I mean Ok - but a Review is a Review. If someone loves a game and gives it 9/10 , that's their review. It's not 'biased', they just Love the game so long as they cover all the major aspects of it and why they love them (so, not one of those 'trendy' 1+ hour hate fest rambles, nor 2 minutes of just ''th!s is the B3sstest game!!1'' ) 10ish minutes or so is Ok.
I think you’ve nailed your criticism here and I agree with everything you say despite absolutely loving this game. Its like having a friend who’s faults you can see but is so endearing you’re willing to overlook them because you’re having so much fun in their company. I guess I’m lucky that I enjoy the combat , side quests and exploration even if there’s little reward for the latter beyond seeing the scenery.
the worst part about the side quests is the fact that they give you like 15 of them RIGHT before the LAST LEVEL OF THE GAME just as youre about to finish it just throws them all at you.
Not having RPG elements with depth has been one of my bigger gripes with modern games. I want numbers, tons of numbers and strategy, I want to try out different things and see if they work better, I want to crunch numbers in my head to figure out which item is better for me.
It baffles me how terrible the loot was in this game. There is hardly anything to find, like at all! They should have gotten rid of the shop weapons mostly and put them in chests across the world. I don't know who thought it was a good idea. That and the combat just being too easy are why this game doesn't deserve a 10. That being said the highs in this game are so incredibly high that it makes the lows forgivable because its clear where 90% of the budget went: Combat, Boss Set Pieces, Graphics, Music and Story. And every one of these are top notch (asside from the difficulty) Even with all its flaws this game is still quite good.
I actually really like those" mid-bosses" sort of enemies. They require more thoughtful use of the combat tools and when you do use them appropriately, it stills makes you look like a stylish god. And what bugs me with all this hate is that from the very first trailer, this game has been very sincere about what it was, a non-nonsense, laser focused Action RPG, with great spectacle and an emotional story, and people still say it was not what they expected. I got hyped for this game, and that's the game I got and loved. And then again, EVERY game has like one or two pillars that makes people like it less, If it doesn't click with them, but most of the hate for FFXVI comes from a stupid grudge.
My favorite were the mid bosses mechanically. The Eikons or major boss fights felt more like playable cutscenes. They're sort of script and railroad you to the win.
I think what made my view on the stagger bar (with mini-bosses especially) improve was when I learned that the stagger dmg multiplier increases based off of will damage, not straight health damage or the number of hits. Realizing that shifted my mind from "gotta hold on to all of my abilities until the stagger is broken" to "what moves should I use now and will then be ready by the time I want them in my stagger damage combo." I still think there's an issue of abilities early to mid-game not being suited to that mentality, as it wasn't until the last 3 sets of eikon abilities came in that I felt combo potential/good utility abilities came into effect. I feel those ones helped make all the other sets more usable, and that before that point, there was no real reason to master an ability and mix & match as there wasn't much reason to. Some eikonic feats also felt inorganic to use in combat and don't match the pace the game seems to want you to play at in combat. Such as ramuh taking so long to lock on. I feel that if more feats had the utility of shiva's or the transformative nature of odin's, it could've added that mix of playstyles that I feel is a little lacking from not having different main weapon move sets. That could allow for still maintaining the one-handed sword style of the main combos, but use the feats to change up the basic combo while adding some flare/variance.
As an action game its solid, but I do wish they incorporate more of elements into it. Fire give burn, earth give petrify, thunder give shock. I think the game would benefit greatly with status effect, I mean that is why shiva ability is used by a lot of people since it can freeze enemy. The presentation, character, music, story, lore, and everything else however, is such a delight. I can't remember the last time i've been enganged by a narrative game not even GoW:R. This game made me trust in FF again after the travesty that is XV. If they keep adding elements that add complexity to the gameplay its going to be a great time being an FF fan
Lots of good points here. I enjoy FFXVI's combat overall, but I really think the leveling and development system needed... more. And the sidequests really lack variety in terms of gameplay, as well as interesting rewards, despite doing a nice job with world building. I'm generally in agreement though that if you're not a fan of the story, characters, or world, FFXVI doesn't have a whole lot to offer aside from style and spectacle (although a lot of the fights, especially the bosses, are pretty fun and satisfying, for sure). It all just depends on the person, at the end of the day. Although I don't think it's going to end up solidifying itself as one of my favorites, I do like FFXVI quite a bit. It certainly succeeds with its world-building and character writing in a way that FFXV absolutely did not, so I will grant it that.
@@Ianbits Yeah, the four main guys were pretty much FFXV's saving grace. I enjoyed messing around in the world with them, but it wasn't like any of the side content was particularly exciting. And the storytelling was just an absolute mess.
@@Ianbits And just as an added note, when I mentioned character writing for FFXV in the previous post, I was mainly talking about how no one but Noctis gets fleshed out in the main story and the game shafts all the side characters like Regis, Luna, Ravis, etc. But I do agree that the cast is generally likable and the guys are super fun.
@@supremeoverlorde2109no one gets fleshed out. The 4 bros are archytypes with no real events or plot lines. Even their quips constantly break the 4th wall and try to be meta, so they're not grounded in the world they inhabit.
@@HeelPower200 I'm not sure I understand what you mean by their quips breaking the 4th wall. Sometimes they were a little cheesy, but I personally found a lot of the banter fun overall and the bond between the four guys was one of the few things that kept me going back to the game. Unfortunately though, in terms of actual character development, they're all victims of the writing. The DLCs help flesh them out a bit more, but it would have been nice to see that in the main game instead of optional content. Despite that the boys do fall into kind of archetypal roles, FFXV puts twists on those roles. For instance, Prompto's happy-go-lucky attitude being a mask to conceal his insecurity or Noctis seeming like a brooding asshole but actually just being reserved and not always knowing how to best express his feelings. So they're not all one-note, but I think the choppy writing of the narrative really holds them back and prevents them from reaching their full potential.
Yup, same. On the other hand, the times everything it DOES do right clicks put you in a headspace unmatched by any other game I've played. As I've described it to my friends: It's a fairly bad game, but it is an amazing spectacle to experience.
Total reverse for me. I _Love_ the new slick combat, makes all the older games feel like chess on a Siberian mountain. The game is just edgy, and cool with a lot of Quests, action and flash. Of course, it's not 'Perfect' - but if that's not a good game, then those people should just stay sat in their basements playing Ori.
The game is a solid in beetwen 9 and 10/10 for me, the biggest flaws for me are: dry conversations in the side quests that are mandatory, lost potential with Barnabas, him being “stripped of his will” made him bland compared to the other villains, and the ending, i didnt get that feeling that you were talking about, but i did get the feeling of wanting to see what happens next throughout the game and i did see the game absolutely hook me in and never let go, i feel the ending was empty and i strongly hope that they have a dlc in mind. Also im on my ff mode run right now and some of these quests got a bit annoying playing them for a 2nd time within 3 weeks. Everything else i absolutely love about this game
The combat system is an improvement from FFXV. I do believe that if Final Fantasy is going to go the action combat route in the future I do believe the system here is simple enough to build upon and complicate in later installments. To it's credit, the combat is fun. I think the real reason people appreciate this game even if it isn't their main type of game, is that everything is well considered. The pacing, the side quests, the story, and even the combat system seem intentionally sparse as to not add unnecessary things. I think they learned a very important lesson with FFXV in which they hurt the game by spreading main story elements outside the core game, creating an unnecessary open world for exploration which is just a auxiliary to the main story. In contrast XVI ditches exploration and min-maxing entirely in favor of providing lore and context has a reward for exploration and side questing. Clive goes on hunts, not for extra cash but because the people need help. Clive goes on several side quests because of the Cursebreakers are short staffed, an ally needs help, or he genuine is just a good dude helping out a friend. As much as I like the XV bros, there was no reason for a Prince to side quest in that game.
Your criticisms are on point. If the player is not keen on getting all the story threads, does not love the characters, or switching up their playstyle, the game will be quite boring. This is also true for every Final Fantasy up to date. No one is in love with Final Fantasy for a single component. Its a mix of several components of that game. That's why the best Final Fantasy is highly subjective. Maybe add some nostalgia on top of it too. The best Final Fantasy just comes down to which title ticks your boxes the most. For me, Its FFIX. I finished FFXVI twice now, both 100%, and I might play the 3rd playthrough with JP dub for different dialogues. I love the lore, characters, and combat. While it lacks exploration and deeper gearing system, it does make up for it in sheer spectacles and very robust ability loadout customization. An important note : I find the pacing to be pretty good if you take a break after every big moment in the story. This might be because the game peaks really really high so players feel the drop a lot more than usual. With the exception of the last set of side quests though, which are too many, and some are not that important to be there.
I am 72% into the story and I am trying to savour it by doing all the side quests as they come up because I love it so much and don't want to finish it too quick - while also really wanting to know what happens next (it is a dilemma that I wrestle with in the game and I think it's a strange weakness of the game because I'm not sure how you'd get around it). I'm really into world-building and fantasy politics, and I like games I don't need to stress about, so I quite like not worry about stats other than basic weapon 'number in menu go up' upgrades. However, I also found the gearing *too* easy; crafting was an afterthought and it made getting rewards feel pointless. Half the items unlocked at the blacksmith might as well not have been there; I mean, why give me 3 new swords when I would only ever make the most powerful because there are only 2 stats and they (mostly) always go up with each weapon? It almost seemed arbitrary. You might as well had the same sword and just level it up. I would have liked more RP elements like in God of War, with more outfit changes and collectibles. Even being able to rearrange or customise Clive's room or outfit would have been a bit fun. However, this was because I came from playing Hogwarts Legacy, which had a really dull story but almost too much customisability and collectibles. It was more about spending time in the world. This was the other extreme; all fantastic story, lots of reading and learning about the world but not really getting to do much *in* it outside the story. I would have liked at least one 'fun' mechanic. Even if it was just triple triad or something. I absolutely agree with your negative points though. It's just that, for me as an older, not hardcore gamer, they are not a huge issue. I loved the combat and the way you can tailor it according to your play style. I'm not a good gamer, so not having to stress about fights allowed me to actually enjoy them in a way I hadn't before. Fights actually make me feel a bit of a thrill, which I have never had in a game before and thus I enjoyed having side quest 'downtime' between major story points to sort of recover. I tend to hate turn-based combat outside of pokemon, which has put me off other FF titles before and I've only played FF14 from the rest of the franchise, though through that game I learnt about all the others in the series because I have been rather invested in it since 2015. Partly why I played this was because it was by the same team and wouldn't be turn-based. Because of this game, I will probably try FF12 after this (if i can get past turn-based) and fancy trying DMC5 for the combat and music (i seen most of it played, but now I'm curious and want to play it myself). While FF16 makes a great game for a lot of people i know, it will also be a boring awful game for a bunch of other people I know for all the reasons you outline. It's all very subjective and depends entirely on what you want out of a game and what you personally enjoy. I love it, it is absolutely my kind of game. But every gamer is different and every game has a different selling point and reason for playing it, and if you don't know what you're in for for this one, you won't enjoy it. FF16 is a game where you play through a story and learn about the world with the combat being a means to an end. It is story-heavy high fantasy political story with heavy world-building and DMC-style combat but not much else. If you want lots of customisability, collectibles, puzzles, mini games, and aren't a story person (or dislike the afore mentioned high fantasy political stories), then this isn't for you. And that is OK.
