FINAL FANTASY XVI Reviews

The most dumb-downed and streamlined FF title to date. I think this is the first FF game ever where you only get to play as one character. Torgal and Jill are with us the majority of the game, why are they not playable? Combat is fine but absolutely zero depth. No MP, no elements, no (real) party members, no buffs, no status effects, and the list go on. Even free mobile games have more depth than FFXVI combat. The story is a snooze-fest and the characters are forgettable along with the most boring (both story wise and mechanic wise) side-quests you can imagine. This isn't an MMORPG Yoshi-P, you can't just put in boring fetch quests and be done with it. For the mainline story, it's obvious they tried to copy Game of Thrones but lack any of the high stakes or political theater. One thing that was really annoying was the constant loot screens and chapter titles. If you're going to streamline the game, just go all the way. Do we really need a screen on how much EXP/gil we got and how much our stats go up after every level up? It totally breaks the flow of the game having to sit and watch a few numbers that i don't care about slowly crawl up. One more thing was how some items that you find scattered throughout the world are downright pointless. Some are ridiculous like 3 gil. Really? 3 gil? That's like picking up 3 cents off the floor, a complete waste of our time. Speaking of gil, I had boatloads of it with nothing worth spending it on. What's that? I'm supposed to spend them on expensive Orchestrion rolls? No, I don't think I will. I don't hate this game, but I certainly don't like it either. 6/10

This game drags on WAY too long, an absolute chore to finish. Additionally, the sidequests are tedious and rarely add to the story.

One of those games I wish I could forget all about only to experience the story again like the first time. Loved the characters and both setting and story were fantastic. Doing all side quests gave me 60+ hours for one playthrough but the hours are used well, allowing both world and characters time to develop for events to have impact. This isn't a one-week bloated adventure, the story takes place over years and rushing it for a bite-sized experience would have been a waste. The real-time combat appears controversial for fans of Final Fantasy but I found the system to be really fun. The weakest part of the game are the generic side quests but even these felt worth playing simply because of the combat. I will give a fair warning that the game at times can feel like walking between fairly long cutscenes so players who don't enjoy that style of narration might have a rough time. I thought it was great and wouldn't hesitate to recommend Final Fantasy XVI to anyone. It's a game I'm going to remember for a long time.

Absolutely spectacular. Final Fantasy XVI is an unrelenting and inspired experience with a gorgeously written plot. While the narrative isn’t as tightly woven as I would have liked, what’s presented is a compelling piece on loss, purpose, and proactivity. Visually, it’s a marvel. I usually find games with realistic art styles to all look the same, but the lighting here is absolutely dazzling. It pushes beyond what I previously thought was possible in real-time rendering, making each environment feel alive. I’d like to think I’m hard to impress, but this game made me stop and take in the scenery like no other game has. This is all elevated by Masayoshi Soken’s breathtaking score. His compositions seamlessly transition from soft piano melodies to sweeping, epic tracks backed by a powerful choir, giving the game an emotional depth that lingers long after playing. The voice acting is another highlight. While the game has its fair share of classic Final Fantasy camp, the entire cast delivers stellar performances. Ben Starr, in particular, is phenomenal—his work in the final moments of the game gave me chills. That said, it’s not without its flaws. The sidequests often feel like tedious busywork, and the combat could benefit from a more refined system of chaining heavy and light attacks. Enemies are also frustratingly spongey, though these are all traits you get used to. But the most glaring issue is performance. After an incredible opening sequence, the game’s performance takes a nosedive. A severe memory leak can cause VRAM overflow, potentially freezing your PC after extended sessions. This became an issue that greatly hampered my enjoyment during my playthrough. Despite its shortcomings, this game delivers an unforgettable experience—visually stunning, emotionally resonant, and bolstered by an incredible score and performances. It’s a journey I cannot recommend enough.

