Edited by my buddy JP: https://www.youtube.com/@JP2427

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Correction: Final Fantasy XVI does not use Unreal Engine 5. This doesn’t change my issues with the game’s lacklustre performance on PC, I want to acknowledge that I was incorrect on the reason why.

I agree with everything in this video yet still love this game for what it is, I was so hooked when I first saw people play the demo (don’t got a ps5) and basically watched the whole game before I could even get my hands on it a year later on pc.
Upon finishing it the first time and seeing all the discourse right after it released I recognized these flaws and shortcomings and completely understood why people didn’t like it and their criticisms (except the music I’ll never understand how people hate on the music, you can not like it, but calling it not good is sacrilege) but for me somehow I’ve just always loved it regardless, but it did kind make me feel hollow and like it was lacking a lot I wanted to see or answered and I’ve always wanted to talk about it and express all the complicated ideas and feelings it made me feel but never really could recommend it or even show it to my friends.
I guess a big reason I still love it anyways is that it just felt so unique especially to me, the game and story feels like an almost perfect fusion between what I loved as a kid (kaiju battles, godzilla and dragonball) and what I love now as an adult (intense character dramas, mainly like berserk and those first 10 hours really felt in that same vain to me up until clive’s sort of resolution or peak like you called it) so to me it’s always been this amazing idea (and honestly pretty good characters) stuck in an ok story (and I like the themes and a good amount of moments) that was serviceable to me and great gameplay stuck in an ok game with cooldowns and where enemies don’t pose a challenge whatsoever and combos are worthless on bosses which was also somewhat serviceable to me.
At the very least it makes me hopeful for a FF17 if they try to tackle this again, but also makes me a little sad that all these ideas and characters I love will be forever stuck in this half baked version. Hopefully however I’ll love whatever new ideas and characters they come up with even more because they’ll be better thought out and written.

Also ever since finishing the Garuda fight I always thought how missed of an opportunity it was to have benedikta survive and join the the resistance and her growth to overcome her own griefs and shortcomings especially after cid’s death would’ve been a great foil to clive and I think would’ve allowed clive to keep progressing (with his own growth and cementing his ideals in trying to help her) alongside her through the second half of the story.
Also it wouldn’t really change the kupka revenge plot at all and only make him even more angry to learn she sided with cid (assuming he still thinks she died in the garuda fight)
Honestly with all the story’s shortcomings it’s made me feel the desire to retell this story with all my ideas they’ve given me as a manga/comic but not sure how feasible that is and I’m kinda stressed just trying to start and make my own comic at the moment 😅maybe some day.

You can play as the rest of the cast in XV

Clive is a loser

OG FF fans don’t consider it FF. The hijacking of FF to this generation of gamers will be the the end of FF, unless it goes back to turn based.

havent watched the video yet. *spoilers*
This game’s story lost my interest after killing kupka. At that point he was the only well stablished villain with personality and i couldnt care less for Barnabas or Ultima.

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST YOU CHANGED THE THUMBNAIL IN THE MIDDLE OF ME WATCHING THE VIDEO.

Three thumbnail changes. By the Fayth, have some self control.

What’s more heartbreaking is that so many people didn’t like it. It’s not even a bad game, it’s just a game with massive flaws. It’s one of my favourite games of all time. I don’t disagree with everything in this video and I respect every criticism

The best part of this video is that Nam had to change the cover three times lol

more linear than ff13

The more I get into FF the more I’m confused that people didn’t like 13.
Like how do you compare anything after 13 to 13?
14 was shat on for years, 15 was shat on for years (even though I love 15), and 16 is just…probably the worst one I’ve played besides 8?

I know people older people really love 10, but I remember one of the criticisms of 13 was that it was “too confusing” it introduced too many words and world building way too fast apparently-
But so does 10?
You’re literally playing blitzball in Atlantis for 10 minutes before you get attacked by an alien invasion and Tidus gets sent into the fucking future- with everyone using words and lingo that Tidus (you) do not understand until significantly later-

16 just story wise is significantly less complicated than the last like 6-7 main line ff games.

16 is the worst mainline Final Fantasy

16’s big daring story idea was the idea of playing a classic FF game from the villain’s perspective.

Going around the world, attacking the stronghold containing each nation’s crystal and destroying/corrupting it was the motive of several FF vilains. 16 should have felt like a chance to play as Golbez. You can tell they were going for this in the character design, with Clive’s dark and intimidating design and powers (Ifrit taking obvious inspiration from Shin Godzilla).

They lost their balls halfway through the design process and reverted to a more straightforward heroic narrative, which is incongruous with the nation-destroying antics the destruction of the Mother Crystals entails.

16 was made for the average glue sniffer in mind, cranking the difficulty only makes everything a damage sponge

FF 16 uses the same proprietary engine as FF 14 but upgraded in this case. It is not unreal engine 5.

Drop everything and play Expedition 33

Honestly, I thought dmc would’ve been similair to kh2’s progression in the combat, like adding combo plus and skill types

Nice

FFXVI is a super mixed game for me. Did I like a lot of the story with its dark tone and politics, yeah. Did I like the filler content between story beats, No.
Did I like the combat, at first. Did the it get tiresome towards the end because every enemy became a cycle of use rhe base moves to whittle the enemy to half stagger. Whale on them with geruda to stagger them, then use all my powerful eikon abilities to get their health bar down. There’s lots to experiment with, but let’s face it, the phoenix abilities work fine, Geruda feels like a massive time saver due to stagger damage, and I only used Titan because of big damage and I used him in the beta and knew how powerful he was. And of course Odin because who doesn’t want to roleplay Vergil, and by endgame I was tired of the Phoenix and finally had points to invest. Honestly I wasn’t fighting to win, I was fighting to get it done quickly.
Case is, I’ve played games with trash story but super addicting and fun gameplay, and I’ve played games with great stories but low to mid tier gameplay.
If FFXVI cut its filler content, gave us more varied gameplay and also more Exp points to invest in more skills, then I’d rate jt higher. I feel like I only finished the game because I’d given jt so much time as was still interested enough to see the story to it’s end, no matter how much the game made me work for it.

Personally I like ff16 quiet a bit but it goes on waaaay too long.. if it was 10 hours shorter it would have been better

It was disappointing. The world, story, and characters were great and I liked its more mature themes. The combat was just not able to match it. After a lot of long breaks inbetween I ended up finishing it. I so badly wanted to play as other characters, and I wanted an actual magic system with elemental weaknesses and healing.

