Final Fantasy XVI (22nd June 2023)

[Hero-of-Time]

I'm trying to defeat one of the beasts from a monster hunter. Thing is 10 levels higher than me. Clearly I'm not supposed to be fighting it yet but I'm stubborn. Died 3 times so far so it may be a lost cause.

[drahkon]

49 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm 8 levels higher

2 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Thing is 10 levels higher than me

[Julius]

1 hour ago, drahkon said:

I like the combat. Especially the fact that perfect evasion windows are relatively generous. I hate games where it's (almost) frame-perfect. Maybe I'll get tired of it, but 1/3rd through the game, I still love every encounter!

Oh yeah, to be clear, I love the idea of the series leaning into character action, and think they pull off the fun and flashiness of it here super well. Just would be infinitely better and more interesting with your typical weaknesses/resistances/etc., I feel  maybe next time? 

1 hour ago, drahkon said:

I do, however, hope that Final Fantasy will go back to traditional TURN-BASED JRPG goodness for the next mainline game. But I fear this won't happen...

It's a poor excuse, but I genuinely think that they're utilising remasters and remakes of the old games to say they've filled that hole in a weird way (the PS1 ports, VIII Remastered, Pixel Remasters, etc.). That IX remake we've heard whispers about for years now, along with Tactics, will surely - right? RIGHT?! - be stepping in any moment now to give us some turn-based goodness, even if it is in the form of a return vs a wholly new experience. 

I think the 50th anniversary in 2037 or XX, whichever arrives first, will be our next best bet at a main series game having some turn-based component. Hell, then again, I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to utilise ATB/turn-based flourishes along with the character action combat once the VII Remake project is wrapped up. 

54 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

When it comes to the battles, I dislike that enemies are damage sponges. I'm 8 levels higher than some of these things and they still take an age to bring down. 

I think this feeds into the issue with lack of weaknesses/resistances – it would make total sense if these battles lasted longer if those mechanics were included as a way to clue you in to change things up, but instead? Just mash awesome-looking attacks some more 

39 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Man, these spectacular sequences are fucking fire

  35% progression (Reveal hidden contents)

The fight against Typhon was some straight up DBZ action!

Ifrit/Clive keeping Spirit Bomb Hellfire going while getting rained down by energy bombs from Typhon...AWESOME!

And the music!

 

I love that I can hear this track without even playing the video. The diversity of the music is simply absurd 

 

Random aside: @Hero-of-Time think you'd love to check out some of the interviews Ben Starr (Clive's mo-cap and VA) has given once you beat the game, if you haven't already! Dude's awesome. But also: his first and favourite game in the franchise is VIII, and he loves X, too 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

 

Haha. Yeah, the hunt is a massive step up from the others. That's why I think it needs to be done later....

Never mind.

2 minutes ago, Julius said:

 

Random aside: @Hero-of-Time think you'd love to check out some of the interviews Ben Starr (Clive's mo-cap and VA) has given once you beat the game, if you haven't already! Dude's awesome. But also: his favourite game in the franchise is VIII, and he loves X, too 

 

A man of impeccable taste.

[drahkon]

Ah yes, the good old "more gil", "more AP", "more EXP" accessories have arrived.

Screw more damage

[Hero-of-Time]

16 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Ah yes, the good old "more gil", "more AP", "more EXP" accessories have arrived.

Screw more damage

Yup. Slapped on the EXP one straight away.

For some reason Byron reminds me of Douglas from the IT Crowd. Its a bit weird because he looks nothing like him. I think it's just the way he speaks.

 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Just been hit with a crazy amount of side quests. I think there's around 10 that have just popped up. Sigh.

[Hero-of-Time]

Currently sat at 97% completion. I could go and end the game now but I think I'll go look for some AP farming areas and try mop up a few miscellaneous trophies before moving on.

[Hero-of-Time]

It is done. Just the the two trophies left.

One for maxing all the abilities and the other for finishing the game again on FF mode. Ridiculous when developers put multiple playthrough trophies in their 60+ hour games.

Spoiler

Epic stuff. Loved how each of the summons had a part to play, with Clive's friends words offering support. Had a good laugh at Gav shouting "Howay, Clive!" Love it.

Hammering the square button on each of the attacks, especially the kamehama style one, was glorious. Proper DBZ moment.

Also, I loved the FF main theme popping up during the credits.

Overall I have mixed feelings about the game.

The combat is very weak, with little to no strategy involved at all. Everything looks nice and flashy but for the most part you don't have much control of what's going on. As Julius said, the fact that elements weren't used for weaknesses was such a missed opportunity.

The open world sections were really barren and boring. There was no real need for them and they didn't bring anything to the table other than artificially lengthening the game.

The characters, soundtrack and narrative are the 3 pillars that prop this game up. All 3 are really great. The story does get a bit wacky towards the end but then most FF games suffer from this.

I feel the second half of the game is far weaker than the first. The first half felt more personal, focused and paced very well, whereas the second half drags on at times, especially with the fetch quests that pop up to hinder your progress.

It's very much a game of 2 halves. Had they kept things linear I think it could have been a lot better and probably would have fared much more favourably in people's eyes. As it is, there are too many issues with it for it to be one of my top FF games. I'm still back and forth on whether I enjoyed this more or XV. At the moment I'd probably go with XV.

