallow and poorly written accompanying cast, poor story pacing, the game's terrible depiction of women (one dark fantasy mainstay they unfortunately delivered on) and its indefensible decision to not include black/asian/etc people (?) but these topics kind of speak for themselves.

The combat system is pretty bad. This is only really a major problem because this game could have belonged to a series and genre where combat isn't super relevant to the overall experience... but it doesn't. The game was marketed and designed with a heavy emphasis on combat, which is uninspired and rudimentary. The game has a ton of uninteresting and unsatisfying fights against enemies with too little variety and far too much health that commits the gaming cardinal sin- inspires boredom.

There are many ways they could have made the combat more engaging, but realistically the most practical solution would have been to just remove 60% of the fights in the game and embrace the variety of prior titles in the series. Almost every other game in the final fantasy series has a wide variety of minigames and problem solving that doesn't involve combat, which goes a long way to hide the boring or poorly designed combat in those titles. I'm not sure why ff16 abandoned this obfuscation trick. Thank god they added MMO style raid mechanics to some of the major boss battles (and changed the camera, showing they know the tethered action camera used normally, is trash) to add some intrigue to some of the fights.

The truly bizarre failure of ff16's combat approach is the juxtaposition with the previous entry in the series-> ff7 remake, which had amazing combat and RPG progression systems.

It seems like they wanted to make spectacular kaiju cutscene/fights and worked backwards to fill in all other aspects of the game, and for the most part these efforts failed despite the impressive production quality of the title.

The game prioritizes spectacle over depth to its detriment, and fails at almost all levels when compared to the other AAA titles of the story based action genre (GoW Ragnarok, TLOU2, FF7 remake, etc.).

Better than ff13 (and the last 1/3 of FF15) but otherwise a forgettable entry in a storied franchise. After 60 hours and an unsatisfying ending I knew nothing from this game would stick with me. I still don't know who this game is intended for... DMC and action game fans will laugh at the puerile combat, final fantasy fans will be turned off by the abandonment of the defining traits of the franchise, and dark fantasy fans will be alienated by the lack of coherence, depth and thematic focus in the weak story.

I suspect history will show FF16 exiting the cultural zeitgeist quickly and quietly.

Oh Clive, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was only 10 years prior to this game, not 13.

Phew, what a game. I've got a lot of mixed feelings on this one, which usually means a pretty long review, but this is one of my longest by a good deal. That anticipated length is also one reason I've put it off so long (but hey, a long review I put off writing forever is pretty George R.R. Martin-esque, so it fits). The short answer is that my feelings on this game are extremely mixed. I think some aspects of the game are frankly pretty incredible and legitimately a marvel accomplishment for gaming. Unfortunately, other aspects of the game drag and are so rough that it really drags down the great parts, even if it does not wholly negate them. I have therefore waffled considerably on exactly how I feel about the game on balance and spoiler: I am still not totally sure there's an answer to that.

NOTE: Before you hit "See More," be aware that while I'll spoiler tag details I'd consider spoilers, some of these screenshots could be considered a bit spoilery as well, though I'm avoiding anything too major.

For Final Fantasy XVI, the developers quite purposely and openly took inspiration from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or the more well-known TV series version Game of Thrones that I expect most people are familiar with at the very least by cultural osmosis. Given the influence isn't clearly taken from the books or TV show alone, I'll just refer to it as GoT for short where necessary. This choice has garnered quite a bit of discussion as to whether it works for Final Fantasy, how well it was done, and whether it was something that should have been done in the first place. My feelings on the matter are somewhat nuanced. I don't think this mission was inherently flawed. Inspiration can come from many places and in many forms and for a series like Final Fantasy that is all about reinventing itself and working through totally new iterations with every entry, I don't think this project was doomed from the get-go. I would even argue that it works fairly well in creating a new and fairly interesting world that hasn't been done to this extent too much in games, despite GoT's influence in TV, movies, and novels. My biggest issue with this incorporation is that I feel the game is going more for the general feel and aesthetic of GoT while missing some of the important nuance, character depth, and narrative interconnectedness that really makes that franchise so successful and impactful. It's clear that XVI is going for a dark-ish fantasy setting with the gritty consequences and rugged unforgiving set pieces that GoT is known for, but that seems to be where the resemblance ends. I don't really like statements about how the writers "didn't understand" the source material primarily because we can't really know the reasons for certain decisions and it's a weirdly ad hominem criticism, so I won't employ it here. Rather, my face value interpretation is that I think they simply liked the general idea of a GoT-inspired setting without going for the full package as to its narrative design. While I wouldn't necessarily want the full package of a 1:1 GoT rip-off, I think lacking some of those elements really harmed the game in some important ways and while I'm being vague, I think this is the source of some of my greatest frustrations with the game, so I will go into more specificity below. As a quick note, I'm not going to go into too much detail on it, but there is a fairly significant GoT spoiler below. It happens to be under one of the spoiler tags that also includes spoilers for this game, so just a heads up.