I'm so invested in it, love the world they built, the combat feels amazing (note: it takes a while to get more complex). Honestly I'm super impressed, so glad that I picked up this game. :)

Rant incoming: RPG means role-playing-game. JRPG means JRPG means Japanese role-playing game. In this game, you're playing a character that's pre-defined. You don't custom-build them, you don't choose what they say, you don't decide any choices they make; you're watching a movie with some interactive cut-scenes. If you love the FF lore, get this game; plenty of recognizable summoned characters, save the "earth" plot, life and death of memorable people in a familiar world. If you have never played a FF game but enjoy fantasy movies get this game; this a linear story with minimal involvement. 60% cutscene, 20% wandering around looking for hidden items (1% if you run straight for the checkpoint, 20% actual gameplay. If you are looking for an actual RPG like Fallout, Skyrim, or games with custom-built characters, don't buy.

[b] This review does not contain story based spoilers. [/b] [h1] Final Fantasy XVI is a masterpiece! [/h1] There, I've said it. Why you ask?... It's at least as epic as the trailer shows, and the graphics on ultra are just as pretty as the ones on the store page. The game consists out of pure epicness, an amazing soundtrack, a very good and not easy to guess storyline, beautiful graphics and a satisfying fast paced combat system. [b] You do NOT have to play any previous titles to understand this game, [/b] the stories are unique and unrelated to each other. [h2] Character development & in-game information [/h2] The characters were of course very well made and in depth. I liked that a lot. I like games that have good character development and information on how characters came to be, no matter if they are the hero or villain, and however good or evil they may be. EVERY PART of the game, may it be small enemies, bosses, side characters, creatures or even the area's that you can explore [b] IN OPEN WORLD [/b] have an entry in the in-game encyclopedia, so if there is anything you don't understand, for sure you will find a lot of information there. There is even a timetable where you can see the status and relationships between main and side story characters, and their thoughts about each other as you progress through the story. What a feature! [h2] About the Combat System [/h2] Compared to other Final Fantasy games, the combat system is in real time, not turned based, not semi action turn based, but it leans more to the hack and slash genre. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the combat style in the devil may cry series, but with boss battles where you'll experience switching over from real time combat into epic cut scenes and then back to being in self control. Sometimes It felt like I was being a part of one immersive epic movie! [h2] About the DLC's [/h2] The DLC's were also a lot of fun, so if you like the base game, I'd recommend giving the DLC's a chance too. I played first the main game, then the Echoes of the fallen DLC and then the Rising tide DLC. It felt like a good order. [h2] About the Performance [/h2] Performance wise, I didn't experience any with my 'old' 10700k and RTX3080. My pc is outdated, but I was able to play the game on full settings with little to no framedrops. Only the cut scenes were sometimes a bit laggy when I took screenshots through steam, but I don't think that has much to do with the game really. [h2] As this review is coming to an end... [/h2] I was actually sad that I finished the game and that it was done. Probably I will be playing it once more in the future! I can't wait for the next Final Fantasy game to come out!

I've spent over 50 hours in this game, and it totally pulled me in. The story becomes more and more emotional over time and has some moments that really hit hard. The two DLCs aren't just nice extras—they feel like an essential part of the main story. Without them, the experience would feel incomplete. Visually, the game is insane: the effects look fantastic, and the boss fights are like something out of a movie—each one is a real highlight. The soundtrack fits perfectly: sometimes bombastic, sometimes quiet, but always spot on for the mood. The combat system is a lot of fun, even if it has a few quirks you need to get used to. What didn't quite click for me was the item system—I wished it had more depth. Some side quests drag on a bit, but if you stick with them, there are always some cool little stories to discover. All in all, it was an amazing experience and worth every penny. If you're into a gripping story, impressive presentation, and epic boss fights, you should definitely play it.

