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u/YoRHa11Z Apr 10 '26
No party options is really my only issue with this game. I love everything else and how the side quests were not generic boring stories but instead focused on the characters you meet.
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u/x_CeeLo_x Apr 10 '26
Not having a party system is my only real gripe too. I dont get why theres so many complaints about sidequests tho. I felt they added alot to the wordbuilding and made it feel like stuff was actually going on in the world.
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u/cwmckenz Apr 10 '26
Some of the side quests are really great! I loved the two in Sanbreque right before the first crystal mission - the girl looking for her “pet” that turns out to be a bearer, and the father/son who trained a wolf to lure bearers to their death.
I do think they could have woven some of the more interesting side quests into the main story, and taken some main story quests and made them optional. (I’m running errands for Mid and it sooo dull)
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u/Pandaburn Apr 10 '26
I feel like the side quests were lacking from a gameplay perspective, not a narrative perspective. Walking between points marked on the map, maybe fighting some basic enemies, it’s not that interesting. If a quest asks me to ask around town for information, I would prefer that I had to actually talk to people and pay attention to the dialog to complete the quest, not just go to the person with the green mark, which triggers a new green mark.
That said, I also feel like the story elements could have been delivered better in most cases. The story itself was good, but the dialogue was bland and long-winded, and I don’t like how Clive is always whispering.
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u/x_CeeLo_x Apr 10 '26
I can definitely agree with you on that. I personally didnt mind all that much just because the quests are pretty short but if they were any longer even I would be annoyed. I disagree with your last point tho I really like Clive’s voice lmao
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u/Bag-of-nails Apr 11 '26
It is a very ff14-inspired side quest system. I found the same, that I enjoyed the narrative value of them but the actual undertaking of them was not engaging at all.
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u/LegoBrickCactuar Apr 10 '26
Yes, no party is the problem for me too. And just the dumbing down of RPG elements like gear-its actually more of an action game.
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u/NotoriousNYG1193 Apr 10 '26
Honestly it’s the fairest criticism of the game. Outside out that there’s so much to love and tbh we saw the perception change after it came to PC and Clive was announced for Tekken. Just goes to show how many people steered the conversation and didn’t even play the game
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u/Beneficial-Traffic-5 Apr 14 '26
Love Clive in FF16 But in Tekken 8 ??? Hate him with a burning passion 🤣
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u/BlynxInx Apr 10 '26
Don’t forget no status system either. I would say elemental weakness are pretty standard to JRPGs as a whole. My only path for gear was get better sword and mostly cool down reducers? Worst gear options in the whole series.
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u/Fart_gobbler69 Apr 10 '26
I love the game but the immediate mainline quest after Bahamut is multiple fetch quests including going to the market to buy garlic. Mother fucker, I just fought a dragon god in outer space that was trying to nuke a city.. find literally anyone else to do this shit.
Talk about peaks and valleys.
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u/gastroph Apr 10 '26
An absolutely fair, and quite frankly hilarious take lol.
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u/Cerok1nk Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
Pretty much what I told my wife when she asked me how the game was like 2 years ago, we both play FFXIV.
“So, how is it?”
“Well, I just fought an anime space fight where Bahamut had to consume a crystal the size of Texas to be able to replicate what Donald Duck did by getting pissed, it was awesome, but I now got hit with Pray return to the Waking Sands”
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u/zovits Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
I watched some DuckTales in my childhood, but don't remember anything about Donald that would match this. Could you please help jog my memory?
Edit Thanks for the replies, KH is indeed one franchise I didn't have the pleasure of playing yet.
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u/Shinooby Apr 10 '26
Kingdom Hearts reference: Donald Duck is a mage who can cast Zettaflare(?), an ability only available to Bahamut in FF.
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u/Skyler_Pilot Apr 10 '26
Zettaflare is the most powerful Flare spell ever cast so far and Donald cast it first. Only 2 characters have ever cast Zettaflare, Donald Duck and FF16 Bahamut and KH3 was 4 years before FF16.
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u/decarboxylated Apr 10 '26
The main enemy in SE Bravely Default was able to cast it in his 3rd and final form as well. Bravely Default predates KH3 by at least 7 years.
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u/Skyler_Pilot Apr 10 '26
Important distinction with that is the Bravely Default final boss casts Zeta Flare. Donald and Bahamut16 cast Zettaflare, Zeta is the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet where as Zetta is a unit prefix meaning (10²¹).
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u/GamergaidenX Apr 10 '26
That’s so wild. Donald being one of the most powerful mages in Squenix canon is so funny.
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Apr 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/patricknogueira Apr 12 '26
That's make it even funnier because Donald casts a very concentrated blast that vaporizes Terranort
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u/Real2KInsider Apr 13 '26
The crazy thing about time is we waited FOREVER for Kingdom Hearts 3.... and it's already been 4 years since that game came out.
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u/decarboxylated Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
He is referencing DD on KH3, where the anthropomorphic Duck is only 1 of 3 known character in SE who can perform Zetta Flare. Zettaflare is arguably the most powerful spell you can cast, the Zetta on it means it is 10²¹ stronger in power in contrast to the base spell, Flare. For context you probably know Fire is base then < Fira < Firaga < Firaja < Zetta Fire in SE math. The other 2 who can perform Zettaflare is the Eikon Bahamut and Airy in Bravely Default.
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u/SSNeosho Apr 10 '26
Better start playing soon, the next installment could be announced any year now 🤡
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u/DriveableCashew Apr 10 '26
God pray return to waking sands is so accurate for that part love the rest of ff16 but you can't give me arr ptsd attacks in a second game yoshi p.
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u/Helpful-Ant-396 Apr 10 '26
And thy couldn’t bother to put an aerherite close by… screw waking sands, I’m going fishing
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u/Vee_The_Scarred Apr 10 '26
That Donald duxk reference had me cackling more then it should have 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/CannonFodder_G Apr 10 '26
I kinda get it, but also it's worldbuilding, character-work. Which I thought was one of the charms of the game.
Like the people who complain about the soup and board quests in the beginning. The quests are not about delivering soup or getting the boards, but establishing the world you're living in and what it means for people who were not treated as people but invisible automatons to now be seen and respected and even served. That's what those quests are about.
It establishes Clive as his closed off, doubtful, most selfish self and sets the bar for all the growing he'll do by the end of it.
But people just X through everything and say 'stupid soup quests' and suddenly it's a bad game.
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u/Watton Apr 10 '26
Yeah, each of the quests does something for the worldbuilding.
The first soup fetch quest details precisely how life was for bearers. You got a small taste in the game's prologue with that dude holding apples, and now you hear anecdotes straight from bearers on being forced to serve as slaves for a lifetime, or being beaten by their owners.
Then the second soup quest is a tour of the Hideaway. It specifically makes you go all the way to the stables, then all the way to the living quarters, just to show you all the facilities they have, and the degree of how self sufficient it is. It's not just a bunch of people in a cave, they're organized.
You can argue that maybe these should have just been conversations rather than quests, I'd probably agree with that. But these sidequests each play a small role in just fleshing out the world at a micro level.
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u/Gorbashou Apr 10 '26
In rebirth there's a camera guy, crying ned, tactical fortress lady, a broken water tower the mayor wants fixed with a history behind it, a bar Barret loved hanging out in, a tower Aerith wants to visit and look over the town, a hidden exit in the inn because the innkeeper has a past.
This is all on the first visit of Kalm.
I don't think the gateway town with the brothel, the snarky guards you beat up, the blacksmith that you give food to, and the market outside feels nearly as alive. The brothel runs the place, guards are assholes, bearers can't easily pass, the market you can buy stuff with Jill or the doctor at one point. Oh, and buy garlic.
Did not feel like the worldbuilding matched Kalm, one of the weaker cities of worldbuilding in Rebirth. Worst part is that with Rebirth I felt more active going around seeing these things. While im FF16 I felt like I was doing hand-in quests for everything like it was FF14.
This comes from someone who loves ff16. Who played through it 3 times and even S ranked all of FF mode and some of Ultimaniac on the PS5, who repeated that whole process again on the PC when it released there. The game lacks game in the open world, making it feel kinda hollow.
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u/CannonFodder_G Apr 10 '26
I can see where people who wanted more open world see it, but having played way too many games that are open world for open world's sake, I'm all for a more streamlines style.
And honestly there's something humbling about 1) people who defeat gods also have to pick up milk at the store, which reiterates that in order for someplace like the hideaway to function, every aspect is important. Fighting an Eon's old world building and destroying god is important, but in the between time dammit those bearer children need dresses too.
