Linear, linear, linear

[Shougun]

It's funny when you actually sit and think about it - Because we have these ideas in our head before the game is released. We want to believe they can do all sorts of crazy shit right. But it's clear DMC combat wouldn't work in a Souls map, and XIV dungeons also don't really work because you don't 'pull' mobs. So it's very obvious they had to conform the dungeon areas into what DMC did. After-all, that's what they'd be comfortable with, and all games of this type do that.

You kinda have to expect the tropes to all fall into place when given chunks of the same pieces.

I don't hate them (zone level designs), just surprised at some of the simplicity or lack of exploration / 'gameplay' wonderment. I say wonderment because sometimes it's a puzzle or some backtrack that makes you go "ah-ha!". I always considered the environment as a non-verbal character of the game, so interacting with it should be a deep conversation- Souls like games have good practice at silent conversations (including environment). I just felt the gameplay elements of the zones in FFXVI didn't really 'silently' talk to me. Visually, including the visual design not just 'graphic quality' of the landscapes talk very well though- I am often pleased with the visual layouts.

I do think comparing GoW in this situation makes it easier to point out they 'could' have been different, though that doesn't mean they had to be (GoW combat is vaguely similar).

Personally I think what bothers me about the open world, and is also just probably a pet-peeve in general which makes it further personal lol, is that there are so many invisible walls. I see a small rock and think I'll hop up on it and the game is like NAH, YOU GO LEFT, OR YOU GO RIGHT, AND IT GOES TO THE SAME SPOT. Me: "how about this cliff". Game: "YOU GO LEFT OR YOU GO RIGHT- YOU GO TO SAME PLACE I TELL YOU, YOU TWIT". Also probably with a preconceived notion on top of that which was they would improve FFXV's open world exploration which did have some stronger movement controls- so I was pre-hoping for smoother environment interactions. The blending from running to hoping over fences is nice, but the jump is uh.. not very useful and you can imagine most of the game as a 2d isometric (in terms of movement, not visuals obviously). Something about being stuck on the ground, essentially, in a 3d world space, really gets to my monkey brain- 404s and dial up noises right away lol.

So I had visual exploration, but I felt I didn't have much tactical exploration. I think this is made a bit worse by the fact that, and you pointed this out I believe, the general rewards for exploring is like 2 gil and some wyrite lol. Doesn't really feel worth it and doesn't really feel like exploring anyways. I do appreciate that chests get their pop-up icon though, otherwise chests would be invisible lol. Next time I hope they can try to add some more interesting rewards, recipes, music rolls, etc. Probably similar to my feeling on quests, most are fairly straight forward (mechanically- tasks/rewards), but when I did the herbal quest that rewards you better potions I was like "now that's cool, worth".

Dungeons usually have a imperative to them so it's generally okay they're linear (funny thing in Fallout 4 where you are told to save your son and you spend the next 100 hours doing anything but that), and you don't really visit those instances again.. which would be unfortunate if they were loaded with miss-ables, but maybe there should be a few instance spaces that can take more time with you lol. Nearing the end but haven't quite seen one that isn't a sort of FFXIV dungeon path.

I already thought "hm, this is fun" in the beginning but as you get the other primals and the story continues to be (imo) great, game continues to feel better and better from there. Not that I had any major negatives anyways. I think my first thought "plz think of next time" is perhaps some sort of color coded telegraphs like GoW has, I use the focus ring because some enemies are not as communicative as I would wish on their telegraph (and also more importantly I cannot see a freaking thing when I use garuda's tornado, it's awesome looking but gameplay impossible to see lol- some sort of color seeping through the noise to help you would be nice). Then perhaps the exploration with thoughts on a more rewarding (doesn't mean larger amounts of gil) experience, and potentially either more free (less walls) or more structured (like GoW). Next one would be probably making the side quests have a stronger presentation when in casual conversation, lots of nice stories and some have great presentation in action like moments, but the camera work in non-intense moments (especially side quests) reminds me strongly of FFXIV's which is a bit jarring when you go from A+ cinematography to semi-awkward fade to blacks and simple pans. Maybe as an aside but Ramuh's O constantly messes me up as my brain is trained O is for movement and then it pulls me into a HUD and makes me really slow instead lol, would replace it with something else if I could (Ramuh with lightning rod and ignition is a bit hilarious to watch).

Just finished up a few more hours of play after some MSQ and was like damn, have to wait to do more (till next available time to play).. So that's a pretty good .

Funny I said I didn't intend to comment much, but it was nice enough to talk to you that I couldn't help have small thoughts while playing XD.