List of game footage used in this video:
Final Fantasy 16
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 13
Final Fantasy 15
Final Fantasy Origins
Kingdom Hearts
Nioh
God of War: Ragnarok
Fallout
Diablo
Dark Souls
Devil May Cry 5 SE
Alone in the Dark (2008)
Bayonetta 3

so… on nexus mod there’s no way to get a mod about those cooldowns…

i’m sad now

FF15 killed FF
FF16 buried the corpse

The game tries to be so cool and dark but in the end its themes boil down to slavery bad, religion bad, friends good.
I don’t they even understand religion.

If I wanted to play a game about free will I would play Tales Of Berseria. If I wanted to play a game about slavery being bad I would play Tales Of Arise. If I wanted to play a game about friends I would play any jrpg ever.

Other games are far better at showing their themes and far more tasteful.

Held out on watching this video for an entire year waiting for the PC version and the first thing I notice is that I don’t remember once seeing the crazy cinematic slide out dodge.

Cathartic as always. I just finished this game and I am utterly blown away by how barren this game truly is. Nothing feels finished imo.

Allow me to summarize.

This game is ultra, mega ass. A deep disappointment. And a crime.

The spinoff action game feels more like a numbered mainline entry than this. Did they accidentally mix up the titles and didn’t want to admit it?

“Everyone’s favourite game was ‘Lightning Returns’, we should do another one like that.”

-SOMEONE, apparently!

FF16 side quests were boring as hell. The reason being that 99% of them are either given by complete strangers or people you know pretty much nothing about, so I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of them.

My biggest issue with the game is the lack of Playable Characters/Party Members. So cut the crap with “knowing more about the world”. Also the lack of major cities and hometowns for the characters. All you have here are just some villages or towns that are lackluster.

Golden Age games like FF6,7,8,9,10 had a huge roster of characters with each having a deep backstory and most if not all side quests were about them. So we had a reason to care.

Here It’s just one guy, Clive ! other characters barely contribute to the combat. Also, their stories are never really fleshed out. We know absolutely nothing about Jill, other than being a childhood friend. Literally everything else about her is told via superficial exposition, never showing anything.

Same thing can be said about literally every character or villain in the game. All of them are bland and uninteresting. And many appear literally out of nowhere. Like Mid or Vivian or……….

Also, ever since (Game of Thrones) what is this odd trend with having a “Hodor” in a game or series !? I’m referring to the big guy Goetz.

If you’re reviewing a game one expects that you gets the important places names right. The narrator kept calling Rosaria as Rosalia.

I loved this game overall and had a great time with most of it’s runtime. That being said the pacing was rough especially from the time skip to the Bahamut fight. That was a lot of highs with a lot of lows back to back to back.

I am continuously SHOCKED that the game has TWO time skips that we never really explore and are arguably the MOST VALUABLE PARTS OF THE STORY FOR CLIVE. We skip over 13 years a slave in a nation that killed his family and destroyed much of his lands and yet……nothing, no horrors no trauma no nothing. Then we get a time skip after the homebase gets destroyed, many people (but no one important) die in the attack and we lose Cid our leader at the same time near the crystal. Oh no our heroes lost their leader, their home and now wander the lands wanted and weak and bruised, I wonder what they’ll do? Where they will go? How will they respond to Cids death and Clives failure to protect him? Nope…….we find a random boat in a lake that’s been blighted to shit that we NEVER saw before and everything is just a-ok. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT MOMENT OR 3! Squandered it!

The game is lost, it doesn’t balance RPG and Action it has barely any RPG and amateur action. It wants a super serious story with the most pleasant, simple main character who is going to go weepy mode if he has to look at some slaves getting beaten. Truly a waste of what is evidently quite a budget, shoulda brought in some people who actually like action games or actually listened to the people who you DID bring in.

Anyone else notice that Clive efdecrly has the same power as Delsin from Infamous: Second Son?
Yeah, Delsin doesn’t completely rake away the powers from others, but both are still essentially sponges that leech power from others.

The combat looks like a mobile game.

I wish they’d do a modern turn based final fantasy. Sqaure Enix seem embarrassed by turn based and choose to invent new not very good systems instead

A year on and two DLCs later this is my favorite game since DMC5. Combat is just too fun

There is actually a way to get refunded a bit of cooldown (sorry I lost the timestamp where you mention this). Get a Parry and for the 3 seconds the slowdown lasts, cooldowns come back 3 times as fast, essentially refunding you 6 seconds. Personally I hate the Parry mechanic, learning which attacks you can Parry and the timing is extremely tedious and rewarded poorly for the effort and risk it presents.

I wish more was said about the gameplay in general. I feel like the game’s pretend-exploration with the large empty maps is a detriment to the experience (made worse by the lack of meaningful RPG mechanics to have exploration reward you) and that regardless of the length of the game, the combat can’t sustain itself because outside of the frailest ones, you really can’t do much of interest to enemies. Loved the review and your videos tho, keep up the good work!

Looks like all the mini games from ff16 ended up in FF7 Rebirth lmao

Is sad there’s a grate gaming Brit video I can’t watch, cause I don’t want to get spoiled on a game.

TOTK was more innovative than this, and really the entire ff series.

Honestly I wasn’t needing to hear swears in every other sentence from gav or sexual scenes. I would’ve been just fine without those elements and would’ve preferred they leaned harder into the fleeting joy, weight ,and woe of living in the world as a bearer as a dominant as a normal human.

I think it would’ve been nice if they explored the elements between the dominant and the connected summon because in theory when they become the summon, that characteristic is supposed to flourish, and the dominant character is supposed to disappear or lessen, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If we saw how much of a kinship each summon had with its dominant we would feel the weight each time a dominant made the decision to fully turn and return.
For example, Bahamut could’ve chosen Dion as his dominant, because though he has a mortal shell, Dion’s will loyalty and determination mirrored his own, and so whenever Dion transforms his will loyalty, and determination to protect his kingdom, is amplified and through Bahamut he is bestowed the power to do so. And because of the knowledge of that transformation whenever he returns to his human form, we see his body take the toll of such power, but we understand that as the trade-off for him getting what he desires.
As mentioned already, there were quite a few time skips that should have been seen so that we would be able to follow the characters journey much more closely instead of having to accept and assume terrible things happened but here’s the arc.

You forgot to mention the other fatal flaw of the combat: nearly all of the enemies are braindead and too easy to kill. There’s no tension in the fights, so it feels like they designed a system for players to show off all of the button combinations they had memorized. Or, given the insane particle effects, perhaps they simply dialed it down to noob level to avoid player frustration with not being able to see what was actually going on. Either way, I found the combat system a complete failure by 20 hours in.

I find myself missing FFX’s combat system more and more with each new “FF”.

I remember that when I saw in interviews that Game of Thrones was an inspiration that things would end up rather bland. What was trendy during the early parts of this game’s long development was going to feel dated. Not helping things is how the pursuit of the “triple A” label results in bland games. I’d still love to see FF do a dark fantasy style story and setting, but I’d like for it to feel like FF instead it trying to imitate a popular show.

Imagine being worked to death because no one wants to figure out buckets and matches and having the people who are literally murdering you be smug about it because they were more polite as they did it…oh boy…

I could have sworn I had already left a comment pointing this out but some of the complaints you were having about lore not getting explained were in the side quests you refused to do so you don’t get to bitch about. I’m not gonna act like every quest is perfect but they’re definitely worth doing and flesh out the world and characters quite a bit, and if that doesn’t matter to you then why are you playing a game in a franchise know for that?

Man I hope you’re right about this being a transitional title, cause I don’t have high hopes of that being the case. Based on the fact that apparently, FF16 didn’t sell as well as Sqeenix hoped and the online discourse about it from what I’ve seen has been pretty divided, I think this might be a one and done deal, meaning the next FF will try something new, which means it’s gonna be another coin flip on whether it’s good or bad.

Its so funny to me that dmc 5 has a final fantasy ass party with3 playable characters trough the story yet this has none

With the departure from traditional FF mechanics, it should’ve been treated as a spinoff title. Heck, FF Type-0 has more traditional mechanics, and that’s a spinoff title.

1:01:26 – this is just, literally, to the point, EXACTLY what Xenoblade 1 did in 2010, but worse. Even that series feels like it’s spinning its wheels now, and it’s disappointing that FF, a series that can be anything, is so uninspired as to just do that again.

