Final Fantasy XVI

• Genre: Action RPG
• Time Played: 69 Hours. (Nice)
• Too Short/Long: Just a little too long. Some individual areas went on just a tad long and a handful of sidequest kinda drag on.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased, it's a new favorite.
• Why I played: Do I need a reason to play a mainline Final Fantasy game? Actually, when it was first announced I didn't care too much. They're doing a mature traditional fantasy medieval inspired setting? Ehhh, not until some friends pointed out the protagonist and how up my alley in design he was. Then I watched exactly one trailer, got excited and refrained from finding out more. I actually finally bought a PS5 mainly to be able to play FFXVI... and catch up on the (very few) exclusives I was still missing out on.
• Recommend to others: I absolutely would if it's something you expect you'll like. I would say it can be rather difficult at times. With it's action focus in the combat, it's not something you can just grind levels out to overcome obstacles.

I don't feel like I walked away having too much to say, even though I loved it. So let's get my grievances out the way. The story isn't bad, but the first third of the game is... rough. I don't mean as in poorly written. I mean as how they present one of the primary subjects. Slavery. It doesn't approach it with kid gloves and maybe even takes it's presentation a little far. I've consumed a lot of fantasy media which features slavery, and maybe it's their fault for not presenting it as a serious enough issue, as it's often just a kinda background thing, like, oh these obvious villains have slaves and we're going to free them, and now everyone is happy. This treats it in a way that can be very uncomfortable at times.

That's part of why I believe they made some of the design decisions they did. Presenting certain people in the way they they do in Final Fantasy XVI would be extremely hard to navigate. Honestly, I'm not even sure XVI did the best job at navigating what they did present. That said, halfway or so into the story things change a bit and that aspect does take a backseat to a lot of other stuff going on, it still comes up but generally in the way it does in other pieces of fantasy media, "Lets go show the obvious villain how they're wrong and get vengeance", or... a situation where someone is clearly being racist completely without remorse, is immediately turned to the light and is a good person now after the bearer(natural magic user/the people being enslaved) saves the day.

That aside, and I understand that's a big aside. The story is generally handled pretty well, there is a lot to like, a lot of excellent characters, a lot of great interactions, a little bit of wit and humor. Generally good stuff. My only other real complaints about the game are pretty superficial. Sidequests are WAY too verbose. Like, I don't think they stuck their editor in the sidequests to trim the fat at all. There is more dialog in one dinky sidequest then 5 hours of main story quest.

Last complaint is the items/equipment system feels very unrealized. I get the feeling they were originally intending to have a very complex equipment creation system, maybe more than halfway through, realized it sucked or was annoying, or too much effort, or didn't make sense, and just trimmed it down to a linear progression of items/equipment but because they did that it felt kinda weird I wasn't just buying or finding my next weapon like in the vast majority of Final Fantasy games.

Okay one more tiny tiny thing. Final Fantasy XVI has a pretty great combat system, and a lot of really cool powers you can equip, which I kinda wish I could equip more, but I wouldn't need to feel like that if it seems like elements mattered AT ALL. Because then I would have to actually cycle through my abilities to pick the best for the situation, instead, I usually just kept with my favorites, and when I got new ones checked to see if I liked those and then stuck with them until I got more, and at some point, I had my final set of powers I played through for the rest of the game. There just doesn't seem to be a noticeable elemental effect and if there is one, I played 69 hours of this game unable to even tell.

I can understand because it's more action focused combat and only really controling one character, a bad loadout could put you in a bad situation, so focusing on elemental weaknesses may detract, but then I feel the system should have had a workaround for that. Like a hotswap for loadouts ability in-combat. Regardless it may have helped me switch up my tactics more, too.

So all that out of the way there is just so much to love about the game. It's gorgeous, there is just so much effort put into every tiny detail. Any character that matters you can practically feel the 6 different textures of clothing they're wearing. All of the environments are lush with details. The music is fantastic. I feel like it could have benefited from a few more stand out melodies, something many Final Fantasy games are known for, but what they had wasn't bad, just leaning a little bit into that AAA standard orchestra style a little more than I prefer.

Most of the characters are well realized and thought out. I generally feel like these are the people experiencing this story. I'm really really happy about how much focus Torgal gets. Many times in rpgs, specifically action rpgs. The dog character is just there and beyond their intro and maybe follow up quest they're kinda ignored. Torgal is always put center stage and damn if that doesn't do it for me.

It had a couple key moments that really stood out to me, if everything I said wasn't already spoilery this is definitely going to be. But there was basically a Sonic Adventure level and a shmup level. I would have loved to have seen more use of those, or similar mechanics for more situations in the game. I was REALLY disappointed in a couple situations where I thought I might get another shmup sequence. That said, I can't expect them not to play it safe and only mix it up a little because not everyone is all about that genre shifting like I am. It's one of my favorite things. You know what else is one of my favorite things? Characters transforming. You know what else? Kaiju battles.

Goddamn I loved this game. I think it will go into my favorite games list next time I evaluate that. Obvious I need to sit on the game a bit because I still haven't come down from it's high, but I do think it at least is my 3rd favorite Final Fantasy(after 7 and 5) which are both rather high in my top games list.