I’m also extra annoyed that they let us play as Joshua in the demo, equipping him with Cure 3. This implies you’ll be playing as other characters, you don’t, and that a typical ff magic system is here with spells like cure 1-3, but there isn’t.

I truly love this game to death and Clive is my favorite MC in FF.

I have not played FF16 (yet) but for me the criticism seems totally fair. I think I actually got a bit interested thanks to this video.

I feel like I will have the same complaints you had. I guess I got similar taste since also FFX is my favourite in the series and I enjoyed Strangers of Paradise. Time will tell.

Nice video. Boldly structured.

As a hater, I’m not gonna finish the video, and just put out the fact that I think Final Fantasy XVI is mid as fuck, the combat is piss easy, the story is okayish at best and there’s no such thing as a party, it’s the farthest Final Fantasy has ever been from Final Fantasy. Now that I’ve hated on that game, I’ll leave a like and disappear.

1:18:28

I actually think this is an issue that’s recurrent in older games, not with just this game in particular.

FF Tactics 1 was a game that i really liked, especially due to how fleshed out the worldbuilding and political intrigue was. But ⅔’rds of the game in, it also spirals into “bad evil being is the cause of all evil in the world, punch it hard and all will be saved.”

I’m not sure if this is something Yoshi P likes to do in particular (i heard he and the FF14 devs were heavily involved with 16), or an issue with Final Fantasy writing as a whole, but it really irks me that they’re INCHES away from exploring some very interesting things only to dumb it down with aliens.

That dont even sound like a child. It sounds like a middle-aged Karen with phlegm in her throat

From what I’m seeing, It feels like the eikons are kind of function as secondary weapons or like styles from DMC.
Feels like they get some more variety than say Nero’s devil breakers, but even as a huge Nero fan, I’d love him to get another main weapon too.

Ryota Suzuki was one of 17 designers on dmc5 NOT THE COMBAT DIRECTOR

Ben Starr’s performance in Expedition 33 is better than FFXVI… And he was the best part of XVI sooo… Go play E33, I’m subbing just for that review in the future 😉

I’m in the middle of playing it currently, approaching what I think is the end and I do agree with alot of your points.

While I’m still enjoying myself, I do agree that after the second timeskip the game loses alot of momentum. The gaps between new abilities gets longer and longer, which is a problem when alot of your options are on cooldown, makes the gameplay more monotonous that it should be. It also start adding alot of filler that kills the pacing of the main story. I would’ve gladly done alot of these errands if they were optional but since you have to do them at the game’s pace and not your own it bogs down what is otherwise a compelling narrative.

I haven’t played alot of FF yet, but I don’t think I’m going to think XVI the same I do X, which I first played during the pandemic and still think about alot from time to time. Still I don’t regret playing XVI tho, it has a really strong core that hopefully can be tweaked into something great for FF XVII

its not bad , its mid and somehow that’s worst
they took the guy that made dmc and gave him an mmo team to work with
everything they fumbled in this game is something they did right before (and that stings more)
the gameplay and the story pull in oposite directions ,and then the story and the gameplay are also being pulled in multiple conflicting directions
like they should have put the story of this game on something like diofield chronicles(or good ol tactics ogre) and make the action gameplay a dissidia spinoff
tactics would have meant goodbye to icon battles tho
imagine if the had given kamiya the KH team what could have been

Alright…. Here we go. Ffxvi’s design screams gameplay was not the priority when it was being made.

Ffxvi’s combat was bad for a number of reasons. They tried to give the illusion of replication to the Dmc formula but only poorly mimics it.

Cooldowns do not belong in single player character action games period. None of the best games use cooldowns to hinder you. You can spam all the best and strongest attacks given you have to skill and resources. You are rewarded for skill.

Ffxvi is all style and flash over any real substance. It’s showy but has no depth. The base sword combat feels lifeless to the point you literally have to same ONE combo on the ground and in the air.

The rpg elements of damage types and elemental weaknesses doesn’t exist at all. Magic button only has one level of charge and it’s element has 0 impact on damage.

The build variety and other rpg elements don’t matter. There is nothing outside of number go up progression. There’s no abilities or affects on your one weapon type (swords) or any armor. Accessory effects are to pitiful to build around.

The wannabe devil trigger was just there to be a button with no story impact or implications for other eikons outside of ifrit.

The entire game outside of story can just be called wasted potential. It had it but never achieved it.

This has been the only ff I have really loved, in fact one of my fav games in general’ tried the 7 remakes money wasted, sad cuz probably will never get a game like this thanks to fans complaining

those accs they put in the game represent what square think about their players, even with all these simple mechanics, they think ppl want to just mash buttons

16 is very mid

Shit on this game but praise Stranger of Paradise?……ok

This game has such high highs but such low damn lows. It hurts, i’m playing through it rn and it’s such a slog until the hype and aura moments… then back to 8 hours of fetch quests and bad pacing with 20 minute pointless cutscenes

12:00 YES. EXACTLY. This reveal is so unapologetically obvious that during what many consider the height of Clive’s personal arc, I had NO IDEA whether or not I was even supposed to be taking it at face value. It was the moment that everything started coming apart for me

FFXVI is 40 hrs of cutscenes with about 15 hours of gameplay (with some of that scripted). If they really wanted that Devil may cry feel, the game needed to be 1/3 the length.

I’m in the exact same boat bought it recently, played it realized I didn’t like the gameplay or story that much. I loved Cid and Clive, but everything and everyone feels hollow when named characters die and they lose purpose look at Hugo bro’s whole arc was defined by Bennadikta, but she is dead. I never cared about Otto I forgot on multiple occasions who he even was. Jill don’t even get me started what a literal cardboard cutout of a character she does literally nothing useful or even offers conversation. We never see her in prime form only her transforming into Shiva and even when she does the most we see her do was fight Titan with her abilities.

For me the basic combat (minus skills) and the fetch quest in between the story, and length of the game ruined it for me. I had a good time playing it but I think if the game was shorter I would’ve loved it more.