First, the characters, with few exceptions, simply aren't that great in XVI. Clive is a pretty good character, especially brought to life by competent voice-acting that manages to be hard and grizzled without feeling too over-the-top most of the time. Cid also stands out as a pretty strong character. Most everyone else however varies between one-dimensionally-expressive-but-uninteresting and just plain bland. The narrative takes its time to establish some really interesting character backgrounds and set-ups for characters like Jill, who better-written could've easily made for a good protagonist in her own right, but ends up being kind of boring, despite her importance to the game's main plot. Most of the minor characters are fairly forgettable as well. This is all rather odd for a story taking its inspiration from GoT, which is a character-driven story even more than it is plot-driven, despite its notoriety for grand drama and twists. I would've really liked to see more of that style incorporated into the game's characters, especially its villains and its handful of women, both categories of which really get the short end of the stick. Almost every villain is pretty plainly just a "bad person," with motivations that even when they have a human element, are not particularly sympathetic or even interesting. There are few women in the game of importance, but dead-pan Jill is probably the most interesting one. Benedickta—a double-whammy of female and villain—for instance feels like a real missed opportunity. She is given a lot of focus early on and made to seem more significant than she is likely because she's the first real major antagonist you will overcome and is a character that seemed primed (pun intended) for a sort of quasi-redemption arc, something GoT does quite well with some of its characters. I love this kind of arc for a character who is bad and does potentially awful things, but eventually has a gradual epiphany in which, while their actions may not ever make up for what they did, they are committed to being better, or at least seeing the world in a new light that shifts their general apathy and/or malice towards others. But no, in a moment in which Benedickta loses her powers as a bearer—which to me was an almost obvious nod to Jaime in GoT losing his hand, an important moment to his further development as his worldview shifts when he is without one of his greatest sources of self-worth—she narrowly avoids sexual assault by "losing control" and flipping out to become a monster that must be put down, not only missing out on any greater depth she could have had, but also leaning into crappy tropes, yay. I could make similar points about every villain in the story with very little difficulty but I don't think much more illustration is needed and I don't feel like covering this review in spoiler tags.

Another big source of ambivalence for me is the world-building. On paper, I actually love a ton of the ideas that went into this game. I think the concept of dominants able to transform into eikons that can single-handedly grant a nation considerable military and political power is really interesting. There's a lot of great intrigue that could be done with this sort of thing, especially with exploring the implications of a world in which people like this exist. To be clear, this element definitely gets explored to an extent. I'm sure it is no spoiler for those who haven't played the game that the eikons/dominants are pretty damn important to the plot of this game. And the international political implications are at the core of several plot threads and twists. But I still feel like a lot of the details are left unexplored and the implications aren't fully plotted out. For instance, I continually found it really jarring when another dominant would be revealed and everyone would be shocked without any explanation of why no one was aware such and such was the dominant of whatever. There are a couple times that makes sense, but these are essentially a handful of people with the single most powerful ability in their known world. Why isn't their identity common knowledge? That identity is probably the #1 thing any competent ruler will want to know as control of a dominant, or even multiple dominants, could make any one faction a sudden superpower. I can imagine some reasons for this, but the game basically never provides any of them. While that revelation can be dramatic, sure, it made the world feel a lot less thought out. This is another area they really could've taken a page out of their source material as GoT thrives on having a living breathing world that is happy to wax lyrical about the implications and consequences of this or that element on other parts of the world many miles away. This is just one example though. The fact the story is focused on disrupting the status quo but never really tells us anything about previous bearer revolts or other such rebellions is another one that makes the history feel very unrealistic and shallow. When the world of XVI does consider its inter-connectedness, I felt much more immersed in its world, but there were a good number of parts I was taken out of it by how small, static, and isolated so much of it felt.

Okay, off the topic of GoT comparisons, how is this as a video game? Well, you'll be shocked to hear that I have mixed feelings on the matter!

