This review contains spoilers
It's not terrible, per se, but it's a tremendous disappointment.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story after the intro sequence, I would have been ecstatic. The intro is honestly one of the best intro sequences ever put into a JRPG.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story at the halfway point, I would have said that its story is good but it had the potential to be something legendary and it's being held back quite a bit. There are quite a few scenes at this point which I really didn't like - Benedikta was done really, really dirty, Hugo as the game's early villain is disappointing and felt painfully one-dimensional and the slavery allegories with the Bearers felt really hamfisted. Still, I was still satisfied at this point - the worldbuilding still seemed layered, the nations and the conflict at hand was still interesting, and the politics compelling. The thematic core at this point is compelling, the emotional core at this point is compelling - FFXVI had the setup to be an amazing, grounded political drama - if it wanted to, which makes the subsequent disappointment all the more crushing.
Unfortunately, the earlygame's thematic core of a cutthroat political drama revolving around conflicts over diminishing resources disintegrates completely at around the halfway mark. Having Joshua get revived was an utterly baffling decision when the emotional core of the earlygame was Joshua's death and Clive's attempts to get revenge for it. Instead, both the game's emotional and thematic cores are completely squandered for a nonsensical "attack and dethrone Ultima" plot. Even disregarding the disappointment I had at the genre shift, the second half of the game isn't compelling in the slightest - Ultima is a bland, generic evil JRPG god archetype with very little to differentiate itself from the legion of bland, generic JRPG gods - I honestly think he is the single worst villain out of any Final Fantasy game which I've played. He's not compelling and he has the charisma of a wooden plank.
Worse yet, almost everything wrong in FFXVI's plot can be blamed on Ultima:
The Mothercrystals? Ultima created them.
The Blight? The Mothercrystals pumping aether to Ultima is what causes it to spread.
Sanbreque? Whilst Sylvestre is initially in charge, he abdicates in favor of Olivier - who is possessed by Ultima.
Waloed? Barnabas is Ultima's lieutenant.
Dhalmekia? Hugo goes on his rampage because Barnabas (read: Ultima's agent) tells him that Benedikta was killed by Cid.
For as hamfisted and poorly executed the slavery analogies with the Bearers were, at the very least it's the one problem that Ultima didn't have that much of a hand in. FFXVI tries to make a climate change analogy with the Mothercrystals and the blight but because Ultima is behind the existence of the Mothercrystals and the blight, it is completely invalidated. It tries to say something about the impact of flawed nations and institutions, but these nations and institutions are influenced by Ultima, and defeating Ultima is enough to solve everything. The responsibility of humans in spreading the blight is severely downplayed, the human aspect of the wars that arise and the flawed institutions that govern Valisthea are equally downplayed as well. Because FFXVI's plot tries to blame Ultima for everything bad in the world, it ends up feeling incredibly hollow and refuses to say something meaningful.
IMO, the only major redeeming factor of the story's second half is the spectacle - and I have to admit that the fights against Titan and Bahamut are absolutely spectacular (though Odin was underwhelming) - but that can't redeem the plot when everything surrounding the second half is so underwhelming. If you asked me about my thoughts on the story now, I think it's mediocre. I think the first third to half of the game's plot saves it from being the worst Final Fantasy plot - but I think the second half of the plot is very much awful. I honestly think Yoshi-P and the writers didn't know what game they wanted to make - they tried to go for both an anime attack and dethrone Ultima plot and a gritty political drama - and I think they failed at both.
The removal of a party in FFXVI cripples its character writing - whilst Clive does get some interactions with other characters, they are for most part sparse and uninteresting. As such, whilst Clive is a compelling character on paper with a good arc, he has barely anyone to bounce off of and gets very few interesting character interactions. Jill freaking sucks - for the game's female lead she is incredibly underwhelming. She barely has anything interesting to say or do other than pine for and blandly support Clive, she gets sidelined way too often and she gets kidnapped multiple times. The other side characters are better, but aside from Dion who is excellent, I don't think they are anything particularly special.
It's a shame, because whilst the FFVII remake also had action combat similarly to FFXVI, it still managed to have a party and the character writing was far stronger as a result.
As an RPG, FFXVI's combat completely fails - levels are meaningless, new weapons and armor have very little impact and pretty much every RPG element has been stripped from the game entirely. As an action game, FFXVI fares better - the combat system is really flashy and really engaging on paper - but one major issue that I had is that very few enemies put up any sort of meaningful resistance to force the player to change their tactics, and instead act like pinatas to bash. Whilst this might have worked for a DMC or Bayonetta game where the game lasts 15 hours, FFXVI lasts around 50 hours - and as such, the combat gets very repetitive towards the end.
I think Jason Schreier put it best - "Final Fantasy XVI is truly inspired by Game of Thrones: medieval politics, brutal violence, and a terrible ending".
