Final Fantasy XVI

I would rate FF XVI as:

  • < 5/10

    Votes: 28 19.4%

  • 6/10

    Votes: 17 11.8%

  • 7/10

    Votes: 36 25.0%

  • 8/10

    Votes: 42 29.2%

  • 9/10

    Votes: 15 10.4%

  • 10/10

    Votes: 6 4.2%
  • Total voters
    144
Ive always tried to take this approach with modern gamines. 'The more sparkly it is - the more you should be worried'.

This game, Forspoken - same thing. Looks great but has no soul.
 
Shit game, way too bloated for what it offers. One character with one weapon, a limited move set that barely works on enemies and skills on static cooldowns on rotation. No option to launch bigger enemies or to do funky stuff, no weaknesses encouraging you to swap setups against certain types... just spam specials on rotation during stagger. Thats all there is to it. Try to do actual damage against elites and bosses with your swordplay, its barely possible.

Its 50 hours or so, which is easily 30 hours too much. Everything outside of battle stages is a slog to get through.
 
3 out of 10.

Dropped it after 12 hours. Played on the 4090 I had at the time so performance was ok.

Didn't think the graphics were anything to write home about and the gameplay is shallower than a reality TV stars CV
 
I give it a 7.
It's a good game and the graphics are amazing but if I'm comparing it against other FF games that are 10/10 then this isn't close.
 
I dont do numbers but gun to my head I'd give it an 8

Fun combat, nice to look at, great music, fantastic story, writing and acting. Bogged down by horrendous back and forth sidequests and a weak equipment/weapon system.
 
As an RPG, it's been absurdly watered down. As an action game, it's been stuffed full of shitty MMO fetchquests in between every proper "level". Awful, awful game.
 
6/10 at best. The last third of the game dragged on, I forced myself to finish it. A very pretty, mostly boring experience.

A complete failure as a Final Fantasy game, at least compared to its older PSX and PS2 siblings.
 
So it seems like it's not the shit stain of a game that some people would have you believe, at least judging by the pool.

It's a pretty cool game and well worth a playthrough. It needs to be played as a simple linear cinematic action game to be enjoyed properly. Put aside your expectations and enjoy it for what it is.

My main gripe is that the base combo strings are too limited, which means you need to heavily rely on the Eikon's powers. To avoid things getting stale you need to rotate the powers often, even if you end with some sub optimal combinations at times.

That said, FF XVI has some of the best moments in a gaming ever. There are a lot of ups and downs for sure, it's not an even game. But those moments I will always remember.
 
Last edited:
TintoConCasera said:
Holy shit, really? Haven't played it but I was hoping that at least the combat would be fun.
Click to expand...
I don't think the gameplay's that bad. I enjoyed it but it does not lend itself to a 70 hour RPG. Some moves on the skill tree are WAY better than others. Once you figure that out there's not much of a reason to change it up.
 
Lokaum D+ said:
Combat is good, It full action ZERO rpg elements to It, game has serious pacing problems and yet is the best FF since X.
Click to expand...
Eh good? The combat is braindead. All you do is spam abilities while waiting for others to cool down. It's far too simplistic and doesn't have roleplaying elements to spice it up. And then there are the enemies that are worthless and cannot threaten you. I heard there's a hard mode, but you have to beat the game at least once.
 
TintoConCasera said:
Holy shit, really? Haven't played it but I was hoping that at least the combat would be fun.
Click to expand...
I think thats even too generous.

You pretty much just wait for abilites to go off cooldown and thats it, you can technically try to play the game and attack enemies while waiting for the cooldowns because it looks cool, but theres zero point to that since you deal roughly zero damage with sword/ranged attacks so none of the gameplay past abilities and dodging in order to not die actually matters.
 
Last edited:
T4keD0wN said:
I think thats even too generous.

You pretty much just wait for abilites to go off cooldown and thats it, you can technically try to play the game and attack enemies while waiting for the cooldowns because it looks cool, but theres zero point to that since you deal roughly zero damage and none of the gameplay actually matters.
Click to expand...
Damn, that sounds really terrible.
 
Easily 8/10 comes close to 8.5/10.

