Spoilers ahead: That character death was one of the most well done and emotionally impactful character deaths I’ve ever experienced in a video game. The treatment Joel should have got
On a technical level, Clive is the most polished character I’ve ever controlled in an action game. Animation flow, style, hit boxes, collision, the physics, variety, EVERYTHING works (like unique Garuda pull on bosses, parrying fancy boss moves), animation cancels, sound design, endless combos, graphical prowess while still being grounded, it was just insane. when people compare it to rebirth having multiple playable characters, I just realize how much this effort went over most players’ heads. I imagine in the future that they will not consider so much polish/effort on one character to be worth it… but that’s a shame.
@@BrittanyFox That’s actually a very good point and one that I wholeheartedly agree with. No HD FF game has the level of polish when it comes to hit boxes and animations. The one thing I always hated in the remake games, for example, was how annoying the “action” side of things can be at times. Dodging, hit boxes, and animations can be pretty annoying depending on the character you’re playing. The actual real-time action is much better in 16 than any game in the series, and I appreciate that they go all in on making it a true action game here.
I think they will, which is why they recruited Ryota Suzuki. If he wasn't there, most ( if not the entirety) of Clive Tech wouldn't exist. I think Yoshida said that if he wasn't there, they'd take a long time to figure it out, and it wouldn't be any better than what they did with Ryota Suzuki.
It went over people's heads because the "character action" combat system in 16 is rather shallow compared to character action games made by experienced developers from that genre. I don't blame just the system itself but the overall balancing in the game, especially enemies. While the system was designed by Ryota Suzuki, he clearly wasn't "the entire" DMC5 system by himself. Those games seem simplistic but there's a lot of thought and balancing that goes on making a game like Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising or Bayonetta.
My main problem with Final Fantasy XVI is that you can't visit any of the big cities (the ones built around the Mother Crystals). Everytime you get close to one of these cities, you're like "are they doing it? can we finally visit an urban area?" but you can only get glimpses of it during cutscenes. For example, The Holy Empire of Sanbreque. It looks so amazing, but you can only actually run around a field outside of the city, and the only time when you can walk around in it is to fight.
While it would have been cool, I suspect that they didn't do so because explorable cities like those are extremely expensive. And considering FFXVI already cost a lot to produce anyway, especially with the Eikon battles, explorable cities were most likely just not viable to do.
@@dmurray2978That’s absolutely what it felt like. I was so excited to visit the cities showed off in the trailers. All we got is a two minute walk at the beginning of the game through the Kingdom of Rosaria capital, and afterwards, absolutely nothing. Just green fields, forests, and deserts.
@@OnaSotoyea i dont even think its unrealistic expectations either. just more time in the oven was needed and thats how ive felt about a couple of the recent FFs.
That was my main problem too. I'm not asking for a city of the size of a city in Assassin's Creed but just a portion to let you see what is the life like in there and have some interesting encounters with people living there. Besides I like the medieval setting but there were very few details interesting in the "towns". Like that well producing water out of a crystal, that is the kind of world building I wished to see more.
This game still has the most impressive boss fights I’ve ever seen in gaming the Bahamut boss fight was a masterpiece the set pieces, the music, and the build up to the fight everything was perfect
I love this game and the boss fights are very cool but also a little bit to easy for my taste, especially the icon fights. I have to play the leviathan dlc though ^^
I think one of the things that ff16 did extremely well was show a great love story that had a lot of maturity and was handled with the delicate care the characters needed. To date, it’s definetely in my top 3 love stories of all the games and showed much more emotional depth than almost every other one in the series. I do wish they fleshed Jill out more but speaking just purely about the love story, it’s top tier.
My only true problem with Final Fantasy XVI was that it felt like it could have been something bigger and better. For instance, the world is pretty well built with kingdoms, armies, and political conflicts throughout Valisthea, BUT we are not part of it at all. What we are is just a group of people branded as "bandits/heretics" basically, and we spend most of the time either running away from these people or trying to go ninja on them by killing their leader. In that way, I feel we are missing great opportunities for story-building. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Remember the dude who forced Jill to commit off-screen atrocities? Yeah, when I encountered that person in that Volcano island, I didn't even know who he was and Jill was going ape shit about how she wanted to kill him, and I was "Oh, okay, cool". There is no feeling, no build-up for that. You need to read records or reports to know what's going on, and there are SO many examples of this throughout the game that feel like massive missing opportunities. Another problem I forgot to mention, is that they could've added more towns, it feels like the game is just like 3 minor towns, and the Holy Empire and the other very big cities are just places designed for a one-time-only quest. Other than that, the game looks good, music is fantastic as expected, and the main cast is developed really well alongside secondary characters such as Gav who are stellar.
@@MelodeathxTedyup, afraid so. They did the same thing with FF15 and FF12. They just aren’t it. They never learn from their mistakes. They have a creative cap that they have maxed at, only capable of creating good enough games. Nothing all timer/masterpiece worthy since FF10. Final Fantasy’s true greatness died the moment Enix took over Soft. All the games we get now are hella incomplete rushed out mids, smh.
"BUT we are not part of it at all." Looks like we played different games. Clive literally changed the world. Have you played all the sidequests? Yes there are fetch quests, but there are also many sidequests that helps with the world building.
Flawed as it is, there is still a lot to love and celebrate about FF16. I would like to see where they can take this style of Final Fantasy game because Creative Studio 3 are passionate about what they do. XVI and Rebirth really restored my faith in Square Enix as developers.
Imho every FF is flawed in one way or another but to me personally speaking. Compared to other FF games past 12, 16s flaws are extremely minor by comparison. Hell I'll even say at worst it's sidequests for example are average for the individual quests but it's quest chains are really good imho. I don't personally think that 16s flaws are as big as people make them out to be.
@@phuklyyve8941 calling DMC combat awful is certainly a confusing take. You can say that you don't understand the appeal of the combat system but calling what is widely considered the best combat system in gaming awful is just......weird?
@@bearcavepro8832 lol i must not understand because if i did understand it id like it? its tedious, button bashing. Dont care that you like DMC. It cant hold a candel to the depth off the ff7 remakes, and if it were so good this game wouldnt be largely critised for it? Just because you like something doesnt make it objectively good, why take this personally? "largely considered the best combat in gaming" Fucking stop lying haha, find me the article or reddit post or whatver that says this lol
I still believe Leviathan should’ve been in the base game. And that leaving it out because it would cuz it would diminish Leviathan in XV was an absolutely atrocious thing to do
@AICW No evidence it was ever male. It didn’t have a speaking role or a declared gender until late on in the series. Leviathan is based on a female sea serpent from the Old Testament.
i think about this game almost everyday since i blindly played the demo. I’ve never had a game or any other type of entertainment leave such an impact on me
The game is full of Shonen Tropes actually, I mean the main reason the hero beat the bad guys is basically because of the power of friendship... now I'm not saying this makes it bad not at all, but these tropes are still there, they do however avoid the bad ones (like the hot sources scene for instance), but to be fair while they follow typical Shonen narrative I can't recall of any FF old or new that use these kind of tropes like the Persona or Tales games does for instance.
@@ashleycornwell67 You didn't even play the game. Ultima wasn't an Alien. He was apart a an ancient race of magical beings which 100% fits the medieval fantasy trope. LOTR, GoT, hell even previous final fantasy games had that
I doubt any game for awhile can recapture the experience and magic I had with FFXVI. Epic, Emotional, Adrenaline Fueling, Melodramatic, Beautiful, Sense of Adventure and most of all powerful. It’s not even the most complex and varied game in terms of Design and Mechanics except for the combat but it such a memorable game that’s carried by Masterful performances, Music Composers and Storytellers that’s basically soap opera the video game. Great video! Like to see you do more of these for other games as I always loved critiques especially you’re energy for the games we all love.
@@Jylstin I’m definitely interested in making more videos like this, but it won’t be frequent as these are longer videos that take a long time to make lol. But I’m very glad you enjoyed it because this game does mean lots to me as well!
Game is a solid 7/10. 2nd half of the game just kinda sucked and the main antagonist is dryer than dirt. Combat kinda breaks apart as you get the OP skills with big cooldowns, encouraging you to just break enemies and unload everything into them. Combat becomes really formulaic because of it, kinda falls into the same problem ff14 has with it's combat.
What bothered me the most is Joshua's role in the later game. Where was he this whole time? Why didn't he contact Clive for all this time? Why does Clive never ask him this stuff. They keep insisting that he is sick and dying but he goes ALL out multiple times with no consequences. By the end I was convinced that Joshua was Ultima posing as Joshua, or that he created a fake, because Joshua obviously died. But it turns out to be some unexplained miracle, like they took a U turn mid production and decided to revive him but didn't bother explaining why. It just cheapens Clive's resolve and the meaning of his back story. I mean he live in excruciating pain for what he did for such a long time, and that is what made his character, but oops! Turns out his pain was pointless and Joshua was just chilling and learning history, even though we know Joshua knew that Clive was alive. I screamed at the screen "ASK HIM WHERE HE'S BEEN ALL THIS TIME", but Clive just seems happy enough he is there, no questions asked....
The reason he was avoiding Clive, and his reason for being away in general was to keep Ultima away from Clive and by extension keep Ultima in check. It was also explained how he survived and what he was doing all that time when you visit Tabor to meet up with Jote. Joshua explains that he was saved by the undying, a secret group that serves under Rosaria that only a few higher powers know of. In that time Joshua learned about Ultima and his plan for Valisthea and the Eikons. The way I see it, he only separates himself from Clive because he thinks that he can handle that burden himself which is in line with his character. The way I interpret Clive not asking Joshua where he has been is that he already knew that Joshua was also in search of Ultima after the events at Drakeshead. And later in the story at Tabor, they fully explain what Joshua was up to. I think ultimately when they meet up, Clive was just relieved to see his brother again, and wanted to focus on how to stop Ultima rather than catching up on the past, since the game naturally gets there anyway when you learn about the undying.
@@MoreLimitless_ Thanks for the detailed explanation! Something about the circumstances makes me have a hard time taking some of the explanations given by the game seriously. Like Joshua being saved by some new group no one knew about feels a bit cheap after we saw Ifrit rip him apart limb from limb. Joshua being frail in the first place just makes this pretty unbelievable to me. It feels that reviving Joshua was a decision made much later in production and these feel like convenient excuses to have it make sense. I'm not sure if Ultima thought that Clive was dead but surely he was aware that he is Ifrit. Whether Joshua letting his brother live with the guilt of murdering his brother is worth it to keep Ultima away from him seems like a very avoidable dilemma by the writers. I admit the Phoenix+Ifrit combo to defeat Bahamut was reaaaally badass but in some ways I feel the game's narrative could have been stronger without Joshua ever making a return, however bitter that may seem. But you know, this is just a one mans' opinion and I appreciate you giving me the explanations.
This video you made truly was beautiful. I can see why it took longer to make than expected, it's very well crafted, with lots of your great points, arguments and personal feelings being put out in it, as well as having great edits, in a very inspirational way (approve of your soundtrack samples). Like you, I share the same sentinments of FF16, while far from perfect, and good god, is any game truly perfect (maybe some that are near to perfection or some that the highest highs outweigh any potential lowest lows), it's still a game I would confidently have in my top 3 or top 4 favourite FF games, alongside FFX, FFVI and FFIX. It's an experience I'll never forget.
@@madkaiser4887 Thank you, that means a lot! And yeah, it’s far from perfect, but of course, no game is truly, undeniably perfect. Regardless, this a game that has become very special to me. I understand it isn’t a game for everyone, but that’s also a given with an anthology series such as Final Fantasy. At the end of the day I have my experiences, and I will always cherish them.
Better than XV but to me it’s weaker than other modern FF games as well as other character action games. Not a bad game, just too ambitious for its own good.
That's one of the most reliable videos I've ever seen on Final Fantasy XVI. In 40 minutes you were able to fully summarise and explain what this game truly is. I've already shared your video and given a big like. Like you said, a Final Fantasy isn't tied only to the gameplay. But also to the story, the themes, the characters, the soundtrack and, of course, the CIDs. Thank you again for your video, and happy 1st anniversary to Final Fantasy XVI, my 2023 GOTY ❤
What a great video! Thank you. You captured my feelings on the game almost entirely. I didn't mind the weaker pacing and side quests as I was appreciating how strong the game was when it was telling it's main story. I loved the more mature themes when compared to more campy Final Fantasy characters and stories from other games. The music is probably the thing that elevated this game to my favourite Final Fantasy and one of my favourite games ever. All the best games have incredible music, for me it's a defining feature to draw me into the emotion of the story. The score on show is absolutely beautiful. I don't think there is a weak piece of music in the lot. Greatest music of any video game. I've also often found the turn based combat of older Final Fantasys the weakest part for me. It's the part that makes it difficult for me to go back to anything before XII. Probably why XII was my favourite Final Fantasy when it came out for it's more action focused battle system. I just love this game and hope more and more people can come to appreciate how great of a game it is.
Wish listed, waiting for the initial reviews for the PC port before buying. I realllly wanted to play it when it launched and have been waiting for the PC release since then. But like any PC ports, I always, always wait to see if its at least somewhat optimized. I would be surprised tho if SquareEnix (almost typed Squaresoft, damn I'm old) gave us a bad port.
I never expected anything from a final fantasy because I'm not interested in a turn based, when I decided to try this game is not only the game that I love the most to this day, Clive really is now my favorite fictional character. Since I finished it, I have never felt the same experience and level of emotion again. It is very nice to think how something that you didn't expect can make you very happy. Nice video ❤
"I never expected anything from a final fantasy because I'm not interested in a turn based" I need you to know that fans of this franchise are not happy with the company catering to you.
I think you misinterpreted my message, said I wasn' t interested in any final fantasy because turn based isn't my favorite type of game, with that I didn't mean the other games were bad, in fact I decided to try ffix and ffx and I loved both. Personally, I can understand why there are people who don't like this game or rebirth due to are very different from the old ones and its other gameplay, but it also ends up being a way to find people like me who might be interested in the franchise and give a chance to the other games
@@ZephyrFatetotally agree, have been a huge fan of final fantasy for 30+ years and FFXVI is my favourite, and FF7R hard mode has been incredible to play, tried a turn based game recently and it’s just boring now, I hope we have seen the back of it. Long may this new style continue
Ff12 and ff16 are the best ones I've played so far🤷 The only thing i would have loved to see in ff16 would be been a more flushed out magic/effects system. Like the basic spells in other ff games couldve been added as weapon effects
@@jackplisken4738Shut dude, he likes what he likes and its not anything perverse or despicable. You don’t have to insult his tastes because they don’t align with your own.
I'm not even a Final Fantasy fan but I was addicted to this absolute kino. Here's hoping for a PC port cause the PS5 visuals definitely dropped quite a bit in many aspects.
