Final Fantasy 16
- Thread starter Old_Hunter_77
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Finished it yesterday. Wasn't that great.
It was a competent game over all but in most regards it didn't have very much that will stick with me long term. I don't have a lot of history with the Final Fantasy series, the first one I played was XV and the first one I finished was 7 Remake, I was extremely underwhelmed by the former, loved the latter and XVI is..
Close to the middle, but honestly slightly closer to the XV end.
XVI is a very straight forward action game, which I'm not inherently opposed to, but it really needs to be said, even by action game standards it barely has any mechanics outside of combat and moving between combat encounters. And I really mean it. I mean, take an action game like God of War and even those make you do a block pushing puzzle or climb a wall once in a while to add at least a bit of variety. The only thing FF XVI has aside from combat are cutscenes and exposition on the story, which I'll get into later.
And the combat it, well... I will admit, I can't really judge it fairly. I'm well aware that I haven't really engaged with all it has to offer. See, the game makes you equip three of the 8 "Eikons", representing elemental powers you unlock throughout the game, to switch between that all have their own special attacks and I spent most of the game with the same three Eikons with their same respective two special attacks. In other words, my experience with it was probably pretty superficial, but playing it this way it felt very button mashy and not exactly up to par with a God of War game or a Platinum game or a DMC game.
As far as action combat systems in RPG's go it's not bad, but it's also not good enough to effectively be the games only gameplay mechanic. Especially considering that the enemy variety isn't that great either.
It's obvious that most of the budget and effort went into the bossfights, which, credit where credit is due, are pretty badass. Not only does their visual presentation push the hardware close to its breaking point, it's here where FF XVI even sometimes utilizes unique mechanics. Mind, they aren't anything especially deep or complex, we're talking a transformation with its own movesets, some very simplistic shoot em up segments and incredibly forgiving QTE'a but considering those are the only time the game ever varies up its combat system they stand out. It's just the sort of thing that makes me think, you know. FF7 Remake, aside from being way heavier on RPG elements (XVI hardly has any besides Eikon specific skill trees and an equipment system that's minimal to the point of being practically pointless) had an elaborate Moulin Rouge inspired musical sequence. Where was this sort of thing in XVI?
And then you get to story and setting which feel equally uninspired. Without wanting too spoil too much, most of it deals with protagonist Clive Rosewood and various allies travelling a sort of lowest common denominator medieval fantasy world, killing various rulers of various warring countries and destroying various giant crystals to liberate the world and its people from a malicious system of control. It's a Final Fantasy game, so eventually there's also an evil god thrown into the mix, but I reckon you will be able to predict most major plot beats.
I liked some of the character development, though it's very noticeable that the least interesting characters by far are the protagonist (who is your basic gravelly voiced, emotionally closed off warrior man) and his love interest (who didn't have a single discernible personality trait as far as I could tell) but some of the supporting cast is fun. Helps that voice acting and facial animations are consistently pretty good. The story, predictable as it is, it told through very frequent and very long cutscenes. The direction and presentation of those is by all means fine, but they don't really measure up to VII Remake either. No offense, but Nomura just has a much better eye for visuals and iconography than the people behind XVI. The character designs, the weapon designs, the clothes, the environments, the architectural styles, it all just looks like baby's first DnD campaign and honestly, the same can be said for the writing. The most interesting part about the world is that there are many references to an ancient civilization that built magical robots and giant marble building and flew around in huge airships and whenever it came up I thought "boy, I wish this game was set in their time instead."
Funnily enough it also does the same thing as XV where it awkwardly avoids any opportunities to let you actually explore any of the larger cities. Not quite as awkwardly as XV, mind, which tried to keep up the appearance of an open world game exactly up to the point it would have meant that it'd have to have an actual large explorable city when it decided that it'd really rather be a linear level based game after all. But it's sort of similar where cities only ever serve as backdrops for linear action levels.
