Final Fantasy XVI - Release 22nd June 2023

These takes are hilarious, ignore the incredible combat and cutscenes, literally two things better than nearly every game :slol:

Do agree the world in between looks good but isn't particularly living and breathing though.

I'd also argue 16 is more RPG and FF than 8 and 10, the reviewers favourites. The art direction is very much like I'd imagine a 3D version of 1 - 6 so not sure where the argument this isn't FF comes from.

This has potentially the best ever fight scenes / cutscenes in a game. Just done

what a fight. Love this so far.

If you think that was a good fight / cut scene, then you'd better brace yourself for later on.... It's going to get the wild.

I'm making a lot of progress and have managed to so far find and kill all bounties as they appear. Just done an S rank one.

Had a brilliant boss battle, scale was close to god of war 3, ridiculous scale.

Godzilla wrote:If you think that was a good fight / cut scene, then you'd better brace yourself for later on.... It's going to get the wild.

I'm making a lot of progress and have managed to so far find and kill all bounties as they appear. Just done an S rank one.

Had a brilliant boss battle, scale was close to god of war 3, ridiculous scale.

You tease! Absolutely loving the scale of these, blown away as is.

That's cool didn't know there were bounties, always enjoy the hunt :nod:

Replaying of scenes and arcade mode are nice additions, didn't even know these were coming.

Decent progress, level 20 and back to Rosaria

Just done another boss fight. Epic is too small a word, was the equivalent of Peter Vs the chicken from family guy. Just keeps going and going and getting more ridiculous.

Story is getting really interesting, pieces are moving and things building to something very big.

I’ve just Pressed L3 + R3 to Accept the Truth

I can’t get enough of this gooseberry fool. Like VII-R, every encounter feels meaty and and satisfying, while the music puts the boss fights to 11 and then the Eikon battles are even beyond that.

85% complete at 29 hours. A bit more progress will unlock the last side quests and hunts.

Got myself a good set of abilities, but it's only in the final stages of the game that they've actually started having large amounts of enemies. The difference is like DMC 5 in normal Vs true demon Hunter mode. The fighting and abilities all lend themselves well to groups so it's weird why they have held back.

Few random FF things seem to be completely missing, like towns to explore, it's more like a random merchant in a dead city rather than actual villages and living places to look around.

No materia, which is really strange. Summons, are there but not to be used. It's a weird choice as they look amazing and would be fantastic to summon in battle, even if it was on a huge cool down.

Combat is good but not as good as DMC 5 or FF 7 remake. Graphically it's lovely and it runs pretty well on performance mode. Probably finish it tomorrow and then go straight into new game plus which apparently adds a lot of new things.

Story is worth experiencing so if there is a YouTube upload of all the story cut scenes (like they do for Mortal Kombat) it's worth a watch. The scale of it is silly and it gets to the point where there is no where left go to ..... But they somehow find a way to make it bigger.

Godzilla wrote:
No materia, which is really strange.

materia was only in the one mainline game to be fair

Why do they feel the need to hide that one character in a hood and cloak when it's perfectly obvious who it is :lol:

Fade wrote:Why do they feel the need to hide that one character in a hood and cloak when it's perfectly obvious who it is

Jrpgs have never been very good a keeping things secret

Also, sidenote, but remember when people complained there were no black people in the game?

I can kind of understand why now, what with how the world treats bearers. The comparisons to American history would be pretty easy to make.

Are you saying they should have made the slave characters black in their entirely invented fantasy world, or are you saying that because the slaves are white you can “kind of understand” why people are complaining that there are no black characters.

I really wish there was more than 1 basic combo in this game. It makes the combat feel really bad to just mash the same combo out during staggers etc.

jiggles wrote:Are you saying they should have made the slave characters black in their entirely invented fantasy world, or are you saying that because the slaves are white you can “kind of understand” why people are complaining that there are no black characters.

I think that a Japanese company tackling slavery while including black people would have probably been a recipe for disaster. As in I don't think they'd have been able to handle it very tactfully. I wouldn't be surprised if they realized that themselves.

And finished, 32 hours in total. Every side quest done, every unique monster hunted. Best items and weapons crafted too.

The game definitely peaks in the middle as the focus is still on a couple of very interesting enemies. Boss battles also peek before the end as they run out of ways to make them bigger.

Some great moments throughout the game, a lot of spectacle but a lot of very boring side content of go there and kill that.

For story reasons some of the best characters are not around for long periods of the game. Also the big bad is very generic bad guy which is a shame as some lesser enemy generals are fantastic.

Just started new game plus and Final fantasy mode. So will drop in and out of that to see how different it is.

That's a lot shorter than I expect Final Fantasy games to be.

That's a pleasant surprise, I might actually get through it if that's the length of time it takes for a completionist playthrough!

Odd -maybe worrying - that Square Enix hasn't announced any sales numbers yet.

Is Flames of Rebirth bugged? The description says it's supposed to partially restore Clove's HP, but every time I've used it I don't recover any whatsoever

Lagamorph wrote:Is Flames of Rebirth bugged? The description says it's supposed to partially restore Clove's HP, but every time I've used it I don't recover any whatsoever

Does it just give you back the health you have recently lost? Like the limit break does?

I've used it all go but not for healing, just as a nuke.

Progressed quite a bit on this. As the game went on I felt a bit disappointed.

My main gripes with this; I thought the story was a lot darker, early GOT style.... but it's just Final Fantasy with some nudity. Not only does the game hold your hand all through the game, but it does not reward you at all for exploration (Hello box with common crafting materials). The sidequests are literally just in-game fodder. I think the story also took a turn downwards halfway through

It's a shame because the combat is excellent and the epic boss fights are genuinely epic (although sometimes they seem neverending and end up being a bit repetitive).

I think games like The Witcher and Elden Ring exposed Square and their capabilities to produce engaging game worlds, the side quests in those games had a storyline of their own that added to the lore and the mystique of the world.

The side quests and side stuff does feel pointless in a post Elden Ring, TOTK world. I'd like to fight a random unique enemy and get a random reward that changes how I play. But instead it's just the same old bits of crafting stuff.

The latest Steph Sterling video is all about FF16 and it's miserables world. As always worth a watch.

For me it feels like a 15 hours action game like DMC 5 is, but packed with additional filler. The filler, on reflection very flat. An example is....

Side quest...
Go talk to man
Fast travel or talk a few minutes to target
Talk to man
Go talk to another man
Fast travel or walk to target
Go and tell original man
Fast travel or walk to man
Get some xp and renown points

Also there are no story/side quest options.... In an RPG, no sneak in or attack from the front, no spare the traitor or kill them, no tell or the truth or maintain the lie. Just go with what the game wants.

If they had made FF16 x DMC and had a breezy 15 hour campaign, no filler and only side stuff is combat challenges, the game would have been perfect.

Final Fantasy XVI - Release 22nd June 2023

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