IGN FF16 review is almost like a critique of FF14's own issues

[R041]

Just beat XVI, AMA..

I don't really know how to feel - There's a lot wrong with this title. I want to really like it, but it makes it extremely difficult. Every time I expect it to do something correctly, it almost intentionally does the opposite or just forgets about it entirely.

The ludicrous amount of padding it does, have got to be some of the worst game design in 2023. It's funny because we chalk all of those similar issues in XIV to it being an MMO with 1.0 jank, but apparently it's just a CBU:III thing, because they brought the same exact jank with them to a single player game. I don't know if it's just that they're stuck in a bubble and have only really worked on an MMO, so they don't really know how else to design a game or what.

The pacing, quests, items, rewards, plot holes, dumb-plot, everything - It's all designed like it's an XIV expansion with really watered down DMC combat and horrible balance. You can see effort was put into a lot of the environments, systems, ideas - But then it all flops in the balance and direction.

Side quests are mostly generic medieval woe is me, they honestly don't do much to add to the world building, at least no more than passing by a person talking about their chickens, or talking shit to a bearer. Only a few of them add to the story or world, and no the last few good set at the very end of the game don't make up for the first 100 shit ones.

I can't count the amount of times my 'party' would constantly tell me I shouldn't do things alone, and that we're a team. Meanwhile the story always comes up with bullshit reasons to force me to 1v1. It purposefully made all important characters weak when it mattered, but strong in cutscenes. It was like a diabolus ex machina every time.

I'm not going to sit here and judge it like a Final Fantasy, because that's where people get you with their bullshit. This wasn't a bad Final Fantasy. It was a bad game. Anything it tried to do, it always did pretty poorly.

The action combat eventually turned into me basically doing an MMO rotation. It felt horrible to fight anything after the 50% mark of the game. So repetitive.
Forcing you to figure out which side quests had critical plotlines connected to the MSQ is a horrible way to tell a story. Yet you put filler bullshit in half of the MSQ. Shame.

The only thing it really did well, was manage to hype people out of their own godamn minds into thinking mediocrity is a 10/10.
For a game and story all about being conscious of your faults and struggles, it wasn't very conscious of it's own.

Good music, I liked some of the characters, and boss fights kinda sick tho.

7/10 story
4/10 gameplay



QTE QTE QTE QTE ALWAYS QTE QTE, WHEN DO I GET TO FIGHT THE BOSS MYSELF?

[Rufalus]

Suddenly FF XV and XVI change the way the games are played going forward, and everyone complains? Starting to think that even RPG fans have no clue about what they want anymore. Do you want a more traditional rpg style? Go play Final Fantasy 1-6? It's available in a whole pack?

I will keep replaying the old ones every few years for the rest of my life, but I expected to get brand new stuff too. They don't make a spiritual successor, they only make completely different stuff with mere references to the old FF series.

It turned out that Square is a completely different company without Sakaguchi. He continued to develop his unique style after leaving them 20 years ago. Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, The Last Story, Terra Battle, Fantasian. I haven't played Fantasian yet because it's an Apple Arcade exclusive.

He did the best he could without Square's resources. You can see innovative ideas in each one of his games while still being firmly in the same genre. This guy is a legend.

[Rufalus]

7/10 story
4/10 gameplay

QTE QTE QTE QTE ALWAYS QTE QTE, WHEN DO I GET TO FIGHT THE BOSS MYSELF?

The major review sites rate their first time experiences, which includes non-gameplay. They gave it 9/10 because wow Bahamut cutscene so exciting, skewing the perception of its worth as a game.

With such major flaws in actual game design it should not be considered near perfect. I'm really interested to see how UK's EDGE magazine score it next month, the people who smacked Sonic Frontiers with a 3/10.

[R041]

The major review sites rate their first time experiences, which includes non-gameplay. They gave it 9/10 because wow Bahamut cutscene so exciting, skewing the perception of its worth as a game.

With such major flaws in actual game design it should not be considered near perfect. I'm really interested to see how UK's EDGE magazine score it next month, the people who smacked Sonic Frontiers with a 3/10.

It's extremely obvious most reviews are due to a vertical slice of the best bits, I kinda doubt most of them actually played through the game, and less so beat it.

