Final Fantasy 16
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88 so far from critics at https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/final-fantasy-xvi?ref=hp
No user reviews yet.
No user reviews yet.
Metacritic no longer allows user reviews until 48 hours after the game has released because they don't want people review bombing games before the game even comes out.
My plan for this game is going to be play it basically the entire weekend as non-stop as possible. Then put together a review and impressions post on Monday. It'll either be a complete review, or damn near complete impressions over the game. I'll also post it in the grand FF retrospective thread for completionist sake.
Outside of a couple of hours of piano practice this will eat all my time as well. I definitely picked a good time to get back to playing the piano after like 20 years XD.
I expect this to be somewhat shorter than a typical Jrpg but maybe they will do the dmc thing where the real game opens up when you unlock higher difficulties or something. But yeah I'm mainly curious about the story, I wanna turn into Bahamut and throw mega flares manually XD.
I expect this to be somewhat shorter than a typical Jrpg but maybe they will do the dmc thing where the real game opens up when you unlock higher difficulties or something. But yeah I'm mainly curious about the story, I wanna turn into Bahamut and throw mega flares manually XD.
So I'm about 10 hours in and got to a good place to stop for now. Man this game is definitely a FF game cause I was enthralled ceaselessly and didn't even have time to eat or sleep XD.
So, first things first, the negatives out of the way; the english script is atrocious. It doesn't affect me most of the time cause I'm playing in JP but every now and then I'll glance at the subs that I leave on in case I hear some JP word I'm unfamiliar with out of habit and they're just...hilarious and awful XD. It's like the writer is trying super hard to sound weirdly old-timey and also edgy at the same time. In JP meanwhile it's like a normal jrpg/anime script that feels instantly familiar and fitting to FF. Oh and there's almost no swearing in JP, but I see random fucks in the subs left and right. Also a lot more sarcasm and irony that serves no purpose, just people being randomly assholes so that they'll be seen as "tough" or something. Again, super weird.
Now, with that out of the way. The world is very compelling, it's not quite as dark as I heard people make it out to be, but yeah there's a ton of war and slavery. I'm not sure if all those folks crying for "diversity" would want it if they knew that chances are the diverse chars would also be slaves, or if they don't like seeing a game having so many european-themed slaves, but damn it feels like half the cast is either a slave or fighting to free slaves or trying to enslave someone. Either way, Clive is a great protag if a bit with blinders on. I stopped at a critical point where he will face his obstacle but so far he's just earnest if a bit too disconnected. The supporting cast are all sweet and funny enough to make up for him, especially Jill in the beginning, and seeing little bro put up a fight a bit and not be totally useless was also cool. Cid is a bro too, and a pretty cool guy all around, he has that kinda Balthier type of mentoring role which is like the one cool thing that has stayed with me about XII, and of course Torgal is hype, and you can PET him. There's even a trophy for petting him enough. My coolest moment so far was fighting together with him and doing combination QTEs where Torgal is involved in the cutscene bitting people's face of as he swerves mid air with their head in their mouth to let you slash em.
And now that we're here, lets touch on the QTEs. Basically, this game lets you play normally most of the time, but sometimes it decides it wants to be Asura's Wrath to varying extends, so it has a ton of random long ass sequences, it's very forgiving and simple and you can't mess it up but it just feels extremely awesome when you're in the moment. The ones that happen mid-fight are less spectacular but in some of the bigger boss fights you get like a long ass sequence after you win the fight and those go super hard. I legit lost track of where the floor was for a good minute or two in the Phoenix one while I was mashing with Ifrit so hard it reminded me of puniching that planet in the face in Asura's Wrath. Again, not played anything like this since Asura's Wrath but this has a modern look to it and is way more seamless with the gameplay.
And as for the gameplay itself, it's basically slightly simpler and easier DMC. It knows how to drip feed you new skills, so you can unlock a bunch of stuff to play around with fast but upgrading them takes a while (be SURE to press triangle over every action in the ability menu and read what they actually do cause the basic description leaves out 95% of the useful information) and just as the combat felt a bit repetitive I got access to a whole second summon which has its own abilities and independent cooldowns and played like Nero from dmc4-5 where you have this spectral arm skill that lets you grapple with enemies, pull small ones to you or pull yourself to the bigger ones. It also does this cool thing where if you're fighting super tough enemies with posture meters, and they are under 50% posture, you do this tug of war grapple move to them that brings em down and always looks incredibly awesome too. And you can shift between the summons on the fly so you can do combos with both sets of moves. Also a thing the game doesn't tell you is that the magic burst skill works for literally every single attack that uses the sword, not just the square combo, and that the phoenix teleport slash on a grounded enemy does a unique, contextual grounded attack on enemies that's different from the regular one. There's a lot of things like this where the game doesn't actually explain every little thing and you have to test it out. So far my favorite skill is the projectile counter thing from the phoenix tree, cause a lot of enemies like to just fly around and shoot projectiles but just shooting back does like no damage but this skill does a ton. Also a more general observation about the gameplay is that everything is very forgiving. You can mash inputs that require timing and the game will still give it to you even if you hit the button early like 10 times before hitting it with the right timing. It's more noticeable in the QTEs but it's there for everything. I think they were afraid of overwhelming people so they're being very lenient with everything.