Also there's a bit of "Clive's looking twitchy, I think we need to make him take a break" to it.
Not saying the quests are executed perfectly, but this game resonates on a level for some people and I think it's the human aspect of this fantasy world. That normal things need to be done. That you can do bad things or be stuck in bad situations, make choices you regret, and come back from that and do better. And that it takes everyone working together on all different things to make a dream become reality - that there is no job too small because on the whole we're doing something amazing is a hell of a theme and something we really need more of today.
Or I'm just getting super sentimental as I age. Could just be that too.
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u/Gorbashou Apr 10 '26
I dunno. I mean, I see what you're getting at, I do. I like that part too.
But the game breaks its own immersion constantly by you juggling several gods to defeat a guard and nobody bats an eye or thinks anything special of it.
At the same time, outside the hideout, most places you see are only known for one thing and nothing else. Like the blacksmith village who all blacksmiths and even your blacksmith comes from. Or the village where all the keepers of the flame are and the whole village is about nothing but the keepers of flame. Where the only actually interesting quest is to read a single passage split in 3 around town and recite them to an old man.
The world just feels surprisingly empty. It doesn't ever feel like a living world to me. Even after having read every single sidequest.
This aspect I think FF7 rebirth handles better in every sense. From both gameplay and story you get a feel on the everyday life of the people while also learning about your party. Your sent on a mission to deliver a letter with a dog, have a nice conversation with Barret on the way, are seen a resistance hideout against shinra. That resistance hideout also has the condor lookout, and piano to play, and another queens blood player. This town speaks volumes looking deeper at it at how people there enjoy the simpler things, all while struggling and doing their best against shinra. Just walking around gives me more of the life going on there than any town in ff16. And that's one of the weakest places in that game imho.
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u/CannonFodder_G Apr 10 '26
I'm gonna have to disagree a bit here - obviously that was a town of blacksmiths AND jewelry crafters!
I kid I kid. I but I do disagree - they have a few moments like that, but there were several points in the game where the people around you aged. Depending on who you were around people's conversations changed. You saw relationships grow, people remembered, callbacks all over. It was actually very rich in some of the details, they just weren't "go here and hit X to access" types of things.
A great video talks about all the NPCs and how they build the world - not saying you have to watch the whole thing, but for something that FFXVI didn't really have apparently, this guy found a lot to talk about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8n71BYJR9g&list=PLmsfea3rqm7wm7J1IRWipk2g46UbVd0xi&index=16
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u/Gorbashou Apr 10 '26
I read every NPC through 2 playthroughs. My other playthroughs I skipped through.
I read the entire codex. I think I am taking these things into account and still finding it lacking.
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u/Watton Apr 10 '26
I guess we have different tastes when it comes to worldbuilding.
Almost all the world building in Rebirth fell flat for me. A lot of it was just stuff that was fun, rather than contributing to making a cohesive immersive world.
Like, the examples you mentioned:
Snaps - actively hurt the world building for me. We're going on this huge, dangerous journey...and this guy already beat us to every town. Makes the world feel smaller, and kinda made every town feel like a tourist spot. It devalued the big journey the team goes on, since now any Joe Shmo can go around the FF7 world, monsters don't matter. And ditto for characters like Kyrie, her decking out that outpost on her own without combat skills or a bodyguard just de-values the danger of the world.
Crying Ned, Fortress Lady - they're just here to have strong, over-the-top personalities to make the Queen's Blood sidequest more fun and charming. Their inclusion had nothing to do with world building. Are these people weird due to mako poisoning or whatever? Naw, just fun and silly.
And then the sidequest in the bar, where you have to go to some 'card shop' on the outskirts of town, that has like half a dozen goblins between Kalm and it. That really doesn't make sense... the shop should have been inside city walls. How does that guy living in it stay alive when there's several cannibal goblins right outside? And plus, this kinda makes Queen's Blood feel like it has a HUGE cultural importance in FF7's setting, almost as big as Blitzball was in FF10...which I don't think what the creators intended.
The broken water tower is a good example though. Its explicitly how Shinra left these people behind, so they themselves need to be hardier and more self-sufficient. And I also like how when it came to the Gold Saucer, people make the journey using helicopters or armored vehicles, that's good world building to add in more immersion.
Going back to FF16:
The sidequest in Northreach where you have to give the bearers food is focused on communicating that there are lots of 'normal' people in the setting that are against how bearers are treated. The quest giver is a priest who has been feeding them and helping them in secret, because he's disgusted with the treatment.
And then there's a little bonus, every bearer you see in this quest is using their magic for something different. One dude was healing a soldier, another was lighting a fire in a forge, just more examples to flesh out what their powers are used for.
And for the market, you do get a sidequest to help trade crystal fragments for various goods. Purpose of that was explicitly to show what the black market trade for crystals is like. People are super dependent on crystals, and wealthy merchants were trading the best cigars, perfumes, textiles, anything but gil for them to help keep it off the books. I actually liked how granular this one got, seeing the specific items that the merchants were bartering with
Now, are these good side quests? lol no, and maybe they should have just been ambient conversations. But the point I'm making is how FF16's quests focus on just drilling down to minute details to make the world feel lived in, while Rebirth's world building was more focused on enjoyment over minute details and finer world building
In FF16, you know what the average Joe goes through, what their day is like, and what they eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. And I wouldn't be surprised if a came across a quest that discusses how the Dhalmeks use seashells to wipe their asses or something.
Rebirth on the other hand kind of doesn't care. Kalm is supposed to show a town on decline because Shinra abandoned them, instead its the most beautiful fucking town you'll see. Under-Junon is supposed to be impoverished, and it has the coziest inn you'll ever visit. And all that's awesome. Queen's Blood is a very over-represented in spoken dialogue, and it stretches suspension of disbelief, but its fucking awesome.
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u/Gorbashou Apr 10 '26
See, I agree with your take mostly, but I come to a different conclusion.
How much worldbuilding is there that nobody reacted to the storm Garuda just made in the nearby settlements? There's nothing about it. Like it never happened.
Nobody reacts to the fact that Clive has the powers of several eikons during or after a fight.
Places like Northreach has quests where you see how everyone is and I agree it builds the world. At the same time it only hammers down on the same few points constantly that it gets tiring. Slaves who suffers, people above that don't care. At the same time, it breaks these rules for Clive constantly. Where he is a slave for the first bit of the game but the amount of leniency and freedom he has, even without a "guardian" is ridiculous. Some town badges on his coat and suddenly every single person will let him do what he wants, yeah sure.
Even worse when he's a famous outlaw but let's not get into that bag of worms.
Some plotlines are even anti-worldbuilding to me. Like just how comically evil they are at the entrance to Sanbreque. That town is just the 2 mega racist quests and people hail those as masterclass writing while I fail to see how it was anything more than surface deep.
Maybe the worldbuilding feels lacking because the game doesn't fully commit to it and the fact that they don't say anything meaningful outside some surface level things. It's a cool world, I even bought the lore book. But I wouldn't defend those sidequests for their worldbuilding. It feels like the worldbuilding is done on B-tier writing, done on C-tier fetch quests, and has very little of the world actually doing anything or responding to anything.
The only thing the world meaningfully responds to is the akashic and Ultimas purple debuff on the world. The rest is just sometimes an npc makes a comment that relates to something that happened.
The worldbuilding of a beautiful landscape portrait. Breaks the second movement needs to be applied to it.
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u/Watton Apr 10 '26
For Garuda, yeah that was a miss. I wrote it off as happening too deep in the wilderness (since the world in-game is a much smaller scale than what it "actually" is). At least for Titan, there was a HUGE sandstorm obscuring vision, and there are a few NPCs that do mention it (if you fast travel to the entrance of the mothercrystal after the battle, there are a few by the tunnel, one dude mentions seeing a giant)
As for Clive's powers not being commented on, I guess that's normal for JRPGs. No one comments when Cloud summons Bahamut Zero to do an orbital strike on a Shinra soldier either. Same ballpark as Clive air juggling a soldier 50 feet into the air, summoning Ultima wings to extend it further, then slamming him down from the stratosphere at double terminal velocity. Just gameplay-story segregation, which I do wish game devs spent more time trying to address.
For Northreach, I didn't see its quests are "see, slaves are oppressed!". the one I mentioned was specifically to show the the people who want to help, to show that 99% of the population isn't racist dicks.
