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?
I’m 76% through the main quest (as per the PS5 game screen). Done all side quests so far. This is my first FF game, overall it’s a solid 8/10 for me. The combat is fine, chaining combos and abilities are fun but it took the game a while to gain some of the abilities. The story began strong but as it progressed I started losing interest just because it felt very repetitive. The side quests were a mixed bag. I liked some, while some were too MMO inspired. I think the weakest component of the game are the gear and itemization. It feels like an afterthought. You get some upgrades through the main or side quests but they don’t feel much different as most of the enemies are sponges.
spoiler
Cid was a fantastic character but after him there wasn’t any good interaction with the rest of the characters. Jill just exists besides Clive and that’s it. Most of the core characters are kinda one-note, so most of the interactions are in the form of fetch quests. I think Blackthrone is an odd one where he has some unique quests.
The combo like I said too me a while to get going, but after gaining some abilities it was fun experimenting chaining combos and abilities and getting the stagger bar down as quickly as possible.
The Eikon fights while generally a spectacle was nicely done. I enjoyed all of them.
Overall, I think this game could be shorter. Even the main quests has some filler and definitely there are pacing issues dropped after every pivotal moments.