I’m conflicted about this one. There are moments of Final Fantasy XVI that are my favorites of the entire franchise. The sheer scale and spectacle of some of the battles and cinematics in this game are phenomenal and awe-inspiring. The more-mature, higher fantasy plot is pretty good. The combat is also pretty fun and offers enough variation in play to stay fresh more-or-less throughout the game. The soundtrack hits in all the ways it needs to, too.
But man, there are moments in this game where it is an absolute slog. Multiple points you’ll go from a high-octane fight with a massive, deity-like Eikon, to immediately doing simple fetch quests for your sleepy home base. The game’s narrative at one point even goes as far as acknowledging the main character is just running around doing boring chores; like was that not a clue that maybe some of this stuff should have been reconsidered?
The pacing whiplash this creates unfortunately detracted from the overall experience quite a bit, and was by far my biggest gripe with the whole thing. On top of that, I was disappointed by the kind of complete lack of a true party in this game — I honestly can forgive the lack of “RPG elements” (something this game, in fairness, does lack) in a Final Fantasy game, but to me these games have always been about a party of heroes going in an epic quest. This game is first and foremost the Clive show, with a couple key secondary characters who play their parts at certain points.
Ultimately it’s just kind of a bummer. I wanted to love this game, and there are moments where I did, but the moments where I didn’t almost made me drop the game entirely. But hey, I think I liked it more than XV, so it’s the little wins, right?
But man, there are moments in this game where it is an absolute slog. Multiple points you’ll go from a high-octane fight with a massive, deity-like Eikon, to immediately doing simple fetch quests for your sleepy home base. The game’s narrative at one point even goes as far as acknowledging the main character is just running around doing boring chores; like was that not a clue that maybe some of this stuff should have been reconsidered?
The pacing whiplash this creates unfortunately detracted from the overall experience quite a bit, and was by far my biggest gripe with the whole thing. On top of that, I was disappointed by the kind of complete lack of a true party in this game — I honestly can forgive the lack of “RPG elements” (something this game, in fairness, does lack) in a Final Fantasy game, but to me these games have always been about a party of heroes going in an epic quest. This game is first and foremost the Clive show, with a couple key secondary characters who play their parts at certain points.
Ultimately it’s just kind of a bummer. I wanted to love this game, and there are moments where I did, but the moments where I didn’t almost made me drop the game entirely. But hey, I think I liked it more than XV, so it’s the little wins, right?