I can’t believe you mentioned Pom Bears. I used to live in Europe and I loved those. Now I live in America and I can’t find them anywhere

Baldur’s Gate 3 shows that this game was not a good idea.

I didn’t expect to like this game, but it was better than FF15 and I ended up enjoying it. Some of the features are outdated and I wish the game was more daring and challenging, but overall I had fun playing it and enjoyed the story despite it’s cheesy delivery, messy execution, and “teenager” qualities. I probably will not replay it but it’s a game I will remember fondly

I love the way he says chocobo

I’m kind of expecting to see the 13 years in captivity for clive as a dlc, much like we did see a lot of stuff as dlc in FF15.

Are you gonna cover r&c rift apart?

My theory why this game doesn’t have immersive mini games and fun side quest is time. I think the game was sidelined heavily for FF7 Rebirth due to how it has been said their is gonna be tons of side quest and mini games which can be missed.

the interesting thing is that somehow, monster hunter menaged to mix RPG’s menuing and skills and everything and spectacular Combat.
but it is the only one who has done such thing

Dark Souls and its consequences have had a disastrous effect on the Action/RPG gaming genre.

Unfortunately, I feel that Final Fantasy has become a franchise that’s perpetually stuck in a “transition” phase where they keep experimenting with new concepts and not sticking with any of them. What you get from one Final Fantasy game is nothing like the others and it’s detrimental to the long term health of a franchise. They need to actually start building on the previous game again at some point instead of starting from scratch each and every single time.

I feel like a lot of your issues with the ending have to do with a clear annoyance/bitterness over the game not being party-based. I honestly welcome the cheesiness after so much dour nonsense in the game.

My feelings about the game is that I think it was a good game, but a disappointing Final Fantasy title.
My biggest grievance aside from how the narrative and gameplay doesn’t really match, was that I can’t say any of the characters were all that memorable or even likable, compared to literally any other FF game (since 6). Of course this might be attributed partially to the lack of party members, not counting Torgal, who’s basically a sub-weapon you can assign to a button and the guest characters who are literally useless in combat, not even good as a distraction for the enemies.

I also wasn’t the biggest fan of the English translation that made everyone into a wise cracking cynic who swears a lot, to seem more mature. A twelve year old boy who watched one too many marvel movies isn’t my idea of maturity, but what do I know.

Coming back to this video as more final fantasy 16 reviews come out is funny. So many people try so hard to have this intellectual, super eyepatch wolf approach where they use a lot of flowy words without.. really offering any concise review. I’m fine with a review longer than an hour, but if your intro ambles around vague concepts and buzzwords for 12 mins it feels ten times longer than this review, and in a bad way.
This is a great review man, your content is top notch. Eagerly awaiting your next reviews. Personally, I’d love if you tried out kotor 1-2 and weirdly? fable 1-2 lol. perhaps a seven samurai 20XX review (ps2 game) its not amazing by any means but… interesting enough, and it would be cool to see your take on this since you were playing ps2 games for a bit 4-6 months ago.
ALSO REVIEW STRANGER OF PARADISE, U HAVE IT IT SEEMS, REVIEW IT!!!!!!!!
ALSO please review ff13 and ff15, ff15 definitely does have combat made for aliens but ppl fail to remember the movesets are directional, i.e u move the stick backwards, forward, right, left etc and u do a new combo. its the games fault that this is never explained.
ff15 is rough around the edges but the overall story is just way better than 16. all the story issues u have in 16 don’t exist in 15. 16 is way better polished, but has no soul.

7.5, goodbye

I just finished the game and I have to say that I like it. But it doesn’t feel like a traditional Final Fantasy. Say what you want about 15, at least it knew it needed exploration. I wish 16 had some extra dungeons, like I miss that in these games.

I enjoy most of your videos but personally I think you spent more time talking about what you think this game should be rather than critiquing what it actually is. Which ultimately makes this video feel more like your Final Fantasy 16 fan fiction than a review.

Chi’co-bow , thats a first. Love the review tho. lol

I have watched a dozen reviews for this game at least, and yours is one of the most enjoyable. Consistently funny, salient points made throughout, critical and constructive. Excellent work. I agree that the game is a disappointment, decent in places, but really lacking so much in others. Thanks for your great review. Although, I see you throw subtle shade at Nioh in the opening! Nioh 1 and 2 are easily some of the best action games of all time, hands down. I’ll let it slide this time because your review was overall great, hehe. Take care, my friend.

I have always said Naoki Yoshida is an amazing producer when it comes to shipping a product. He doesn’t do debilitating feature creep on the base product and implements processes and recipes for everything his team does so they can easily replicate the content later. This has worked well enough in FF 14, but as the years go by everything comes off as a little copy and paste-y.

Now we see 16’s side quests being boiled down to Press X on sparkly item and it’s the same thing. From a gameplay perspective everything is boiled down to the essence of what it’s supposed to represent, but missing soul or character. It’s very mechanical.

The combat system got a little love but it’s on repeat for 70-100 hours as well. I just didn’t find it to hold up and my enthusiasm fizzled out by the 35 hour mark. I thought I’d love it by how much I loved the demo, but I don’t. I think I actually dislike the game mostly because of above and the feeling of missed potential.

I will always believe that the only thing interesting about this game is the occasional pretty environment. THAT’S IT.

Here’s my problem with FFXVI, it’s just a meh game. FFXV was a disasters to say the least and FFXIII was controversial to say the least as well. So you end up with developers and the publisher wanting a safe route. So who do they get a director who is never tired of expanding a story for more than 10 years and therefore this ends up feeling like another installment that isn’t really entirely fresh. How long has FFXIV been going for now? And now we get a story that seems like an expansion of a 10 year+ installment.

The story, the soundtrack it is just a single-player expansion of FFXIV, albeit tweaked story elements to accommodate the single player experience. The combat seems very safe as well, opting to take the route every other action RPG has been going for the last ten years, so it is not offering anything refreshing/comeback. Having a party of more than 3 like every FF in the franchise would actually even be refreshing in the overall gaming environment of today.

Not only that, but SPOILERS, you have all these interesting medieval (although again retreaded) plot lines/families/kingdoms and what not only to opt for the same exact resolution every single FF has been doing since its inception. Kill a god and make a new world. Why try to spotlight and mumble jumble all these “intricacies” only to end up with a retreaded franchise endgame plot?

The worst offender, is all these characters are quite boring, Clive, Jill. Everyone is meh. So, at the same time, having that party of 3 is quite the borefest with these characters. That’s the best time to have some banter, have players discover new dialogue by comining different party members, locations, etc… Even FFXIII had these kind of different cutscenes/dialogues with party members.

Don’t get me started with the soundtrack, one of the most forgettable ones as of yet. Even FFXV had some pretty memorable tracks and that’s only because they stuck with the already released tracks of Versus XIII before it changed since they knew the audience had responded so well with such soundtrack.

I realy like the game. The combat is realy fun and straight to the point. The bosses well some of them were easy but some were also hard. The story was realy good. The characters all have their arcs finished and I also like alot of the side quest. However…. It kinda fells generic and kinda loses its final fantasy charm. And it’s like I said a very straightforward game. It doesn’t du anything crazy or new or ambitious.

Got burnt out half way through way too repetitive

didnt cid get pierced by a beam before dying?

Hugo’s last name means “poopie” where I come from. Made me chuckle each time you said it.

1:00:50 It doesn’t feel lacking in content, but it’s the wrong content. Like, you have this segment where Ultima summons the power of one of the Eidolons, only for Clive to effortlessly counter with the same power. Earlier in the game, specifically against Bahamut, we learn that one can combine Eidolon powers when Joshua and Clive fuse, which was super mega cool, so why the bloody hell don’t they take the opportunity to – now that Clive has ALL of the Eidolons with him – have him transform into one big giant ultimate Eidolon monster god????????? Biggest missed opportunity EVER!!!

40:25 The first Japanese text in that box reads “Tifon” the other reads “Tupon”.

35:00 I did that quest after the one you mentioned prior with the man tricking bearers into being killed by wolves, and whereas that guy and his son were irredeemable sack of shit, the girl actually shows remorse. For one thing she is just kid, ignorant as to what bearers really are: people, because her parents have fed her with lies that they are like animals – expendable consumables where you can just get a new one. She doesn’t know any better because that’s what she was raised on believing. So when Clive comes along and talks some sense into her, telling her that bearers are real people with feelings and parents, the girl actually cries for the death of the petrified bearer girl saying “…Chloe… I’m sorry…”.

