Final Fantasy XVI is a case study in how poor pacing can deflate an otherwise excellent game to just a good game. I genuinely feel if this was just the arcade stages stitched together with slightly pumped up difficulty and a bunch of cutscenes in between them this would be one of my favorite entries in the series.

It feels weird to advocate for this being more of a linear DMC-esque action game when many of the complaints lobbed against it are regarding it as too much DMC and not enough RPG. However, its strengths lie almost entirely in that action so i'd rather prop that up than expand on the RPG aspects of the game which are window dressing at best and mind numbing at worst. It just feels so awful to go from some of the most bombastic, over the top, expensive ass boss fights I've ever seen to doing chores for people for 3 hours straight waiting to get back into the action.

I understand that this game really wants a chance to flesh out its entire cast, even characters you would not expect to have any depth whatsoever, and to do that it needs to slow down and have some quieter moments in between the big fights. It's just that the way these quieter moments are handled just does not mesh very well with the rest of the game and does not work for me outside of a handful of really good side quests. I'm not even being a hater with regards to all the writing in this game, where the writing concerns the overarching plot or the core cast of characters it's actually really solid. I just wish it was more focused in on those aspects!