Curious how everyone’s experience has been playing FF 16 so far. I’m enjoying myself and having fun with the game, but I am having a really hard time understanding all these 9/10 review scores. When the game is firing on all cylinders it’s a total banger, but there are so many issues with this game.
Let’s start with side quests. These are some of the most simple, repetitive, and boring side quests I’ve seen in a while. Almost every single one is a basic fetch or kill quest, and the rewards for completing them are truely awful. Luckily they are completely skippable, and after the first few hours I decided to completely ignore them. Unfortunately this even bleeds over into many main quest sections. A real low point for me was after an insanely epic battle with a key villain in the game, I was tasked with finding a carpenter so another character could build a workshop. We just went from god-tier battle for the fate of the realm to job recruiter in like 10m time.
Exploration is also a real low point. Compare this game to something like Elden Ring or God of War, and this world feels so lifeless. There are no secret dungeons, no memorable NPCs, no sweeping vistas to discover. Nothing. The hunt battles are fun but that’s about it. In general it just feels like exploration has absolutely no pay off. The rewards in general are just poor due to a really bad itemization system and garbage crafting.
Speaking of crafting and items, what is the point? The game is constantly throwing crafting materials at you, but like 95% of the things you can craft are just crap. There are a few key items that felt worthwhile but the vast majority of what you can create is terrible. Sadly the best items you can craft cannot be upgraded either from what I’ve seen so far. The accessory slots are so limited that even when I do get a cool accessory I feel unable to use it many times since I only have 3 slots. This really sucks the fun out of finding new grear or unlocking it at the vendor.
That said, it’s not all bad. The main story is really fun and I love the world. The huge struggle between all these competing factions is right up my alley. The combat is really tight and satisfying, despite my initial struggles to get the hang of it. I like all of the Eikon powers, and appreciate that the ability system makes respeccing so easy since it gives you a chance to try out new playstyles all the time. Oh, and have I mentioned how gorgeous this game is? Without question one of the best looking games so far this generation. And let’s talk about Eikon battles. This is just epicness on top of epicness. You feel like such an absolute badass leading up to and during these key moments in the game, and it’s where things really shine brightest for me.
So how has your time with the game been so far? Do you have some of the same complaints as I do, and what do you enjoy most?
Honestly you’ve said exactly how I’ve felt playing. Eikon battles are so hype and the soundtrack feels perfect throughout, but man i couldn’t agree more about the side quests. It’s too bad the completionist in me won’t let me ignore them
It’s honestly been making me want to replay FFXV
It’s the best movie I’ve played since GoW 2018.
I’m not playing it, but what you describe is almost point for point a summary of Skillup’s review. I’m curious that other reviewers didn’t make more of a point of these things.
I was gonna mention Skill-Up’s review because, like you said, this post natches up beat for beat.
Op: you might want to check it out if you haven’t, you’d probably feel vindicated.
I feel exactly the same way. At times I’m jumping of my seat and loving it, then at other times I’m feeling disappointed by it. it’s a mixed bag for sure and I also don’t get the scores. Maybe it’ll get better. I’m about 9 hours in.
I’m thoroughly enjoying it. The new God of War games are at best 8/10 games for me and I’m enjoying FF16 A LOT more than God of War. There’s constant surprises in this game around every corner, there’s levels of effort put into so many points of this game that most games don’t put in until the final part of the game. Crazy battles. Constantly fighting new enemies, the enemy variety is insane compared to God of War. You steam roll trash mobs which feels good and is one of my biggest annoyances in God of War.
I know I’m comparing it a lot to God of War, because well, that’s kind of the genre that it is now. I know that will disappoint a lot of FF fans but I think it makes more sense to judge it against the current PS single player formula than previous FF games.
I actually love the linearity. I’m sick of open world stuff. The side quests are pretty basic at the point I’m at in the game, but a lot of them at least add to the world setting to flesh it out more.
Haven’t purchased (trying to consider if it’s worth buying a PS5 bundle with it). Visually, I can’t deny how detailed the world looks and how epic the cutscenes seem. But color-wise, it feels like a little bit of a shift back into the “brown and gray grimdark tone” of the Xbox 360 era. I remember Final Fantasy X being a mess of color with various tribal locales and beaches - and Final Fantasy XIV of course taking you through all kinds of different locations, for most people starting in a vertically-arranged pirate seaside city.
I would say it’s definitely worth picking up as part of a bundle. If you don’t already have a PS5 there is just so much amazing stuff to play. As for FF16, there is some great stuff here and the game is quite lengthy. As for me, I like it but I wish I hadn’t paid full price. Also, the game has a pretty varied color pallet depending on your location. So no need to worry there.