First off, the general combat gameplay I think is "okay." There's been a lot of controversy about the shift to action-RPG (that already happened with XV, cough cough), but I personally don't really care. The series has been shifting away from turn-based for a long time now and few RPGs of this scale are sticking to it so I viewed it as an inevitability I accepted long ago. There is an argument to be made that this game is more of a beat em up title like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta but as someone who's a fan of those games, I personally don't feel it gets that far or even very close to it. It's more action than a lot of RPGs, but it is still an RPG, if a toned down one. The combat itself can be fairly fun. Getting to play around with the totally different ability loadouts and seeing their unique styles is pretty exciting and was a good pull for a while. But I feel that despite the criticisms that they went too far, they didn't really go far enough if they wanted this fast paced feel to consistently hold our attention. Once you get the hang of it, it just feels like mashing the same button and burning cooldowns. You could reductively describe a lot of action-based combat that way, but in the later stages of the game, there's little illusion to mask this even on a surface level. My enjoyment of the combat went up and down a few times throughout the game but by the end of it, while I didn't love it, I didn't totally hate it either.

The world exploration side of the gameplay is fairly poor. The scenery is gorgeous (more on that in a bit), but the actual map layouts are kind of dull and there's very little reason to explore almost ever. The sense of wonder the vistas inspire is constantly juxtaposed by how much I might as well be walking in a corridor because the only thing off the beaten path is a 3 gil pickup.

The only other reason to wander is the next aspect of world exploration I'd like to discuss: the quest design. It sucks. I'm not the first to say it, but I have to agree. The vast majority of side quests are just boring. While the game never otherwise feels "unfinished," the side quests legitimately feel like placeholders that they were going to go back and make more interesting later. Which is a shame as again, I really wanted this world to come alive more and at least conceptually, the side quests are aiming to do exactly that. They're just so often significantly worse written and designed than the main plot that they work against that goal more than anything. There are also way too many of them for how dull and repetitive they are and while you could theoretically ignore them, you'd be left with tons of quest waypoints clogging up your hideaway map which would annoy my brain and I'm not sure they could be toggled off. On that note, while there are certainly way bigger offenders for waypoint clutter, sometimes the quest log and such can get in the way of some otherwise pretty sights.

This is not to say the main plot is non-stop amazing either, though I have some more positives to say there. The story quests feature plenty of stretches that are little better, if not totally on par with the side quests. This leads to the game's poor pacing that many have noted. However, the highlights of the game are found almost entirely in the main plot which aside from those slower stretches is actually pretty strong. When the plot picks up, there are some very engaging moments infiltrating important enemy bases and facing down distinct and powerful foes with some really amazing fights and cool character moments throughout. Which is where I have my most positive thing to say about the game: the climactic eikon fights are downright awe-inspiring. And I intend every bit of hyperbole there. These battles I think are quite possibly some of the most "epic" moments I've seen in a video game, period. They look good, they sound good, they feel good, and they really make the story feel like it's coming to a head and delivering on the epic fantasy we're all here for. This was my favorite part of the game and without it I think I'd feel a lot more down on the title. Now, it would definitely be a mistake to say "the whole game should've just been like that." It would be exhausting and the grand moments would lose their appeal in such succession. The game's biggest flub in my eyes is not that it had too much downtime, but that it simply didn't do a good job designing the downtime. These stretches between where the plot really amps up were the perfect opportunities to highlight the intricacies of the world. But the most we often get is a sort of ham-fisted misery porn tour of "wow, shit sucks in this village, this world sure is gritty!" over and over. In such excess, even those moments that should inspire sympathy and engagement start to be kind of dull, with a few exceptions.

While I've already touched on it some, I do think one of the things I'm least ambivalent on is that the general presentation of the game is [Final] Fantastic. The game is beautiful and not just in its technical achievements that demonstrate what this gen is capable of more than most any other game I've played. The world also just looks really gorgeous and is beautifully designed, ever contrasting rather complementarily with the game's grim tone and themes. When the exploration of the world's narrative elements let me down (or got me down), I at least appreciated the sense of wonder that the regions' vistas and environments inspired. My only real complaint on presentation is that on a smaller scale, the character design is fairly bland at times, especially for a series known for its bombastic looks. While I think they should've made them more in line with earlier titles, I at least get that they were likely aiming for something that aligned more with the grounded tone. Still, I found myself using the free DLC outfits a lot since they made your characters look at least a little more magical and special.

The sound design side of the presentation is mostly strong with some great tracks throughout full of swells and nostalgic themes, though I do wish there were more dynamism. For instance, it drove me crazy how many times the absurdly grand (in a good way) boss theme gets very abruptly interrupted when you strike the killing blow, even if the music is crescendoing or is mid-melody. It was likely meant to be jarring, but it didn't work for me at all. But in general, more could've been done with the mix to match the action, even if the score itself was great.

