PS5 Final Fantasy XVI

[one-armed dwarf]

I felt the same as you Andy, but by the end I actually thought he was a really good character and had some pretty decent growth. It sort of feels like a bildungsroman for Final Fantasy (eg, like Great Expectations, but with more magic and fucking). He's not going to replace Cloud or Squall in any popularity contests, but it's interesting to see the dude sort of shape out throughout the story and come to terms with flaws and such in a way that feels fairly natural. It's just when he's in his moody edgy phase in the middle section he is a little much I would say.

 

It's everyone else who kinda suffers from not getting to share the spotlight, reminds me of FFVIII a bit like that. I feel like Gav should have been playable or something, like on one of his scouting missions, given just how much time they invest in him.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve reached a turning point with the side quests. By that I mean, I can’t be arsed with the fucking things anymore. 
Literally every one of them is the same old shit. “I need so many of this thing/need you to find a person.”

Go there. Kill some enemies. Listen to a tedious conversation that leads to fuck all. Rinse and repeat. 
 

The preview that stated “the side quests will add more to the story” was talking out of their arse. Maybe I’ll go back to them eventually. But for now? I’m sick of the sight of them. I just got two added, and went “Well you can fuck off”. 

[AndyKurosaki]

This is definitely going to be a “one and done” playthrough for me. The side quests remain complete bollocks. And now some of the main quests are joining in the “fun”.

 

One involved doing 3 separate fetch quests, for 3 different components. Each absolutely boring as fuck.

 

I genuinely don’t get how people are saying “Doing the side quests adds so much more to the story”. Because my argument to that is “No they fucking don’t”.

”Here’s someone you never met before. Go fetch them some pointless tat. Get in a few fights along the way. Then once the quest is done, never see them ever again”. How does that add to the story?

 

Also, I wish there was a run button. It takes bloody ages for Clive to finally get a sprint on, and god help you if you bump into something, as he stops completely. And he won’t run at all in the main hideout. It’s baffling.

 

The combat remains great, especially as you unlock more abilities. The plot is ok, I guess? 
 

But there’s a lot of boring shit to wade through, to get to the good stuff. And boring is certainly something FF7 Remake never was.

[AndyKurosaki]

Man, this is really becoming a chore to play. After an hour or so, I’m finding myself thinking “I’m bored, let’s play something else”. 
 

I’ve seen people claim this game has had them in tears. To each their own, I guess. But currently, all I’m thinking is “Why?”

 

I’m getting to a point where I don’t really give a toss about the story. Something is going on, I suppose. And I’ve been paying attention to the cutscenes. But the tedium is making me think “Yeah, whatever”. 
 

I’m not arsed about any of the characters. Clive remains very much “Meh”. I’ve seen people claim Jill is on par with Tifa. My reaction to that is “Is she bollocks”. If I have to hear bloody Goetz have one more conversation about “Getting in trouble with Nan”, it’ll be too soon. Piss off Goetz. 
 

I recently replayed FF6 as part of the Pixel Remaster series. It’s vastly superior to this. I played that way back on PS1, and it’s stuck in my head for decades. Once I’ve finished 16, I’ll have forgotten about it entirely before the year is out. 
 

Same goes for the music. I’ve had the music for 6/7/8/9 and Tactics stuck in my mind ever since I first played them. None of the music in this is standing out for me.
 

I know I’m being quite negative about this. The fact is, the combat is genuinely brilliant. Swapping between powers is easy, and satisfying. The boss fights are genuinely epic. But then you have to trudge through literal hours of tedium to get to the next good part. 
 

I’m about 70% through, so I may as well get to the end. Maybe it dramatically improves by then. I’m not so sure. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Andy who are these Final Fantasy XVI fans who keep telling you these things about how great it is all the time. Is it Blakey? I'll put on my Sephiroth cosplay and sort him out for you, let him and them know which is the actual best one. 

 

I know people will read your post and think you're being ridiculous sticking with this game, but ill back you up on how the thing is the parts that are good are so good that they leave you wanting more. They are literally some of the best gameplay sections I've seen in a game in years. Which is what drives people through the other stuff

 

It's a blue balls experience with this game.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve found a way to tolerate the absolutely shite side quests. Skipping them is a bad idea, as they give a decent amount of XP, cash, and some upgrades can only be earned by doing them. 
But, I’m sick of the tedious conversations, that inevitably lead nowhere. The mardy blacksmith caused 2 tedious fetch quests, that are literally the same thing each time. “I’ve seen an item/weapon/armour. I’ll never make anything as good. Wah wah wah”. Resulting in having to fetch something to convince him “You can make this after all”. The game cheerfully just threw 2 more of those, almost immediately after each other. 
 

My reaction to that? “Fuck this”. So I skipped the cut scene entirely. Went to the location for the quest. Skipped all the cut scenes that were bound to be just waffling bollocks anyway. And finished the quests in half the time. 
 

So i’m now doing that for all the side quests. If they can’t be arsed to make them interesting, I can’t be arsed to pay attention to them anymore. 
 

