Final Fantasy XVI is a fantastic game which I would recommend, especially as a starting point to the series for newcomers. I have tried my best not to nitpick, as I feel that a lot of people have due to the franchise's reputation, and the game being highly anticipated. However it's my opinion while the game has massive highs, it also has a lot of small issues which drag the whole experience down for me slightly.
This review will be spoiler free. I have completed the game which took about 70 hours, while doing all of the side content along the way.
I will split this review into positives, negatives, and mixed feelings.
Positives:
Visuals - The game looks absolutely stunning. The graphics are top notch, especially for a PS5 game, and the cinematics are out of this world and made my jaw drop at times. It cannot be denied that a great deal of effort went into the games appearance and it's very flashy and impressive in this department.
Characters - All of the characters were great. Clive was a great main character, and the friends he makes along the way compliment this as well. There wasn't a single character that I disliked and the game did a great job of giving most of them some development via the numerous side quests.
Music - With Soken doing the music, I had no doubts that it wouldn't be anything short of fantastic, and oh boy did it deliver. Especially during boss fights. Some of it gave me goosebumps and it will no doubt find it's way into my spotify rotation once it is released there.
Combat - This was a main concern for a lot of people before the games release. The franchise continues with action combat rather than the traditional turn based combat that the game was well known for. I was a big fan of the combat in FF7R so I had no concerns about the combat coming into this game, and in my opinion was probably one area of the game which I enjoyed the most. The further you went into the game, the better it became and there was a high level of customisation you could do to fit the boss or siutation at hand.
Negatives:
The World - While I knew before the games release that this was not going to be an open world game, and it was going to be designed in a way that was very linear and straight forward, They still managed to make it feel empty and lifeless. Sure there was a small amount of exploration, but it was pointless, as there was no benefit in doing so. any chests you found hidden away either contained some items that could be sold for a small amount of gil, which you do not need as you gain an abundance of it through quests and side content, or crafting materials which again you have an abundance of as they are everywhere. Most of the enemies on the world map were mostly the same but with a different colour scheme in each area and again offered no unique drops, a pitiful amount of xp or ability points or a small amount of gil. NPC's in towns/villages were robotic, repeating the same lines of dialogue when you walked by each time. The whole setting just felt devoid of anything meaningful and offered little incentive to do anything else but go from quest point to quest point.
Equipment - 90% of the weapons were pointless to craft, as you basically get a weapon upgrade after each major boss. A lot of the accessories were also pointless to craft as they either didn't offer any upgrade at all. Just felt like a very boring an uninspired system which could have had a lot more depth
Difficulty - I am not a person who plays games on the hardest difficulty, normally chosing the standard difficulty or hard mode if normal is a little too easy. But the default setting for XVI was far too easy. I did not use any of the 'fisher price' accessories, and I didn't come close to dying or being in danger for the first 60% of the game. I only died 3 times, once to a boss fight where I was too greedy in trying to stagger the boss and twice to some high rank hunt marks where I was over 10 levels lower than the mob I was fighting. The game became easier and easier the more you unlocked with more ways in defending yourself/countering while any encounters didn't really add anything to increase the danger. There should have been a higher difficulty selectable at the start, not after you finish the game.
Mixed Feelings
The Story - This was initially a positive for me, but found it's way into the mixed department later in the game. The story has some fantastic moments, and started off really strong. It's a very dark story which I really liked. Most of the major boss fights were exceptional and very fun. But the pacing of the story was off at times. One minute the story had reached a really good high only to go down considerably for a while before going back up again. It also got fairly confusing after the 70% mark and felt a bit drawn out in my opinion. I did like the active time lore and the lore NPC that refreshed your memory or taught you things you may have not picked up on. The ending was quite emotional.
Side content - The early sidequests were very boring and felt pointless, but this improved fairly quickly, becoming quests relevant to the story or character development. However the sheer amount of them given to you at once upset the pace of the main story in my opinion, especially before key moments in the game. Feel that they could have been reduced in numbers or made more in sync with the main story
Overall rating is 8.5/10. The game was marketed as one for both new players to either ARPG's or the Final Fantasy franchise, along with veterans of the genre or franchise, but I feel it was more developed towards the former. The game was very simple and straight forward, and lacked the difficulty, and more complex/grindy elements to things like crafting and equipment which are key things veteran players look for. The open world was very disappointing and had so much more potential than what they put into it. But overall. I really enjoyed it despite it's flaws.