Nam i really can’t wait for you to play expedition 33, it’s gonna be one of the games of the decade

I got past the Earth dominant fight and just…stopped playing. I was bored. Fights were boring except the dominant fights and even those were more quicktime and cinematic. It just felt…empty. And the story was terribly told…parts of it were or would have been incredibly interesting if they’d bothered to flesh it out or make it side content…or even just…put in more text logs to expand on it. But no…this is what we got. It’s disheartening.

First off, love the xenoblade music throughout
Second, ffxvis ending makes me so mad. Clive spends the ENTIRE game learning to forgive himself and see that his life, as an individual, is just as valuable as the lives he wants to save. And yet he dies anyway. That shit makes me so mad. Ppl can argue “oh well he didnt die bc of the book”, and if they confirmed it, fine. Bur they left ir open ended, and its AWFULLL

I couldn’t get this game if i wanted to, my computer just isn’t good enough. But i admit i doubt I’d get it anyway i don’t like the tone, art style. And especially not the combat.

Despite this i still enjoyed the honest review.

This was probably the most fair retrospective I’ve seen for the game. I can tell your criticisms are from a place of love, and I kinda felt the same way for FF16. I really wanted to love this game too, but just like 15, I think it struggles from commitment issues, but for the complete opposite reasons

The thing that frustrates me the most is that 16 feels like the least creative FF game. When I think about mechanics or creatures or archetypes from the other games that I want to see in the following titles, I can always name something – but FF16 feels derivative in so many ways and doesn’t really bring anything unique to the series beyond its mediocre combat.

I totally agree, the game has the foundation of something incredible, but it never completely reached that, I’m enjoyed it a lot, I even got the platinum trophy, but yeah, it’s a shame what could have been and it isn’t

I think my main issue (but i have several) with XVI is that overall it feels lacking in a number of ways and strangely hollow. For example this is exemplified when you get to Waloed and it’s a barren empty landmass with nothing going on. But this symptom was present through the whole game. It’s not well rounded like previous FFs. The lore is super basic and doesn’t do anything truly exciting or new. Like the main villain is just Ultima. Wow so original. The story is a strong point but gets confusing at times with weird hanging plot holes and questions. I mean what glimpses we get of a good story here are pretty much dashed by the end and long before then too. They utterly failed and totally dropped the ball in making the inter-kingdom and political conflicts ultimately engaging or follow through in any meaningful way. Everything gets overridden by Ultima and Clive becoming a stereotypical hero saving the world. Side quests are fetch quests with boring rewards. Combat is shallow and not great and gets repetitive, while fun at first and flashy and I enjoyed unlocking each new eikon. But then there weren’t fun systems of growth. The game starts strong and just becomes more barren the further you go. Perfectly exemplified by the ending and removal of all magic, summons and crystals. A pretty terrible ending all around actually. Totally what you want out of FF. Really quite boring, this game. FF XVI, corporate mandate made game, not true artistry

Honestly the way you talk about the story reminds me a lot of my issues with FF13. For in that game you also need to read in game lore homework to even piece together what’s happening. And even if you do it still makes little sense. A games story should be able to stand on its own two feet. Unless its a sequel to something we shouldn’t need to study text in game to get what’s going on.
At the very least Clive seems a much better character than anyone in 13 was, but that’s not exactly a high bar to clear.

Anyways good video!

FFXVI is what i would consider the best game i have ever played in terms of quality ; graphics, story, gameplay. I never played much of AAA games befores but i somehow discovered it for free on the PS5 and it was amazing.
Easily my favorite ff so far despite some flaws here and there.

Their last M Rated game was FF Type 0, I believe

There is actually a way to produce something close to reducing cooldowns:

Rift slip.

It immediately can cancel any animation, and in particular lets you chain combos even longer than without (and I think it even reduced an ability cooldown too?). After unlocking it, the ability became essential for me.

It sounds like you didn’t use it, which is a pity. It would have helped, I think.

Edit: I have more to speak about the story. But I don’t have the time to explain all of the rebuttals I can think of to your criticism.

The PS5 version actually ran better for me since it does a fine job keeping the fps around 60 when you get into battles. But yeah, the optimization is terrible in all versions, honestly.

I tried running into on a 3050 Ti laptop with low settings, 720p 30fps cap, and it still performed terribly, lol

I honestly have never doubted my taste for art more than with FFXVI. Every person who I respect very highly doesn’t loves this game nearly as much as I do, and while I get it… well, I don’t? Like I can’t argue against any of these points but I don’t find myself caring because what I do like in this game is the single best thing that has happened to me lol.

And I don’t even mean the spectacle at all, I think a story about circumstances really wanting to make humanity reduce themselves to their lowest common denominator to survive while they hold themselves to their social structures and status no matter how useless they may be is just my favorite type of story.

I really wanted to like this game, but I couldn’t. It’s really nice to hear someone in the same boat.

enemies are passive in the mode you played, unfortunately everything you mentioned that you wish the game had are exactly in ultimaniac, a mode that requires you to play through the game at least twice before you can unlock the stages. If you ever wana give it another try, ultimaniac will kick your ass with it’s aggression and enemy dmg output. This team is very capable of making incredible encounters, I’d argue the best in the industry given their raid design prowess from FF14. It’s just too bad most ppl wont get to experience this mode.

Stranger of Paradise was more enjoyable than this DMC clone. I played every mainline FF except 11 and I think 16 might be the worst tied with 13. It makes 15 look like a 10/10 game smh

This game was so shallow and disappointing to me that it actually made me appreciate ff15, a game I didn’t like but I now do cause ffxvi was a much worse experience, easily wish I never wasted time playing it apart from the first 5 hours which it then proceeded to fall off a cliff in quality.

Nope, it’s still gjay ….and they still look gjay 😅 and childish 😂 I threw my money away, a whole 24 bucks 😅

it was supposed to be an action rpg but it failed both rpg and action
aside from eikon fights which was still for me an amazing piece

there is this weird feeling that i feel as if the devs hold back on not leaning too much on action (for old ff fans) and also not very rpg (for newcomers)
which results in half baked action and rpg imo
wish they break their limit from the start

because the DLC is literally the devs understanding they should’ve not hold back
since the DLC increases 1 point to the game for me from 7/10 to 8/10 just for the boss battle designs which was incredible

Final fantasy has been dead to be since 10, with each new final fantasy its less and less like a final fantasy, I’ve not even played 16 I just looked at it and went nit gor me any more, final fantasy used to be my favourite series, and square enix/square soft was one of my favorite game publishers, now with how final fantasy is I’ve moved on to atlus and rgg rpg’s, then expedition 33 came out and that game to me is a breath of fresh air.