It probably sounds like I'm really harsh on the game, but let me be frank. If a game can deliver a base level of competence, which XVI does, the question remains whether the things about it that stick out, stick out positively or negatively and which there is more of. And as it happens, I found a good deal to complain about with FF XVI and not that much to specifically praise. What it has are its big, baroque action setpieces which are certainly among the most impressive I've ever seen on a technical level. Not so much in terms of actual direction and visual inventiveness where I don't think they're even among the best in the series, much less the medium as a whole. Listen, I've only ever finished one other Final Fantasy game, FF VII Remake, and it towers above XVI in everything but graphics. Hell, I'll say it, I'd argue Strangers of Paradise beats out XVI on everything but graphics. Make of that assessment what you will.
It was a competent game over all but in most regards it didn't have very much that will stick with me long term. I don't have a lot of history with the Final Fantasy series, the first one I played was XV and the first one I finished was 7 Remake, I was extremely underwhelmed by the former, loved the latter and XVI is..
Close to the middle, but honestly slightly closer to the XV end.
XVI is a very straight forward action game, which I'm not inherently opposed to, but it really needs to be said, even by action game standards it barely has any mechanics outside of combat and moving between combat encounters. And I really mean it. I mean, take an action game like God of War and even those make you do a block pushing puzzle or climb a wall once in a while to add at least a bit of variety. The only thing FF XVI has aside from combat are cutscenes and exposition on the story, which I'll get into later.
And the combat it, well... I will admit, I can't really judge it fairly. I'm well aware that I haven't really engaged with all it has to offer. See, the game makes you equip three of the 8 "Eikons", representing elemental powers you unlock throughout the game, to switch between that all have their own special attacks and I spent most of the game with the same three Eikons with their same respective two special attacks. In other words, my experience with it was probably pretty superficial, but playing it this way it felt very button mashy and not exactly up to par with a God of War game or a Platinum game or a DMC game.
As far as action combat systems in RPG's go it's not bad, but it's also not good enough to effectively be the games only gameplay mechanic. Especially considering that the enemy variety isn't that great either.
It's obvious that most of the budget and effort went into the bossfights, which, credit where credit is due, are pretty badass. Not only does their visual presentation push the hardware close to its breaking point, it's here where FF XVI even sometimes utilizes unique mechanics. Mind, they aren't anything especially deep or complex, we're talking a transformation with its own movesets, some very simplistic shoot em up segments and incredibly forgiving QTE'a but considering those are the only time the game ever varies up its combat system they stand out. It's just the sort of thing that makes me think, you know. FF7 Remake, aside from being way heavier on RPG elements (XVI hardly has any besides Eikon specific skill trees and an equipment system that's minimal to the point of being practically pointless) had an elaborate Moulin Rouge inspired musical sequence. Where was this sort of thing in XVI?
And then you get to story and setting which feel equally uninspired. Without wanting too spoil too much, most of it deals with protagonist Clive Rosewood and various allies travelling a sort of lowest common denominator medieval fantasy world, killing various rulers of various warring countries and destroying various giant crystals to liberate the world and its people from a malicious system of control. It's a Final Fantasy game, so eventually there's also an evil god thrown into the mix, but I reckon you will be able to predict most major plot beats.
I liked some of the character development, though it's very noticeable that the least interesting characters by far are the protagonist (who is your basic gravelly voiced, emotionally closed off warrior man) and his love interest (who didn't have a single discernible personality trait as far as I could tell) but some of the supporting cast is fun. Helps that voice acting and facial animations are consistently pretty good. The story, predictable as it is, it told through very frequent and very long cutscenes. The direction and presentation of those is by all means fine, but they don't really measure up to VII Remake either. No offense, but Nomura just has a much better eye for visuals and iconography than the people behind XVI. The character designs, the weapon designs, the clothes, the environments, the architectural styles, it all just looks like baby's first DnD campaign and honestly, the same can be said for the writing. The most interesting part about the world is that there are many references to an ancient civilization that built magical robots and giant marble building and flew around in huge airships and whenever it came up I thought "boy, I wish this game was set in their time instead."
Funnily enough it also does the same thing as XV where it awkwardly avoids any opportunities to let you actually explore any of the larger cities. Not quite as awkwardly as XV, mind, which tried to keep up the appearance of an open world game exactly up to the point it would have meant that it'd have to have an actual large explorable city when it decided that it'd really rather be a linear level based game after all. But it's sort of similar where cities only ever serve as backdrops for linear action levels.