16 is definitely better praised than was 15 15 had so much riding on it that it fell flat to most fans I was one of those I love all the work and improvement that were made to 15 and I like 15 now as a game But the long wait from the first trailer up until its release The hype of it living up to Versus 13 The development hell it went to The massive PR push and advertising and multiple source of media that was given to 15 just for a solid game was what led to its downfall 16 felt like a natural release It came out 3 years after it’s first trailer The development was smooth It was advertised well and it was a solid game but it was overhyped
''Mythos and Ultima translates to Final Fantasy'' Holy shit... you just blew my fucking mind with that one. Final Fantasy 16 was my first true Final Fantasy experience apart from 14. I didn't know anything about it at all and I went into the demo completely blind. This game has one of the best and most effective demos I have EVER seen in a video game. From the first second I was instantly hooked. The story, cinematic cutscenes, the epic scale boss fights and the music make this game truly unforgettable. Bahamut and Titan are definitely my favorite fights. I also really love Clive as character and I loved seeing how much he progressed as the game went on. That being said, this game does have its flaws as you pointed out. My biggest disappointment was the fact that you never actually get to explore any of the main cities despite them being the most prominent points of interest on the map apart from the mothercrystals. Some characters like Jill, Benedikta, Hugo and Barnabas also felt a little underutilized and they definitely could have done more with them. But apart from that, it's definitely up there with one of my favorite games of all time! ❤
I miss being able to talk to random NPCs and exploring cities like in X and XII. Everything feels just dead or zombified. The combat is great at the beginning but by the end you are just spamming the same abilities. It's both a good and bad game.
I disagree with the combat. Sure, you can spam abilities but this is a stylish character action game that wants to to experiment. Practicing combos and getting creative, playing at a high level is where the combat shines. You can certainly just ability dump through the game, but really, where is the fun in that. It is why I say the combat is a reflection of the player pretty much like any action game. You get what you put into the combat and if you spam and ability dump then that's simply a choice in a number of other different ways you can get creative and play at a higher level. This is speaking from someone who's been practicing with the combat since release.
I'm playing FFXIV with this video in the background and the sound you use for the chapter title cards just makes me look around the game wildly. "I didn't que for anything!"
I remember seeing Ben Starr for the first time in the series You, and when I heard him as Clive, I had to pause immediately upon starting this game to check the wiki. He has the range, darling
The Holy Empire of Sanbreque... I just stand there until it ends. Lion and the Hare too. Never got tired of Indomitable once the aetherflood happened either. Loved this game for what it was instead of hoping it was something else.
It was a solid game. The boss fights,story,music, and main character were great. But the gameplay could’ve been a little more deeper like dmc, no real magic spells and once you get 3 icon powers and level up it did get too easy
This game is the reason I have a ps5, to this day it is still peak ff to me, only time I got so invested on a ff was ff12 my first game on the ps2 and then the mythical trailer of versus, I still watch yearly.
@@afrocloud3238 Thank you, my friend! It definitely is unbelievable how fast the year went by, I still remember being beyond hyped when, especially after the demo. Its one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
@@MoreLimitless_ Yeah. Me too, man. It seem like yesterday when I first put this game into my PS5. And I never took it out until I finished my first playthorugh. This game delivered on our hype and exceeds expectations. FFXVI is truly one of the best gaming experiences of my life!
Watching this makes me think we didnt play the same game. Combat felt like i just button mashed til the ability cooldowns reset and then i walked forward until i got to the next arena. It felt small in scope and could have been Vagrant Story 2 and no one would know the difference. Outside of Cid, no other characters clicked with me so the story never really hit. Which was a shame because the demo really felt great and tightly written but everything after just kinda drug on. Im glad people liked it but it didnt feel like a final fantasy game to me.
@@davehoffman515 Some people have different experiences, and what I believe makes up an FF game will be different from someone else’s opinion of what an FF game is. As I mentioned in the video, FF to me is not just gameplay-it is a perfect combination of so many different art forms that culminates into FF. Every title will be different and as long as it holds to similar themes of the series (which in my experience it does very well) than it is FF to me. But I respect that it won’t be for others and that is absolutely fine, but that was not my experience and I enjoyed this Final Fantasy entry.
Definitely explained this passionately to the point I can understand you’re understanding but also can give constructive criticism without a bias. Definitely looking forward to seeing more videos of you breaking down games I played, loved, hated or in the middle about. Earned a sub 💯💪
The game was ok imo. Didn’t care for the story and boring monotonous cutscenes, which made me not appreciate the characters. CID was great though, like come to papa…. Clive though is generic overall and overrated as hell. Even his voice acting is generic. Same dull monotonous shit.
So glad to see such a nuanced take on the game. People seem to feel the need to jump to extremes when it's alright to like a game despite it's flaws or dislike a game while acknowledging what others might like about it. Personally, I absolutely adore Final fantasy 16. Clive is an incredible protagonist. The world of ff16 tests him at every step of the way. He experiences so much tragedy and see's humanity at it's absolute worst. He breaks down, he cries, he feels unsure of himself. He is all of the things that make us human wrapped up in one package, our weakness and our strength. The characters all reflect that too. I know the quests can be tedious but honestly? The reward was worth it imo. You learn so much about these characters and it fleshes them out a lot. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have grown to really appreciate and love characters like Goetz and Charon. Final fantasy 16 is just one of those games you gotta experience at least once.
@@mysticalakatsuki4818 Yeah, it’s as you say most people lean so far on one side that they refuse to acknowledge how others feel. I love the game, but I can definitely understand why it is not for everyone. Yet despite its problems m, it still perfectly embodies what I look for in a Final Fantasy, in its story, themes, characters, and bringing a fresh take to the series once more. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but that can be said with literally any game in the series.
You’re right that people jump to extremes but you just kinda did that as well. To me this game is weird because for everything it does exceptionally well it does something very poorly. Clive is an incredible protagonist but he has probably the weakest antagonist in all of FF. The soundtrack has some of the best themes but a lot of it is repetitive and forgettable. The supporting characters are very strong but it has the worst party system of all final fantasy games. The budget for the cinematics seems huge but it seems incredibly cheap when you’re fighting the same old enemies in the same old zones I so much. The main story is intriguing and gripping up until Barnabas, yet the optional content is the worst in the series. It has the hottest opening quarter in modern RPGs and one of the slowest most slogfest third quarters in all of gaming. It’s like you give it a point then you have to take it away, over and over. Perhaps it just needed more time in the oven.
@@jaybee4288 That's totally fair. I get what people don't like about it. Just because I can overlook the flaws and find the enjoyable parts doesn't mean I think everyone else has to too. Jumping to extremes would be unwilling to accept any critiques about it. I gush because I really like the game, not because I think it's perfect.
This is the absolute best review I've seen on the game. Extremely great work here! I'm in the same camp as you, when it comes to the ending. It's very fitting of Clive to finish the book Joshua began towards the end of the game, and then use his name as the author. Also, like you said, he was the narrator for the entirety of the game. Almost as if he was reading the book to us.
This is probably my favorite ff in terms of gameplay i liked the combat better than 7/rebirths. I love that you can freely choose and put together combos rather than waiting for ATB charges
Actually in this game all you do is waiting for charges, because base attacks are a joke ) Imho, they already had better action combat systems, in KH or even in SoP. I like 16 for the story, lore and characters. But the gameplay is NOT a best part of it. It's a cheap copy-paste from DMC5, broken by cooldowns, without any sensible role-playing system, depth, mini-games, or in general any of JRPG elements.
@@pyccku212so what's the difference? In the first case, final fantasy have never been a very complex game that need you push 10 buttons at the same time. If you don't like it then just piss off
I think the quest system and loot were not fleshed out perfectly but honestly as far as action games go it’s among my favorites of all time. The Eikon fights were exhilarating and glorious and the combat was so much fun. I’ve played this game 3 times and I am already on a 4th to try to get the platinum. This game feels criminally underrated.
If you like stoy focus narrative games, then i recommend you Judgment or maybe Yakuza series if you have time. Definitely one of the best story game that i've ever played. If you decide to go for yakuza, you can start from Yakuza 0 (one of my favorites besides Yakuza 7)
Beautifully put together! FF16 did have its flaws, but I still get chills thinking about its peak moments, characters, and breathtaking soundtrack. Definitely in the upper echelon of FF titles for me. +1 subscriber 👍
Thank you! Yeah, this game quickly became one of my favorites in the series. Everything from it's gameplay, story and characters is everything I look for in a game. I love the emotional maturity of the characters, especially Clive and I think he's an incredible protagonist that represents FF well and shares many similarities to classic FF titles. Some of the moments in this game have some of my favorite moments in gaming ever, and for that FF16 will always be top 5 in the series.
This is a really great video man! I think you really captured a lot of what I think is both loved and criticized about this game in a really good way that allows for discussion and open ended thoughts. Superb work.
I enjoyed ff16 but my only issue was the skills had cooldowns. I can understand the ultimate attacks but everything else shouldn’t have had it and if it did at least have them between 5-10 seconds. Majority of the fights i was spamming ki blasts and charging my sword
@@Pappa958 I feel like that’s how I see most people play, but personally speaking, once you explore the combat more and understand how the abilities weave into base combat, the combo potential gets crazy in this game. There are so many ways to play this game, but most people simply choose to cooldown dump without really weaving combos into the mix. Most people see the abilities as something separate to the base combat, but they don’t take the time to learn how to use them during combos. If the game put the arcade mode scoring into the base game I think that would have helped give players more incentive to really dive deeper into the combo potential of the game because it really is great once you get into it.
Recently on a mainline final fantasy marathon and bought this one yesterday. I'm currently finishing FFX so still a few more games to go, but as a guy who only played (and loved) ffvii and nothing else back in the day, god damn what a fun ride has been. I'm looking forward to XVI in the near future.
Huge text incoming. I don't expect anyone to read, but hey.. I had the time and I like to wrinte, so here it goes: I have a lot of problems with XVI when it comes to gameplay and level/world design. The game has a good story and while the true villain and "big mystery" is cool and works, it's also somewhat of a trope in stories where fantasy/scifi mix. The characters are great, the cutscenes and boss fights are superb. I'll start with the combat. You're right that the combat system itself is mostly fine, what brings everything down is the systems around it. Not only generic enemies are too weak to incentivize skillfull play and combos, the ability system heavily inventivizes the incessant spam to destroy encounters in seconds. Then, when "elite enemies" and bosses show up they committ a huge sin in the "character action" genre, which is to create artificial difficulty by removing mechanics from the combat system. For example, most of the Elite enemies and bosses can't be juggled and have super armor, powering through your moves and punishing you for trying combos (which also incentivizes just using your openings to use Abilities instead of moves), that alone instantly kills 70% of the depth of the system. Hence why ability spam and parrying are the best strategies against bosses... because they're also pretty much the only strategy. The combat system itself is okay but even though it was made by Ryota Suzuki, it became pretty clear that just one man doesn't make and entire game. While the game has all the core systems (cancelable animations, i-frames, parries, juggles, etc), it lacks deeply in character moveset. Clive having just one melee weapon moveset and one ranged weapon moveset really throws a wrench on the system. One might argue that the Eikons are the "weapons", but they trully aren't, they're "unlockable abilities". Now the worst part of the game, the level and world design. I won't hold back the words here, it's just miserable. XVI feels like a PS3 game, and no I'm not talking about graphics, of course. I'm talking about the fact that the absurd amount of invisible walls in the open world areas and lack of exploration is very baffling. It sounds cruel to say this about a Final Fantasy game but this is the "most open, linear game" in the market. Clive can't jump over anything, even the smallest ledges, the itemization of the game is so bad that the rewards of exploring 99% of the time isn't worth it. And what is heartbreaking is that the biggest argument against XVI, is 7 Rebirth, which is the precise opposite of this. You can jump almost everything, there are usually means of traversal that makes you cross bodies of water or climb hills. That makes me feel, not angry at XVI, but almost sad about it. Almost as if it was set up to fail with all of it's budget allocated to 7 Rebirth. Which leads me to the dungeon level design, this one is inexcusable. Square Enix is a good 14 years behind when it comes to dungeon level design. I'm not kidding nor exaggerating, it's comparable to PS2/PS3 games. Every dungeon is made up of corridors that lead to elevators that leads to another corridor that leads to simple 2 way path, with one usually leading to a dead end making you go back and just take the other path. It's terrible, it's Tartatarus (Persona 3) levels of simplistic, it just looks a billion times better. Note that this isn't just an issue with XVI, pretty much every FF game is still stuck in the FFX/FFXII level design. They are completely out of touch in this aspect. Conclusion: I would say that XVI is a game that tries to appeal to everybody and ends being for no one. I'm not saying "No one likes XVI", but I am saying that when you think about playing XVI again, there are usually much better games depending on which specific aspect you want to experience. If you want the combat, you can play Devil May Cry, if you want the exploration you can play Rebirth. The only "unique" aspects of the game is the story (you simply can't replace story.. you either like it or you don't) and the boss fights. The game has little to no RPG elements, it's combat system although good, can't compete with action games made by Capcom, Platinum or Team Ninja, the world is not that fun to explore and most side quests aren't interesting. The result is a game that would've been a lot better if it had 50% or even 60% of it completely cut from the final product. I say this because this is a 50 hour long "Devil May Cry" game, except there's a reason games like Devil May Cry are usually short (like 10 hours long) and very replayable. To me personally, XVI would be better if it was structured like a DMC game, meaning "cutscene at the start of a mission, walking around a bit killing enemies, boss fight, cutscene, end of mission". Straight to the point. Which is interesting because that's EXACTLY what the demo was, like... that castle/tower section that leads to the Garuda fight was (by coincidence or not) a perfect slice of what a "Final Fantasy May Cry" could've been. Instead those sections are like 20% of the game with most of the game being just fetch quests, and filler content between major story moments (you know what I'm talking about) that you desperately wanted to skip to get to the next big set piece moment. I would say 40% of XVI is a 8.5/10 character action game but the other 60% is the most bland and boring 5/10 action RPG I've played. There is a great game underneath all the rubble and as funny as it may sound, a Director's CUT with most of the game completely removed would end up being a better product. Actually, the "time attack" mode that unlocks after you beat the game is pretty fun for this exact reason.