Spamming square and qte, that’s literally the whole damn boring slog of the game. No exploration, extremely pointless boring side quests, no customization no need for equipment strategy, it’s basically dmc in an FF skin
Yep… I was not expecting deep rpg, and I don’t care about final fantasy discourse. All I was expecting is just a good looking action game, as many reviewers praised the combat and boss battles…
Yeah Square Enix is pretty gung ho about enforcing copyright on their music and I was listening to it in prep for Reverie anyway! I've used Trails and Tokyo Xanadu music for SE games before. Also Reverie is awesome. It's going to make me replay the Cold Steel series for like the 4th time.
This game was an absolute technical mess, but it had so much heart and vision. I think the designers, writers and artist involved were truly inspired, but that perhaps their taste and vision we're greater than the rest of the team's actual technical ability to pull off the 10/10 version of this vision. (I can't imagine COVID did them any favors either) Regardless, I'm grateful it exist. The story themes, music and characters and the actors who portrayed them were 10/10 for me. all it would of needed to be substantially better is for the game to play more like the witcher or Dark souls or shoot, even rip off the old bioware games.
People are allowed to not like what they don't like, but there is also a very big difference between constructive criticism vs whining about how this game isn't the same as . A valid criticism of this game would be it has some performance issues. A non valid complaint is "Wah wah this game sucks because its not turn based". People need to learn the difference.
I agree with this even as someone who sort of wishes final fantasy was still turn based. I'm hoping the mainstream success of stuff like Persona and Dragon Quest shows them it's worth exploring again.
@@Ianbitsproblem is the ceiling of success for turn based is pales in comparison to the ceiling for action. Persona sold 9 mil in five years? Elden ring doubled it and then some in one. Even if person did good. A turn based game will likely yield good results. An action game that really impacts the market has the potential for great results. What did doctor evil say? Why make billions when you could make… millions?
@@Ianbits The vast bulk of Dragon Quest 11's sales were in Japan as it's sort of a consumer cult IP there for lack of a better word. It didn't make that large of a splash over here in the west sadly and I'm not sure who else remembers this, but "traditional to a fault" was the common criticism levied against it by the gaming media when it arrived over here for the first time. Yuji Horii (the creator of DQ and Chrono Trigger and one of the godfathers of RPGs) is now changing the battle system in DQ12. Persona 5 has sold a combined ~7.5 million across all versions and re-releases, has been out for practically 7 years and has spanned 3 console generations; it's also had numerous supporting spin-offs and media. I wouldn't exactly call it mainstream and the battle system is probably only half of the reason for the series popularity (if even that much). If that weren't the case I would feel that games like SMT5 would have sold more than they did. I love turn-based games and ironically I think modern turn-based battle systems are the best that they have ever been (leaps and bounds above the "golden age" of the PS1 era). Most recently, I think Octopath Traveler 2 has one of the greatest turn-based battle systems ever made.
I appreciate how you laid out everything I liked about this game and how those things can be a turn-off to other players. If you’re familiar with Quantic Foundry’s gamer motivation archetypes, this game is perfectly suited to the Slayer and Bard archetypes due to its accessible-yet-spectacular combat and its hyper focus on story and worldbuilding. I knew I’d like it because I’m a 14 player
It's better than most jrpgs that have yet to move beyond storytelling for kindergarteners, but "masterpiece" is possibly one of the most overused words in gaming in the last few years.
Thats just Yoshi P's style in general, there is a lot of people who are going to like it and he is aware that people will not like it. He doesn't try to cater to everyone and just keeps his focuses on what he is trying to write. Its the same thing with 14, a lot loved it and some didn't like it. The only thing i found disappointing is the lack of a PC release (which im sure is on the way, is the fate of high value PS exclusives) but unlike Tabata, Yoshi P knows how to handle PC releases and im willing to wait if the game comes out half that good.
Makes it really hard to decide, if you want to play it, if you don't know if the story/worldbuilding will click with you and the games mechanics are too simple for final fantasy old-schoolers or veterans to carry. Are there other games that could help with the decision, for example "if you liked the story in ....., you probably will like this game"?
I would go with if you like the God of War: Ragnarok style of story-heavy on-rails game, and you like high fantasy with heavy politics in a European settings (so like GoT), you will most likely like this game.
You really have to like medieval fantasy for this one. It’s not one of those cases where the setting is a style wrapper around a generic story. It is extremely committed to the grandiose speech patterns, lacy outfits, and downtrodden peasants. I find the comparison to X kind of strange tbh. They are both story driven and linear, and I suppose they both involve collecting summons, but in terms of tone, theme, setting, and gameplay there’s not much else they have in common.
I love the game but I know that it could have been so much more. It didn't have the whimsical sort of adventure feeling that the Golden era games created where I looked forward to visiting new places and where the music stuck with me forever. It bothers me that we never got to visit any of the major cities except while they were under siege so we basically just saw a hallway. They did the same thing with XV. I liked the locations in XII a lot more. Cities like Rabanastre felt vibrant and it felt like people were living lives outside of my experience in the game. I just didn't really get wowed by places like Lostwing, Dalamil, or Northreach. I wanted Oriflamme, Twinside, Ran'd'lah, and Stonhyrr. It would also have been nice to have more development in magic and more customization with stats and builds and crafting.
Here is why I had no issues with this game. The very long demo allowed any player to see EXACTLY what you were going to get. To fans of action RPG with linear story and combat it was great, to fans of turn based combat with massive exploration focus and systems it would not be as appealing.
No. The Demo was very missleading. It was very action an story focused. Every cutscene and dialogue was pre-directed (I was shocked when I arrived at he hideout for the first time and saw PS2 era level of quality in character animations during the dialogue with the NPC's, the demo never shows that). There weren't any side quests so you couldn't know how bland and tedious they would be. It was also very linear so you wouldn't see any of the semi open areas with absolutely nothing to do in them. This game is basically structured like this: 1-2 hours of pure epicness followed by 5-6 hours of sheer tedium, followed by another 1-2 hours of epicness, followed by 5-6 hours of tedium and so on... And the Demo only shows the fisrt 2 hours of the game that falls into the epicness category. tldr: the Demo was a scam.
You could say the demo was the prologue, I thought the systems were simple because it was the very start of the game but little did I know it didn't expand throughout the whole experience, it never got more complicated than mashing the attack button with whatever since there are no elemental weaknesses of any kind, you hit a fire enemy with fire attack and it damages him?!? Why even bother with elemental attacks then? Magic is just visual flare, nothing matters in terms of gameplay.
You could say the demo was the prologue, I thought the systems were simple because it was the very start of the game but little did I know it didn't expand throughout the whole experience, it never got more complicated than mashing the attack button with whatever since there are no elemental weaknesses of any kind, you hit a fire enemy with fire attack and it damages him?!? Why even bother with elemental attacks then? Magic is just visual flare, nothing matters in terms of gameplay.
The only thing that I felt that was "wrong" with the game was the crafting system. Would've been nice to craft potions and different types of armor complementing different eikon powers. Other than that the game is fucking awesome. Beat it and doing a ng+
Agreed. With how extremely linear the crafting and leveling systems were (with the sole exceptions of optional quests with powerful gear recipes) I honestly question whether or not the game would have been better off with simply ditching both, having the enemies get harder in difficulty purely (or at least largely) through more/tougher mechanics, and maybe expanding the number of accessory slots, as those at least affected my gameplay in more tangible ways other than just "make number go up". The ability points were fine, however.
Finished the game yesterday, and as someone who loves this game very much, I agree with you wholeheartedly. This video is the best critique of the game, IMO.
I really agree with what you're saying. Like I don't think there's much to hugo kupka as a character, he's a bit of a baby man but they set your grudge match with him up so well across both long term and short term story arcs that you can't help but get engaged.
I’ve seen reviews that either praising it or hating it. You sir gave a great personal view and also point out what people may hate. I do want to try this game out, but maybe at a lower price than $70.
Game is much better in FF mode and the arcade also has an even harder difficulty. It is a game that begs to be replayed and truly earns it. I kinda hated it on my first, but not anymore. I guess the devs wanted me to focus on the story first and then on skill expression later. I am not sure if there was better way to do this (having FF mode from the beginning would’ve been much appreciated), but somehow this works
FF16 does a lot of things wrong, it's a 7/10 game with 10/10 moments. However, the things it does right are the most important things. Gameplay, Combat, Graphics, Story, Music.
Gameplay not so much. Zoning in on the next green marker , isn't remotely fun but it's what you'll be doing most of the time outside of the excellent combat.
Wow, I am impressed how you totally fail to phrase your subjective point of view appropriately. As if you could measure quality and make it objective 🤡
@@FelixS. wow it’s impressive how you fail to parse a statement made by an internet stranger as their personal opinion rather than the absolute truth. I forgot people nowadays even need disclaimers for not drinking bleach, guess you can count yourself in.
It's been a year and I still think about this game and even listen to the music. There were so many missed opportunities from a mechanic stand point and I remember being slightly disappointed in that aspect.. but I think this game has a lot of soul from a character and story perspective
I m 22h in and all the characters you should root for die. Yet they are so insignificant that i dont feel anything when they die. Part of this is prolly because you never play them yourself. Even if the fight with out it is just their attacks you see as the camera is to close on clive, so you never get the visual that you are fighting as a team.
This is the greatest Final Fantasy story ever told in my honest opinion. My one and ONLY complaint about this game is the sheer lack of side content. An optional dungeon, or a superboss. Even more hunts would have been amazing
The most important question is, but do you kill god who in japanese media for some reason is always a foreign invader who is a metaphor for capitalism?
As someone who genuinely dislikes this game, this review is great. everyone is a different kind of gamer. for me, im not too impressed by spectacle or interesting ideas. for me, irs all about execution. when i play a game and see how every single thing wss made with attention and detail, how everything has a purpose, how everything fits together. games like fhat truly turn me on. dark souls, bloodborne, 13 sentinels aegis rim, dragon quest - when i can feel that everything comes together coherentyl, THAT'S when i grt the feeling, wow, this is it, this is amazing. thats why, ffxvi, with its various pointless mechanics and overly powerul MC with too many abilities i didnt even need to win and a story with wayyyy too many cutscenes and at times terrible pacing just didnt do it for me. but i can see why other types of gamers would love it
I get what you mean but, the story this time is much more detailed that any FF. The active time lore and tomes gives many hidden details which connect important pieces The gameplay is straighforward I agree, they could've made the elements giving status effect tbh
The MC isn't overly powerful, he gets his *ss handed to him by barnabas, twice, even after having multiple eikons. was getting his *ss beat by bahamut until his brother joined in, basically he needed help all the time. i would hardly call him over powered. as for his abilities, whether you need them or not is irrelevent. you're meant to have all the eikons because it serves a story purpose. i can't for the life of me see why people hate cutscenes so much (i see this comment so many times its ridiculous). you have no problem watching a movie or tv show but a cutscene is too much. just because its a game doesn't mean you have to constantly be pressing buttons or controlling it. don't buy a story driven game if you hate story telling, clearly you guys don't have the attention span for it.
