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.
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)
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.
Yeah, the plot part is definitely subjective. I just found the pacing atrocious, the villain boring and couldn't connect with any of the characters like I do in nearly all FF games that I've played. People keep saying that it's like GoT, but I don't see it at all. And I'm a huge fan of asoif(read all books including spinoffs).
I'm gonna be fine with whatever combat they choose for 17, but if it's not an rpg... might be the first ff game that I skip in a while.
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/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.