Final Fantasy XVI demo impressions -- tl;dr Game of Self-Owns

Only Charan of all people could claim that the soundtrack by Soken is 'fine' and that Diablo 4 (of all games) has a better story than FF16. And all that after not even finishing the demo.

I really hope PoE reddit unlock soon so I don't have to even look at this mental vomit.

Anyway, I've played the demo and it felt great. Soken is on another level with the music here, absolutely nailing every storybeat.

Voice acting is good, especially clives, and the combat has a lot of potential. I was sceptical at first that they abandoned TB and went with DMC combat, but after playing the Eidokon challenge in the demo, the combat flow is superb and the fights are quite enjoyable.

In the end, I'm glad they are experimenting as every FF game did the same. We don't need another FFX game. I like the gambit system in FF12, loathed the streamlined action system of FFXV...let them try something new. So far, it seems good.

I mean, look at this shit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWfzvsJiZik

How can you say it's not cool...

I mean it's just an opinion...relax my guy. Just take it for what it is.

For what's worth I did think the D4 story was quite good too, unexpectedly so.

I will prorbably pick up 16 this week, like I had planned months ago, but C did give me some pause. I was never going to miss this installment, but I hope it isn't disappointing. That's said if it is, I still have D4 where I do have a couple re-rolls to work on.

D4's story is pretty good and engaging up until the end. Then movie cliches, a stupid MC, dumb decisions, and seemingly made to basically set up season 2 and milk known quantities in the universe(because of live-service model) kinda ruined it for me.

So for about 85% of the story, I thought it was pretty good. Just didnt close very well for me.

I enjoyed the demo overall,

Additionally as someone who like the overall ffxiv story i think ffxvi will have a good story, definitly better that GoT, especially the later seasons...

Overall, i have positive impression and i just need to decide if i want the disc version of just digital version.

As for D4 story i think i was bad overall since it was very predictable, and i dont think it was original at all. Its just combined aspects of d2 and d3 story.

I never said the story of DIV is better than FFXVI so kindly stop putting words in my mouth. I said I prefer the writing style. The approach to dialogue. The lack of overt pop references. The consistent tone. The distinct lack of forced edginess -- all the shit that happens in Estuar makes complete sense based on what sort of world it is. It has a rich diversity of culture rather than token areas -- I love that it has two desert-like zones and they are quite different. That is how proper world building looks. Even Eorzia has only one real desert area. It is much easier to buy into even a simple, predictable story like IV's when everything around it is done right. Of course it was predictable, you ninnies -- it was predicted. The "what" is far less important than the "how" when it comes to artistic assessment. And that's true of XVI as well. So far the "how" doesn't do it for me at all. More on that in a bit.

Soken is a genius. I already said that. His work on XIV is without parallel. But you can assign a genius to a mediocre task (in this case, scoring a fairly uninspired demo with little ambition beyond that which I already noted) and the result will be "fine". I have no doubt I will be getting the OST for XVI because it'll be amazing music. Same reason I can dig XIV's vast offerings without playing all the way through it. I am a video game music nerd likely on a level few else here are: I've sat next to Uematsu at a Distant Worlds concert; flew to Tokyo several times for JDK band concerts; have sat in on some game recording sessions; am officially bored of OWA. So again, don't put words in my mouth. It's rude and immature. One might even say uncivil.

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FFXII was great for its attempt at pulling FF out of the weird lull after X abandoned a lot of FF conventions and XI...yeah. I appreciated the return to Ivalice (although Tactics Ogre is better than FFT and no that's also not up for discussion) and its ambitious gambit system. Plot-wise it was nothing amazing but no one really played an FF for its plot first and foremost. Maybe VI. But VII, VIII, IX and X were much more about the smaller story beats being memorable than the overall plot, which as a result of messy devices like amnesia tended to be very convoluted. I liked the music although Sakimoto Hitoshi can be a bit one-note (I think Dragon's Crown is his best work, especially the orchestral version for Pro). The combat paved the way for XIII and onwards, like or not. And Gabranth was an utter badass in Japanese, being voiced by the legendary Otsuka Akio.

So yeah, I stand by my assessment. FFXII was great. Few people's favourite entry but solid enough and low-key innovative.