@@justarandompepe8961 cutscenes are fine it's the pacing and balance. see Yakuza. tons of cutscenes but they're well paced and you have tons to do in between the cutscenes that's actually fun..in this game, you have information over information to the point it gets annoying because there's so little fun to break it up
@@TruePeaceSeeker the world is very detailed and fleshed out, but that doesn't amount to much when the plot ignores all of it for the generic "kill a god" JRPG story. all the cultures and politics is completely irrelevant for the last 40% of the game
Loved this game but I would describe it was admiring a painting. You really could only "look" at it. The world didn't feel lived in cause it never let me see the lived in parts of the world. Whenever there was a city. You were only there in a cutscene or a "dungeon" level where the city is under attack. When you tried going to a city, its gated off. So like a painting, I saw this beautiful city landscape but no touchy.
The problem with the combat being more about expression than it is efficiency is nothing in this game really communicates that to you. No combo meter, no style meter, sure you got those things that appear on the side telling you what you are doing, but they amount to nothing and in no way tells the player "Hey, play stylishly", and it doesn't really reward you for playing that way, so why bother? There's also this other factor I don't think people have considered yet; in DMC and Bayonetta, not only is the potential for stylish and expressive combat higher than in XVI, but the characters you play as in DMC and Bayonetta are stylish and expressive characters in and of themselves. Clive Rosfield, the protagonist of FFXVI, is not a stylish or expressive character, he's less akin to Dante or even Vergil and more akin to characters like Alex Mercer and Jack Garland; Characters who are serious and don't mess around. A game's combat system is often a reflection of the character you are playing as, so for Clive, a character who is on a quest for vengeance, his combat should be more about brutality and/or efficiency rather than style and expression. I mean, can you imagine that scene in DMC4 with Dante and Agnus doing a play, but with Clive in Dante's place? It doesn't fit him. In fact, XV's combat has more room for stylish and expressive play than XVI does, especially since not only do you have more weapon types with directional action inputs like in DMC, a combo counter that rewards you with higher damage output, but Noctis and Co. do tend to be stylish and expressive themselves during combat, especially during link-strikes and backstabs, since they pull off crazy and over the top moves during those, like seeing Noctis and Ignis to do a quadruple back flip to dunk on a crocodile, seeing Noctis jump off Gladio's sword while he's swinging it and doing a Dragoon dive attack, or seeing Noctis and Prompto exchange weapons while attacking an enemy. There is even one where Noctis does literal Jojo pose after a link-attack with Ignis, but I could be misremembering.
Awesome review, very honest and authentic. This game has the entire community divided. I for one haven't played it yet, but can't get enough of the soundtrack, it's extremely dark compared to earlier games.
I myself like games that have mountains of problems and design flaws in it... Most notable titles are: Astral Chain - (With it's mediocre story, a bit of overly complicated controls and it's weird pacing at times like that weird stealth section) Dragon's Dogma - (Clumsy open-world design, empty open-world, borig side quest, clumsy pacing in the story, how stats works and more...) There are more games I can list here but what keeps me from playing this kind of games is that one part of those games thats MASTERFULLY crafted... Astral Chain has a really good combat system (if you can manage to gitgud from it's complexity) and no other game offer the similar experience.. Dragon's Dogma with it's combat and Power Fantasy as well..
Fan of the series, but this is one too linear and battles are basically hit with useless attacks until you can do your special attacks, rinse and repeat, just smashing the buttons on the controller, I'll try to get into it again but after 20 hours into it, I was bored the whole time.
Two ways to see this game that explains everything: 1 - This is a great movie that you get to play. 2 - If you’ve ever played FF14, the game design makes sense due to understanding who made it
I grew up with ff1 on nes. Ive played them all and have just replayed all the pixel remasters. Seriously until ff 13 all you did was jam on the fight command until maybe a boss fight. Buffs and debuffs were usless and spells were just ways to end fights faster. Ive enjoyed ff16 combat and i dont see it any more shallow than jamming on the fight command
At first I wasnt sure if I am going to like this game. I love rpg and action rpg is my game of choice. So it wasnt the turn base that I was looking for. The issue is that not many customization and variety in terms of making the main character yours. Doesnt have to be a created character but having choices like clothing and gear appearance and having exploration loot that worth a damn is what makes an rpg great. This game doesnt have any of those but for some reason I reallu enjoyed it. I like it so much I was willing to do new game plus Final Fantasy mode just to get the most powerful weapon you can get which is the Ultima and after you get that weapon you pretty much have nothing go do. But I still look forward to it. I think what made this game so good is because of the writing and story. Many will say the combat is the reason this game is good. To me its how you level up in this game. Unlike most final fantasy rpg, you dont have to spend hours grinding just to level up to the max. All you need to do is do all the sidequest and hunts and eventually you will reach the max level at the end of the game. A great game but hopefully the next FF game you get more customization
For the first few hours I didn’t enjoy the game but as the plot goes on I started to care and enjoy the game very much, roll on dlc! (Even the side quests start to pick up a bit)
While the game got great reviews, some of the fan reception of this game is pure lunacy. And no, the game doesn't have a mountain of problems. It really doesn't have many problems all. Most of those so called problems are divisive design choices at worst. The problem is that for JRPG fans, Final Fantasy games have to move heaven and earth while many other JRPGs are allowed to get credit for doing the bare minimum.
I love this review. It's one of the more objective, unbiased one out there and it really help put things on clearer perspective. A lot of the reviews are either too positive to combat the hate or just throwing strong words around the counter-balance the positive and they really overwhelm me. This one helps me clear my head on this game a lot. I think you hit the nail on the head on many topics. I don't want to like this game since it departed from many gameplay elements that I enjoy and came to expect from the series yet I can't deny that a lot of people really find enjoyment with this system. It has great moments but also a lot of underwhelming aspect. This combat style is not for me and the story lacks a lot of the charm. The characters are better than most FF but the more realistic mood and uninspiring vibe this game has kinda make me lose my interest on its story. And thus there's nothing much to fall back on to. I do admit that when combat gets good it can suck you in. I've been thinking of a good way to fix this game to satisfy my liking more without changing too much of its identity and one of that would be to have a more meaningful equipment system more akin to FF13. While the action gameplay of this game really lean onto its player's skill, interesting boost effect from equipment can remedy the lackluster equipment and crafting system and put more edge into each eikon. I'd say make the weapon's stats not as linear but more unique with much less quantity and give the actual stat progression to the upgrade system, kinda like KH3. Now the materials you get for upgrade become more meaningful and a lot of exploration and side quest reward will feel more rewarding. Now, one way to make each weapon more unique could be to tie them in to each eikon's gameplay style. Some weapon might add more stagger time, or some might give damage bonus for quick stagger pandering to more Garuda style. Some might give additional condition to lessen cooldown for a more skill-slinger style. The great thing about this game is that stats from weapon doesn't help much in a long run, so trying out and building up new weaoon for new playstyle won't be as much of a pain. It add constant sense of good progression to the gameplay that I imagine could compliment well with diversifying your gameplay. The downside might be that eikon abilities might not feel like it combo as seamless as it is, and it could be bothersome for a more action-oriented player to readjust equipments, but the up in rpg element for this title is something I'd trade for.
There's a feeling I get every so often with Ianbits videos. That feeling when I watch his video and know it will stick with me. The pit in my stomach as I watch the end screen shown. The feeling that I enjoyed my time with the video so much that I will genuinely miss watching it, unless I hit the replay button at least 10 times each time the video ends. So yeah I like Ian's videos
This video deserves credit for justifying the sensational title. I usually reject middle-of-the-road or fence sitting approaches to contested issues, but I don't think this reviewer is doing that. I probably feel similar feelings as he did about Final Fantasy XVI. FF16 is a rare game that clearly has greatness in it, but it's too unbalanced to wholeheartedly embrace for a lot of people, including me. I appreciate the depth of the story & setting (though I have _heavy_ criticisms of them), but it's incredible that the game has such stripped down gameplay. A story this long and epic probably should have more gameplay systems and mechanics to fill out the interactive side of the experience. There are ways to make gameplay feel epic, too, but FF16 falls well short. Their decision to essentially make a 80-hour action/adventure game was a mistake, in my opinion.
I love this review. by far the best review I've seen of the game. I feel exactly the same way about it -- I recognize that on paper it has so many flaws that it shouldn't be good, but god damn if I don't fucking adore this game. I've been on my spring break this past week and I spent three days barreling through the game a second time so I could access the dlc. second time around was honestly even better
I played all mainline FF games. And know much about this series. But this is easy one of the best games I have ever played. Beside it, one of my favorite game stories is Xenogears and Xenosaga which have a very deep and complex story. But this game won me with the dramatic thrilling story, voice acting, immersive cinematics and unbelievable good soundtracks, one after another. The battle system was very cool even though I like more to drink coffee and make strategies about next move or summon to call. But again for this world and story this battle system was actually okay.. What the heck was driving them, when I thought they are out of ideas. Now I see, they have no limits. And it was surely not the final!.. fantasy... After first playthrough I had even more thirst to play it again which is for me not often the cause I get easily bored.. I am so thankful to Square Enix for this great masterpiece. I don't know what to say. All games has their up and downs, but this game story in combination with the cool dynamic soundtracks is madness, and that is all I need
There are indeed only two things this game tried hard to nail, though I wouldn’t say it’s “Story and Combat”, I think it’s “Presentation and Combat”. I appreciate your balanced take on the game. Most people are one or the other, and some just acknowledge the other side and then spend the bulk of the review saying “but fuck the other side, their wrong.”
my own opinion is: i haven't played the game, no console here, but i started watching playthroughs... and i quickly dropped off videos containing gameplay and went to only cinematics and cutscenes because i was interested in the story only, gameplay feels tedious, i would totally try it out but for like 1 hour and that's it, feels grindy to watch
Great video. I totally Agree with the larger enemies being boring Stagger + Spam ability fights. I loved the story but I felt empty after I finished. I feel like if you’re going to put the player through so many emotional highs and lows you can at least give them a definitive ending.
If you like difficult games you won’t like this if you like cutscenes and lots of talking and actually paying attention to the story you will like this im a mix of the two and I loved the game it’s a nice change in pace to play a game where I don’t have to try too hard I enjoyed it the story is awesome and the boss fights are WOW I’m glad I played it however it’s not perfect it’s still my game of the year unless Spiderman can impress me
@@SemtexZero they should just make it so you can play it on that hard mode without beating the game first and change it if you can't get past a certain parts after a certain amount of tries
Agreed. I played TOTK before this game. It was such a breath of fresh air not to have to be the one to make the decisions and just follow the path laid out for me. I'm still doing the side quests and I'm enjoying the lore that comes with it. Never really played a FF game before (other than borrowing FF15 for a few days). Oh and those boss fights have been amazing. Each one kept getting better.