33:20 I mean, sort of? I mean when I played the game my head constantly went back and forth with “Is Joshua alive? No, he’s dead. Hi might be alive? But what if he’s not?”. I think it’s because while I try to guess where the plot is going I am also ready for it to throw me a curveball and surprise me, so even if I’m “conviced” that “Oh he is OBVIOUSLY still alive” another part of me keeps an open mind saying “NOTHING is certain until confirmed”. I mean, this is a game heavily inspired by Game of Thrones, a series where everyone dies, so I thought “what if they really ARE gonna keep the brother dead?” Plus in the battle where Clive gains control over Ifrit he has this emotional scene of guilt with the shadow image of his brother’s younger self, which I totally interpreted as “Clive not being able to control Ifrit until he comes to term with the fact that his brother IS dead and that HE was the one who did it” which would indeed have been tragic as hell. I mean Clive even says himself something along the lines that “he has been chasing his brother’s killer all this time, all while deep down he was aware that this unknown third party didn’t exist, that he was really just all along trying to find a scape goat for the unforgivable act he commited”. So yes, they really go a long way trying to convince you the brother is dead, so can you blame me for buying it and being genuinely surprised when he turned out to actually be alive?

Final Fantasy Tactics still remains the best Dark Fantasy Game of Thrones style Final Fantasy.

27:21 LOL
54:12

Clive is not some English noble… HAHAHAHA~ Why do people not want a protagonist that is “polite” oh well that is WEST for you~
FFXVI is written well, music is way better, the script is not some WOKE west ideology, and it is not FFVII that you wanna see in FFXVI… Thumbs down to this baseless review the moment you mentioned FFVII as your base of comparison, I am hearing a FAN BOY of the FALLEN METEOR ROCK plot of a Final Fantasy…

Kind of reached the same conclusion that you did after I got the platinum. I barely gave that game an 8/10… I was at a 7/10 after my first playthrough and the rearranged enemies in NG+ just bumped it up for me. Combat is great, but there is a massive lack of enemy variety. Exploration can only yield more items you already have a ton of, the trials which you can’t do until the end of the game, and if you’re “REALLY” lucky you’ll find a hunt before you check the hunt board. The set pieces were lodged between busy work main quests that feel like side quests. It’s kinda like if they copied Asura’s Wrath but wanted to stretch that fucker out over 40-50 hours.

The graphics have a stupid amount of detail, but they pick the worst fixed time of days to show as little detail as possible. They used FSR 1.0 instead of like FSR 2.0. The motion blur couldn’t be turned off before a patch(RIP to people like me who got the plat before that patch). There’s a lot of people who say it looks like a PS3 game, and while that is just not true, the lighting and smudgy blur, at times, can make it understandable.

It is a great game, but still a disappointment for Final Fantasy. Luckily we get the VII Rebirth soon… They’re promising over 100 hours of content, and the fact that we already know it ends in a cliffhanger for the third part doesn’t sit right with me. The crux of XVI for me was, “Well, at least it’s a full game” as much as I loved VII remake, you never step outside Midgar, and again, the next part ends in a cliffhanger. I’m not some turn based purist or something, c’mon. What they’ve been presenting isn’t woth 5-10 year waits. Luckily other JRPGs have filled the void. Like the Falcom games, Like a Dragon, Tales of Arise, ect.

@4:55 I hear this part and think “man, it would’ve been really cool and thematically on point to implement a gambit system for your allies”. You know, have a gameplay/mechanical investment in your team mates. One of the reasons why a certain character’s death in FFVII resonated with people was because the player invested in them, upgraded their materia and so on. So when we lost that character, we lost *some* of our equipment and mechanical investment, making that loss feel all the more impactful.

But having all the party members just be invincible AI makes their involvements in battle feel less impactful to me (I’ve only played the demo). I also don’t think having full control of all parties in a real-time action game would work; it’d be too chaotic. I think having a gambit system would’ve been the perfect balance as well as *the* RPG callback done sensibly. Clive still stays as central focus, but you have *some* customization on your team to do some cool tag combos (think KH2FM+ but on crack). At least we got the dog.

Thanks for the vid

ngl i really hoped this game bombed i dont want jrpgs to become generic action games man shits mad boring

3:34 Would you say the same things about story? Is the Witcher held back because there are cutscenes that get in the way of the gameplay or because the gameplay gets in the way of the story?

Games are often doing so many things that you can easily get in the way of something else. You can play music in the background of a cutscene to add ambience or to drive home a certain way perspective to the player (Like the player fighting against Gwyn, Lord of Cinders) or you can push the music in the background or not have any music at all to further emphasize the dialogue (Like a rest not in a song).
I’m pretty sure most who played God of War 4 liked having gear to find in the world if nothing other than to incentivize traveling if the narrative wasn’t captivating enough for them; and some are entirely driven by external rewards. If the gear was not stat base and changed your actual abilities you would run into the same problem of having to manage your inventory to find out what your favorite set up is or what is based for x area or boss. The fact that you don’t like that is an opinion and not a flaw with the game. Worse you even use old style RPG’s which often have almost non existent combat where you could click a on almost every encounter to win and entirely relied on stats to progress (The thing you criticized some games for having) Games like GoD of War 4 have far more interesting things going on and far better use of items than games like final fantasy which again largely only required you to attack enemies on your lvl and were largely balanced so that you can keep doing that without grinding.

First Final fantasy game i just don’t care to own. It has been a slow and steady decline since 12 with 15 breaking the spell the series has held over me since ff7.

I couldn’t bear this game. My main gripe is that it’s SO BORING to play. After I beat the bird lady boss I got a few more powers but all it meant was more cooldowns.

I liked this game a lot even after completing every side quest but tbh I also really agree with this review

I feel like this is a fair critique even though I disagree with majority of it only because I feel like this is a final fantasy game made for me as a hack and slash/character action game fan and I was really getting into the world and the characters in particular Clive so I would say it’s my second favorite final fantasy game because of that.

That being said I think The biggest issue I have with this game is the difficulty being way too easy And because it’s too easy the RPG elements of the game fills irrelevant or non-existent. There was no moment in this game where I actually feel like I needed to upgrade my weapons or worried about a enemy being overleveled, or worry about my stats or even grind because as long as you’re used to character action games you were completely fine And there was nothing to really push you to either change your abilities or get better equipment.

Perhaps in the final fantasy difficulty it’s more difficult and requires you to learn the RPG mechanics but I never felt like I needed to learn anything.

I’m definitely looking forward to going back to this game when the PC edition comes out and I will say this game is 10 times better than 15 and and seven remake in terms of combat system but there’s definitely room for improvement.

Good video nonetheless.

I just don’t think this is a good game at all. I forced myself to platinum it and it’s taken me since release to do as I just couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the game. All the side quests felt the same (go here kill this thing come back and speak to me) and everything just felt like a slog. Main quests weren’t much more engaging either besides the boss fights, and you had to fight waves of enemies every time to reach them. There was no element of challenge in this game either even on action mode on new game plus. No weapon or armour variety either all that mattered were the 2 stats they each came with, would’ve been nice if they had special abilities or something? FF7 remake was so much better.

Excellent video that for some reason I didn’t see coming!
3 Points:
– Can we talk about how “Press L3 + R3 to accept the truth” is just as bad as the classic “Press F to pay respects”?
– The environments in this game look weird to me. Sometimes they look like handcrafted final fantasy places, and at other times they look like 100% store-bought generic unreal engine asset dumps. I know it’s not some “harsh reality” of high fidelity modern game development because a lot of other games manage to avoid giving off that vibe. And I can tell Squeanix tried their best because the landscapes, scene compositions, and use of lighting is all excellent, but it doesn’t save those boring generic environments.
– The “classic” over-designed, early 2000’s emo haired, pretty boy/girl with ridicoulus costume shit has to stop in my opinion. In this game it looks more awkward than ever, it’s so weird looking. In the same scene you can have 3 characters interacting, one is a simple peasant with basic clothing, short hair, and a shaggy beard, another one is a traditional dark fantasy noble, with some fancy clothing and a nice hairstyle, and then the last one is your character (or someone else from the main cast) who looks like a fuckin clown in comparison and doesn’t fit in at all. FF 1 through 6 didn’t have this issue (because of the simple graphics) and then from 7 to 13 it was honestly fine because literally everyone looked like an emo-clown or was very cartoony in some other way. But in both 15 and now in this game it’s mostly JUST the main cast that has this aesthetic, it just doesn’t work.

