Heavensward is part of the trial, which is indefinite - you won't level past 60 but all content up to the end of Heavensward's endgame is accessible. (And Heavensward is great!)
Final Fantasy 16
- Thread starter Old_Hunter_77
- Start date
That's awesome value. I could have sworn I saw something about it being 30 days, though... an article online is telling me the 30 days is actually a free period after first purchasing the game, distinct from the free trial? Is that what confused me?
30 days is how much game time you get after purchasing the base game yes. (The base game adds content up to level 80, which means the two expansions after Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers.)
Also there's actually quite a lot of mandatory endgame content between beating Lahabrea and reaching Heavensward.
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Perfect, thanks. In that case I'll definitely finish Heavensward before moving on. Gotta say that free trial is fantastic value.
I've enjoyed FF14 overall. Good world design, good character creator, and the usual solid FF monster design. The missions themselves, and the skill variety, are kinda lacking compared to the MMO I'm used to (GW2), but it's overall been better than I've expected.
Final Fantasy 16's PC version is next on Yoshi-P's to-do list
The IRL loading screen gets longer as the in-game ones get shorter.
www.pcgamer.com
Man, hopefully 6 months later the game will come out in the most complete state. I'd love to play this on my pc with ton of updates and new contents added by then.
OR should I go get PS5 right now? hmm.....
> First off I wanna say that this is a great action game, but unfortunately it's a terrible Final Fantasy game.
Usually this criticism bugs me- I mean it's the creator's job to determine what is a game in that series- but in this case, I can sympathize with the sentiment.
More importantly that it's absolutely not an "rpg" by any measure. I mean I don't wanna get into that semantics thing but whatever any reasonable gamer can imagine a game feeling like an RPG, this certainly ain't it. I think the recent Assassin's Creed games- totally NOT RPGs- feel a bit more RPG than this Final Fantasy game, which is pretty astonishing.
The last bit of the game had 20 minute of cut scenes. That officially makes this a movie with some button mashing not a game at this point.
Usually this criticism bugs me- I mean it's the creator's job to determine what is a game in that series- but in this case, I can sympathize with the sentiment.
More importantly that it's absolutely not an "rpg" by any measure. I mean I don't wanna get into that semantics thing but whatever any reasonable gamer can imagine a game feeling like an RPG, this certainly ain't it. I think the recent Assassin's Creed games- totally NOT RPGs- feel a bit more RPG than this Final Fantasy game, which is pretty astonishing.
The last bit of the game had 20 minute of cut scenes. That officially makes this a movie with some button mashing not a game at this point.
The thing about cut scenes and the whole idea that Square just made a movie with button mashing is a bit misleading imo. The reason being is that back in the day we sat and read through long text conversations instead, which is what cutscenes are these days. Sitting around the Gold Saucer while characters talk back and forth about what to do next. Listening to the President give a bit long villain speech. These aspects have always been in these games, Metal Gear Solid is famous for 20+ minute cutscenes because Kojima doesn't know when to shut the fuck up.
I get it, it feels bad because you paid for a game, and reading is somewhat engaging for your brain plus entirely skipable if you really want to. But those things really are kind of the same thing.
So I don't mind the cut scenes, really. They look great and are well acted so it's hard not to enjoy them personally.
No, that would be Asura's Wrath. It plays more like an interactive anime show, and is the best of its class; true ending DLC aside.
Bullshit! Yeah, the recent AC games are RPGs in the most scheming, underhanded, ass-hattery of wasting everyone's time by forcing them to pay. An RPG that does not waste the player's time with tedious or bad exp/level grind, is a good or great RPG in my book. FFXVI is an Action-RPG. Emphasis on "action"! I would take its RPG mechanics any day of the week over the shit AC puts out! World Tour Mode is a better RPG than the recent ACs.
Real talk, @CriticalGaming, @Silvanus , and @Old_Hunter_77 : What does Final Fantasy even mean at this point? What is Final Fantasy? With all the mainline games, the sub-series, to the spin-offs, and spin-offs to the spin-offs. These two Fs mean a lot and many different things to each fan. Because everyone had a starting point somewhere in this franchise. I started at FFVII, and only played I, II, VIII, IV, & XIII afterward. At least XVI feels alive from what I'm seeing. A spark that missing heavily in all of the previous mainline entries. XIV did get something, but it took burning its universe down and re-starting from scratch to make that happen.
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Considering I've played every FF game in the last year, and even just did a huge retrospective across every goddamn mainline game in the series I think I have a pretty good handle on what a FF-game is regardless of the changes to systems from entry to entry, and as my most explains above there are consistency's that every FF game has that helps the series feel consistent with itself even when the worlds, characters, and mechanics all change from game to game.
When I say this isn't an FF game, I think I have that authority to say that.