You can tell that FF16 was rushed and that the developers were lazy with the game. They only focused on Clive, somewhat the cutscenes, and the boss fights. Everything else was boring. It's fine for a game to have flaws but FF16 has way too many flaws that are unjustified imo. Here's some of the issues that I have with the game (most of this is a copy/paste but is very long too lmao): The pacing of the game was so off. The 13 year time skip is completely understandable but to this day I still don't understand the 5 year time skip. I also thought it was ridiculous that none of the characters personalities or even appearances except for Clive's even changed after the 5 year time skip. There's also no explanation as to why Joshua stays away from Clive for those additional 5 years. Literally none of the other characters again except for Clive even get to shine on their own and we don't learn much about their stories or why they are the way they are. It's like they all only exist for Clive's development and I find that so insulting to the characters and a complete waste of them. Out of all of them though, I'd say Jill was without a doubt the character that was done the dirtiest and I'm sure everyone knows why. Unfortunately, the only character that we see all of the other characters bond with is Clive and they get no other meaningful connections with anyone else The side quests except for the endgame quests were repetitive, boring, and unrewarding. All of them were either just fetch/kill quests. Even main story stuff is repetitive. You go destroy a crystal/stop an antagonist, come back to base, do crappy side quests and repeat that throughout the whole game. The loot you find in the game is not that great The gameplay was way too easy (I didn't die a single time in my playthrough) and the design of it is lazy because it didn't have much enemy variety, no enemy weaknesses/strengths. The other characters in your party are completely useless and hardly do any damage in battle and what's even more ridiculous about the gameplay and is probably the stupidest thing that I've ever seen in an FF game is that the characters in your party are immortal and can never be incapacitated in battle. What the actual fuck is that? It makes no logical sense for any party member whether they're playable in the game or not to have eternal fucking health. Whoever designed the gameplay for FF16, you deserve to be fired for that reason alone, I don't care. The game has an unnecessary ambiguous ending, but the game still gives off an obvious hint that Clive dies from the curse. I don't really see a point in ambiguous endings unless the story is going to have more somehow, and if Clive is dead then I think that throws part of his character development out of the window. Part of Clive's character arc is about him living and there's even multiple characters in the game especially Joshua, Jill and even Cid scolding him to save himself. What was the point in all of that only to have him die in the end? The developers could've done a lot better than this. Such a wasted potential, and I think it's hilarious that the developers pretend that they don't know why the game didn't sell to their expectations. You know, I think if they had just given what the fans wanted for the DLCs, it's possible that that alone could've saved the game. They admitted that they knew what the fans wanted before the DLC even came to be but they didn't care what people wanted, and look what happened lmao. Hardly anyone even played it, and I'm glad because that's also what they get for lying about what the DLCs were going to be about.
@@phoenixblossom2167 Yea.. honestly, it’s baffling that Square Enix is making meetings to figure out why FF hasn’t been selling well lately. And it never crosses their mind the fact that they’ve been going against fan feedback for more than a decade. Nobody liked 13, they went and made 2 sequels. Not only people didn’t like the direction 15 went, the game itself was incomplete at release. And now this is the FF16 we got. Remake and Rebirth are good games but the FF brand is in shambles at this point. Nobody has any faith in it.
@@Ocean5ix The fans are what make them, so it's not wise imo if they don't take valid criticism from the fans into consideration. They obviously look at feedback including the negative and we know they see it because they admitted to it, but again they don't care. And like you said, it's not even crossing their mind that the problem is that they don't care. They don't have anyone to blame but themselves...
@@Ocean5ixBeing compared to a ps2/3 game is great in my book. I prefer the linearity of the world and simple dungeon design since I just want to fight enemies. It's much better than the open world slop we have today. And I do agree it'd be much better if it was structured like a DMC game cause the fetch quests are boring. I have to disagree with you regarding what you said about just playing DMC if you want the combat, though. I tend to view 16 as a much more chill version of DMC. It may not have as much depth compared to it but there's still some pretty cool spectacles you can pull off without having to do crazy inputs whereas if I want something more technical with more skill involved I'll just play DMC. It just depends on my mood.
@@Merk1387 Oh for sure, can't argue against preference. It's just that for a game that marketed itself as at least "semi open world" with the devs mentioning God of War 2018 and Ragnarok as inspirations, the game was very disappointing. I also agree that a lot of times, comparisons with PS2 games are great. A good example is the Yakuza franchise, which still has that PS2 feel/jank to it that makes us remember the PS2 days. That said, I think when it comes to dungeon level design there's no way to justify how simplistic it is in 16. It feels like Square never learned how to make 3D dungeons in these games because it's not just the PS2, the PS3 13 games also had this problem, the 7 Remake also has this problem. Their dungeons not just lack in level design, they also lack artistic design to hide how linear they are. I can agree with your combat argument. It's easier to look cool in 16 than it is in DMC5.
Why cant we get a game that plays like the old FF games like FF 6,7 or 10 but looks like 16. Missing too many rpg elements but overall still a great game.
It definitely is missing a lot of RPG elements, but I honestly still love the combat itself as an action game fan, especially playing at a high level. That said, it would be nice to get a traditional style FF again. But I believe the beauty in this series is that each game gives us a fresh new experience while retaining common FF themes in any sense.
The writing, dialogue, and character performances are just next-level not for the franchise, but videogames in general. It can't be understated how this felt like the first true next-gen PS5 game (in that, it had no base PS4 development, it had no back ports, it wasn't constrained by it at all).
I hard disagree, the writing and dialogue were really basic, and the performances are similar to FF14. I truly do not understand how you can say all of this.
I guess I’ll go against the grain here and say that I found this game pretty disappointing. This is coming from someone who spent the past few years getting hyped for it to be one of the first games I got on ps5 when I could finally afford one. I want to really love it but I just can’t, it’s just okay. Everything about it just feels like wasted potential to me. Clive is badass, amazingly acted, the story and presentation when it’s firing on all cylinders is absolutely insane, but man… once you get out of the first few hours you realize that the highs come with low lows. For every insanely badass 15 minute boss fights that blow you off your feet and remind you that this is next gen you get 5 straight hours of absolutely dreadful game design with boring open world/design that has you just walking around empty fields and villages with Clive’s character model robotically staring as an NPC drones on and on telling you to go do something. I feel like this game would have been so much better if it just embraced being a 20 hour linear story based action game like a God of War or something. It’s clear that’s what they wanted to do. But instead it feels like it’s trying to do that and be a Final Fantasy RPG and it just leads to both sides being lukewarm to me. if you’re going to go full action mode then go all fucking in, balls to the wall, make it like devil may cry. Instead it feels like baby’s version of Devil may cry… you can do a FEW cool chains here and there but none of it is necessary… if you want to the game is completely fine letting you sleepwalk through it doing the basic square triangle square triangle combo you learned in the first 5 minutes. I had to go out of my way to learn the few combos I could just to keep myself from getting bored, not because the game encouraged me to. Even when you pull something off it feels frustratingly… shallow? Like knowing that’s it, the iceberg doesn’t go deeper. It’s just not satisfying at all for a game that’s trying to be a 50 hour long RPG. It doesn’t hold up for that long. I’ll put it this way, DMCV combat had like 5x the combat depth but it’s 5x shorter in total. I’m not saying it HAS to be like DMCV, but point being you can’t take a combat system that barely changes or grows outside of the first 2 hours and stretch it into 50. That would barely hold up for the 10 hour brawler action game. ALSO I find it really fucking annoying that the game is so easy it feels like every combat encounter by the time you get into the zone and start popping off with combos the fight is basically already over. that definitely does not help its case at all. Then in the boss fights you can’t do a lot of the juggling combos. It leads to pulling combos off feeling like some cheap trick just to do for fun rather than something that’s actually helpful. It’s usually just more efficient to spam perfect dodges and whatever eikon ability you have up next. I feel so conflicted because the world is so fucking cool, I love that it’s finally a darker grittier medieval setting, and the opening makes you think it’s going to have Game of Thrones scheming and stuff, but no… it feels like you’re just scratching the surface. On one hand I look at mechanics like the active time lore, the one table in the hideaway that has breakdowns, timelines, character trees, but then on the other hand it feels like they put more effort into that then actually making a fleshed out rpgs, better quest design, progression or loot that feels rewarding, or even just making an action game where you don’t feel like you’ve learned everything there is to the combat system in the first 2 hours. It’s like how people always circlejerk about the parkour in AC Unity watching RUclips clips of how cool the animations look but in game it’s extremely frustrating and inefficient to pull off and that doing the basic holding R2 and running straight up every wall is going to be faster and less obtuse every single time. Sounds overly negative but I’d say the game is like a 7 to me, I struggled to play through it in the second half which is just a terrible sign for me
Long story short, the developers were just lazy with FF16. You can tell that they were only fixated on the main character, the boss fights, and the long cutscenes than the actual game as a whole. Clive is the only character who gets to shine and get fleshed out while literally all the other characters including Joshua only exist as a tool for him and for his development. It's also pretty impossible to get a game over in this game. The gameplay is too simple while the party members are pretty useless. They only throw out one attack like every 20 seconds and they have infinite health which is just the most absurd thing that I've ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. Whether they're playable or not, no party member should ever be immortal. It's unreal. The loot is pretty useless, the gear is not very remarkable either since your attack power/defense power only goes up about 5 points more. Side quests and even main story quests are repetitive. Side quests were all fetch/kill quests, then with main story content you go destroy a crystal/kill an antagonist, come back to base, do side quests, repeat that throughout the entire game with very limited world exploration. The DLCs didn't do them any good either because it was basically the same thing as the main game and hardly anybody played it. I think if the developers had just given what all of the fans wanted for the DLC it possibly could've somewhat saved the game. If you're unaware, what the fans wanted for the DLCs were for them to revolve around the other characters since as everyone already knows, none of them were fleshed out in the game and we learn nothing about their backstories, journeys or explanations as to why they are the way they are. Most people were asking for DLCs on Cid and Jill. Some also asked for more on Dion and Benedikta too. You're not wrong when you say that FF16 was a major disappointment, because it was. I think the only good things I can personally say about the game is Clive, the boss fights, the story kind of. But most people that I've seen play it say that it's not as good as the previous games. I've even seen people say that they've fallen asleep while playing it. And the developers have the nerve to pretend to wonder why it didn't sell to their expectations while some fans also wonder why it wasn't even nominated for game of the year lmao. Like, some of these people including some of the developers really need to get out of their echo chamber for a minute and actually listen to why a lot of people don't like it. It was like a wannabe baby version of Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Rising.
From the first minutes of the video, I had a big smile on my face and thought "yeah, this guy gets it". I understand why some people might have been disappointed with XVI and having certain expectations not met, my sympathies, but I think the highs we got outweigh the lows by a landslide even if it's not a perfect game. FF XVI lives rent-free in my mind because of its memorable characters and inspiring story and I was very happy when it won best soundtrack last year because Soken really deserves the recognition. He worked through cancer to give us some of the best evolutions of classical music in existence today. Small note about the ending (I agree with your take): The lore entry for Ultimalius reads "When Origin was buried beneath the earth in order to absorb the aether it would need to rebuild the world, a great shrine was placed in the sky above it, from which humanity could be looked down upon." I believe that refers to Metia being the mothership which Origin detached from when Ultima first arrived from their dying world. It's always been a bit strange to see a star not moving from its place in the sky to the lower left of the moon no matter its phases, obviously isn't how a star should appear in the sky. Its light fades away too quickly when Ultima's magic finally fizzles out of existence, hinting that it's probably much closer than it appears to be. And last but not least, this wouldn’t be the first time that a Square Enix game featured a red star that the ignorant populace revered, which wasn’t really a star at all.
First final fantasy I’ve ever beat, insane boss battles, realllllly sluggish side content, except for the final missions in each side storyline they were horrible and really slowed down the experience. But man the eikon battles were exceptional and the boss battles were a spectacle, especially barnabus
I'm still not a big fan of the ending, the main villain, how some characters were handled, the lack of rewarding exploration and rpg mechanics, the MMO style fetch quests that added very little beside stopping the pacing to a halt, Clive's standard sword moveset being so limited, Ifrits moveset being *even* more limited, and the use of a mechanic as unengaging as cooldowns in a fast paced hack n slash game. Most people say i dislike the combat because it is an action game, but rather its the opposite, i dislike it because it's not action *enough* . No amounts of skilled play will get the cooldowns back any faster, getting rewarded for waiting just isn't very exciting, the moveset being limited to only 6 abilities at a time doesn't help either. But i agree with you that that combo potential is still very large, i myself did have the most fun styling on enemies and swapping between builds despite my gripes with the limitations. And i can admit it is a well made game that succeeded at a lot of things it tried to do, even if i wasn't particularly a fan of them. I liked most of the characters and the boss fights were some of the most hype thing ever, some real Asura's Wrath energy there. I’d say better than XIII and XV as in its a complete game , but the complete game itself it’s aggressively middle of the road both as an action game and an rpg. Making you pay $25 DLC for a $70 game also rubbed me off the wrong way, just because it is normalized in modern gaming didn't make it any better, especially since it added such little content compared to some of the other games from Square Enix themselves, i expected them to be better than this. My first two playtrough were the most fun, unlocking more abilities and experimenting with all kinds of different combos, its only on the third playtrough i started noticing all the flaws. Despite all that i do believe this is a very high quality game that a lot of people would enjoy.
YES. Thank you! In terms of combat and gameplay complexity it feels like a demo or proof of concept of a Devil May Cry game that got stretched out to 50 hours. The sense of progression is horrible, you learn pretty much everything is to combat in the first two hours besides adding in 2 different color eikon attacks every 5 hours. The game is so easy that you aren’t even encouraged to actually learn and engage in the combos. I had to go out of my way to force myself to learn some because I was so bored of the same exact “dodge, dodge, square triangle square triangle square triangle” loop over and over again that I had learned in the demo. Even then by the time you get some stuff going the enemies are usually dead anyways. A *real* action game like DMC5 has 5 times the gameplay depth while jam-packing it into a game that’s 5 times shorter. Thats what makes it fun. As opposed to this game where you spend 30 minutes walking around an empty valley to find 4 random soldiers to pull maybe 2 combos off before it’s over.
@@DommB117 Glad to hear you like it! Definitely skip the video until you play through the game. It’s fine to watch the non-spoiler sections but I would rather you get to experience everything fresh, as it’s really an awesome game. Good luck on the first playthough!