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story after the intro sequence, I would have been ecstatic. The intro is honestly one of the best intro sequences ever put into a JRPG.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story at the halfway point, I would have said that its story is good but it had the potential to be something legendary and it's being held back quite a bit. There are quite a few scenes at this point which I really didn't like - Benedikta was done really, really dirty, Hugo as the game's early villain is disappointing and felt painfully one-dimensional and the slavery allegories with the Bearers felt really hamfisted. Still, I was still satisfied at this point - the worldbuilding still seemed layered, the nations and the conflict at hand was still interesting, and the politics compelling. The thematic core at this point is compelling, the emotional core at this point is compelling - FFXVI had the setup to be an amazing, grounded political drama - if it wanted to, which makes the subsequent disappointment all the more crushing.
Unfortunately, the earlygame's thematic core of a cutthroat political drama revolving around conflicts over diminishing resources disintegrates completely at around the halfway mark. Having Joshua get revived was an utterly baffling decision when the emotional core of the earlygame was Joshua's death and Clive's attempts to get revenge for it. Instead, both the game's emotional and thematic cores are completely squandered for a nonsensical "attack and dethrone Ultima" plot. Even disregarding the disappointment I had at the genre shift, the second half of the game isn't compelling in the slightest - Ultima is a bland, generic evil JRPG god archetype with very little to differentiate itself from the legion of bland, generic JRPG gods - I honestly think he is the single worst villain out of any Final Fantasy game which I've played. He's not compelling and he has the charisma of a wooden plank.
Worse yet, almost everything wrong in FFXVI's plot can be blamed on Ultima:
The Mothercrystals? Ultima created them.
The Blight? The Mothercrystals pumping aether to Ultima is what causes it to spread.
Sanbreque? Whilst Sylvestre is initially in charge, he abdicates in favor of Olivier - who is possessed by Ultima.
Waloed? Barnabas is Ultima's lieutenant.
Dhalmekia? Hugo goes on his rampage because Barnabas (read: Ultima's agent) tells him that Benedikta was killed by Cid.
For as hamfisted and poorly executed the slavery analogies with the Bearers were, at the very least it's the one problem that Ultima didn't have that much of a hand in. FFXVI tries to make a climate change analogy with the Mothercrystals and the blight but because Ultima is behind the existence of the Mothercrystals and the blight, it is completely invalidated. It tries to say something about the impact of flawed nations and institutions, but these nations and institutions are influenced by Ultima, and defeating Ultima is enough to solve everything. The responsibility of humans in spreading the blight is severely downplayed, the human aspect of the wars that arise and the flawed institutions that govern Valisthea are equally downplayed as well. Because FFXVI's plot tries to blame Ultima for everything bad in the world, it ends up feeling incredibly hollow and refuses to say something meaningful.
IMO, the only major redeeming factor of the story's second half is the spectacle - and I have to admit that the fights against Titan and Bahamut are absolutely spectacular (though Odin was underwhelming) - but that can't redeem the plot when everything surrounding the second half is so underwhelming. If you asked me about my thoughts on the story now, I think it's mediocre. I think the first third to half of the game's plot saves it from being the worst Final Fantasy plot - but I think the second half of the plot is very much awful. I honestly think Yoshi-P and the writers didn't know what game they wanted to make - they tried to go for both an anime attack and dethrone Ultima plot and a gritty political drama - and I think they failed at both.
The removal of a party in FFXVI cripples its character writing - whilst Clive does get some interactions with other characters, they are for most part sparse and uninteresting. As such, whilst Clive is a compelling character on paper with a good arc, he has barely anyone to bounce off of and gets very few interesting character interactions. Jill freaking sucks - for the game's female lead she is incredibly underwhelming. She barely has anything interesting to say or do other than pine for and blandly support Clive, she gets sidelined way too often and she gets kidnapped multiple times. The other side characters are better, but aside from Dion who is excellent, I don't think they are anything particularly special.
It's a shame, because whilst the FFVII remake also had action combat similarly to FFXVI, it still managed to have a party and the character writing was far stronger as a result.
As an RPG, FFXVI's combat completely fails - levels are meaningless, new weapons and armor have very little impact and pretty much every RPG element has been stripped from the game entirely. As an action game, FFXVI fares better - the combat system is really flashy and really engaging on paper - but one major issue that I had is that very few enemies put up any sort of meaningful resistance to force the player to change their tactics, and instead act like pinatas to bash. Whilst this might have worked for a DMC or Bayonetta game where the game lasts 15 hours, FFXVI lasts around 50 hours - and as such, the combat gets very repetitive towards the end.
I think Jason Schreier put it best - "Final Fantasy XVI is truly inspired by Game of Thrones: medieval politics, brutal violence, and a terrible ending".