Final Fantasy XVI recognizes Final Fantasy IV as the GOAT, as everyone should.
Alright, it took me a while to get through this game, and throughout it I had so many thoughts, impressions and the like that changed a bit over time. At the end of the day, I don't believe this is top-tier Final Fantasy, though it is filled with some top-tier moments. The game unfortunately does not balance the high highs of this game very well and the result is a game I really enjoyed, but do not completely love.
First and foremost, I'm of two minds with the combat. I believe there are moments where it's really fun to play and moments where it's a bit of a slog. I actually credit the trophy list with really getting me to explore many variations of the combat, thus opening it up to me an interesting way. But I can't pretend that I don't feel like I permanently damaged some controllers with how often I mashed the square button throughout this game (I'm exaggerating, but it was a lot). In particular, this game largely has wonderful boss fights, but some annoying in-betweens. Fighting a badass boss with a huge health gauge? Alright, sure. Fighting big dudes with stagger gauges amongst random hordes of enemies for the sake of prolonging the gameplay? Not so much.
As far as the narrative goes...unfortunately, I just wasn't that invested. I think the voice acting is really well done, I think the active time lore and ways to dig into the story are really cool features, but I got kind of bored with it. I think conversations with NPCs are largely too long, and that goes for main quest, side quests, and pretty much everything else. I think a lot of the side quests are very basic in their design, and frustrating in other ways. How many times was an objective 'go talk to this person' then 'go talk to that person' then 'go back and talk to that person'. It was a little too much.
That being said, the pure spectacle of the big moments in this game are admirable and take the game up a notch, along with the boss fights. I just wish the rest of the game held up as well for me. I debated giving this 3.5 stars or 4, and ultimately I went with 4 because I did enjoy a lot of my time with it, but I'm happy to be done with the main game. I'll play the DLC next but I won't go for the platinum, at least not right now. Playing through the game a second time and reaching an additional 30-40 levels sounds like a slog.
Alright, it took me a while to get through this game, and throughout it I had so many thoughts, impressions and the like that changed a bit over time. At the end of the day, I don't believe this is top-tier Final Fantasy, though it is filled with some top-tier moments. The game unfortunately does not balance the high highs of this game very well and the result is a game I really enjoyed, but do not completely love.
First and foremost, I'm of two minds with the combat. I believe there are moments where it's really fun to play and moments where it's a bit of a slog. I actually credit the trophy list with really getting me to explore many variations of the combat, thus opening it up to me an interesting way. But I can't pretend that I don't feel like I permanently damaged some controllers with how often I mashed the square button throughout this game (I'm exaggerating, but it was a lot). In particular, this game largely has wonderful boss fights, but some annoying in-betweens. Fighting a badass boss with a huge health gauge? Alright, sure. Fighting big dudes with stagger gauges amongst random hordes of enemies for the sake of prolonging the gameplay? Not so much.
As far as the narrative goes...unfortunately, I just wasn't that invested. I think the voice acting is really well done, I think the active time lore and ways to dig into the story are really cool features, but I got kind of bored with it. I think conversations with NPCs are largely too long, and that goes for main quest, side quests, and pretty much everything else. I think a lot of the side quests are very basic in their design, and frustrating in other ways. How many times was an objective 'go talk to this person' then 'go talk to that person' then 'go back and talk to that person'. It was a little too much.
That being said, the pure spectacle of the big moments in this game are admirable and take the game up a notch, along with the boss fights. I just wish the rest of the game held up as well for me. I debated giving this 3.5 stars or 4, and ultimately I went with 4 because I did enjoy a lot of my time with it, but I'm happy to be done with the main game. I'll play the DLC next but I won't go for the platinum, at least not right now. Playing through the game a second time and reaching an additional 30-40 levels sounds like a slog.