In the Demo I thought it was great. I figured it'd open up and the gameplay would expand. But nah, what you get in the demo is all of the good stuff, and even most of the abilities you'll be using 90% of the 40 hour MSQ. So you bet it'll get pretty damn repetitive, especially when most of the game is shit easy 1 button wipe the whole room.

Anyone saying 10/10 have to be out of their mind. Not only would I just never say any game is a straight 10/10, but this is almost Cyberpunk 2077 levels of bad and deceptive to me. (Personal opinion)

"Yeah it has a lot of flaws, but it's still 10/10 to me" - Make it make sense. lol
That means they enjoy the game, that doesn't mean it's the best game. That's totally different.. I enjoy plenty of trash games that are probably considered 3/10.

And I still enjoyed at least 30% of my time playing XVI. It just doesn't really warrant a second playthrough, and I certainly don't want another.

FF16 is as good of a game as Kingsglaive is a movie.. Take that as an insult or praise, however you prefer. Haha

[RitsukoSonoda]

The major review sites rate their first time experiences, which includes non-gameplay. They gave it 9/10 because wow Bahamut cutscene so exciting, skewing the perception of its worth as a game.

With such major flaws in actual game design it should not be considered near perfect. I'm really interested to see how UK's EDGE magazine score it next month, the people who smacked Sonic Frontiers with a 3/10.

Sadly a lot of games recently seem to rely on the "Jingle Keys" approach to getting good reviews. I rated the whole game at a 6/10 which I place as just enough to be considered good or decent. Definitely not a bad game. However again my main issue with this release is that it feels like an off genre spin-off title with very pretty visuals (though the mouth animations during cutscenes bother me every time I see them). Not a mainline quality game. I wouldn't be surprised if an overwhelming majority of the game's development time was spent just on the visuals. Apparently a number of people have reported FF16 has been causing their PS5's to overheat and shut off. You'd think a number of the titles found on Nintendo Switch would show developers that you can have a visually impressive game without trying to burn out the gamer's hardware.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

QTE QTE QTE QTE ALWAYS QTE QTE, WHEN DO I GET TO FIGHT THE BOSS MYSELF?

I'd say Asura's Wrath (which is basically QTE, the game) was a worthy experience, but i wouldn't pay for it a second time. I guess this'll be yet another FF game i'll skip. Not that i was gonna buy a PS5 anyway.

[Rufalus]

Also I don't hate CBU3. They have contributed some good things to the series. But they threw out a lot of good too. "One step forwards, two steps back" is very appropriate.

The XVI demo was a flattering slice. Caer Norvent turns out to be one of the best parts of the full game. Not overly long, has Cid and Benedikta, great dialogue, has a good variety of attacks/phases in the boss battle accompanied by impressive visuals. Most of the game is not that interesting.

[CelestiCer]

FF16 is terrible...

How can I tell without having played it yet you ask? Well I will tell you how I know it's terrible so buckle up here's the long explanation in vivid detail on why it's terrible...















































B-because I was promised that it had " Kaiten "... False promises!! it doesn't have it at all DX !!! dreams were dashed!! shattered! mhm!!

[Kisshu]

The ludicrous amount of padding it does, have got to be some of the worst game design in 2023. It's funny because we chalk all of those similar issues in XIV to it being an MMO with 1.0 jank, but apparently it's just a CBU:III thing, because they brought the same exact jank with them to a single player game. I don't know if it's just that they're stuck in a bubble and have only really worked on an MMO, so they don't really know how else to design a game or what.

The padding quickly becomes obvious.

"Come, we must get to the Phoenix Gate.

*Gets to Martha's Rest

"Well, the bridge is out, so you have to find our carpenter to fix it.

*Finds the carpenter

"Good job finding the carpenter, but he can't repair the bridge in a single cutscene. So you have to go see some dying bearers.

*Bridge is finally repaired, on to Eastpool

"Hey, before you can exit this gate, I need you to talk to this old dude, who just so happens to have wandered off so you have to find him first

------------------------------

Not even done with the game, yet it's nearly every time a village becomes a bottleneck I have to solve that area's problem before I can get past it.
Martha's Rest, Eastpool, Amber, Northreach (Tbf, it was after getting past it that the quest starts), Dalimil, Boklad.