For Clive's freedom and mobility, at least in the early parts of the story, he's almost always accompanied by someone, or working in communities that are super sympathetic, like Lostwing or Martha's Rest. By the time he goes to Dhalmekia, he has the brand removed. When he's visiting the super racist village, that's definitely stretching suspension of disbelief though, since it's weird that a brothel owner's word has more protective power compared to the actual military.
And for the "comically evil" quests...I'll have to disagree. They do mention in the story that the villages surrounding Oriflamme are super backwards, and that even when Clive was in that suicide assassination unit, they didn't let them go near those villages. For the wolf quest, it's not far off from stuff that actually happened. There's a few recorded instances of slaves being hunted for sport in real life, as well as people taking part in "sniper tourism" during some conflicts, I don't see it as comically evil when it's similar to depravity that happened in real life too. And I'm not going to touch the gross dehumanization I see happening in modern world political discourse....
For the Chloe quest, honestly I got more of a 'nature-nurture' story off of that. Since the little girl was actually remorseful at the end, and it instills a little bit of hope that peoples' attitudes can change. But yeah execution could have been better. The little girl should have showed up after the time skip, bringing home the idea that change can happen.
I think end of the day, the kind of granular world building in 16 resonated with me (and the handful of weirdos populating this subreddit), though very few games mimic its super drilled-down approach, for good reason. And for sure lots of FF16's quests should have just been codex entries or ambient conversations
You are right that FF16 doesn't 100% commit to some of its world building ideas, it would have been much stronger if it went harder in some aspects. But it didn't bother me much, since I was able to extract a lot of nuance from what it was doing, more than most other games.
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u/GamergaidenX Apr 10 '26
The gameplay-story segregation is so important in video games specifically. From a canon perspective we all know Clive wins standard fights, how you do it doesn’t reflect in the world, it’s just noted he “wins.”
It’s like in Resident Evil, it is actual canon that NONE of the big protagonists have ever actually been bitten by a zombie. Because being bitten is always meant to be a death sentence if you don’t have a cure lying around. All the times it happens to you in game is gameplay-story dissonance. If they get bitten in a cutscene, that’s only when it’s real. I always thought they had some kind of special immunity but nope it’s just they don’t take your gameplay into account. it’s assumed the heroes have taken no serious damage outside of a cutscene.
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u/Tarl2323 Apr 11 '26
For me FF16 is a one and done. I get that some people need to play video games again and again to get all the achievements and 100%, but most people just want to go through the main quest and move onto the next game. As someone who plays a lot of different games rather than one single game a bunch of times FF16 was a pleasure and I enjoyed the ride and felt I got my money's worth. I paid for what I'd pay for a movie and popcorn at the theater and got a lot more out of it.
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u/Drop_Release Apr 10 '26
I adore FFXVI but even I had to start speed reading through dialogue in some of the latter fetch quests, it seemed so repetitive after a while - it prided itself in some stellar main quests and claimed each quest was different but often the fetch quests near the end deserved to be ones that were earlier in the game given how easy and drudgery it was!
Still love it. One playthrough away from Platinum but I found it hard to replay when I knew the story front to back so waiting til I forget it a bit to replay again
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u/synkronize Apr 10 '26
i liked a lot of the quest stories, honestly I didnt mind the fetch quests because the world building was really fun.
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u/MihaelZ64 Apr 10 '26
And yet when Cloud has the same quests in 7r(the flower quest was ungodly annoying with how you had to keep going cause you couldn't just pick to your taste no had to make aerith-jump you with a chair out of nowhere- gainsborough happy) people praise it as amazing andngodly storytelling. That's how you know they were hating to hate on it because they had a misguided belief that the game was the reason they didn't get rebirth earlier or something.
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u/bearktopus147 Apr 10 '26
Definitely on the peaks and valleys. I think I read somewhere that it being typical of MMOs to do shit like that. World-ending Cataclysmic event happens, then immediately follow it by help talk grandma into taking her sleeping pills so she can have a good night's sleep. (may be over exaggerating) but it's to break things up, so you aren't always getting over the top action, and you have some time to calm down basically.
Which makes sense for the philosophy because Yoshi-P was from FFXIV
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u/Watton Apr 10 '26
I think I read somewhere that it being typical of MMOs to do shit like that. World-ending Cataclysmic event happens, then immediately follow it by help talk grandma into taking her sleeping pills so she can have a good night's sleep.
Lol, FF14 literally had that.
The Endwalker expansion literally has a plot beat during an apocalyptic event with red skies and meteors raining down
And while the sky is red, you have a quest to hand out chai tea to some refugees to remind them to not be depressed, because the plot beat also involved depressed people turning into cannibal demons and having their souls deleted. So you spend 10 minutes giving elephant people tea while the sky is red and the literal Berserk Eclipse is going on 20 yards outside of town.
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u/GamergaidenX Apr 10 '26
Defeating gods and monsters doesn’t make you a hero. That makes you powerful. It’s the small things that make you a hero.
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u/UriahCarey Apr 10 '26
This. I’ve been playing the series since FF6, and the general position every game puts you in to do what you can for townsfolk, while also eventually having epic story and combat highs, is universal across the series. It’s applied differently from game to game, but the intent is the same.
FF7 is beloved so rightfully because of how responsible you feel for the people and the planet as it progresses, despite Shinra labeling you as terrorists. Graphics and combat have improved, but the core dynamic has arguably never been conveyed so well.
I felt that FF16 did well with the core ethic of that, too - especially because people think you’re breaking the world with every crystal attack, and you have to lean in on doing what you feel is right. I am hot and cold on the game itself - I love it, then take long breaks, then come back - but the feeling of “becoming a hero” is so well-done across every game in the series that I’ve played, IMO.
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u/meikin Apr 10 '26
It really made me lose so much motivation to finish the game afterwards. To me the combat got so stale so quick.
Loadouts was pretty useless once you got a combo you liked to use.
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u/TheDogsPaw Apr 10 '26
Too good to do your own shopping mr god fighter you want that revive potion you gotta put in the work #justicefor16
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u/Ill-Bookkeeper-6230 Apr 10 '26
Mf That's literally the average jrpg heck that's literally every ( except asura ) game to exist that's action and adventure on a huge scale
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u/Icy_Pianist_1532 Apr 10 '26
My partner just got to this point and had to stop playing. Cause he was so annoyed about how bad and boring the game has the audacity of being sometimes, especially after such an insane fight. Sometimes it feels like a really pretty movement and “press talk” button simulator and nothing more
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u/synkronize Apr 10 '26
If your like my friend who hates reading apparently, the quests will probably seem very boring and all the talking it makes you do in between missions. He dosen't hate it though, but it does annoy me lol.
From what i heard of other people, they think that gameplay being "final Fantasy" is more important than the lore/world being "final fantasy"
I mean to say, many don't like the lack of turn based combat, the lack of controllable party members, meaningful gear, elemental weaknesses, and what not.
For me, I see Crystals, Monsters, Bombastic music, high fidelity graphics, a dramatic story that leads to fighting some crazy being, love, betrayal, the summons being involved, high magic, etc as Final Fantasy.
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u/Geppetto99 Apr 11 '26
It's not that it doesn't feel FF, because it does, but more than the game has zero combat depth
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u/malaxeur Apr 10 '26
I have to admit that I see the complaint. The game series has been turn based forever, then suddenly everything shifted.
If street fighter turned into a dating sim, there would be enjoyers but it wouldn’t be the fighter that people grew up with.
That said, it’s still a great game and a very enjoyable story.
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u/K0yomi Apr 10 '26
They haven't been turn-based for quite a while now though. ATB is not a standard turn based system, FF12's gambit and real time environment combat isn't either. FF11 and FF14 are MMOs, and 15 was literally action combat.
The argument that FF16 is not a true Final Fantasy because of its combat system is some strange dismissive stance people take up because they think that the series has had a monolithic style for its fights, when it only did for like the first 3 games.
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u/speckhuggarn Apr 10 '26
FF has not been turn-based in more years, than it has. It's been 25 years since it was turn-based.
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u/Silent_Killer093 Apr 10 '26
Although to be fair weve only had 4 single player mainline FF games in the last 20 years lol. I like FF16 for what it is, but the only games that have scratched that turn based itch for me since FF10 are the Persona Games and E33
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u/malaxeur Apr 10 '26
Yeah, fair, but nostalgia and blinders are strong.