My main gripe with the game design wise is the lack of meaningful side content, which is weird coming from me as I normally b-line things as im a story enjoyer before anything else. But with the extended downtime between major arcs in the game feeling like the bad kind of side content, the lack of any dungeons, puzzles, or meaningful extensions of combat really make b-lining 16 the only enjoyable way to play. I get the the side quests mainly aim to give more lore and perspective but given that I played every side quest but found only like 5 out of the 76 be enjoyable, it kinda makes the other 71 pointless. Not to mention that non-super abilities don’t scale well into higher difficulties. I hated how easy the game was so when I went into Final Fantasy mode, it was disappointing that the combo abilities didnt feel good at all and the only setup that stays viable is lightning rod, will o wykes, and filling the rest of your slots with supers (which i find boring and i think we should have been limited to 1 super at any given time). Story wise my enjoyment took a dip after the second time skip, everything felt too on the nose and it lost a lot of its urgency along with expecting us as the audience to care for all of the filler side characters while sidelining the main cast. I like Jill anytime she’s actually on screen, but since thats like 15% of the game she just feels like an after thought. I don’t mind that she can’t fight all the time because she’s ill, but not that that means she doesn’t get anything to do at all. Which is my last major thing, as much as im all for each numbered entry being its own thing and not being pigeon-hold to specific mechanics, there being no real party gameplay wise destroys the final fantasy of it all. Even in vanilla 15 you still interacted with the rest of the boys and actively fought with you but you can barely even see your teammates in 16 much less feel any impact from them at all. As much as i disagreed with the, “this isnt final fantasy” discourse, there being a lack of a party really made it feel generic and, “not final fantasy” for me. That being said, I remember enjoying 16 from minute 1 to 2nd time skip like it was the greatest thing ever and I still love the game to bits for it. But the last half is where my patience wore thin both gameplay and story wise.
i wanted to spend so much time in its world but there was damn near nothing else to do outside combat. Even the usual lame minigames like darts would have done it for me. How about some basebuilding mechanics for the hideout. What a missed opp. So pissed because this could have been the most iconic ff game since X
@@jaybee4288exactly. They were epic no doubt, but I found some of them dragged on for too long. A world as depressing as this is bound to have some fun places like Wall Market in FF7. In fact, we come across a place that probably would be like it, but they don't let you go in and engage with it.
It feels like they made a really fun, bombastic, badass 15-20 hour long action story game then realized that it’s a Final Fantasy game so they had to stretch it to 50 hours and put hours and hours of “”open world RPG”” gameplay in between the major story beats. It just leads to a wildly inconsistent experience
I also am at a complete loss at how the game is 50 hours long yet I felt like I still barely knew anything about the world of Valisthea. If you asked me what happened in between hours and hours of downtime in between the occasional huge badass story beats I legitimately couldn’t tell you. All these cool cutscenes and a bible of lore about the different empires but it feels like the game doesn’t actually let you engage with any of it. Do you even go into any of the big cities in this game? All I remember is empty fields and sparse villages that blur together
I love FFXVI but it wasn't perfect. My main complaints.. First the battle system. It became repetitive and not because of the eikons or how the battles flowed but because the system of weakness/strength, buffs/debuffs was completely gone. They could have implemented this easily enough. I never died during my entire playthrough. Even worse my set up didn't change much from the beginning of the game to the end game. Second, the side missions were repetitive. SE needs to take notes from CDPR and the way they made side quests in The Witcher 3. That game was a masterclass in side quests. So much so that if you play that game every other game with side quests after will more than likely disappoint you. The exploration. It just wasn't there. And finally, the pacing. Definitely was an issue. Aside from that, I loved everything else. The story, the plot, the characters, the soundtrack. Definitely up there with the best entries in the series. Definitely a hell of a lot better than the abomination that was FFXV.
Imma be real, I feel like Jill was the most compelling and well written character next to Clive. Imo she has more development than people give her credit for, and she still has direction and an arc that goes somewhere following through right to the end of the game, it's just relatively subtle and told through little moments/dialogues rather than another big setpiece like the Iron Kingdom. I keyed into so much more during my second playthrough, her writing is actually really good and she's much more of a three dimensional character than even Joshua. Unfortunately she suffers the most from the writing issues in the third act, and there are some big issues with her execution ofc. I think if she had just that little bit more she would have landed better overall. Show her curse, emphasize it and her need to start taking care of herself by having her fight Titan with Clive instead of what happened at Rosalith, dig a little deeper into her relationship with Shiva, etc.
@@foob420 That is exactly how I feel about her character. She’s a good and well written character that intertwines with Clive nicely, however, she lacks direction going into the latter half of the game. Instead they choose to focus more on only Clive and Joshua and Jill was just not given enough material, but she still has her moments as well.
I am sorry but I feel abject apathy towards her. She is just so uterly uninteresting to watch, she is a paper character, the writer im sure tried and had a clear goal but imo it just wasnt well realized.
I wish they would add a new mode to this game that increases the difficulty and allows us to have 4 Eikon slots. This is the best game I have played since Shadow of the Colossus. I really wish for more content in the future.
Clive is a very likeable character. I really like FF16, coming from a person who loves turnbased, this game was a breath of fresh air as the story standouts. The game feels more like a God of War game rather than Final Fantasy. At the end of the day, a good game is a good game.
I really loved FFXVI. I didn’t mind the fully action-based battle system. I don’t get the “isn’t an rpg” thing, but I guess that means something different to each person. My favorite thing about FF is the difference between the titles-what makes each game unique. My biggest issues with the game were the lack of enemy variety and the poor loot/treasure systems. I feel that improving these two aspects would have nullified a lot of other complaints in the game. I played the DLC and loved it. Makes further playthroughs that much more worthwhile. Can’t wait to replay on PC and hopefully XBOX. My favorite track in the game is Control btw.
I agree for sure. It is still an RPG, however, it lacks depth in those systems that people are used to in other JRPGs. Exploration, looting, and enemy variety in mechanics were all dumbed down so that people could focus on the story, and that, imo, was a bit overdone. Still though I loved the game despite it's problems and no game is really perfect at the end of the day.
Those criticisms you mentioned are part of the rpg criticisms. If it’s not going to be an rpg then don’t put in those half assed mechanics and stretch the story/barebones combat out over 50 hours
I completely broke down at the end of FFXVI, sobbing like a baby. That final cutscene paired with the music is the most beautiful ending I have ever seen in media. I have never cried so hard. My girlfriend was reading a book next to me and she was startled and started hugging me lol. No game has given me such a memory. What a game. Even dispite its flaws it might be my favorite singleplayer game ever. The characters and acting is on another level.
A game of incredibly high highs and some of the lowest lows. The overall experience was very enjoyable for me, but I can totally see why many people disliked it.
The Funny part is that FF 16 really is the most LOYAL one to the really classic era of final fantasy, if you could make final fantasy 1 and 2 in current realistic graphics those games would totally look like FF16, and i´m talking about everything, the protagonists, the villains, the towns, the world, the weapons, etc., the "medieval" look of FF started with FF 1 and 2, also they gave a big important to swords in those first 2 games, the excalibur and the blood sword, they kept the importance of the sword in "Seiken Densetsu" their first final fantasy action rpg for the gameboy., final fantasy 4, tactics, 11 and 14 kept the serious medieval look, 9 was more in line with 3 and 5, with that cartooney medieval look, i still miss the turn based because i like to think in strategies, and i´m not a fan of action rpgs but FF16 was really a very throw back to the roots of the franchise for sure,
Agreed. I feel like most don't actually realize how much 16 pay homage to classic FF in some of it's narrative. Perhaps the most classic feeling game we've had for years, and you can tell a lot of the blood from the first 5 FF entries, and even Tactics are woven into the feel of the world, how the story presents itself at times.
I wish it also took some elements from IV like temporary playable characters akin to Yang or Tellah, Dion and Cidolfus were way too cool to simply be... Kingdom Hearts' assist characters.
I tried really hard to like this game because I grew up with Final Fantasy. But I just couldn’t enjoy it. The main story was ok but the pacing was atrocious. The main villains were not very interesting. The side quests were the most boring I’ve ever completed. The game severely lacked customization. The weapons are accessory systems kinda pathetic, the exploration was lackluster, just so much. It was my biggest disappointment of 2023 and I was expecting the opposite.
It wouldn't have won even if it was nominated. Maybe it would have had a chance if neither Baldur's Gate 3 or Tears of the Kingdom had come out, but there was no way GOTY wasn't going to be one of those two. Those games DOMINATED 2023. I have no idea why FFXVI wasn't nominated over goddamn Spider-man 2 though lmao
nah, FF13 is my favorite, 15 had a lot of problems, and so does 16, but 13 was almost perfect near the end for me (and I played it 60fps on PC with a mod and it was flawless without a single bug too)
Game was a massive disappointment. It seems with however many steps forward they might have taken on this one, they ultimately take two steps backwards. Zero common ground between Clive and Ultima. Weak villain, doesn't have a connection with the player character. No controllable party members. Massive misstep, should not be allowed in any mainline Final Fantasy game. No sense of exploration, nothing unique to find and do. No mini games. No sense of wonder or laughs. Few and far between moments of levity. Dark, dreary world without a proper balance to show you the other side. Characters all only gruffly whisper all of their lines, as to try and seem more serious. When really they should be cutting loose and building their characters personality. Final Fantasy XVI is technically well made, but when it comes to the vision and execution, it fails. Hard.
@@owenjzx3070 Oh 13 is waaayyyy better. At least the combat is turn based and engaging. Go play your 16 which is a brain dead press square button masher DMC wannabe clone lmaoooo.
@@hotcoldman77 just because it was “turn-based” doesn’t mean it was engaging, because it wasn’t, nor was it fun. The story, characters, and environments also PALE in comparison to 16.
Despite XVI not being a perfect game, I can confidently say that Clive is my favorite FF protag of all time (followed closely with the 7R version of Cloud), he really is the highlight of the game for me along with the Summons
I was afraid to finish watching the video the minute you said FF16 is not perfect. From personal expeience, that usually leads to a 40+ minute rant shitting on the game. Before I continue, tell me that is not the case.
@@Awesmic1 No I do not just shit on the game like other people tend to do. I think like with any Final Fantasy game there are great strengths and weaknesses, and that is what I highlight in the video. Regardless of it’s shot comings, I am a massive fan of the game, it’s become one of my favorites in the series personally.
if u legit think that u shallow, bro. 😂 but I love 16 too... Just wish Cid wasnt discarded like shit, the sidequests had any depth and the plot could've been Game of Thrones or Attack on Titan level shit! Cmon... Lets be honest here
"Haters gonna hate" sure sounds condusive to a healthy discussion. Why cant people share a negative experience that they genuinely had without being "haters".
See I haven't played the game much less looked at the story, because I play on PC. So I'm very intrigued to experience this game blind and compare it to my experiences not just with the whole franchise but also specifically FF7R and FFXV. I hated XV at launch but as a somewhat completed product in Royal Edition I found it to have one of the more compelling stories in recent memory of the franchise. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
1 year since my favorite game of all time is crazy. I’ve followed it since its reveal. Most hype I was ever for a game. I’m so happy I got to experience this masterpiece. From beginning to end.
@@PostParodyClarity I don’t think it will tbh man and I hate that for y’all. Your best bet is to either get a PS5 for it or wait until it comes to PC. Console exclusivity is outdated but it’s still where we are.
From VI to XII they had a really good run (and I’m including X-2 as well). Don’t feel anything has captured what made those games so special since then.
Man, what an excellent video! 👏🏽 Beautifully crafted but I had to skip the DLC chapter for the vid tho. You inspired me to finally go and finish it. I did the Echos DLC but not the Tide yet. 1 year Anniversary,.. what better time than now.
It’s been an entire year since we got the best version of Cid in the entire franchise
Literally the goat
I feel like I am the only one who wasn't bothered by him lol. I never liked him that much in this one. Can't quite put my finger on why.
Spoilers ahead:
That character death was one of the most well done and emotionally impactful character deaths I’ve ever experienced in a video game. The treatment Joel should have got
And the best Waifu (Gav)
More gay comments incoming...
Gaoted game
On a technical level, Clive is the most polished character I’ve ever controlled in an action game. Animation flow, style, hit boxes, collision, the physics, variety, EVERYTHING works (like unique Garuda pull on bosses, parrying fancy boss moves), animation cancels, sound design, endless combos, graphical prowess while still being grounded, it was just insane.
when people compare it to rebirth having multiple playable characters, I just realize how much this effort went over most players’ heads. I imagine in the future that they will not consider so much polish/effort on one character to be worth it… but that’s a shame.
@@BrittanyFox That’s actually a very good point and one that I wholeheartedly agree with. No HD FF game has the level of polish when it comes to hit boxes and animations. The one thing I always hated in the remake games, for example, was how annoying the “action” side of things can be at times. Dodging, hit boxes, and animations can be pretty annoying depending on the character you’re playing. The actual real-time action is much better in 16 than any game in the series, and I appreciate that they go all in on making it a true action game here.
I think they will, which is why they recruited Ryota Suzuki. If he wasn't there, most ( if not the entirety) of Clive Tech wouldn't exist. I think Yoshida said that if he wasn't there, they'd take a long time to figure it out, and it wouldn't be any better than what they did with Ryota Suzuki.
Idk it didn't really feel any better than every single other AAA action game
@metacube9913 yeah these people are lost. This game is VERY watered down kingdom hearts gameplay.
It went over people's heads because the "character action" combat system in 16 is rather shallow compared to character action games made by experienced developers from that genre. I don't blame just the system itself but the overall balancing in the game, especially enemies. While the system was designed by Ryota Suzuki, he clearly wasn't "the entire" DMC5 system by himself. Those games seem simplistic but there's a lot of thought and balancing that goes on making a game like Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising or Bayonetta.
My main problem with Final Fantasy XVI is that you can't visit any of the big cities (the ones built around the Mother Crystals). Everytime you get close to one of these cities, you're like "are they doing it? can we finally visit an urban area?" but you can only get glimpses of it during cutscenes. For example, The Holy Empire of Sanbreque. It looks so amazing, but you can only actually run around a field outside of the city, and the only time when you can walk around in it is to fight.
While it would have been cool, I suspect that they didn't do so because explorable cities like those are extremely expensive. And considering FFXVI already cost a lot to produce anyway, especially with the Eikon battles, explorable cities were most likely just not viable to do.
They showed castles and cities and crystals in the trailers but left us with empty fields with those things forever in the distance.
@@dmurray2978That’s absolutely what it felt like. I was so excited to visit the cities showed off in the trailers. All we got is a two minute walk at the beginning of the game through the Kingdom of Rosaria capital, and afterwards, absolutely nothing. Just green fields, forests, and deserts.
@@OnaSotoyea i dont even think its unrealistic expectations either. just more time in the oven was needed and thats how ive felt about a couple of the recent FFs.
That was my main problem too. I'm not asking for a city of the size of a city in Assassin's Creed but just a portion to let you see what is the life like in there and have some interesting encounters with people living there. Besides I like the medieval setting but there were very few details interesting in the "towns". Like that well producing water out of a crystal, that is the kind of world building I wished to see more.
This game still has the most impressive boss fights I’ve ever seen in gaming the Bahamut boss fight was a masterpiece the set pieces, the music, and the build up to the fight everything was perfect
I love this game and the boss fights are very cool but also a little bit to easy for my taste, especially the icon fights. I have to play the leviathan dlc though ^^
You will really enjoy that dlc.
Clearly u never played Asura Wrath before that game more than 10 years ood mind you
The Bahamut boss fight was the first boss battle I had that I thought "why wont this dude die already"
I was getting chills with the music and boss fights over and over
I think one of the things that ff16 did extremely well was show a great love story that had a lot of maturity and was handled with the delicate care the characters needed. To date, it’s definetely in my top 3 love stories of all the games and showed much more emotional depth than almost every other one in the series. I do wish they fleshed Jill out more but speaking just purely about the love story, it’s top tier.