This all could have been avoided if you bought yourself a Pixelizer…

Sounds random but I like the rendition of your theme at the end.

my brother, just manage the cooldown properly and you can just use them when your stagger bar is done, they’re balanced that way so you have the big damage. Its the most RPG part of the game to manage your burst window. I feel people are very misguided with how they talk like its a problem when the devs have been doing mmorpgs for a decade and made a action game with what they learned with that.

this game just screams go play gif of war instead. I like rpgs not action games or rather i like both but don’t need them combined unless it’s Zelda.

And this is why you are amongst the best reviewers in all of YouTube. No stone left unturned.

game felt way more fun to play than DMC5

From whet I’ve seen so far, this game feels like DMC and Game of Thrones had a baby.

Great review.

covered this well! 🙂

FF XVI is like if Dante’s introduction of DSD and Sin Devil Trigger was a qte.

The only review that matters.

O my gosh, pretty boy brought his intro back…

God damn this is a long video, I just want a yes or no ….. 😔
Well at least I’m watching this at work

Great review bud. Cant wait for more

I’m not going to lie I’m kind of confused as to why you’re even bothering to talk about the story cuz it seems like you weren’t interested in it from the get-go and your review of it seems to be intentionally cutting out a lot of nuance in a lot of scenes. If you werent interested in even trying to like it why bother talking about it?

The funny lightning crystal also sparks when you hit it so of you put it right in front of a staggered enemy and then use giga flare it shreds HP bars

ChoCObo???

Thank god someone has my same complain about Oriflamme castle…. They have just created the coolest fantasy castle ever!!! And they let you just explore the mines….what the fuck

Nigga where did you learn to say “Chocobo”?

Bro, its “Rah-muh”.

Even the combat sucks. You might think stringing together intricate combos matters, but it doesn’t. Once you assemble the right build (and you’ll want to assemble the right build, otherwise the combat drags on forever) you can infinitely stagger any of the bosses in the game just by spamming a few abilities over and over again. Here, as in every other department, the gameplay is shallow, dull, and repetitive.

I remember in a FFV retrospective IS Said that Sakaguchi driven FFV production more on gameplay than Story and at the end Of It FFV hás a deep combat system on a bare bones plot and theming i think FFVIIR hás meet the same problem, they focused a little too hard into making an action Focus gameplay and the story end up suffering as result, some people tend to bê overly judgemental on games that are more gameplay driven than Story but i’m more a gameplay Guy, but i fundo strange that IS so rare that we get a game that excels on both, that hás deep gameplay mechanics and don’t sacrifice the story for that, and a game that want to Tell a great story but don’t sacrifice gameplay for that

I played the demo of this the whole time i was thinking “i’m watching more than actually playing the game”

i like turning my pillow over to the cool side though

I wonder if combat director for FF16 really thinks that it was his best work or it was just a promotion thing that he was told to say. I mean, special moves on a timer?

Ah, cool. He brought back the old intro.

How did you know this is TheGamingBritShow?

Insert DMC cameo in any Video review.

This game was good i dont care. Literally a masterpiece compared to 15. I enjoyed every second, and the game feels alot longer than it is which i mean in a good way. Theres alot of heft here but the game never overstays its welcome .

Chu-coh-boe

This hardly feels like FF to me and that’s definitely not just because of the combat. FF15 is way better of an FF game than people give it credit for.

Judging by some of the recent games the turnaround of 7 years is the old standard, FF17 will probably take at least 10-12 years.

My favorite part was when Clive said “No Ultima, this is YOUR Final Fantasy XVI!”

Great video! Sorry I missed about 2 minutes of it trying to remember the last time I ate a packet of Pom Bears

Can markers be disabled? I played the demo and there were markers, even in a castle with one corridor… 🙃 I wanna explore, not follow markers.

interesting to see all points of views on this game, from fans that hate it, new players think it’s okay, FF14 fans that feel the need to defend Yoshi-P…
really it’s very funny to me how people think deeply of a video game, the game has a surface level story so all game story even Mass effect and The witcher…
NOW HOW TO MAKE FF FANS ANGRY ??? FF16 BETTER THAN FF7

I would have fucking loved if FF15 looked a bit more like this.

This is the content that I was waiting for. No one more then him can talk about this game

I am a little surprised they went with a cooldown system instead of meter given meter is how you use skills in Dragon’s Dogma… and their combat designer is one of the people that worked on Dragon’s Dogma. The Final Fantasy 7 remake had meter too. Like you’d think the system this game would have would basically be the one they came up with for the FF7 remake, just with this games better combat. Maybe someone on the team likes cooldowns more than meter management? Personally like take meter of cool downs any day, and would be happen to have see a cooldown attached to a combat system ever again.

Those two games all make it seem like more of a weird choice that you don’t always have a party of characters with you. It doesn’t even really seem to be a time saving thing either, because they do give you party members from time to time, so they did the work to have them; they just don’t have them like you’d expect a Final Fantasy game would.

I feel this game suffers the msot from not being a traditional turn based rpg. At the very least Jill could’ve been treated better than basically doing othing after she kills her former masters.

at least we got Octopath Traveller 2, which I feel is Squeenix’ highlight of the year. not ALL the stories and characters in it are amazing, but it has a pretty good message about facing the future and escaping the darknes of the past and not giving into despair and nihilism. It also has some pretty good villains in it.

One of my biggest disappointments with the game was going to Waloed. I was really excited to get to a new continent in the hopes of seeing a more different culture, but by the time you get there nearly everyone is dead, so you don’t get to see Waloeder culture very much. The game peaks during the Bahamut arc and starts to get messy in Odin’s arc.

The most expensive 5/10 ever made

I hope FF17 doesn’t take another eternity and I don’t care if it pulls assets from 16 to save time. I feel like every main game wants to be “the next big thing” for SE and they feel like reinventing the wheel every time. And that’s not entirely a bad approach, but just this once I’d like them to just.. keep it simple. Make 17 be like 16 but better, adress the feedback, instead of wasting time on creating a whole new engine and graphics from scratch, focus on making a better game and story. And it’s not like 16 is a bad game, it’s good! But for a 7 year wait since 15, “good” is not enough.

“You know, last time…seven years ago…in 15”

DAMN. I’m old.

Great review. I loved the game, even tho I agree w you. It sucks that we have to wait damn near a decade for the next entry in the game series. Love your vids as always

I haven’t played but the bearers being slaved seems forced and nonsensical
why would the magic people be in a lower class instead of a higher class
and what keeps them as slaves to regular people
and why are regular people okey with it

41:16 “The Dhalmekian Republic, a kingdom located in a southern desert”…….well which is it? Is it a republic or a kingdom? 😀

If a politician could solve a political dispute in a foreign nation by just running in and doing a sick air combo on somebody, they’d get my vote in a heartbeat.

As per usual – squeeenix games are shallow only style no substance snoozefest plague by cringe dialogue and edgelord cuckboys

Although my list of criticism was as long as yours, I still have to say that I loved the game as I’ve never been given as many goosebumps inducing, jaw dropping and emotional moments by any game before.

A weird one to rate, as it was at times one of the best pieces of visual media I have ever consumed, and at other times a chore.

I wish abilities with cooldowns would disappear from action games.

18:08 Why throw Like a Dragon under the bus as if it wasnt one of the best games of the last decade???

Funniest thing is this just looks like FF13 but modern lol

Yeah, its about how I thought the game would be, the masses was no shit going to love it due to the marketing and the obviously overhyped it like Persona 5 which I still think is one of the most disappointing games I have ever played

I am honestly sick of stories about pretty white bois with past trauma learning to love a pretty white girl so I am going to hold off on this

My biggest issue with the game is that i don’t feel like it fully commits to its identity. There’s no weapon outside of Clive’s sword. And you don’t have a controllable party. I do love the Eikon combat system and it’s fun to experiment with the abilities. Im 50 hours and I feel like I’m in the endgame now. I do love Clive and some of his supporting cast. I think he might be one of my fav protags in the FF series modern wise.

hardly a ‘story analysis’ and more of a sappy reduction of it lol

When Clive said “That’s right Ultima. I am the Final Fantasy” I screamed like a 9-year old girl.

32:15 Holy shit, JustaPancake was right, this is literally FF “Tales of Beseria”

Amazing video

My first thought when they started showing proper combat footage of the game before launch was “man it looks like it’s gonna get really tiring mashing the attack buttons as you shave off single pixels of these raid bosses’ giant health bars”. Glad to have that confirmed for me.