@@everythingexplicit5788 Nah, FF mode on first playthrough would be horrendous. You'd be using just Pheonix and Garuda against super hp bloated mobs for like 10 hours.
I just don’t understand why people complain about combat being easy. If you don’t use those special accessories, it’s a little more difficult than Classic FFs. FF games were always easy games. You could even overlevel at the beginning and everything until the end would be a breeze
I loved this game. I have not been so hooked to a FF game since FFX. The story, the combat, the world building, the soundtrack (One of the best EVER), the characters, the romance, all of this is a 9.5 or 10/10. However, I was really disappointed with the ending. Many questions left unanswered, I just hope they are planning a sort of DLC / Sequel to explore a little more what happened after the final battle. The world and the characters were so well written that you get attached to them, so this is the type of game to have a happy ending lol.
in some of the older FF titles I remember a trend to have some kind of nonessential side objectives where something cool happens when you go nuts and 100% them. These were usually really long tasks that took tons of time and patience, like the weird advertising quests you got in X-2. If doing side quests in FF16 got tedious even for you toward the end such that you started skipping them even though you enjoyed the lore, was there ever any indication that you were forfeiting your right to some kind of secret better ending or unlockable story by doing so? That's one kind of thing someone who is on the fence might appreciate knowing about before giving the game a shot. I haven't really seen anyone talk about it yet, so maybe it doesn't exist? To be clear, I don't mean stuff like knowing where to find hidden characters or summons. I mean those weird tasks you sometimes get that feel like padding where you're required to talk to literally everyone in town, visit every map location, challenge everyone in the kingdom to triple triad, accept and complete every single bounty, or what have you.
there's only one ending, however a few quests near the end add a bit of context to the ending. for the most part the side quests are just totally separate and any that are important (unlock things) are marked differently
It gave you that feeling becuase it was cool as all hell. From start to finish it's all cool. It's an easy platinum with the right methods and also it's just a fantastic game and we'll worth playing. If I was younger I would say it's a solid 9/10 but me now being more critical of AAA releases I have to say it's a solid 8/10 all day. A fantastic action RPG worth anyone's time and patience if only they show it the patience for the payoffs to finally bloom in the end. It all ties together and all fits in one cohesive story and it's finally complete not at all like FF15 that took 10 years to finally fix and make sense. And I still can't be arsed to play that one. This one is so much better. Just buy it people!
I agree with you mostly, but I find it really interesting that you hated the enemies with stamina bar. I found them a delight to fight for the most part, and they are a great way to practice your rotations/optimize your build. By mid-endgame it came down to finding a good balance between stamina and normal damage and bringing them down efficiently. As for the builds, I disagree with you, the fact that you can slot eikon abilities to other eikons opens up a huge build variety that supports different playstyles. And the free respec just reinforces experimenting with different ability combos.
Would be great, if you can upgrade abilities once, and then junction them to the other icons, instead of spending additional AP to do just that. That's why I just upgraded all my abilities, and mastered very few.
@@raidou_yagami does it really matter? You can respec for free, just shuffle around the points and you can junction whatever you want to wherever you want.
@@raidou_yagami well, ok? I have no idea why you'd want to max out absolutely everything when the only thing mastery does is the option to junction to other eikons. If you want it for the achievement, that's also worthless without replaying the game in Final Fantasy mode. But i guess it's one more thing people can complain about.
The story, characters, world lore, music, cinematics, Eikon Battles and Boss fights definitely carry the game a long ways. I loved the game but yeah it was rather empty with simple side quests. But, enjoying the world, characters and story so much I didn’t mind the mindless side quests to get more of what I loved from the game. The music is fantastic as well so hearing great sounds while you run around do mindless errands helps a lot. Compare this to Dragon Quest 11 where I liked that game a lot too but hate the music. The field them is mediocre at best and ear punishing after 50 hours as well as the normal battle theme.
I agree with you but the sidequests to me were still underwhelming af. The gameplay loop of the SQ was so lazy and barebones I lost any interest in whatever crumb of world building or lore there is. It's a 7/10 for me. Still, one of the best made reviews about this game. Had I seen your review before I would've waited for a sale to get it.
Lets be honest even when the side quest are slow paced in this game, it is still tons better than side quest in other FF as it actually give character developments and screen time
Beat it a couple days ago with all the side quests complete. I'd give it a solid 7/10, so it's still a good game. But everything outside of the story and characters are not that great. The combat, while good and well executed, I believe was the wrong type of action rpg combat for this game. Outside of raking up cool looking combos and stuff, it's very shallow. The boss fights are pure spectacle and not much else. They're also cool looking and tense at times (because of the spectacle and swelling music) but mechanically shallow like most everything. The side quests are mechanically lame, but lore and story-wise get the job done pretty well, especially the later ones. Though they toss all the good ones at you at the very end, which is jarring and kills the pace. You only play as Clive, and the game marketed it that way, but you have one other person with most of the time. The 'witcher style' one man thing does not work for this game, and the game will even come up with half-baked contrived reasons as to why Clive has to go it alone sometimes. And your other party members will almost never comment on side quests if they're present, even though they should. The worst aspect in my opinion is the level design however. The world feels tiny. You can walk from one town to the next in like two minutes, but the people in world make it sound like it's a couple days away. And there's no day/night cycle or illusion of it. It took the worst parts of linear and open games and jammed them together. I like the game, but the amount of bafflingly bad design choices became more noticable the further I got. Without its solid story and characters I would have not finished it. And yes, it's a final fantasy game... but just barely.
I see this game as a three legged chair and if you find yourself not liking even one of those legs the chair doesn't stand well. Story, Combat, and Side Quests are the pillars. A lot of other games have mini games, in depth equipment systems, and exploration to hold them up. FF16 doesn't really bother with those so it's left to stand on the the other three pillars. I personally loved all three and think the game did an amazing job on those but I understand if that's not the case for everyone
I would rate the game a solid.. 8.5/10. Although I agree with some of your critiques. Combat feels solid, very responsive and fluid. This is probably the most fun I had since DMC 5 in terms of action rpg. Main Story quests I love the character building with the main casts, Clive is probably the most gigachad FF protag to date, this is probably the best iteration of Cid in an FF game and ofcourse Jill and Joshua relationship significance to the the main protag and I loved the political and world building aspect of the story. As for villains… I would say… it peaked for me during the Bahamut fight, then it all went down from there… the big villain here, Ultima… didnt work for me..Him and Barnabas’ constant monologue kinda got boring for me. I dont want to compare FF titles but Ultima cant even compare to Sephiroth or Kafka. Side quests are a hit and miss… most are just fetch/kill quests but some stand out because of the world building and story, however those are few and far between. Gearing and Leveling are pretty much for show, just choose the weapon or armor that has the bigger number basically. This is a personal gripe, but I prefer end game gear behind achievements, bosses and chests…having to beat an S rank hunt just to see the reward was just… materials, wasnt satisfying for me ngl. But yeah, not the best FF, but one of the better ones.
Its funny because I would actually recommend FFXVI to a lot of newcomers, action gamers, narrative loving gamers. So many people I've seen who never touched FF tried XVI and are loving it, to the point they want to try other installment in the series but afraid it wouldn't give them the same itch as XVI did
I’m not enjoying this game but I’m too far into it to quit if that makes sense. But I’ll say this, I can only play this game for about 1-2 hours before I get bored and have to move on or play something different.
jesus, the first 40 seconds of the video put my feelings into words, i had such strange feeling when i finished the game that i had never felt before, and it took so much time to see that i do love this game and that it has so many abhorrent flaws,
I’ve already replayed it like 5 times the bosses alone make it so fun to play over again and you can challenge yourself wish they would have given you something else for finishing the hardest mode because you don’t really get anything after getting ultima
As a person who has been playing final fantasy since 1994 this definitely doesn’t feel like one but it is a great game, if Clive had white hair this would be devil may cry with out a doubt
I loved and hate the game together. The story is insanely good for the first half and still decent for the other. Performance and boss fight are top in the whole industry. But it has its fair share of bad area - side quest, equipment system and much more. Still absolutely worth to buy and play the game.
I liked the combat, world building, the story, the music, many great characters. I didn't like the open ending, I needed one more cutscene at the end to honor the journey.
As someone that absolutely loved this game, this is probably the best and most non-biased review I’ve watched
I mean Ok - but a Review is a Review. If someone loves a game and gives it 9/10 , that's their review. It's not 'biased', they just Love the game so long as they cover all the major aspects of it and why they love them (so, not one of those 'trendy' 1+ hour hate fest rambles, nor 2 minutes of just ''th!s is the B3sstest game!!1'' ) 10ish minutes or so is Ok.
I think you’ve nailed your criticism here and I agree with everything you say despite absolutely loving this game. Its like having a friend who’s faults you can see but is so endearing you’re willing to overlook them because you’re having so much fun in their company. I guess I’m lucky that I enjoy the combat , side quests and exploration even if there’s little reward for the latter beyond seeing the scenery.
the worst part about the side quests is the fact that they give you like 15 of them RIGHT before the LAST LEVEL OF THE GAME
just as youre about to finish it just throws them all at you.
and they are all so darn good though
Not having RPG elements with depth has been one of my bigger gripes with modern games. I want numbers, tons of numbers and strategy, I want to try out different things and see if they work better, I want to crunch numbers in my head to figure out which item is better for me.
Blame FFXIV.
It baffles me how terrible the loot was in this game. There is hardly anything to find, like at all! They should have gotten rid of the shop weapons mostly and put them in chests across the world. I don't know who thought it was a good idea. That and the combat just being too easy are why this game doesn't deserve a 10. That being said the highs in this game are so incredibly high that it makes the lows forgivable because its clear where 90% of the budget went: Combat, Boss Set Pieces, Graphics, Music and Story. And every one of these are top notch (asside from the difficulty) Even with all its flaws this game is still quite good.
I actually really like those" mid-bosses" sort of enemies. They require more thoughtful use of the combat tools and when you do use them appropriately, it stills makes you look like a stylish god.
And what bugs me with all this hate is that from the very first trailer, this game has been very sincere about what it was, a non-nonsense, laser focused Action RPG, with great spectacle and an emotional story, and people still say it was not what they expected. I got hyped for this game, and that's the game I got and loved. And then again, EVERY game has like one or two pillars that makes people like it less, If it doesn't click with them, but most of the hate for FFXVI comes from a stupid grudge.
My favorite were the mid bosses mechanically.
The Eikons or major boss fights felt more like playable cutscenes. They're sort of script and railroad you to the win.
I think what made my view on the stagger bar (with mini-bosses especially) improve was when I learned that the stagger dmg multiplier increases based off of will damage, not straight health damage or the number of hits. Realizing that shifted my mind from "gotta hold on to all of my abilities until the stagger is broken" to "what moves should I use now and will then be ready by the time I want them in my stagger damage combo."
I still think there's an issue of abilities early to mid-game not being suited to that mentality, as it wasn't until the last 3 sets of eikon abilities came in that I felt combo potential/good utility abilities came into effect. I feel those ones helped make all the other sets more usable, and that before that point, there was no real reason to master an ability and mix & match as there wasn't much reason to.
