Final Fantasy XVI

[BufferAqua]

FFXVI is apparently banned in Saudi Arabia now because of a gay character in it.

 

[Rydgea]

FFXVI is apparently banned in Saudi Arabia now because of a gay character in it.

Honestly... awesome.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

FFXVI is apparently banned in Saudi Arabia now because of a gay character in it.

It’s okay. A bunch of rich Saudis in America and Europe will purchase hundreds of copies to sell in SA

 

[Idreamaboutcats]

I can't believed I caved in and pre-ordered instead of waiting for a sale.

FFXVI is apparently banned in Saudi Arabia now because of a gay character in it.

Where'd you read that? I heard about swearing, sex, sex work, blood, drug use, but not any homosexuality. Saudi Arabia bans just about everything for the silliest of reasons. I think they even banned Pokemon and its TCG because "evolution".

 

[Chaser]

A gay character was mentioned in a leak that the last state of play got other details correct.

I believe that’s why the decision to ban the game was made.

 

[BufferAqua]

Where'd you read that?

Pretty much what Chaser said. A gay character was leaked.

And if it’s real then hell yeah.

 

[Elysium]

Oh, wow.... I was already excited for this based on everything that I've seen, now I'm looking forward to this even more.

I wonder if LGBT characters could end up showing up in KH (or characters already in them could end up depicted that way in future) since both Square Enix and Disney are open to it now after all these years.... I guess it just depends on what Nomura would want to do.

 

[Idreamaboutcats]

Oh, okay, neat.

I’m hoping this game turns things around for Final Fantasy. After FNC and XIV 1.0 the series’ reputation took a hit, and I have to admit I’m cautiously skeptical of Yoshi-P in producing a single player RPG, but hopefully my doubts are misplaced.

 

[Chaser]

Previews are out. Here's the b-roll the previews are using:

 

[Launchpad]

I've stopped interacting with any trailers or previews for this game, since I was actually well convinced by the look we got a month or so ago that it's going to be straight up heat. While I can understand that it's a bit sad for some to see FF go into full-on action game territory, I much prefer what this looks like to the half-measured flimsy 'action' of XV. It looks like it's going to be a huge spectacle and invoke a more classic sense of adventure.

It'll be nice to play a huge game built ONLY for next gen hardware as well. My PS5 has been desperate for something like this, so this is a day one for me.

 

[Darkspawn]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1668183816664649729

FFXVI Demo is out now and save data can be carried over to the full game! They also reiterated that the KH team contributed to game’s development along with Platinum Games.

 

[KHRULER]

I played the Demo when it came out and it was enjoyable. Not sure if I want the Deluxe edition or the standard edition. I don't really have a strong attachment to the game (not like KH3 or FFVIIR) so may just go with the standard. Looking forward to playing it though (tomorrow?).

 

[Idreamaboutcats]

Took two days off, played it within reasonable timeframe and schedule (had proper amount of sleep, food, actually went to the washroom instead of peeing in bottles of Mountain Dew like a neckbeard, etc.) and I have this much to say:

The game was very imaginative and lived up to the “Fantasy” aspect of the title, I’ll give you that.

I’ll be honest, some of the scenes were cringe-inducing, but I can blame my bias against Game of Thrones and ASoIaF for that.

It’s semi-unrelated since it’s a western work by a western author and cast, but I think both the series, which I stopped watching on season 3, and the books, which I tried to read after I heard about the infamous finale fiasco and stopped after book 1, were pieces of crap and full of shite (bring on the pitchforks).

I had to swallow it all down and digest this game properly while separating my intense hatred for anything that reminds me of Martin’s works. And it was difficult because the game was practically a callback and GoT must’ve had a lot of influence on it.

When I finally got over it (and after looking for the books and literally promptly throwing them into the trash since they’re just gathering dust and allergens), I was…not really all that impressed with the graphics.

Maybe my TV was outdated? I should buy a new one when I can afford it. Playing a PS5 on a TV only capable of 1080p seems to be doing the console an injustice. I’ll replay it again if I get a new TV.

Maybe it’s the new in-house engine? I heard it was called Radec, but who knows if that’s actually the one they used. Anyway, we all know their track record when it comes to in-house engines.

But enough about all that hubbub.

The controls took a little getting used to, but it’s very dynamic. It’s a bit different from 7R and KH, but I got the hang of it by the second hour. It’s certainly easier with practice.

I had my doubts with Yoshi-P, mostly because he didn’t have single-player RPGs under his repertoire until this one, but colour me impressed, he produced a really good work.

The music was…eh. It wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t all that impressed by it.

The story…

I liked it a hell of a lot better than XV, that’s for sure!

It had drama, passion, angst! Also, blood and sex, because blood is cool and sex sells.