I think it had great ideas but they weren't well executed. Could easily get into 9/10 - 9.5/10 territory if the prologue and themes were better executed. The whole thing falls apart in the second half of the game and it becomes a 6/10

Joshua should have stayed dead, and i would have replaced Ultima with something else
 
Last edited:
T4keD0wN said:
It is, but id still recommend the game because its good despite that as long as you dont want engaging gameplay.
Click to expand...
Might still get it once it goes for an extremely cheap price.

Could get high, enjoy the graphics and music while mashing some buttons here and there. :goog_relieved:
 
I didn't do a single side quest and dashed through the main plotline so I loved it. So much striking imagery (cutting an ocean in half then battling at the sea bed? like goddamn) and a mighty soundtrack. Combat was whatever, probably shines in hard mode, but I don't replay FFs.
 
I just finished this game yesterday after being in my back log for a long time. I give it a 7 out of 10 overall. To me, the story is good but the pacing kinda ruins it. There is not a single side quest I enjoyed doing and there are so many of them. Couple this with the game being way too easy and to add insult to injury, they have trinkets and such to make it even easier? I mean I guess the difficulty is subjective and it's not like it's a Souls game so I get that as opposed to having difficulty modes. I kinda know when I don't really like a game when I'm half way through and I get that urge to just rush through the rest of the story. Of course, being a completionist of sorts, I became a slave to the seemingly endless side quests. Yoshi P didn't do the game any favors mimicking NPC behavior from FFXIV. As an MMO and a 10+ year old game, the stiff and expressionless NPC behavior is passable, but compare this to what you see in FFVII Remake or Rebirth and there's just...more there. I don't know how else to describe it.

After being offered New Game + for new items, gear and harder enemies, I decided instead to uninstall the game. I'm typically a New Game+ enjoyer. that said a lot to me in terms of how much I enjoyed the game.
 
I just opened a gameplay video to see what the game is about and it looks kinda dated for a 2023 game , lacking detail, specially the faces, they look terrible.
 
I use 5 rating point scale most of the time.
For me FF16 was 2/5, it had pretty visuals, great presentation for the cutscenes and some good music, but that it!
Gameplay was too repetitive and too shallow, i found the level design to be terrible, the side quests were abysmal, pacing was bad, I had multiple crashes, the narrative starts out interesting but by the first third it starts to go downhill and ends up poorly written in the last quarter.

Game was a disappointment to me, but idk i value game design and level design probably more than the average Final Fantasy fan, if you are a cinematics (aka cutscenes) guy and you are hooked by the story you may enjoy it more than me. Those FF games are all about cutscenes.

Anyway, i think the main menu theme slaps, its good and the theme was great. Probably the 2nd best thing behind the Bahamot spectacle.
 
Had an incredibly promising start with it's prologue, gets a bit shakey after that, peaks with Accept the Truth, and then continously goes downhill after that.

The gameplay loop is one of the worst I've ever seen. If they had shrunk it down to a 15 hour action game, it would've been better.
 
Sushi_Combo said:
The opening act was epic, then my enjoyment quickly fizzled out 4-5 hrs in.
One of the most disappointing games I've played in a while.
Click to expand...
Honestly the opening act gave me a bad feeling the writers didn't know what they were doing and that was only confirmed as the game went along. It starts with a huge fantasy battle but we aren't given any context for who anyone is or why they're fighting. Then the game immediately blows its load on the eikon fight so there's nothing left to build up to.
I like to compare FFXVI to Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park isn't a story about dinosaurs eating people; it's a story about the arrogance of man. Likewise, FFXVI isn't a story about giant kaiju battles; it's a story about the power of friendship. But both stories use the spectacle of dinosaurs/kaiju to try to hook you in. However, in Jurassic Park, because it's a competently made film, the spectacle of dinosaurs is built up. The T-Rex attack is at a full hour into the movie. The slow buildup makes the audience feel actual emotions: anticipation, wonder, excitement, dread, and terror. FFXVI doesn't have any of this because the writers were so excited to show off the spectacle of giant kaiju battles that they don't build up to them in anyway so there's no emotional context to latch on to.
 
Played it recently. Currently playing 7 Remake.

After 10 hours in 7 Remake on thing comes apparent:

- The cast in 16 is the main weakpoint of the game. The cast and all the banter between the characters is so much better in 7. Night and day difference.
 
It's kinda weak and every other action-RPG is better except maaaybe the latest Star Ocean.

