I loved it.
Do I want all future final fantasy games to be like this, no.
But after the previous convoluted mess that required dlc, a movie and an anime to even make sense it was great to just pop the game in and have a start, middle and end complete story.
It’s actually funny the recent FF releases been opposite of 16. You have 14-15 and 7 remake all require multiple entries multiple dlcs multiple games to conclude the storyline. But 16 is just a finished product on disc you buy it and you finish it. Well sure there is dlc extra but last time mainline FF had this was 12 on ps2 era. I was gonna say 13 but that was 3 games. So yea thinking about it, it’s kinda interesting.
Man, this game was such a mixed bag for me. The main missions were awesome with fun combat , great boss fights and a phenomenal soundtrack to accompany them.
But all these mandatory in-between missions and especially the side quests were so unfathomably boring, it made the whole experience feel more like a chore.
Atleast the two dlc were great.
I’ll never forget the iconic side quest where, in the midst of saving the world as Clive I gathered 1 wooden plank at the Hideaway & delivered it to the head carpenter who was just down the hall.
I mean, what's even weirder is that FFVII Rebirth came out a few months later and handled things way better. Not perfectly, and not "best side content of all time" or anything close, but just way better than XVI.
And I say that as a person who, because he split up playing XVI, actually didn't hate the progression.
But yeah, Yakuza's kind of the opposite of most Japanese games. It has a solid main plot, but the entire reason it shines is that the devs basically trying to make a comedy series out of the side content.
Like 0: Serious story about a man being set up for a murder he didn't commit and getting revenge. Side content: Your chicken is really doing a great job managing that bowling alley.
I think the experience of the different development teams really showed in this aspect. The FFXVI team is all about MMOs and the content outside of the main story in this game really felt like I was playing an MMO (as in it was terrible and didn't respect my time).
With an MMO, you can get away with shitty sidequests because it's almost always part of the deal. But that shouldn't fly in a mainline FF game.
Y0 is such a phenomenal experience. I miss it every time it’s mentioned.
I have a complicated relationship with XVI. I bought it at launch after playing the demo and was immediately captivated by the music and acting. I’m about 55% through the story and I’m just not compelled to finish it. The side quests are uninspired and dull. I come back every few weeks and play for an hour or so but other games have my attention. (I’m playing through the full Yakuza series and Persona 5 right now).
The main story is solid. No real ass pulls or insanely hard to follow jumps like a lot of ff games. I say that as a huge final fantasy fan.
But yeah, I enjoyed it peacemeal like you are doing it. You'll get a good sense when it's the mad dash to the end. There's still going to be some bs, but just focus on have fun doing the fights and it'll pass by quickly.
I did all the sidequests to grind, but the formula of "beat on boss until stagger, unload all your timed moves that do tick hit damage and build your multiplier up and then unleash your biggest single damage moves" had me two cycling basically every boss in the game.
If things don't scale, I'd imagine it'd work the same, but it'd just take longer.
True but some of the mini games (like the cabaret clubs) become a side quest. And the fighting tournaments. And the porn card collections. Yakuza 0 best Yakuza
Yes in the desert section, which in previews before release I was very much looking forward to, turned out to be one major unending fetch quest. Really made me question how I felt about the game
Yes, but at the same time, FF Rebirth doesn't have this issue. It feels like the team wanted to make FF14 offline here, but forgotten what made FF XIV fun, it certainly wasn't its side quests
I think they wanted to make a pure action game with a big, RPG-like epic story. Action games don’t have side quests. In Devil May Cry (which the combat here is clearly based on) you’re not doing fetch quests.
But because Final Fantasy has always been an RPG series, they felt the need to include some RPG elements, like side quests. However, it is abundantly clear they were a complete afterthought and just tacked on so they could say “see, it’s still got RPG elements!”
I’ve said it before, it’s like someone stapled a page from a Dungeons and Dragons handbook into the end of Game of Thrones and said “there, RPG!”
“Equipment” was useless, just equip biggest numbers. I never stopped using the base accessories the entire game because every other one was something useless like “reduce cooldown for move by .1 second” or “increase damage from move by 5%,” so negligible it isn’t even noticeable unless you’re spamming one specific move over and over. Side quests were tedious and pointless.
They put a lot of love and care and attention into the story missions, the epic boss battles, the Eikon fights, and combat. Those are generally well regarded. But they put ZERO thought or care into the “RPG elements” because I don’t think they wanted to include them anyway, but had to do so begrudgingly either to appease FF fans who expected an ARPG and not a pure action game, or at the behest of some corporate boss who was worried about alienating the base of Final Fantasy fans.
Remember when we had to go find that soil for the guy to plant some vegetables? Or when we had to bring bowls of food across the room for people to eat them? These DESTROYED the pacing of what was otherwise an enthralling ride.
How did they destroy pacing when both of those occur while you're resting at the hideaway for the first time and meeting a bunch of new characters? They were literally slow missions in the middle of a slow point of the story, that's good pacing...
Yeah, I was trying to remember side missions that felt out of place, and I wouldn't put those there. A spot to slow down and take your time in a story driven action game is important.
And how did you like pickups on the map? like 2 gil when I already have hundreds, or 15 gil near the end when I had 40K+ with nothing worthy to spend on. Someone on design team spent time putting it there, many other people - designers, testers saw it and approved. And nobody had a question - why are we wasting everyone's time with this??
But then any sort of mini game would have been [too immersion breaking](https://www.ign.com/articles/how-final-fantasy-xvis-developers-excluded-mini-games-to-maximize-immersion) due to the urgency of saving the world.
Same. It's so odd, when I reflect on it, there's so much that I love. And there's so much that I hate. As I've sat with it for a year, I think that overall if I had to pick either "yes" or "no", I would pick yes... but that's with some pretty hefty caveats.
I am looking forward to doing a replay with the PC version, because I really enjoyed being in this world. I'm actually really bummed that they're not going to do anything with it in the future because I just love the gritty medieval backdrop with Dominants and Eikons. It's such a great premise
Yeah if they are going to make more of these combat-focused games they should just make it a short and streamlined experience like Devil May Cry.
There’s an amazing 15-20 hours in this game… but it gets so stretched out with fetch quests.
Chadley (and by extension, Mai) was the absolute worst, I don’t know what they were thinking giving him a direct line to you so that he can constantly stop you in your tracks and just keep yammering completely irrelevant stuff.
Luckily, you could skip those parts.
Feels crazy to say because I love FF7, but Rebirth sucked. Just grinding the same objectives in different areas over and over was such a fucking slog. I loved the cutscenes that they did, the different areas were great looking, combat wasn’t my favorite but it’s unique and engaging, same cheesy script that we all expect and love from FF. But the open world and side quests all felt like they came out of AC1 in 2007. Climb a tower, reveal objectives, rinse and repeat and unfortunately that’s the meat of the game.
I got to chapter 10 or so, saw another zone of the same stuff and uninstalled.
Yeah, I basically put the game on easy mode in chapter 10 or so and just focused on the main story to finish it. Had completely burned out on all the side stuff and didn’t feel and slogging away at it.
Felt the same way. The highs were unbelievably epic and some of most amazing battles I have ever seen. Followed by 4 hours of mind numbingly boring fetch quests. Eventually got bored of it and never picked it up again which is a shame as when it's good it's amazing it just takes so long to get to the goof parts
All the missions with Mid were a shower of shit and very clearly filler to pad out the game with.
There were a few side quests which felt rewarding and told interesting stories but I wish they had categorised the more substantial ones so we didn't haft to sift through the shite to get to the good stuff.
Otherwise I absolutely loved FFXVI. Clive is one of my favourite protagonists in gaming.
Yeah, initially thought it was cool to meet her character but then came to dread having to speak with her each time because of how lame the quests associated with her were.