What threw me in for a loop though was the post-credits ending though, but it was more of personal opinion than a proper critique of the storytelling.

Spoiler Show

how did so much time pass that magic became a “fairytale” (sound familiar, anyone?) but they still wear serf clothes, cook on a spit instead of an induction cooker, or at least a proper stove, and light fires using flints instead of gas? Are these people daft that they’re stuck in the dark ages forever just because magic went bye bye?

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

Maybe my TV was outdated? I should buy a new one when I can afford it. Playing a PS5 on a TV only capable of 1080p seems to be doing the console an injustice. I’ll replay it again if I get a new TV.

I’m 90% sure this is your problem. I recently upgraded to a large 4K monitor and the game looks astounding, at least to my eyes.

I’m also impressed you got through it so quickly! I took yesterday off but I’m still really early into the game, don’t even have my 2nd Eikon yet. Though I’m the type to really take my time, explore the environments/scenery, stop and smell the roses etc. So far, this game is absolutely blowing me away. And the combat, once it clicks, feels soooo good. Definitely a bit of a KH flair but more grounded.

If this is Square’s new benchmark for AAA titles going forward, I’m VERY excited for the coming years.

 

[Idreamaboutcats]

I’m 90% sure this is your problem. I recently upgraded to a large 4K monitor and the game looks astounding, at least to my eyes.

I really should get to buying a new monitor. The only problem is finding a reasonably-priced one made from a trustworthy manufacturer. Oh well, maybe someday.

I’m also impressed you got through it so quickly! I took yesterday off but I’m still really early into the game, don’t even have my 2nd Eikon yet. Though I’m the type to really take my time, explore the environments/scenery, stop and smell the roses etc. So far, this game is absolutely blowing me away. And the combat, once it clicks, feels soooo good. Definitely a bit of a KH flair but more grounded.

Agreed. That’s actually my usual play style too and I would’ve slowed down and enjoyed myself much more if I’d done it this time around. That’s what I’m planning on the second playthrough instead.

If this is Square’s new benchmark for AAA titles going forward, I’m VERY excited for the coming years.

I wish I could share your enthusiasm. I’m more skeptical due to the poor decisions Matsuda made when he was in charge.

Just the last entry alone brought me a lot of disappointment, never mind all the even deeper disappointment that happened before that.

I’m not quite sure how to feel about the game’s future from here on out. I hope that they’ll leave it alone. No extended multimedia subseries like the FNC or XV Universe, no DLCs, no collaborations with non-SE IP, nada. The game is being met with critical acclaim and should be left alone, warts and all. I’m trying not to be a downer but I can’t help think about it.

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

I’m not quite sure how to feel about the game’s future from here on out. I hope that they’ll leave it alone. No extended multimedia subseries like the FNC or XV Universe, no DLCs, no collaborations with non-SE IP, nada. The game is being met with critical acclaim and should be left alone, warts and all. I’m trying not to be a downer but I can’t help think about it.

I suppose I can’t quite comment until I beat the thing, but I’d be perfectly happy to see them move straight onto the next thing. The game seems like a complete package, far as I can tell. At the very least, though, it does seem like Yoshi-P is keen on doing some sort of collaboration with FF14. Curious what that will look like.

For me, looking ahead I’m seeing FF7 Rebirth, KH4, and FF14 7.0, + whatever FF7R Part 3 will be and whatever comes next for CBU3. Hard not to be excited

Agreed. That’s actually my usual play style too and I would’ve slowed down and enjoyed myself much more if I’d done it this time around. That’s what I’m planning on the second playthrough instead.

Definitely do. I’ve seen some complaints about pacing and side quests, but for me I love the rhythm of big, epic, stunning story quest chains with these periods of respite in between. Idk maybe I’m weird, but I find a few fetch quests with light worldbuilding to be a great way to decompress and soak in more of the environment. Reaching a new town for the first time, hearing the gorgeous field music, picking up some side quests—it feels so classic Final Fantasy.

 

[Idreamaboutcats]

Playing it again, new game+ on the next difficulty setting, taking time.

I think I can review it more objectively now.

Unfortunately that also lifted the veil over my eyes and I quickly fell out of love with the game. I still like it, but it’s not so enchanting that I’ll rave about it for the next year until some XVII or new KH4 trailer comes out.

What to say…

The cutscenes are very long. All well and good if you’re into stories and lore (which I am), but it can get tedious at times that it felt like my eyeballs would fall off from sheer fatigue.

I get that the game is a sort-of reinvention, just as with every entry in the mainline series from their predecessors, and it’s massively appealing to those who appreciate action-oriented elements, but it feels like there’re a few other things missing that were present in previous entries that were not here. I can’t quite put my finger on it but there were definitely a few missing elements. I don’t know…

Mild spoilers: Attack and Dethrone God is still a thing. Not sure how to feel about that, but I acknowledge that it’s a tried and true formula.

