It's no shock to anyone who has been following this blog or knows me in person that I am a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. So, it should be no surprise that as soon as Final Fantasy XVI came out, I bought it day one. I had that thing on pre-order and was excited to dive into another fantasy world, this time produced and directed by none other than Naoki Yoshida, director of Final Fantasy XIV, the critically acclaimed MMORPG with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn through the award-winning Stormblood expansion up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on playtime!
I played through the demo a week or so before the main game launched, and after playing through the full-release, most of my thoughts are still the same, with some additions. First, the battle system is still fun and the game definitely leans hard into the Devil May Cry style that, well, the combat director of Devil May Cry designed for this game. It's easily more of an action game than an RPG. It would be more appropriately described as an action game with RPG elements tacked on. Unfortunately, most of the abilities are sort of useless once you get the best skills around the mid to late game. The serve a purpose earlier on and depending on your playstyle you may get some more mileage out of them than I did, but there were a lot I just never bothered with. I'm not sure if that holds true with other games in this genre, but it seemed sort of pointless here and I wish there had been greater variety or utility. This same lack of depth is quite apparent in the "crafting" system, if it can be called that. Most materials you get just from doing the MSQ so you don't really have to go out farming for materials. As long as you do the MSQ, hunts, and side-quests, there isn't anything to worry about. You'll have everything you need.
The main focus, of the game is, of course, the story. This is a very story-heavy game and the dungeons and main quests are where the game shines brilliantly. The characters, overall, are engaging and fun to see on screen. Some are better than others, but most are rounded out enough to feel like real people. One villain in particular was always a pleasure to see on screen, and not just because she was hot and exuded a sort of dominatrix vibe (well, two villains did this in different ways). Honestly, I think a lot of guys find the quasi-domineering but feminine thing very attractive even if the person is on the wrong side of things. There may be red flags, but if you're colorblind or love the color red, it's not a problem! In all seriousness, I hated to see one get killed off so early on, and the other wasn't on screen often enough as far as I was concerned. Neither had enough screen time for me, and I think that's also a testament to how well the characters were portrayed in the short time they were there.
Side-quests were a let down too but they definitely follow the sort of standard MMO style sidequest of kill/gather "x" number of things and return for a reward with very little in the way of story or world-building. It's a shame since there are definitely some quests that are well worth it for those exact reasons, especially in the latter portion of the game. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do a good job of incentivizing sidequests, but there are some gems within the list of them.
Music is as good as to be expected from Masayoshi Soken, meaning it's epic and everything you could want.
There's a lot more I could say but that's what the video is for. One note I forgot to mention in the video is the pacing of the story. There are definitely some pacing issues and I think most of that has to do with the writers trying to drag out the drama and hopefully make they payoff bigger. For example, there is a meeting between to very important characters that is teased frequently during the game around the time there is the second time-jump in the story. This is a huge deal plot-wise. However, they drag it out and tease the player with this reunion for far too long. They even do the trope of both people being in the same building but miss each other by seconds. It is supremely frustrating and the one thing I hated about playing through it the first time. The payoff was great, I just don't know if it was worth giving everyone story-telling blue-balls to get there.
Anyway, I have more to say in the video but over all I'd give the game a B+. There are some great highs and lows in the story that really hit hard, and there is a lot of fun to be had with the game. However, there are some design and pacing issues that hold it back from being best of the best. At best, I'd be willing to give it an A-, but it's not S-tier. We'll see what the DLC adds later on.