Any other good ps5 games you could recommend in particular? I’m also toying with getting one second hand, but struggling to justify it just for ff16.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a must, as is the Astro’s Playroom game that comes with the console.
Returnal is great. Latest GoW is good too.
I’m disappointed with the graphics in motion if I’m honest. It looks amazing when stood still, but as soon as you move, it turns into a blurry, fragmented mess.
I know this is because of FSR, and its slowly becoming the norm unfortunately.
The Eikon battles are epic to watch though.
Loved the demo! Sadly, the motion blur is so bad that I cannot play without getting a headache—waiting for a patch to jump back in.
When you say a FF world is lifeless compared to a Souls game, you know FF hit a new low.
It’s a different ‘feel’ - a souls world is supposed to be lifeless so it’s designed purposefully to be that way; desolate and lonely.
Open world games that compare their world to say Elden Ring for example are missing the point; their worlds aren’t ‘supposed’ to be lifeless so the entire game structure doesn’t support that loneliness, whereas Elden Ring is and does.
A big disappointment for me is how on rails things are. I miss being able to have build/party diversity. I think FF7R did fine with this even if customization wasn’t as expensive as past titles. I wonder if FF is going to eventually converge to a generic action series with only some story/lore beats from the FF universe. There’s hardly any RPG elements anymore.
Echoing the other comments it’s has some top tier moments followed by low quality side quests. I was surprised to see that out of CBU3 given their history with 14 and making some engaging side content.
The motion blur messes with me, I can’t look at the surrounding area while running around because it’s all blurry. And because of that my eyes keep trying to focus, but there’s nothing to focus on. I went through the settings and found no way to turn it off.
besides that love it. this is what ff15 was supposed to be for me
Yeah the motion blur is way overdone, especially in graphics mode which is how I’m playing it. Typically I go for frame rate modes in games, and turn down/off motion blur whenever possible. Unfortunately graphics mode is the better choice in this game right now since performance mode is very inconsistent and often renders things at a very low resolution which affects all of the game’s many in-engine cutscenes.
So I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. I have many of the gripes that you do, and I will say that damn, if you don’t like the combat and story, you won’t like the game because there isn’t much else.
But as an avid FF14 player, I think some of the more baffling decisions (shitty sidequests, boring world to explore) make more sense when you think of it from the FF14 writer perspective. FF14 has very epic moments, but something they always try to do (and IMO, works better in an MMO setting) is have VERY grounded sidequests to balance it out. In the MMO, the sidequests exist purely to expand the lore of the world and make it feel more connected overall, and the reward is the quest, not actual rewards.l. They are consistently just trying to flesh out communities and sometimes characters, as opposed to really being their own story.
The exploration is far more disappointing to me, but I will say that I suspect they simply put all their effort into the main story and it shows in the quality comparison mostly.
My personal gripes are mostly mob fights being too easy, since I regularly wipe them in around 10 seconds without giving them a chance to fight back. The boss fights are great but the awesome mob enemy variety and design from a game like DMC wouldn’t even matter here because I can ragdoll the entire group to infinity.
I AM having a lot of fun with the game though. I’d give it a solid 8/10 at most currently. I played the majority alone, but restarted earlier this weekend to play with my girlfriend, and seeing it through her eyes (knowing nothing about the game or marketing) made me appreciate it more than through my own (me, who really devoured the combat, the demo, and all the promotional material).
It won’t be my game of the year, but I don’t regret my purchase. It’s the kind of FF game I wanted, with a slightly disappointing execution.
I’m skipping this one for awhile. I usually get the new FF but this one went far enough off-formula that I’m gonna wait and pick it up on sale down the line. I love RPG’s and this seems more live-action than anything.
I’m loving it but I agree on side quests. I’m glad there are no open maps to explore, that’s what I didn’t like about XV. I’m happy to just be fed story content, and in that regard, I’m eating pretty good. Crafting is minimal and I wish they’d just had done away with it and sell/buy all gear instead, but at least it isn’t convoluted and overbearing and I can mostly ignore it most of the time (I hate crafting in video games). I’m here for the story and gameplay, and luckily in those regards, the game is excellent. For reference I think I’m about 15 hours in.
The Last of Us 1/2, God of War, Spiderman, Uncharted, Horizon: Forbidden West would be big ones. There’s also PS+ monthly options, which to some are as competitive as Game Pass.
To note, some of those have PS4 releases as well. There’s really not so much that’s exclusive to PS5, but it’s also a case of getting the best performance.
