Finished FF16 on Friday. I don't know I wasn't really going in with crazy expectations as I was playing it blind, but I feel like the game is kind of mid (6-7/10). It kind of feels like Diofield chronicle or Valkyrie Elysium, only with a larger budget. While the actual game play is pretty fun, the Eikon fights don't have much going on game-play wise and drag on for too long.
The thing that really puts a huge damper on the combat is something I have never seen anyone talking about and it's the severe lack of enemy variety. I was already fighting tons of reused bosses 37% of the way in and it only gets worse from there because after half way through outside of the big bosses there is maybe 3 or so new mini bosses. This might not have been so bad, but the basic enemies with no stagger bar might as well not exist. Sure, you can juggle them and do all these fancy combos, or you can just use one of the big long cool down AoE's and then they all die. Even if you don't do that, it doesn't really make much difference if you just mash square.
The level design and world also feel pretty, eh. Lots of linear levels with enclosed spaces don't really lend well to the combat and the more open areas don't really have anything interesting to do or see for the most part. The world itself doesn't really look all that fantastical, very boring medieval run-down towns and the whole games world feels really small.
Now for the story and, oh boy, I have heard people say that it was good, while that might be true for the first chunk with its political musings, and such it quickly drops that for a series of one-dimensional villains with questionable execution for their dubious plans. The whole bearer thing kind of falls flat for me as well, like so your telling me the people who can use magic are slaves? And are forced to use it on mundane tasks like drying laundry outside (I literally laughed at this due to it's absurdity) while they slowly die from using magic? This is a huge plot point of the game's story as well and it just doesn't work for me.
Side quests are probably the most boring content this game has to offer. They are all voice acted so they feel important, but the dialogue is so bland and goes on for so long only to have 5 seconds of a battle (if your lucky to get a battle at all) The rewards also are just not worth it 1500 gil and 20 renown amazing.
The characters in this game could have been done a lot better too, as the bond between Clive and Jill should have been an easy win, but it just doesn't feel as good as it could have been. The 5 year time skip and their relationship is exactly the same as it was after they first reunited. I don't know, I just don't buy their relationship with the writing and performances. It's pretty much the same for the rest of the characters, they all just feel like npcs rather than characters.
As a second to last note here, the whole "It's a mature Final Fantasy game" is just so funny to me because they took what people thought "mature" was from the mid 2000s and put it in this game swearing, sexual themes, violence. It's just to funny to me that characters in this fantasy world are constantly dropping F-bombs, almost as if the devs are like "See look, Final Fantasy is very mature now", and then a villain gives your typical anime/final fantasy nonsensical monologue.
Final thoughts: I would have liked this game to take Final Fantasy to new heights, but sadly, there's still not a Final Fantasy that can match or surpass FF12 which was 17 years ago.
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