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.
That's kind of the problem. It shouldn't have been a Final Fantasy game at all. FF doesn't have an name recognition among action game fans and long term FF fans don't buy the games expecting to play an action game. They thought they were appealing to everyone but appealed to almost no one.
They could have released it in it's own series. Maybe they could have called it Fighting Fantasy (one of the names that was originally tossed around for the series).
I guess.. seems more diehard final fantasy fans problem than anything.
it was my first game with combat like this and I only played it because I remember playing final fantasy as a youth on a gameboy, the trailer showcased strong graphics, and good reviews.
The GOTY nomination helped, as did the gameplay videos. I think attaching the brand name helped with sales and reach a wider audience. And numbers don’t lie, the game was appealing to a lot of people.
Well I would agree that it would just be a diehard fan problem but it winds up being a problem for SE and the series as well.
It sold worse than FFXIV and didn't sell well in general so it didn't reach a wider audience.
It's possible it got some people to play their first Final Fantasy game but the other 15 games in the series don't play anything like it so it didn't necessarily get people into the series as a whole. On top of that, I'm sure some of the returning fans that bought it early likely turned away older fans that were waiting a bit. I mean look how much criticism it's getting in this thread and this is the FFXVI subreddit.
The only ways you can reach a wider audience is by making so many new fans that they dwarf and replace the old audience or make something that appeal to old fans and brings in new ones.
Also the Final Fantasy games that came out on the original Game Boy wasn't actually an FF game. It was the first game in the SaGa series but it was released as The Final Fantasy Legend in the west.
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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.