My only true problem with Final Fantasy XVI was that it felt like it could have been something bigger and better. For instance, the world is pretty well built with kingdoms, armies, and political conflicts throughout Valisthea, BUT we are not part of it at all. What we are is just a group of people branded as "bandits/heretics" basically, and we spend most of the time either running away from these people or trying to go ninja on them by killing their leader.
In that way, I feel we are missing great opportunities for story-building. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Remember the dude who forced Jill to commit off-screen atrocities? Yeah, when I encountered that person in that Volcano island, I didn't even know who he was and Jill was going ape shit about how she wanted to kill him, and I was "Oh, okay, cool". There is no feeling, no build-up for that. You need to read records or reports to know what's going on, and there are SO many examples of this throughout the game that feel like massive missing opportunities.
Another problem I forgot to mention, is that they could've added more towns, it feels like the game is just like 3 minor towns, and the Holy Empire and the other very big cities are just places designed for a one-time-only quest. Other than that, the game looks good, music is fantastic as expected, and the main cast is developed really well alongside secondary characters such as Gav who are stellar.
I feel like this is a design philosophy that Square is never going to abandon
@@MelodeathxTedyup, afraid so. They did the same thing with FF15 and FF12. They just aren’t it. They never learn from their mistakes. They have a creative cap that they have maxed at, only capable of creating good enough games. Nothing all timer/masterpiece worthy since FF10.
Final Fantasy’s true greatness died the moment Enix took over Soft. All the games we get now are hella incomplete rushed out mids, smh.
It had a really really really hot opening. One of the hottest in gaming. It felt like game of thrones the game. Then it fell off quickly.
Agreed, I was looking for something more akin to Final Fantasy Tactics
"BUT we are not part of it at all."
Looks like we played different games. Clive literally changed the world. Have you played all the sidequests? Yes there are fetch quests, but there are also many sidequests that helps with the world building.
I still mourn Final Fantasy versus 13
Still hurts to this day!
KH 4 will be our time of happiness if done correctly.
@@SomnusShinra it won’t be the same and you know that
@@SomnusShinraMy time of happiness would be me playing Final Fantasy Versus XIII
😢
Flawed as it is, there is still a lot to love and celebrate about FF16. I would like to see where they can take this style of Final Fantasy game because Creative Studio 3 are passionate about what they do. XVI and Rebirth really restored my faith in Square Enix as developers.
I loved the exploration in that Final Fantasy. A lot of emptiness and nothing. It was brilliant.
Imho every FF is flawed in one way or another but to me personally speaking.
Compared to other FF games past 12, 16s flaws are extremely minor by comparison.
Hell I'll even say at worst it's sidequests for example are average for the individual quests but it's quest chains are really good imho.
I don't personally think that 16s flaws are as big as people make them out to be.
the combat is just awful though, extremely shallow, repeatitive with next to no choice brings this game massively down
@@phuklyyve8941 calling DMC combat awful is certainly a confusing take.
You can say that you don't understand the appeal of the combat system but calling what is widely considered the best combat system in gaming awful is just......weird?
@@bearcavepro8832 lol i must not understand because if i did understand it id like it?
its tedious, button bashing. Dont care that you like DMC. It cant hold a candel to the depth off the ff7 remakes, and if it were so good this game wouldnt be largely critised for it? Just because you like something doesnt make it objectively good, why take this personally?
"largely considered the best combat in gaming" Fucking stop lying haha, find me the article or reddit post or whatver that says this lol
I still believe Leviathan should’ve been in the base game. And that leaving it out because it would cuz it would diminish Leviathan in XV was an absolutely atrocious thing to do
From what I know they ran low on budget to fit Levi into the game so they wrote the story of the base game in a way that didn't have need for him.
@@MoreLimitless_ does it need him? You can't constantly talk about the eight elements and then exclude one of those elements the entire game
@MoreLimitless_ Leviathan is traditionally female (I think 🤔)
@@rd6416 No, Leviathan is traditionally male. FFXV was either only the first or second time in the entire franchise it was shown to be a female.
@AICW No evidence it was ever male. It didn’t have a speaking role or a declared gender until late on in the series. Leviathan is based on a female sea serpent from the Old Testament.
i think about this game almost everyday since i blindly played the demo. I’ve never had a game or any other type of entertainment leave such an impact on me
Play tales of Berseria
it's average, that means you haven't played games way better than this hahaha
@@gethermedel3620 Bait
Which ones?
me too. Really loved the story. The gameplay was decent, but this is by far the best story of all of FF.
The best Final Fantasy since the PS1 era. No Multiverses, no split timelines, no annoying shonen tropes, just a straight up medieval fantasy game
It's my favorite single player FF since FFX
Rebirth isnt any of those things either, imo. I think 7r is more like zanarkand in 10, a dream world.
The game is full of Shonen Tropes actually, I mean the main reason the hero beat the bad guys is basically because of the power of friendship... now I'm not saying this makes it bad not at all, but these tropes are still there, they do however avoid the bad ones (like the hot sources scene for instance), but to be fair while they follow typical Shonen narrative I can't recall of any FF old or new that use these kind of tropes like the Persona or Tales games does for instance.
Yes, the straight up medieval fantasy with an alien God. Lol
@@ashleycornwell67 You didn't even play the game. Ultima wasn't an Alien. He was apart a an ancient race of magical beings which 100% fits the medieval fantasy trope. LOTR, GoT, hell even previous final fantasy games had that
I doubt any game for awhile can recapture the experience and magic I had with FFXVI. Epic, Emotional, Adrenaline Fueling, Melodramatic, Beautiful, Sense of Adventure and most of all powerful. It’s not even the most complex and varied game in terms of Design and Mechanics except for the combat but it such a memorable game that’s carried by Masterful performances, Music Composers and Storytellers that’s basically soap opera the video game. Great video! Like to see you do more of these for other games as I always loved critiques especially you’re energy for the games we all love.
@@Jylstin I’m definitely interested in making more videos like this, but it won’t be frequent as these are longer videos that take a long time to make lol. But I’m very glad you enjoyed it because this game does mean lots to me as well!
Game is a solid 7/10. 2nd half of the game just kinda sucked and the main antagonist is dryer than dirt. Combat kinda breaks apart as you get the OP skills with big cooldowns, encouraging you to just break enemies and unload everything into them. Combat becomes really formulaic because of it, kinda falls into the same problem ff14 has with it's combat.
What bothered me the most is Joshua's role in the later game. Where was he this whole time? Why didn't he contact Clive for all this time? Why does Clive never ask him this stuff. They keep insisting that he is sick and dying but he goes ALL out multiple times with no consequences.
By the end I was convinced that Joshua was Ultima posing as Joshua, or that he created a fake, because Joshua obviously died. But it turns out to be some unexplained miracle, like they took a U turn mid production and decided to revive him but didn't bother explaining why.
It just cheapens Clive's resolve and the meaning of his back story. I mean he live in excruciating pain for what he did for such a long time, and that is what made his character, but oops! Turns out his pain was pointless and Joshua was just chilling and learning history, even though we know Joshua knew that Clive was alive.
I screamed at the screen "ASK HIM WHERE HE'S BEEN ALL THIS TIME", but Clive just seems happy enough he is there, no questions asked....
The reason he was avoiding Clive, and his reason for being away in general was to keep Ultima away from Clive and by extension keep Ultima in check. It was also explained how he survived and what he was doing all that time when you visit Tabor to meet up with Jote. Joshua explains that he was saved by the undying, a secret group that serves under Rosaria that only a few higher powers know of. In that time Joshua learned about Ultima and his plan for Valisthea and the Eikons. The way I see it, he only separates himself from Clive because he thinks that he can handle that burden himself which is in line with his character. The way I interpret Clive not asking Joshua where he has been is that he already knew that Joshua was also in search of Ultima after the events at Drakeshead. And later in the story at Tabor, they fully explain what Joshua was up to. I think ultimately when they meet up, Clive was just relieved to see his brother again, and wanted to focus on how to stop Ultima rather than catching up on the past, since the game naturally gets there anyway when you learn about the undying.
@@MoreLimitless_ Thanks for the detailed explanation! Something about the circumstances makes me have a hard time taking some of the explanations given by the game seriously. Like Joshua being saved by some new group no one knew about feels a bit cheap after we saw Ifrit rip him apart limb from limb. Joshua being frail in the first place just makes this pretty unbelievable to me.
It feels that reviving Joshua was a decision made much later in production and these feel like convenient excuses to have it make sense. I'm not sure if Ultima thought that Clive was dead but surely he was aware that he is Ifrit. Whether Joshua letting his brother live with the guilt of murdering his brother is worth it to keep Ultima away from him seems like a very avoidable dilemma by the writers.
I admit the Phoenix+Ifrit combo to defeat Bahamut was reaaaally badass but in some ways I feel the game's narrative could have been stronger without Joshua ever making a return, however bitter that may seem.
But you know, this is just a one mans' opinion and I appreciate you giving me the explanations.
it definitely felt like that all during the game... sure they try to explain it later but that is after 50 hours of feeling annoyed by that for sure
I enjoyed FFXVI enough to get the Platinum Trophy + all trophies from both DLCs as well. Truly a masterpiece.
I'am a new pc player, any tips if i should hop into final fantasy mode right away?
This video you made truly was beautiful. I can see why it took longer to make than expected, it's very well crafted, with lots of your great points, arguments and personal feelings being put out in it, as well as having great edits, in a very inspirational way (approve of your soundtrack samples). Like you, I share the same sentinments of FF16, while far from perfect, and good god, is any game truly perfect (maybe some that are near to perfection or some that the highest highs outweigh any potential lowest lows), it's still a game I would confidently have in my top 3 or top 4 favourite FF games, alongside FFX, FFVI and FFIX. It's an experience I'll never forget.
@@madkaiser4887 Thank you, that means a lot! And yeah, it’s far from perfect, but of course, no game is truly, undeniably perfect. Regardless, this a game that has become very special to me. I understand it isn’t a game for everyone, but that’s also a given with an anthology series such as Final Fantasy. At the end of the day I have my experiences, and I will always cherish them.
Better than XV but to me it’s weaker than other modern FF games as well as other character action games. Not a bad game, just too ambitious for its own good.
That's one of the most reliable videos I've ever seen on Final Fantasy XVI. In 40 minutes you were able to fully summarise and explain what this game truly is. I've already shared your video and given a big like.
Like you said, a Final Fantasy isn't tied only to the gameplay. But also to the story, the themes, the characters, the soundtrack and, of course, the CIDs. Thank you again for your video, and happy 1st anniversary to Final Fantasy XVI, my 2023 GOTY ❤
No problem, my friend! I'm glad you enjoyed the video and thank you for sharing it, that means more than you know. Happy 1st anniversary!
What a great video! Thank you. You captured my feelings on the game almost entirely.
I didn't mind the weaker pacing and side quests as I was appreciating how strong the game was when it was telling it's main story. I loved the more mature themes when compared to more campy Final Fantasy characters and stories from other games.
The music is probably the thing that elevated this game to my favourite Final Fantasy and one of my favourite games ever. All the best games have incredible music, for me it's a defining feature to draw me into the emotion of the story. The score on show is absolutely beautiful. I don't think there is a weak piece of music in the lot. Greatest music of any video game.
I've also often found the turn based combat of older Final Fantasys the weakest part for me. It's the part that makes it difficult for me to go back to anything before XII. Probably why XII was my favourite Final Fantasy when it came out for it's more action focused battle system.
I just love this game and hope more and more people can come to appreciate how great of a game it is.
Wish listed, waiting for the initial reviews for the PC port before buying. I realllly wanted to play it when it launched and have been waiting for the PC release since then. But like any PC ports, I always, always wait to see if its at least somewhat optimized. I would be surprised tho if SquareEnix (almost typed Squaresoft, damn I'm old) gave us a bad port.
I never expected anything from a final fantasy because I'm not interested in a turn based, when I decided to try this game is not only the game that I love the most to this day, Clive really is now my favorite fictional character.
Since I finished it, I have never felt the same experience and level of emotion again.
It is very nice to think how something that you didn't expect can make you very happy.
Nice video ❤
"I never expected anything from a final fantasy because I'm not interested in a turn based"
I need you to know that fans of this franchise are not happy with the company catering to you.
I think you misinterpreted my message, said I wasn' t
interested in any final fantasy because turn based isn't my favorite type of game, with that I didn't mean the other games were bad, in fact I decided to try ffix and ffx and I loved both.
Personally, I can understand why there are people who don't like this game or rebirth due to are very different from the old ones and its other gameplay, but it also ends up being a way to find people like me who might be interested in the franchise and give a chance to the other games
@@MisterAlerion Lmao, bullshit. "Fans" of this franchise love the action direction that is being taken. FF7 Remake series and XVI are fantastic.
@@ZephyrFatetotally agree, have been a huge fan of final fantasy for 30+ years and FFXVI is my favourite, and FF7R hard mode has been incredible to play, tried a turn based game recently and it’s just boring now, I hope we have seen the back of it. Long may this new style continue
@@ZephyrFate i hate ff16 direction which i hope they dont continue prefer ff7 remake better
Ff12 and ff16 are the best ones I've played so far🤷
The only thing i would have loved to see in ff16 would be been a more flushed out magic/effects system. Like the basic spells in other ff games couldve been added as weapon effects
I definitely think of 12 and 16 together because they are like spiritual follow ups to the mmos
weird ff taste bud
@@jackplisken4738Shut dude, he likes what he likes and its not anything perverse or despicable. You don’t have to insult his tastes because they don’t align with your own.
@@emmarod8746 the only insult here was coming from you . i love guys like you . tik tok brainrot in full force
@@jackplisken4738 If you just really meant that they had a kooky or peculiar taste, its my bad then that I overreacted in my response.
I'm not even a Final Fantasy fan but I was addicted to this absolute kino. Here's hoping for a PC port cause the PS5 visuals definitely dropped quite a bit in many aspects.
That was an amazing video. Thank you for reminding me of how truly wonderful this game is!
16 is definitely better praised than was 15
15 had so much riding on it that it fell flat to most fans
I was one of those
I love all the work and improvement that were made to 15 and I like 15 now as a game
But the long wait from the first trailer up until its release
The hype of it living up to Versus 13
The development hell it went to
The massive PR push and advertising and multiple source of media that was given to 15 just for a solid game was what led to its downfall
16 felt like a natural release
It came out 3 years after it’s first trailer
The development was smooth
It was advertised well and it was a solid game but it was overhyped
a year later its still my favourite modern final fantasy game.
''Mythos and Ultima translates to Final Fantasy'' Holy shit... you just blew my fucking mind with that one.