I loved the grimdark fantasy setting of the game, as well as the overall tone and atmosphere. It’s narrative felt like reading a good Joe Abercrombie novel.

They got one of the DMC5 combat designers to design the game and I feel like a lot of similar issues of FF16 pop up in DMC5. Extremely passive and slow enemy design, poor scoring system, spongy enemies in DMD, etc.

Nam referencing Xenoblade especially since FF16 does indeed share alot of themes Xenoblade Games have is just Peak!!

Story-wise, the time jumps really screwed them over. Imagine if Tidus landed in Spira then it skipped 5 years.

Ben Starr is certainly a rising star in the VA scene. His performance as Clive, imo, was EASILY topped by his performance as Verso in Expedition 33, even though both characters are similar archetypes, “grizzled, yet very handsome and empathetic men.” is something that we just cannot outgrow it seems.

Love to see Stranger of Paradise praise, that game is kino. MP Meteres for the win man wish they were the standard for action RPGs over cooldowns.

I’m still not a big fan of the ending, the main villain, how some characters were handled, the lack of rewarding exploration and rpg mechanics, the MMO style fetch quests that added very little beside stopping the pacing to a halt, Clive’s standard sword moveset being so limited, Ifrits moveset being even more limited, not a single boss fight having proper hitstun and the use of a mechanic as unengaging as cooldowns in a fast paced hack n slash game.
No amounts of skilled play will get the cooldowns back any faster, getting rewarded for waiting just isn’t very exciting, the moveset being limited to only 6 abilities at a time doesn’t help either.

I can admit it is a well made game that succeeded at a lot of things it tried to do, even if i wasn’t particularly a fan of them. I liked most of the characters and the boss fights were some of the most hype thing ever (for like only the first time, they became quite shallow after that), some real Asura’s Wrath energy there. The performances were great, you can tell the cast was giving their all in bringing these characters to life. I’d say better than XIII and XV as in its a complete game , but the complete game itself it’s aggressively middle of the road both as an action game and an rpg. I think the MMO DNA really held the game back from being a truly great action game. It was also way too long had had very little variety for the type of game it wanted to be. I also felt like it never really capitalized on the mature rating and the darker tone to handle heavier topics like slavery. Despite all that i do believe this is a very high quality game that a lot of people would enjoy.

Havent watched tour video yet. But im sure i mostly agree. I really like the story, but with the exception of Cid the supportibg characters felt lacking.

I liked the combat, but i have zero incetive to use other abilities besides the ones clearing enemies the fatsest, and your normal combos are functionally useless.

I really like the eikon fights. Probably the best part of the game. And i with the combat mirrored that gameplay.

All in all. I give 16 a 7.5 out of 10.

I don’t llike the third act of the story, partially because of the really dumb character and story moments (the weird morality of never addressing Clive basically ruining the livelihoods of thousands of people by destroying the mother crystals, and trying redeem characters like Dion), but because it basically abandoned the human vs human conflict the two prior acts heavily focused on, and replaces it with the generic Final Fantasy checklist of “main characters fighting an evil god trying to destroy the world amiright”. It feels very out of place, like it tries to be different, but doesn’t ever 100% commit to it.

When they left Jill in the final fight I was like wtf what year is it?..

literally every gameplay issue you mention makes sense when you remember that the devs are the FF14 devs.
behold, the action game with MMO combat. just wipe the trash and get to the boss, then unload your rotation in the allocated window. it gets engaging in the postgame hard modes.

One issue I found with 16’s combat, you really don’t even have to bother with combos in combat. I always found myself lunge to knock an enemy down, into a punish for massive dmg, and some AOE ability inbetween, but never actually juggling enemies or using Torgal to actually help with that, and this is coming from a DMC lover. The games combat features abilities which can be used for extensive combos, but never have I once found these combos to be more practical then simply spamming punish and AOE attacks in mob fights.

I 100% agree with each Eikon should have different weapon styles, that would have made battles more interesting and choosing how to approach some fights

I’d actually be very curious to see a video of you covering FFXIII.

Waste of a opinion.

I want to hear you talk about the other games! Especially the more controversial entries like 13 and 15. I love the way you speak, so honest yet in a very calm and considerate manner.

FF player and fan of some games for 26 years now. FF16 was the worst FF so far. It is a culmination of the worst ideas, concepts and gameplay I’ve seen in this series.
It is trying to blind you with some flashy hype moments and they don’t last. This game is huge, fucking, messy disapointment. I was so borred of the gameplay and gameflow, I switched to easy mode and got the autoplay rings, just to skip to the good parts. This game has the worst item and equip system I’ve ever seen, cooldowns broke the gameflow, and my god, those shit MMO style sidequest made me almost rip my eyes out. The only good points about this game are: some characters (Clive and Jill mostly), esper boss fights, visuals/landscapes. The story was shit though. This game was “so good”, I can’t even remember the character names, besides Clive, Jill and Cid.
YoshiP should do his MMO stuff and leave the main games alone. Yes he can push out a game in time, but if it is such a mess, then let it cock for longer and get people like him or Nomura and Kitase the fuck out.
If this is FF from now, I’m out.

37:26 Don’t forget that FFXV eventually added the mechanic where you can switch the player character so aside from commanding others you could now play as them as well.

Good video. Where is the metaphor vid tho?

I feel the exact same way nam, I’m so confused as to how everyone praises this game.
I wish I lived this game but man it’s honestly one of my least favourite final fantasies. I went back after beating it to play 12 and vastly enjoyed that game more. Its story while messy was way more gripping still and the world and vistas were so cool! Plus good challenges in hunts

Man… I got into Final Fantasy during the pandemic because of how cool the initial 2020 trailer was!
After playing many games in the franchise and having to wait another year for the PC release I finally got…this.

A big disappointment !
The sad part is there are parts of the game that are OK to use a baseline to improve from.
The biggest killer of the game is the pacing! The length of the game caused the progression of the story and abilities you get to be so slow to the point that after titan I didn’t care anymore man!
What I ended up liking the most about the game was the TONE of the story, it went for a classic feel, and although I don’t think it succeeded 100%, it felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the quippy irony poisoned modern writing.