-----------------------------

I do enjoy the game, but unlike some I really don't hope that this is the future of Final Fantasy in gameplay design and story.

Also a bit of a personal gripe. In the intro as young Clive you have the dragoon boss with an awesome thematic intro, looked so good. Then in the Greatwoods you got the Ninja boss, not a special intro but a nice cinematic ending. King's Fall boss was another dragoon, but still had a nice intro with the wyvern and the mirage jump part.
But after that it felt like human bosses just were less focused and never really used the job themes that well outside of the Dominant fights.
Even the Black Shields was another dragoon fight without anything special. Could have been so much cooler to introduce a Dark Knight here to keep the job themes going.

[R041]

The padding quickly becomes obvious.

"Come, we must get to the Phoenix Gate.

*Gets to Martha's Rest

"Well, the bridge is out, so you have to find our carpenter to fix it.

*Finds the carpenter

"Good job finding the carpenter, but he can't repair the bridge in a single cutscene. So you have to go see some dying bearers.

*Bridge is finally repaired, on to Eastpool

"Hey, before you can exit this gate, I need you to talk to this old dude, who just so happens to have wandered off so you have to find him first

------------------------------

Not even done with the game, yet it's nearly every time a village becomes a bottleneck I have to solve that area's problem before I can get past it.
Martha's Rest, Eastpool, Amber, Northreach (Tbf, it was after getting past it that the quest starts), Dalimil, Boklad.

-----------------------------

Right - It's riddled with it. This is the core of the gameplay, and once the underlying combat becomes dull - That's kinda what you're left with.

It was such a weird experience, because I do like a bit of the game, I think they have a lot they can work with. But I also believe they went with their MMO gut for the brunt of the gameplay, when FF has survived without constant fetch-quests for decades. I don't mind a few, every FF has a few. But it's all of them. And it's always something super stupid.

Like your example with the bridge, right there I can tell you - You can jump that godamn bridge, or shimmy the side. Our characters have shimmied ledges way worse, and jumped bridges more rickety and dangerous. But I have to do a whole fetch series to put 2 planks down so I can walk across a shallow lake?

They even write the fact that he likes doing fetch quests into the story, it's ridiculous. And I know for a fact people will use that as some kinda weird defense for shitty systems. "Yeah well the story says".. lol

I do enjoy the game, but unlike some I really don't hope that this is the future of Final Fantasy in gameplay design and story.

Also a bit of a personal gripe. In the intro as young Clive you have the dragoon boss with an awesome thematic intro, looked so good. Then in the Greatwoods you got the Ninja boss, not a special intro but a nice cinematic ending. King's Fall boss was another dragoon, but still had a nice intro with the wyvern and the mirage jump part.
But after that it felt like human bosses just were less focused and never really used the job themes that well outside of the Dominant fights.
Even the Black Shields was another dragoon fight without anything special. Could have been so much cooler to introduce a Dark Knight here to keep the job themes going.

That's what I keep saying about the vertical slice, they only fleshed out the few areas they've been promoting. The rest are pretty dull, samey, and lack similar snazz.

QTEs piss me off so much. They're the worst mechanic to me personally, and here it's just fucking egregious. If someone here hasn't playing XVI yet, you know how you can get a QTE in XIV Trials sometimes? Well imagine that being all the time, and it never telling you when it'll happen. So you could chip the boss 10% and then it's all cutscenes, or 50%, might give you your controller back, or not. Who knows? I never could figure out a pattern there.

I also find it funny that they pulled most of the bestiary and models directly from older games, but it somehow still lacks diversity. They purposefully neglected a ton of FF trope creatures. They have a few, but my personal quota is way too low. It's like they felt ashamed to really dive into FF, and thought it'd be better to go dull medieval on everything.

I won't tell someone that if they enjoy XVI they're wrong. There's a lot to like. But it loves to abuse tropes that are incredibly divisive and unpopular. When it does them, it REALLY has no shame. They're like a decade behind, and maybe we know why that is. I just don't think the archaic systems they used were used well enough in 2023 even.

This game is a good marketing scheme, it has promotion all over it, you can take a screenshot of anywhere and anything and sell it. But if you play it, you'll quickly realize they forgot to put that same effort into the actual gameplay. It's a shallow 100 mile long river, just like XIV MSQ.