Review - Final Fantasy XVI - A Chaotic Mixture

©Square Enix
All rights reserved

Hello dear readers, welcome to this new review, this time I had to make miracles to get ready to play and write about this game.

A PS5 is hard to get around here, sadly this will be probably the only PS5 game that I review because I don't have one but a friend took the matter in his hand and lent me his console a while, so probably this will be a once in a very long time event.

First of all, the title don't try to be a hate speech for the game, it's my central point of the review and I will explain it according to the structure of the review so if you're interested in my conclusions, stick around and have an open mind.

The protagonist at first glance seems like don't belong to the world he lives in, but with some time you will grow on him

The Prelude&Story : 

This is a tough game to review because it's an extremely heavy story driven game and at the same time has a considerable length, so I will maintain spoilers to the minimum that is possible and talk as much as I can about it.

We are in a decaying world, is all that I can say, the world is on a breaking point and a lot of people are terrified, others are very busy fighting themselves to think about it's surroundings.

The context that the story gives on the beginning is very well crafted and you definitely believe that the world maybe will not survive as it's population knows it, also there are giant "legendary" creatures.

Things as iconic as the Fenix or the wind guardian, when one of these creatures shows up in a fight then the thing gets abysmally dangerous.

The environments are pretty well crafted

This doesn't mean that are war machines, they can appear to help resolve a specific problem in a more peacefully way, but I don't ruin any surprise.

These are a good reminder of something more powerful than the general population is around, after all, the world seems chaotic but we have to add another thing to the mix.

A very dangerous plague is also hitting the land, it's basically a death sentence for whenever the plague hits, kills everything and left behind a desolated land that even the magic of this world can't help.

They are known in this game as Eikons

I know that I haven't say practically anything about the story itself, only explained some of the context behind.

Stay with me, I am writting from a viewpoint where the person interested in reading this, knows about the game the less possible, maybe saw a couple of trailer but never played the demo.

A good recommendation is to play the demo beforehand, it's nice and shows us a small demonstration of the highs that the story can reach.

I don't wanna say anything about it because I think that this story has interesting ideas and also interesting problems that i wanna explain.

We have a lot to explore and persons to meet but remember that it's not a Open World game

The Gameplay : 

We have a giant world to explore but divided in sections intertwined between them.

A central location that we can call our base, we will be here a lot and we have the basic functions of a Rpg.

A forge to upgrade our items, central characters to interact and a shop with basic resources.

A Rpg without upgrades isn't a Rpg

The game don't force you really often to get back here, yes quite a lot for the story but not the necessary for reach the principal attractive, the relationships that you can grow with your friends.

Our transversal buddy Cid it's as good as you remember

We play as Clive Rosfield a pretty prominent warrior , this game gets more on the hack and slash side on the battles , we have the basic attacks , the slashes with your sword or magic projectiles , a dodge button and a little strange parry.

A medieval classic 1v1 fight is one of these epic moments the game has to offer

We can some very basic combos with our attacks but over the story we will gain different skills or powers that makes the combat way more interesting than the first glance we have.

Also we have our perfect dodge that works like any other game, dodge at the exact moment a hit could get you, but the interesting one is the parry.

This work more as a perfect dodge with the attack button, we won't make a defensive posture for a few moments.

The parry works hitting an enemy the moment he hits you, this make the flow of time be slower and we have free road to land one or two free combos.

The problem I have with this game is divided in two sections, the combat itself and the curve of learning to fight.

We can get the enemies on a broken state that makes them take more damage than usual

The combat.- 

We have a very cinematic combat, the effects, all the animations and flashy skills looks good but I never could shake off the feeling of a basic combat.

Add to it that the enemies are far more tanky than expected and the attacks feels a little weak, of course I am perfectly aware of the right combos and weakness of enemies to kill them way faster.

These are very basic for a Hack and Slash style, the game rewards you for doing it and after all the combats that you will have, the combos will come to you very natural.

The different powers that you can get are very unique and useful in certain situations

The feeling that I get is that they had Crystal Clear ideas and at some point of the development they stopped and toned down the gameplay a bit.

I think that they had a way faster and complex combat in mind and for some reason they backed down after getting it right, because it's not a bad combat but all the combos feels right but short to some extent.

The Curve Of Learning :

I am not talking about the skill points or the improvements to the base abilities, I'm talking about the Eikons and the different options for the battles that you have.

I'm not very fan of the extended tutorials but there's some things that the game never stops to explain you.

The different powers that you can get are very unique and useful in certain situations

The combat itself opens up after some time of playing the game and unlocking a certain second power, then the combat starts to feel the way it's intended to play.

No smashing buttons all along or spamming powers, we have to think and act accordingly to the enemies in the battle, we can lose the control of the battle easily if we are attacking without control.

With certain items we absolutely can finish the game hitting all the buttons on the dual sense but that's not the point.

The skill ceiling for this combat is impressively high and that's good for the people that want to make the best combos of the web, the player skill matters but I think that is more about getting a plan and using it.

Combos hit hard but the real damage are the powers

The Bosses : 

I had to make a special mention to the bosses in this game, to be honest the combat of this game don't was so much of my liking but the bosses are another history.

They're great and cinematics but they never stops being fun to play, each one has unique things that makes them feel very interesting, some gameplay changes, perspective, controllable (I better not say more).

The fact is that the highs of this game are the bosses undeniable for anybody that has seen these fights, when you imagine a fight between two massively powerful creatures, this game probably will be the reference for a while.

Who knows what is fear, for Clive this is a fair fight

The Side Quests and Rpg System:

This will be a short section, the quality of the side quests are all over the place, for every five to ten extremely basic side quest there's a couple with an interesting plot.

This plays on disadvantage of the game because a lot of people,(me included) do all the things a game has to offer and this FF beginning has a lot of basic side quests in the very beginning.

It's not that I expected to fight god on the first quest but they begin and end on a almost zero importance note, the rewards don't worth the trouble 90% of the time so I recommend to do them when you're on an automatic moment where you're only doing mindless things.

The Rpg system can be practically ignored not because you don't equip or upgrade anything, it's because the story gives you the best gear by far or at least in my almost 60 hours didn't find anything better than the things the principal quests rewards.

You will see this screen a lot the first hours and less and less the more the story advances , with the exception of changing your build a lot 

In Conclusion :

The game has an 50% Rpg and a 50% hack and slash, the problem is that both systems are only halfway through for my opinion.

The combat feels strange on certain moments, specifically the maybe 2 to 5 first hours, I can't shake the feeling of a bigger plan for the gameplay cut halfway development.

In general is a good game, a pretty good Final Fantasy with those marvelous boss fights, the story problem is that the game have some of the better highs of this year but the lows and the moments of "nothing" are far more.

The graphics looks beautiful and the world is beautiful in their own way, is a great experience from start to finish if you connect with the combat.

The perfect way to know this is to play the demo, if you like the combat and the way the story is told them the game with surprise you with the epic moments that it have.

Some Characters are well writed , others are just there

Thanks for reaching the end, I tried to trim the review a lot but after avoiding to talk about things that I think aren't particularity important, like the partners and the loot system, this came as a long review but I'm positive that the analysis is clear on it's points.

Additional note : If you like the content please consider following us on:

Twitter: @TheChroniclesOG 

Facebook: The Chronicles Of A Gamer

Support the project: Buy Me A Coffee

Quora as The Chronicles Of A Gamer for more relaxed content like memes and other things relationed with the world of videogames.

We have a community on Reddit too, see us as r/TheChroniclesOfAGamer to be the first one to see our new content.

Also you can consult the Contact Us page for a direct way of contact for business or feedback, feel free to get in touch.