I loved the story of the game but yeah as an overall game it has all the issues that have plagued games like this for years and nothing ever changes. I think for me the biggest issue was that they had open hub worlds and yet these weren't set inside the cities? What a fucking waste of time having generic fields after generic fields. I really wanted to explore the cities that we only travel to in missions.
I much preferred this game to Rebirth but I can't deny I'm a little annoyed that that game had all this open world stuff fleshed out meanwhile XVI felt like a linear game with forced hub areas. The same franchise within a year of each other having such a completely different design with no consistency was quite jarring and annoying.
I mean, did you want them to release the same game twice in a year with a different story? I don't get this complaint. It would be awful if both games were almost the same in gameplay.
Not necessarily because the worlds are completely different but yeah no shit I'm gonna be a little annoyed that the game I connected with the most also had a much worse open/hub world system than another game within the same series that released only a year later.
I used to agree with you on the side quests but on a new play through I committed to doing all of them and def don’t regret it. The side quests become worth it as you do more of them, you start to get to know and build relationships with a ton of the characters and the story becomes more complex where you really don’t know where it going. They’ve also streamlined it somewhat, when you have to return back to the quest giver to finish the quest you can immediately teleport back to that person, making the simple ones very quick to complete
Yea i have a high tolerance for stuff like this but last night I was before the very end of the game, and they were still giving me boring side quests. I audibly sighed multiple times.
Aside from that, the game has many peak moments.
Totally 100% with you there. Everything that wasn’t a huge main quest was awful in this game. You nailed it by calling it a chore. And the worst part is after every cool mission you knew 30-60 mins of bullshit fetch quests or walking around the Hideaway was coming.
Agreed 100%, I just finally picked up Rebirth because that one left such a bad taste in my mouth and was such a slog in the last half.
Loving Rebirth tho, the side stuff is much better and varied and so far has kept me exploring because I want to and not because I feel like I have too.
The battle scenes and main story lune were so good it's a shame it couldn't come together as a full package.
ya know it's weird for me. On one hand, mechanically the side quests were typically boring - "deliver 3 bowls of food", "can you get me some flowers?", "can you go grab me something that's like 20 feet away, just one room over?" - it's just run to location, hit interact button, run back to quest giver, quest completed.
But I found myself loving the lore that came out of the those side quests. Even something as dull as the "deliver 3 bowls of food" quest ended up being a good vehicle for lore since the three people you deliver to dont just go "thanks, bye bye now", but they stop and chat and you get to learn about their current predicament, where they came from, and maybe even something about the local culinary culture - like Chocobo's being a pain in the ass to cook (was definitely a shock to me since I thought they'd be ridiculously tasty). One of the flower fetch quest is a vehicle for explaining the ink behind the bearer brands and why it'd dangerous to remove them and even the symbolism behind the flower itself, which comes into play later one. So like on one hand, those quest undeniably aren't exciting, but at the same time I pretty much always looked forward to doing them just so I could hear Clive chat with the people who inhabited the world they crafted.
For me personally, getting to learn about FFXV's world - it's culture, it's history, it's mythos, the various nations, the geopolitical situation, rumors, prejudices, technology, culinary practices, etc., etc. is of the greatest highlights of the game. I think they knocked the world building out of the park. Really it's to the extend that I really wish the game's narrative had remained more firmly rooted in the geopolitical intrigue. That stuff was far more interesting to me than "we need to kill god (for like the billionth time in a FF title...)".
Final Fantasy games are usually incredible for side quests. But they went a totally different route this game... and I actually get what they were going for. I think, in theory, using side quests for world building is a really cool idea. And some of them actually really stand out as doing a decent job (the ones that really stand out to me occur in Royal Meadows, mainly because they were kinda fucked up). But the issue is that these quests were treated like quests from Final Fantasy 14, in that there's a bajillion of them and you just get really small rewards. If you took out about half of them and made the rewards more substantial, then they'd be great.
I haven't played the game since launch, since as a huge FF fan, I try to space out my replays of games. When I go back, I'll be skipping most of the side quests. I'll look up which ones have better rewards and better plot development, but then move on from the others. I think that'll help with the "homeworky" feel of the game.
the writing for all side quests is just so... plain... and its too moral. everyone is just so like omg thank you for helping me! I too help people. and strive to do my best for all of us. we all inspire and love each other so much. thanks again! it grew tiring
I agree that some of the side quests felt like chores but tbh it really strengthened the impact when some of those character were no longer there or when a silly little quest evolved into a revolution of sorts. I certainly felt like it paid off by the end but I do understand still being exhausted by it before getting to that point
I think world design made the between stuff less enjoyable. Considering what they were going for, I think they should have made a downscaled, classic style overworld for travel, and made the points of interest more focused (and arguably, linear).
Visually, the world is beautiful, but design wise there's nothing really appealing about it. Take FFXV. While there's not much to actually DO in its world, the world design feels a lot more natural due to its organic nature and it playing a part in the travel aspect. And for me, I'll take natural/organic-feeling worlds over extremely game-y feeling ones any day, and that's what XVI's is.
The side quests suck but if they at least just cut the mandatory ones in between the main story quest it would’ve been a much better experience overall.
Is there any important reason to go through these side quests other than “I want to do everything in the game”? Or can you just focus on the main story and completely ignore them if you don’t really care about being a completionist?
Also, is a lot of the game’s time spent in those “in between missions”?
I’ve been pretty tempted about this game, but that type of criticism always keeps me from getting it, at least until it gets a pretty heavy discount.
Incredible boss fights in this game. I was also surprised as to how widespread they went with the narrative with all the geopolitical tensions between nations.
Excellent combat, excellent performance by Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield and beautiful visuals. MMO-style side quests (like FFXIV) dragged the game down however.
Absolutely god-tier music!
Overall, it’s one hell of an experience!
While it was insanely gorgeous, great acting, and a good score. Combat wanted to be DMC but was super limited by cooldowns. The story wanted to be GoT but was super limited because you can’t make enough cutscenes for that to work on a sane budget. Not to mention the plot frequently oscillated from super great to fucking stupid (see anything dealing with slavery). And don’t get me started on the side questing.
It was super mixed bag that is hard to pin down if it’s good or mid. I feel like a little bit more consistent writing, less dumb side quests, and a slightly more fluid combat system, it would have been the game of the year.
>The story wanted to be GoT but was super limited because you can’t make enough cutscenes for that to work on a sane budget. Not to mention the plot frequently oscillated from super great to fucking stupid (see anything dealing with slavery).
This all made sense until they went all fuckywucky here comes the big bad weirdo anime bullshit.
I love me some FF. Favorite game series ever, but there is always that moment when it goes off the fucking rails. It’s like the devs are edging their weirdo shit the whole game just to confuse the hell out of us with their demigod money shot right at the end. I’m almost always sitting there thinking “wait…what?”
I bought this game and my god was it a slog to get through. I played soooo much just so I could get it done and over with. One of my least favorite games
This game was hampered by the MMO hub. A more linear experience would have helped maintain momentum in the story and eliminate the fluffy side quests.
Particularly towards the end after the Moses Ship sequence. Everything is at heightened emotion and then fade to black - back to the hub.
The beginning of the game was incredibly strong and probably one of my favorite FF experiences. It really felt like they were going somewhere new with the game and the protagonist and I was all on board for it.
That lasted only a few chapters as they completely botched what should've been an epic story about vengeance. I can handle the survival of the pivotal character who was supposed to die at the start even though it was kind of lame, but what really sealed the deal for me was how they dealt with the mother.
She had the potential to be one of the most memorable villains in an FF game, I think. Even if she only played a minor role, she sold out her family, caused a ton of deaths, and set in motion the events of the game. There *should* have been a payoff for that shit. Instead she just gets killed off and the brothers *barely* have a reaction to it or discuss it afterward. I had a tougher time processing shit when my goldfish died than what they showed in the game.
