I’ve seen a lot of positive praise and sentiment for XVI even from longtime fans and I find that worrying. I finished the game and thought it was a solid 5/10 at best and was happy for it to be over. The game felt closer to Genshin Impact than it did Final Fantasy.
The music was generally quite good and the eikon battles were a fun and new take, but just about everything else I found lacking.
spoiler
- The main story retreads themes that have been told many times and offers nothing unique. It’s clear early on we are on a quest to collect the rings of power to fight the big bad who thinks the only solution to the problem is starting over.
- Most characters were flat and uninteresting
- Combat was very simple and unengaging. It was simply not fun. You can only use about a quarter of the abilities you collect (not that theres many more youd find useful enough to use anyways)
- Crafting/itemization was pointless
- MMO-tier side quests (ironic considering XIV has some interesting ones)
- Story format is lifted straight from XIV as all “engagement” quests (ones with the red crossed swords on the map) are the same as XIV dungeons (trash, minor boss, trash, minor boss, trash, major boss)
- Empty world with no incentive for exploration
- Minimal play style variety despite the different eikon flavors
- No class system (I would have expected something listed as a “role playing game” to have some sort of class system)
- No party system in any form
Overally, fairly worried about the franchise since so many people are over the moon as it implies we might be getting more of the above. It feels like XVI took heavy inspiration from XIV but did a worse job at the highlights of XIV (story, job/battle system) and straight up copied some of the bad parts of XIV.
Now that it’s been a few weeks, hopefully more people have finished the game. What are your thoughts?
Really fell flat for me, riddled with bad animation, fetch quests, boring dialogue, pointless crafting etc.
I really did enjoy the first hour or so, but tbh even the combat - which people praise - wasn’t even as good as stranger of paradise in depth or complexity. You spent most of your time doing the same combo waiting for cool downs.
Hitting attack or dodge repeatedly isn’t satisfying depth, not to mention the dodge just automatically saves you as long as its timed right the direction means nothing.
Side quests were pretty unbearable, in my whole life I’ve never skipped cutscenes, I skipped them all on the last 12 side quests because the voice/animation were so boring and I knew I’d be rewarded with either gil of crafting materials, both of which I had in abundance and nothing to spend it on.
If you want to lock a “super hard” mode behind ng , then fine, but the “Action focused” mode was so easy that it’s insulting to lock the harder mode out, nobody wants to play a game twice to enjoy it and especially not one that’s 50 hours long.
Overall, very disappointed, after seeing people rave about yoshi I thought it could be good but it was just too close to an MMO in quest design.
Edit: Oh and having no elemental or status effects in a game in which every eikon has a theme and you fight marlboros which do bad breath is just so lazy. The system was oversimplified, not complex, everything the enemy did was just a pure subtraction, nothing else. I just can’t understand how they’ve released such a plain experience.
I get some of your criticisms for the game and agree with a lot of them. But I don’t see a narrow more action focused character and mechanics as a bad thing, FFXVI is basically a Japanese Witcher 3. Now you may dislike that in favor of more blank slate character development and that’s fine. What I do find a major problem in 16 is that the combat system is complete overkill for the standard difficulty as the enemy AI is extremely passive outside of the big fights. So the game doesn’t force you to really make hard choices in terms of loadout and moment to moment gameplay a la DMC5.
Also, the side quests really suck mechanically and slow down the narrative way too much.
I think comparing it to the Witcher is a bit too generous towards XVI. Witcher combat isn’t super diverse, but people play it because there’s interesting stories, characters, and occasionally meaningful choices. I don’t think XVI stacks up in narrative and clearly there’s no actual choices to be made in the game.
Completely agree 16 is not as strong narratively, merely saying the RPG style is similar, where you are role playing a very focused character with clearly defined personality and mechanics. As opposed to something like FallOut or an MMO where you can taylor your character’s specialization.
I haven’t finished it yet; I think I’m about 80% through and I’m struggling to pick it back up. I agree with all your points. It is super repetitive - Same Big Story Mission vs Different Eikon -> 6 Side Missions -> 1 or 2 Hunts; repeat. I want to like it, but end of the day the cutscenes aren’t enough to carry it.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed it. Some people probably criticize the combat being too easy or how quests boil down to either fetch and run from point A to B.
I didn’t really mind how it played out though. I’m not great with action games, so difficulty was perfect for me. I’m also a fan of FFXIV, so I guess I’ve grown accustomed to the same style of quest design.
I do agree with how narrative feels slowed down due to some of the quests.
I would prefer a world where people don’t criticize it because “It’s not Final Fantasy”. Ever since X, they’ve been innovating and going various different directions.
That said, there do seem to be some fair criticisms that there’s no challenge - no difficulty that forces players to carefully consider their options. Even though I don’t go for the hard content in FFXIV (the MMO), I at least appreciate being punished for not recognizing boss mechanics, or for aggroing too many minions.
I’m also not hot on the art style being super dark. It was bad enough that the entire core cast of XV is all-male and just wears black. XVI does seem to have more varied landscapes as you go, but a lot of the early stuff is grim foggy castles at night.
This is not to say there’s not some amazing things about the game - it appears to have a lot going for it. But it seemed to have more going in terms of production budget than creativity.
The art director was the same as Tactics, Vagrant Story, FF12, etc., and that makes a lot of sense. I feel like tonally that was the right choice for the story, but it does leave something to be desired.
All things equal, I think the game is a good game on its own if you strip the Final Fantasy title, but once you compare it to other exclusives on the system (God of War, Horizon, etc) it looks…not quite as good.