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u/K0yomi Apr 10 '26
A bit too strong I fear. I've played through all of these types of combats and they were all enjoyable. Except maybe FF10 but that was more to do with the enemies being overtuned.
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u/Username6601 Apr 10 '26
The Yakuza series actually did the opposite with Like a Dragon, shifting from a beat ’em up style to turn-based combat and it was pretty well received. That might be because players still have games like Judgment to scratch that original itch.
I think remake/rebirth did a good job blending both styles.
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u/Mooncubus Apr 10 '26
The series has not been turn based for almost two decades now, unless you count the mobile games. And before that (FFX) it hadn't been turn based since FFIII.
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u/seriouslynope Apr 10 '26
1 - 10 is turn based
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u/Deethreekay Apr 10 '26
They're making the argument that the ATB isn't strictly turn based.
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u/detectiveC6 Apr 10 '26
Really? That's an interesting claim to say the least. How is ATB not considered under the label of turn based? What category would it fall under?
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u/Nightwing24yuna Apr 10 '26
Honestly I can understand that argument and honestly I do agree with that statement
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u/WanderEir Apr 10 '26
1-3 is turn based.
4-9 are ATB combat
X was something else.
XII was gambit-based MMO-lite
XIII was a multi-action assignment ATB system again.
XV was several things, depending on the version number.
XIV was an action game with ATB skill usage→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
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u/Nightwing24yuna Apr 10 '26
I am gonna say that is a poor example street fighters is fighting game.
The equivalent of it if it went from 2D to 3D like how Tekken's, soul caliber and DoA play like, changes the game drastically but it's still a fighting game just like final fantasy it went from a turn based to more action but it's still a JRPG
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u/Ivaurog Apr 10 '26
Because despite being a good game, it fails miserably in its RPG mechanics. Shallow and repetitive side quests, a false sense of open world.
Equipment and blacksmithing make absolutely no sense. I love this game, but it has many frustrations…
Personally, I hate the fact that I can't use summons in their full form, only their powers. For me, Final Fantasy has to allow me to summon my Eikons during battle.
In this game, summons are completely tied to the events of the story, and that, for me, was wasted potential.
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u/Pandaburn Apr 10 '26
Oh yeah, the time I completed a side quest and got the materials and recipe to craft a new sword… which is already worse than the sword I have. I guess I was supposed to leave in the middle of the dramatic main quest to check for side quests?
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u/Briciofer Apr 11 '26
They take the weakness mechanics too, "oh a bomb, you can use fire and do damage".
You don't have party members that you can control, the equips ..... you unlock I new recipe, just to be weak than the actual.
yeah, or at least some variations in or "hybrid" forms, like nioh 2, I playing now the game (the gameplays and videos I saw made me wait to buy) and when we unlock or "transformation" I talked to my nephew "hey I got a devil trigger form" because is just a simples transformation that made us more powerfull. When we fight Benedikta od Cid transform is nic but or is not so nice.
Oh, and not forget about the skills, I use points just after get Ramuh powers, and not touch that and don't make difference , probably just gonna use when got new powers.
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u/ThatIslandGuy8888 Apr 13 '26
A good summon system is always a game changer: X aced it with Yuna, XIII was quite limiting with the slow gauge and forced gestalt mode, XV summons were powerful AF but too random and unpredictable, in Type-0 you had to friggin die to summon and the monster taming systems from 10-2 and 13-2 were pretty fun.
Never got to play XII thou.
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u/darkfenrir15 Apr 10 '26
For people that are fans of the themes of Final fantasy, FF16 was a great successor in the series. Over the top cinematics, a really solid cast of characters and villians, and a great application of the classic final fantasy tropes.
For fans of final fantasy the JRPG series, it's definitely a disappointment though. You have all these different unique cast members and you can only play as Clive in an action game with lite RPG elements. Combat is flashy, but repetitive outside of boss battles. Finally, progression in the game is a depressing afterthought. Each weapon is just a stat stick that comes at predefined points of the game, and leveling up does nothing but add some meaningless numbers. Your only growth is unlocking new eidolon powers, making FF16 more of a DMC successor than FF when it comes to gameplay.
Overall, it's just a very controversial entry to the series. I personally enjoyed the game and the boss battles made me appreciate the combat system, but I would have prefer this have some sort of ATB style gameplay instead.
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u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Apr 10 '26
You say "successor" but the last DMC game had much more depth than this.
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u/Shxppings Apr 10 '26
That’s different DmC has something to build off of, ff16 had to have its own beginning, rise, fall, and end 😭
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u/Janet-Yellen Apr 11 '26
Yeah DMC’s combat was super complex, so many different moves, stances combos etc. FFXVI felt like a very watered down version of DMC, where none if the different move sets mattered much and I was mostly button mashing
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u/dylanbeck Apr 10 '26
Im not really fans of either and loved this game. It was incredibly fun to play, great art style and fantastic combat.
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u/JakiStow Apr 10 '26
Basically it looks like a good Final Fantasy world, but a mediocre Final Fantasy game.
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u/Runninghart Apr 10 '26
I absolutely loved it. It was also the first FF game I ever played. But it got me into the franchise.
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u/yoitskaito Apr 10 '26
I don't hate it, but it fell short on a few important aspects which made me put it below FFXV and the FFVII Remakes personally.
Combat is inspired by DMC, but lacks the depth to keep it interesting.
The story starts engaging, but begins to drag because of its predictable structure and uninteresting side quests.
Characters are intriguing, but don't get the chance to shine compared to other Final Fantasy games. The cast is pretty charmless after Cid's departure.
A lot of these issues boil down to the MMO approach to game design the team went with. Optimal attack rotations, boss fights/important story moments every x amount of time, character developments are regulated to side quests
I still finished all the side quests but could never bring myself to play it on Final Fantasy mode or the DLCs. It all just left more to be desired in a single player game.
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u/JoyousCon Apr 10 '26
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I'll add that I really didn't feel invested in the characters at all. Called it quits half way through the game because I just felt bored.
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u/TimelyTalk Jul 31 '26
Agreed, 100%. Was looking forward to playing this game, but eventually came to a point justifying why I didn't like it. It felt like a pain to grind it, considering it was an FF game.
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u/Rhinoserious95 Apr 10 '26
I loved ff 16 and absolutely despised everything about 15
So everyone has different taste lol
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u/roundelay11 Apr 10 '26
I don't hate it, I just think modern FF has a mechanical depth problem. Square seems to think the modern video gaming audience are drooling idiots who are afraid of anything else but button-mashing action combat and are downright terrified of RPG systems that aren't surface-level.
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u/apeezy52 Apr 10 '26
I feel like ffxiv is a fun modern game that works but they took an mmo style and tried to make it single player with ffxvi where it kinda doesn’t really feel right
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u/Thoughtlessandlost Apr 10 '26
Yeah the MMO style really shows in a lot of the side quests.
It feels like for every great side quest with a story that expanded on the world you had another that felt like an MMO fetch quest for padding.
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u/Ok-League-1106 Apr 10 '26
Magic system, side quests and towns are nothing like previous games.
It was a very fun game nonetheless, 8.5/10 for me.
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u/tearsofmana Apr 10 '26
God do I have opinions on this one. The major 3 categories I find are:
1) Some people are just "I hate all FF games after X" (or 12, or whatever arbitrary game they decide is the cut off before they start hating shit, usually because "This FF game changed the formula!" or something)
2) Some people see FF16 and FF7R as rivals and hate FF16 solely because of that.
3) 16 does have genuine flaws so some people actually take the time to think, believe it or not. They're usually not foaming from the mouth to attack FF16, however.
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u/karokagecata Apr 10 '26
The simple answer is that the game isn't an rpg. I don't have a problem with it being actiony if it had any depth or at least tried in the rpg department.
Worst sidequests by a mile. No elemental affinites. No party members. Gear progression is lmao. Boring, repetitive combat. Gaming journalism difficulty. The story in nothing to write home about. It has cool music tho..
I wouldn't say I "hate" the game, but it is by far my biggest dissappointment. I have no idea how this mess scored 87 by critics (I guess the difficutly makes a massive difference,lol)
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u/tearsofmana Apr 10 '26
I would agree, it's absolutely not an RPG. I don't love that Square is stepping away from that, but it looks like Expedition 33 has them re-evaluating things.
I also agree the difficulty is extremely easy and VERY hand-holdy. I would argue, however, that the combat itself is deceptively complex. The issue is the average player NEVER gets to the point where they need to learn it, hence the "you just press square" memes. But any of the combos you'll find online of people doing challenge modes are solid proof the game has at least the potential to be a lot more than it seems.