Lastly, the story itself. I've kind of touched on most aspects of this throughout, but as for the story on a premise level, it too is somewhat hit-or-miss. I found the beginning of the game to be quite compelling. The prologue (that also made for a stellar demo) kicks things off really well and Clive's recovery and revenge plot I found really engaging. Unfortunately, while I won't get into the details, it gets dropped fairly early on and while there are some good thematic throughlines about oppression, shattering the status quo, and even climate change analogies, the actual engagement of the plot mostly fails to hold up as it shifts into the big middle of the game and once again in its final act. Much of the plot hops around between big bads that you need to go after and while that can be a great structure, again, the villains aren't very compelling, which is a significant problem for that structure. The character relationship plots are sometimes good, though I feel like most just kind of fizzle out. There's also this weird tendency for characters to disappear randomly with hand-wavey explanations. This happens with Jill especially where for periods she'll just be "recovering" or something and is out of your party and not in cutscenes for a while in a way that somewhat comically feels like on a TV show when an actor was injured for a period of shooting and the writers had to make up a last minute excuse for why she's completely not around, which is all the more funny since that makes no sense in this context. But anyway, while the story's got a lot of flubs, when it's good, it can be quite good. There might be a lot about this game that is forgettable, but there's also a lot of great moments that will have you on the edge of your seat too.

Okay, yeah, that was a pretty long review (and it's still got one long paragraph to go)! Props if you made it this far and I hope it was interesting even if I mostly wrote it for myself to sift through my own thoughts. I think this is likely to be a controversial title that will have people talking and that at least I think is a good thing. Hell, as indicated ad nauseum above, I couldn't stop arguing with myself about its flaws and merits and admittedly, I'm realizing this review is probably not super helpful for those on the fence about trying this game (sorry!). I expect that many people will nod along with several of my points and totally disagree about others. While I certainly prefer unambiguously good games for obvious reasons, I do have a soft spot for games that can elicit such diverse reactions and this seems to be one of them. This is only my second written review of a Final Fantasy title but I have been with the series for a long long time. My first game was Mythic Quest on the SNES and I've played most every one of the non-MMO mainline titles since to completion as well as a slew of spin-offs, DLCS, and sequels. Most of them I jumped on immediately at release. While I wouldn't put it as my "favorite series" by any means today, there was a time it probably was and I definitely have a nostalgic tie to the series, despite its tendency for peaks and valleys. I personally did not like XV very much at all so I was invested in seeing what the next mainline game would be like and I'm left pretty on the fence. On the one hand, I like this game considerably better than XV, hands down. But on the other hand, I'm far from saying that we're on our way back to the heights of the series' golden age. Instead, I think I'm just going to try and be content accepting what this game is to me: a flawed but interesting experience that still manages to at least in some ways be rather outstanding. I can talk all day about what the game could've done better (I mean, obviously I can lol), but it definitely is a game that gave me some pretty solid emotional heights at times and that's a lot of what I want out of a game. As far as my rating, I'll just add the last unsurprising disclaimer that I really wasn't sure how many stars to give this. It definitely wasn't a 5 and it was much better than a 2. For its successes, I want to say it's better than most 3s I've reviewed, but the pain points are fairly significant for a 4-star game for me as well. I went ahead and rounded to 4 just given that while the flaws are pretty rough, the fact I feel this game sets a new bar with some of its elements is a pretty big deal and one I'd like to acknowledge.

Thanks for reading!

Heralded by some as a "return to form" for the franchise and outright dismissed by others as "not an RPG", Final Fantasy XVI really just marks another unexpected transformation as Final Fantasy continues its lifelong tradition of seeking to innovate gameplay between entries. It sticks out due both to its transition to full real time action combat reminiscent of the Devil May Cry series and its unusual inclusion of gore and nudity. I enjoyed the combat for what it was, felt the plot was solid, and that the cast was among the best the series has to offer. Despite this, the game suffers from some issues with a lack of choice in battle, shallow character progression, and some pretty rough story pacing here and there.

Let's start with the elephant in the room-- Combat. Final Fantasy XVI plays a bit like a DMC game, albeit one not featuring a scoring system or a significant focus on weaving combos together. In fact, Clive only has a single four hit sword combo in his repertoire outside of the abilities he gains via channeling eikons. While these abilities are flashy and fun to execute, they are also cooldown-gated, which means you'll spend a decent amount of time just mashing out the four hit basic combo over and over while sprinkling in the occasional fireball for extra dps. This leaves combat feeling dry and it also becomes a bit of a chore with the game's tankier enemies. Sometimes it'll feel like you're wailing away at a target for far too long and fatigue sets in.

