After being apprehensive I really bought into the hype and loved the demo. The game starts so strong, full of potential, dipping into interesting themes. As it progresses it slowly falls apart. The action is fun, the bosses are spectacular, but even they peak with Bahamut. The story lacks depth particularly in the second half, letting themes and strong characterisation fall by the wayside. Two of the most interesting characters are written out early on. For one of them this does open up a very cool new dynamic with Clive adopting their persona and trying to fulfil their ideals, but this ends up feeling like an afterthought. Jill spends most of her lines either asking what is happening or telling us what just happened on screen. Her ‘big moment’ comes early on and is barely about here, then for a while she’s conveniently absent. Later she comes back to serve as love interest and that’s about it.
I see complaints that it’s not a JRPG, but like many JRPGs, the writing is all over the place, and it’s padded to the hilt with dull side quests and filler content. A few of these will provide a bit of ‘world building’ or have something sad happen, but it’s hard to care. Some players don’t connect with the action combat, but when it’s so straightforward, mostly revolving around repeated attacks, dodges and waiting for abilities to come off cool down, is it really that different from turn based?
My big problem with this game is it feels purely made to be a crowd pleaser, to sell copies and just walk the line telling an unremarkable fantasy story that satisfies the general fandom. Compare that to Final Fantasy at its best, where it clearly has more to say, where it feels like a work of love, an attempt to express something meaningful. Other FF games felt that way. 16 is probably a step in that direction and can be a lot of fun, but where is the substance? Where is the imagination? Will we ever get it back? I won’t give up just yet.
I see complaints that it’s not a JRPG, but like many JRPGs, the writing is all over the place, and it’s padded to the hilt with dull side quests and filler content. A few of these will provide a bit of ‘world building’ or have something sad happen, but it’s hard to care. Some players don’t connect with the action combat, but when it’s so straightforward, mostly revolving around repeated attacks, dodges and waiting for abilities to come off cool down, is it really that different from turn based?
My big problem with this game is it feels purely made to be a crowd pleaser, to sell copies and just walk the line telling an unremarkable fantasy story that satisfies the general fandom. Compare that to Final Fantasy at its best, where it clearly has more to say, where it feels like a work of love, an attempt to express something meaningful. Other FF games felt that way. 16 is probably a step in that direction and can be a lot of fun, but where is the substance? Where is the imagination? Will we ever get it back? I won’t give up just yet.