Final Fantasy 16 was my first true Final Fantasy experience apart from 14. I didn't know anything about it at all and I went into the demo completely blind. This game has one of the best and most effective demos I have EVER seen in a video game. From the first second I was instantly hooked. The story, cinematic cutscenes, the epic scale boss fights and the music make this game truly unforgettable. Bahamut and Titan are definitely my favorite fights. I also really love Clive as character and I loved seeing how much he progressed as the game went on.
That being said, this game does have its flaws as you pointed out. My biggest disappointment was the fact that you never actually get to explore any of the main cities despite them being the most prominent points of interest on the map apart from the mothercrystals. Some characters like Jill, Benedikta, Hugo and Barnabas also felt a little underutilized and they definitely could have done more with them.
But apart from that, it's definitely up there with one of my favorite games of all time! ❤
I miss being able to talk to random NPCs and exploring cities like in X and XII. Everything feels just dead or zombified. The combat is great at the beginning but by the end you are just spamming the same abilities. It's both a good and bad game.
I disagree with the combat. Sure, you can spam abilities but this is a stylish character action game that wants to to experiment. Practicing combos and getting creative, playing at a high level is where the combat shines. You can certainly just ability dump through the game, but really, where is the fun in that. It is why I say the combat is a reflection of the player pretty much like any action game. You get what you put into the combat and if you spam and ability dump then that's simply a choice in a number of other different ways you can get creative and play at a higher level. This is speaking from someone who's been practicing with the combat since release.
I'm playing FFXIV with this video in the background and the sound you use for the chapter title cards just makes me look around the game wildly. "I didn't que for anything!"
I don’t like it because it’s a character action game not a party based rpg
That's completely valid. I myself really enjoy it as a character action game fan myself, but it's all subjective
I remember seeing Ben Starr for the first time in the series You, and when I heard him as Clive, I had to pause immediately upon starting this game to check the wiki. He has the range, darling
Ben Starr was incredible as Clive. He should of won best actor at the game awards in my opinion.
The Holy Empire of Sanbreque... I just stand there until it ends.
Lion and the Hare too. Never got tired of Indomitable once the aetherflood happened either.
Loved this game for what it was instead of hoping it was something else.
It was a solid game. The boss fights,story,music, and main character were great. But the gameplay could’ve been a little more deeper like dmc, no real magic spells and once you get 3 icon powers and level up it did get too easy
the gameplay is very well polished, but the quest system is bad
This game is the reason I have a ps5, to this day it is still peak ff to me, only time I got so invested on a ff was ff12 my first game on the ps2 and then the mythical trailer of versus, I still watch yearly.
Absolutely adored 16. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I beat it tbh 😂 great vid man 🙌
Awesome video, my man! I have similar feelings to the XVI as you do. Well done! Still can't believe it been a year!
@@afrocloud3238 Thank you, my friend! It definitely is unbelievable how fast the year went by, I still remember being beyond hyped when, especially after the demo. Its one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
@@MoreLimitless_ Yeah. Me too, man. It seem like yesterday when I first put this game into my PS5. And I never took it out until I finished my first playthorugh. This game delivered on our hype and exceeds expectations. FFXVI is truly one of the best gaming experiences of my life!
Watching this makes me think we didnt play the same game. Combat felt like i just button mashed til the ability cooldowns reset and then i walked forward until i got to the next arena. It felt small in scope and could have been Vagrant Story 2 and no one would know the difference.
Outside of Cid, no other characters clicked with me so the story never really hit. Which was a shame because the demo really felt great and tightly written but everything after just kinda drug on.
Im glad people liked it but it didnt feel like a final fantasy game to me.
@@davehoffman515 Some people have different experiences, and what I believe makes up an FF game will be different from someone else’s opinion of what an FF game is. As I mentioned in the video, FF to me is not just gameplay-it is a perfect combination of so many different art forms that culminates into FF. Every title will be different and as long as it holds to similar themes of the series (which in my experience it does very well) than it is FF to me. But I respect that it won’t be for others and that is absolutely fine, but that was not my experience and I enjoyed this Final Fantasy entry.
I agree with this.
On June 22nd, I celebrated the game's 1st year anniversary with Soken and Koji Fox at Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY.
That's awesome!
Thank you for replaying this masterpiece.
🤣🫵ruclips.net/video/W1eGrBdyO7g/видео.htmlsi=91ZKOkozORTHFBPl
Definitely explained this passionately to the point I can understand you’re understanding but also can give constructive criticism without a bias. Definitely looking forward to seeing more videos of you breaking down games I played, loved, hated or in the middle about. Earned a sub 💯💪
The game was ok imo. Didn’t care for the story and boring monotonous cutscenes, which made me not appreciate the characters. CID was great though, like come to papa…. Clive though is generic overall and overrated as hell. Even his voice acting is generic. Same dull monotonous shit.
for people watching this video now: PC version ccoming Sept.17th
nothing will beat that ending cutscene after the final boss man
So glad to see such a nuanced take on the game. People seem to feel the need to jump to extremes when it's alright to like a game despite it's flaws or dislike a game while acknowledging what others might like about it. Personally, I absolutely adore Final fantasy 16.
Clive is an incredible protagonist. The world of ff16 tests him at every step of the way. He experiences so much tragedy and see's humanity at it's absolute worst. He breaks down, he cries, he feels unsure of himself. He is all of the things that make us human wrapped up in one package, our weakness and our strength.
The characters all reflect that too. I know the quests can be tedious but honestly? The reward was worth it imo. You learn so much about these characters and it fleshes them out a lot. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have grown to really appreciate and love characters like Goetz and Charon. Final fantasy 16 is just one of those games you gotta experience at least once.
@@mysticalakatsuki4818 Yeah, it’s as you say most people lean so far on one side that they refuse to acknowledge how others feel. I love the game, but I can definitely understand why it is not for everyone. Yet despite its problems m, it still perfectly embodies what I look for in a Final Fantasy, in its story, themes, characters, and bringing a fresh take to the series once more. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but that can be said with literally any game in the series.
You’re right that people jump to extremes but you just kinda did that as well.
To me this game is weird because for everything it does exceptionally well it does something very poorly. Clive is an incredible protagonist but he has probably the weakest antagonist in all of FF. The soundtrack has some of the best themes but a lot of it is repetitive and forgettable. The supporting characters are very strong but it has the worst party system of all final fantasy games. The budget for the cinematics seems huge but it seems incredibly cheap when you’re fighting the same old enemies in the same old zones I so much. The main story is intriguing and gripping up until Barnabas, yet the optional content is the worst in the series. It has the hottest opening quarter in modern RPGs and one of the slowest most slogfest third quarters in all of gaming.
It’s like you give it a point then you have to take it away, over and over. Perhaps it just needed more time in the oven.
@@jaybee4288 That's totally fair. I get what people don't like about it. Just because I can overlook the flaws and find the enjoyable parts doesn't mean I think everyone else has to too. Jumping to extremes would be unwilling to accept any critiques about it. I gush because I really like the game, not because I think it's perfect.
This is the absolute best review I've seen on the game. Extremely great work here! I'm in the same camp as you, when it comes to the ending. It's very fitting of Clive to finish the book Joshua began towards the end of the game, and then use his name as the author. Also, like you said, he was the narrator for the entirety of the game. Almost as if he was reading the book to us.
This is probably my favorite ff in terms of gameplay i liked the combat better than 7/rebirths. I love that you can freely choose and put together combos rather than waiting for ATB charges
you only need to smash one button the entire game. this is not final fantasy.
Actually in this game all you do is waiting for charges, because base attacks are a joke )
Imho, they already had better action combat systems, in KH or even in SoP. I like 16 for the story, lore and characters. But the gameplay is NOT a best part of it. It's a cheap copy-paste from DMC5, broken by cooldowns, without any sensible role-playing system, depth, mini-games, or in general any of JRPG elements.
@@pyccku212 just like the old games? Just press one button the whole time to choose an attack, use item, or anything else
@@pyccku212so what's the difference? In the first case, final fantasy have never been a very complex game that need you push 10 buttons at the same time. If you don't like it then just piss off
Well FF7 rebirth combat is the mix between turn based and action so it's either a miss or hit.
It got really boring halfway through, the sidequest design was so bad
I'm just glad this game stuck with its core mechanic. FE7 Rebirth had way too many minigames that I became burned out from it after I had beaten it.
To Sail Forbidden Sea uses the same melody as the boss FATE music in FF14.
Final Fantasy XVI is my favorite game of 2023 and I'm confident it's in my top 5 FF games, weaknesses aside. Great video, man!
Thank you! And it's definitely one of my favorite gaming experiences ever.
I will say this game is such a emotional damage game
Probably my favourite gameplay.
Loved the idea of switching/customising Eikons
I think the quest system and loot were not fleshed out perfectly but honestly as far as action games go it’s among my favorites of all time. The Eikon fights were exhilarating and glorious and the combat was so much fun. I’ve played this game 3 times and I am already on a 4th to try to get the platinum. This game feels criminally underrated.
Beat this game yesterday. One of the most focused narratives. never feels as grand as other final fantasy games. It's all around solid
If you like stoy focus narrative games, then i recommend you Judgment or maybe Yakuza series if you have time. Definitely one of the best story game that i've ever played. If you decide to go for yakuza, you can start from Yakuza 0 (one of my favorites besides Yakuza 7)
Beautifully put together! FF16 did have its flaws, but I still get chills thinking about its peak moments, characters, and breathtaking soundtrack. Definitely in the upper echelon of FF titles for me.
+1 subscriber 👍
Thank you! Yeah, this game quickly became one of my favorites in the series. Everything from it's gameplay, story and characters is everything I look for in a game. I love the emotional maturity of the characters, especially Clive and I think he's an incredible protagonist that represents FF well and shares many similarities to classic FF titles. Some of the moments in this game have some of my favorite moments in gaming ever, and for that FF16 will always be top 5 in the series.
This is a really great video man! I think you really captured a lot of what I think is both loved and criticized about this game in a really good way that allows for discussion and open ended thoughts. Superb work.
Thank you so much, my friend!
I enjoyed ff16 but my only issue was the skills had cooldowns. I can understand the ultimate attacks but everything else shouldn’t have had it and if it did at least have them between 5-10 seconds. Majority of the fights i was spamming ki blasts and charging my sword
@@Pappa958 I feel like that’s how I see most people play, but personally speaking, once you explore the combat more and understand how the abilities weave into base combat, the combo potential gets crazy in this game. There are so many ways to play this game, but most people simply choose to cooldown dump without really weaving combos into the mix. Most people see the abilities as something separate to the base combat, but they don’t take the time to learn how to use them during combos. If the game put the arcade mode scoring into the base game I think that would have helped give players more incentive to really dive deeper into the combo potential of the game because it really is great once you get into it.
Recently on a mainline final fantasy marathon and bought this one yesterday. I'm currently finishing FFX so still a few more games to go, but as a guy who only played (and loved) ffvii and nothing else back in the day, god damn what a fun ride has been.
I'm looking forward to XVI in the near future.
That's awesome! I hope you enjoy it when you get to it!
I wish they do a remake of FFX ❤️
Huge text incoming. I don't expect anyone to read, but hey.. I had the time and I like to wrinte, so here it goes:
I have a lot of problems with XVI when it comes to gameplay and level/world design.
The game has a good story and while the true villain and "big mystery" is cool and works, it's also somewhat of a trope in stories where fantasy/scifi mix. The characters are great, the cutscenes and boss fights are superb.
I'll start with the combat. You're right that the combat system itself is mostly fine, what brings everything down is the systems around it. Not only generic enemies are too weak to incentivize skillfull play and combos, the ability system heavily inventivizes the incessant spam to destroy encounters in seconds. Then, when "elite enemies" and bosses show up they committ a huge sin in the "character action" genre, which is to create artificial difficulty by removing mechanics from the combat system. For example, most of the Elite enemies and bosses can't be juggled and have super armor, powering through your moves and punishing you for trying combos (which also incentivizes just using your openings to use Abilities instead of moves), that alone instantly kills 70% of the depth of the system. Hence why ability spam and parrying are the best strategies against bosses... because they're also pretty much the only strategy.
The combat system itself is okay but even though it was made by Ryota Suzuki, it became pretty clear that just one man doesn't make and entire game. While the game has all the core systems (cancelable animations, i-frames, parries, juggles, etc), it lacks deeply in character moveset. Clive having just one melee weapon moveset and one ranged weapon moveset really throws a wrench on the system. One might argue that the Eikons are the "weapons", but they trully aren't, they're "unlockable abilities".
Now the worst part of the game, the level and world design. I won't hold back the words here, it's just miserable. XVI feels like a PS3 game, and no I'm not talking about graphics, of course. I'm talking about the fact that the absurd amount of invisible walls in the open world areas and lack of exploration is very baffling. It sounds cruel to say this about a Final Fantasy game but this is the "most open, linear game" in the market. Clive can't jump over anything, even the smallest ledges, the itemization of the game is so bad that the rewards of exploring 99% of the time isn't worth it. And what is heartbreaking is that the biggest argument against XVI, is 7 Rebirth, which is the precise opposite of this. You can jump almost everything, there are usually means of traversal that makes you cross bodies of water or climb hills. That makes me feel, not angry at XVI, but almost sad about it. Almost as if it was set up to fail with all of it's budget allocated to 7 Rebirth.
Which leads me to the dungeon level design, this one is inexcusable. Square Enix is a good 14 years behind when it comes to dungeon level design. I'm not kidding nor exaggerating, it's comparable to PS2/PS3 games. Every dungeon is made up of corridors that lead to elevators that leads to another corridor that leads to simple 2 way path, with one usually leading to a dead end making you go back and just take the other path. It's terrible, it's Tartatarus (Persona 3) levels of simplistic, it just looks a billion times better. Note that this isn't just an issue with XVI, pretty much every FF game is still stuck in the FFX/FFXII level design. They are completely out of touch in this aspect.
Conclusion: I would say that XVI is a game that tries to appeal to everybody and ends being for no one. I'm not saying "No one likes XVI", but I am saying that when you think about playing XVI again, there are usually much better games depending on which specific aspect you want to experience. If you want the combat, you can play Devil May Cry, if you want the exploration you can play Rebirth. The only "unique" aspects of the game is the story (you simply can't replace story.. you either like it or you don't) and the boss fights. The game has little to no RPG elements, it's combat system although good, can't compete with action games made by Capcom, Platinum or Team Ninja, the world is not that fun to explore and most side quests aren't interesting. The result is a game that would've been a lot better if it had 50% or even 60% of it completely cut from the final product. I say this because this is a 50 hour long "Devil May Cry" game, except there's a reason games like Devil May Cry are usually short (like 10 hours long) and very replayable. To me personally, XVI would be better if it was structured like a DMC game, meaning "cutscene at the start of a mission, walking around a bit killing enemies, boss fight, cutscene, end of mission". Straight to the point. Which is interesting because that's EXACTLY what the demo was, like... that castle/tower section that leads to the Garuda fight was (by coincidence or not) a perfect slice of what a "Final Fantasy May Cry" could've been. Instead those sections are like 20% of the game with most of the game being just fetch quests, and filler content between major story moments (you know what I'm talking about) that you desperately wanted to skip to get to the next big set piece moment.