I am not saying the game is bad, it's far from bad it's fucking awesome, but a FF game it is NOT.
So I'm around 18 hours in, got the Limit Break (pronounced "Devil Trigger", which btw acts as an ultimate cancel that you can use during any other action to cancel into it) and Clive is finally off his ass being emo. Joy and glory upon the land! Oh and Ifrit, Ifrit has Nero's revved bike-sword flaming Stinger skill (it's always max revved cause Ifrit), and he can do it in the AIR. Incredible. He also has Vergil's surrounding spinning swords that encircle you, adapted for fire. Also we learned what that blight thing is, predictable enough but still good to know.
Once you get the second and third summon, and once you master skills which allow you to slot em anywhere you want, the combat opens a ton more. Oh and those super expensive skills that cost like over 2.500 AP to learn are both OP and also take years to cool down so I think you actually lose on DPs with those if you don't have a ton of slots for them.
Having unlocked the triple air jump and the nero pull combo, I can now basically infinite-juggle an enemy from 3 jumps high. Feels dmc as all hell.
You aren't meant to have a loadout, you're meant to shift between loadouts constantly to cycle cooldowns. Also the more stylish you play the more limit break gauge you get and that enhances things a ton. You're right that there's no elemental weakness but basically the way the plot plays out you don't even get access to elements beyond fire and another spoiler element for the first like 20 hours or however long it is, so it wouldn't make much sense to add a weakness system storywise unless everything was conveniently weak to fire somehow lol.
As for gear, you will eventually start getting some cool accessories that do things beyond give you stat boosts, I have some that give you cooldown reduction on specific abilities that I'm using now which enhances the feel of combat a ton.
But yeah if they sold this as a dmc game with FF feel, that would totally fit. Don't get me wrong. I'm just in the good place that I love both things infinitely so either way i'm happy. For me FF was never about the combat anyways, it was more about the plot and the epic feel, and those Eikon battles cover that 100% (man the Ifrit-obtaining battle was soooooooo good, I didn't think it could get any better)
Once you get the second and third summon, and once you master skills which allow you to slot em anywhere you want, the combat opens a ton more. Oh and those super expensive skills that cost like over 2.500 AP to learn are both OP and also take years to cool down so I think you actually lose on DPs with those if you don't have a ton of slots for them.
Having unlocked the triple air jump and the nero pull combo, I can now basically infinite-juggle an enemy from 3 jumps high. Feels dmc as all hell.
You aren't meant to have a loadout, you're meant to shift between loadouts constantly to cycle cooldowns. Also the more stylish you play the more limit break gauge you get and that enhances things a ton. You're right that there's no elemental weakness but basically the way the plot plays out you don't even get access to elements beyond fire and another spoiler element for the first like 20 hours or however long it is, so it wouldn't make much sense to add a weakness system storywise unless everything was conveniently weak to fire somehow lol.
As for gear, you will eventually start getting some cool accessories that do things beyond give you stat boosts, I have some that give you cooldown reduction on specific abilities that I'm using now which enhances the feel of combat a ton.
But yeah if they sold this as a dmc game with FF feel, that would totally fit. Don't get me wrong. I'm just in the good place that I love both things infinitely so either way i'm happy. For me FF was never about the combat anyways, it was more about the plot and the epic feel, and those Eikon battles cover that 100% (man the Ifrit-obtaining battle was soooooooo good, I didn't think it could get any better)
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I know you already don't consider the game bad, but I feel it's presumptuous to not call XVI an FF game. Look, it doesn't have all of the franchise's usual traditions and references, but FFVII was no different in that regard (not talking about combat here). That game went with an industrial cyberpunk, Green Aesop, Mother Gaia type story, themes, and atmosphere. A far cry from the usual D&D inspired antics from most of the mainline games before that point. Darker and edgier, black and gray morality, and a hero that is not squeaky clean and an unreliable narrator. FVII shook up the RPG genre big time with its form of thematics and storytelling. I see FFXVI doing the same, albiet in its own direction.
Oh and something I forgot, after the point I had stopped at on day 1 (I knew that was the right place to stop haha), you get a decently long more relaxing period where you travel and do sidequests in a more calm environment, and that bit actually felt 100% like FF. So it's not always fight corridors dmc style. It intersperses that with more traditional questing out in the fields and wetlands and exploring ancient ruins from a bygone civilization. And those were both gorgeous as all hell and also very familiar-feeling. Including helping a guy deliver gyshal greens! XD
So yeah the early bits are very dark and dramatic but it lets off the gas a bit to give you some time to relax. Also right now I'm sneaking in to a place that is governed by a whorehouse and helping shady people smuggle goods. It's not all super saiyans punching planets in the face, even though it feels that way for the first 12 hours or so lol.