But I did mention that the combat was flashy? Oh my god is it flashy. The eikon abilities feel powerful even if they don't always do a ton of damage. This becomes especially true around halfway through when Clive starts getting abilities which allow him to block, parry, and dash through enemies. These feel great to execute and look stunning, each punctuated with brilliant particle effects and cinematic camera manipulation. Even a battle against some lame soldiers can look cool as fuck as a result. Bosses take this spectacle to a whole other level with some of the crazy shit that goes on. If nothing else, the game's most visually impressive battles are a true sight to behold.

In between those battles I spent a lot of time engaging in the game's side content. There's a pretty hefty amount of quests and hunts which can be undertaken. For most of the game I completed them as they became available but by the end I had unlocked too many at once to deal with all of them. Some of the quests are rather forgettable but I also feel that many of them do a great job of expanding on the world of Valisthea and its people. Anyone with an interest in the story and its characters would be missing out were they to skip them all. Hunts are a lot of fun too. They feel much more satisfying than the ones in Final Fantasy XV and feature unique encounters which often pose a greater challenge than those in the main story.

One issue is that while side content feels meaningful to the game's worldbuilding it rarely offers substantial tangible rewards. This is in part due to a pretty shallow character progression system. Gaining levels does increase your stats, but not enough to make grinding worth it, whether you're under or over what's expected. Equipment is mostly just flat attack and defense numbers added onto your character sheet with little to offer in the way of playstyle customization. It still feels like an RPG to me, but its lack of depth to its systems makes it impossible to recommend to someone looking for a more traditional entry in the genre.

Final Fantasy XVI offers a much darker tale than its predecessors-- one brimming with blood and grim circumstances. I could sit here and nitpick over the change in tone but I think it was overall handled well. I appreciated the way the game often used blood to punctuate its heavier moments. There's a surprising amount of nudity in here too, though I'm not as ecstatic about its use. Clearly, some thought was put into it though, and these adult elements play into the game's more mature themes pretty well. I'd be down for a future foray into mature territory like this, but I think we're long overdue for a game with a lighter tone.

Decidedly less thought seems to have been put into the pacing of this story though. While the first half of the game was a decent slow burn, the second metronomes between high-stakes action sequences and a slog of fetch quest drivel. It really takes the piss out of the momentum of a game when you finish killing the equivalent of a demigod and then are promptly tasked with helping an ally find the bus pass they misplaced or are asked to clear out some mean goblins near town. I don't mind this kind of content much when it's optional and features a reward but it really has no place this late in the main story.

Despite its darker tone, the story of this game is one that feels Final Fantasy to the core. The summons of previous games (Ifrit, Phoenix, etc) take the spotlight here and so much of the story revolves around them that it would be difficult to imagine this releasing as anything but a Final Fantasy game. It's not my favorite story in the franchise, but I think it operates at a level that puts it in the upper half of my favorite FF plots easily.

This story wouldn't be nearly as great without its lovable cast of characters. Even though I predominately controlled Clive, I managed to become very attached to many of the faces that made up Cid's Hideaway. They're a fairly grounded bunch, for a fantasy game, but they all have their own little quirks and ties to each other that really nail the "found family" theme the game aims for. Cid, Jill, Charon, and Dion were some of my favorites. I'm actually excited to dig into some of the remaining sidequests eventually just so I can spend some more time with them. I'll probably do the DLCs too at some point.

And so, I close the book on Final Fantasy XVI feeling as though it may be the strongest single player entry in the main series in the better part of two decades. Some design choices are bound to ostracize certain fans of the franchise but this is a polished game that spares no expense with its presentation. I think it's absolutely worth checking out for anyone who's down for more of an Action RPG than the typical JRPG fare.

Let's start with the positives:

The combat in this game is great. It reminds me of a simplified version of Devil May Cry with an emphasis on special abilities, much like the runic attacks in God of War. The combat system shines when using pefect dodge to power up your sword attacks, and implementing special abilities contextually: such as to counter incoming projectiles or group enemies together. There's a satisfying rythm, and a good balance between reflex and strategy in combat.

The story is quite interesting and while the dialogue is often very stilted, the characters are mostly well written and voice-acted. Over time I grew fond of the main protagonist and many side-characters, and the main plot kept me hooked.

Now for the negatives (of which there is mainly one):

Gameplay besides combat in Final Fantasy 16 consists of walking between various NPC:s and pressing a button to trigger conversations. There is arguably some exploration too, in the sense that you can sometimes take a longer path between objectives to find additional loot, but other than that this is what you're going to spend the vast majority of your time doing.