Kinda surprised there wasn’t any comparison of the Eikon Abilities with KH’s Command Decks, they’re kinda too similar to ignore. Then again, trying to compare and contrast 16’s combat system with games that probably influenced it might take a whole vid.

I heard no one talk about this game a week after it released which probably says a lot.

13 years in sanbreque with the power of eikon cannot run away lol what is yoshi p thinking 😂

FF16 is just an action game, pretending to be RPG or try to make people think it’s RPG!! Action is cool but still more of the enjoyment comes from the part with much spectacle and less skill involved… The presentation and graphics carries the title more than anything!
If you want an action RPG games that doesn’t bother the player much with preparation and equipment look no further than the Ys series of games!!

Well for starters, there are implications that Valisthea was just a piece of the entire planet, they were talking about wanting to explore the rest once it’s all over.
It’s basically the Australia of the planet

Also you seem to have misinterpreted what Ultima was telling you about his history. He’s part of that ancient race that drained their own world of all aether. He’s basically like Garland from FF9, trying to use Valisthea to bring back his own lost civilization.

I also really liked how its implied his plan was wrong anyways. How he isn’t really a true god because he made so many miscalculations.
His whole plan was to create the perfect vessel that can actually withstand the power needed to cast his spell, but we see when Clive uses just a fraction of that power to heal Joshua, that it’s enough to break him.
Ultima would’ve never been able to cast his spell, because Clive would’ve just burst from all the power channeled through him. Something a true “god” should’ve known better

Lost odyssey vibes but not as good; is basically what I got out of this.

FFXVI gets a lot right, but what it gets wrong is very apparent. Which is a shame because Yoshi-P & co. said they had pretty much no development problems with this game unlike others. But what does it mean, that everything went according to plan, it just wasn’t a great plan? And GaminBrit maybe right about waiting another console generation for the next mainline title. An even bigger shame.

I think you were looking for a different kinda FF. Most likely to favor remnant game & story mechanics the same from past titles. To which some are there of course, but FF16 tries in breaking away from those kinds of stories.

While the criticisms are fair and valid: character analyses, interconnecting plot threads, and hints of a bigger ancient world sprinkled throughout the story makes FF16 quite a thrill to playthrough.

The combat is simple and effective while translating to the player the brutality & harsh-paced violence of the world of Valisthea. Clive’s abilities show how unfair the life in the world can be. They should’ve better paced giving you them, but still.

Each character arch in the game had a beginning and conclusion, even for the side quest characters you spoke about, some ending in death for those characters & some in victory. Conveying the overall theme of FF16: Resolve.

Side-quests in this game even added extra context to the world by giving insight into the ideologies, character histories, world history, and world developments through the narrative.

In all, I believe FF16 is a great Final Fantasy not only because it is less intimidating to play, but because it has heart in the story it’s trying to tell and a clear direction on where it wants to take it’s characters: to which is the core of what makes a Final Fantasy, a Final Fantasy.

13:37 if you counter with the counter abilities, those abilities recharge much quicker if you time it right.
So far, I agree with you on everything else.

While I do think highly of this game, I do agree with TGBS main critiques of this game’s mechanics and finer details of the story structure. The enemy variety of this game is lacking and the games side requests are repetitive. 
However, one major point I disagree with is TGBS assessment of the ending; if you study the context clues given by Jill’s and Tome’s final quest, the lyrics of the ending theme “My Star”, the Métia Star, the kids playing during the post credits theme, the “Final Fantasy” book shown during the last scene, and the fact Clive serves as the story narrator, you can infer that Clive survived.

Man that is some mobile phone game tier combat

I don’t think cids first appearance is all that convenient. It’s established that he was looking for Jill at the same time as clive. Cid didn’t expect clive to be there and that’s a believable coincidence

More or less agreed with this. Very mixed bag FF for me, though by the end I do feel I enjoyed it.
Points of (minor) disagreement, I enjoyed the opening, pre-timeskip act. Sure Clive could have been more rough around the edges, I definitely agree with his personal growth dying off, and especially that ignoring the 13 years just feels like missing story. Worst of all for me is that most of the drama built up in the first dozen or so hours feels like it get’s no satisfying resolution. I like your idea of how Clive and Cid could have joined forces, in an alternate version of the game.
I’m in part with you on the limited combat abilities and issues with cooldown, but also I understand that they were trying to make it approachable and not overwhelming for people who are foreign to fast paced action games. I think it’s fine to not have the whole kit available at every single moment. I think there’s some middleground that could have been found, where Ultimates use limit break, low power icon abilities are made with regular attack inputs, and the strong abilities have a cool down (yes) that is reduced by comboing good.
By the end of the game, I’d partially checked out with most of the story, and enjoyed the powerrangers stuff for what it was. Still appreciated the quality performances by the main cast.
also, holyF*ck were those sidequests awful. And if you ignore them, you miss out on like 5000 AP because of the renown rewards.
at the end of the day, it was about 1/3 okay, 1/3 pretty great and 1/3 kinda a slog, but those high points were the important ones at least.

Just started the video about the attempts to marry character action and rpgs system, genuinely curious on the opinion of the modern ys games, who I tjink pull it off relatively well

As a 36 year old man FF16 ended up being my absolute favorite Final Fantasy. Thought it was absolutely fantastic. The tone clashing is exactly what made it work for me.

I genuinely teared up and cried at stuff as simple as the Uncle saying “That’s my boy,” cheered at how they finally name dropped the series in the game, then laughed at the ridiculous Final punch. And that’s just the final battle.

I was so engaged with FF16 that I did EVERY single side quest and got 100% completion, which is weird for me as outside of the Xeno games I usually only ever blast through a game’s main story once then I’m done.

First Final Fantasy I’ve loved since 12. It’s been a long wait for me.

unfortunately I feel like sidequests are a trap in this game and the ppl who skip them end up having a better experience. Tale as old as time, really – many games have fallen into the same problem which is a shame because if they had just cut out the fluff and gotten to the point faster, some of them would have been decent

Really great video definitely captured the main criticism with the game and how messy it kind of ends up feeling by the end of it. Also yeah I definitely wish it didn’t take an entire console generation these days to get a new entry in a franchise especially when some games don’t do much that they couldn’t do gameplay wise almost a decade ago, not to downplay games these days at all since they just require more time and effort then ever but I think it’s definitely worth a think for the industry if the hole we’ve dug ourselves into is worth the time and money sunk into them when some of the most memorable franchises were at their best on much simpler hardware and games were much more janky gameplay wise yet still made for complex stories and systems and Indie games are great at displaying that these days.

Overall though the main problem with XVI seemed to be the director kind of treating the game like it’s an MMO as a lot of the side content feels so much like side quests from XIV, having parts of the game halted when the main character is supposed to chase after a ship only to be told suddenly I can go back to the main hub area and pick up side quests felt utterly jarring and were definitely reasons I wouldn’t want to return to the game even though I had a pretty good time with it overall.

While I probably liked this game more than you, I agree with just about everything you said. That’s what makes you a great reviewer of games.

2:49 what game is taht ?

After watching your review you put into words how I feel about the game. I had fun but definitely the story started with potential but ended up being okay at best. I didn’t like the majority of the side quests, some were interesting but the majority were boring. A lot of characters had potential but like Jill but ended up being a little too tame and boring. I think the story is a lot better than 15 and some of the combat and boss fights were really amazing and beautiful to look at but definitely left me wanting a bit more depth.

Clive is essentially that one white dude who claims to be an ally to Black People but when sees a bunch of Klan members talking about Lynching a black person, he just lectures them that it’s “Not Okay” then just moves along without doing anything.

Even as someone who really enjoyed their time with the game, it annoys me that it was presented as this huge tonal departure, only for the themes and plot to become more and more like a normal FF game as it went on. It felt so weird for this comparatively grounded world and its characters to eventually just fall back into killing god with the power of friendship.

Sadly, hated this game.

this gonna be good.

Agree with pretty much everything apart from the way you say CHOCO BOE what the fuck is that.

It’s funny how expectations make such a huge difference.

You were somewhat positive on the barebones inventory/leveling system since, it seems to me, you were expecting something you don’t usually like and got a less intrusive version of that.