Oh and the music is awesome, especially the super crazy boss fight one. It's paired with the cutscenes in a masterful way.
Ok now I really need to eat something.
So, first things first, the negatives out of the way; the english script is atrocious. It doesn't affect me most of the time cause I'm playing in JP but every now and then I'll glance at the subs that I leave on in case I hear some JP word I'm unfamiliar with out of habit and they're just...hilarious and awful XD. It's like the writer is trying super hard to sound weirdly old-timey and also edgy at the same time. In JP meanwhile it's like a normal jrpg/anime script that feels instantly familiar and fitting to FF. Oh and there's almost no swearing in JP, but I see random fucks in the subs left and right. Also a lot more sarcasm and irony that serves no purpose, just people being randomly assholes so that they'll be seen as "tough" or something. Again, super weird.
Now, with that out of the way. The world is very compelling, it's not quite as dark as I heard people make it out to be, but yeah there's a ton of war and slavery. I'm not sure if all those folks crying for "diversity" would want it if they knew that chances are the diverse chars would also be slaves, or if they don't like seeing a game having so many european-themed slaves, but damn it feels like half the cast is either a slave or fighting to free slaves or trying to enslave someone. Either way, Clive is a great protag if a bit with blinders on. I stopped at a critical point where he will face his obstacle but so far he's just earnest if a bit too disconnected. The supporting cast are all sweet and funny enough to make up for him, especially Jill in the beginning, and seeing little bro put up a fight a bit and not be totally useless was also cool. Cid is a bro too, and a pretty cool guy all around, he has that kinda Balthier type of mentoring role which is like the one cool thing that has stayed with me about XII, and of course Torgal is hype, and you can PET him. There's even a trophy for petting him enough. My coolest moment so far was fighting together with him and doing combination QTEs where Torgal is involved in the cutscene bitting people's face of as he swerves mid air with their head in their mouth to let you slash em.
And now that we're here, lets touch on the QTEs. Basically, this game lets you play normally most of the time, but sometimes it decides it wants to be Asura's Wrath to varying extends, so it has a ton of random long ass sequences, it's very forgiving and simple and you can't mess it up but it just feels extremely awesome when you're in the moment. The ones that happen mid-fight are less spectacular but in some of the bigger boss fights you get like a long ass sequence after you win the fight and those go super hard. I legit lost track of where the floor was for a good minute or two in the Phoenix one while I was mashing with Ifrit so hard it reminded me of puniching that planet in the face in Asura's Wrath. Again, not played anything like this since Asura's Wrath but this has a modern look to it and is way more seamless with the gameplay.
And as for the gameplay itself, it's basically slightly simpler and easier DMC. It knows how to drip feed you new skills, so you can unlock a bunch of stuff to play around with fast but upgrading them takes a while (be SURE to press triangle over every action in the ability menu and read what they actually do cause the basic description leaves out 95% of the useful information) and just as the combat felt a bit repetitive I got access to a whole second summon which has its own abilities and independent cooldowns and played like Nero from dmc4-5 where you have this spectral arm skill that lets you grapple with enemies, pull small ones to you or pull yourself to the bigger ones. It also does this cool thing where if you're fighting super tough enemies with posture meters, and they are under 50% posture, you do this tug of war grapple move to them that brings em down and always looks incredibly awesome too. And you can shift between the summons on the fly so you can do combos with both sets of moves. Also a thing the game doesn't tell you is that the magic burst skill works for literally every single attack that uses the sword, not just the square combo, and that the phoenix teleport slash on a grounded enemy does a unique, contextual grounded attack on enemies that's different from the regular one. There's a lot of things like this where the game doesn't actually explain every little thing and you have to test it out. So far my favorite skill is the projectile counter thing from the phoenix tree, cause a lot of enemies like to just fly around and shoot projectiles but just shooting back does like no damage but this skill does a ton. Also a more general observation about the gameplay is that everything is very forgiving. You can mash inputs that require timing and the game will still give it to you even if you hit the button early like 10 times before hitting it with the right timing. It's more noticeable in the QTEs but it's there for everything. I think they were afraid of overwhelming people so they're being very lenient with everything.
Oh and the music is awesome, especially the super crazy boss fight one. It's paired with the cutscenes in a masterful way.
Ok now I really need to eat something.
Did you try the game in english at all? Or are you just basing the level of the english script based off the subtitles and your understanding of Japanese. Because they aren't equal. Koji has said that the localization team rewrites the script from Japanese into English and make changes to the script to give the English dub a more consistent feel, considering that the Japanese script doesn't have the same tonalities.