In traditional RPG:s this would not necessarily be a problem, since conversations are usually an opportunity for the player to make decisions and embody (a.k.a. roleplay) the character. In linear, story-driven games, where the player has no input on the dialogue, conversations are usually layered over gameplay activites to counteract passivity. Final Fantasy 16 takes a "worst-of-both-worlds" approach, using static animations like in an RPG for many conversations, despite not requiring any input from the player.

To be fair, having a bad conversation system is not necessarily that horrible, but there is just so much of it. I think at least 60% of my time with the game was spent walking between NPC:s and listening passively to what each of them had to say. When the vast majority of my time outside cinematics is spent with the controller put down, we have a problem.

There is an infamous "Mid"-section of the game that embodies this issue, but the real gut-punch for me came later on: when the main character is presented with a riddle while trying to locate an object in the main hub-area of the game. My immediate thought was that I may get to use the knowledge I've gathered about the NPC:s and the area itself to work out the solution to the riddle. I was actually excited for something in the game other than combat, for once. Nevertheless, solving the riddle involved nothing more than following the waypoint to an NPC and triggering another scripted conversation. This is when I completely checked out and started skipping conversations entirely.

Conclusion:

In the end, the main story kept me just invested enough to finish the game, and the combat was consistently enjoyable. However, given that the majority of my time was spent on aspects I didn't enjoy, would I prefer to have played something else? Probably. Do I see myself revisiting this game? No.

EDIT: Uploaded a demonstration of late-game combat. Spoiler-free, except for weapons and abilities of course.

If there’s one thing Final Fantasy XVI will definitely be remembered for, it’s the awesome spectacle it achieves in its major boss battles. These sequences tend to come at some of the most interesting parts of the story, and go all out with cinematic flourishes between bursts of the game’s flashy combat. At times this brings to mind Asura’s Wrath, the God of War series, or even some rail shooter games, but also can have a cool identity of its own.

Yet between the gripping opening hours and some good lategame sections, for every exciting, big-budget high point, there are hours of low ones. Quest and dungeon designs, environments, framing and animation of dialogue scenes, and even characters themselves often just feel dull, bland, forgettable—however you want to put it, the game can feel like a major slog to push through. The story shows a lot of promise early on, Clive’s arc is pretty good at points, and even the boring parts can lead to some nice worldbuilding, but the pacing and the way the story develops left me with entire play sessions where I barely cared about what was going on at all.

Combat similarly wows at the start, and does feel good and have its moments to shine, especially when fighting bosses or other elite enemy types. I’ll also give it credit for making some pretty fun big-scale monster battles, something I don’t usually care for since they can feel too slow and stiff. But after maybe 10-15 hours, fighting basic enemies becomes tiresome—at least in that regard this ties back pretty well to my experience with the first Final Fantasy… It really needs some different weapon styles or something to stay fresh.

I like this game, but it’s still hard for me not to think of it as a disappointment. I was loving it early on, and there’s usually a good moment within reach, but it just got worse and worse on average to the point where even the better moments felt dulled in how much impact they could have on me. There was potential here for something really great that could set the direction for the next mainline Final Fantasy games, but instead I’m just left hoping that FFXVII is something different.

As a massive Final Fantasy fan, I'm not really sure what to think. This is the biggest deviation from the formula we've ever seen, and while I did enjoy the game overall, I don't necessarily want a Final Fantasy to be this.

Let's get the "not a fan of" out of the way first.

-World Map. Don't like the look of it, at all. Every area looks sandy for some reason? -The fanfare seemed really sparingly used and oftentimes not at all, even against big encounters. Why? -WAY too long. I don't think an action game should ever near 40 hours. The final 10 felt particularly plodding, with way too many boss encounters, especially against the final boss. When every boss fight feels epic (and they do), end of the world stuff, you'll have a hard time eclipsing that with subsequent encounters. -Music was fine, but after playing Octopath Traveler 2, the soundtrack pales in comparison, not even close. -Story feels really disjointed and strange, like they couldn't quite figure out how to get an 80 hour game into a 40 hour game. -I really wish the game had a more party atmosphere in fights, the side characters like your Uncle, Torgal (good boy!), Joshua, Gav and Cid are terrific, but not used enough in my opinion. -The final few hours are LOADED with typical JRPG weeby philoso-talk nonsense. Hate that.