Some eikonic feats also felt inorganic to use in combat and don't match the pace the game seems to want you to play at in combat. Such as ramuh taking so long to lock on. I feel that if more feats had the utility of shiva's or the transformative nature of odin's, it could've added that mix of playstyles that I feel is a little lacking from not having different main weapon move sets. That could allow for still maintaining the one-handed sword style of the main combos, but use the feats to change up the basic combo while adding some flare/variance.
As an action game its solid, but I do wish they incorporate more of elements into it.
Fire give burn, earth give petrify, thunder give shock. I think the game would benefit greatly with status effect, I mean that is why shiva ability is used by a lot of people since it can freeze enemy.
The presentation, character, music, story, lore, and everything else however, is such a delight. I can't remember the last time i've been enganged by a narrative game not even GoW:R.
This game made me trust in FF again after the travesty that is XV. If they keep adding elements that add complexity to the gameplay its going to be a great time being an FF fan
Lots of good points here. I enjoy FFXVI's combat overall, but I really think the leveling and development system needed... more. And the sidequests really lack variety in terms of gameplay, as well as interesting rewards, despite doing a nice job with world building.
I'm generally in agreement though that if you're not a fan of the story, characters, or world, FFXVI doesn't have a whole lot to offer aside from style and spectacle (although a lot of the fights, especially the bosses, are pretty fun and satisfying, for sure). It all just depends on the person, at the end of the day. Although I don't think it's going to end up solidifying itself as one of my favorites, I do like FFXVI quite a bit. It certainly succeeds with its world-building and character writing in a way that FFXV absolutely did not, so I will grant it that.
I actually liked FFXV's characters a lot, the problem with that game is the characters were basically all it had
@@Ianbits Yeah, the four main guys were pretty much FFXV's saving grace. I enjoyed messing around in the world with them, but it wasn't like any of the side content was particularly exciting. And the storytelling was just an absolute mess.
@@Ianbits And just as an added note, when I mentioned character writing for FFXV in the previous post, I was mainly talking about how no one but Noctis gets fleshed out in the main story and the game shafts all the side characters like Regis, Luna, Ravis, etc. But I do agree that the cast is generally likable and the guys are super fun.
@@supremeoverlorde2109no one gets fleshed out.
The 4 bros are archytypes with no real events or plot lines.
Even their quips constantly break the 4th wall and try to be meta, so they're not grounded in the world they inhabit.
@@HeelPower200 I'm not sure I understand what you mean by their quips breaking the 4th wall. Sometimes they were a little cheesy, but I personally found a lot of the banter fun overall and the bond between the four guys was one of the few things that kept me going back to the game.
Unfortunately though, in terms of actual character development, they're all victims of the writing. The DLCs help flesh them out a bit more, but it would have been nice to see that in the main game instead of optional content. Despite that the boys do fall into kind of archetypal roles, FFXV puts twists on those roles. For instance, Prompto's happy-go-lucky attitude being a mask to conceal his insecurity or Noctis seeming like a brooding asshole but actually just being reserved and not always knowing how to best express his feelings. So they're not all one-note, but I think the choppy writing of the narrative really holds them back and prevents them from reaching their full potential.
“The amount of things it does wrong outweighs the amount of things it does right.” That’s the long and short of how I feel about the game.
And that's exactly what I think about most of the latest FF games.
Yup, same.
On the other hand, the times everything it DOES do right clicks put you in a headspace unmatched by any other game I've played.
As I've described it to my friends: It's a fairly bad game, but it is an amazing spectacle to experience.
Total reverse for me. I _Love_ the new slick combat, makes all the older games feel like chess on a Siberian mountain.
The game is just edgy, and cool with a lot of Quests, action and flash. Of course, it's not 'Perfect' - but if that's not a good game, then those people should just stay sat in their basements playing Ori.
Yeah, you are wrong
@@netweed09 spoken like a true 13 year-old.
The game is a solid in beetwen 9 and 10/10 for me, the biggest flaws for me are: dry conversations in the side quests that are mandatory, lost potential with Barnabas, him being “stripped of his will” made him bland compared to the other villains, and the ending, i didnt get that feeling that you were talking about, but i did get the feeling of wanting to see what happens next throughout the game and i did see the game absolutely hook me in and never let go, i feel the ending was empty and i strongly hope that they have a dlc in mind. Also im on my ff mode run right now and some of these quests got a bit annoying playing them for a 2nd time within 3 weeks.
Everything else i absolutely love about this game
Is a side quest really a side quest if it's mandatory? In that case, isn't it an extension of the main story?
You thought THAT ending was empty??? Wow....
I mean... I can see the emotion they were going for but I wasn't even emotional during the ending@@rokellc
@@Zephhi wouldn't that make you empty lol
The combat system is an improvement from FFXV. I do believe that if Final Fantasy is going to go the action combat route in the future I do believe the system here is simple enough to build upon and complicate in later installments. To it's credit, the combat is fun. I think the real reason people appreciate this game even if it isn't their main type of game, is that everything is well considered. The pacing, the side quests, the story, and even the combat system seem intentionally sparse as to not add unnecessary things. I think they learned a very important lesson with FFXV in which they hurt the game by spreading main story elements outside the core game, creating an unnecessary open world for exploration which is just a auxiliary to the main story. In contrast XVI ditches exploration and min-maxing entirely in favor of providing lore and context has a reward for exploration and side questing. Clive goes on hunts, not for extra cash but because the people need help. Clive goes on several side quests because of the Cursebreakers are short staffed, an ally needs help, or he genuine is just a good dude helping out a friend. As much as I like the XV bros, there was no reason for a Prince to side quest in that game.
XV's combat was so much better; it had actual DEPTH. Weapon selection mattered.
XVI just has you spam abilities off cooldown.
@@StriderZessei or you could FUCKING USE THE COMBAT SYSTEM AND DO COMBOS
@Astreon123 why? Nothing in the game lasts long enough to make it worth it, unlike actually good character action games like DMC5.
Your description of Gav is spot on.
Your criticisms are on point. If the player is not keen on getting all the story threads, does not love the characters, or switching up their playstyle, the game will be quite boring.
This is also true for every Final Fantasy up to date. No one is in love with Final Fantasy for a single component. Its a mix of several components of that game. That's why the best Final Fantasy is highly subjective. Maybe add some nostalgia on top of it too. The best Final Fantasy just comes down to which title ticks your boxes the most. For me, Its FFIX.
I finished FFXVI twice now, both 100%, and I might play the 3rd playthrough with JP dub for different dialogues.
I love the lore, characters, and combat. While it lacks exploration and deeper gearing system, it does make up for it in sheer spectacles and very robust ability loadout customization.
An important note : I find the pacing to be pretty good if you take a break after every big moment in the story. This might be because the game peaks really really high so players feel the drop a lot more than usual. With the exception of the last set of side quests though, which are too many, and some are not that important to be there.
I am 72% into the story and I am trying to savour it by doing all the side quests as they come up because I love it so much and don't want to finish it too quick - while also really wanting to know what happens next (it is a dilemma that I wrestle with in the game and I think it's a strange weakness of the game because I'm not sure how you'd get around it). I'm really into world-building and fantasy politics, and I like games I don't need to stress about, so I quite like not worry about stats other than basic weapon 'number in menu go up' upgrades.
However, I also found the gearing *too* easy; crafting was an afterthought and it made getting rewards feel pointless. Half the items unlocked at the blacksmith might as well not have been there; I mean, why give me 3 new swords when I would only ever make the most powerful because there are only 2 stats and they (mostly) always go up with each weapon? It almost seemed arbitrary. You might as well had the same sword and just level it up. I would have liked more RP elements like in God of War, with more outfit changes and collectibles. Even being able to rearrange or customise Clive's room or outfit would have been a bit fun. However, this was because I came from playing Hogwarts Legacy, which had a really dull story but almost too much customisability and collectibles. It was more about spending time in the world. This was the other extreme; all fantastic story, lots of reading and learning about the world but not really getting to do much *in* it outside the story. I would have liked at least one 'fun' mechanic. Even if it was just triple triad or something.
I absolutely agree with your negative points though. It's just that, for me as an older, not hardcore gamer, they are not a huge issue. I loved the combat and the way you can tailor it according to your play style. I'm not a good gamer, so not having to stress about fights allowed me to actually enjoy them in a way I hadn't before. Fights actually make me feel a bit of a thrill, which I have never had in a game before and thus I enjoyed having side quest 'downtime' between major story points to sort of recover.
I tend to hate turn-based combat outside of pokemon, which has put me off other FF titles before and I've only played FF14 from the rest of the franchise, though through that game I learnt about all the others in the series because I have been rather invested in it since 2015. Partly why I played this was because it was by the same team and wouldn't be turn-based. Because of this game, I will probably try FF12 after this (if i can get past turn-based) and fancy trying DMC5 for the combat and music (i seen most of it played, but now I'm curious and want to play it myself).
While FF16 makes a great game for a lot of people i know, it will also be a boring awful game for a bunch of other people I know for all the reasons you outline. It's all very subjective and depends entirely on what you want out of a game and what you personally enjoy.
I love it, it is absolutely my kind of game. But every gamer is different and every game has a different selling point and reason for playing it, and if you don't know what you're in for for this one, you won't enjoy it. FF16 is a game where you play through a story and learn about the world with the combat being a means to an end. It is story-heavy high fantasy political story with heavy world-building and DMC-style combat but not much else. If you want lots of customisability, collectibles, puzzles, mini games, and aren't a story person (or dislike the afore mentioned high fantasy political stories), then this isn't for you. And that is OK.
Spamming square and qte, that’s literally the whole damn boring slog of the game. No exploration, extremely pointless boring side quests, no customization no need for equipment strategy, it’s basically dmc in an FF skin
Facts
Yep…
I was not expecting deep rpg, and I don’t care about final fantasy discourse. All I was expecting is just a good looking action game, as many reviewers praised the combat and boss battles…
@@chanwooksook Yeah but Final Fantasy is a franchise of fairly deep RPG's not good looking action games.
@@TheRogBG i know.) but this particular one seemed like a new direction that iam ok with. i meant that i expected at least good action game .
@@chanwooksook this one was trash.
Just had to comment: Trails music
Yeah Square Enix is pretty gung ho about enforcing copyright on their music and I was listening to it in prep for Reverie anyway! I've used Trails and Tokyo Xanadu music for SE games before.
Also Reverie is awesome. It's going to make me replay the Cold Steel series for like the 4th time.
This game was an absolute technical mess, but it had so much heart and vision. I think the designers, writers and artist involved were truly inspired, but that perhaps their taste and vision we're greater than the rest of the team's actual technical ability to pull off the 10/10 version of this vision. (I can't imagine COVID did them any favors either)
Regardless, I'm grateful it exist. The story themes, music and characters and the actors who portrayed them were 10/10 for me. all it would of needed to be substantially better is for the game to play more like the witcher or Dark souls or shoot, even rip off the old bioware games.