So yeah the early bits are very dark and dramatic but it lets off the gas a bit to give you some time to relax. Also right now I'm sneaking in to a place that is governed by a whorehouse and helping shady people smuggle goods. It's not all super saiyans punching planets in the face, even though it feels that way for the first 12 hours or so lol.
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You’ve not yet played FF16 nor, I believe, have you played the recent AC games, yet you call my comparison bullshit. Ok, whatever.
I will, and I know I'm going to enjoy it.
Valhalla is ass. I don't need to play the recent AC games to know they're trash. Especially with their RPG mechanics. It's an Ubisoft game. It has the same crap homogenized and "streamline" they've been doing for the past decade with the same stupid user interface. I'll give some credit to Origins, but the RPG mechanics in all three of those recent games are not good. Especially when they're made to prey on people with addictive tendencies and pay high price to skip the level grinding. That they so put into their system. "It's optional", my ass! While FF-16 I still think it's too high for $70, as is most AAA games, at least it doesn't pray after gamers with addictive tendencies, or young kids or teens that don't know what they are doing. Here's a game, that is just a game. Nothing more and nothing less. So I'll happily take whatever RPG mechanics, even if there's less of it, then whatever bull crap Ubisoft pulls off.
Ain't no whenever when it's true. Deal with it or don't.
Okay, I don't have a chocobo in this race, and I won't bring up our, ah, 'discussion' as to whether Alien: Covenant is a good film or not, but surely you see the shaky ground here. The idea that anyone can deem something arbitrarily good or bad if they've never actually read/played/watched it. I'll assume for the sake of argument that if I declared, I dunno, Streets of Rage 4 to be a terrible game based on what people have told me, you'd take issue on the basis that you've played it and I haven't?
For instance, I'm quite happy giving my opinion on FF10 by virtue of having played it, I can't really give much of an opinion on any other FF game in the same way. At least, not in the same way. I can assume that FF6/7 are pretty good, I can assume that FF13 is kinda lacklustre, but those assumptions/opinions aren't informed in the same way as anything I personally say on FF10 by virtue of not having played them.
Look, my point is not being upset or disputing the others claiming that it's a bad game (I already know and understand the ones complaining considered a great game), but a "bad Final Fantasy/RPG game", I do not buy. FF13 and 15 are actual bad Final Fantasy games and just bad games in general. 15 with it's many production troubles, does not help its case. Look, I know we can't judge everything we don't play or watch, but when you know something's off or not right, then why bother wasting time? I'm not here to seek constant approval from others on the internet nor prove some absurd or arbitrary measure and standard. If I know something I. my gut feeling is bad, I'm not going to like, or it's going to waste two to three hours of my life, then I'm not going to bother with it. End of story. The same applies even more to video games. Everyone's opinion is their own and I can't change that. Nor would I do so. Dreiko, considers this a Final Fantasy game and an rpg, so Square clearly did something right. And keep in mind, I don't always agree with him either, and I have my own issues with him when it comes to certain subjects.
The only people (IGN and some egotistical jackasses on YouTube) that considered Streets of Rage 4 a bad/mediocre game, are those that suck at it and don't know what they are doing. Or have something against brawlers to begin with. The game ain't perfect (the removal of universal dashing and dodge rolling), but it's the best in the franchise it's ever been. And is a master class brawler in the genre itself. If you haven't played it yet, then I highly recommend it. I still see now with all the updates. If you want, we'll Co-op later. I do have to renew my PS Plus at some point though.
As someone who played it, it's crap. My brother and I could barely get past the first disc. We stopped after that. Square trying to shill Lightning for majority of seventh generation was not helping.
Had Old_Hunter_77, used Guardian Heroes or even Code Of Princess and saying they're better RPGs than FF16, then I would have left it mostly alone. Assassin's Creed is when I put my foot down. Especially when it's the games with crappy RPG mechanics, and expect you to pay a high price just to get to a high level cap, and skip their bad, tedious, grinding they made by design. Fuck off, Ubisoft.
I've played a few hours. I think the part covered by the demo? Well, you know, the whole thirteen years flashback.
The FF series has been a tug of war between linearity and set piece driven structure and a more open ended one for a while now. XVI makes it pretty clear where it falls. Honestly, I'll take it. I think FF7 Remake was at it's weakest when it "opened up" towards the end and at its best when it was a linear sequence of action setpieces.
I've expressed my ambivalence for the artstyle before, all that medieval fantasy stuff just isn't doing very much for me so .far. Yet, that is. I'll let myself be surprised what the game has in store once we get to visit some more exotic locations. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But so far it seems a bit generic compared to the setting of the XIII games, XV hand 7 Remake. It's missing that distinct iconography. For the world and characters at least, I do enjoy the big over the top action setpieces.