It’s a very dark and medieval fantasy. I’m only sorry that I realise that that kind of setting isn’t for me. I find the contemporary fantasy style of VII more appealing, and if I were to stick to medieval fantasy, IX is more up my alley. Then there’s the good blends like X and XII. XVI is really…bleak. Like, not depressing bleak, but flat bleak. I can’t find the right words.

I like it a lot better than XIII, and I definitely love it a hell of a lot better than XV, but it will never be my favourite.

If there’s one thing I hate about it, it’s that the influence GoT had on this game is way bigger and more obvious than I was anticipating. I’ve said it before, but I think both the TV series and the books are full of shite. By the time I saw the final boss I wanted to chuck my controller on the screen and scream (you’ll see why).

Please remember that this is just my opinion. None of it should affect your gameplay, and you should be free to enjoy this game as you please.

 

[KHRULER]

Spoiler Show

Okay I finished playing through the game about an hour ago. Took me longer than expected, which is a good thing for me.
Keep in mind, I barely kept up with the game announcements and maybe watched 2 trailers before release.

Let's start off with what was amazing. THE EIKON BATTLES??? They delivered.

Seeing Titan transform off the aether and battling him was such a fun and mesmerizing. 10/10 from me. Though simple in general, it was so much fun.

Another thing I also loved. The drama in cutscenes. I've never watched Game of Thrones, but I imagine that the family drama and affairs, etc. is something I'd expect to see. Anabella and her interactions with Dion and Benedikta's interactions with Hugo and Barnabus, etc. Honestly entertaining in a video game like this. Wish there was more.

Loved Cid's character. I was scared that Jill would've been heavily sidelined completely but I'm glad they gave her a short arc/story with revenge and I'm glad they didnt try to take it away from her by talking her out of it. Enjoyed that segment.

Compared to FFXV as a product, it's obviously very complete. I don't think I felt any parts in XVI were rushed. The story is a bit unclear in SOME parts for me but I think I'll replay/rewatch eventually. The game wasn't very difficult but challenging at a few parts.

When playing at the beginning, this game felt like it was trying to prove its worth against FFXV, which wasn't exactly a difficult task. The vibes were similar in terms of princes, crystals, etc. I didn't mind that but the story also seems pretty similar to FFXIII- Lightning Returns the closer you get to the ending of this game, with slight differences. "God" wants to take away humanity's free will. Pretty similar lol. I chuckled a bit when Ultima's Ifrit popped out with his godly wings which looked much like Bhunivelze's. Maybe that's a common characteristic of gods somewhere and had influence in the games.



I was honestly hoping that they WOULDN'T try to make Clive and Jill a romantic thing. Maybe I wasn't paying attention earlier, but they seemed to have no romantic chemistry prior to Cid dying. Honestly felt like she was just "there" for the most part. I sighed so heavy when it was clear they were gonna try to push them as a thing with the interrupted kiss at the hideaway. But anyway, they became a thing and it wasn't terrible. Just would've felt more original in a story if they were just a platonic relationship.

The music was okay. It different really have memorable tracks to me like some of the other FF games. May have to replay. The only one that really stuck out was the opening/title screen. It didnt have any captivating ones like Let the Battles Begin from FF7 or XV's Somnus or XIII's many iterations of The Promise. Might have to relisten/replay for those.

While playing, I kept wondering how the game would end and what signs could I see for a sequel. I knew Cid was going to die and I thought Jill was too. I thought Dion would survive for a sequel. The ending before the credits suggested to me that there COULD be a sequel. Rebuilding the world or something or whatever. It also seemed like Clive was dying and Joshua had just died (sad face).

It seems like Clive lived and wrote the book in the post credits scene? In that scene, it seems like the time of gods and magic are a thing of a past (much like FFXIII- Lightning Returns ending) and people have a new beginning. Not a bad ending but I don't like the idea of "people are treated differently for being different so let's just make everyone the same." It seems expected that people will just find new differences to focus on to oppress others.

Anyway, I don't expect a sequel but I wouldn't be against one. FFXIII pulled off having a sequel when everything seemed fine and dandy at the end. What happened to Sleipnir though? I don't think we saw him perish unless he did alongside Barnabus?

I mentioned FFXIII-LR several times so now I'm feeling very tempted to replay it. I might soon!