[drahkon]

What's with the lipsync? Sometimes it's spot on, sometimes it's terrible. Even for major characters

20 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Ridiculous when developers put multiple playthrough trophies in their 60+ hour games.

 

[drahkon]

Hunts aren't unlocked all at once? BOOOHHHHHH!
I was hoping to fight some high-level monsters to finally have an actual challenge

On 12/24/2023 at 8:50 PM, Hero-of-Time said:

The combat is very weak, with little to no strategy involved at all.

FFXVI has the same problem as Sea of Stars: Once you fought your first battle, you've seen it all. Yes, you occasionally get one or two new abilities but they change fuck all.

The more I play of FFXVI the more this turns out to be a "this could've been so much more" game...The world, the lore, the characters, the enemy design...it's so good but the game itself falls flat on so many levels.
I wish this was a traditional, turnbased Final Fantasy.

Edited December 26, 2023 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, the longer you play the more its warts start to show. It's very much like FFXV. Great amount of promise but poor execution.

[drahkon]

Oh man, just imagine a turn-based FFXVI with Gav as one of the party members. GOTY right there!

Anyways, 55% in. I assume something big is going to happen in the next 30 minutes.

Spoiler

TORGAL!

Edited December 26, 2023 by drahkon

[drahkon]

What the fuck is this?

Spoiler

 

What is this music? Terrible, horrible, awful. Takes away a lot of the epicness of that fight (which seems to take ages ).

Edit: And it gets worse
I think this is the first time that music ruins a fight for me...

Edited December 26, 2023 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Haha. Yeah, its completely out of left field and doesn't really fit at all. With you running towards the enemy at super speed and with that music playing, it felt like a Sonic game.

 

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Haha. Yeah, its completely out of left field and doesn't really fit at all. With you running towards the enemy at super speed and with that music playing, it felt like a Sonic game.

It's a good thing then that I never played a Sonic game.

And Clive, my man...are you in kindergarten? "If you can do it, I can do it, too".

"BUT I WANT HIS TOY"

Worst boss fight so far...

[drahkon]

How long is this boring sequence of mandatory fetch quests going to be?

Don't even know what this is all for as I've started to skip cutscenes left and right. Haven't missed anything important, yet. Watching the cutscenes before, during and right after the linear sections is sufficient

Edited December 26, 2023 by drahkon

[drahkon]

Played this game for most of the day and it feels like I made zero progress.

My mood has gone from "I LOVE THIS GAME" at the start to "this is a huge disappointment"...and I doubt it'll get better

[Julius]

38 minutes ago, drahkon said:

My mood has gone from "I LOVE THIS GAME" at the start to "this is a huge disappointment"...and I doubt it'll get better

No idea what your % story completion is at now, but trust me...it almost definitely gets better. Sucks to read that you're at that stage with the game, though 

Is it going to be enough to change your overall opinion on the game? No idea, though I'd guess probably not based on your last few posts. But I think you've still probably got a really solid beat or two in the story to get to yet  

When this game flies it absolutely soars, and when it doesn't...yeah, it really does feel like wading through mud  definite lessons to be learned going into whatever CBU III does next from this, but I'm confident they'll learn the right lessons based on how well they manage to consistently take and act on feedback with XIV 

[Hero-of-Time]

Final Fantasy mode completed and platinum obtained.

Man, that mode is horrible. It's not really that hard it's just that they made every enemy in the game a complete sponge, especially the bosses. Hammering square and R1 for nearly half an hour....yeah, that aint great game design. In comparison, FFVII Remake hard mode was done very well and you had to really think about your materia set up in order to progress.

Playing through the game again (this time skipping the cutscenes) just highlighted how little gameplay there is in the game. I mean, I went from start to finish without having ever to do side quests or take on random mobs and I was absolutely fine level/stats wise.

Like is tradition, I like to try and keep Square-Enix/big games for my trophy milestones. This was platinum 700.

After finishing it twice, I'm not sure it's worthy of the spot.

[drahkon]

47 minutes ago, Julius said:

Is it going to be enough to change your overall opinion on the game? No idea, though I'd guess probably not based on your last few posts. But I think you've still probably got a really solid beat or two in the story to get to yet  

69% (hehehe )

Yeah, I hope there are at least a few highs left.

35 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's not really that hard it's just that they made every enemy in the game a complete sponge, especially the bosses.

I feared that might be the case. Guess no Platinum for me then.

Congrats on number 700

Edited December 26, 2023 by drahkon

[drahkon]

Well...you can complain about everything else but damn...those moments are insane

Spoiler

The fight against Bahamut...

[Hero-of-Time]

Yup, that's the fight scene I went nuts over. Absolutely incredible. 

[drahkon]

10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yup, that's the fight scene I went nuts over. Absolutely incredible. 

And thankfully the music wasn't ass

Easily one of the coolest boss fights I've ever played!

Gonna continue today and I'm expecting 2-3 hours of absolute boredom It's a good thing that I'm going to get high later so maybe it'll be bearable

[drahkon]

2 hours ago, drahkon said:

Gonna continue today and I'm expecting 2-3 hours of absolute boredom

Also realized that I have 16k AP left to spend...goes to show how bad the actual systems in place are when you don't need new/upgraded abilities.