As much as I'd like to complain that this is barely a Final Fantasy game, I'm wise enough to realise that it can't always be an ATB-spells-and-swords kind of affair every time - even so, this is well outside of it's wheelhouse and it shows in almost every facet.
First off, the game looks gorgeous - Square Enix have never had any problems getting good looking games out there, and it delivers in spades here. The animation and particle effects are spectacular, and watching some of the cut scenes you get to see a lot of this on display.
It's everything else where the cracks start to show - for a game that wants you to take it seriously as a political story around the subjugation of the Bearers, it's more than happy to veer off into ridiculous territory. The fights go full on shonen, which just flies in the face of the more grounded world and story and undoes a lot of the good it sows in the first few hours. The story is borderline nonsensical (though the voice acting is superb). the characterisation of anyone but Clive is...not good (this game in particular really seems to hate women, either killing them or giving them absolutely no urgency - Jill could have been such a good character!) and the ending just sort of happens after a strange lull? It's incredibly badly paced, and you get to see the pattern of the game very quickly (story beat, back to base for side quests, next story beat, back to base etc.). From such a good introduction to a grounded world and a more politically intriguing Final Fantasy, it lacks the courage to continue this and instead goes into full on pants-on-head stupidness.
Everything surrounding the main story are also subpar - side quests have taken their MMO-inspiration far too literally and are just boring delivery quests, or go-here-and-kill-this quests. When the game is trying to make growing an apple seem exciting, something has gone horribly wrong. The crafting system seems to have been stripped back, as there isn't one - you'll occasionally upgrade your sword, but all the crafting items picked up in the field or as rewards are largely meaningless as you can really only upgrade 3 items. The RPG side of this game is really lacking.
Which wouldn't be so bad if the world was fun to explore, as the time between story beats would be enjoyable. But it so actively discourages exploration of an incredibly drab and empty world that you shouldn't bother. When the field items are things like 5 gil or some common crafting materials, you will leave large swathes of the environment undiscovered - as it turns out that there's nothing even there to discover. On top of a main character that can't run on command, and a Chocobo which seems to actually be slower than running? A better movement system would help here.
If you played the demo, you'll know the combat system is a lot of fun and has the potential to stretch out into more fun areas - it has taken a lot of inspiration from things like Bayonetta, Dark Souls or Jedi: Fallen Order. Unfortunately, the combat system has no evolution like that aforementioned games, and once you've found a few Eikon moves you like you'll be doing the same thing every fight. Even the Stagger system is easy to unpick, and for most of my playthrough I would actively avoid fights as it wasn't fun to do the same thing over and over. It's not as if the game was overly difficult that this affected anything, anyway. The upgrade system falls by the wayside once you've found the 2-3 moves that get you through the game.
In terms of Eikon battles - ehhhhh. I seem to be against the grain here, but they are overly long and boring and didn't push any buttons for me. The Titan fight in particular just goes on and on for far too long, and the spectacle of them really just got old for me. You are looking at a full 30 minutes for one of these fights, and that was with me skipping the many cutscenes due to boredom. Bahamut is even worse, clocking in at a full hour - and worst of all, it flashes up that you've defeated Bahamut and the fight is over, then proceeds to continue into another Bahamut fight! That is not how things work! I found the Eikon fights overly flashy button mashers where the required amount of thinking or skill was minimal.
You can do a lot better for an action focused RPG (and the RPG side is paper thin here) for the ridiculous price of £70. The combat doesn't hold through the 30-40 hour runtime, the story goes all over the place and suffers for it, movement and controls are dire, there's barely anything to do outside of the main story quest - I could go on, but you'd be better placed picking up something else - The Witcher 3 does everything here 10x better and came out in 2015, which is ridiculous. The game sure is pretty, but that's about it.
First off, the game looks gorgeous - Square Enix have never had any problems getting good looking games out there, and it delivers in spades here. The animation and particle effects are spectacular, and watching some of the cut scenes you get to see a lot of this on display.
It's everything else where the cracks start to show - for a game that wants you to take it seriously as a political story around the subjugation of the Bearers, it's more than happy to veer off into ridiculous territory. The fights go full on shonen, which just flies in the face of the more grounded world and story and undoes a lot of the good it sows in the first few hours. The story is borderline nonsensical (though the voice acting is superb). the characterisation of anyone but Clive is...not good (this game in particular really seems to hate women, either killing them or giving them absolutely no urgency - Jill could have been such a good character!) and the ending just sort of happens after a strange lull? It's incredibly badly paced, and you get to see the pattern of the game very quickly (story beat, back to base for side quests, next story beat, back to base etc.). From such a good introduction to a grounded world and a more politically intriguing Final Fantasy, it lacks the courage to continue this and instead goes into full on pants-on-head stupidness.
Everything surrounding the main story are also subpar - side quests have taken their MMO-inspiration far too literally and are just boring delivery quests, or go-here-and-kill-this quests. When the game is trying to make growing an apple seem exciting, something has gone horribly wrong. The crafting system seems to have been stripped back, as there isn't one - you'll occasionally upgrade your sword, but all the crafting items picked up in the field or as rewards are largely meaningless as you can really only upgrade 3 items. The RPG side of this game is really lacking.
Which wouldn't be so bad if the world was fun to explore, as the time between story beats would be enjoyable. But it so actively discourages exploration of an incredibly drab and empty world that you shouldn't bother. When the field items are things like 5 gil or some common crafting materials, you will leave large swathes of the environment undiscovered - as it turns out that there's nothing even there to discover. On top of a main character that can't run on command, and a Chocobo which seems to actually be slower than running? A better movement system would help here.
If you played the demo, you'll know the combat system is a lot of fun and has the potential to stretch out into more fun areas - it has taken a lot of inspiration from things like Bayonetta, Dark Souls or Jedi: Fallen Order. Unfortunately, the combat system has no evolution like that aforementioned games, and once you've found a few Eikon moves you like you'll be doing the same thing every fight. Even the Stagger system is easy to unpick, and for most of my playthrough I would actively avoid fights as it wasn't fun to do the same thing over and over. It's not as if the game was overly difficult that this affected anything, anyway. The upgrade system falls by the wayside once you've found the 2-3 moves that get you through the game.
In terms of Eikon battles - ehhhhh. I seem to be against the grain here, but they are overly long and boring and didn't push any buttons for me. The Titan fight in particular just goes on and on for far too long, and the spectacle of them really just got old for me. You are looking at a full 30 minutes for one of these fights, and that was with me skipping the many cutscenes due to boredom. Bahamut is even worse, clocking in at a full hour - and worst of all, it flashes up that you've defeated Bahamut and the fight is over, then proceeds to continue into another Bahamut fight! That is not how things work! I found the Eikon fights overly flashy button mashers where the required amount of thinking or skill was minimal.
You can do a lot better for an action focused RPG (and the RPG side is paper thin here) for the ridiculous price of £70. The combat doesn't hold through the 30-40 hour runtime, the story goes all over the place and suffers for it, movement and controls are dire, there's barely anything to do outside of the main story quest - I could go on, but you'd be better placed picking up something else - The Witcher 3 does everything here 10x better and came out in 2015, which is ridiculous. The game sure is pretty, but that's about it.
Marley
9 months ago