 

[Darkspawn]

Full story spoilers ahead:

Spoiler Show

I beat the game last night. It actually reminded me a lot of Kingdom Hearts toward the end,. Not just in the gameplay, but in the themes of our bonds with others shaping who we are and forming our identities. Some of the dialogue lines towards the end were fancy ways of saying, “My friends are my power.” Not to mention, the villain’s goal is literally the same as Dream Drop Distance: turn the hero into a husk to be used as a vessel for the villain to cleanse the world. And the secondary protagonist even had to go into his “dream” to snap him out of it. EDIT: I know there’s a lot of discourse due to trolls calling the game “KH nonsense”. So just want to clarify that isn’t my stance here. Obviously, KH is going to share DNA with any FF. Some of these things just stuck out to me.

I would say I really enjoyed the game overall. The combat was fun and I loved the spectacle of the boss fights. The Eikon fights were some of the coolest fights I’ve ever seen in a video game. Even the minor bosses like the hunt marks were a lot of fun to go up against.

I only died a handful of times though, mostly due to instakill attacks I wasn’t ready for. For a game clearly geared towards adults, I think they could have amped up the difficulty a bit while still having accessibility options for those that need them. Honestly being able to pop potions in the middle of other actions is part of the issue there I think. I would have preferred the KH approach where using items and healing can be interrupted. Then have an accessory that gives you i-frames during heals if desired. As it is, it takes little to no skill or strategy to heal except maybe having to swap from the Torgal commands to the items.

Another point of praise is that the side quests were mostly well crafted. There’s a lot of development for the world and characters in those and I would encourage anyone who plays the game to take the time to check out as many as you can. There are some duds, but most were decent to great. The downside however is that the quest rewards aren’t that satisfying with only a few exceptions like the potion upgrades.

Story-wise, it was strong up until Ultima came to the front and center of the conflict. After that, it was still enjoyable, but fell into a lot of the classic FF tropes even though the game was advertised as breaking away from those. As a result, it was much more predictable compared to the earlier parts of the game. And don’t get me wrong, I generally enjoy FF’s story telling tropes and it was fun seeing them play out on a modern platform. I just think there was maybe a missed opportunity to go in another direction.

I was disappointed that they killed Benedikta off so early when she had much more potential as a villain or even thru a redemption arc. Having Jill give up her powers and not being part of the final battles against Ultima was another miss. It’s an improvement over XV I would say, but they still need to do better by their female characters. I hope XVII has a female protagonist to make up for the past couple games.

Also, Dion was one of my favorite characters, but they ultimately fell into the “bury your gays” trope with him. It is huge though that we have a clear cut LGBT main character that had significant contributions to the story. I was glad they at least didn’t kill him off even earlier in the story and he at least got to atone for what happened at Twinside. His friendship with Joshua was perfect too.

It seems like a common thread was that most of the supporting characters had decently strong arcs in the middle of their individual journey, but they fizzled out toward the conclusion as they had to make room for Clive.

I also haven’t touched on the diversity issue, which is very glaring. With slavery being a core theme, it seems they intentionally made this choice to avoid more controversy whether it was about PoC being depicted as slaves or oppressors. Personally, I am not a PoC and it’s not really my place to say what the best way to approach this would be without saying to just write a totally different story. It may have been better if they just had a mix of different races/skin tones in both roles. I don’t know if that’s the right answer though and I’m interested to hear the thoughts of PoC who have played the game. What I do know is SE should be more proactive about writing stories that can be inclusive and diverse.

Ending with some more praises, I thought the cutscenes were fantastic. This was definitely the most cinematic FF we’ve ever had and it made the longer cutscenes pretty easy to sit through. I also liked that some characters that seemed like they would be inconsequential at first ended up with much larger roles, like Gav. This is also my favorite variation of Cid we’ve had.

Right now, I’m thinking the game is an overall 8/10 and a move in the right direction for the franchise overall. There’s just still some progress to be made and thankfully Yoshi-P seems pretty receptive to feedback. So I think his next game will be even better.

 

[Elysium]

Just started playing yesterday. The first hour or so, I was almost disappointed initially, but it got better as it went on. I stopped last night at the part Clive and Jill decide to go back to Phoenix Gate. I loved the chemistry between Cid and Clive, Benedikta was great, Clive's mother...whew! I've liked Jill, Tarja, and Clive's father, too, so far. So many things have reminded me of various other FF's. The way you move through environments reminds me of X-2, the level design reminds me of X and XIII, the items in the field make me think of VIII, Clive and Joshua remind me somewhat of IV, Clive feels a lot like Warrior of Light, etc.

Sort of inbetween on the gameplay. Not as laborious as VIII and XIII, not quite as fun to play as IX, X, or XV, more around the same level as XII for me. I'm enjoying it, not sure how it'll stack out overall until I finish. Torgal is so cute. BTW, I had the thought that I wish they would give you controls for the party members in KH that are similar to how you can direct Torgal.