Thing is, I did 2 main story missions in tonight’s session, and those were interesting. Fun combat, and a few decent boss fights. So it’s not all boring shite. 
Barnabas certainly won’t be joining the classic FF enemy’s gallery though. All his dialogue sounds like he’s swallowed a Shakespeare library. He’s not threatening at all, and I’m looking forward to eventually killing the tedious bastard off. The sooner the better. 
 

So, yeah. Main game is good. Side quests, fucking shite.

[one-armed dwarf]

That blacksmith needs some lexapro. I lolled when I saw the quest text 'Blacksmith Blues IV', it's a whole fucking saga with this guy!

[AndyKurosaki]

Heh, it was indeed the Blacksmith that I was referring to. I should have twigged when it said “Blacksmith Blues 3”. I skipped my way through that, thinking “How many more times am I chasing after this mardy cunt?” 

 

Shortly afterwards, Blacksmith Blues 4 cropped up 😄

I skipped my way through that as well. To finish off that quest, I had to “Speak to the Blacksmith back at the base”. The thing was, he was stood right there after the quest ended. By all rights, I should have been able to talk to him there and then. But oh no, that’s too simple. So instead I had to teleport back to base, and THEN talk to him. 
Oh, and one side quest literally involved going across the same room, to talk to someone. Then walking 5 steps across it to talk to someone else. Boom, “Quest Complete”. 😄

 

Ive said it before, and I’ll say it again. The side quests in this game are absolutely wank.

[AndyKurosaki]

And that’s the story finished. While it wasn’t as godawful as FF13, this won’t be staying in my mind as a highlight of the series. There’s too much boring shit to get through, for it to be considered great. I’m relieved it’s over to be honest, and that’s not the sign of a classic game. I’ll certainly never replay it, and I’m probably not going to bother with the side quests/ trophies I missed.

 

I’ve no doubt whatsoever that 7 Rebirth next year will absolutely outclass this, in every possible way. Apart from Cid, there’s no other characters in this I gave a damn about. 

[Nag]

I'm back on this now after an Aliens shaped break... and I'm enjoying it again now. 

 

Fought 

Spoiler

Titan

tonight and yet again the boss battle was absolutely nuts... to the point of, a couple of times, thinking to myself what the fuck is going on with amount of particle effects and explosions going on. I think another reason I'm kind've back on board is that I've bitten the bullet and equipped the Ring of Timely Evasion which automatically dodges for you meaning I can just concentrate on twatting stuff.😁

 

Now I'm back to doing some low stake mission for Mid and a couple of side missions (which are sure to be riveting)... I think around 5 or 6 hunts became available too so I'll probably mop those up before continuing the story.

 

Edit... oh and that patch that enables you to kill the motion blur makes such a difference.

[AndyKurosaki]

I must admit, some of the later boss fights were an absolute fucking mess, visually. With explosions and motion blur, there were times i didn’t have a bloody clue what the hell was going on.

[one-armed dwarf]

Well I'm glad other people are saying what I was saying in the demo thread lol

 

The fighting can be great but it's basically invisible at times with its visuals, and often in a game ruining kind of way. Especially when it's a night scene

 

An enemy can wind an attack up right in front of you and you won't even see it

[one-armed dwarf]

Just on DLC, cause it came up in the hot topic thread, I really do think this game is a good candidate for it as there's lots of good ideas here which can be refined purely within its own framework rather than toss the whole thing out the bathwater again for FFXVII.

 

The big issue gameplay wise, aside from all the boring shit that has been talked about a lot here, comes down to how it feels to interact with enemies in this game and incentives to doing so. There's lots of cool things you can do in this game, but it's hard to find a reason to do any of it sometimes. Another game had this exact same issue, Kingdom Hearts 3. That had a really fun combat system, but completely frictionless challenge and overpowered abilities that made exploring it unrewarding. But RE:Mind, the DLC which added the data fights, some of the most spectacular and mechanically interesting combat encounters of that generation, if you're the type of player who looks for an incentive to improve and master a game's systems that content which came out 12 months later massively improved that whole package. Kingdom Hearts 2 did the same thing with Final Mix but that was only released in Japan. KH3 didn't turn overnight into a game its detractors suddenly loved or anything like that, but it became a much better action game (as did KH2 with FM on PS2)

 

I think XVI is an obvious candidate for this kinda hardcore combat mode addon. There's a particular thing you can do with DLC where because it's iterating on an established framework you can only take the whole thing further. None of XVI's design concepts are going to be suitable for a sequel, which probably will be a next gen game anyway on an entirely new engine with a different team. Sometimes 'Game++' is just worth doing, and I'm always surprised when people look at it as nickle and diming when it can be such an immense value add while completely ignorable if it's not the thing you want

[Maryokutai]

Counterpoint: why not refine it in a semi-sequel à la FFXVI-2 or a spin-off. My personal bias towards DLC might come through here and there but in a time where those large IPs only appear once in a generation anymore, I think mid-budget iterations in between are a better way to approach refined evolutions. It gives the audience something more substantial than DLC and it doesn't limit the potential customer base. DLC, outside of the negative stigma it has for some people, has two problems, firstly being attached to a game ("this 5-hour DLC is super good, but you have to buy this great-to-mediocre-rollercoaster 70€ game to access it) and secondly discoverability and audience awareness being extremely low. It's just a hard sell in the grand scheme of things. I'm one of the three people who enjoyed FFXV and even I didn't touch its DLC or Royal upgrade, even though all of it combined supposedly made the game significantly better. Would I have played a smaller-scale, 20-hour spin-off/sequel with all those improvements in place, all nicely packaged in a separate storyline? Very likely.

