I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 16 for the last couple of weeks and feel really let down by the hype and reviews of this game.
While I enjoy the deviation of the combat the rest of the game feels very incomplete. The vocal animations are frequently off. The travel from area to area is just an overworld map to select travel from one small area to another. There are like 2 or 3 side quests at a time and a whole vendor that will send you to side quests in different areas, but his menu is always empty.
In general, the graphics are roughly the same as FFXIV. The animations and music seem ripped right out of 14 as well. And the combat and akin to the main series Kingdom Hearts games.
Overall I’m enjoying it, but these 7-9 out of 10 reviews that are calling it some massive achievement seem really undeserved.
It’s a part of my most hated trend in the video game industry: video games that are ashamed to be video games so they try to fool you into thinking they’re a more “respectable” art form like TV shows or movies. The mainstream hype we’re seeing is probably that it’s popular with Naughty Dog fans rather than Final Fantasy fans.
I wish these types of games would at least consistently ape more interesting TV shows and movies. Alan Wake seems like the only one that didn’t aspire to be something forgettable. I don’t even like Twin Peaks but at least it’s an identity.
This game is okay enough that I’m probably going to eventually finish it but I don’t think I’d ever feel tempted to start it again even if somehow every other option available to me were objectively worse because at least some of what’s left would be memorable enough to care about.
The graphics are apparently deceptively good. Not immediately jaw-dropping for us lay people like the series is known for but more of a technical quality. I thought it was underwhelming on first glance but I admit I enjoy the things that video brings up now that I’ve started paying attention to them.
I haven’t had a chance to play it yet since I don’t own a PS5, but your comments sound a lot like what Yahtzee brought up in his review.
I too have been sceptical since I first heard about the idea of a “serious, mature mainline FF game”, since to me that sounds almost antithetical to what the series represents (it’s even got Fantasy in the name!).
I also have to say, knowing it was made by the same team as FFXIV dampened my interest in it a little. I played that game for a while (and enjoyed it quite a bit initially), but as time went on and I moved onto later expansions I started to lose interest in not only the story and the way it was told but also the direction the game was evolving in mechanically for the various classes.
I’m not saying it’s objectively bad, but it started to feel like my tastes for story and gameplay no longer align with Sony Creative Business Unit 3.