FINAL FANTASY XVI

To start with some positives, I think this game legitimately has some really fun "hype" moments, and some of the story beats are pretty good in a vacuum. I also think that the combat system is a lot of fun when it works (which is unfortunately not all the time as I'll get into) and the voice acting is quite good. Because of this I might be tempted to give the game a thumbs sideways if that were an option on steam, but given it isn't I really can't find myself recommending the game. The biggest issue I have is just that the writing is terrible. The game has the veneer of a Game of Thrones-esque series with political intrigue and gray morality, but it totally fails to deliver anything in that vein; in reality it's "hype moments and aura" masquerading as something more complex and deep. Character motivations and decisions barely make sense, plot developments happen seemingly just to string you from set-piece to set-piece, characters are either presented as entirely virtuous heroes or psychopathic villains. The story sets up themes around slavery and environmentalism but somehow has almost nothing to say about them past extremely obvious "slavery is bad" messages (and even then it for some reason vaguely justifies the slavery that happens in the main character's homeland as "less bad" in a pretty questionable way). You spend half the game as an outlaw and yet it has nothing to say about that either, no moral quandaries about whether the ends really justify the means, no characters forcing you to grapple with the consequences of your actions. On top of this many of the main characters are totally wooden and boring (especially Clive and Jill), so you don't even get to enjoy party dynamics like you might in a normal jrpg with a silly plot. This would all be fine perhaps, or at least ignorable, if the game weren't absolutely stuffed with filler and insanely boring sidequests. Many of said sidequests are literally "go to place x and kill one group of normal enemies then come back" and the reward is a bunch of useless materials, with no interesting character development or dialogue attached. I started ignoring the side quests unless they were on the way to whatever I was doing eventually, but even then the main story also likes to throw what is essentially side quest content at you between big moments, just to pad out the playtime. If the game had been 20 hours instead of 43 I probably would have liked it significantly more. The other big issue is that the difficulty curve is totally messed up. They don't let you play on hard mode during the first playthrough, and on the normal setting the game becomes totally mindless "just use your skills when they go off cooldown" from about the time you get your second eikon ability all the way until almost the end of the game where things start to feel a bit more interesting again. That's the bulk of the game spent just mashing abilities into hp sponge enemies, which is a shame because as I mentioned before I actually enjoyed the combat system during the times where I felt I had to actually interface with it. This is especially an issue because unlike most JRPGs there really isn't that much build customization going on past choosing which abilities to use, so there's not much rewarding decision making going on outside of combat either. Overall I probably liked the game slightly more than this review makes it seem. I have no desire to play the DLCs or to finish the rest of the side content, but the game did come with some memorable moments. I just wish it had been half as long and that the writing had some more effort put into it. If you just want to watch the (admittedly very cool) kaiju battles it might be worth a playthrough, but otherwise I think it's a bit of a waste of time.

All spectacle no substance I have had this game installed for almost 2 years at this point and i just cant bring myself to play it for more then a couple quests in a row , i think my biggest issue is that is really isnt an RPG , there is basically no way to customise your playstyle , all the gear is unlocked at a very specific time its just so boring , why would i do a side quest to get extra Gil when there is literally nothing to buy because i am only allowed to by a sword that is 1% better then the last sword every few hours , there is basically no combat strategy simply make sure to use all your abilites when they come off cooldown and thats it the only thing interesting about the story is the constant hinting that Clive is going to meet Joshua again at some point and that gets real boring after like the third time they try to use it as a plotpoint