Final Fantasy 16 feels like a lazy MMO-lite that does not respect your time. It lacks the essence of a mainline FF and the overall quality, aside from its battle system and spectacle fights, is something you would expect from an MMO. I highly recommend you to look up people's criticism of the game. - I thought I wanted a dark, grim FF game until I played 16. But because they couldn't find, or even try to find, a balance in the writing, its world and characters just became depressing, monotone, dull and grey. - The majority of the characters are bland with zero personality. The conversations made my brain itch. - The game is filled to the brink with menial tasks and unnecessary time-wasters that frankly do not belong in a single player FF game. - Many main quests are simple fetch quests - go to point A, then B, then C, talk to an NPC, return to A and get a cutscene. And maybe do some more fetching. - The combat system has potential for deep, stylish combos. Just take a look on youtube. But the game doesn't reward creativity, and the first playthrough difficulty is far too easy. - Your usual FF elemental damage, strengths, weaknesses and statuses do not exist in this game. - There is no strategy aside from dodging, attacking the enemy until it staggers, and then unleashing your special attacks. Rinse-repeat. - It doesn't feel like your companions have any impact in fights. - The equipment system lacks depth. Every new piece just gives you higher stats than your previous equipment. There are no specializations or branching choices. Old stick does +10 dmg. New stick does +15 dmg. - Leveling up is underwhelming. It grants a small stat boost to each stat like +2 strength, +50 hp, +3 attack. - Maps frequently serve as artificial time sinks. Run across the map just to talk to someone, take detours around small obstacles like ravines you should be able to jump over or low cliffs you should be able to climb or jump down from. - You are not rewarded for exploring. There are no hidden treasures behind the waterfall. If you're lucky you'll find a couple of hides and 10 gil in the corner of the map. - Chocobo travel feels slow, and its sprinting animation looks off. It's like they decided to crank down its speed last minute but forgot to adjust the animation. Also, default chocobo mode is walking. Just another minor annoyance that adds up. - You can run and you can sprint. But you cannot manually start sprinting. The character starts sprinting automatically after appr. 6 seconds. HELLLOOOO??? WHAT ARE THESE DESIGN CHOICES??? - In towns, you can't sprint and you can't use the chocobo. A lot of questing is done in towns. - The jump is one of the most pathetic implementations I have ever seen. It's more of a hop and doesn't seem to serve a functional purpose in exploration mode, since you can't jump over most obstacles. It literally takes you about 1 foot above ground. This just adds to the whole plastic MMO feel. - The sidequests follow the same formula: go to A->B->C->Fight->return to A. There are a lot of them. - You cannot earn all achievements without purchasing two DLC. + Music is overall good. + A few spectacle battles look good and plays pretty good. It feels like FF16 was designed to keep the player occupied for as long as possible, rather than delivering a great experience. It has pacing issues, lots of artificial time sinks and padding, both avoidable and forced upon the player. Was the top priority, above all else, to deliver X amount of playtime, even at the cost of player satisfaction? There's something good here, but it's stretched too thin. If they had condensed this game into 20 hours it would probably have been great. I'm at the last mission yet this is the first FF I'm not going to bother finishing. It has felt like a chore throughout almost the entire playthrough. I do not recommend the game. It's a bastardization of the final fantasy main series and a showcase of everything wrong with modern games.