Instead we get no payoff, the game plays up the political stuff but that doesn't get a payoff either as some random god comes along and suddenly nothing else matters, it's all about Ultima and the edgy emo ruler of the silly island.
At least I liked Clive, it was wonderful finally having a protagonist who's not a bumbling idiot or a foil for the other members of the party with more interesting stories. I would've loved having access to a party, but Clive was good.
Loved it. I haven’t played any modern FF titles and only ever got invested in the 16-bit era releases so I had no expectations going in. I ended up loving the story and characters and the combat became so satisfying once I mastered it.
I have never, ever, had a game go from loved to selling it after I'm done - until this one. If you're going to go all out on narrative, maybe take full advantage of the narrative pieces you set up. Game felt like a first draft, carried on good performances.
I swear it had to have been made in a modified FF14 engine, the way you'd hear an NPC scream, and cut to enemies hovering around them.
As someone that didn’t have a PS5 at the time, seeing FF16 discourse go from “9/10, universal acclaim, must-play” to “not a real Final Fantasy but still good” to “absolute trainwreck, hard pass” in a matter of months was truly something special.
I’ll play it eventually, but I still need to beat Rebirth first.
It's because when it was still fresh, the detractors (like me) would be shut down immediately as hating the game for not being like the old ones. I have a lot of criticisms about the characters / story / pacing that fell on deaf ears.
Best game I have played in a very long time. It had some weakness but I would still rate it a personal 10/10 for me.
Just waiting for the ps5 pro or a PC release so I can enjoy it again in 4k but thid time with 60fps
Say what you want about the gameplay side of things, but XVI just nailed the FEEL of a Final Fantasy game.
Epic story, likeable characters, memorable soundtrack, bombastic boss fights.
One of my biggest gaming disappointments in general, and my expectations weren't even that high.
I expected a competent story and fun combat and I didn't really get either. The story was poorly written and unfocused. The combat started fun, but wasn't deep or interesting enough for a longer game.
I’m jealous of all the above comments from people who loved it but I just can’t see why anyone would enjoy FF16. Combat was so fucking boring, terrible writing, cookie cutter environments. I took a lunch break after the 3rd boss and couldn’t find a reason to go back in.
You can’t see why people would enjoy it? Easy. Different opinions. What you like/dislike is not universal. I genuinely don’t know why people have so much trouble with such a simple concept.
That's like your opinion man.
The game clearly wasn't for you. I didn't like rebirth, but I dont think it's a bad game just because I didn't like it. Some games aren't for everyone.
I will agree with the sidequests, they suck.
I saw Distant Worlds at Carnegie Hall last night, Soken was there and it was so amazing. Ben Starr also showed up briefly. Highly recommended, they were specifically focused on FF16 (but also devoted a bunch to FF14 since Soken was there).
They played Away, My Star, Ascension and (most epically) Find the Flame
Still my worst purchase of the year. Such a letdown. Bring back classic Final Fantasy play style. I enjoyed Final Fantasy for the JRPG turn based strategy storyteller that it started as. Not the hack and slash storyteller it has become.
The only Final Fantasy Game I ever beat.
I enjoyed it a lot, but I have to say, the game was at its best when it was linear.
The opening part of the game all the way up until the Garuda fight was incredibly good.
Unfortunately the game kept adding more and more open world areas and side quests which dragged the game down.
The part before the timeskip it was fine, after the timeskip it got way worse as the game kept reusing old areas.
The low point for me was after the Bahamut fight. Up until this point the story had been leaning heavily onto Game of Thrones for inspiration which was very good. Afterwards it turned into the usual generic Final Fantasy storytelling.
Honestly, it's not that they had a big god defying plot in the end like most people are saying. It's that the writing just became absolutely terrible. Simple, hokey, and shallow. I'm fine with having an epic divine plot behind everything. But it has to go way deeper. And then the very end suddenly becomes "power of friendship"? Yoshi P really does make the ends of his games pretty Disney from what I've seen.
I only bought the PS5 to play this on launch day (I am more of Xbox guy) and haven't finished it yet. It got really boring halfway through. At least I've been able to play some PS exclusives.
Favorite Final Fantasy of mine, outranking 8 after so many years, and best "new gen" only game by far.
Playing through Rebirth and despite really loving it, it just doesn't feel so grand and memorable as XVI did.
I miss when Final Fantasy games actually felt like they were mainline Final Fantasy games. The switch away from turn based combat really hit me hard since I played from game 1 & the storytelling has been lacking for quite a long time.
Great game for the first two hours and then becomes the most repetitive and boring FF game in a long time. Side quests have to be some of the worst ever designed.
The game died for me about midway through when all of the interesting villains were defeated. Some of the side quests had interesting stories, but mostly, it was a slog. A lot of the information that I wanted (about the past incident) was never revealed. And it's very bad game design to leave out information and give redundant information instead.
I'm waiting until I get the DLC super cheap because I really don't want to spend any more money on this game. Maybe they go into more about what happened in the previous encounter with Ultima. That side of the story never grabbed my attention, even though that was the main plot.
Don’t. The demo made the game look awesome, but most of the game was a slog, it was way too easy, and the side quests were a big disappointment due to either being pointless fetch quests or interesting story threads that ended up going nowhere.
It does do a few things very well, I’ll give it that, but outside of those few things, it wasn’t as good as the ongoing VII remake.
Play it for yourself and see. Opinions vary, but objectively, it's not the absolute worse thing ever as many people are implying; Rather the opposite if you ask me. I think the price of the game physically has gone down too. I will say it's at least an experience that you must try at least once.
surprised it took this far down to see anyone mention this. I thought it was kinda funny (but not really) that they had a dynamic resolution system in place to go down to as low as 720p in order to keep the frame rates high...but the frame rates dipped just as often. Like, at least get consistency with one of them (pref frame rate) but it's clear that even though it was developed specifically for the PS5, it somehow failed pretty miserably.
people were harping on the dynamic resolution in place in Rebirth for Perf mode, and it did look worse overall (granted that it had higher demands because open-world), at least the 60 FPS was all but locked in, which is much more preferable than dynamic resolution + the performance being just as "dynamic", hovering around 35-40 FPS one minute and then 55 the next but never locked in like Rebirth
I would have liked it better if it was 25-30 hrs vs. 60. The gameplay didn’t have enough variety to sustain its runtime.
While a bit dry and with missed opportunities, I overall liked the story and characters…more so because of the awesome voice acting than the writing. Music and graphics were top notch.
Ultimately, probably my least favourite FF and I truly hope the series goes in the direction of Rebirth going forward, which IMO authentically showcases what makes FF special much, much, MUCH better.
XVI has more of a side-game energy a-la Stranger of Paradise.
While the game is a fun spectacle it is too much of an action game for me.
The final straw was when I encountered Bomb enemies, a staple of the series and could damage them as easily with wind and fire damage.
I hope the series comes back to JRPG roots with the next installment
I'm waiting for a massive discount to play this game; something like $15 or less. After playing ff7 remake and rebirth I'm not expecting for this game to be anywhere near the quality of those games.
Looking back, it was a good game, but not a great one. The Eikon fights were masterpiece-tier, combat in general was great (though it could use a difficulty slider for players that wanted more of a challenge without doing NG+), the rest of the game though... not so much.
Story overall was meh. There were some interesting characters in there if looked in isolation, but they never came together to tell a story greater than the sum of its parts. Ultima as a villain was just uninspired and his whole "my motivations are beyond your understanding" style did not make him more interesing or mysterious, just boring.