8/10 > it could have been the masterpiece like PS2 era (FF X) had they realized it's no longer early 2000s and side quests need to evolve past the no time respect MMO-sque tedious piles of waste. To get that out of the way, I'll quote a reddit post that perfectly desribes about 2/3 of the side quests: "Some of these side quests are mind-boggingy stupid. I've done one yesterday during which a wannabe blacksmith needed help forging a knife. He doesn't know how, and doesn't even know what makes a good knife. So you go and talk to a butcher and a hunter, and learns that a knife needs to be sharp and sturdy. When you come back, the quest giver doesn't know which metal to use, so you go and talk to some metallurgist/merchand. She proposes that you uses limestone. You go and collect 3 limestones, they're lying on the grounds in a completly different zones. You go back to the apprentice, he forges a half decent knife and rewards you with nothing of value. Quest completed." PROS: - sharp visuals and runs great (post-patch version, can't tell how it was at the release) - main cast and party members have layers to their personalities - fast and fun combat with some of the most epic boss fights ever - OST - semi-linear story focused Final Fantasy that we didn't get in decades (not counting the Remake) - mature and emotional, main story left me surprised how good it was BUT... CONS: - ...BUT pacing, story telling, pacing almost ruins the tension and flow (ok, sometimes it really does and you power through) - abysmally bad side quests many of which are required if you want full story arcs - doesn't respect your time and will send you 5x back and forward for most trivial stuff even though you cleared the very same town square and building every time Bottom line: The issues this game has push it away from being a masterpiece we'll talk about 20y in the future. That being said it's still an amazing story focused Final Fantasy that redeemed for last few main entries and will leave your eyes wet more than once. Get it, it's worth it but be ready to be patient.

Actually really good! it gets a lot of hate since its not turn based and how there is a good chunk of filler busy work type of missions at the start of the game also the side quests at the start are really not good (everything got better throughout the game for me atleast). The combat is really fun and the story was interesting, I'm glad i didn't listen to the negativity surrounding this game it doesn't deserve all the hate because I think the postives of this game out weighs the negatives truly.

Final Fantasy in name only. It has summons and chocobos, but that's about it. It's a linear action game where you fight through corridors. Occassionally the areas are a bit wider open, but there is nothing to find or explore. It's just empty space. There are no npcs around to talk to, rarely any chests to find. Sometimes you find like 2 gil on the ground. How exciting. There are no random encounters, just preplaced encounters with three to five enemies at a time. Fights are sparse. There is no grinding to level up to earn that next cool ability you want. The worst part is combat. You only control Clive, the main character, and nobody else. Combat consists of spamming your attack button until you have an enemy attack you need to dodge. All fights are the same and nearly automated. Gone are the days of strategic turn-based combat where every boss was unique. There is no elemental weaknesses. All attacks are the same. You can hit an enemy with a sword or do useless damage at range with a fireball. It isn't even worth casting with how little damage it does. There are a lot of cutscenes, most of them aren't interesting at all, just a boring conversation between people. Most of them don't do anything to move the plot along or add world building. I found myself on my phone while I half watched most cutscenes play out. There are cutscenes that are fantastic, mostly involving fights with the different summons, but they are few. The intro of the game is impressive, but four hours later, and nothing interesting has happened since. If this is what modern Final Fantasy games are going to be in the future, dumbed down and mindless action combat, a series of corridors to walk down instead of any open world, no random enemy encounters, boring and pointless cutsenes after every couple of fights, count me out.

This game had an incredible story, phenomenal soundtrack and a great cast of characters. Second game to ever make me cry at the end. All that said, I also played it entirely native on Steam Deck OLED, which came with a severe compromise in performance despite some help from Lossless Scaling. Sometimes there would be a blank screen during cutscenes for 10-30 seconds depending. It wasn't until the very last boss fight of the game where the Deck froze for a few seconds and made me think it would crash. Luckily, it plugged along and we made it through. Play time was 77 hours this way, but the story and gameplay kept me going. Side quests were hit or miss on impact and sometimes I would mash the dialogue forward for those. FF16 is great game. I highly recommend it. However, do yourself a favor and play it on something better than the Deck if you can.