It could have been a good 20-25h linear game, but it is a 70h elongated mess with one of the most uninteresting open words ever. Side content is so garbage man.

It also broke my heart, meaning it’s heartbreaking how bad Final Fantasy XVI was. Final Fantasy XVI is as if a westerner ceo told a Japanese developer how he thinks a Japanese RPG should be made. At this point, Square Enix should give Yoko Taro a good budget and tell him to make the next mainline Final Fantasy game.

Finally someone who understands how I felt playing this game. Amazing video I subbed

Please give Expedition 33 a try, I would love a retrospective/review of that game in your style. Its such an incredible homage to the JRPG genre as a whole, and is really what Final Fantasy should have evolved into.

i still cry when remembering that we *almost* had two boys kissing in a final fantasy game

That game sucks, they should have stayed with the mom as a villain and change the combat cause it felt repetitive 😅 and the end i was doing the same move just to end combat quick

Someone probably already said this, but you CAN play as the rest of the party in FFXV. They’re skills you need to unlock, and they werent there on release, but they were all there once the DLC came out.

This video perfectly expressed how I felt about this game. I loved it at the beginning, but as it went on, the gaps between getting new abilities wore on me so much. In DMC/Bayonetta, you’re getting multiple new abilities every 15-20 minutes of play. Also cooldowns don’t belong in games like these. I’m interested in the story and want to finish, but I keep putting the game down to play others because my interest always wanes.

I was already iffy at action RPGs from Square Enix since Kingdom Hearts 3. Then the remake of FFVII turns out to be that, too. And then XVI is also entirely an action RPG?

Well fuck that. If Crisis Core was a spin off (a game that I actually fucking loved, despite how repetitive it could get), why the fuck wasn’t this a spin off, too? I get Final Fantasy games have changed a lot over the years, but this is an entirely different genre of game all together, this is just DMC with extra steps and a massive world and plot to follow through. Shame, because the game looks amazing and all, I just FUCKING HATE Square-Enix’s Action RPGs, they end up feeling like the same dish with a slightly different seasoning added on top of it.

I actually liked it, it´s just different. But each ff since 8 has been very different.

13:11 “please parry me”
Now parry has gone to far

51:11
>Timeskips
>Tell, don’t show

Xenogears literally did this, and nobody says it’s anything short of a masterpiece.

I hated so much that I couldn’t love FFXVI despite really trying back then. And it was mostly for the reasons you’ve explained in this video and some more.
What bothered me the most besides the missing party dynamics typical for FF games and the shallow gameplay was simply the story. It had so many plotholes, inconsistencies, obvious cliche developments, missed opportunities, etc. that I couldn’t help but despise it. Sure, there had been several good elements and aspects but that simply wasn’t enough to make me like the end result.
I could go into more detail but then this comment would become a very long essay.

In the end, I really had to force myself to play up to the end after doing all side quests, it really was a drag, feeling like a chore. And once I saw the ending, I never managed to motivate myself enough to pick it up again, not even for the DLCs I had already paid for. I was just so f*** up by the whole ordeal and the stupid open end.
Usually, I’m fine with games and stories that have open ends to some extent, but this was just not sitting well with me, not at all. It was the last bit needed for me to sort of hate this game or rather, hating myself for paying far too much money for it at release as collector’s edition (or whatever it was called) and wasting too much time on it, which I probably would have spent much better by playing something else.

Well, I’m glad, I’m not the only one who feels like this. Hopefully, future FF games will finally manage to give me something decent again. Heck, compared to this, I loved FFXV, despite clearly seeing its many flaws. But there was still something in it I could truly appreciate which even made me replay it after a few years. Actually, I’ve replayed every FF game I own sooner or later, even FF Type-0.
However, I’m quite certain, that I will never play FFXVI again, ever.

58:24 the time skip really kills the impact of Kupka destroying the first hideaway because it feels like a minor setback for literally 30 minutes of game time! I’d have loved to have seen Clive rebuild the hideaway from nothing and bringing everyone back, MGSV:TPP style!

I have the same issue with this game I like the combat, some of the characters and even part of the story but other areas like lack of rpg elements, really bad quest design and poor pacing really makes it hard to like the game. It’s soo really long condensing it’s not really an rpg and combat is the only thing you can really do.

Just like in your FFX video, you ended on the dumbest line possible.

This video is basically a summarization of all of my rants over the past couple of years about this game. It was the mainline FF game that I was most excited for, and, now, it’s one of the only FF games that I genuinely loathe. I really don’t understand what they were thinking with their construction of the combat and narrative framework. It’s such a shallow experience, despite taking over 100 hours.

Hey look, it’s “Rings of Thrones Fantasy XVI” a milestone for the series, and you don’t know the name of any character without looking at the Wiki, certainly memorable.

Trouble with this game is it is as deep as a puddle…

I remember the first time I played FFXVI, I saw so many people compliment the game and talk about it’s themes and combat and characters. Sadly, your video describes every last thing I disliked about 16.

The only thing that kept me going was the hype boss fights and interesting world.

Hey man, you’re not alone in finding problems with 16
Did the base game + all DLCs, there’s a ton of potential, but a lot of problems

The interesting details are founded with the dev team, if you don’t know it’s the same team that’s making FF14, the MMO
First, it explains the presence of some elements like the cooldowns (wich are such a waste gameplay wise, like you very well explained)

But more cracks appears when you dig deeper
I’m not a 14 player, it’s things I’ve gathered trough comments or vids reviewing 16, but it seems the dev have a “style”, to put it simply, I’ve heard that 14 takes a lot of time before introducing new gameplay tools (same problem in 16, where there’s a ton of hours before unlocking Garuda), or pretty but empty landscape

The final nail in the coffin comes from how accessible they wanted to make 16, I’ve heard a lot of things from interviews from a die hard FF fan friend, and to put it simply again, the dev wanted to make a game that anyone, child, non gamer, first time gamer could finish
So yeah, barebone mechanics, underwhelming difficulty, it takes some of it’s roots there too

Hope I could provide some context to 16 issues, this game was really that close from my dream game in so much areas, yet it’s like a monkey poe situation where it’s just glueded in so much wrongness that I can’t help but feel let down by it

Great vid, have a nice day !