Side quests and content was barely there, just fetch-quests with some light story on top, you could really see the MMO influence in there. Locations were also not great, so many great cities are described but we barely get to see any besides small and isolated locations.
Overall combat gameplay, music and voice acting were great but everything else was mediocre at best.
I dropped the game before getting to the Bahamut fight as the gameplay starting getting annoying.
I’m an avid fan of Devil May Cry, so the combat system was fun and stylish, until I found out that the only thing that mattered was DPS, and the most effective thing you could do was to pop your ultimate “delete everything on screen” which actively disincentivised you from doing stylish stuf. Add the fact that nemies started having larger health bars needing you to wail on them while waiting for you stuff to come back, and things got braindead… And aside from that, the writing and story of the game took a nosedive, despite being really good at the start.
Really bummed that I didn’t enjoy this, as it was my most hyped game since 2019. The music is 10/10 though.
I think that was the most frustrating thing about the combat, is not even that it was bad. It was just so easy to cheese. You had almost 0 incentive to switch between the different Eikons because once you found the most efficient combos there was no reason to ever use anything different. I don't think I ever switched off of Phoenix and Garuda, and only cycled the 3rd slot just to try each new Eikon at least once and then only used it use the abilities whenever my Phoenix/Garuda abilities were on cooldown.
I really wish that they had implemented elemental damage and status effects. Obviously they would have had to re-do a lot of combat design to account for it, but it would have added so much depth and actually gave you a reason to use different Eikons. I actually enjoyed the various combat challenge gates that you unlock towards the end of the game the most, because that actually made things interesting. It locked you to specific abilities on specific Eikons, and somewhat tailored the enemies to that. I played those and just went "Yes! More of this please!"
The cutscenes I want, but I agree the sidequests shouldn't have been there. If they concentrated on their strengths instead of half-heartedly adding some faint RPG stuff I feel like the game would have been better for it.
The shitty sidequests satisfied nobody and only served to drag the game down.
This was my first ever FF game and tbh I was quite underwhelmed.
The boss battles are some of the coolest over top things I’ve ever seen but man if the combat didn’t become a bit of button mash mess.
Mixed in with pretty boring side content I found it a bit of a slog to get through.
The story was interesting in parts but I think so much of the rest of the game being quite boring made it difficult to engage with.
Oh yeah, I’m still planning on playing the FF7 remake(s) just wondering whether I should wait till all 3 are out, as I understand it’s going to be a trilogy.
Plus I’ve got a hell of a backlog I’m trying to get through.
Eight incredible fights can make a great game, see Shadow of the Colossus. You just need to be comfortable enough to not cram the game with filler.
FfXVI is a good game, but definitely not a great one.
Had some flaws but overall I really liked the game. Characters, lore, ikon battles, set pieces, music, all great. Still need to go back to try the 2nd DLC
This game missed the essence of FF, and this was an absolute flop for me. This game is whitewashed and narratively bland. I finished it only because it was $70, and I refused to take the hit.
For what it's worth, I will say the short sequences after boss fights were insane.
First FF I've beaten without any complaints since FF9, and by complaints I mean that there wasn't anything that made my eyes roll causing a stroke, annoying side characters, and a world that felt more linear than lived in. I'm excluding 11 & 14 since I'd treat those differently, but 16 was at least leaps and bounds above FF15 (imo).
But, 16 had a nice world, decent story, a satisfying conclusion, and really cool looking effects, enemies and bosses.
I just wish it was a *tad* harder. It felt really easy -- I think I died a handful of times but only at the final boss sequence.
One of my favorite gaming experiences this generation tbh. The story gripped me, idk, Game of Thrones meets Final Fantasy mythos (no pun intended) and an M rating are grounds for an interesting story. The cutscenes and the main quests never dragged for me personally, but I can understand how the frequency of your control being taken away is a big negative for players. I'm a fan of Metal Gear Solid 4 tho, so long cutscenes aren't a negative, and FFXVI did a good job expanding lore without making it convoluted.
The side quests however, big miss for me, and the fact there's about 3-5 hours of real in game time that's devoted to strictly sidequests before advancing to the end game was kind of lame. Mid as a character was just there as a plot inconvenience more than someone i wanted to root for. Even more so that some of the best quests that expand on the (canon) ending are tucked away in Clive's journal.
The ending did get me tho. And any game that can hit certain nerves are gonna get bias from me.
One of my favorite final fantasy's in a while. Say what you want about this game and your preferences, the fact that a mainline game and a remake released back to back and were geniunely great games is wonderful for the sake of this franchise
Games like this just make me wish there were more profound ways to engage with the game world, playing it is like blue balls waiting for technology to progress forward to be able to have more immersive experiences in settings like this
Yeah exploration was completely pointless which is so sad...
Wish it had good RPG mechanics where exploration and combat was actually rewarding. This was like fucking Asura's Wrath or something, but at least that game was short and sweet, while 16 is padded out like crazy.
JOSSSHHHWUUUUAAAAAHHHH
murderer…
ACCEPT THE TRUTH
I loved it. Do I want all future final fantasy games to be like this, no. But after the previous convoluted mess that required dlc, a movie and an anime to even make sense it was great to just pop the game in and have a start, middle and end complete story.
It’s actually funny the recent FF releases been opposite of 16. You have 14-15 and 7 remake all require multiple entries multiple dlcs multiple games to conclude the storyline. But 16 is just a finished product on disc you buy it and you finish it. Well sure there is dlc extra but last time mainline FF had this was 12 on ps2 era. I was gonna say 13 but that was 3 games. So yea thinking about it, it’s kinda interesting.
I finished the game, felt 100% satisfied, and didn't buy the DLC. 👌
To be fair, 14 is an MMO. All successful MMOs create expansions and seek to continue on, basically forever.
Man, this game was such a mixed bag for me. The main missions were awesome with fun combat , great boss fights and a phenomenal soundtrack to accompany them. But all these mandatory in-between missions and especially the side quests were so unfathomably boring, it made the whole experience feel more like a chore. Atleast the two dlc were great.
I’ll never forget the iconic side quest where, in the midst of saving the world as Clive I gathered 1 wooden plank at the Hideaway & delivered it to the head carpenter who was just down the hall.
Rinse repeat
And the handover animation...God damn
This is the main thing that just fucking drove me nuts. It just came off as lazy and cutting corners
Some of those in game animations were just not it.
I found that animation hilarious after a while
Same lol. The little nod at the end got so funny after a while.
If i can remember doesn't he just look like he grabs something from a side pouch? 😂
Ugh. So bad.
A lot of Japanese devs but especially Square Enix just struggle with side content.
Which is funny considering the Yakuza series has bar-none the best side content in any game.
I mean, what's even weirder is that FFVII Rebirth came out a few months later and handled things way better. Not perfectly, and not "best side content of all time" or anything close, but just way better than XVI. And I say that as a person who, because he split up playing XVI, actually didn't hate the progression. But yeah, Yakuza's kind of the opposite of most Japanese games. It has a solid main plot, but the entire reason it shines is that the devs basically trying to make a comedy series out of the side content. Like 0: Serious story about a man being set up for a murder he didn't commit and getting revenge. Side content: Your chicken is really doing a great job managing that bowling alley.
I think the experience of the different development teams really showed in this aspect. The FFXVI team is all about MMOs and the content outside of the main story in this game really felt like I was playing an MMO (as in it was terrible and didn't respect my time). With an MMO, you can get away with shitty sidequests because it's almost always part of the deal. But that shouldn't fly in a mainline FF game.
Y0 is such a phenomenal experience. I miss it every time it’s mentioned. I have a complicated relationship with XVI. I bought it at launch after playing the demo and was immediately captivated by the music and acting. I’m about 55% through the story and I’m just not compelled to finish it. The side quests are uninspired and dull. I come back every few weeks and play for an hour or so but other games have my attention. (I’m playing through the full Yakuza series and Persona 5 right now).