[h1] what a fantasy. [/h1] I've played main game + all side quests, and if I had to condense the experience into a sentence: The most Beautiful game ive played in the past 5 or so years. I think "beautiful" is the perfect adjective to describe what I've witnessed. The story? Beautifully executed. It is such a change of pace from FFXV- it is so mature, so adult and such a realist view of the broken fictional world. The characters? Beautifully modelled, beautifully voiced and beautifully personified. The visuals? Beautifully stunning, the cutscenes straight up look like a movie, the rendering is insane. The gameplay? Beautifully simple but comes together well (although by the end it does become a quite repetitive). This game has so much grandeur in its story, so much magnificence in its scale and still remains such a grounded experience through the dialogue. Genuinely a well crafted game with love (square enix can be hit or miss in the "love" department"). Everyone who enjoys any RPG games, this is literally a solid try for all. You dont even feel its a JRPG since it doenst have any Japanese tropes. I have to rate this is a 9/10, must play RPG if youre into those. The only point it doesnt get is that the sidequests are just so freaking boring and repetitive, but you HAVE to do them to flesh out certain characters and receive some endgame materials in the final chain of these sidequests. I had to start skipping the middle sidequests since they just drag on so long. PS: [spoiler] Bahamut V/s Ifrit Risen legit is top 3 boss fights of all time [/spoiler]

ダークファンタジー。 すぐ人が死ぬし、めっちゃ血しぶきがとぶし、裸の描写もおおめ、重めのストーリー。 登場キャラクターの感情が爆発するシーンとかは胸があつくなりますね。 FFならではのムービーのクオリティ。つい見入っちゃいますね！ そのネームバリューの大きさと期待値、プレイする人の多さから賛否両論いろんな意見があるとは思うけれど、普通に楽しいゲームです。いっぱいSS撮っちゃう。まずは体験版から！プロローグができるよ！！ ＦＦ１４でおなじみ、音楽は祖堅さん、プロデューサーは吉Ｐさん。豪華だね！！！

This game was such a waste of time. The pacing is so incredibly slow, and I really don't think it needed to be - just feels like they are dragging out the scene time as long as possible. The writing is awful, the characters are shallow and one note with no personality. You'll be trying your hardest not to skip the dialogue. The "open world" is completely soulless and exists only for pointless fetch quests. Hell, sometimes even the main story is just fetch quests, and everything is just constant backtracking. For some reason, the game loves locking you into walking at the slowest pace possible. They give you a mount (which is optional, by the way), but honestly, you barely get to use it unless you're doing side quests or backtracking. There are no real RPG mechanics here, this is not an RPG game. The only thing RPG about it is that you level up and choose upgrade a few skills that at best just lets it hit a little harder. The equipment bonuses are all incredibly boring, basic "10% damage increase" or "cooldown decrease by x time". It's just not interesting. The combat loop itself is not fun at all; they decided to make all enemies just massive HP sponges and you will be mostly just pressing the same button loop while waiting for cooldowns. The only positives I can give this game is the big eikon fights - those do look very cool, though even that gets ruined by stupid quick-time events (I can't believe they actually added QTEs). The monster and Eikon designs are also very well done and finally the music had its moment, but that's about it. I do not like this game. Why did I finish it? Maybe I'm a masochist or just a moron.

这玩意最好的故事参考是权力的游戏和七王国骑士，权力的游戏如何把覆巢倾穴奄奄一息的狼家执笔抬正成历史的主角，各个留存的角色怎样在交错权力被动中走向那个众望所归的暴风眼。七王国骑士一文不名的小人物，能意外掀起大风波，这个小插曲也从侧面折射出整个王国统治根基的不稳。内乱和对顶层昏庸的不满，已深深动摇了整片大陆。贵族们对统治者的信任全无，诸多无法调和的矛盾，赤裸裸摆上台面。 玩了十多个小时的没落贵族历险记，毫无一个记忆点，人物被故事推着走，故事又烂的不行，整个流程处处显露出制作的粗糙，空气墙塞满整个流程，像在玩日式黑神话。