I would say 40% of XVI is a 8.5/10 character action game but the other 60% is the most bland and boring 5/10 action RPG I've played. There is a great game underneath all the rubble and as funny as it may sound, a Director's CUT with most of the game completely removed would end up being a better product. Actually, the "time attack" mode that unlocks after you beat the game is pretty fun for this exact reason.
You can tell that FF16 was rushed and that the developers were lazy with the game. They only focused on Clive, somewhat the cutscenes, and the boss fights. Everything else was boring. It's fine for a game to have flaws but FF16 has way too many flaws that are unjustified imo. Here's some of the issues that I have with the game (most of this is a copy/paste but is very long too lmao):
The pacing of the game was so off. The 13 year time skip is completely understandable but to this day I still don't understand the 5 year time skip. I also thought it was ridiculous that none of the characters personalities or even appearances except for Clive's even changed after the 5 year time skip. There's also no explanation as to why Joshua stays away from Clive for those additional 5 years.
Literally none of the other characters again except for Clive even get to shine on their own and we don't learn much about their stories or why they are the way they are. It's like they all only exist for Clive's development and I find that so insulting to the characters and a complete waste of them. Out of all of them though, I'd say Jill was without a doubt the character that was done the dirtiest and I'm sure everyone knows why.
Unfortunately, the only character that we see all of the other characters bond with is Clive and they get no other meaningful connections with anyone else
The side quests except for the endgame quests were repetitive, boring, and unrewarding. All of them were either just fetch/kill quests. Even main story stuff is repetitive. You go destroy a crystal/stop an antagonist, come back to base, do crappy side quests and repeat that throughout the whole game.
The loot you find in the game is not that great
The gameplay was way too easy (I didn't die a single time in my playthrough) and the design of it is lazy because it didn't have much enemy variety, no enemy weaknesses/strengths. The other characters in your party are completely useless and hardly do any damage in battle and what's even more ridiculous about the gameplay and is probably the stupidest thing that I've ever seen in an FF game is that the characters in your party are immortal and can never be incapacitated in battle. What the actual fuck is that? It makes no logical sense for any party member whether they're playable in the game or not to have eternal fucking health. Whoever designed the gameplay for FF16, you deserve to be fired for that reason alone, I don't care.
The game has an unnecessary ambiguous ending, but the game still gives off an obvious hint that Clive dies from the curse. I don't really see a point in ambiguous endings unless the story is going to have more somehow, and if Clive is dead then I think that throws part of his character development out of the window. Part of Clive's character arc is about him living and there's even multiple characters in the game especially Joshua, Jill and even Cid scolding him to save himself. What was the point in all of that only to have him die in the end?
The developers could've done a lot better than this. Such a wasted potential, and I think it's hilarious that the developers pretend that they don't know why the game didn't sell to their expectations. You know, I think if they had just given what the fans wanted for the DLCs, it's possible that that alone could've saved the game. They admitted that they knew what the fans wanted before the DLC even came to be but they didn't care what people wanted, and look what happened lmao. Hardly anyone even played it, and I'm glad because that's also what they get for lying about what the DLCs were going to be about.
@@phoenixblossom2167 Yea.. honestly, it’s baffling that Square Enix is making meetings to figure out why FF hasn’t been selling well lately. And it never crosses their mind the fact that they’ve been going against fan feedback for more than a decade. Nobody liked 13, they went and made 2 sequels. Not only people didn’t like the direction 15 went, the game itself was incomplete at release. And now this is the FF16 we got.
Remake and Rebirth are good games but the FF brand is in shambles at this point. Nobody has any faith in it.
@@Ocean5ix The fans are what make them, so it's not wise imo if they don't take valid criticism from the fans into consideration. They obviously look at feedback including the negative and we know they see it because they admitted to it, but again they don't care. And like you said, it's not even crossing their mind that the problem is that they don't care.
They don't have anyone to blame but themselves...
@@Ocean5ixBeing compared to a ps2/3 game is great in my book. I prefer the linearity of the world and simple dungeon design since I just want to fight enemies. It's much better than the open world slop we have today. And I do agree it'd be much better if it was structured like a DMC game cause the fetch quests are boring. I have to disagree with you regarding what you said about just playing DMC if you want the combat, though. I tend to view 16 as a much more chill version of DMC. It may not have as much depth compared to it but there's still some pretty cool spectacles you can pull off without having to do crazy inputs whereas if I want something more technical with more skill involved I'll just play DMC. It just depends on my mood.
@@Merk1387 Oh for sure, can't argue against preference. It's just that for a game that marketed itself as at least "semi open world" with the devs mentioning God of War 2018 and Ragnarok as inspirations, the game was very disappointing.
I also agree that a lot of times, comparisons with PS2 games are great. A good example is the Yakuza franchise, which still has that PS2 feel/jank to it that makes us remember the PS2 days. That said, I think when it comes to dungeon level design there's no way to justify how simplistic it is in 16. It feels like Square never learned how to make 3D dungeons in these games because it's not just the PS2, the PS3 13 games also had this problem, the 7 Remake also has this problem. Their dungeons not just lack in level design, they also lack artistic design to hide how linear they are.
I can agree with your combat argument. It's easier to look cool in 16 than it is in DMC5.
Why cant we get a game that plays like the old FF games like FF 6,7 or 10 but looks like 16. Missing too many rpg elements but overall still a great game.
It definitely is missing a lot of RPG elements, but I honestly still love the combat itself as an action game fan, especially playing at a high level. That said, it would be nice to get a traditional style FF again. But I believe the beauty in this series is that each game gives us a fresh new experience while retaining common FF themes in any sense.
The writing, dialogue, and character performances are just next-level not for the franchise, but videogames in general. It can't be understated how this felt like the first true next-gen PS5 game (in that, it had no base PS4 development, it had no back ports, it wasn't constrained by it at all).
I hard disagree, the writing and dialogue were really basic, and the performances are similar to FF14. I truly do not understand how you can say all of this.
I guess I’ll go against the grain here and say that I found this game pretty disappointing. This is coming from someone who spent the past few years getting hyped for it to be one of the first games I got on ps5 when I could finally afford one.
I want to really love it but I just can’t, it’s just okay. Everything about it just feels like wasted potential to me. Clive is badass, amazingly acted, the story and presentation when it’s firing on all cylinders is absolutely insane, but man… once you get out of the first few hours you realize that the highs come with low lows. For every insanely badass 15 minute boss fights that blow you off your feet and remind you that this is next gen you get 5 straight hours of absolutely dreadful game design with boring open world/design that has you just walking around empty fields and villages with Clive’s character model robotically staring as an NPC drones on and on telling you to go do something.
I feel like this game would have been so much better if it just embraced being a 20 hour linear story based action game like a God of War or something. It’s clear that’s what they wanted to do. But instead it feels like it’s trying to do that and be a Final Fantasy RPG and it just leads to both sides being lukewarm to me. if you’re going to go full action mode then go all fucking in, balls to the wall, make it like devil may cry. Instead it feels like baby’s version of Devil may cry… you can do a FEW cool chains here and there but none of it is necessary… if you want to the game is completely fine letting you sleepwalk through it doing the basic square triangle square triangle combo you learned in the first 5 minutes. I had to go out of my way to learn the few combos I could just to keep myself from getting bored, not because the game encouraged me to. Even when you pull something off it feels frustratingly… shallow? Like knowing that’s it, the iceberg doesn’t go deeper. It’s just not satisfying at all for a game that’s trying to be a 50 hour long RPG. It doesn’t hold up for that long. I’ll put it this way, DMCV combat had like 5x the combat depth but it’s 5x shorter in total. I’m not saying it HAS to be like DMCV, but point being you can’t take a combat system that barely changes or grows outside of the first 2 hours and stretch it into 50. That would barely hold up for the 10 hour brawler action game.
ALSO I find it really fucking annoying that the game is so easy it feels like every combat encounter by the time you get into the zone and start popping off with combos the fight is basically already over. that definitely does not help its case at all. Then in the boss fights you can’t do a lot of the juggling combos. It leads to pulling combos off feeling like some cheap trick just to do for fun rather than something that’s actually helpful. It’s usually just more efficient to spam perfect dodges and whatever eikon ability you have up next.
I feel so conflicted because the world is so fucking cool, I love that it’s finally a darker grittier medieval setting, and the opening makes you think it’s going to have Game of Thrones scheming and stuff, but no… it feels like you’re just scratching the surface.
On one hand I look at mechanics like the active time lore, the one table in the hideaway that has breakdowns, timelines, character trees, but then on the other hand it feels like they put more effort into that then actually making a fleshed out rpgs, better quest design, progression or loot that feels rewarding, or even just making an action game where you don’t feel like you’ve learned everything there is to the combat system in the first 2 hours. It’s like how people always circlejerk about the parkour in AC Unity watching RUclips clips of how cool the animations look but in game it’s extremely frustrating and inefficient to pull off and that doing the basic holding R2 and running straight up every wall is going to be faster and less obtuse every single time.
Sounds overly negative but I’d say the game is like a 7 to me, I struggled to play through it in the second half which is just a terrible sign for me
Long story short, the developers were just lazy with FF16. You can tell that they were only fixated on the main character, the boss fights, and the long cutscenes than the actual game as a whole. Clive is the only character who gets to shine and get fleshed out while literally all the other characters including Joshua only exist as a tool for him and for his development.
It's also pretty impossible to get a game over in this game. The gameplay is too simple while the party members are pretty useless. They only throw out one attack like every 20 seconds and they have infinite health which is just the most absurd thing that I've ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. Whether they're playable or not, no party member should ever be immortal. It's unreal. The loot is pretty useless, the gear is not very remarkable either since your attack power/defense power only goes up about 5 points more. Side quests and even main story quests are repetitive. Side quests were all fetch/kill quests, then with main story content you go destroy a crystal/kill an antagonist, come back to base, do side quests, repeat that throughout the entire game with very limited world exploration.
The DLCs didn't do them any good either because it was basically the same thing as the main game and hardly anybody played it. I think if the developers had just given what all of the fans wanted for the DLC it possibly could've somewhat saved the game. If you're unaware, what the fans wanted for the DLCs were for them to revolve around the other characters since as everyone already knows, none of them were fleshed out in the game and we learn nothing about their backstories, journeys or explanations as to why they are the way they are. Most people were asking for DLCs on Cid and Jill. Some also asked for more on Dion and Benedikta too.
You're not wrong when you say that FF16 was a major disappointment, because it was. I think the only good things I can personally say about the game is Clive, the boss fights, the story kind of. But most people that I've seen play it say that it's not as good as the previous games. I've even seen people say that they've fallen asleep while playing it. And the developers have the nerve to pretend to wonder why it didn't sell to their expectations while some fans also wonder why it wasn't even nominated for game of the year lmao. Like, some of these people including some of the developers really need to get out of their echo chamber for a minute and actually listen to why a lot of people don't like it. It was like a wannabe baby version of Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Rising.
From the first minutes of the video, I had a big smile on my face and thought "yeah, this guy gets it". I understand why some people might have been disappointed with XVI and having certain expectations not met, my sympathies, but I think the highs we got outweigh the lows by a landslide even if it's not a perfect game. FF XVI lives rent-free in my mind because of its memorable characters and inspiring story and I was very happy when it won best soundtrack last year because Soken really deserves the recognition. He worked through cancer to give us some of the best evolutions of classical music in existence today.
Small note about the ending (I agree with your take): The lore entry for Ultimalius reads "When Origin was buried beneath the earth in order to absorb the aether it would need to rebuild the world, a great shrine was placed in the sky above it, from which humanity could be looked down upon." I believe that refers to Metia being the mothership which Origin detached from when Ultima first arrived from their dying world. It's always been a bit strange to see a star not moving from its place in the sky to the lower left of the moon no matter its phases, obviously isn't how a star should appear in the sky. Its light fades away too quickly when Ultima's magic finally fizzles out of existence, hinting that it's probably much closer than it appears to be. And last but not least, this wouldn’t be the first time that a Square Enix game featured a red star that the ignorant populace revered, which wasn’t really a star at all.
First final fantasy I’ve ever beat, insane boss battles, realllllly sluggish side content, except for the final missions in each side storyline they were horrible and really slowed down the experience. But man the eikon battles were exceptional and the boss battles were a spectacle, especially barnabus
Also probably one of the strongest openings (the demo section) to a game Ive ever played
This is one of my favorite games ever.
Put over 500 hours into it
Hell yeah, man. This entry is top 3 for me.
Best game I've ever played no matter what people say
@@Bader-ey2gj Tell em!!
It’s a good game I just got bored of it not saying it’s bad just not for me
I'm still not a big fan of the ending, the main villain, how some characters were handled, the lack of rewarding exploration and rpg mechanics, the MMO style fetch quests that added very little beside stopping the pacing to a halt, Clive's standard sword moveset being so limited, Ifrits moveset being *even* more limited, and the use of a mechanic as unengaging as cooldowns in a fast paced hack n slash game.
Most people say i dislike the combat because it is an action game, but rather its the opposite, i dislike it because it's not action *enough* . No amounts of skilled play will get the cooldowns back any faster, getting rewarded for waiting just isn't very exciting, the moveset being limited to only 6 abilities at a time doesn't help either. But i agree with you that that combo potential is still very large, i myself did have the most fun styling on enemies and swapping between builds despite my gripes with the limitations.
And i can admit it is a well made game that succeeded at a lot of things it tried to do, even if i wasn't particularly a fan of them. I liked most of the characters and the boss fights were some of the most hype thing ever, some real Asura's Wrath energy there. I’d say better than XIII and XV as in its a complete game , but the complete game itself it’s aggressively middle of the road both as an action game and an rpg. Making you pay $25 DLC for a $70 game also rubbed me off the wrong way, just because it is normalized in modern gaming didn't make it any better, especially since it added such little content compared to some of the other games from Square Enix themselves, i expected them to be better than this. My first two playtrough were the most fun, unlocking more abilities and experimenting with all kinds of different combos, its only on the third playtrough i started noticing all the flaws. Despite all that i do believe this is a very high quality game that a lot of people would enjoy.
YES. Thank you! In terms of combat and gameplay complexity it feels like a demo or proof of concept of a Devil May Cry game that got stretched out to 50 hours. The sense of progression is horrible, you learn pretty much everything is to combat in the first two hours besides adding in 2 different color eikon attacks every 5 hours.
The game is so easy that you aren’t even encouraged to actually learn and engage in the combos. I had to go out of my way to force myself to learn some because I was so bored of the same exact “dodge, dodge, square triangle square triangle square triangle” loop over and over again that I had learned in the demo. Even then by the time you get some stuff going the enemies are usually dead anyways.