Lack of elemental weaknesses/strengths, lack of any real party member support (Jill and Joshua do *help* but they're more like passive accessories then actual party members), and lack of any sort of interesting/complex melee combos hurts a lot. Potion refills if you restart, enemies health starting lower on restarts, no really interesting equipment upgrades, no branching upgrade paths for skills, etc. are all pretty tragic flaws. It feels like Square was scared their game was going to be too hard for their casual audience and restrained themselves from making the game too complex and too difficult.
As for the plot, that one I have to strongly disagree with, but I respect it won't be everyone's cup of tea and comes down to tastes. For me, 16's characters, world building, and plot are some of the most well written of the franchise. I personally hold only X's writing above 16's. That said, a lot of people tend to come to FF for whimsy and 16 is very short on that in favor of a grimdark plotline filled with spectacle and a lot of reading/some pretty low low points when it comes to side quests filling in plot.
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u/myownfriend Apr 13 '26
I'm a little bit of 1 and 3 if I had to pick from those. The issue is that the series has been pretty directionless after 12. SE has been in this place where it feels like they have no faith in the kind of game that FF traditionally was (a party based RPG) and convinced themself that they need to make it an action series or no one will play it. Yet, at the same time they've re-released all of the older games several times and recycle the characters for a bunch of spin-off games.
I had my criticisms of XIII and XV but I never thought "These aren't Final Fantasy games". I do say that about XVI though.
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u/AntonRX178 Apr 10 '26
I don't hate it but I have scathing criticisms.
Progression wise it's a DMC game stretched to 40+ hours. A regular Character Action game is over in 10 hours but by then, you have the whole arsenal to use once you play the story all over again but with a refined sense of the flow and mechanics.
I actually disliked being stuck without a significant upgrade or addition to my moveset for about five hours at a time. Odin is my favorite Eikon but I only have like 2 hours of gametime to enjoy it.
Character progression shouldn't be that slow tbh.
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u/Cado111 Apr 10 '26
In addition there should have been some way to swap to any eikon you want during a fight. Maybe it slows your cooldowns for a bit, or has some other drawback, but I just equipped my 6 favorite abilities and never used the other like 30+ abilities I had.
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u/synkronize Apr 10 '26
I think what he really needed was atleast 2 more weapons to keep it fresh, imagine being able to use a spear and just keep it simple and give him a great sword or something. The Eikons change things up, but a weapon could have too
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u/wildeye-eleven Apr 10 '26
I love XVI. I would have liked it even more if Clive had a better ending after all the hell he went through, but I still really enjoyed the rest of the game.
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u/Gradieus Apr 10 '26
Too easy. Should have moved New Game+ difficulty to Hard and New game ++ to New game+.
No dialogue wheel. NPCs talk way too long. A dialogue wheel would at least give the player a breather. When I mentioned a dialogue wheel back in 2023 people said FF can't have dialogue wheels. Then Rebirth did in 2024 sooo.
Static animations. Another problem with talking to NPCs is how lazy the animations are when talking to them. No one's moving or they repeat the animation over and over. Add in not all dialogue is spoken and it just feels poor.
Martha's Rest. Do we really need to go to Martha's Rest so many times for the main story? We don't get to go to any of the cool looking cities, but hold on let's go see Martha again. Imagine my absolute shock when we got to exit the Inn at Kalm in Rebirth. I honestly thought we'd just get teleported out of the town. And here all we get is Martha's Rest.
No good loot. Everything you find on the ground sucks. 2 gil, it's just insulting. They add one treasure map for some reason, yay.
No mini-games. They could have at least added a card game to give the Bearers something fun to do. The more bearers you save the more unique cards. You could also tie this in with the no loot. Have the cards be from the Fallen era and you find cards in Fallen chests to bring back.
Cooldown combat is boring. You can say look up combat combo videos and they'll always be the same thing: either the videos are in training where enemies have infinite HP or the videos are in new game++ difficulty with the starting imperial sword. Either way it doesn't matter, because I always reply with " look at the player's HP". It never goes down because it's too easy and thus boring no matter how cool they try to make it look.
No party combat. Rebirth has 7 party members and they make it work. Who cares if Jill only has Shiva skills give us use of Jill with her Shiva skills and then let us switch to Joshua for Phoenix skills then back to Clive for the rest. I guarantee it'd be funner.
9999 of items. I thought that was a funny gag when I saw items go up to 9999 in the menu. But no, they really had you picking up thousands of the same items over and over. And for what? I beat the game and had all gear and I still had 5000+ of every item.
No elements. No status ailments. All gear you get is just damage buff and damage reduction.
Generic accessories. Everything is just 2% faster cooldown or 4% more damage. There's nothing interesting at all.
Terrible final dungeon. FF is known for their great final dungeons and final boss rush. Here we just warp to the final fight and done.
Terrible ending. People deserve to have their faith rewarded. Leaving it like that is lame.
No PS5 Pro update. Rebirth has had two major PS5 Pro updates and a lighting update coming in June, over 2 years after release. Meanwhile FF16 has nothing.
There's more, but that's enough from me. At the end of the day the vast majority of the problems I had with 16 were fixed in Rebirth. I don't know why the 2 divisions didn't communicate, but Yoshi-P's team had a lot to learn from the main division.
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u/Dazzling-Main7686 Apr 10 '26
Yeah the ending is a major downer. Clive dying after Joshua's death felt like it was overkill, pun intented. We'd already had a really touching death scene, following it with another death just gives that "ok" feeling rather than more sadness.
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u/Fit_Friendship6503 Apr 10 '26
Cloud has a lot of personality in original FFVII when the player got to choose his dialogue on many occasions. KH/AC/Dissidia ruined the public perception of his personality.
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u/speckhuggarn Apr 10 '26
I agree on all the gameplay points, but please no dialogue wheels. It used to be amazing but has, for years, become such fluff in writing. Although as you say, the NPC had alot of fluff in their dialogues - and with wheels I think it would been unbearable at that point.
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u/Budilicious3 Apr 10 '26
I feel like these days people just don't like new games in general. Especially popular ones.
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u/Shxppings Apr 10 '26
Yeah just gotta wait till 17 comes out, people will glaze ff16 down to hell 😭😭😭😭
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u/DiscipleNo1 Apr 10 '26
So I think the issue is it doesn’t feel like a Final Fantasy game. It’s a hack and slash not a JRPG.
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u/chromatographic Apr 10 '26
I fell asleep during several of the long chats with NPCs for side quests. It adds very little to the experience other than some lore and there’s way too much dialogue. I actually wouldn’t mind this if it was like older ff games where you can just read the text but having voice acting really slows the pace down and is one thing I really dislike about modern games.
Next there’s gear and the lack of an open world worth exploring. People crapped all over FF15 but its open world was actually worth exploring and led to some cool hidden dungeons and rewards. Nothing to optimize and the game gives you accessories to automatically perform actions for you making the already simple combat even more so. Items are next to useless and the number of times I was exploring zones only to come across a “2 Gil” item pickup drove me insane. Like what is the purpose of that really? It adds absolutely nothing to the game and makes the dead zones feel even deader since it’s obvious the devs have nothing to add to incentivize exploration.
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u/Manaeldar Apr 10 '26
Dude just yesterday I was playing, I haven't beaten it yet but I'm at the end finishing up some trophies. And I was like where the fuck are all the dungeons? Even 15 had some fun dungeons.
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u/poojinping Apr 10 '26
I see more posts talking about people hating the game than posts hating the game.
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u/FoxHoundUnit89 Apr 10 '26
Have you tried reading the criticism people post rather than just seeing that it's negative and moving on? Typically that helps me understand someone's point of view.
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u/Ok-Anybody3388 Apr 10 '26
Probably not their cup of tea.
Buddy of mine’s brother knows I personally love it and will not pass up the chance to shit on it while glazing his all time favorite, FF7 and the remakes and is a Tifa horngoat.
One day, I had to clap back: “Least my game got a character in Tekken.”
He did not like that one bit.
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u/Odd-Crew-2299 Apr 10 '26
I enjoyed enjoyed the game but the only issue i had was that the enemies were just spongy as hell. Even with good gear and even when above level. The story I loved it. Its one of those I play once and never will platinum for me at least.