There's a lot to love about FF16. I love its story, I love its characters, and I love how its side quests do such a good job of fleshing out the land it takes place in and how the people in it grow and change over the course of the game. I love how for most of the game it feels like the various nations of the setting are making just as many moves as you do, to such an extent that it warranted a lore assistant tool being built into the pause screen of every cutscene. The kaiju-sized boss fights are flashy and awesome in ways I haven't felt since Asura's Wrath, the soundtrack is as amazing as you'd expect from Soken, and the combat, while no Devil May Cry, is satisfying. For the first 30, maybe 40 hours or so, I think most people would be hard pressed to call this a bad game. But this is not a 30 to 40 hour game. The core, fundamental problem with FF16 is that it wants you to think that it's an open world RPG, when in reality its overworld is largely dull and empty even compared to its cousin FF14. The towns are basically window dressing, the overworld only exists to make you walk through it, and the only thing holding any of it together is its bizarre obsession with rewarding you for everything you do with crafting materials in a game where the only things you can craft with them are equipment weaker than what you're already using. It doesn't take long to realize that FF16 is not a game about taking its open world seriously; it's a game where every time you finish a side quest it pops up a big HOLD F TO TELEPORT TO QUEST GIVER prompt to speed over to your reward of what is usually literal garbage. It never stops feeling almost oppressively linear to such a degree that even things like crouching under obstacles or jumping over gaps are all scripted events that you do by running at big blinking arrows in the environment. Your only real agency as a player is holding forward and swinging at anything that gets in your way, and you're expected to do this for about 70 hours or so. What you quickly realize is that there's a good reason most action games cap out at around 15-20 hours. The game just doesn't have enough variety in either its enemies or its player abilities to be entertaining nearly that long, and instead of emphasizing what is overall a plenty fun combat system it just highlights every fault it has when all you're doing is wailing on an adamantoise or a coeurl the game rolled out as a "boss" for the 200th time. Normally there would be diversions to break things up, like the usual minigames, but FF16 ditches those without replacing them with anything. By the time I was even halfway through the game had me pining for even FF15's mediocre stealth segments, because at least you were actually doing something different there. If the combat were more of a challenge then maybe it would be able to overcome this, but I'll never know because the only hard mode the game has is locked to New Game+. In an average fight the enemy is lucky if they even get to hit you at all, and if you resist the urge to just nuke most encounters off the map in seconds using the massive AoE attack you practically start the game with (which has no downsides or restrictions beyond a moderate cooldown, and also heals you every time you use it) they spend most of the time just getting juggled by 50 hit combos anyways. Near the end of the game it starts giving almost every boss the ability to teleport around nonstop to make them harder to read, and it's pretty much necessary by that point because it's the only way any of them can actually hit you before getting hit by 10 different parry abilities and sent to the floor within the first few seconds of the fight. For a while it's easy to keep yourself entertained by just playing with the abilities to do flashy combos for fun even if it isn't required, and every now and then you get moderately difficult fights in the game's higher ranked optional hunts, but most of the time it feels like challenging literal children to a game of wits just to flex on them because most of the enemies don't accommodate the combat system in any way. You barely even get the usual fun of customizing your character, because aside from weapons and completely non-cosmetic armor that are just given to you by the plot at regular intervals your only meaningful customization is the 3 accessory slots that feel like a parody. These pretty much only come in two flavors, either cutting off 3 or 4 seconds of cooldown from a move with a 40 second cooldown or buffing a single move with a 2 minute cooldown by 10%. One of the late game rewards for doing a certain amount of side quests is a necklace that "lowers charge-up time for ranged magic by 0.2 seconds", and these are somehow supposed to be comparable in any way to the tiny handful of accessories that give you a global 15% extra xp or just give you a flat attack buff. What holds the game up is its plot, but even that has issues. I love the game's side quests for their story, but they're all basically the same to play; you walk/ride to some spot that's always conveniently an equal distance between two fast travel points in the middle of nowhere, demolish a bunch of enemies you've already killed 1000 of, and then come back home. The game is at least cognizant of how dull they are and marks the quests that don't reward you with 8 briar clams and some string with a "+" sign to show that they're important, and the most common sentiment I see is that you should just skip everything that doesn't have that because of the atrociously mismatched quality the quests have. The problem is, if you actually do that you miss out on some of the best storytelling the game has. The side quests are where you get a context for the ongoing events of the world; you see Clive going from an unwilling errand boy to a leader figure looking out for the people of their hideout, with all sorts of NPCs having their own little mini arcs that really make it feel like home. Whole villages fall and rise, side characters go from being a minor side quest objective to a character you would throw yourself onto a sword for, and along the way you deliver about a thousand random ingredients to random nobodies. The good side quests all come together to show a world just trying to hold itself together on the brink of disaster and it's one of my favorite parts of the game, and the bad sidequests show you, the player, just trying to hold on amidst a torrent of generic mmo errands. But even if you ignore all of them, the main quest constantly reminds you that it's by the creators of FF14:ARR anyways, and at regular intervals the game comes to a screeching halt to make you fix a bridge or forcing you to stop and build a boat at the game's highest point, and in the latter case the game's story never really recovers its steam from it. The other problem with the game's side content is that they're never given to you naturally over time, or through exploration; they get dumped on you in packs of around 10 at a time at various story intervals that are usually the worst possible time to go off and side quest. There's a part right in the middle of the game's climax, between approaching the final boss and the final boss itself, where you're given 14 side quests and also invited to start the game's two entire story DLCs (which are fine, by the way, but not worth the $20 extra), which for whatever reason have been saved for this moment and not a second earlier. And that pretty much just describes the whole game. FF16 is a game that starts with one of the coolest openings I've ever seen in a video game, and then everything that follows is an unbelievably mixed bag. There are lots of extremely high highs, lots of abysmally low lows, and if you're like me and become interested enough in the story to want to see it to the end you'll probably find enough good content along the way for the journey to be worth it. It's just a shame about pretty much everything else.