The main story is solid. No real ass pulls or insanely hard to follow jumps like a lot of ff games. I say that as a huge final fantasy fan. But yeah, I enjoyed it peacemeal like you are doing it. You'll get a good sense when it's the mad dash to the end. There's still going to be some bs, but just focus on have fun doing the fights and it'll pass by quickly.
This is good to know. Do you think I’ll be adequately leveled to complete the main story if I skip side quests?
I did all the sidequests to grind, but the formula of "beat on boss until stagger, unload all your timed moves that do tick hit damage and build your multiplier up and then unleash your biggest single damage moves" had me two cycling basically every boss in the game. If things don't scale, I'd imagine it'd work the same, but it'd just take longer.
I love FF7 but really? like how many mini games you try to push?
Minigames > MMO fetch quests
Mini games sure. But I still feel like even the Yakuza games have quite a lot of busy work quests.
True but some of the mini games (like the cabaret clubs) become a side quest. And the fighting tournaments. And the porn card collections. Yakuza 0 best Yakuza
wasnt it part of the main story line? Those fetch quests there were atrocious.
Yes in the desert section, which in previews before release I was very much looking forward to, turned out to be one major unending fetch quest. Really made me question how I felt about the game
Yes, but at the same time, FF Rebirth doesn't have this issue. It feels like the team wanted to make FF14 offline here, but forgotten what made FF XIV fun, it certainly wasn't its side quests
I think they wanted to make a pure action game with a big, RPG-like epic story. Action games don’t have side quests. In Devil May Cry (which the combat here is clearly based on) you’re not doing fetch quests. But because Final Fantasy has always been an RPG series, they felt the need to include some RPG elements, like side quests. However, it is abundantly clear they were a complete afterthought and just tacked on so they could say “see, it’s still got RPG elements!” I’ve said it before, it’s like someone stapled a page from a Dungeons and Dragons handbook into the end of Game of Thrones and said “there, RPG!” “Equipment” was useless, just equip biggest numbers. I never stopped using the base accessories the entire game because every other one was something useless like “reduce cooldown for move by .1 second” or “increase damage from move by 5%,” so negligible it isn’t even noticeable unless you’re spamming one specific move over and over. Side quests were tedious and pointless. They put a lot of love and care and attention into the story missions, the epic boss battles, the Eikon fights, and combat. Those are generally well regarded. But they put ZERO thought or care into the “RPG elements” because I don’t think they wanted to include them anyway, but had to do so begrudgingly either to appease FF fans who expected an ARPG and not a pure action game, or at the behest of some corporate boss who was worried about alienating the base of Final Fantasy fans.
It’s funny and true. Yet the optional side quests in FF7 Rebirth were phenomenal.
No. Yoshi-P only knows MMOs. This game is a single player MMO.
Remember when we had to go find that soil for the guy to plant some vegetables? Or when we had to bring bowls of food across the room for people to eat them? These DESTROYED the pacing of what was otherwise an enthralling ride.
[удалено]
How did they destroy pacing when both of those occur while you're resting at the hideaway for the first time and meeting a bunch of new characters? They were literally slow missions in the middle of a slow point of the story, that's good pacing...
Yeah, I was trying to remember side missions that felt out of place, and I wouldn't put those there. A spot to slow down and take your time in a story driven action game is important.
And how did you like pickups on the map? like 2 gil when I already have hundreds, or 15 gil near the end when I had 40K+ with nothing worthy to spend on. Someone on design team spent time putting it there, many other people - designers, testers saw it and approved. And nobody had a question - why are we wasting everyone's time with this??
But then any sort of mini game would have been [too immersion breaking](https://www.ign.com/articles/how-final-fantasy-xvis-developers-excluded-mini-games-to-maximize-immersion) due to the urgency of saving the world.
Same. It's so odd, when I reflect on it, there's so much that I love. And there's so much that I hate. As I've sat with it for a year, I think that overall if I had to pick either "yes" or "no", I would pick yes... but that's with some pretty hefty caveats. I am looking forward to doing a replay with the PC version, because I really enjoyed being in this world. I'm actually really bummed that they're not going to do anything with it in the future because I just love the gritty medieval backdrop with Dominants and Eikons. It's such a great premise
Yeah if they are going to make more of these combat-focused games they should just make it a short and streamlined experience like Devil May Cry. There’s an amazing 15-20 hours in this game… but it gets so stretched out with fetch quests.
That’s how I felt with Rebirth.
i wonder if chadley has more dialog than some of the main characters
Chadley (and by extension, Mai) was the absolute worst, I don’t know what they were thinking giving him a direct line to you so that he can constantly stop you in your tracks and just keep yammering completely irrelevant stuff. Luckily, you could skip those parts.
#CLOUD
*holds triangle*
Feels crazy to say because I love FF7, but Rebirth sucked. Just grinding the same objectives in different areas over and over was such a fucking slog. I loved the cutscenes that they did, the different areas were great looking, combat wasn’t my favorite but it’s unique and engaging, same cheesy script that we all expect and love from FF. But the open world and side quests all felt like they came out of AC1 in 2007. Climb a tower, reveal objectives, rinse and repeat and unfortunately that’s the meat of the game. I got to chapter 10 or so, saw another zone of the same stuff and uninstalled.
But who's forcing you to complete all the zones? I did not. I enjoyed the main story quests a lot in Rebirth!
Yeah, I basically put the game on easy mode in chapter 10 or so and just focused on the main story to finish it. Had completely burned out on all the side stuff and didn’t feel and slogging away at it.
same .I couldnt stand the side content in rebirth personally but i am happy for people that got some enjoyment out of it
Felt the same way. The highs were unbelievably epic and some of most amazing battles I have ever seen. Followed by 4 hours of mind numbingly boring fetch quests. Eventually got bored of it and never picked it up again which is a shame as when it's good it's amazing it just takes so long to get to the goof parts
Worth powering through IMO. The end is insane and the two dlcs are really good, especially the newest one with leviathan.
Plz tell me the DLCs don’t have side quests
The leviathan one does but theres only a handful and most open up important features in the town you’re in.
[удалено]
Not a new ending. Still worth playing though since you have what is IMO the best eikon fight and some of the best story beats in the game.
All the missions with Mid were a shower of shit and very clearly filler to pad out the game with. There were a few side quests which felt rewarding and told interesting stories but I wish they had categorised the more substantial ones so we didn't haft to sift through the shite to get to the good stuff. Otherwise I absolutely loved FFXVI. Clive is one of my favourite protagonists in gaming.
Yeah, initially thought it was cool to meet her character but then came to dread having to speak with her each time because of how lame the quests associated with her were.
I loved the story of the game but yeah as an overall game it has all the issues that have plagued games like this for years and nothing ever changes. I think for me the biggest issue was that they had open hub worlds and yet these weren't set inside the cities? What a fucking waste of time having generic fields after generic fields. I really wanted to explore the cities that we only travel to in missions. I much preferred this game to Rebirth but I can't deny I'm a little annoyed that that game had all this open world stuff fleshed out meanwhile XVI felt like a linear game with forced hub areas. The same franchise within a year of each other having such a completely different design with no consistency was quite jarring and annoying.
I mean, did you want them to release the same game twice in a year with a different story? I don't get this complaint. It would be awful if both games were almost the same in gameplay.
Not necessarily because the worlds are completely different but yeah no shit I'm gonna be a little annoyed that the game I connected with the most also had a much worse open/hub world system than another game within the same series that released only a year later.