FF7 Rebirth? Better
Visions of Mana? Better
Stranger of Paradise? Better
Xenoblade? Orders of magnitude better

It should just be forgotten at this point. Hopefully the next mainline game won't be given to Colossal Blunder Unit 3.
 
Best FF since X. It's what verses 13 should have been. I hope they spin this style of FF to its own sub genre of FF. They can trade off between the more traditional game and this. I hope the studio gets another crack to fix the shortcomings.
 
Last edited:
rofif said:
what? I love that game lol.
Click to expand...
confused homer simpson GIF
 
Chukhopops said:
It's kinda weak and every other action-RPG is better except maaaybe the latest Star Ocean.

FF7 Rebirth? Better
Visions of Mana? Better
Stranger of Paradise? Better
Xenoblade? Orders of magnitude better

It should just be forgotten at this point. Hopefully the next mainline game won't be given to Colossal Blunder Unit 3.
Click to expand...
Yes, there are much better games that are similar, don't even bother with this.
 
Really disappointed with my purchase. I haven't purchase FF7 remake yet, I fear I'll get the same result. As you can notice by my profile picture, I'm a long fan, played every each one at launch but not XVI as I couldn't justify to purchase a console for this only game (I'm glad I didn't). I purchased it day 1 on PC but I haven't played more than 20 hours and I'm not even sure I'll continue it at some point in the future or I just take my loss and keep it in mind for the next mainline FF. That being said, not having news of FFXVII by now is a bit concerning to say the least.

Forgot the score, let's say 5. My favorite FF is the 6th one for reference and on the modern side, 10 is my favorite.
 
Last edited:
The only RPG to ever put me to sleep, so if you have problem sleeping play FFXVI because this Game works better then any Medicine. After Bahamut this game is just a dumpster Fire and the Combat is one of the worst i have ever seen. Dion and Jill deserved a better Game.
 
Jigsaah said:
I just finished this game yesterday after being in my back log for a long time. I give it a 7 out of 10 overall. To me, the story is good but the pacing kinda ruins it. There is not a single side quest I enjoyed doing and there are so many of them. Couple this with the game being way too easy and to add insult to injury, they have trinkets and such to make it even easier? I mean I guess the difficulty is subjective and it's not like it's a Souls game so I get that as opposed to having difficulty modes.
Click to expand...

I think this reflects one of the the core issues with with the game. It feels watered down in all areas in a desperate attempt to appeal to super casual players. The whole "make it appeal to everyone and it will sell" mentality. (which feels outdated with games like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 selling gangbusters)

-The game is easy as fuck by default and yet they made sure to add options to make it even easier, but not a single one to increase the challenge for more experienced players.
-The crafting and gear is as basic as it gets because we can't have casual players getting confused and overwhelmed by offering swords with various stats and different strengths.
-The character build is as basic as it gets because having too many options to have truly unique builds would be too confusing for grandma.
-Can't even have a basic elemental weakness system in a game themed after elemental summons because little Timmy might get confused about why the Firebomb enemy is healing when getting hit by fire attacks.
 
I like everything about this game. Characters, art style, narrative simplicity, combat ideas etc. The only problem is just how much time it demands for what you get. The really engaging and enjoyable parts could be knocked out in 8 hours or less. Square is stuck making these games a certain length to comply with arbitrary expectations from a couple decades ago.

FF XVI just doesn't respect your time. This manifests such that you could legitimately do a 90 minute weeknight session, and experience nothing but filler garbo. Only has to happen once or twice and it makes the controller hard to pick up. It's a game you'll force yourself to finish.

Clive deserves better. Here's hoping for a directors cut. Even if modders have to do it one day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Alinea Analytics: Final Fantasy XVI sold 22,000 copies on Xbox
Rumor Sales-Age  3 4 5 6 7
305
2K
JohnnyFootball replied
Final Fantasy XVI runs at 720p on Xbox Series X Performance Mode
Analysis Review  2 3
101
1K
Kikorin replied
Final Fantasy XVI devs may be hinting at a Switch 2 port
Rumor Game Dev Platform  2
71
953
Judge Magister replied
Final Fantasy XVI Producer on the Series's Future - Reiterate Multi-platform Launch for Future Games - Can't Comment Yet on FF17 Being Turn Based
2 3
105
630
Wolzard replied
Final Fantasy XI 25th Anniversary
17
234
IAmRei replied
Top Bottom