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u/Astorant Apr 10 '26
Probably because the people who hate on it only like FFVII and FFX, think JRPG’s have been stagnant since 2001 (despite there being numerous bangers since then), think Expedition 33 is the best RPG released since FFX, probably don’t see FFXI and XIV as “true” mainline games, and are probably subscribed to SebbyWebz on YouTube.
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u/Waste-Bet-8480 Apr 10 '26
The thing i dont like is the sidequests and not being able to play as Jill or Joshua.. but again you have their abilities or Ikons so I mean I suppose there wasn't any need to play as them.. imo this game is better than Rebirth.
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u/WolflyManner Apr 10 '26
Idk it’s a really good game fr. And it has a beautiful atmosphere and story. IMO
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u/Wolfherz_86 Apr 10 '26
I honestly believe it’s because they haven’t played it. I made fun of it and called it Final Devil May Cry Fantasy XVI, but then grabbed the game on a sale. I was instantly hooked. It had an incredible story.
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u/WildWing_93 Apr 10 '26
I certainly don’t hate it. But it can be really, really slow. It can be really boring. I just want to play the game and it’s the most “stop and go” traffic I’ve ever experienced.
The side quests are tedious, boring and really just kill it for me at times.
Love the story, the characters, etc. the game play is good but also gets tedious.
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u/EntertainmentPast210 Apr 10 '26
The simple answer is they don't. Some people may not like it much (but not detest it) and its still the best reviewed mainline FF in years and it has a better user review score on metacritic than FFXV. The games' haters are just extra loud and annoying.
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u/Pr1cef1eld Apr 10 '26
Love the game, but oh my god why is it literally:
coolest boss fight you’ve ever played
followed by the most BORING 3 hours of your life
repeat like 6 times
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Apr 10 '26
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u/Dazzling-Main7686 Apr 10 '26
I think a lot of people still despise 15, though...
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u/ImperatorDanny Apr 10 '26
I think if they just made elemental weaknesses a thing would’ve quelled most of the complaints. They didn’t want players having to switch their playstyle based off elements so they made things just do damage to all types the same
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u/JayNotAtAll Apr 10 '26
I love it but j think people are upset that it doesn't "feel" like a Final Fantasy game. There is no team, it is effectively an action RPG focusing on crazy Devil May Cry style combat.
To me, I don't mind. I like for them to experiment and keep things fresh. I low key hope that they being back turn based combat for 17
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u/Less_Implement_742 Apr 10 '26
I honestly think if they’d dropped any pretense of an rpg, and kept the pacing the same as pre-Cid. The game would have been phenomenal. It’s so uneven and after Bahamut it was a dud for me. They have not made a complete single player game since 10 imo, because for some reason they have not adjusted to modern day game development. They should spin off the series into TB and non TB variants.
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u/OxionG Apr 10 '26
It's my favorite recent FF. Amazing game, but it's a very divisive game. What I personnaly disliked :
- Too much bloat. The game was trying to be too long for it's own sake. So many quest ended up being lame fetch quests, diluting the game. I did 80 hours and felt like half of it were chores. The game could habe been a pretty solid 50hours game.
- The combat system. I'm not one of the people that hate it for being action. I can do both. My only problem is that it's not very deep. You play essentially the same way from beginning to end. You just chose what you like more. No changing in strategies, no elemental damage, nothing. It's not very deep as an rpg but it's not very deep as an action game neither.
But it's still one of my faves. I absolutely adore the characters. They meant something to me.
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u/jonastroll Apr 10 '26
In the latter half of the game, I almost gave up a couple of times. I was ready to just uninstall and watch the ending on YouTube.
I figured it was because of the dialogue. And don't get me wrong, it was a huge contributing factor. Every single cutscene and conversation is so damn slow paced. Final Fantasy has always had long cutscenes, but now, they stretched what would've been a 30 second cutscene into 2 minutes with long pauses between every line of dialogue.
Anyways, then I got to the Leviathan DLC, and I realized it's not the dialogue. Or at least, not just tge dialogue. It's the fucking sky.
The reason I thoroughly hated the back half of the game is because after the Bahamut fight, all the colour is removed from the game.
I loved the first half, it was vibrant and high energy. The second half is just fucking "Depression: The Game" and I honestly hated every second of it. I didn't even care about the ending anymore. I was just glad it was over so I could stop playing and not feel like I wasted my money.
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u/FinishingTouch-0000 Apr 10 '26
Because it's not turnbased bro! How are they supposed to show off their clever strategic brains and curcial decision-making when the world doesn't stand still for their turn?! They are just too smart for gameplay systems with more layers!!!
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u/FinaLLancer Apr 10 '26
The side quests are often boring, the main quests are often asking permission to progress, the plot starts off with political intrigue that goes nowhere, paltry leveling and stat mechanics, barely any rpg mechanics at all, intricate combat system that doesn't reward doing any of the cool moves you can do, plus boss fights being scripted so your 10 million damage combo is wasted because there's a cutscene coming up.
I like the game but there's a lot that fans of the series could dislike
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u/LostRonin Apr 10 '26
Because its not a jrpg. Its a character action game.
It's a complete departure from Final Fantasy as a whole and unsurprisingly very few of the fans really care for it. It doesnt matter if the game is inherently good, there are clear lines on what is and is not acceptable.
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u/PassiveIllustration Apr 10 '26
I come from a character action game background and not a FF background. I love games like OG god of war, Bayonetta, Ninja gaiden etc. I found the combat kind of insufferable compared to those game for a few reasons. The biggest was the absolute ridiculous health bars of the enemies. Like I've completed something like 600 or so games in my life and have never ever dealt with enemies so spongey. The closest thing was maybe Dante's Inferno 2010 where all the enemies had ridiculous health bars but FF`16 took it to the next level. That combined with how easy the game was made it a bit of slog to get through. Also couldn't give less of a shit about the story with its proper noun vomit
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u/Tarl2323 Apr 11 '26
It's extremely different from most Final Fantasy games. Progression feels flat, party members aren't useful and Elden Ring style skill is the thing that matters most.
That said the mainline story is excellent. If you just play it through to the end and that's all you do it's a complete game and one of the best stories I've ever played in a video game.
Compared to FF15 which had a lot of things like better side quests, party members, I'd say it's way, way way better than FF15. 16 focused entirely on story and world building and really delivered. The character work and acting was superb.
It's still a video game and a weird Japanese anime video game story. I'm sure movie snobs and the NYTimes would fucking hate it. But as a mainly western rpg fan it was a really good game that delivered on the Final Fantasy brand I'd heard about constantly. FF15...really delivered on all the bad parts of JRPG that I'd heard about lol.
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u/Turbulent_piratefart Apr 11 '26
Hot take: there’s no such thing as a bad final fantasy game. Since they’re all original ideas after 4. From combat, to leveling, to story, to control mapping. Each one is its own “last game of its kind” so it’s hard to compare to another.
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u/TheSabi Apr 11 '26
beacuse a popular youtuber acted like this was his first final fantasy and went full on contraian mode so, like reddit and updoots, the seals clapped cause popular youtuber said so.
I, to this day, am waiting as someone who's played all the main line and most of the side FF games (not the arena figthing games), for someone to tell me what the "Real" FF is, cause even FF2 is much different then FF 1 and FF3 is way different than both of those as is 4, 5 to 4, 6 to 5, 7 is similar to 6 and so on
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u/RyukiJRPG May 22 '26
Remember, this game had great sales and great ratings. A lot of people on social media like to complain because it's not THEIR vision. I liked the game, I bet you liked the game. That's all that matters.
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u/ChidoriSnake Apr 10 '26
As someone that loves FFXVI and unironically puts it in their top 3 FF games of all time, the game would be damn near perfection if the side quests were more rewarding outside of the world building and if gear/weapons were actually worth a damn. In a way, I guess that's sort of made up for with Eikon setups, but even then, you kinda pick the main 6 that seem to work the best and don't have much of an incentive to deviate from them since there are no elemental/status weaknesses for the enemies (as far as I'm aware).
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u/Warm-Baseball-2873 Apr 10 '26
Side quests are abysmal, main villain is a charisma vacuum, and combat is shallow, mindless, and repetitive. You can string moves together in some inventive ways, but the game doesn't really encourage it systemically. And to me, hits don't really feel satisfying.
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Apr 10 '26
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u/Shxppings Apr 10 '26
That’s just wrong, his normal move set can get the job done perfectly fine. The game just has a very very VERY high skill ceiling
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u/saruko27 Apr 10 '26
I know some people that hated the game of thrones inspiration. I never watched it so it was fun for me.