It probably sounds like I'm really harsh on the game, but let me be frank. If a game can deliver a base level of competence, which XVI does, the question remains whether the things about it that stick out, stick out positively or negatively and which there is more of. And as it happens, I found a good deal to complain about with FF XVI and not that much to specifically praise. What it has are its big, baroque action setpieces which are certainly among the most impressive I've ever seen on a technical level. Not so much in terms of actual direction and visual inventiveness where I don't think they're even among the best in the series, much less the medium as a whole. Listen, I've only ever finished one other Final Fantasy game, FF VII Remake, and it towers above XVI in everything but graphics. Hell, I'll say it, I'd argue Strangers of Paradise beats out XVI on everything but graphics. Make of that assessment what you will.
I remember as a kid and looking at the cinematics for like FF7 and 8 and thinking, "Wow one day the WHOLE game will look like a cinematic". I was right and it's been fun to watch.
I remember playing the FF7 intro in the living room with my parents watching and being like, “These graphics sure blow Myst out of the water, huh Dad!?”
For me it was seeing Kingdom Hearts 3 for the first time that it truly sunk in for me that live renders now are as good or better than FMVs then.
What’s funny is how a $500 box can put out these kinds of visuals in real time when it takes $500,000 render farms years to do marginally better looking work. Granted the scale of resolutions being worked on is vastly different, but the bottom line is always how much the human eye is capable of perceiving at any given instant. In that case, much of what Pixar and other animation studios do is lost on all by the most astute observers who will freeze every frame to look with a magnifying glass.
If I'm reading this post correctly, it may be one of the wrongest things I've seen in a while here. Sorry but are you saying that an animated film and even the best video game scenes convey anywhere close to the same levels of expression, dynamic expression and detail? We're not even in the same ballpark here. It's not about visual fidelity or resolutions or some tech mumbo-jumbo, you're just talking about two completely different media here.
The methods used between the two are what’s not even in the same ballpark. The difference in processing power required is several orders of magnitude, whereas the respective results are a clear example of the law of diminishing returns. No one watching on a 4K TV or even larger projector screen is going to look at the best real time PS5 visuals and objectively say they look thousands of times worse than Pixar movies. It’s the same principle as audiophiles spending thousands on their setup to hear that extra bit of detail that you can’t get out of a modern stock motherboard sound ship and a pair of $200 headphones.
Square Enix Happy with Final Fantasy 16 Sales, Considers Them 'Extremely Strong'
Pleased with PS5 attach rate
www.pushsquare.com
With FF16 apparently doing well enough, I think the interesting question to ask is whether or not the switch to action based gameplay and abandoning the traditional turn base system contributed to that or if it would have come out to the same at the end.
Probably the latter. I mean FF as a series been pretty successful, even the more less-received games like FF13 and its sequels seemed to have done pretty well.
Or it's because of how much they hated FF15's combat and this game is a form of copium for them (although I didn't think FF15 was that bad in that regard)
Well sure it’s impossible to know that but I can only say I personally would not have bought the game if it was turned based. Maybe eventually on sale but not full price. So for everyone of me, how many are buyers they lost for that same reason.
it also came out when there weren’t other major PS5 games
either way the press speak smacks of justifying to consumers and shareholders the wisdom of making it a console exclusive. “Trust us, selling to only a quarter of the potential player base is actually good bizness” *taps temple smugly*
it also came out when there weren’t other major PS5 games
either way the press speak smacks of justifying to consumers and shareholders the wisdom of making it a console exclusive. “Trust us, selling to only a quarter of the potential player base is actually good bizness” *taps temple smugly*
FF hasn't been turn-based in literally 10 years. None of the last 5 mainline games have been turn-based.
Nah, they'll double down on it with the various FFXVI spin-offs. Whenever XVII happens, it will be action based.
BG3 is a cRPG which is a whole other animal from a turn-based RPG though there are similarities. I doubt any BG success will even be noticed by Square tbh.
Isn't it turn based like divinity OS2 though? Those basically are like the trails of series where while, turn based, you can move around and moves have ranges and unique areas of effect on top of the classic FF formula where speed determines turn order, and the trails of series is the definitive modern day Jrpg.
And hey if they made a ff that plays more like DMC, I think making it play more like BG3 less odd and a smaller departure.