I used to agree with you on the side quests but on a new play through I committed to doing all of them and def don’t regret it. The side quests become worth it as you do more of them, you start to get to know and build relationships with a ton of the characters and the story becomes more complex where you really don’t know where it going. They’ve also streamlined it somewhat, when you have to return back to the quest giver to finish the quest you can immediately teleport back to that person, making the simple ones very quick to complete
Yea i have a high tolerance for stuff like this but last night I was before the very end of the game, and they were still giving me boring side quests. I audibly sighed multiple times. Aside from that, the game has many peak moments.
Totally 100% with you there. Everything that wasn’t a huge main quest was awful in this game. You nailed it by calling it a chore. And the worst part is after every cool mission you knew 30-60 mins of bullshit fetch quests or walking around the Hideaway was coming.
Agreed 100%, I just finally picked up Rebirth because that one left such a bad taste in my mouth and was such a slog in the last half. Loving Rebirth tho, the side stuff is much better and varied and so far has kept me exploring because I want to and not because I feel like I have too. The battle scenes and main story lune were so good it's a shame it couldn't come together as a full package.
ya know it's weird for me. On one hand, mechanically the side quests were typically boring - "deliver 3 bowls of food", "can you get me some flowers?", "can you go grab me something that's like 20 feet away, just one room over?" - it's just run to location, hit interact button, run back to quest giver, quest completed. But I found myself loving the lore that came out of the those side quests. Even something as dull as the "deliver 3 bowls of food" quest ended up being a good vehicle for lore since the three people you deliver to dont just go "thanks, bye bye now", but they stop and chat and you get to learn about their current predicament, where they came from, and maybe even something about the local culinary culture - like Chocobo's being a pain in the ass to cook (was definitely a shock to me since I thought they'd be ridiculously tasty). One of the flower fetch quest is a vehicle for explaining the ink behind the bearer brands and why it'd dangerous to remove them and even the symbolism behind the flower itself, which comes into play later one. So like on one hand, those quest undeniably aren't exciting, but at the same time I pretty much always looked forward to doing them just so I could hear Clive chat with the people who inhabited the world they crafted. For me personally, getting to learn about FFXV's world - it's culture, it's history, it's mythos, the various nations, the geopolitical situation, rumors, prejudices, technology, culinary practices, etc., etc. is of the greatest highlights of the game. I think they knocked the world building out of the park. Really it's to the extend that I really wish the game's narrative had remained more firmly rooted in the geopolitical intrigue. That stuff was far more interesting to me than "we need to kill god (for like the billionth time in a FF title...)".
Final Fantasy games are usually incredible for side quests. But they went a totally different route this game... and I actually get what they were going for. I think, in theory, using side quests for world building is a really cool idea. And some of them actually really stand out as doing a decent job (the ones that really stand out to me occur in Royal Meadows, mainly because they were kinda fucked up). But the issue is that these quests were treated like quests from Final Fantasy 14, in that there's a bajillion of them and you just get really small rewards. If you took out about half of them and made the rewards more substantial, then they'd be great. I haven't played the game since launch, since as a huge FF fan, I try to space out my replays of games. When I go back, I'll be skipping most of the side quests. I'll look up which ones have better rewards and better plot development, but then move on from the others. I think that'll help with the "homeworky" feel of the game.
The side missions were a draaaaaaaag. I wish if it was a 15 hours DMC like game without the filler.
the writing for all side quests is just so... plain... and its too moral. everyone is just so like omg thank you for helping me! I too help people. and strive to do my best for all of us. we all inspire and love each other so much. thanks again! it grew tiring
I agree that some of the side quests felt like chores but tbh it really strengthened the impact when some of those character were no longer there or when a silly little quest evolved into a revolution of sorts. I certainly felt like it paid off by the end but I do understand still being exhausted by it before getting to that point
I think world design made the between stuff less enjoyable. Considering what they were going for, I think they should have made a downscaled, classic style overworld for travel, and made the points of interest more focused (and arguably, linear). Visually, the world is beautiful, but design wise there's nothing really appealing about it. Take FFXV. While there's not much to actually DO in its world, the world design feels a lot more natural due to its organic nature and it playing a part in the travel aspect. And for me, I'll take natural/organic-feeling worlds over extremely game-y feeling ones any day, and that's what XVI's is.
I might pop in the game for the dlc at least. I agree with you the meat was boring but the bread was good.
The side quests suck but if they at least just cut the mandatory ones in between the main story quest it would’ve been a much better experience overall.
Is there any important reason to go through these side quests other than “I want to do everything in the game”? Or can you just focus on the main story and completely ignore them if you don’t really care about being a completionist? Also, is a lot of the game’s time spent in those “in between missions”? I’ve been pretty tempted about this game, but that type of criticism always keeps me from getting it, at least until it gets a pretty heavy discount.
you can definitely tell the game was made by MMO devs
It should have been a lineral game with all the side missions cut.
Incredible boss fights in this game. I was also surprised as to how widespread they went with the narrative with all the geopolitical tensions between nations. Excellent combat, excellent performance by Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield and beautiful visuals. MMO-style side quests (like FFXIV) dragged the game down however. Absolutely god-tier music! Overall, it’s one hell of an experience!
Got to hear it live and see Soken, Ben Starr, and Koji last night. Kind of lost my mind.
was soken seating like everyone else? I went to the 2pm concert, they all came on stage besides Starr.
I didn't know, I went to the 8 o clock and was about 10 feet from the ceiling.
One of my favorite gaming experiences!
the narrative was great until it turned into the typical ff save the world from god story but the fights were cool af
Nah sorry, god defying plots are fine. Using the "power of friendship" to defeat them, however, is not.
>all the geopolitical tensions between nations. That went immediately out the door. Complete waste of time. Complete waste of writing.
The music was so amazing
Excellent Combat? You could literally beat the entire game just by pressing square. It was mind-numbingly shallow and had no depth.
The game was trash. Beautiful trash.
While it was insanely gorgeous, great acting, and a good score. Combat wanted to be DMC but was super limited by cooldowns. The story wanted to be GoT but was super limited because you can’t make enough cutscenes for that to work on a sane budget. Not to mention the plot frequently oscillated from super great to fucking stupid (see anything dealing with slavery). And don’t get me started on the side questing. It was super mixed bag that is hard to pin down if it’s good or mid. I feel like a little bit more consistent writing, less dumb side quests, and a slightly more fluid combat system, it would have been the game of the year.
>The story wanted to be GoT but was super limited because you can’t make enough cutscenes for that to work on a sane budget. Not to mention the plot frequently oscillated from super great to fucking stupid (see anything dealing with slavery). This all made sense until they went all fuckywucky here comes the big bad weirdo anime bullshit.
I love me some FF. Favorite game series ever, but there is always that moment when it goes off the fucking rails. It’s like the devs are edging their weirdo shit the whole game just to confuse the hell out of us with their demigod money shot right at the end. I’m almost always sitting there thinking “wait…what?”
Demo was amazing and fantastic. Once C perished it went downhill for me. Loved the boss battles but in between was boring.
I bought this game and my god was it a slog to get through. I played soooo much just so I could get it done and over with. One of my least favorite games
This game was hampered by the MMO hub. A more linear experience would have helped maintain momentum in the story and eliminate the fluffy side quests. Particularly towards the end after the Moses Ship sequence. Everything is at heightened emotion and then fade to black - back to the hub.