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I suppose in the end nothing about XVI really spoke to me or caught my wonder. Nothing in it was new and everything could be traced too easily to something already done better. I find nothing epic in choral swell and eidolons/shokan/summons/primals/eikon duking it out -- been there, done that. Good luck topping a certain scene in Type-0 but then again people missed that because they have shit taste despite 0 having easily the best main theme song of any FF ever, a cast beyond anything outside of Dissidia voicing a full class of child soldiers and the most powerful ending in Squeenix's history...but yknow, let's all get our feels on for hard-done-by nobles. Eurocentric nobility being shitheads? Yawn. Scrappy mercenary group being jerked around between said forces? Tell me you haven't seen that before. Even as recently as the underrated DioField Chronicles (with notable score by Djawadi of GoT and Pacific Rim fame himself) we saw that motif.

But as Diabloski said, it's just my opinion. It is neither more valid nor less so than yours or anyone else's based on personal experience. It's hardly the most incendiary opinion I have had around here or even about FF (I think VIIR is pointless beyond its financial purpose; XIV is at its best when it's not trying to be FF; SoPFFO is a masterpiece perfecting the long-standing FF trope of amnesia-afflicted protagonists). And by all accounts it will prove to be spectacularly unpopular.

What's new. Lol.

PS agreed re reddit. No one miseed you and only I remember you because of your weird BLoW baggage.

Btw Lions don't hunt hares. In fact, male lions rarely hunt much at all, since lionesses are faster. So maybe Shiva-bitch was right in calling her fuckstud a lion, her lion...IF Titan-dude is all talk and she has to do all the work.

If not, well, just more bad writing in a game full of it.

Male lions do hunt people however.

I've actually seen a couple myself at The Field Museum in Chicago that inspired the movie Ghost in the Darkness. Killed like 30 something people just for the hell of it. Not to eat, but for sport, and kept trophies. Chilling really.

And while it was late while I was playing FF16 last night, wasn't "Shiva bitch" Clives old friend Jill? Or maybe multiple dominants exist?

I don't know I might have to rewatch and make sure I know what the fuck is going on.

So far, a couple hours in, it's fine. Nothing groundbreaking yet, albeit much darker than normal, but certainly not epic story telling to this point, or anyone really likeable. I do hope that changes as I go along. Visuals, cut scenes, and interactive moments, along with music, were top notch. Combat a bit clunky, but I'm sure it will smooth out as combos come into play.

Welcome (once again) to the minority, Diabloski.

A few reviews caught the same design thorns I did -- predictably Polygon's, given those guys n gals are far more into the writing/theming of any given game than its gameplay or aesthetics -- but overall a fully expected slew of 100s and 90+. I never had an issue with the gameplay itself -- I just don't like DMC style combat. For thosr that do, this one is by all accounts an all-timer. A new game+ in a numbered FF rubs me the wrong way but eh Type-0 not only had ng+ it hid its best True Lore inside it, as Japanese VNs are wont to do.

I honestly don't know re Jill and Benedikta and the one other female character in a sea of growly white dudes so eh that's on you. I just see Cersei Lannister and Love Interest. Or, closer to home, wannabe Ultimecia and Arecia. And whatserface from XIV who was also Shiva or something like that. Weird that XIV has already done this and done it better. Also lol at Dominants. Dom/sub much?

Apparently the game flirts with thematic depth re slavery but again when your PoV is a privileged noble who until now has been coo with it...nthx. I got better things to read and better characters to play as.

I also read it takes entire story beats from XIV. Surprise.

30 hours+ of story is par for the course for an ensemble FF but using a lot of that time on one guy in a GoT ripoff world is new to FF. The loss of balance a good party brings to the narrative is definitely a deal breaker for me, even if the other issues weren't...issues. Consider the absolute apex moments of FF glory and I bet you my not inconsiderable collection of FF figs those moments had to do with a shift in the party dynamics. The world of ruin reveal in VI. A certain party member loss in VII. The doleful arrival of the pilgrims to Zanarkand in X. The addition of a certain related party member in IV. The realisation you were actually friends all along in VIII. CLASS ZERO. Hell, the entire fucking plot of SOPFFO. These were the magic of FF. And it's why that one line in DIV resonated with me so strongly: it does get better, with good allies.

FFXVI represents a sort of fantasy I outgrew a while back: broody male protag, OP skills, mother issues, token female characters, zero whimsy (that I have seen), a dog...I mean, I could be talking about Mad Max. Or Haplo from Deathgate Cycle. Drizzt. Or...of course, Charan. I'm a decent writer but my first protagonist was nothing more than growing pains and immature reconciliation. I have made better protags since and boy am I glad I left that shit behind.