Stuff I really liked

-Lots of great quality of life updates. The Active Time Lore is great, I just wish I didn't have to use it all the time. -Boss fights/Eikons, I mean this is a highlight beyond highlight. Fighting against Titan and Bahamut were jump out of your seat moment. Beyond incredible, the best type of hype/insane anime -Characters, particularly Cid and Clive.
-People talk like real people would, along the lines of Final Fantasy 15. Great stuff! -Controls are perfect -Combat is awesome. Mixing and matching Eikon abilities were terrific. Loved the Lightning Rod in combination with Phoenix and Shiva's abilities. You feel like a true monster zipping around the battlefield as the game goes on. Awesome. -Loved the main hub! The one song in the game I loved is here, nice chill guitar with a creative base.

Overall, I think it's a weird game, but a positive one. Cutting some bloat and a few design changes would have helped, I just don't think the Game of Thrones feel worked in terms of aesthetics or plot and you can tell they tried.

Going into Final Fantasy XVI, I was insanely excited. It was the first mainline entry to release since I’d become a fan of the franchise, the trailers and previews made the game look like something great and it was being made by some of the same people as Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps my favourite entry in the franchise so far. Now that I’ve reached the end of my first playthrough, I’m delighted to say that (for me at least, I’m aware that this game is quite divisive in some FF fan circles) Final Fantasy XVI absolutely lived up to the hype!

While Final Fantasy is a franchise that’s never been afraid of changing & reinventing itself, XVI is probably the most radical departure from prior entries since VII moved from Medieval Fantasy to Science Fantasy & 2D pixel art to 3D graphics. While XV was the mainline entry that completed the franchise’s transition from menu/turn-based combat to action-combat, XVI moves even further away from the franchise’s turn-based roots. Traditional RPG elements like the concept of party members, mini-games or any semblance of post-game beyond New Game + and harder difficulties (although to be fair VII Remake is guilty of that last one too) being downplayed, heavily streamlined or omitted entirely. This has sparked much debate and controversy in the Final Fantasy fandom as to what even makes a game a Final Fantasy game and whether XVI has strayed too far from genre norms to be even considered an RPG anymore (the latter debate also extending to RPG fan circles as a whole). I personally think it still feels like both an RPG & a Final Fantasy game, but I also won’t deny that, in stark contrast to VII Remake & XV, XVI puts a lot of emphasis on the Action part of Action-RPG (whereas XV & especially VII Remake put more emphasis on the RPG part).

But I think the tradeoffs CBUIII have made with XVI are worth it in exchange for the highs it’s combat & boss fights deliver that rival some of the most iconic boss fights in other action games like Asura’s Wrath, God of War or Devil May Cry. Plus I don’t think the story CBUIII wanted to tell & the world they’ve created would be particularly well suited to a combat system similar to VII Remake, let alone older entries. It certainly helps that the ever changing nature of Final Fantasy as a franchise means that it’s highly likely XVII will go in a different direction. It could be quite literally be anything from a turn-based RPG inspired by the likes of Persona & Trails of Cold Steel to a first-person shooter inspired by Call of Duty or Titanfall.

As for XVI’s combat, it really is a tight, fluid & stellar action-combat system to engage with. Knowing their inexperience with creating action-combat systems, CBUIII assembled a veritable dream team to help them on this front. Not content with just poaching one of the combat designers of Devil May Cry 4 & 5 and Dragon’s Dogma (Ryota Suzuki) from Capcom to be this game’s Combat Director and having Kenji Sudo, the designer of some of XIV’s most challenging Ultimate Trials & Savage Raids as one of the lead combat designers, CBUIII also enlisted the assistance of the Kingdom Hearts team over at CBUI & a team at Platinum Games led by those who’d worked with Square Enix previously on Nier Automata.

And, in my opinion, that assistance paid off and has resulted in the best action-combat system in the entire franchise (although TBF I haven’t played Type-0 yet). Even the encounters with more basic enemies didn’t ever truly get old for me. Not to mention the amazing boss fights that may have ruined me on other games’ boss fights because of the sheer scale, spectacle & epic feeling this game’s boss fights have. Although I do agree that the game (at least on first playthrough) is at least a little too easy. I only really died once in the 52 1/2 hours it took me to finish the main story & all the side-quests. Even the Hunts I did do, while posing some challenge, never posed enough difficulty to kill me. But nevertheless, that didn’t impact my enjoyment of XVI enough to offset what this game does well. I’m very much looking forward to my second playthrough on Final Fantasy mode & attempting to make XVI my first Platinum trophy.