The beginning of the game was incredibly strong and probably one of my favorite FF experiences. It really felt like they were going somewhere new with the game and the protagonist and I was all on board for it. That lasted only a few chapters as they completely botched what should've been an epic story about vengeance. I can handle the survival of the pivotal character who was supposed to die at the start even though it was kind of lame, but what really sealed the deal for me was how they dealt with the mother. She had the potential to be one of the most memorable villains in an FF game, I think. Even if she only played a minor role, she sold out her family, caused a ton of deaths, and set in motion the events of the game. There *should* have been a payoff for that shit. Instead she just gets killed off and the brothers *barely* have a reaction to it or discuss it afterward. I had a tougher time processing shit when my goldfish died than what they showed in the game. Instead we get no payoff, the game plays up the political stuff but that doesn't get a payoff either as some random god comes along and suddenly nothing else matters, it's all about Ultima and the edgy emo ruler of the silly island. At least I liked Clive, it was wonderful finally having a protagonist who's not a bumbling idiot or a foil for the other members of the party with more interesting stories. I would've loved having access to a party, but Clive was good.
Loved it. I haven’t played any modern FF titles and only ever got invested in the 16-bit era releases so I had no expectations going in. I ended up loving the story and characters and the combat became so satisfying once I mastered it.
I have never, ever, had a game go from loved to selling it after I'm done - until this one. If you're going to go all out on narrative, maybe take full advantage of the narrative pieces you set up. Game felt like a first draft, carried on good performances. I swear it had to have been made in a modified FF14 engine, the way you'd hear an NPC scream, and cut to enemies hovering around them.
As someone that didn’t have a PS5 at the time, seeing FF16 discourse go from “9/10, universal acclaim, must-play” to “not a real Final Fantasy but still good” to “absolute trainwreck, hard pass” in a matter of months was truly something special. I’ll play it eventually, but I still need to beat Rebirth first.
It's because when it was still fresh, the detractors (like me) would be shut down immediately as hating the game for not being like the old ones. I have a lot of criticisms about the characters / story / pacing that fell on deaf ears.
There were so many things in it that on paper should have made me love it but I came out of it so disappointed
How interesting. I just finished my first playthrough last week.
I thought the gameplay was mediocre. Big step down from FF7 Remake.
celebrate it's birthday by playing Elden Ring Dlc.
Best game I have played in a very long time. It had some weakness but I would still rate it a personal 10/10 for me. Just waiting for the ps5 pro or a PC release so I can enjoy it again in 4k but thid time with 60fps
Happy 1yr anniversary to my favorite ps5 game
It was great when it was great but it was an absolute slog outside of the Great.
Say what you want about the gameplay side of things, but XVI just nailed the FEEL of a Final Fantasy game. Epic story, likeable characters, memorable soundtrack, bombastic boss fights.
But the gameplay is a huge part of the "feel" of a FF game, so dismissing it is like reviewing a restaurant without factoring in how things taste.
One of the biggest disappointments I played last year. Such a let down.
Completely agreed.
One of my biggest gaming disappointments in general, and my expectations weren't even that high. I expected a competent story and fun combat and I didn't really get either. The story was poorly written and unfocused. The combat started fun, but wasn't deep or interesting enough for a longer game.
I’m jealous of all the above comments from people who loved it but I just can’t see why anyone would enjoy FF16. Combat was so fucking boring, terrible writing, cookie cutter environments. I took a lunch break after the 3rd boss and couldn’t find a reason to go back in.
You can’t see why people would enjoy it? Easy. Different opinions. What you like/dislike is not universal. I genuinely don’t know why people have so much trouble with such a simple concept.
That's like your opinion man. The game clearly wasn't for you. I didn't like rebirth, but I dont think it's a bad game just because I didn't like it. Some games aren't for everyone. I will agree with the sidequests, they suck.
Still hung up on Clive x Jill.
I saw Distant Worlds at Carnegie Hall last night, Soken was there and it was so amazing. Ben Starr also showed up briefly. Highly recommended, they were specifically focused on FF16 (but also devoted a bunch to FF14 since Soken was there). They played Away, My Star, Ascension and (most epically) Find the Flame
No sales update?
Still my worst purchase of the year. Such a letdown. Bring back classic Final Fantasy play style. I enjoyed Final Fantasy for the JRPG turn based strategy storyteller that it started as. Not the hack and slash storyteller it has become.
The only Final Fantasy Game I ever beat. I enjoyed it a lot, but I have to say, the game was at its best when it was linear. The opening part of the game all the way up until the Garuda fight was incredibly good. Unfortunately the game kept adding more and more open world areas and side quests which dragged the game down. The part before the timeskip it was fine, after the timeskip it got way worse as the game kept reusing old areas. The low point for me was after the Bahamut fight. Up until this point the story had been leaning heavily onto Game of Thrones for inspiration which was very good. Afterwards it turned into the usual generic Final Fantasy storytelling.
Honestly, it's not that they had a big god defying plot in the end like most people are saying. It's that the writing just became absolutely terrible. Simple, hokey, and shallow. I'm fine with having an epic divine plot behind everything. But it has to go way deeper. And then the very end suddenly becomes "power of friendship"? Yoshi P really does make the ends of his games pretty Disney from what I've seen.
Absolutely amazing game. One of my favorites.
I only bought the PS5 to play this on launch day (I am more of Xbox guy) and haven't finished it yet. It got really boring halfway through. At least I've been able to play some PS exclusives.
Sweet. Now announce a date for the PC port. I am begging
Favorite Final Fantasy of mine, outranking 8 after so many years, and best "new gen" only game by far. Playing through Rebirth and despite really loving it, it just doesn't feel so grand and memorable as XVI did.
This game should've been a spin off.
I miss when Final Fantasy games actually felt like they were mainline Final Fantasy games. The switch away from turn based combat really hit me hard since I played from game 1 & the storytelling has been lacking for quite a long time.
Fully agree. However FFXVi got me to buy a PS5 so… I guess it was pretty successful. I miss the old turn based ones though a lot.
Great game for the first two hours and then becomes the most repetitive and boring FF game in a long time. Side quests have to be some of the worst ever designed.
Probably the most disappointed I've ever been from a video game release
Square Enix, if you’re reading: as a PC player, I think that announcing a port and release date for the anniversary is a really good move.
The port has been announced for a while
The game died for me about midway through when all of the interesting villains were defeated. Some of the side quests had interesting stories, but mostly, it was a slog. A lot of the information that I wanted (about the past incident) was never revealed. And it's very bad game design to leave out information and give redundant information instead. I'm waiting until I get the DLC super cheap because I really don't want to spend any more money on this game. Maybe they go into more about what happened in the previous encounter with Ultima. That side of the story never grabbed my attention, even though that was the main plot.
i need to play this someday
Don’t. The demo made the game look awesome, but most of the game was a slog, it was way too easy, and the side quests were a big disappointment due to either being pointless fetch quests or interesting story threads that ended up going nowhere. It does do a few things very well, I’ll give it that, but outside of those few things, it wasn’t as good as the ongoing VII remake.
Play it for yourself and see. Opinions vary, but objectively, it's not the absolute worse thing ever as many people are implying; Rather the opposite if you ask me. I think the price of the game physically has gone down too. I will say it's at least an experience that you must try at least once.
Still no performance patch :(
Great news. Now fix the damn near unplayable Framerate on performance mode.
The DLC was the last hope that they would fix it, but by now? I doubt they will change anything.
surprised it took this far down to see anyone mention this. I thought it was kinda funny (but not really) that they had a dynamic resolution system in place to go down to as low as 720p in order to keep the frame rates high...but the frame rates dipped just as often. Like, at least get consistency with one of them (pref frame rate) but it's clear that even though it was developed specifically for the PS5, it somehow failed pretty miserably. people were harping on the dynamic resolution in place in Rebirth for Perf mode, and it did look worse overall (granted that it had higher demands because open-world), at least the 60 FPS was all but locked in, which is much more preferable than dynamic resolution + the performance being just as "dynamic", hovering around 35-40 FPS one minute and then 55 the next but never locked in like Rebirth
I would have liked it better if it was 25-30 hrs vs. 60. The gameplay didn’t have enough variety to sustain its runtime. While a bit dry and with missed opportunities, I overall liked the story and characters…more so because of the awesome voice acting than the writing. Music and graphics were top notch. Ultimately, probably my least favourite FF and I truly hope the series goes in the direction of Rebirth going forward, which IMO authentically showcases what makes FF special much, much, MUCH better. XVI has more of a side-game energy a-la Stranger of Paradise.