I like both action, and dense rpg stuff, but I detested the way they handled levels and equipment. It was the first thing that really soured me on the game. Combat was still very simplistic when I dropped it, and I didn’t even have chunky rpg mechanics to delve into nor a single intereristing quest the entire time. The only thing I liked was the money on screen, but I play Jank ass rpgs, I don’t really care about that.

Seeing DMC lite combat, bad quests, and all the rpg elements they frankly should have just cut, all I could think was “this is just a worse version of other things I like” and lost interest super hard. If it picked a lane and did it well right off the bat I’d be way more positive on it.

The worst part is I was fiending for a big game and I had almost 0 expectations beside “good combat, probably”. But we look at the same thing from your perspective and it’s “at least this is something I can easily ignore”. At least when I maybe get back to it you’ve shown me the combat becomes solid not far after where I stopped. I feared it was going to be nothing but big budget dodging and CDs.

Also I really detested the stagger system – felt like it incentivized repetitive gameplay of just having a somewhat interesting fight and then just spamming all my cooldowns for the bonus multiplier

Big
Fucking
Like

I think this has to be maybe your worst review. The gameplay part is good enough but you don’t highlight enough how the Eikon fights translate well thanks to the control schemes being not so different which isn’t too frequent in games like these sadly. But the story is part is full of genuine bad faith lol it’s actually boring at some point because you don’t seem to put in that much work into understanding it.

31:40 actually sounds like a good concept for an action game. It just has to know that being ironic is the point

1:03:17 – I’m gonna have to disagree with this one considering all the help people gave him throughout the entire story. From his dominant friends giving him their Eikon powers all the way down to the blacksmith upgrading your weapons. There are more ways to show the “I wouldn’t have made it here on my own” point than just have people there with you in the final battle.

I’m surprised you didn’t rip into Jill more. Outside of “her moment” in the volcano level, which has it’s own issues you addressed, she does literally nothing. She is with you for so much of the game and says like 5 words lmao. She doesn’t even say anything when Cid dies and she is sitting right there.

29:00 THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS.
The dialogue heavy cutscenes in some Square Enix games can be painful to sit through.

Fair assessment. I feel like Square took a some of plot ideas from Xenogears on a base level but didn’t truly understand how to create a solid story. They barely scratched the surface of theme’s place in the game.

This game reminds me so much of Dragon’s Dogma, it was a first attempt at something we all expected, done in a fresh way, and it shines extremely bright in so many areas and is let down in so much of the rest.

The sidequests have been a problem now for a long time in Square Enix, FF7R and XV have awful ones and the ones here are so much better in comparison, so I think it’s unfair to call out the sidequests in this one without mentioning how awful those were in the predecessors.

And damn your points about the story are a lot to go over, but safe to say I was the one who resonated with the story a lot, not every story needs to have the most 3 dimensional characters, just look at shonen they have a dedicated base of followers while having some of the most mediocre writing out there, FFXVI’s strengths are in its presentation, world and setpieces, many FF games may be better in the story/writing department but are lacking in the other ones.

Now I loved the game but this review made me feel like you were comparing it to other FF games and mainly see where this falls short, sort of th opposite of what you did with RE6 lol. So yeah not a teenager, almost 30 (damn time flies) and I was obsessed with this for almost 2 months and only the last couple of weeks have returned to my head not being consumed by this game, why, it might not be the deepest thing to ever have been written bit damn every line there is is executed brilliantly, goes to show how much presentation can help a game.

And sure this game might not be the most innovating one, I don’t see this game pushing the medium to new directions but not every game needs to be that, look at DMCV, what did it innovate on truly, except Quadruple-S being the best move in gaming history (okay maybe behind Izuna Drop), not much and yet we still love it so much.

Tl;dr, this game has plenty to love, despite all of its flaws.

I’ve been waiting on this video. You’re the only opinion I trust forreal when it comes to combo heavy action games.

Hell yeah the goat is back.

Ah, the shitty obligatory old world YouTube flash animation opening is back.

Gotta say, you’re right about everything, but that title drop. I think that was cool.

You completely lost me with your criticisms about Ben Starr’s performance as Clive. He was raw and emotional and amazing throughout the entire game, and literally no one else felt different about it.

My goodness, Ralph Ineson’s voice really does not fit that character 🤣

Just finished watching. Great review. Although disagree about not wanting to come back to the combat – it’s so fun I’m about to go through arcade mode after beating ng+.

It’s funny how this world is similar to my younger brother’s fantasy epic he wrote when he was 9. There, mages also served as, for example, elevators – levitating people to the floor they needed and such. He didn’t realise how dystopian it seemed, though, and I had to point it out. He just ran with it.

1:04:47 no torgal for the final boss was a bad decision indeed

So, Clive is the result of generations of genetic evolution? He is the Kwisatz Haderach! (LOL!)

7:00 me having played DMC5 for 150 hours straight…yeah what’s the problem

Ultimately this was the best NEW Final Fantasy game we had for a long while since 12 imo because before this one Final Fantasy games just started to become unplayable with their very experimental gameplay when they tried to eschew Turned based gameplay. 12 was at the time the only game to pull off their non-turned based combat. Like I can pick up and play 12 easily. I can’t do so with something like Final Fantasy Type 0 or Final Fantasy 15

Great video Brit!

Great

1:08:40 so basically this game has the same issue as Final Fantasy 8 vs Final Fantasy 9 where the more serious and grounded looking FF is more simple while the cartoony and “kiddy” looking FF is actually the one with much more darker subject matters and ideas.

16 was incredibly easy. I didn’t die till the 2nd barnabus fight. When I got bahamut I just abused his gigaflare

Can’t wait to rewatch this a million times lol

This is probably the best review I’ve seen for this game, great job!

You know, it’s very odd. Ifrit has different combos if you press attack, then spam the magic button. He even has a rising uppercut move that helps with comboing. All Clive gets are magic bursts, but no extra moves. They definitely should have added in more moves for Clive the same way they did for ifrit

It’s confusing not seeing a video saying FF16 is the best thing ever, the best FF and how FF should be. Why are you not kissing its ass?

No MP, No Team, no playable/controllerable team, not RPG.

It’s still absurd to me that this game has an enemy casting a skill called “Poison Mist” on you but there’s literally no poison ailment so it just hurts you in the same way a punch would 😂

I’ve been waiting for someone with a critical eye to *actually* review this game mechanically as opposed to just being swept away by the spectacle. If anyone’s up to the task then it’s you, a grand return!

I like your videos, but did you really had to do the hollywood “Here is a teaser for the trailer in it’s first 10 seconds” thing lol

It’s a game that gave me a lot more appreciation for FF13 and 15 … which I kinda hate, but they still had a sense of fun. 13 is like watching a deranged, psychedelic B-movie with interesting combat. 15 is just a good hang with your buds, cooking and hunting and dumb jokes.

16, though? As said in the review, the absolute best thing is the combat, and that’s 90% button-mashing. The rest is NOTHING but dry dialogue, written by writers who were given a mandate to copy GOT … except no one in that building seemed to understand that GOT is kinda carried by wit and humor and the constant threat of pulpy happenings. FF16’s writing takes itself too seriously to bother with any of that … and then tosses out all that stuff it was taking seriously in the final third. The only parts of the game that try to be ‘fun’ are the eikon battles, which I ‘played’ with my pinky while reading my phone.

My dream ff game the Gameplay is all i wanted

It’s Rosaria not Rosalia

What an amazing video! I think this may be your best review yet.
I can’t think of anyone else who can pinpoint the issues and strengths of a game and the industry in general in such a concise manner, for real.

ANOTHER thing about this game: Aside from the dog, allies are useless. At endgame, I sat and watched Joshua fight this ogre. Other than him not dying, I was laughing at how Joshua was unleashing all of these flashy fire skills and *not doing any damage*. like he was barely hurting the thing. Again, 15 is far from perfect, but at least your party actually deals some sort of active threat to the enemy. A better example would be kingdom hearts. Donald healing you, goofy coming to your defense- those are in game battle mechanics that, in conjunction with the story and dialogue, makes your party seem real. They care about each other, they fight, they exceed in the skill sets they’re championing. That sort of thing doesn’t exist in this game. Sure you have other people, and sure, their moves are flashy, but when it gets down to it, you’re the one defeating every enemy. So yes your point is so succinct, you have a game where the focus is on this relatively joyful journey of clive making a lot of friends, but the gameplay is literally focused solely on him being cool and doing cool things with relatively easy inputs. The combat can get more complex, but by mid to late game its like, why bother?