I like combat. I'm glad the series is finally embracing real time action. XV's combat was this weird awkward stepping stone in that direction, but in XVI I find it actually enjoyable. The series cinematic's were always very big on very baroque action which a turn based combat system couldn't really capture. It's what I always thought was the reason FF XIII just didn't work as a game. It's was another attempt to reinvent the series as a linear, cinematic, blockbuster sort of deal, but turn based battles just completely break the pacing of that. I mean, imagine a God of War or Uncharted game with turn based combat. If it had been an ARPG... well, the story, characters and voice acting would still leave a lot to be desired, but at least the game design would have made sense.
XVI is very easy so far but the combat feels satisfying and the bossfights make decent use of those God of War style QTE's to punctuate them. It's a pretty fair attempt to make a Final Fantasy game that's inspired by something like a God of War or a Platinum game. I suppose it's not as close as Nier Automata, which of course was actually made by Platinum, but unlike Nier Automata the writing doesn't make me roll my eyes every 10 minutes, so I'll take it.
I'm excited to see where the game is going.
The FF series has been a tug of war between linearity and set piece driven structure and a more open ended one for a while now. XVI makes it pretty clear where it falls. Honestly, I'll take it. I think FF7 Remake was at it's weakest when it "opened up" towards the end and at its best when it was a linear sequence of action setpieces.
I've expressed my ambivalence for the artstyle before, all that medieval fantasy stuff just isn't doing very much for me so .far. Yet, that is. I'll let myself be surprised what the game has in store once we get to visit some more exotic locations. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But so far it seems a bit generic compared to the setting of the XIII games, XV hand 7 Remake. It's missing that distinct iconography. For the world and characters at least, I do enjoy the big over the top action setpieces.
I like combat. I'm glad the series is finally embracing real time action. XV's combat was this weird awkward stepping stone in that direction, but in XVI I find it actually enjoyable. The series cinematic's were always very big on very baroque action which a turn based combat system couldn't really capture. It's what I always thought was the reason FF XIII just didn't work as a game. It's was another attempt to reinvent the series as a linear, cinematic, blockbuster sort of deal, but turn based battles just completely break the pacing of that. I mean, imagine a God of War or Uncharted game with turn based combat. If it had been an ARPG... well, the story, characters and voice acting would still leave a lot to be desired, but at least the game design would have made sense.
XVI is very easy so far but the combat feels satisfying and the bossfights make decent use of those God of War style QTE's to punctuate them. It's a pretty fair attempt to make a Final Fantasy game that's inspired by something like a God of War or a Platinum game. I suppose it's not as close as Nier Automata, which of course was actually made by Platinum, but unlike Nier Automata the writing doesn't make me roll my eyes every 10 minutes, so I'll take it.
I'm excited to see where the game is going.
I saw a journalist say this on twitter but got roasted because people found out he had all the auto-accessories equiped.
So I'm like 22 hours in, Clive traded out his beat up slave soldier gear for something that looks straight out of castlevania (I'm not complaining, in fact I wish the actiony castlevanias looked this cool back in the ps2 days), and then he mastered his Ifrit to a greater degree than previously possible. You never quite know joy until you see a godzilla tier beast perfect-dodging with grace and savagery. Then shit hit the fan and now I'm in ANOTHER timeskip which mindfucked me, but the full game finally opened up cause I have a chocobo now, and sidequests give you renown, and there's notorious monsters to hunt all over the place, and people know who the hell you are and don't treat you like a runaway slave. Also man, fighting with 3 summons simultaneously is so sick. The combo combinations are endless.
Story beats are all over the place, big shifts and twists happen left and right, many really dramatic ones. Just as you thought it couldn't get any worse for the poor slaves it somehow finds a way. And we finally see the big bad guy a bit.
Man the things you can do with limit break are so crazy, there's some super moves that stay active for ever and you can cancel em in such away that lets the attack stay out but you can move and attack alongside it too. Anyone playing this by mashing attack just doesn't know what they're doing at all lol.
Also on the concern about Clive just using a sword, a summon I just got has a staff and he materializes it out of thin air when using that summon so I can see him pulling other kinds of weapons out like that. Maybe Odin's Katana for example would be one such thing, reminiscent of Nero using Vergil's sword.
Story beats are all over the place, big shifts and twists happen left and right, many really dramatic ones. Just as you thought it couldn't get any worse for the poor slaves it somehow finds a way. And we finally see the big bad guy a bit.
Man the things you can do with limit break are so crazy, there's some super moves that stay active for ever and you can cancel em in such away that lets the attack stay out but you can move and attack alongside it too. Anyone playing this by mashing attack just doesn't know what they're doing at all lol.
Also on the concern about Clive just using a sword, a summon I just got has a staff and he materializes it out of thin air when using that summon so I can see him pulling other kinds of weapons out like that. Maybe Odin's Katana for example would be one such thing, reminiscent of Nero using Vergil's sword.
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