This is just my opinion, please if anyone reading this loves FFXVI don’t take it personally!

IMO: The story is ass, the visuals are spectacular (especially the Eikon fights), the soundtrack is amazing, and the gameplay is a weird combo of FFXIV and DMC5. If you’re not opposed to some game spoilers, I would really recommend watching a stream of the beginning of the game just to see what you’re getting into.

If you’ve played other mainline Final Fantasy, it’s very different gameplay-wise. Your party is AI controlled, and you only control the main character of the section (usually Clive). This really turned me off from the game tbh. The mainline story can really drag too, and the sidequests vary in quality so much I genuinely wondered if they had several different teams working on them and not communicating. The only ones I really liked were the hunts, because I think that’s the only time you as a player actually have to think about your moveset and how to tackle a boss.

If you can get it on sale, and you’re willing to sit through like…15h of intro to actually get to the main parts of the game, go for it. If you want something a bit shorter, but shows what modern Final Fantasy games seem to going towards, maybe try Final Fantasy 7 Remake. If you want a cleaner version of Clive’s gameplay, I recommend the Devil May Cry series, especially 5.

GREAT. I played much of it on PS5, and now that it’s out on PC I can play it with staggeringly better performance (granted, with a 4080 and 5800x3d).

Story is dark as shit, feels pretty Game of Thrones inspired in some ways. Compelling, though, and plenty of good and inspiring stuff to balance out the doom and gloom.

Combat is insanely fun. Graphics are stunning. Music is wonderful. Landscapes are full of cool high fantasy stuff. And the chocobos are quite handsome…

I feel like the themes of slavery were so poorly handled that it shouldn’t have even been a plot point. The game would’ve been the same without them or with them; as they didn’t handle it with much nuance and doubtfully had the writing chops to do so. While the Boss Battles with summons are spectacles, they can get really dull the more you fight bosses. I would say it’s a mix of infantile oppressive fantasy to occasional brilliant scenes that made me question why this game was overall so-so. Those strong moments of writing never stuck around long enough to make a greater impact; it made me feel like two people were responsible for the writing of this game, and the worse writer won more often.

I wouldn’t say it’s the worst Final Fantasy as the FF 13 trilogy still exists, however, FF16 is a middling entry in the series.

I loved ff16, some people don’t like the batte system, but I found it to be really fast paced, and made me feel like I was a badass. The story us pretty good, in my opinion.

On the flip side, my friend played it and said it was fun, but the story was predictable.

I genuinely hate it lol, as do all of my friends IRL.

We’re all huge into 14, which was produced by the same team. I mention it because there’s a ton of overlap with 14. The cinematography in the cutscenes and even the emotes the characters use feel lifted straight from the older game. The structure of the combat segments is also uncannily similar, they feel a lot like 14 dungeons. So, my group generally felt like the game got stale really quickly, which colored our impression as a whole.

The moment-to-moment gameplay also feels like a hyper simplified version of the “rotation” system in 14. You have a basic filler combo, and larger more powerful moves that can only be used again after a long cooldown timer. I found it to be under-stimulating, even after unlocking a few more things.

The story was awesome in the segments covered by the free trial, but then everything after that just kind of slipped off my brain. More than anything, I remember side quests in particular were really boring to the point where it felt like a joke.

We were really hyped and really really wanted to like the game when we first heard about it, and we were super hyped after playing the demo, but in the end it just felt like a really unpleasant slog to actually play.

At the same time however I can totally see why people do really enjoy the game. I think it’s a divisive release, and often the people who love/hate it will cite the exact same things but paint them in a different light. I ultimately wouldn’t not recommend the game, I think $50 is a really fair price for it too for what you’re getting

I played through final fantasy 16 on PS5, and well… Let’s just say I’m not in any hurry to play through it again.

Once you’ve figured out how the combat works, there’s really no additional depth to it. The summon fights look spectacular but aren’t all that engaging. Lots of spectical, not a lot of challenge. The game is absolutely gorgeous, but it’s so so shallow in gameplay. The side quests are extremely boring. The main story is ok too. They really tried to be a lot more serious like game of thrones, but still kept it like right below that mature line, so it felt like a half measure to me.

There is absolutely no depth to the weapons or equipment outside of ‘number go up’. There aren’t any elemental weaknesses in you or the enemies, so The only challenge comes from the actual fighting technique, perfect blocks perfect parries, and chaining together different summon powers. If you like the combat, you’ll enjoy doing the monster hunts, but there aren’t many hunts compared to other ff games.

Overall, the story is decent, if a little lacking in focus. I’d probably say it’s worth picking up on sale, but it is not really worth the current price tag at all. It really is a shell of a final fantasy game compared to the past games. It’s a great looking action game, but it’s shallow.

Disclaimer: I haven’t played it yet, but I have talked to people who have liked it and who have hated it.

The games is very good, but it’s not a typical Final Fantasy game. They have removed, or reduced the RPG elements, and made it a very good action game with good narrative. So, if you go in expecting an RPG like previous Final Fantasy games you won’t like it. If you just go in expecting a good action / adventure game with some RPG elements, you’ll probably end up liking it

Overall I enjoyed it, but I’d say it’s probably a mid-tier FF if you we are taking them all as a whole. So, to me, it’s a solid RPG and a solid game, but it doesn’t redefine anything, necessarily.

But I definitely enjoyed it.

I had seen some complaints that you “only get one sword! It’s dumb!” And I don’t know where that came from: you craft lots of swords. Maybe they are upset you only use a sword as your primary melee weapon? To which I might point out Cloud, Squall, Tidus, Lightning, most FF protagonists in games without job systems. It’s a sword plus magic like most FF games.

Maybe the complaint is that you don’t get to use other characters since they mostly just do their own thing. OK, sure. But also, that’s the game. If they’d have just lifted the FF7 combat people would bitch about that, too. It’s like a no-win situation.

It reminds me in a lot of ways of FFXIV. It was made by a lot of the same people so that’s no surprise. It’s fairly dark but it’s a good story. The expansions are way too short - I had hoped they’d add more depth to some of the back story.

I enjoyed the game a lot in spite of its shortcomings. It doesn’t have as much “extra stuff” to do as many other final fantasies but the core game is solid.

I ended up picking up the PC version to play through again. The PS5 version is held back a lot by the platform.

I loved it. The story is engaging and EXTREMELY well told.

The combat starts barebones and gets more engaging as you unlock more abilities. It stays simplistic enough that you can mix and match to your style, but there are enough different loadouts for you to try different play styles. With ability cool downs, it kind of feels like the ATB system merged into an action game at times.

Side content isn’t great and it’s pretty easy. Although it’s worth it for the narrative additions to the story.

DLC wasn’t great. The first one was a missed opportunity for some arena type fights and new dynamic elements. It ends up being uneventful.

The second DLC is better, but they end up making parts of it WAY to hard.

I fucking hate roman numerals; the whole time I thought y’all were talking about ff14, not ff16