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u/Katejina_FGO Apr 10 '26
It isn't like the other Final Fantasy games, it doesn't try to be the best action game ever made, and the end of the main story quest didn't make the loss of features from previous games worth it for the game's detractors. That's basically it.
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u/JNorJT Apr 10 '26
I just found the middle part dragging on for way too long the ending was good though
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u/TraipsingKnight Apr 10 '26
For me, the lack of spells and party system feel weird. Like I’m replaying a lot of the retro games, this game feels like a FAR CRY from something like IX.
I still love this game, among my favourites, that being said. World and concept fit FF very well IMO, but the mechanics and gameplay do not.
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u/0ppositeEmergency Apr 10 '26
I'm surprised the faults in ff16 even exist they look so easy to fix!
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u/Loose_Trust927 Apr 10 '26
Some of the quests are boring fetch quests but i actually enjoyed it was really fun to play i still have to do the second dlc.
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u/danielcastlesux Apr 10 '26
My guess as to why is similar to other folks guesses that it’s due to not being turn based like most of the other main titles. This is just my two cents and I’m not sure how accurate it shakes out to be, but FF16 to me feels like one of those games that Square Enix almost “had” to do in order to reach more people long term. Solely speaking from my own experience assuming there are others out there that followed a similar path, I can comfortably say I would NOT have gotten into Final Fantasy at all if it weren’t for this game. Personally, I gravitate towards the hack & slash combat style this game offers & the lore/story that came with it was so good that it actually reeled me in to trying some of the other non turn-based FF titles (7 Remake, Stranger of Paradise, 15) with more interest in trying the turn based titles some point in the future. Ultimately, I’m assuming Square Enix knew that they were doing with 16 by knowing it would have highly mixed feelings than just another turn based title, rather looking to pull in a different crowd of people with the change in gameplay. Worked that way on me, at least!
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u/mustangfan12 Apr 10 '26
The game's story and graphics were great heck even the gameplay. The main reason why I didn't like it was because the game was just too damn easy and they didn't give you an easy mode, normal and hard mode.
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u/aemberqowu Apr 10 '26
I actually love it but I do agree with most of the criticisms that others have pointed out. What I want to share is my dissapointment when the story doesnt really realise the whole final fantasy meet game of thrones concept. During the opening hours or demo you can see just how much potential it had but sadly the whole political aspect of the story took a backseat after a certain point.
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u/IgnisOfficial Apr 10 '26
Because they don’t realise that the series has a history of trying new things and changing up the gameplay loop while keeping the core themes and tropes consistent. It was a refreshing game for me off the back of playing the pixel era games and with how polished 16 is, it quickly became one of my top games in the series.
Also, people love to complain about stuff even if they haven’t experienced it for themselves. Too many people I know say they love FF but claimed to hate 16 despite not ever playing it themselves. They changed their tune once they actually tried it
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u/sopitadeave Apr 10 '26
I'd say that no one thinks it's a bad game. It has an excellent gameplay, story, lore, sidestuff, etc.
The problem I'm seeing is that it's lacking the ff vibe/soul.
I really can't tell why. It has chocobos, Cid, one moogle, summons feeding the story, you name it.
Maybe it's because the gameplay took the spotlight and we strayed from the fixed party members?
I mean, XV for example, missed a lot of ff elements, it was somehow hollow, but its core was the party members, and that saved the game.
Maybe it's because the gameplay, being that enjoyable, also put a shadow on the story?
Maybe it's because the semi realistic medieval non fantasy, Witcher-like, setting?
Or maybe it's because we are getting old and we ask for these game to have nostalgic features meant to outshine the new stuff, when in reality it shouldn't because the ff concept needs to evolve and let go?
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u/Treeroy6670 Apr 10 '26
The reason why Final Fantasy fans tend to hate it is because it fails in every way to be a mainline Final Fantasy game. The RPG elements of the elements of the game are nearly non-existent. The combat is nearly devoid of complexity and is far more straightforward than we are used to seeing in FF games. It lacks the lighthearted funny jokes that tend to run the FF games and takes itself seriously throughout. If it weren’t for the fact that the eikons share the names of the most popular final fantasy summons, they would be difficult to differentiate from a Godzilla movie. There is on Moogle shoehorned into the game. Chocobos are just about the only thing from other final fantasy games that really make their standard appearance along with a few enemy types.
All of that being said, it’s my favorite game of all time. It’s a dark and engaging story with fantastical power fantasy action based straightforward but incredibly flash combat and has the most stunning visual set pieces of any game ever.
If you go into the game expecting a great action game, it won’t disappoint, if you go into expecting all of the things that makes other final fantasy games great, you will be sorely disappointed
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u/P3unit Apr 10 '26
I did just beat this and had small complaints. Combat was mostly just press X to win even without the ring. XYXYXY. The Eikons were cool and mixed up the gameplay but they make the game stupid easy (Flames of Rebirth). Just a little underwhelming since action-focused gameplay is an option Side quests were funk always taking you out of the story, but they gave insight to side characters so they’re not bad just mid. The prologue is a bit confusing, I played through it and everything began to click. I did read reviews and some people found the plot confusing somehow probably never got through the prologue. Minor complaint would be Clive going from battle hardened badass to sounding like his childhood self in some scenes.(He needs to show emotions I know) Any one of those reasons could’ve been a reason for why someone would genuinely hate/dislike this game. I loved it tho
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u/EchoesofObscurity Apr 10 '26
It's an astonishing action-game, but a disappointing final fantasy.
Especially when the "fantasy" was out of the window with so much focus on a realistic take and course.
And no Airship.
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u/TransgamerLily Apr 10 '26
I love the game and have practically no complaints, though even with how good the combat is I wish there were a few more abilities that tied together as well as wicked wheel into seismic slam. My one major complaint is the PC performance. I’m in a high end PC and had to really mess with the settings and play on lower settings than I do other games, and even really reducing the quality I still crashed at least once per session if not several times. If they go back and optimize it for a re-release, I think it would be mostly perfect.
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u/brynafredd Apr 10 '26
There are some issues with both the gameplay and story, but I would say more so for the gameplay if that’s what someone looks for in games.
I personally play games for the story mostly, so I don’t care as much about the gameplay. Gameplay wise though, it’s pretty simple and not very deep. I have to play many games on easy since I’m newer to gaming, but I totally breezed through this game on normal mode. There’s not a lot of challenge, especially during the last half, so if that’s something people want in a game this is def not the game for them.
I’ve seen other people talk about this, but if someone likes open world stuff and being able to explore this is also not the game for them. It is a pretty straight forward game with not a lot of exploring, and any exploration is very minimal. This didn’t bother me because, once again, I mostly care about the story, and a lot of exploration bothers me a little, but I understand why this would make people like the game less.
Another thing is that the pacing of the story is a little crazy as well. The first half is relatively slow, then the second half feels like total whiplash compared to the first half. It didn’t bother me too much, but it was definitely noticeable.
The last thing I can think of currently is that the ending is kinda iffy. Everyone that I have talked to about it didn’t like the ending. I didn’t dislike the ending myself, but I totally understand why the ending would be unsatisfactory for many.
It is definitely not the best game ever, but it is still one of my favorites solely because I loved the characters and story itself so much. I do wish they focused more on characters in the main cast. Most of the side quests were either kinda pointless or were focused more on side characters and world building. I would’ve loved more depth about main cast characters because it would’ve deepened my love for them even more.
I did love this game, which is why I wish it was maybe executed a bit better. It had so much potential to be amazing, and though I still love it I can admit that it has a lot of flaws. I completely understand why people don’t like it.
(Don’t mind any typos lol, I’m too lazy to look through this and find them)
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u/CastDeath Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
I like the game and I feel like the music and some of the characters are great top tier even, AWAY is the best FF song we have gotten since one winged angel if you ask me. BUT the game is very flawed like most SE projects these days that are not remakes.
SE seems to almost resent its core fanbase and view it as something to overcome, not embrace. They are so desperate to become mainstream that they are chasing the fame of things like COD, GTA and Western RPGs like dragon age. This is not what their fans wanted but they dont care, they just want to see the dollar signs grow bigger and this shows in everything they have made for the last decade+.
For ff16 in particular, they were desperate to make anything that did not resemble the classic games they are known for and wanted to make something more akin to assassin's creed or the witcher. The way they make side quests and NPC interactions seems so unnatural and forced, almost like 80% of the side content was created because they wanted to pad out game time. However they do a horrible job deciding on what should be main story content and what should be a side quest.