People are allowed to not like what they don't like, but there is also a very big difference between constructive criticism vs whining about how this game isn't the same as . A valid criticism of this game would be it has some performance issues. A non valid complaint is "Wah wah this game sucks because its not turn based". People need to learn the difference.
I agree with this even as someone who sort of wishes final fantasy was still turn based. I'm hoping the mainstream success of stuff like Persona and Dragon Quest shows them it's worth exploring again.
@@Ianbitsproblem is the ceiling of success for turn based is pales in comparison to the ceiling for action. Persona sold 9 mil in five years? Elden ring doubled it and then some in one. Even if person did good. A turn based game will likely yield good results. An action game that really impacts the market has the potential for great results. What did doctor evil say? Why make billions when you could make… millions?
@@Ianbits The vast bulk of Dragon Quest 11's sales were in Japan as it's sort of a consumer cult IP there for lack of a better word. It didn't make that large of a splash over here in the west sadly and I'm not sure who else remembers this, but "traditional to a fault" was the common criticism levied against it by the gaming media when it arrived over here for the first time. Yuji Horii (the creator of DQ and Chrono Trigger and one of the godfathers of RPGs) is now changing the battle system in DQ12.
Persona 5 has sold a combined ~7.5 million across all versions and re-releases, has been out for practically 7 years and has spanned 3 console generations; it's also had numerous supporting spin-offs and media. I wouldn't exactly call it mainstream and the battle system is probably only half of the reason for the series popularity (if even that much). If that weren't the case I would feel that games like SMT5 would have sold more than they did.
I love turn-based games and ironically I think modern turn-based battle systems are the best that they have ever been (leaps and bounds above the "golden age" of the PS1 era). Most recently, I think Octopath Traveler 2 has one of the greatest turn-based battle systems ever made.
I appreciate how you laid out everything I liked about this game and how those things can be a turn-off to other players. If you’re familiar with Quantic Foundry’s gamer motivation archetypes, this game is perfectly suited to the Slayer and Bard archetypes due to its accessible-yet-spectacular combat and its hyper focus on story and worldbuilding. I knew I’d like it because I’m a 14 player
It's better than most jrpgs that have yet to move beyond storytelling for kindergarteners, but "masterpiece" is possibly one of the most overused words in gaming in the last few years.
Persona 5, Dragon Quest 11, every from Soft, Final Fantasy 1 through 12 all have a better story than ff16
ff16 story is on the same level as persona 5 and dragon quest 11:mid
Thats just Yoshi P's style in general, there is a lot of people who are going to like it and he is aware that people will not like it. He doesn't try to cater to everyone and just keeps his focuses on what he is trying to write. Its the same thing with 14, a lot loved it and some didn't like it. The only thing i found disappointing is the lack of a PC release (which im sure is on the way, is the fate of high value PS exclusives) but unlike Tabata, Yoshi P knows how to handle PC releases and im willing to wait if the game comes out half that good.
I felt exactly the same playing. But now with the new DLC I’m ready for NG+ (not something I usually play, but want to because the world was so great)
Makes it really hard to decide, if you want to play it, if you don't know if the story/worldbuilding will click with you and the games mechanics are too simple for final fantasy old-schoolers or veterans to carry. Are there other games that could help with the decision, for example "if you liked the story in ....., you probably will like this game"?
Final Fantasy X is a good barometer, FF14 as well. Xenoblade 3 is a recent one that I think has a reasonably similar story appeal
xenoblade games, all 6 of them (the big DLC's are just completely different games)
I would go with if you like the God of War: Ragnarok style of story-heavy on-rails game, and you like high fantasy with heavy politics in a European settings (so like GoT), you will most likely like this game.
You really have to like medieval fantasy for this one. It’s not one of those cases where the setting is a style wrapper around a generic story. It is extremely committed to the grandiose speech patterns, lacy outfits, and downtrodden peasants. I find the comparison to X kind of strange tbh. They are both story driven and linear, and I suppose they both involve collecting summons, but in terms of tone, theme, setting, and gameplay there’s not much else they have in common.
The analysis is on point. Liked that you kept an open mind about how other people would possibly react to the game.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video.
I love the game but I know that it could have been so much more. It didn't have the whimsical sort of adventure feeling that the Golden era games created where I looked forward to visiting new places and where the music stuck with me forever. It bothers me that we never got to visit any of the major cities except while they were under siege so we basically just saw a hallway. They did the same thing with XV. I liked the locations in XII a lot more. Cities like Rabanastre felt vibrant and it felt like people were living lives outside of my experience in the game. I just didn't really get wowed by places like Lostwing, Dalamil, or Northreach. I wanted Oriflamme, Twinside, Ran'd'lah, and Stonhyrr. It would also have been nice to have more development in magic and more customization with stats and builds and crafting.
I thinknits a really good game but when people say its 10/10 im wondering if they are ok....
Here is why I had no issues with this game. The very long demo allowed any player to see EXACTLY what you were going to get. To fans of action RPG with linear story and combat it was great, to fans of turn based combat with massive exploration focus and systems it would not be as appealing.
No. The Demo was very missleading. It was very action an story focused. Every cutscene and dialogue was pre-directed (I was shocked when I arrived at he hideout for the first time and saw PS2 era level of quality in character animations during the dialogue with the NPC's, the demo never shows that). There weren't any side quests so you couldn't know how bland and tedious they would be. It was also very linear so you wouldn't see any of the semi open areas with absolutely nothing to do in them.
This game is basically structured like this: 1-2 hours of pure epicness followed by 5-6 hours of sheer tedium, followed by another 1-2 hours of epicness, followed by 5-6 hours of tedium and so on... And the Demo only shows the fisrt 2 hours of the game that falls into the epicness category.
tldr: the Demo was a scam.
You could say the demo was the prologue, I thought the systems were simple because it was the very start of the game but little did I know it didn't expand throughout the whole experience, it never got more complicated than mashing the attack button with whatever since there are no elemental weaknesses of any kind, you hit a fire enemy with fire attack and it damages him?!? Why even bother with elemental attacks then? Magic is just visual flare, nothing matters in terms of gameplay.
You could say the demo was the prologue, I thought the systems were simple because it was the very start of the game but little did I know it didn't expand throughout the whole experience, it never got more complicated than mashing the attack button with whatever since there are no elemental weaknesses of any kind, you hit a fire enemy with fire attack and it damages him?!? Why even bother with elemental attacks then? Magic is just visual flare, nothing matters in terms of gameplay.
Thank you for articulating so many things about this game that I also felt, and doing it so sincerely. Subbed.
The only thing that I felt that was "wrong" with the game was the crafting system. Would've been nice to craft potions and different types of armor complementing different eikon powers. Other than that the game is fucking awesome. Beat it and doing a ng+
Agreed. With how extremely linear the crafting and leveling systems were (with the sole exceptions of optional quests with powerful gear recipes) I honestly question whether or not the game would have been better off with simply ditching both, having the enemies get harder in difficulty purely (or at least largely) through more/tougher mechanics, and maybe expanding the number of accessory slots, as those at least affected my gameplay in more tangible ways other than just "make number go up".
The ability points were fine, however.
Finished the game yesterday, and as someone who loves this game very much, I agree with you wholeheartedly. This video is the best critique of the game, IMO.
I really agree with what you're saying. Like I don't think there's much to hugo kupka as a character, he's a bit of a baby man
but they set your grudge match with him up so well across both long term and short term story arcs that you can't help but get engaged.
I’ve seen reviews that either praising it or hating it. You sir gave a great personal view and also point out what people may hate.
I do want to try this game out, but maybe at a lower price than $70.
Its simple, as an action game it sticks the landing they got what yhey wanted, but as a Final Fantasy RPG it leave much to be desired.
The year when Demon Souls and final fantasy 13 realised in 2009... you sew that the nostalgic handover from Square Enix to From software.
Game is much better in FF mode and the arcade also has an even harder difficulty. It is a game that begs to be replayed and truly earns it. I kinda hated it on my first, but not anymore. I guess the devs wanted me to focus on the story first and then on skill expression later. I am not sure if there was better way to do this (having FF mode from the beginning would’ve been much appreciated), but somehow this works
FF16 does a lot of things wrong, it's a 7/10 game with 10/10 moments. However, the things it does right are the most important things. Gameplay, Combat, Graphics, Story, Music.
Gameplay not so much.
Zoning in on the next green marker , isn't remotely fun but it's what you'll be doing most of the time outside of the excellent combat.
Wow, I am impressed how you totally fail to phrase your subjective point of view appropriately. As if you could measure quality and make it objective 🤡
@@FelixS. wow it’s impressive how you fail to parse a statement made by an internet stranger as their personal opinion rather than the absolute truth.
I forgot people nowadays even need disclaimers for not drinking bleach, guess you can count yourself in.
@@DommeUG Yeah keep projecting 🤡
@@FelixS. yeah keep projecting 🐸
It's been a year and I still think about this game and even listen to the music. There were so many missed opportunities from a mechanic stand point and I remember being slightly disappointed in that aspect.. but I think this game has a lot of soul from a character and story perspective
I m 22h in and all the characters you should root for die. Yet they are so insignificant that i dont feel anything when they die. Part of this is prolly because you never play them yourself. Even if the fight with out it is just their attacks you see as the camera is to close on clive, so you never get the visual that you are fighting as a team.
This is the greatest Final Fantasy story ever told in my honest opinion. My one and ONLY complaint about this game is the sheer lack of side content. An optional dungeon, or a superboss. Even more hunts would have been amazing
Absolutely 100% agree with all of this. The side quests made me cry a few times.
The most important question is, but do you kill god who in japanese media for some reason is always a foreign invader who is a metaphor for capitalism?
get this man a writing credit
Moon channel did a really in-depth video about this funnily enough
As someone who genuinely dislikes this game, this review is great.
everyone is a different kind of gamer. for me, im not too impressed by spectacle or interesting ideas. for me, irs all about execution. when i play a game and see how every single thing wss made with attention and detail, how everything has a purpose, how everything fits together. games like fhat truly turn me on. dark souls, bloodborne, 13 sentinels aegis rim, dragon quest - when i can feel that everything comes together coherentyl, THAT'S when i grt the feeling, wow, this is it, this is amazing.
thats why, ffxvi, with its various pointless mechanics and overly powerul MC with too many abilities i didnt even need to win and a story with wayyyy too many cutscenes and at times terrible pacing just didnt do it for me. but i can see why other types of gamers would love it
Yep, always good to keep an open mind and not just assume people who like it or dislike it are wrong
I get what you mean but, the story this time is much more detailed that any FF. The active time lore and tomes gives many hidden details which connect important pieces
The gameplay is straighforward I agree, they could've made the elements giving status effect tbh
The MC isn't overly powerful, he gets his *ss handed to him by barnabas, twice, even after having multiple eikons. was getting his *ss beat by bahamut until his brother joined in, basically he needed help all the time. i would hardly call him over powered. as for his abilities, whether you need them or not is irrelevent. you're meant to have all the eikons because it serves a story purpose. i can't for the life of me see why people hate cutscenes so much (i see this comment so many times its ridiculous). you have no problem watching a movie or tv show but a cutscene is too much. just because its a game doesn't mean you have to constantly be pressing buttons or controlling it. don't buy a story driven game if you hate story telling, clearly you guys don't have the attention span for it.