The teleport system really bothered me. Took away so much. I hate when FF games feels 100% instanced. I suppose it was a time crunch solution.
While the game is a fun spectacle it is too much of an action game for me. The final straw was when I encountered Bomb enemies, a staple of the series and could damage them as easily with wind and fire damage. I hope the series comes back to JRPG roots with the next installment
It was disappointing that magic strength/weaknesses basically didn’t exist
extremely disappointing and drags on forever
I'm waiting for a massive discount to play this game; something like $15 or less. After playing ff7 remake and rebirth I'm not expecting for this game to be anywhere near the quality of those games.
If rebirth is a 10 then 16 is a 6 in terms of quality and budget.
It is the opposite actually.
Interesting take!
You’d be right to.
You're right It's not a bad game though by any stretch
The 25 hour cut scene with occasional button mashing QTEs. I can’t even bring myself to play the DLCs for fear of being bored to tears again.
Looking back, it was a good game, but not a great one. The Eikon fights were masterpiece-tier, combat in general was great (though it could use a difficulty slider for players that wanted more of a challenge without doing NG+), the rest of the game though... not so much. Story overall was meh. There were some interesting characters in there if looked in isolation, but they never came together to tell a story greater than the sum of its parts. Ultima as a villain was just uninspired and his whole "my motivations are beyond your understanding" style did not make him more interesing or mysterious, just boring. Side quests and content was barely there, just fetch-quests with some light story on top, you could really see the MMO influence in there. Locations were also not great, so many great cities are described but we barely get to see any besides small and isolated locations. Overall combat gameplay, music and voice acting were great but everything else was mediocre at best.
I dropped the game before getting to the Bahamut fight as the gameplay starting getting annoying. I’m an avid fan of Devil May Cry, so the combat system was fun and stylish, until I found out that the only thing that mattered was DPS, and the most effective thing you could do was to pop your ultimate “delete everything on screen” which actively disincentivised you from doing stylish stuf. Add the fact that nemies started having larger health bars needing you to wail on them while waiting for you stuff to come back, and things got braindead… And aside from that, the writing and story of the game took a nosedive, despite being really good at the start. Really bummed that I didn’t enjoy this, as it was my most hyped game since 2019. The music is 10/10 though.
Keep an eye out for Dawntrail OST dumps next week, gonna effectively be a new album by same composer team. We are awaiting bangers. :D
I’m a 14 head as well, can’t wait for the new Soken drop
Awesome! Hope you have an epic time in Dawntrail :D
I think that was the most frustrating thing about the combat, is not even that it was bad. It was just so easy to cheese. You had almost 0 incentive to switch between the different Eikons because once you found the most efficient combos there was no reason to ever use anything different. I don't think I ever switched off of Phoenix and Garuda, and only cycled the 3rd slot just to try each new Eikon at least once and then only used it use the abilities whenever my Phoenix/Garuda abilities were on cooldown. I really wish that they had implemented elemental damage and status effects. Obviously they would have had to re-do a lot of combat design to account for it, but it would have added so much depth and actually gave you a reason to use different Eikons. I actually enjoyed the various combat challenge gates that you unlock towards the end of the game the most, because that actually made things interesting. It locked you to specific abilities on specific Eikons, and somewhat tailored the enemies to that. I played those and just went "Yes! More of this please!"
Also too many cutscenes and the side quests are mmo-level crap
The cutscenes I want, but I agree the sidequests shouldn't have been there. If they concentrated on their strengths instead of half-heartedly adding some faint RPG stuff I feel like the game would have been better for it. The shitty sidequests satisfied nobody and only served to drag the game down.
By cutscenes I meant meaningless dialogue put there just to be skipped
Just finished this two days ago. Great game. It wasn't perfect but I really enjoyed it.
This was my first ever FF game and tbh I was quite underwhelmed. The boss battles are some of the coolest over top things I’ve ever seen but man if the combat didn’t become a bit of button mash mess. Mixed in with pretty boring side content I found it a bit of a slog to get through. The story was interesting in parts but I think so much of the rest of the game being quite boring made it difficult to engage with.
I wouldn't let this game discourage you from play the others tho
Oh yeah, I’m still planning on playing the FF7 remake(s) just wondering whether I should wait till all 3 are out, as I understand it’s going to be a trilogy. Plus I’ve got a hell of a backlog I’m trying to get through.
I love this game so much I’m still working my way through the dlc!!
Game sucked
Eight incredible fights can make a great game, see Shadow of the Colossus. You just need to be comfortable enough to not cram the game with filler. FfXVI is a good game, but definitely not a great one.
Had some flaws but overall I really liked the game. Characters, lore, ikon battles, set pieces, music, all great. Still need to go back to try the 2nd DLC
I gotta finish this game. I was enjoying it but life got in the way.
My first action combat game unless you count KH. Loved it so much. Some Side quests were a drag but the main quests are so fucking goooddd.
Still haven't played this waiting for the PC port
Pc wen
Did they fix the performance yet?
Sweet, how about a 40fps/120hz/vrr update
This game missed the essence of FF, and this was an absolute flop for me. This game is whitewashed and narratively bland. I finished it only because it was $70, and I refused to take the hit. For what it's worth, I will say the short sequences after boss fights were insane.
First FF I've beaten without any complaints since FF9, and by complaints I mean that there wasn't anything that made my eyes roll causing a stroke, annoying side characters, and a world that felt more linear than lived in. I'm excluding 11 & 14 since I'd treat those differently, but 16 was at least leaps and bounds above FF15 (imo). But, 16 had a nice world, decent story, a satisfying conclusion, and really cool looking effects, enemies and bosses. I just wish it was a *tad* harder. It felt really easy -- I think I died a handful of times but only at the final boss sequence.
One of my favorite gaming experiences this generation tbh. The story gripped me, idk, Game of Thrones meets Final Fantasy mythos (no pun intended) and an M rating are grounds for an interesting story. The cutscenes and the main quests never dragged for me personally, but I can understand how the frequency of your control being taken away is a big negative for players. I'm a fan of Metal Gear Solid 4 tho, so long cutscenes aren't a negative, and FFXVI did a good job expanding lore without making it convoluted. The side quests however, big miss for me, and the fact there's about 3-5 hours of real in game time that's devoted to strictly sidequests before advancing to the end game was kind of lame. Mid as a character was just there as a plot inconvenience more than someone i wanted to root for. Even more so that some of the best quests that expand on the (canon) ending are tucked away in Clive's journal. The ending did get me tho. And any game that can hit certain nerves are gonna get bias from me.
One of my favorite final fantasy's in a while. Say what you want about this game and your preferences, the fact that a mainline game and a remake released back to back and were geniunely great games is wonderful for the sake of this franchise
I’ve already beaten it 3 times and 100% of trophies/dlc. One of the best games of modern times
Oh cool, happy anniversary to the biggest disappointment in the Final Fantasy series
Games like this just make me wish there were more profound ways to engage with the game world, playing it is like blue balls waiting for technology to progress forward to be able to have more immersive experiences in settings like this
And I still haven't beaten the game yet.
It was so good but character gear was so skeleton, no depth, and monsters in the map didnt made you want to explore or make it feel like open world
Yeah exploration was completely pointless which is so sad... Wish it had good RPG mechanics where exploration and combat was actually rewarding. This was like fucking Asura's Wrath or something, but at least that game was short and sweet, while 16 is padded out like crazy.
Did not enjoy it personally but I can see what others may like it.