I’ve seen a lot of positive praise and sentiment for XVI even from longtime fans and I find that worrying. I finished the game and thought it was a solid 5/10 at best and was happy for it to be over. The game felt closer to Genshin Impact than it did Final Fantasy.
The music was generally quite good and the eikon battles were a fun and new take, but just about everything else I found lacking.
spoiler
- The main story retreads themes that have been told many times and offers nothing unique. It’s clear early on we are on a quest to collect the rings of power to fight the big bad who thinks the only solution to the problem is starting over.
- Most characters were flat and uninteresting
- Combat was very simple and unengaging. It was simply not fun. You can only use about a quarter of the abilities you collect (not that theres many more youd find useful enough to use anyways)
- Crafting/itemization was pointless
- MMO-tier side quests (ironic considering XIV has some interesting ones)
- Story format is lifted straight from XIV as all “engagement” quests (ones with the red crossed swords on the map) are the same as XIV dungeons (trash, minor boss, trash, minor boss, trash, major boss)
- Empty world with no incentive for exploration
- Minimal play style variety despite the different eikon flavors
- No class system (I would have expected something listed as a “role playing game” to have some sort of class system)
- No party system in any form
Overally, fairly worried about the franchise since so many people are over the moon as it implies we might be getting more of the above. It feels like XVI took heavy inspiration from XIV but did a worse job at the highlights of XIV (story, job/battle system) and straight up copied some of the bad parts of XIV.
Now that it’s been a few weeks, hopefully more people have finished the game. What are your thoughts?
I would prefer a world where people don’t criticize it because “It’s not Final Fantasy”. Ever since X, they’ve been innovating and going various different directions.
That said, there do seem to be some fair criticisms that there’s no challenge - no difficulty that forces players to carefully consider their options. Even though I don’t go for the hard content in FFXIV (the MMO), I at least appreciate being punished for not recognizing boss mechanics, or for aggroing too many minions.
I’m also not hot on the art style being super dark. It was bad enough that the entire core cast of XV is all-male and just wears black. XVI does seem to have more varied landscapes as you go, but a lot of the early stuff is grim foggy castles at night.
This is not to say there’s not some amazing things about the game - it appears to have a lot going for it. But it seemed to have more going in terms of production budget than creativity.
The art director was the same as Tactics, Vagrant Story, FF12, etc., and that makes a lot of sense. I feel like tonally that was the right choice for the story, but it does leave something to be desired.
All things equal, I think the game is a good game on its own if you strip the Final Fantasy title, but once you compare it to other exclusives on the system (God of War, Horizon, etc) it looks…not quite as good.