I have the same exact thoughts as you. I found 15, for its faults, to be better. Like you said, its almost comical how they do nothing with the “Dark fantasy” setting. Everyone immediately likes clive and he offers no real characterization outside of being a decently nice guy. He’s entirely apathetic to the sanbreque empire, and other than (maybe?) Hugo, he never even has anything personal or emotional to say to the other villians. Ultima, as a bad guy, fails because he’s so detached from the world and story. We’re explained his relation to the plot maybe two hours before the final endgame battle, and the explanation isn’t like.. a series of events throughout the game where we’re like, ohhh so it was him doing this, him influencing that, it was a sloppy exposition dump played out via rock powerpoint by a guy who looks like a sesame street villain. Ultima.. needed to be like clive. In my fanfic version of this game, Ultima is a god who destroyed the world previously, destroyed humanity, but rebuilt them again with magic- realizing he failed, he keeps destroying and recreating humanity to fit his own notion of what humanity is- and he blames humanity for being impure, while at the same time, envying humanity for their minds, their ability to form bonds, etc.Ultima needed to be a very human, very emotional and flawed bad guy that would contrast with Clive’s stoicness. The game just didnt’ feel personal at all, and every cutscene is trying so hard to emulate the cadence of shows like game of thrones I, funnily enough, switched to the japanese dub by mid game because you realize no one in this game actually talks about anything. They throw around names of countries and war and say blood and swear and there’s crystals here but also over there, but when you look at it, the dialogue never informs you about the characters, never tells you about their past, never tells you what their thoughts or feelings were.

Again, 15 can be criticized heavily but the game tells you a lot about your main party, down to their favorite hobbies and past times. By the end game they genuinely feel like real people who live in this world (I also think the world of 15 is darker without even trying to be dark) that is like, this shining resplendent idea of futuristic capitalism with an undercurrent of magic and mythological aspects that, while maybe not tying in perfectly with 15’s political aspects, at least tie in somewhat, whereas by endgame, all of the stuff with the kingdoms and everything (in 16) ultimately mean nothing. Your second most important point is the fact that the combat, while good, isn’t good enough to encourage more playthroughs. the enemies aren’t varied enough, the combat isn’t freeing enough, and the limitations it puts on you early on imo actually hinder player incentive to change things up a bit. I think it would’ve been a good idea to (clive is like some magic shield guy right?) why not give clive the power from the get go to use different elemental abilities similar to the dominants? why not give us the choice to pursue maybe 1-3 elements from the start, give us starter abilities that allow us to air grab, dodge, perfect parry, etc. It would make sense later then with clive absorbing the more powerful version of these abilities from the actual eikons and further, since we’ve been experimenting with abilties, we would be more inclined to actually dig further once the toybox has truly been opened. I didn’t change my loadout once until the barnabas fight because I literally didn’t need to. In a game focused on combat, that’s not good.

Uggg… Another “I Miss Turn Based Combat” reviewer.

Ryota Suzuki saying this was his greatest combat design after just coming from DMC5 is just not right at all lol. I get they have cooldowns because “it’s an RPG” but I stopped playing on NG+ once I discovered that meta gameplay is pretty much just cycling the same CD’s in an optimal order to kill everything and there’s not that much to do most of the time besides watching the animation play out. I actually had more fun with the more “limited” combat options in FF7R since you can do some cool stuff with animation cancelling Tifa + Synergy materia and using the partner commands on L1 + LT/RT to quickly spam a bunch of spells and combo off. Yuffie + Sonon synergy gameplay was great too and the parries were a lot more like DMC/Bayonetta.

Tales of Berseria was a pretty good revenge story, though the gameplay isn’t exactly to write home about. A much more realistic take on the enormous scale of betrayal and the things that follow.

This review feels very opinion based. Not an actual review

Everything about this video is right and shows you can critique the hell out of a game but still kinda like it.

Not much to disagree with here, I’m just in awe on how you managed to not skip all sidequest dialog midway through the game.
I came expecting a semblance of FF14 quality story, themes and characters, so it wouldn’t be surprising to say I was extremely disappointed by FF16. Sure it doesn’t have the benefit of a decade’s worth of build-up like 14 did, but I was shocked by how some of the same leading developers created something so… bland?

Anabella’s death was the CRAPPIEST and I KNEW the developers were going to pussyout!
She deserved so much worse!

oh tgb you’re so big and strong

I wish the game didn’t look so grey. I understand the world is supposed to be dark, but it’s not fun to look at.

The demo really turn me off for the game.

An hour long gaming brit review of a game ill never play and have no interest in? Sign me up

Great fucking video mate

FFXV – A game where a handsome noble (an obvious stand-in) that is gifted with supreme magical power, a hot love interest he’s known since childhood, and a beautiful transportation vehicle, does a bunch of fetch quests and is led around by an omnipotent bad guy who controls the noble’s power but wants him to get more powerful, until such time as he’s arbitrarily powerful enough to slay the previously omnipotent bad guy.
FFXVI – Same.

FFXVI is the hypothetical, RPG themed DMC6 I’ve been thinking about for years. Just glad it became a decent reality.

While the lack of weapon or combo variety is a let down, the use of Eikons as the equivalent of Styles is impresively creative.

If the Leviathan DLC becomes a thing, I expect their Eikonic Feat to be inspired by the Doppelganger or Quicksilver Style and hopefully bringing elemental weaknesses and resistences as well, along with multiple weapon classes.

I know that you probably have never played FF14, but I just want to point out that ultimately the major plot beats of 16 and 14 are basically identical and it’s a rehashed plot from the same developer and from a writer on the same team. It came off that the writer for 16 was better that he wasn’t chosen to write shadowbringers lol. It’s very noticeable if you’ve played both. This changes when you get to endwalker, but to be honest a precursor race getting wiped out and modern day humanity being regarded as a means to an end has already been done by these two, and it’s disappointing that they decided to do it again.

So the “Accept the truth” everyone was raving about on Twitter was the most obvious twist in the history of obvious twists?

I didn’t even know this was supposed to be the twist. After I played the demo there was not a moment when I thought Clive wasn’t Ifrit in that scene. That’s laaaaaaaaaaaaame.

31:12 what do you mean? In 9 we have a bombastic “steal the princess escape the castle” opening, in 10 we start with a kaiju attack, in 12 you storm a castle and I don’t remember what tf was actually happening in 13 but Lighting was kicking ass left and right on that train

Square learned absolutely nothing from the success of Fromsoftware , and as a result we got the most shallow, by the numbers, handholdy, boring action game I’ve experienced in a long time.

Was very upset to see the Overblood 2 reference streak come to an end

Notis had to fight Arden by himself😊😊

I appreciate a lot that there’s no Nomura character designs here for once, I think his style is both overused and mostly bad. But I don’t really think whoever designed this game has a super exciting vision for a fantasy setting. Amano for instance had a lot more of a cool and unique high fantasy style I think, as did something more brown and relatively toned down-lookin like Vagrant Story. And of course artists like Toriyama brought a lot of personality to Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger. In this game it’s sort of eeeh

I hated this game. It felt so devoid little touches and character.
Yeah, the fights are good but that’s not really why I play good FF games.

I don’t think all this air comboing nonsense is really the best fit for a game that tries being more serious or tragic, about humanity’s darkness and the exploitation of nature. Maybe Nier Automata fans or even Asura’s Wrath fans might disagree on that one, but I think something like Nausicaa or Princess Monoke fits that sort of thing much better, something where people are still moving around like people instead of air dashing. You can still go fantastical of course, but maybe some more restraint fits better than Bayonetta-ing some colossus. I don’t get why they decided to do Game of Thrones and DMC in the same title. I feel like going for grim, dirty and moody is completely at odds with the stuff you can do in this game.

I think some people might think “FF7 Remake” here, but a game that has the final boss it does is definitely not what I’m thinking of lol.

I’m also open to the idea that it’s not necessarily the combat that has to change, or possibly even the story, but the sort of atmosphere and style it wants to convey. There are some properties like Gurren Lagann or One Piece that do have serious moments about discrimination, slavery, genocide, really tragic circumstances for the people involved, but which also have exciting giant robot fights or sexy snipers in bikinis or dudes doing double jumps and martial arts moves. The difference is in execution. Those two are cartoon adventures that have silly art styles and a lot of lightheartedness despite their more serious elements. Everyone’s wearing their emotions on their sleeve, with very strong personalities and exaggerated behavior, so whether things get serious or easygoing, it feels very honest and straightforward. FF16 is very po-faced and comparatively realistic-looking, and turned the contrast down as low as it could go. This doesn’t benefit the combination of self-serious and bombastic cartoon elements it wants to use at all.