Dropped it after 20 hours cause for every hour of interesting content there were 3 hours of filler even if you only do main Story.
This game is twice as long as it should have been, DMC style combat just cannot sustain a +30 hour game.

This type of combat works best on short games that can be replayed a lot. Ironically I spent more time replaying DMC5 on higher difficulties than playing ff16 overall which is sad cause I really wanted to like it but it’s just such a slog to play at times.

I feel if they try to do an action game mainline FF game again it should be focused and not longer than 25 hours (main Story)

This game runs on a modified Crystal Tools engine. Not Unreal 5, mate.

I want… FF XV remake lol

Is doing every sidequest and talking to every npc suppose to be “fun”? Some games where the quests and npcs are actually interesting or clever, are rare ones where you don’t need a reward at the very end. Interacting with the world is enjoyment on its own. But this becomes a chore with copy/paste assests. Not saying that’s the case with this game. Just that lore that players would obviously want to know such as the fate of main characters at the end, shouldn’t locked behind completing chores.

42:52 – I haven’t played the game so I had to double check if I heard the name correctly cuz I couldn’t believe my ears and sure enough, there is a character in FF16 named Kupka.

That word means “poopy” in Polish

I do hope you get to play and cover Expedition 33 soon. It’s a truly amazing game that was exciting from start to finish. And I’m still playing it with New Game+.

This game wasnt made on unreal engine 5. Its a modified version of ff14 engine. Come on do some research to make sure you are saying facts. Also ps5 pro is still cpu bound which this game needs more of. so of course it still sucks on that system

35:57 It’s called Secret of Mana in 1993. 32 years ago in fact.

XVI is a numbered mainline final fantasy game that feels like a spin-off title. It was alright. But not great.

Maybe it’s just me, but playing this game after 15 and persona 3 reload, I was getting a bit of a bad taste from the protagonist dying at the end… although the p3 one still does get me.

My favorite Youtuber taught me and his viewers a game, it’s called “Single Change”. It’s very simple, if you can make One change to a game that could fix a majority of its problems what would it be? For me, and many I’ve seen, it’s removing or severely shortening the sidequests. I dreaded EVERY sidequest in this game after the 30 hour mark when I realized they were what was really bogging down the game.

SPOILERS: Storywise the #1 change would be to Ultima. He is easily the worst main villain in the numbered FFs, worse than Bhunivelze, and that’s a feat. On paper he sounds a lot like Bhuni, from 13, a god completely detached from mankind emotionally. Bhuni at least had the excuse he was a robot who couldn’t see and didn’t comprehend the Soul. Ultima does, he even tried the whole god schtick for a while, and just doesn’t care. Second; his motivations are atrocious, “Me and my race created Magic, this also created the Blight on accident. We’re going to use this planet to suck up a ton of magic to cast a giant spell to remove the blight at the cost of all life on this planet. The crystals that make your lives easier are just my sleeping brethren sucking up magic making you all depend on them.” It’s semi-sound but you’d think after thousands of years of waiting he’d see he could ask for help from people for one thing, but his detachment prevents such. Also he ends up Needing people to be the eikons to do it anyway, so he counts on the dominants agreeing with him, especially Clive. Nonsensical, if he’s watched life all this time and seen that people care about each other he’s an idiot to think anyone would just agree. Also completely unempathetic when his race’s suffering was what made them make Magic to begin with. It’s like all the worst parts of the Occuria, Bhuni and the Ascians combined, watered down and stupefied.

Other major complains: I wish there was an actual party, not just Clive and his daily partner. There’s not enough levity without a party. Jill is competing with Penelo from FF12 for being bland toast; at least she does stuff. The combat boiled down to button mashing tanky sponges after hours on end. They really should have added damage vulnerabilities. The eikon fights were a little too hand-holdy early on. Why does Square insist on shoe-horning in the Stagger meter every game after 13? It’s boiled down to basically enemies just have a second health bar at this point.

The ending nearly made me go catatonic. Clive beats Ultima, inherits the power to save/change the world then, “Oh, well I guess my body can’t handle it…” YOUR BODY WAS LITERALLY SPECIFICALLY MADE TO HANDLE IT CLIVE!!! Least Joshua lived thanks to it I guess.

All in all a 6/10 from me, but I wasn’t expecting much after 15. If they cut out the sidequests that’d cut out 30+ hours of time from the game and I would have enjoyed it far more knowing my time wasn’t as wasted.

1:22:22 – 1:22:40 If people like the game and consider it their favorite then more power to them, in fact I sympathize with that sentiment. I want to like the game but the flaws bring it down to much (especially when people hype this game up like its the second coming of christ when its clearly not which makes me have a bone to pick with those types of people but thats besides the point.) Its the people that try to downplay or dismiss the flaws of the game to the people they disagree with claiming that they don’t get the gameplay or story (defending on how Ultima is a captivating Villain. What he’s inspired by is interesting. How he is executed in story is not interesting) is who I mainly have a problem with.

I’m so excited for Nam to play Claire Obscure! Your going to love that game dude, I promise, such a breath of fresh air for the genre, and I love what it represents for this industry as well.

The best thing about this game is it’s outstanding soundtrack. OST is up there with Clair Obscur’s OST. (do a deep dive on that one next please!!)

Wake up baby, Nam’s Compendium dropped a new video.

hype and aura mentioned

I’m playing through it right now, around the finale and I have to say, I love it
HOWEVER
It does have a lot of flaws, I don’t really care about a lot of them, but there’s one that’s really affecting my motivation, every story quest that I complete spawns in like 10 side quests toward the end

I like the quests in 16, I found that they often added to the worldbuilding of the game, but that was when they gave 2, maybe 2 quests at a time, then out of nowhere when you reach the desert area and meet L’Ubor, they start spamming quests in every region left right and center with every minor progress you make

You cleared 8 quests and are ready to continue the game? Nice… nice, here have 4 more quests after this 15 minute cutscene and 3 more notorious marks while we’re at it, it’s exausting at a certain point and it is a shame, because again, I love the quests in 16, it’s just a shame that they are going over board toward the end game

I’m still loving the game, but my play sessions are becoming shorter and shorter by the day. But I’ll still be sure to savor, because this one has been a special one

At 1st i saw the review from The Gaming Brits about this, and . . . . Yeah the story sounds drag (like it’s supposedly 12 hours but stretched to 1200)

I fucking loved this game. I enjoyed it so much, I played it twice to get the platinum and I don’t really replay games. The music alone carries it for me. The gameplay makes me feel like a bad ass. I think this game made me a fan of Ben Starr. For me, XVI is on the same level as Expedition 33.