@@justarandompepe8961 cutscenes are fine it's the pacing and balance. see Yakuza. tons of cutscenes but they're well paced and you have tons to do in between the cutscenes that's actually fun..in this game, you have information over information to the point it gets annoying because there's so little fun to break it up
@@TruePeaceSeeker the world is very detailed and fleshed out, but that doesn't amount to much when the plot ignores all of it for the generic "kill a god" JRPG story. all the cultures and politics is completely irrelevant for the last 40% of the game
Loved this game but I would describe it was admiring a painting. You really could only "look" at it.
The world didn't feel lived in cause it never let me see the lived in parts of the world. Whenever there was a city. You were only there in a cutscene or a "dungeon" level where the city is under attack. When you tried going to a city, its gated off. So like a painting, I saw this beautiful city landscape but no touchy.
The problem with the combat being more about expression than it is efficiency is nothing in this game really communicates that to you. No combo meter, no style meter, sure you got those things that appear on the side telling you what you are doing, but they amount to nothing and in no way tells the player "Hey, play stylishly", and it doesn't really reward you for playing that way, so why bother?
There's also this other factor I don't think people have considered yet; in DMC and Bayonetta, not only is the potential for stylish and expressive combat higher than in XVI, but the characters you play as in DMC and Bayonetta are stylish and expressive characters in and of themselves.
Clive Rosfield, the protagonist of FFXVI, is not a stylish or expressive character, he's less akin to Dante or even Vergil and more akin to characters like Alex Mercer and Jack Garland; Characters who are serious and don't mess around. A game's combat system is often a reflection of the character you are playing as, so for Clive, a character who is on a quest for vengeance, his combat should be more about brutality and/or efficiency rather than style and expression.
I mean, can you imagine that scene in DMC4 with Dante and Agnus doing a play, but with Clive in Dante's place? It doesn't fit him.
In fact, XV's combat has more room for stylish and expressive play than XVI does, especially since not only do you have more weapon types with directional action inputs like in DMC, a combo counter that rewards you with higher damage output, but Noctis and Co. do tend to be stylish and expressive themselves during combat, especially during link-strikes and backstabs, since they pull off crazy and over the top moves during those, like seeing Noctis and Ignis to do a quadruple back flip to dunk on a crocodile, seeing Noctis jump off Gladio's sword while he's swinging it and doing a Dragoon dive attack, or seeing Noctis and Prompto exchange weapons while attacking an enemy. There is even one where Noctis does literal Jojo pose after a link-attack with Ignis, but I could be misremembering.
Awesome review, very honest and authentic. This game has the entire community divided. I for one haven't played it yet, but can't get enough of the soundtrack, it's extremely dark compared to earlier games.
Yep, not letting the haters ruin the experience is the best thing all of us enjoyers could do.
Just as long as you know the difference between a 'hater' and someone who just doesn't like it. Whatever that difference may be.
Tbh if one rlly wants to enjoy it to heart's content nobody should be let to ruin the fun
Interesting take on it, from what I have seen of the game I tend to agree with you on this one.
I myself like games that have mountains of problems and design flaws in it... Most notable titles are:
Astral Chain - (With it's mediocre story, a bit of overly complicated controls and it's weird pacing at times like that weird stealth section)
Dragon's Dogma - (Clumsy open-world design, empty open-world, borig side quest, clumsy pacing in the story, how stats works and more...)
There are more games I can list here but what keeps me from playing this kind of games is that one part of those games thats MASTERFULLY crafted... Astral Chain has a really good combat system (if you can manage to gitgud from it's complexity) and no other game offer the similar experience.. Dragon's Dogma with it's combat and Power Fantasy as well..
Fan of the series, but this is one too linear and battles are basically hit with useless attacks until you can do your special attacks, rinse and repeat, just smashing the buttons on the controller, I'll try to get into it again but after 20 hours into it, I was bored the whole time.
Hey, yoshi p cultists how did you feel when turn based game baldurs gate 3 won game of the year?
Baldurs Gate 3 sucks
I think you and SkillUp's takes on this game are the only grounded takes I've heard on this , even if you did end up on opposite sides of the divide.
Two ways to see this game that explains everything:
1 - This is a great movie that you get to play.
2 - If you’ve ever played FF14, the game design makes sense due to understanding who made it
I grew up with ff1 on nes. Ive played them all and have just replayed all the pixel remasters. Seriously until ff 13 all you did was jam on the fight command until maybe a boss fight. Buffs and debuffs were usless and spells were just ways to end fights faster. Ive enjoyed ff16 combat and i dont see it any more shallow than jamming on the fight command
I'm not necessarily saying it's more or less deep than previous titles, moreso saying it's shallow compared to other action games on the market.
You weren’t able to beat FFV-IX that way. Just completely delusional.
enjoyed this very solid and thoughtful review
Much appreciated!
At first I wasnt sure if I am going to like this game. I love rpg and action rpg is my game of choice. So it wasnt the turn base that I was looking for. The issue is that not many customization and variety in terms of making the main character yours. Doesnt have to be a created character but having choices like clothing and gear appearance and having exploration loot that worth a damn is what makes an rpg great. This game doesnt have any of those but for some reason I reallu enjoyed it. I like it so much I was willing to do new game plus Final Fantasy mode just to get the most powerful weapon you can get which is the Ultima and after you get that weapon you pretty much have nothing go do. But I still look forward to it. I think what made this game so good is because of the writing and story. Many will say the combat is the reason this game is good. To me its how you level up in this game. Unlike most final fantasy rpg, you dont have to spend hours grinding just to level up to the max. All you need to do is do all the sidequest and hunts and eventually you will reach the max level at the end of the game. A great game but hopefully the next FF game you get more customization
For the first few hours I didn’t enjoy the game but as the plot goes on I started to care and enjoy the game very much, roll on dlc! (Even the side quests start to pick up a bit)
While the game got great reviews, some of the fan reception of this game is pure lunacy. And no, the game doesn't have a mountain of problems. It really doesn't have many problems all. Most of those so called problems are divisive design choices at worst.
The problem is that for JRPG fans, Final Fantasy games have to move heaven and earth while many other JRPGs are allowed to get credit for doing the bare minimum.
The problem with people is if they can’t play it they’ll hate on it just wait till Spiderman 2 comes out 😭
I love this review. It's one of the more objective, unbiased one out there and it really help put things on clearer perspective. A lot of the reviews are either too positive to combat the hate or just throwing strong words around the counter-balance the positive and they really overwhelm me. This one helps me clear my head on this game a lot.
I think you hit the nail on the head on many topics. I don't want to like this game since it departed from many gameplay elements that I enjoy and came to expect from the series yet I can't deny that a lot of people really find enjoyment with this system. It has great moments but also a lot of underwhelming aspect. This combat style is not for me and the story lacks a lot of the charm. The characters are better than most FF but the more realistic mood and uninspiring vibe this game has kinda make me lose my interest on its story. And thus there's nothing much to fall back on to. I do admit that when combat gets good it can suck you in.
I've been thinking of a good way to fix this game to satisfy my liking more without changing too much of its identity and one of that would be to have a more meaningful equipment system more akin to FF13. While the action gameplay of this game really lean onto its player's skill, interesting boost effect from equipment can remedy the lackluster equipment and crafting system and put more edge into each eikon. I'd say make the weapon's stats not as linear but more unique with much less quantity and give the actual stat progression to the upgrade system, kinda like KH3. Now the materials you get for upgrade become more meaningful and a lot of exploration and side quest reward will feel more rewarding. Now, one way to make each weapon more unique could be to tie them in to each eikon's gameplay style. Some weapon might add more stagger time, or some might give damage bonus for quick stagger pandering to more Garuda style. Some might give additional condition to lessen cooldown for a more skill-slinger style. The great thing about this game is that stats from weapon doesn't help much in a long run, so trying out and building up new weaoon for new playstyle won't be as much of a pain. It add constant sense of good progression to the gameplay that I imagine could compliment well with diversifying your gameplay. The downside might be that eikon abilities might not feel like it combo as seamless as it is, and it could be bothersome for a more action-oriented player to readjust equipments, but the up in rpg element for this title is something I'd trade for.
There's a feeling I get every so often with Ianbits videos. That feeling when I watch his video and know it will stick with me. The pit in my stomach as I watch the end screen shown. The feeling that I enjoyed my time with the video so much that I will genuinely miss watching it, unless I hit the replay button at least 10 times each time the video ends.
So yeah I like Ian's videos
thank you whale friend
That's the best attempt at pleasing both haters and lovers so far 🤣
the fan in me says i love this...the completionist in me says i hate thos
We've gone full circle. The main gripe for recent FF games has been story. 16s story I great and now people are complaining about everything else.
This video deserves credit for justifying the sensational title. I usually reject middle-of-the-road or fence sitting approaches to contested issues, but I don't think this reviewer is doing that. I probably feel similar feelings as he did about Final Fantasy XVI.
FF16 is a rare game that clearly has greatness in it, but it's too unbalanced to wholeheartedly embrace for a lot of people, including me. I appreciate the depth of the story & setting (though I have _heavy_ criticisms of them), but it's incredible that the game has such stripped down gameplay.
A story this long and epic probably should have more gameplay systems and mechanics to fill out the interactive side of the experience. There are ways to make gameplay feel epic, too, but FF16 falls well short. Their decision to essentially make a 80-hour action/adventure game was a mistake, in my opinion.
The first 40 seconds of the video perfectly summarized my feelings with the game
The game was the best movie I've ever played. I loved it all the way through and I agree with this review 100%
I love this review. by far the best review I've seen of the game. I feel exactly the same way about it -- I recognize that on paper it has so many flaws that it shouldn't be good, but god damn if I don't fucking adore this game. I've been on my spring break this past week and I spent three days barreling through the game a second time so I could access the dlc. second time around was honestly even better
I played all mainline FF games. And know much about this series. But this is easy one of the best games I have ever played. Beside it, one of my favorite game stories is Xenogears and Xenosaga which have a very deep and complex story. But this game won me with the dramatic thrilling story, voice acting, immersive cinematics and unbelievable good soundtracks, one after another. The battle system was very cool even though I like more to drink coffee and make strategies about next move or summon to call. But again for this world and story this battle system was actually okay.. What the heck was driving them, when I thought they are out of ideas. Now I see, they have no limits. And it was surely not the final!.. fantasy... After first playthrough I had even more thirst to play it again which is for me not often the cause I get easily bored.. I am so thankful to Square Enix for this great masterpiece. I don't know what to say. All games has their up and downs, but this game story in combination with the cool dynamic soundtracks is madness, and that is all I need
There are indeed only two things this game tried hard to nail, though I wouldn’t say it’s “Story and Combat”, I think it’s “Presentation and Combat”. I appreciate your balanced take on the game. Most people are one or the other, and some just acknowledge the other side and then spend the bulk of the review saying “but fuck the other side, their wrong.”
my own opinion is:
i haven't played the game, no console here, but i started watching playthroughs... and i quickly dropped off videos containing gameplay and went to only cinematics and cutscenes because i was interested in the story only, gameplay feels tedious, i would totally try it out but for like 1 hour and that's it, feels grindy to watch
Great video. I totally Agree with the larger enemies being boring Stagger + Spam ability fights. I loved the story but I felt empty after I finished. I feel like if you’re going to put the player through so many emotional highs and lows you can at least give them a definitive ending.