Yoshi-P has even said that the game was designed with the English script in mind and has recommended even Japanese players, play the game in English because it conveys the mode of the story better. To the point of this being the only Japanese game without Japanese lip syncing that I can remember. Which means mannerisms, motion capture, acting, all designed to be in English.
Final Fantasy XVI Team Recommends Japanese Players To Play With English Dub Because Of No Japanese Lip Sync - Noisy Pixel
During the latest Final Fantasy XVI pre-launch stream comprising the following staff, the team addressed feedback only applicable...
noisypixel.net
Yeah basically the feel of the game is totally wrong in English and instantly familiar in Jp. Like it doesn't feel like FF at all, it feels like some edgy kid trying to mimic ye-olde speak. I think a lot of this stuff was said as a form of marketing cause I'm totally loving it so far at about 10 hours in. The lipsynch thing while true isn't really noticeable cause you don't often see people talk cause there's crazy action happening so you're just listening to them. In the more tame moments where you can see it it's not too bad either. For me it was never the technology or realism that captured me about FF but rather the emotion it elicits, the combination of awe and excitement. And the game has that down 100% in Jp.Did you try the game in english at all? Or are you just basing the level of the english script based off the subtitles and your understanding of Japanese. Because they aren't equal. Koji has said that the localization team rewrites the script from Japanese into English and make changes to the script to give the English dub a more consistent feel, considering that the Japanese script doesn't have the same tonalities.
Yoshi-P has even said that the game was designed with the English script in mind and has recommended even Japanese players, play the game in English because it conveys the mode of the story better. To the point of this being the only Japanese game without Japanese lip syncing that I can remember. Which means mannerisms, motion capture, acting, all designed to be in English.
Final Fantasy XVI Team Recommends Japanese Players To Play With English Dub Because Of No Japanese Lip Sync - Noisy Pixel
During the latest Final Fantasy XVI pre-launch stream comprising the following staff, the team addressed feedback only applicable...
Basically the thing with the English script in a simple way is that they took out the Jrpg flavor and replaced it with some kinda weird english rudeness thing where people are being randomly rude and assholeish, I dunno what it's supposed to be, it doesn't work and I don't care for it lol. The one thing that I noticed so far that was more rude in the JP script was a remark about being able to spot Shiva cause she'd be a woman in a battlefield (implying there's no women in battlefields normally) which was a totally different line in English (the guy who got squished by the rock said it, first thing out of his mouth lol), presumably cause that's the one type of rudeness that can't be uttered.
I mean, I have no idea where you are coming from in that regard to be honest. I haven't gotten any sense of rudeness from the script at all and the only oddity might be the obvious attempt to abuse the "mature" rating. But it does quickly set the tone of a clearly Game of Thrones' inspiration which is fine. And even the utterance of "fuck" made me laugh a few times like when Joshua goes full Phoenix and one of the invaders is like, "OH FUCK!". I liked that.
And swearing isn't even oddly placed in a FF game. FF7 OG had Cid swear like a ************, Barret swore a lot too. This continued in the remake. They swore a bit in 8 as well. FF9 had swears but in the more British DnD style with words like "bloody hell!" and whatnot there.
Basically I think the script thus far is great, and it lacks all the normal Japanese grunts and noises that typically invade translations, it does a lot to make the game a lot cleaner to listen to.
But perferences are subjective so it is what it is.
I've watched a bit of the game on Max's streaming last night, and the English dub is great. Don't know what Dreiko goes going on about in that case, and I don't care either.
You would have to play it in Jp while understanding the language to get where I'm coming from, I imagine, because that's what I'm contrasting it to. Like for example, I have no clue what grunts you speak of, since I don't use those translations.
And it's not just the profanity, random npcs have antagonistic utterances or other types of rudeness when they're like, normal people in Jp. Like that doctor lady in the hideout, she's just serious but not rude. Same for the blacksmith.
I was in the realm of meh about the new Final Fantasy. It just seemed so diluted and even with the visual still having pazzaz you expected of FF. I had no skin in the game about FF deviated from turn base cause they been set in motion since 7. Then ya boy played the demo....
Not go in but the demo blew my mind just from the story having the audacity to go where it goes just for the prologue and the combat hurts the fuck out my thumb where I have to rest between and mid fight but damn its so good. Then reading about how they got the DMC and Kingdom Hearts team to get it right it made sense the combat progression felt KH to me and the nerves in my thumb screaming that only DMC gives me.
With that being said once I get bullshit adulting done and a shower I heading to my local Gamestop to pay off the rest of the my pre order and get more nerve damage.
Not go in but the demo blew my mind just from the story having the audacity to go where it goes just for the prologue and the combat hurts the fuck out my thumb where I have to rest between and mid fight but damn its so good. Then reading about how they got the DMC and Kingdom Hearts team to get it right it made sense the combat progression felt KH to me and the nerves in my thumb screaming that only DMC gives me.
With that being said once I get bullshit adulting done and a shower I heading to my local Gamestop to pay off the rest of the my pre order and get more nerve damage.