One of the best games ever made. One of the best combat systems ever made. Looking forward to Ryotas next masterpiece

Man whenever i hear criticism about FFXVI, even if i’ve never played it myself, it sure sounds like the team behind FFXIV (The current FF MMO) made it, specially that part about the mothercrystals supposedly causing chaos but nothing really happening, in FFXIV Endwalker a literal universal apocalypse is happening and affecting your world but after everything is set and done it’s like the nothing ever happens meme.

Great video! I agree with you, playing it right now (just finished Bahamut fight) and it feels so wasted… the plot is all over the place.

I began FF16 and was excited about it to the point I bought DLC, but then I barely found any strength in myself to finish it.

After 100+ hours of insufferable storytelling and skin deep enemy/level design I can confidently say I it tried Waaay to hard to right the wrongs of FF15. Idk what they were thinking.

13:42 A big correction here, Final Fantasy 16 DOES NOT use Unreal Engine 5 at all, IT IS NOT a UE5 game. FF16 uses a new self-contained proprietary engine that has been used for the first time by Square Enix ONLY FOR THIS GAME.

This game is very sad. It’s graphically speaking pretty good. But the enviroments and the characters are so incredibly boring designwise, it’s hard to care (plus the particle effects get in the way of gameplay, like when in semi prime mode, you can’t even see the incoming attacks, making it hard to dodge, so you just mash).
And the game’s political side is presented in a very boring way. Every time Vivian opened her map I wanted to gouge my eyes out of boredom, but the story with the dominants is the most generic thing of all time, but decent. Plus, the combat is way too generic, boring, and basic for a 60 hour game. Also this game is incredibly easy. I didn’t die a single time in my playthrough.

I truly think this is one of the most boring games I have ever played (Find the flame, Away and No risk, no reward are the only good things about this game).

Plus, Clive in Tekken 8 is a really annoying character.

FF16 doesn’t feel like FF at all. I think it’s much closer to Asura’s Wrath but better.

I think Final Fantasy is kind of a victim of it’s own hype. Both the fans and developers are mistreating this series, especially the main numbered entries. From the fans side they wanted a more traditional story and gameplay which makes Square play it more safe with the newer games. This is honestly why I like the XIII trilogy more than XV and XVI. Yes they’re a mess, but they’re kind of a fun mess. XV regardless of the miss potential also had a pretty quirky identity to it that was quite a bit more fun than what we got with XVI.

XVI just feels boring and tropey by comparison because it relies so much on traditional stuff for the series with it’s story and characters. Yeah it’s definitely inspired by Game of Thrones and has DMC like gameplay, but the basis of it is “Safe Final Fantasy.” Don’t rock the boat too much, don’t be weird, and give the fans what they’ve been asking for. Well the fans are a lot of times wrong and XVI mostly feels generic because of that.

From the developer side I think Versus XIII being turned int XV and even some of the hype stuff from XV’s trailers being omitted from the game was such a shame. I think Square was adamant about using their proprietary engines for their games at the time and while they looked pretty they didn’t work well. I completely understand why Nomura moved Kingdom Hearts to the Unreal engine because Crystal Tools and Luminous were just awful engines to work with. Tabata having to stick with Luminous meant that a lot of that cool stuff in the trailers had to be omitted. Nowadays it’s awesome to see games like Lost Soul Aside and Tides of Annihilation actually include some of the cool stuff XV was promising in their games.

Also Square should have taken more notes from CyberConnect2 when they were working for them on VIIR than turning it into a trilogy and naming one of it’s game’s subtitles after one of their .hack entries, Rebirth. Want to bet part 3 will be called Redemption. CC2 would done an amazing job helping with XVI development as they’ve actually made a better version of the best parts of that game, the Kaiju fights, with Asura’s Wrath. Not to mention they know how to incorporate QTEs into cutscenes to make them feel hype AF.

CC2 are also really good character writers with their original RPG series, .hack and Little Tail Bronx. Heck they actually wrapped up a trilogy of games, Fuga Melodies of Steel, in about the same amount of time it took Rebirth to come out after Remake. Fuga has an ensemble cast of 13 main characters and about 20 side characters who all get pretty fleshed out over the trilogy. With XV I’d honestly only say the 4 brothers and Ardyn get fleshed out, and with XVI it’s mostly Clive and a couple others that get somewhat fleshed out as well. I haven’t really played VIIR yet, but from what I can tell it’s the only recent FF entry that is actually developing it’s characters to a similar extent.

I really don’t understand why they’ve been lacking on character writing with the recent entries when the series has been known for it’s really good ensemble cast writing since IV. I feel the switch to action combat may be the reason as they don’t know how to write compelling side characters when that kind of gameplay does shift the focus of stories towards mostly the main character. This is probably why VIIR isn’t having the same character writing issues.

combat wise and gamephilosophy wise, game is somewhere between gow4 and dmc5

Side quests felt bad, then Square hit us with the expensive DLC that was basically cut out of the main game. Greedy cash grab.

Quick correction about the graphics: FF16 was not developed in Unreal Engine 5, else it would be WAY easier to mod. Instead it uses an in-house engine purpose-built for this game. If I recall correctly, I believe it is a modified version of the FF14 engine.

Bro never played a true ff

I loved the game. The story is really good and the kaiju fights were so cool. The story does hit these weird jump ahead points that make it feel like it was supposed to be longer and they rushed a lot of stuff. It has this weird dynamic between rushing ahead and meandering.

God damn I loved 16
I had my issues with it especially the side missions but Ben Starr as Clive was incredible and 16 had such a good story even if it was a little cliche at times

Ayo love that you’re interested in Expedition 33, and let me just say, yeah Ben killed it in that game too

I loved the spectacle of the boss battles, and honestly I wish that they went in harder on the action combat gameplay. I think the cooldown timer abilities were there to not alienate the turn-based combat fans, as inputs as complex as something like what you get in DMC would be too much of a departure for them

I wish the game didn’t pull the ambiguous ending BS. Having it up in the air as to whether Clive survives is so frustrating after you spend the whole game watching characters tell him he needs to stop trying to solve everything on his own.