If you like difficult games you won’t like this if you like cutscenes and lots of talking and actually paying attention to the story you will like this im a mix of the two and I loved the game it’s a nice change in pace to play a game where I don’t have to try too hard I enjoyed it the story is awesome and the boss fights are WOW I’m glad I played it however it’s not perfect it’s still my game of the year unless Spiderman can impress me
Yeah it's a weird situation where it will probably be my game of the year but it's also an awkward game to recommend to people
@@SemtexZero they should just make it so you can play it on that hard mode without beating the game first and change it if you can't get past a certain parts after a certain amount of tries
Agreed. I played TOTK before this game. It was such a breath of fresh air not to have to be the one to make the decisions and just follow the path laid out for me. I'm still doing the side quests and I'm enjoying the lore that comes with it. Never really played a FF game before (other than borrowing FF15 for a few days). Oh and those boss fights have been amazing. Each one kept getting better.
@@everythingexplicit5788 Nah, FF mode on first playthrough would be horrendous. You'd be using just Pheonix and Garuda against super hp bloated mobs for like 10 hours.
@@AcesMaven what's totk?
I just don’t understand why people complain about combat being easy. If you don’t use those special accessories, it’s a little more difficult than Classic FFs. FF games were always easy games. You could even overlevel at the beginning and everything until the end would be a breeze
It is by the best story game I have played so far... And I've played all the good games out there.
I loved this game. I have not been so hooked to a FF game since FFX. The story, the combat, the world building, the soundtrack (One of the best EVER), the characters, the romance, all of this is a 9.5 or 10/10.
However, I was really disappointed with the ending. Many questions left unanswered, I just hope they are planning a sort of DLC / Sequel to explore a little more what happened after the final battle. The world and the characters were so well written that you get attached to them, so this is the type of game to have a happy ending lol.
in some of the older FF titles I remember a trend to have some kind of nonessential side objectives where something cool happens when you go nuts and 100% them. These were usually really long tasks that took tons of time and patience, like the weird advertising quests you got in X-2.
If doing side quests in FF16 got tedious even for you toward the end such that you started skipping them even though you enjoyed the lore, was there ever any indication that you were forfeiting your right to some kind of secret better ending or unlockable story by doing so?
That's one kind of thing someone who is on the fence might appreciate knowing about before giving the game a shot. I haven't really seen anyone talk about it yet, so maybe it doesn't exist?
To be clear, I don't mean stuff like knowing where to find hidden characters or summons. I mean those weird tasks you sometimes get that feel like padding where you're required to talk to literally everyone in town, visit every map location, challenge everyone in the kingdom to triple triad, accept and complete every single bounty, or what have you.
there's only one ending, however a few quests near the end add a bit of context to the ending. for the most part the side quests are just totally separate and any that are important (unlock things) are marked differently
Dude i hate the that lung minigame in ff7 just let me see the story lmao
It gave you that feeling becuase it was cool as all hell. From start to finish it's all cool. It's an easy platinum with the right methods and also it's just a fantastic game and we'll worth playing. If I was younger I would say it's a solid 9/10 but me now being more critical of AAA releases I have to say it's a solid 8/10 all day. A fantastic action RPG worth anyone's time and patience if only they show it the patience for the payoffs to finally bloom in the end. It all ties together and all fits in one cohesive story and it's finally complete not at all like FF15 that took 10 years to finally fix and make sense. And I still can't be arsed to play that one. This one is so much better. Just buy it people!
I agree with you mostly, but I find it really interesting that you hated the enemies with stamina bar. I found them a delight to fight for the most part, and they are a great way to practice your rotations/optimize your build. By mid-endgame it came down to finding a good balance between stamina and normal damage and bringing them down efficiently.
As for the builds, I disagree with you, the fact that you can slot eikon abilities to other eikons opens up a huge build variety that supports different playstyles. And the free respec just reinforces experimenting with different ability combos.
Would be great, if you can upgrade abilities once, and then junction them to the other icons, instead of spending additional AP to do just that. That's why I just upgraded all my abilities, and mastered very few.
@@raidou_yagami does it really matter? You can respec for free, just shuffle around the points and you can junction whatever you want to wherever you want.
@@mikloskoszegi I just want my shit maxed at my first playthrough without grinding for AP with an accessory
@@raidou_yagami well, ok? I have no idea why you'd want to max out absolutely everything when the only thing mastery does is the option to junction to other eikons. If you want it for the achievement, that's also worthless without replaying the game in Final Fantasy mode. But i guess it's one more thing people can complain about.
@@mikloskoszegi I agree, that's just my ADHD kicks in xD
The story, characters, world lore, music, cinematics, Eikon Battles and Boss fights definitely carry the game a long ways. I loved the game but yeah it was rather empty with simple side quests. But, enjoying the world, characters and story so much I didn’t mind the mindless side quests to get more of what I loved from the game. The music is fantastic as well so hearing great sounds while you run around do mindless errands helps a lot. Compare this to Dragon Quest 11 where I liked that game a lot too but hate the music. The field them is mediocre at best and ear punishing after 50 hours as well as the normal battle theme.
I think it sticks with people the most, because the team stuck true to themselves. Flaws and all.
I agree with you but the sidequests to me were still underwhelming af. The gameplay loop of the SQ was so lazy and barebones I lost any interest in whatever crumb of world building or lore there is.
It's a 7/10 for me.
Still, one of the best made reviews about this game. Had I seen your review before I would've waited for a sale to get it.
Lets be honest even when the side quest are slow paced in this game, it is still tons better than side quest in other FF as it actually give character developments and screen time
We learn to love the flaws, thats how you love something
Beat it a couple days ago with all the side quests complete. I'd give it a solid 7/10, so it's still a good game. But everything outside of the story and characters are not that great.
The combat, while good and well executed, I believe was the wrong type of action rpg combat for this game. Outside of raking up cool looking combos and stuff, it's very shallow. The boss fights are pure spectacle and not much else. They're also cool looking and tense at times (because of the spectacle and swelling music) but mechanically shallow like most everything. The side quests are mechanically lame, but lore and story-wise get the job done pretty well, especially the later ones. Though they toss all the good ones at you at the very end, which is jarring and kills the pace. You only play as Clive, and the game marketed it that way, but you have one other person with most of the time. The 'witcher style' one man thing does not work for this game, and the game will even come up with half-baked contrived reasons as to why Clive has to go it alone sometimes. And your other party members will almost never comment on side quests if they're present, even though they should. The worst aspect in my opinion is the level design however. The world feels tiny. You can walk from one town to the next in like two minutes, but the people in world make it sound like it's a couple days away. And there's no day/night cycle or illusion of it. It took the worst parts of linear and open games and jammed them together. I like the game, but the amount of bafflingly bad design choices became more noticable the further I got. Without its solid story and characters I would have not finished it. And yes, it's a final fantasy game... but just barely.
I see this game as a three legged chair and if you find yourself not liking even one of those legs the chair doesn't stand well.
Story, Combat, and Side Quests are the pillars. A lot of other games have mini games, in depth equipment systems, and exploration to hold them up. FF16 doesn't really bother with those so it's left to stand on the the other three pillars. I personally loved all three and think the game did an amazing job on those but I understand if that's not the case for everyone
I would rate the game a solid.. 8.5/10. Although I agree with some of your critiques.
Combat feels solid, very responsive and fluid. This is probably the most fun I had since DMC 5 in terms of action rpg.
Main Story quests I love the character building with the main casts, Clive is probably the most gigachad FF protag to date, this is probably the best iteration of Cid in an FF game and ofcourse Jill and Joshua relationship significance to the the main protag and I loved the political and world building aspect of the story.
As for villains… I would say… it peaked for me during the Bahamut fight, then it all went down from there… the big villain here, Ultima… didnt work for me..Him and Barnabas’ constant monologue kinda got boring for me. I dont want to compare FF titles but Ultima cant even compare to Sephiroth or Kafka.
Side quests are a hit and miss… most are just fetch/kill quests but some stand out because of the world building and story, however those are few and far between.
Gearing and Leveling are pretty much for show, just choose the weapon or armor that has the bigger number basically. This is a personal gripe, but I prefer end game gear behind achievements, bosses and chests…having to beat an S rank hunt just to see the reward was just… materials, wasnt satisfying for me ngl.
But yeah, not the best FF, but one of the better ones.
Its funny because I would actually recommend FFXVI to a lot of newcomers, action gamers, narrative loving gamers. So many people I've seen who never touched FF tried XVI and are loving it, to the point they want to try other installment in the series but afraid it wouldn't give them the same itch as XVI did
I’m not enjoying this game but I’m too far into it to quit if that makes sense. But I’ll say this, I can only play this game for about 1-2 hours before I get bored and have to move on or play something different.
I must say if you play the game again the last bucket full of quests are surprisingly good. It’s a slow burn.
Combat good. That is enough for me.
We need the spoiler review of this from you!! ASAP
I'm going to try and avoid spoiler reviews on this channel for anything but games I'm pretty sure no one would want to play haha
jesus, the first 40 seconds of the video put my feelings into words, i had such strange feeling when i finished the game that i had never felt before, and it took so much time to see that i do love this game and that it has so many abhorrent flaws,
I’ve already replayed it like 5 times the bosses alone make it so fun to play over again and you can challenge yourself wish they would have given you something else for finishing the hardest mode because you don’t really get anything after getting ultima
he looks like 30, talks like 15 and sounds like 70 . . . .
. . . anime hot stud daddy basically
A lot of this feels early, did you finish it?
Yessir
As a person who has been playing final fantasy since 1994 this definitely doesn’t feel like one but it is a great game, if Clive had white hair this would be devil may cry with out a doubt
The game does very few things wrong. The problem is that people had different expectations with this game.
I agree a ton with this review. I will say any final fantasy fan should enjoy this entry, I don’t see why they wouldn’t…. FFVIII still #1.
I love this game! It get even better on new game +
I loved and hate the game together. The story is insanely good for the first half and still decent for the other. Performance and boss fight are top in the whole industry. But it has its fair share of bad area - side quest, equipment system and much more. Still absolutely worth to buy and play the game.
No ff or any other jrpg will ever be a masterpiece!
lmao wrong. vii ( not remake ) & ix are and it's not a debate.
I liked the combat, world building, the story, the music, many great characters. I didn't like the open ending, I needed one more cutscene at the end to honor the journey.
It’s not really that opening think about it more
Don't ever read No Country for Old Men if you dislike ambiguous endings haha
FFXVI most certainly improves on what XIII and XV were trying to accomplish. Still not perfect but getting very close to being the perfect modern FF