And here is where we return to GoT: you can't tell me Martin isn't over it. You can just feel it. He wrote Song of Ice and Fire in a time when no one else had done the gritty noble bastard fantasy thing. By the time the show ended, fucking everyone was doing it. At least Song knew what it was and served as a sort of bridge away from Tolkien's long...long shadow. FFXVI recycles that...a decade or two after fantasy has moved on. And it does it with this weird belief that this is somehow important or meaningful.

One last thought, turning back to what I said about spin-off energy: would this game garner as much attention and hype had it not been a main FF game? Outside of YoshiP fandom and DMC diehards, probably not. Still would have been a winner -- dreamteam gonna dreamteam -- but so much FF wonder and magic has been shed from this game that I suspect it wouldn't have done quite so well. But for better or worse, it is the present of FF if maybe not the future and for all its budget and bluster, I can't say it's a direction worthy of the Final Fantasy legacy.

But what do you expect from the world's pre-eminent JRPG dev who hates the term JRPG, even though it forms the basis of what makes Final Fantasy so damn good and so damn enduring?

This. Very much this.

As usual I envy those who can and will enjoy it. Good for you!

...now I will wait for a XVI plot synopsis and we will see if I can actually say DIV's story is better as some ill-advised folk wanted to claim I did. Lol.

PS Ghost AND The Darkness. Two lions.

FFXII had a lot of potential that it failed to live up to.

It is often postulated that Vaan and Penelo were added late into the development process - I do not believe this is the case as there is a lot of connecting structure woven into the story. However, I do strongly agree that they were bad characters, with the *feeling* they were added into the game to make it more relatable to a player in the same way as having a side-character say 'things go bang!' when the main is explaining nuclear physics does. That is to say, they are completely unrelatable and unhelpful to anyone with a modest maturity level.

The other characters, with one exception, are quite bland - so that doesn't help. Balthier is great. Honestly though, Ashe and Basch might have not been bland if Vaan wasn't sucking up all the developer's oxygen time.

The story itself is fine. Doesn't push the envelope all that much, but what is there is fine. I like the maturity of it compared to the solo hero vs solo villain narrative that had been pretty standard up to that point. Well, it sort of gets away from that, only to be drawn back to it. The real problem with the story telling is that it is broken up with Vaan's stuff - you get the feeling that a lot more of the interesting lore and progression could have been explored if told from say Balthier's and/or Ashe's point of view, instead of Vaan's.

Combat wise, I liked it. I liked it more than previous titles, and more than following titles. However, it was hindered by the tech at the time coming in at the end of the PS2. This meant that the magic system was heavily flawed - ALL magic was queued while real-time attacks were still ongoing. So, if the boss starts some 15 second long magic animation, YOUR magic had to wait. Ditto for multiple of your own characters casting. So the result was to just not bother most of the time, since attacks would do more and wouldn't cost resources. Which brings us to the terrible Mist Charge system using MP for limit breaks, along with how the power of them could completely trivialise content. I wouldn't be surprised if all of this is connected to the tech issues forcing certain decisions.

The gambit system was perfectly good, though. It was around the same time as Dragon Age: Origins, and played simiarly. Position was vital (unlike previous titles), and pausing to issue orders allowed control of multiple characters still (unlike future titles). Sure, a well developed gambit system (and gearing) allowed the party to function in a lot of combat encounters without input other than perhaps positioning, but YOU set that up - and it isn't like previous FF games had riveting decision making in 95% of encounters, either. I think the positioning element is dismissed too easily by most here, since it really does set things apart from both past and future FF games.

Talking about gearing, this was fine. Nothing special, but fine. I preferred previous FFs' gearing, and I think this is another area FF12 could have been developed further.

Now looting, that was atrocious. The whole chest system was abysmal. I get the idea it was made for multiple playthrough's, and maybe that would have been fine if people *wanted* to do that, but for one playthrough it was awful. Complete RNG, with hidden non-related triggers (like opening a chest somewhere common) that out right removed the most powerful gear in the game. Like, easter egg/cosmetic stuff for this is fine, not the actual gear you want to use.

Anyhow, yeah, lots of potential but ultimately unpolished. Even the Zodiac release didn't fix that.