[one-armed dwarf]

That's what From do with the Armored Core games. 'For Answer' is Armored Core 4-2. I don't think it's a bad idea either, but even a title like that I consider a bit of an expansion-sequel.

 

For whatever reason it's not a popular approach. Maybe the reason is in its implementation, or sales potential, or both. The lower sales of stuff like the XIII sequels make me lean towards thinking its that. I'm curious if that's what they do with ACVI, use it as a platform to develop iterative games. Or was that the approach they just had to go with back in the pre-Demon's Souls days when their games weren't massive sellers like now

 

For me personally though with this game in particular, I would much rather a combat focused slice than a sequel. Frankly, the story part is just too boring to bother with if it's implemented like XVI's was.  

 

I suppose some might argue GoW Ragnarok is a big budget example of this approach, and Miles Morales. But that's Kratos and Spiderman

[AndyKurosaki]

Maybe I’m wrong, but didn’t Square say they would “Think about” doing DLC for this? Which is a bit weird, as usually those wheels are well in motion before the final game is released. 
 

Can’t say I’m bothered. By the end of this, even the main quest was starting to bore me. While the main villain wasn’t as forgettable as whoever that fucker was that just turned up unannounced at the end of FF9, he wasn’t great. 
 

If they do end up doing DLC, I’m not going to bother. Only interesting character was Cid, the rest were either mardy twats, or just boring. 
Neither will I ever do a New Game plus run. It took way too long to finish this once, I’ve no intention of ever doing it again. 
 

That’s not to say it’s a bad game. But it won’t be in my list of favourite FF games. 

[Maryokutai]

2 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

For whatever reason it's not a popular approach. Maybe the reason is in its implementation, or sales potential, or both. The lower sales of stuff like the XIII sequels make me lean towards thinking its that.

 

They just haven't found the right way to takle it yet. XIII-2 and LR have been commercial failures because XIII got such a negative reception back in the day. I remember people saying that XIII-2 was actually a decent game that fixed a lot of XIII's issues, but nobody was willing to give it a shot because XIII was such a disappointment initially. Ironically X and X-2 were the opposite and they tried to follow-up a fan favourite with something that was thematically almost diametrically opposed, and made people move away from it for that reason.

 

I don't think those examples are a good reason for why it can't work. They'd only have to re-focus on what XVI did right and fix what it did wrong. Ragnarok might be a bit too far into sequel territory but Miles Morales is indeed a good example of the kind of follow-up game I think they could wring out of this foundation.

[one-armed dwarf]

The issue is I don't think those are easily solvable problems. It's like saying with FFXV 'they just have to make a sequel game with good combat'. Forspoken was a decent attempt at a followup, but not nearly good enough. I mean, I really tried to like that one but it wasn't it. These XVI guys mostly have the combat down but would have to make a game with excellent quest design which involves the player in role playing its characters and makes them feel immersed in a detailed world. They have to get from 'MMO fetch quests' to 'Witcher 3 side quests', or close enough. 

 

I think sometimes a DLC is fine, cause you get more or what made the game good but also it means people can move on to the next project rather than always iterating on it. A valid point can be made with regard to FF throwing things out every numbered entry, but also we have FFVII Remake trilogy as the purely iterative take on Final Fantasy anyway.

 

Basically it's not a zero sum game really.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’d definitely agree about the combat. Though this has its flaws, the combat kept me going, as it’s awesome. Swapping between different abilities felt fluid, and it remained satisfying throughout. I know some people criticise it abandoning the usual FF battle mechanics, but it worked extremely well here. 
 

The side quests definitely need improvement, and it’s not as if that’s impossible. Tons of fetch quests aren’t new, Diablo 4 is full of them. But I didn’t mind those. In FF16, too many of the side quests are absolutely boring. Whoever said “they build a deeper connection to the narrative”, I’d love to know what they were smoking. Because to me, they genuinely didn’t. As is pretty obvious, I was absolutely sick of them. 
Doing them is important. But the only way I can figure out that it “builds a deeper connection”, is that every now and then people send you a letter, or gifts once your reputation reaches a specific level. But that didn’t make me give a fuck. I’d had enough. 
 

And again, I get side quests being needed. I’m replaying Mass Effect 2 now, and that’s got plenty of them. But, they’re actually interesting. 
 

So if Square could stop having us dash around, trying to cheer up a miserable twat blacksmith, that’d be great 😄

 

I’d also add a run button. Because it’s ridiculous how Clive will only run after moving in a direction for aaaaaages, and stop immediately when he bumps into a pebble. 

[Nag]

Mid's great... that is all.