Speaking of things you need to do for the Platinum, let’s talk about those side quests. These side quests are something that XVI has gotten a lot of flak for. While I won’t argue that the design & what you do in them is all that special (really it’s not that great and does inherit almost all of the shortcomings of previous entries like XIV & VII Remake’s side quests), where XVI’s side quests shine is in the stories they tell and how they further flesh out the lore & world of Valisthea. Most of the later side quests in particular were tearjerkers for me. You do have to play the earlier side quests that aren’t so great though, so take that how you will…

While we’re on the topic of story, let’s talk about the main story. I personally loved it, although I understand that the darker & less colourful tone CBUIII went for isn’t for everyone. The game is also very much Clive’s story rather than an ensemble like most other FF games aside from Lightning Returns and spin-offs like Crisis Core. But other than those two sticking points this is very much a Final Fantasy story & bears many of the franchise’s recurring tropes (including some that XV forwent). Not that this is a bad thing. Instead, XVI is able to deftly weave them in with its own ideas & themes about slavery, clashing ideals, empathy & living on your own terms in ways that can & likely will bring you to tears at times. Sure, there are some pacing issues at times (although nothing that wouldn’t be expected if you’ve played a lot of XIV), some things aren’t conveyed well & the demonization of slavery could have been a bit more subtle, but this is overall a very well-written & told story set in a fascinating & fleshed-out world that I certainly wouldn’t mind revisiting in a sequel, prequel, DLC or spin-off of some sort. The game does certainly leave enough open-ended that such things are feasible…

That brings us to voice acting, where XVI is pretty different from the last couple of single-player FF games. Unlike most other Final Fantasy games, XVI’s English dub uses a London-based voice cast rather than the typical California-based voice actors most games use. Another deviation from the norm is XVI’s prioritization of said dub to the point where the facial capture was done with the English cast & the Japanese script was rewritten to incorporate stuff from the English script & better fit the lip sync from the aforementioned facial capture. And it definitely paid off! The majority of the English cast give solid performances, but special mention has to go to Ben Starr as Clive. With how much this story focuses on Clive, if he (or any of the other actors voicing him in the dubs) gave a bad performance, the whole game falls apart. And for a newcomer to voice acting, he gives one hell of a performance. He definitely deserves to be in consideration for some Best Performance nominations come awards season.

As for the technical side of things, they are superb, with some caveats. The audio side of things is great. The surround sound is really immersive & I’d imagine that translates well to the PS5’s 3D Audio capabilities. The DualSense is decently well utilized, although Astro’s Playroom, Gran Turismo 7 and Forspoken are better showcases in my opinion. The graphics, as is to be expected of a mainline Final Fantasy game, are superb and, combined with the boss fights, make the game feel like one of the first games to truly utilize the PS5 hardware.

Conclusion

Final Fantasy XVI is an an excellent character action-RPG with unforgettable boss fights, a tight & fluid action-combat system & an amazing story that quickly proves itself to be more than just Game of Thrones-lite & brings it’s own distinct feel separate from anything that came before it in the Final Fantasy franchise while still feeling like a Final Fantasy game (especially if you got into the franchise with XIV like I did). A true testament to the flexibility & ever-changing nature of the Final Fantasy franchise. Shame about the lacking difficulty & early side quests though…

Ratings

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 9.5/10

Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 8.5/10

Business Practices score: 6/10 (points mainly detracted for the whole PS5 timed exclusive thing)

Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 9.5 out of 10

I realized I never got around to writing a review for this, and I just found my notes, so here they are, largely unedited:

Pros

• Combat is its strength. One of the few games where fighting regular enemies is really fun, especially when there are hoards of them.

• The story is grand, and it's cool to see the classic summons used in an interesting way.

• With a few exceptions, just generally enjoyed my time throughout the game, despite it being really long.

Cons

• Side quests are a weakness. Too many fetch quests, or quests where you just talk to people. Some side quests are actually interesting, but hard to tell which ones are which. Didn’t like the pacing, where after a main quest a bunch of side quests just magically open up. People asking you to do stuff you definitely don’t have time to do.

• Lots of filler content in general. They tried to pace it by giving you menial tasks after massive battles, but they get boring. Non-main quest dialogue cut scenes are boring, too many camera pans and awkward pauses. Got tired of the small talk.

• Not enough choice in the equipment. There was always just the obvious next best thing to buy or smith, and it was always easily available with the gold and materials I picked up along the way. Very few decisions or things to work towards.

• Not enough visual customization. Want to see the different equipment, pick my outfit.

• Discouraged from exploring; not much to do until a given area becomes relevant, and every area does. May as well wait until it becomes relevant to a quest or side quest.

Biggest Con

• There’s just so. Much. Dialogue. Hours and hours of just watching people chitchat. Maybe it just bothers me because I have so little time for gaming that I don’t want to spend it listening to people chitchat.

Nevertheless, the pros outweighed those nitpicky cons, and overall I really liked this game. Not including the the VII remake games, I rank it only below VI and VIII as my favourite in the series.