It’s also just a bummer to have a downer/ambiguous ending after watching all these characters suffer so much throughout the game. I just want to see them be happy

Have you thought about doing videos on the Fire Emblem series?

I absolutely loved this game. I can understand people’s critiques but this game hits on every level they I care about. I love politics and romance in stories, and this hits just right for me. It feels like a fleshed out FFXIV expansion (for better and foot worse) and that’s exactly what I wanted out of it

STRANGERS OF PARADISE IS SO UNDERRATED! please play it ppl it’s like 15 bucks

You should play Trails and Xenoblade games if you want good character, story and worldbuilding. 😁

The problem with this game was that the path between the crystals was… painfully inconsistent in quality especially when cid kicks the bucket

Honestly to me FF16 is the most 7/10 game ive ever played.

I liked it, the combat was fun enough, and the story had me invested for the most part, and the music was incredible.

But that was about it. Theres really nothing about this game that I found down right awful or truly exceptional

I feel different. I do love this game but I understand the feeling as I felt that for other games.

Theres a game for everyone but not every game is for everyone

I compare this game to something that without a shadow of a doubt was one of its main inspirations: Asura’s Wrath. (If you know, you know). It too has some pretty low lows and some trash gameplay at times…but mother of god the highs are some of the best highs in all of visual media.

I also think this game was rushed to some degree. What they chose to focus on was nothing short of awe inspiring…but they didn’t have the time to apply that effort to the whole game. It’s not even that hard to understand why. No game company on earth has the resources to make what I think they really wanted to make. Ambition got ahead of reality a bit.

While I enjoyed this game quite a bit, I do think that it was a bit too much of an overcorrection from XV. XV was weird, huge, experimental, and kinda bad, but in a way that makes it stand out from the rest of the series and, more importantly, the industry. XVI, however, takes the safest cues from other AAA narrative games (linear progression, QTEs, special attack cooldowns, etc.) and competently recreates them but only has a handful of ideas to call its own. I hope that XVII (assuming it’s not the next MMO) gets wacky with it and isn’t scared to fail a little bit. It might be the most consistently solid entry in the series, but I don’t find myself thinking about it like I do VI, VII, or XV.

When I beat the game a bit ago, I didn’t like it at all, mostly for the plot, I had the same issues you had and more, but my main issue was how much wasn’t properly explained and I used the active lore time and lore room as much as I could and I still had questions about plot holes and dumb writing choices. I think the game should show and the active lore time tells in case you didn’t get something. When I went online to share my grievances the fans acted like I was stupid and “clearly didn’t pay attention” even though I read everything and 100%ed the game. I agree with you when you say you can’t see what other people see

thank you

Easy the worst FF game, embarrassing to the name.

Gotta be the most disappointing game i have ever played, every second i was playing the game it felt like it was insulting me

I bet you’ll enjoy Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana. It’s a hack-and-slash RPG similar to FF16 but it actually has playable party members that you can switch at any time. Here you can combine normal attacks and SP-consuming skills with as many inputs as you like but you have some kind of cooldown when you run out of SP but what made it still fun is that normal attacks fill up your SP meter and in that way, you can keep your skill and normal attack combos going and you’re in for a ride in one of the snappiest and fastest paced combats in any action rpg.

The combat also rewards you for timing your dodges and parries. Both nullify attacks for a short period of time and slow enemies down, which gives you more room to attack and you can stack them up too given the right timings. They help a lot if you don’t want to rely on healing items too much and especially in harder difficulties where enemies hit like a truck. Worth mentioning that this exact system is used in three other Ys games: 7,9 and Memories of celceta.

Excellent video man, I found myself nodding in agreement the entire time.

I like the game, but i feel that it would have been better as a turned based game. Or a shorter game.

I tried to play Final Fantasy XVI — I really did — but holy shit, it was mind-numbingly boring. After a few hours I deleted and went back to playing Fear and Hunger 2: Termina…

It’s actually hilarious how a massive company like Square Enix, with all the budget and resources in the world, can’t hold a candle to a grimy little indie game made by basically one guy!

I would like to see you do a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review.

I agree that the performance is rough but it doesnt run on UE5, it runs on square’s custom engine modified from FF XIV.

kingdom hearts is better 🥱

Your short summary of the story is way more interestingly told than how the prologue demo was presented, when I played on steam.
Doesnt help that the game has that bland look about it early on.

Final Fantasy XVI was not developed on Unreal Engine 5, from what I understand it was a custom engine CS3 developed.

You and @Snackugo making the best Final Fantasy XVI videos on all of YouTube 🐐🤝🐐

FFXVI was peak i am not mad just disappointed.

For me the biggest problem is that it just fails as a story, as a narrative.

There is a solid idea at the core but the execution fall flat. And i think that is the bigger issue of modern FF. The games want to be so big with so much lore, but fail to deliver a progressive and cohesive narrative.

Nam covering Final Fantasy? We used to pray for times like this 😭🙏🔥

7 remakes combat system should be the basis for combat in the mainline series going forward. That’s not to say they can’t do something different now and then like turn based or more hack and slash, but the remake trilogies combat should be to future games what ff4s atb system was to FF 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9

I enjoyed ff16 mixed but content off topic but hoping for more FF titles turn based or action and parasite eve HD ports something similar to ff8.

One of the worst games in the franchise. Barely deserves to be called an RPG. It’s only better than FF15 because that game’s combat is unfinished whereas FF16 is a mediocre action game. Every aspect of the game (except for music) is a shadow of what it could be and what other entries in the series have done much better.

I tried very hard to love this game too, it seemed made for me with the aesthetic and story. But It honestly feels like a half finished game to me, everything feels so empty. It was a major dissapointment for me.

just thinking about how i missed this game today. beautiful soundtrack and a solid at best (imo) story. shoutout to the track “Twilight”. Banger.

Well, at least there are no cringy children like in Xenoblade 2 so the main cast is almost bearable

The one time where a sex minigame would’ve improved the experience and they don’t have it 💔

I’ve got around 250hrs in and while I have problems I still love it

Everyone, shut the duck up. Peak youtuber has uploaded.

Been waiting for this for ages man 🙏

One of the best Final Fantasy’s with one of the best performances in the franchise from Ben Starr as Clive

Boring moments and stench