A *real* action game like DMC5 has 5 times the gameplay depth while jam-packing it into a game that’s 5 times shorter. Thats what makes it fun. As opposed to this game where you spend 30 minutes walking around an empty valley to find 4 random soldiers to pull maybe 2 combos off before it’s over.
I just played the demo for steam and I love it I cannot wait to play it. I skipped a lot of your video to dont have spoilers
@@DommB117 Glad to hear you like it! Definitely skip the video until you play through the game. It’s fine to watch the non-spoiler sections but I would rather you get to experience everything fresh, as it’s really an awesome game. Good luck on the first playthough!
I absolutely hated it, but im glad someone liked it
Still waiting on PC port.
Ps5 still pretty worthless as a console. But we got atleast a few cool games in its entire lifespan 😅
@@InvaderZed Yeah, I’m excited to finally get this game on PC later this year.
My main gripe with the game design wise is the lack of meaningful side content, which is weird coming from me as I normally b-line things as im a story enjoyer before anything else. But with the extended downtime between major arcs in the game feeling like the bad kind of side content, the lack of any dungeons, puzzles, or meaningful extensions of combat really make b-lining 16 the only enjoyable way to play. I get the the side quests mainly aim to give more lore and perspective but given that I played every side quest but found only like 5 out of the 76 be enjoyable, it kinda makes the other 71 pointless. Not to mention that non-super abilities don’t scale well into higher difficulties. I hated how easy the game was so when I went into Final Fantasy mode, it was disappointing that the combo abilities didnt feel good at all and the only setup that stays viable is lightning rod, will o wykes, and filling the rest of your slots with supers (which i find boring and i think we should have been limited to 1 super at any given time). Story wise my enjoyment took a dip after the second time skip, everything felt too on the nose and it lost a lot of its urgency along with expecting us as the audience to care for all of the filler side characters while sidelining the main cast. I like Jill anytime she’s actually on screen, but since thats like 15% of the game she just feels like an after thought. I don’t mind that she can’t fight all the time because she’s ill, but not that that means she doesn’t get anything to do at all. Which is my last major thing, as much as im all for each numbered entry being its own thing and not being pigeon-hold to specific mechanics, there being no real party gameplay wise destroys the final fantasy of it all. Even in vanilla 15 you still interacted with the rest of the boys and actively fought with you but you can barely even see your teammates in 16 much less feel any impact from them at all. As much as i disagreed with the, “this isnt final fantasy” discourse, there being a lack of a party really made it feel generic and, “not final fantasy” for me. That being said, I remember enjoying 16 from minute 1 to 2nd time skip like it was the greatest thing ever and I still love the game to bits for it. But the last half is where my patience wore thin both gameplay and story wise.
i wanted to spend so much time in its world but there was damn near nothing else to do outside combat. Even the usual lame minigames like darts would have done it for me. How about some basebuilding mechanics for the hideout. What a missed opp. So pissed because this could have been the most iconic ff game since X
I think they just spent all their money on cinematics. I really think that was it.
@@jaybee4288exactly. They were epic no doubt, but I found some of them dragged on for too long. A world as depressing as this is bound to have some fun places like Wall Market in FF7. In fact, we come across a place that probably would be like it, but they don't let you go in and engage with it.
It feels like they made a really fun, bombastic, badass 15-20 hour long action story game then realized that it’s a Final Fantasy game so they had to stretch it to 50 hours and put hours and hours of “”open world RPG”” gameplay in between the major story beats. It just leads to a wildly inconsistent experience
I also am at a complete loss at how the game is 50 hours long yet I felt like I still barely knew anything about the world of Valisthea. If you asked me what happened in between hours and hours of downtime in between the occasional huge badass story beats I legitimately couldn’t tell you. All these cool cutscenes and a bible of lore about the different empires but it feels like the game doesn’t actually let you engage with any of it. Do you even go into any of the big cities in this game? All I remember is empty fields and sparse villages that blur together
i didnt even know it was out LOL. Just saw it on steam
@@TheSushiandme It was a PS5 exclusive until yesterday so that’s probably why lol
FFXVI is one of my all time favorite Final Fantasy. It’s incredible ❤
I love FFXVI but it wasn't perfect. My main complaints..
First the battle system. It became repetitive and not because of the eikons or how the battles flowed but because the system of weakness/strength, buffs/debuffs was completely gone. They could have implemented this easily enough. I never died during my entire playthrough. Even worse my set up didn't change much from the beginning of the game to the end game.
Second, the side missions were repetitive. SE needs to take notes from CDPR and the way they made side quests in The Witcher 3. That game was a masterclass in side quests. So much so that if you play that game every other game with side quests after will more than likely disappoint you.
The exploration. It just wasn't there.
And finally, the pacing. Definitely was an issue.
Aside from that, I loved everything else. The story, the plot, the characters, the soundtrack. Definitely up there with the best entries in the series. Definitely a hell of a lot better than the abomination that was FFXV.
it isn't easy if you are not wearing the rings...
@@Garrus-w2h never used any of the assists. Never died once. I'm also a souls vet so this game was a walk in the park.
Imma be real, I feel like Jill was the most compelling and well written character next to Clive. Imo she has more development than people give her credit for, and she still has direction and an arc that goes somewhere following through right to the end of the game, it's just relatively subtle and told through little moments/dialogues rather than another big setpiece like the Iron Kingdom. I keyed into so much more during my second playthrough, her writing is actually really good and she's much more of a three dimensional character than even Joshua.
Unfortunately she suffers the most from the writing issues in the third act, and there are some big issues with her execution ofc. I think if she had just that little bit more she would have landed better overall. Show her curse, emphasize it and her need to start taking care of herself by having her fight Titan with Clive instead of what happened at Rosalith, dig a little deeper into her relationship with Shiva, etc.
@@foob420 That is exactly how I feel about her character. She’s a good and well written character that intertwines with Clive nicely, however, she lacks direction going into the latter half of the game. Instead they choose to focus more on only Clive and Joshua and Jill was just not given enough material, but she still has her moments as well.
I am sorry but I feel abject apathy towards her. She is just so uterly uninteresting to watch, she is a paper character, the writer im sure tried and had a clear goal but imo it just wasnt well realized.
FF16 is top 3 Final Fantasy games easily. Better than cringe anime FF7
I wish they would add a new mode to this game that increases the difficulty and allows us to have 4 Eikon slots. This is the best game I have played since Shadow of the Colossus. I really wish for more content in the future.
Clive is a very likeable character. I really like FF16, coming from a person who loves turnbased, this game was a breath of fresh air as the story standouts. The game feels more like a God of War game rather than Final Fantasy. At the end of the day, a good game is a good game.
I really loved FFXVI. I didn’t mind the fully action-based battle system. I don’t get the “isn’t an rpg” thing, but I guess that means something different to each person. My favorite thing about FF is the difference between the titles-what makes each game unique.
My biggest issues with the game were the lack of enemy variety and the poor loot/treasure systems. I feel that improving these two aspects would have nullified a lot of other complaints in the game.
I played the DLC and loved it. Makes further playthroughs that much more worthwhile. Can’t wait to replay on PC and hopefully XBOX.
My favorite track in the game is Control btw.
I agree for sure. It is still an RPG, however, it lacks depth in those systems that people are used to in other JRPGs. Exploration, looting, and enemy variety in mechanics were all dumbed down so that people could focus on the story, and that, imo, was a bit overdone. Still though I loved the game despite it's problems and no game is really perfect at the end of the day.
Those criticisms you mentioned are part of the rpg criticisms. If it’s not going to be an rpg then don’t put in those half assed mechanics and stretch the story/barebones combat out over 50 hours
Geoff really robbed this game of a goty contention spot over MARIO AND A 2004 REMAKE…
I completely broke down at the end of FFXVI, sobbing like a baby. That final cutscene paired with the music is the most beautiful ending I have ever seen in media. I have never cried so hard. My girlfriend was reading a book next to me and she was startled and started hugging me lol. No game has given me such a memory. What a game. Even dispite its flaws it might be my favorite singleplayer game ever. The characters and acting is on another level.
I can't blame you. That story and especially the ending are some of my favorites in the entire series.
A game of incredibly high highs and some of the lowest lows. The overall experience was very enjoyable for me, but I can totally see why many people disliked it.
0:14 i'm queueing in ffxiv while watching this and thought my queue popped lmao
I just had to keep my fellow 14 players on their toes
I’m so over the gothic twink protagonist, Clive was a kid who grew to be a man, his story is refreshing.
He was extremely refreshing for the series. I’m really glad we got to see an older protagonist, but also see him grow into himself as well.
as much as i dislike this game. Clive as a protagonist and one that isnt the usual ff twink is really good.
The Funny part is that FF 16 really is the most LOYAL one to the really classic era of final fantasy, if you could make final fantasy 1 and 2 in current realistic graphics those games would totally look like FF16, and i´m talking about everything, the protagonists, the villains, the towns, the world, the weapons, etc., the "medieval" look of FF started with FF 1 and 2, also they gave a big important to swords in those first 2 games, the excalibur and the blood sword, they kept the importance of the sword in "Seiken Densetsu" their first final fantasy action rpg for the gameboy., final fantasy 4, tactics, 11 and 14 kept the serious medieval look, 9 was more in line with 3 and 5, with that cartooney medieval look, i still miss the turn based because i like to think in strategies, and i´m not a fan of action rpgs but FF16 was really a very throw back to the roots of the franchise for sure,
Agreed. I feel like most don't actually realize how much 16 pay homage to classic FF in some of it's narrative. Perhaps the most classic feeling game we've had for years, and you can tell a lot of the blood from the first 5 FF entries, and even Tactics are woven into the feel of the world, how the story presents itself at times.
I wish it also took some elements from IV like temporary playable characters akin to Yang or Tellah, Dion and Cidolfus were way too cool to simply be... Kingdom Hearts' assist characters.
I tried really hard to like this game because I grew up with Final Fantasy. But I just couldn’t enjoy it. The main story was ok but the pacing was atrocious. The main villains were not very interesting. The side quests were the most boring I’ve ever completed. The game severely lacked customization. The weapons are accessory systems kinda pathetic, the exploration was lackluster, just so much. It was my biggest disappointment of 2023 and I was expecting the opposite.
How tf did this not win game of the year
Because its too easy
It wouldn't have won even if it was nominated. Maybe it would have had a chance if neither Baldur's Gate 3 or Tears of the Kingdom had come out, but there was no way GOTY wasn't going to be one of those two. Those games DOMINATED 2023.
I have no idea why FFXVI wasn't nominated over goddamn Spider-man 2 though lmao
Because it wasnt. Not by a long shot. A middling story and good setpieces with an ok combat system that is just gimped DMC does not a goty make.
It repeats all the same mistakes as FF13.
nah, FF13 is my favorite, 15 had a lot of problems, and so does 16, but 13 was almost perfect near the end for me (and I played it 60fps on PC with a mod and it was flawless without a single bug too)
Game was a massive disappointment. It seems with however many steps forward they might have taken on this one, they ultimately take two steps backwards.
Zero common ground between Clive and Ultima. Weak villain, doesn't have a connection with the player character.
No controllable party members. Massive misstep, should not be allowed in any mainline Final Fantasy game.
No sense of exploration, nothing unique to find and do.
No mini games.
No sense of wonder or laughs. Few and far between moments of levity.
Dark, dreary world without a proper balance to show you the other side.
Characters all only gruffly whisper all of their lines, as to try and seem more serious. When really they should be cutting loose and building their characters personality.
Final Fantasy XVI is technically well made, but when it comes to the vision and execution, it fails. Hard.
Thank you 💯
It's my second worst FF game right after FF15. 2 back to back mega failures smh
@@hotcoldman77 if you think that 13 is better than 16 in any way your opinion holds zero weight.
@@owenjzx3070 Oh 13 is waaayyyy better. At least the combat is turn based and engaging. Go play your 16 which is a brain dead press square button masher DMC wannabe clone lmaoooo.
@@owenjzx3070 At least it was an RPG lmao. 😂😂
@@hotcoldman77 just because it was “turn-based” doesn’t mean it was engaging, because it wasn’t, nor was it fun. The story, characters, and environments also PALE in comparison to 16.
I will forever love this game
Despite XVI not being a perfect game, I can confidently say that Clive is my favorite FF protag of all time (followed closely with the 7R version of Cloud), he really is the highlight of the game for me along with the Summons
I was afraid to finish watching the video the minute you said FF16 is not perfect. From personal expeience, that usually leads to a 40+ minute rant shitting on the game.
Before I continue, tell me that is not the case.
@@Awesmic1 No I do not just shit on the game like other people tend to do. I think like with any Final Fantasy game there are great strengths and weaknesses, and that is what I highlight in the video. Regardless of it’s shot comings, I am a massive fan of the game, it’s become one of my favorites in the series personally.
Haters gonna hate. Best FF since FFX. And Clive's possibly THE best protagonist of the entire franchise.
if u legit think that u shallow, bro. 😂
but I love 16 too... Just wish Cid wasnt discarded like shit, the sidequests had any depth and the plot could've been Game of Thrones or Attack on Titan level shit! Cmon... Lets be honest here
I don't think it's the best ff, but Clive sure was a gigachad protag. One of the best for sure.
"Haters gonna hate" sure sounds condusive to a healthy discussion. Why cant people share a negative experience that they genuinely had without being "haters".
See I haven't played the game much less looked at the story, because I play on PC. So I'm very intrigued to experience this game blind and compare it to my experiences not just with the whole franchise but also specifically FF7R and FFXV. I hated XV at launch but as a somewhat completed product in Royal Edition I found it to have one of the more compelling stories in recent memory of the franchise. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
1 year since my favorite game of all time is crazy. I’ve followed it since its reveal. Most hype I was ever for a game. I’m so happy I got to experience this masterpiece. From beginning to end.
I was not sure if you wrote this or me. 😂 Those are my sentiments exactly.
@@MrRedskin0007 I’m just glad to know there’s others who feel the same as me
Waiting for it to come to series x
@@PostParodyClarity I don’t think it will tbh man and I hate that for y’all. Your best bet is to either get a PS5 for it or wait until it comes to PC. Console exclusivity is outdated but it’s still where we are.
I will never stop glazing final fantasy 16
From VI to XII they had a really good run (and I’m including X-2 as well). Don’t feel anything has captured what made those games so special since then.
Man, what an excellent video! 👏🏽
Beautifully crafted but I had to skip the DLC chapter for the vid tho.
You inspired me to finally go and finish it.
I did the Echos DLC but not the Tide yet.
1 year Anniversary,.. what better time than now.
Absolutely! The Rising Tide is a fun little piece of content, and if you enjoyed the base game, you'll love this DLC.