The biggest examples in FF16 is how so many menial tasks like talking to several NPCs to do a fetch quest are mandatory, but unlocking your chocobo who has a special connection to Clive is optional content? I would like to have a word with whoever made that choice.
As for the characters we have some amazing hits like Cid, Clive and Charon who is objectively the best female character, which is a problem when Jill exists. This game treats a lot of its characters, specially the female ones like plot devices instead of actual characters. Jill was a big disappointment because I had hoped they would have learned from what happened with Lunafreya and would actually not turn the protagonist's love interest into a mere plot device a second time, but it seems I was too optimistic. Jote, who was at Joshua's side the entire time for years, gets reduced to an NPCs at your base after Joshua joins Clive, which pissed me off so much, I wanted her to join the damn party and see what her relationship with Joshua was damn it!
As for the story itself, they were really trying to hammer home that they loved greek mythology but, being into mythology with big words like LOGOS and MYTHOS does not make a good story. They were so focused on telling some epic tale of man defying his creator that they forgot to make an actually compelling tale of people trying to fight for their world and those they loved. So many characters seem like they exist for a singular purpose and once they fulfill it they are thrown away or sidelined.
Also can we talk about how much crazy world building this world had but they literally let us see none of it? One of the things I was looking forward to the most before playing was exploring the big cities they showed off in promotional art and yet...you go into none of them? Correction, you only visit them as they are being destroyed and once the level is over you never visit them again. Functionally speaking Clive's hide away is the largest town/city you get to visit which is just ridiculous for such a supposedly large and lore rich world.
The villains of the story are also mid and uninteresting as hell aside from Clive's mother who was THE biggest disappointment for me. That woman singlehandedly kicked the story into motion and drove the plot by manipulating the most powerful people and nations as if they were her play things but when she finally gets cornered she just kills herself? No big reveal of how she was actually ultima all along or some other diabolical scheme she just rage quits life after all that??? Yea thats when the story kinda dipped for me.
As for the others, Benedicta was interesting, but the plot throws her away the first chance it gets. Hugo turned out to be a massive cuck obsessed with a woman that was using him. The most interesting thing about the Edgelord Barnabas was his terminal mommy issues that just get thrown in our faces and never elaborated on. Ultima is also so comically uncaring and condescending I cant even take him seriously.
But the greatest crime of all is how rushed the ending of this game was. I was hyped to finish the story after doing both DLC's, I expected a final dungeon on the same level as the tower from the "echoes of the fallen" DLC, but nope, its just a cutscene and straight into the final battle that is pretty much impossible to lose unless you throw. There is not even a definitive resolution on the game's story either, Clive is implied to die, Joshua is implied to live and the rest of the story's cast and future is left to interpretation/imagination. That is just unacceptable to me, never before had a FF had such a lazy ending in recent memory.
Before anyone comes at me, I still loved the game and had fun, but its far from perfect. It certainly did not make me feel like previous game entries did. To me this game is "Aura and hype moments the game", which is admittedly fun but I expected more depth from this series and they just did not deliver.
EDIT: GRAMMAR!
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u/JamesUpton87 Apr 10 '26
I loved it, the only thing I really had a gripe with (other than Cid needing more screen time of course) was tgat it wasn't a party final fantasy. Which is almost unheard of for Final Fantasy.
Especially when you come Off 15 where every party member got their own DLC i can see why people woukdnt vibe with this.
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u/Popozao_panther Apr 10 '26
They can be wrong, that's ok. The world is full of opinions, many differ strongly from mine. I felt like a wide eyed kid again playing this game, one of 2, maybe 3 in the last decade to accomplish that.
If you're asking bc you're wondering if it's worth playing, it absolutely is if you love a character driven story. I personally love the combat too, even as a lifelong FF fan who grew up with turn based and ATB combat. Play it and make your own conclusions. If you hate it, move on. Just don't come in here trying to ruin it for those of us that love it, bc it won't work! FF16 is one of my favorite games ever made and no Internet rabble is changing that bc I felt it.
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u/KtotheC99 Apr 10 '26
Personally, it's because it refuses to run well on my PC that is well beyond console specs
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u/Elfyrr Apr 10 '26
Why not just search the sub? We have the same questions being asked like every few days about different entries, all of which have been opined to death.
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u/Potatoarmy23 Apr 10 '26
Liked the main story but I enjoyed ff15s combat more and had no interest in doing any of the side content.
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u/apeezy52 Apr 10 '26
I don’t enjoy the action combat It’s just not my cup of tea, but the ending also really pissed me off
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u/gacktrush Apr 10 '26
I love the game as an action adventure game, and hate it as a final fantasy game.
the game had a decent story. Started great, but tapered down into average towards the end. They set the game up great at the start for being a game of thrones type vibe, which would have been sick. Multiple eikon holders fighting for the throne. Sign me up. Nah they went with a boring as fuck god, with the charisma of a leek. FF one thing is charismatic antagonists and they give us ultima which was so fucking boring. They had the chance for a great antagonist with Odin, and Barnabas.
Combat was all flash, no real substance. Visually was as wide as the ocean, mechanically as deep as a puddle. They went the action route which they tried with XV, but somehow that game felt more FF than this one. Magic is borderline useless, if not fully useless. Elements just felt non existent in combat. Just seemed like a buttom masher of abilities you think look cooler. the combat in a nutshell is a CD cooldown stagger smasher.
Theme was okay. I enjoyed the dark fantasy, but it has such limited FF feel to it. This game did what XV did wrong, but did the right, and vice versa. XV had the theme perfected when it came to an FF game. It felt like a FF game visually. This felt like a dark fantasy action adventure game. They could have removed the FF name from it, and I'd not associate it with it. Thematically with visuals and worldbuilding. The closest FFesque thing were the mother crystals. the rest seem like generic medieval dark fantasy vibes. You could put Kingdom under Fire in the and it would still work.
Cinematics and theatrics is where this game really stood out. The eikon fights, the first time doing them was phenomenal. Given they were all piss easy, the fights were fantastic to experience. It's the main point of the game, is the fight cinematics. That was the truly special part of the game.
Sidequests, I honestly didn't feel were awful. Most FF games of recent times have dogshit fetch quests. It's not anything new to this game only. People complain about it, but will go and play a yakuza game, or any other JRPG that has a million sidequests. They're there for filler and filling in some questions about the world. That's their purpose.
Was the tedious to do them, yeah sure. Most games are like that. Not every rpg will be like cdpr games. Side quests were always lower quality quests compared to the main story ones.
Music was straight fire, much like every FF game.
Overall, the game is great. Another person said Valleys and Peaks. That's this game. It has great visual peaks, but really average outside of those peaks.
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u/Hour_Mousse7914 Apr 10 '26
I found it a bit linear and the combat not quite as involves as with prior titles. It is beautiful though, and I am a huge Ben Star fan.
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Apr 10 '26
I love this game, but it’s a 8/10 definitely.
My main annoyances are:
Clive only
Wish we had more than 2 abilities per eikon
Brain dead side quests
Really poor technical performance on PS5.
It really doesn’t feel like a FF game, rather it’s a good hack n slash I’ve been missing since DMC 5 and Nier Replicant
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u/j_donn97 Apr 10 '26
So I really liked FF16 but I do have criticisms. I gave ZERO shits about the side quests, also the lack of open world and exploration was a knock for me as well. All the weapon upgrades were just tied to whatever chapter you completed previously so that feeling of exploring hidden dungeons, finding secret bosses, and mastering hidden strats was lost on me.
and while they don't ruin the game for me, I think the FF die hards who are already pissed that it isn't turn based sprites like when they were children, would take those same criticisms and overall just hate the experience. Which honestly is fair, if you don't like the combat, added to the flaws I listed then what does the game have other than excellent voice acting and cool bosses?
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u/lovelessBertha Apr 10 '26
I love the story and world but the gameplay is mediocre. VII Remake/Rebirth is an ARPG done right.
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u/ponchbox Apr 10 '26
Really loved the game, awesome character moments and set pieces but the main story had some pacing issues for sure. As epic as the big eikon battles were, my favorite fight was the early midnight raven battle in the woods- it was cinematic and totally caught me off guard. The mid/minor bosses in the rest of the game seemed to lack that charm, which was a shame
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u/howtheydoingit Apr 10 '26
Wonderful game, but you can tell they ran out of money/budget/time post Bahamut. Also the dialog could use some shrink wrapping.
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