This game is aggressively average. There ive honestly answered everyones question about its quality. Now just enjoy this mans smooth voice.

A Spoiler Warning would be nice.

Alone in the Dark 08 is good

this is going to be good

I lost interest in this game leading up to release but then the demo tricked me into thinking it would be something else. Turns out my gut feeling was correct to begin with. I’m hoping there are some significant updates/dlc to bring me back and check out the NG+ mode.

I’m floored that the only thing this game seems to do uniquely well is throw budget at stuff decade-old games gave done better.

I liked it a lot, at least it didnt bore me to tears like zelda

Did you read the ff13 like codex that explains characters background.

The piece at the end where you say the game kinda feels like a transitional title resonated with me. They got a really good base to work with here, some sort of sequel in the same universe with everything taken to the next level is something I want very much but Square Enix being Square Enix not only are the chances low but such a game would probably come out in 3-4 years right as a new generation is about to take over and after the iron has long since cooled down.

I have completed most of the main narrative as of right now and so far I am loving the game, a game of the year contender for sure. It actually reminds me of God of War 2018 more than anything else, with combat system feeling like Nier Automata.

My only real complaints so far are a lot of the side quests feeling like filler content and performance/framerate mode not feeling optimised enough. I found the latter baffling since Sony helped with the development of this game.

I hope Final Fantasy VII Rebirth takes some things from FF 16 and applies it to that game. This game sets the new benchmark standard for the Final Fantasy series going forward.

I highly disagree with the beginning segment about action RPGs. As a lover of the genre, I don’t think you understand the role-playing aspect of it. The stats aren’t meaningless, they provide a way to build your character(s) into a role. Nioh, for example, your character will be vastly different if you choose to upgrade magic instead of strength. That’s what makes these games role-playing games.

Nice intro bud

couldn’t agree more with your criticisms, excellently written as always!

In the deluge of video essays, I think your ability to be succient and indepth really makes you shine.

I rather play ff13 than this game again

This is definitely one of those games I’d go into excited but then five hours in wishing the refund window was longer, sure it looks amazing but just the side quest design on most if not all japanese games nowadays doesn’t appeal to me at all.

It’s not implied he died. It’s ambiguous how much of the curse takes him, but when looking at how the sun returns in the morning, there is a high degree of possibility that he did, in fact, survive. He promised Jill he would, after all.

I have a lot to say about this review, especially on how you regarded its story, to the point where I’m not confident you have it it’s proper due. But if I’m to make one point clear, it would be that this is a game with a great deal of subtlety in its dialogue and actions. And I’m not sure you picked up on it enough

I like FF7 remake’s combat. It’s a good combo of action and RPG…. Not 100% but like 85%. The elemental weaknesses mixed with real time action, then you need to manage 3 people make them do different stuff. It gets wild, stressful but fun. I really like sometimes you need to change tactics for bosses, and just mash square if you want for lil’ guys, it’s like MMO combat but fun, not standing in one spot, and thinking on the fly. Idk im more DMC than FF, but have played a handful of RPGs, i think it’s the best combo we have. Idk I’m not an expert just really like that game. When’s DMC 6? lol

This game is SO BAD. Most disappointing game of the year.

Personally, I thought the game was painfully mediocre, not decent. Anyways, I’m surprised you didn’t mention (unless I missed it) Torgal getting his own upgrade form that… Doesn’t tell you how to transform him and he gets a bunch of moves you can’t tell him to use. What a waste.

Also, I guess I can respect you respecting it for not caring about being an RPG really, but, for me, that just makes equipment feel like it shouldn’t have been put in the game. Just equip the next set of armor and sword that is objectively better than your previous with nothing special to them. Accessories were useless too because why wouldn’t you just use the cooldown reducing ones? Just some thoughts I wanted to throw in that I’m surprised you didn’t really mention.

Thanks mr Charlie for mentioning Final Fantasy 15 was released almost 7 years ago

The last time I was hyped for FInal Fantasy 15 was it’s reveal in E3 2013 back in June of 2013 during the dawn of 2013’s summer, way back when Attack on TItan season 1 was still airing and the show have better Final Fantasy archetypes’ and characterisations than Final Fantasy XIII-3 Lightning Returns released in the very same year, which is also known as Lightning barbie girl dress up game

It was pretty neat and kinda smokin sexy style though so I don’t really complained the Lightning dress up elements, it was pretty neat aside from the narrative convolution and questionable… CSB, paradigm shift and other Nomura’s gloriously obnoxious pretentiousness, it was a great 🙂 time throttle alongside the fact that in 2013, both DmC Devil May Cry (2013) and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance were released back in 2013 Just like Makoto Shinkai’s infamous animated film about foot fetish alongside Guillermo Del Toro’s mecha anime/ultraman-inspired Pacific Rim movie released during the same year, it was great time-throttle 🙂

At first I did too feel like the JC being limited to 2 incentivized creative ways to get to the ground and then back up in the air, but first of all, 2 is genuinely WAY too low of a number, especially when you have cooldowns on your abilities, and second, FF16 has the same system as DMC5 where after you don’t JC for a while the game drags you to the ground faster, and having limited JCs to work with makes it feel genuinely irritating to drop a combo because you finished your JCs so now you’re being dragged to the ground.

people discovering in 2023 things we kknew since the 2000

It finally just hit me that this game is basically just FF14 Stormblood. In every way, complete with slave races and the story spinning its wheels to get to the final villain, who is half-baked. Which is odd since the writer is shown to be above this even in FF14.

That cartoon intro still looks like ass
It’s almost respectable that you brought it back again. Like “yeah I know this shit looks look terrible but it’s MY shit and it’s on MY channel so fuck you”

Damn bro I’m over here trying to get good and beat Deadlink on Normal difficulty and you drop another 1hr+ banger, cheers

What Do You Mean You Didn’t Like The Bayonetta 3 Monster Battles! They’re The Best Rock, Paper, Scissors Simulator Since ‘Army Of Two’!

seriously, great vid, nice to hear someone champion linear games

This was like having all the scatterbrained thoughts and critiques I’ve had over the last couple of months playing FFXVI put into a beautifully structured, occasionally hilarious, video essay XD Bravo TGB! I think you covered everything brilliantly. I particularly appreciated the DMC comparison (something I thought about a lot in this game, as my fingers got tired during the bloated length haha), and the points you made about the value of a playable, functional party in this type of story.

FFXVI left me very cold in the end, and I think you perfectly explained why that was. Thanks for the great content as always! =)

What I took from this the most is TGBS ended up playing God Of War Ragnarok despite initally indicating he wouldn’t and i really want to hear his thoughts

Playing this game felt so strange… many individual scenes and fights were absolutely amazing, touching even. But somehow putting it all together it felt very shallow.
….. yuck, it made made me think of Family Guy lol you know how they *sometimes* actually have a good bit, but watching a whole episode brings you to tears.

This reminds me that this game makes more sense to have a Brothel mini game than FF7

FFXVI is an action game. There is no RPG.

the way u say “wind..w-woman(?)” made me chuckle thank u

I think Valisthea IS small, they keep mentioning another continent in the latter half of the game that I interpreted as the main landmass – but only Valisthea benefited from Aether/Mothercrystals pre Ultima fuckery.

SOUNDS LIKE CIDOLFUS REVIEWING HIS OWN GAME

I really do prefer FFVII Rs battle system. Real time combat that makes you really consider your strategy going in and even letting you switch characters. Granted I would still take XVI over XV which never scer felt intuitive.

return of the flash intro

I agree the 13 year time skip felt odd. I remember playing the demo imagining that we’d get to see some of the trials and tribulations that Clive went through as a slave of the empire before we get back to that in medias res campfire moment at the very start…but then it just takes you straight back there and I guess you just have to infer everything. Also his dog randomly pops up again, for some reason.

This critique reminded me of SMT V as it all felt like constant battles after battles with every quest in the game, like I wished some of those huge demons just roaming the areas vibing didn’t have a designated quest for killing them because they’re all bad for one contrived reason or another, at one point the game even becomes self aware & one demon in the last area actually just tells you “you didn’t think this fetch quest wasn’t gonna end up in a fight now, did you?”.
Previous games didn’t feel as tiring in battles, like SMT 3 had more variety with the optional hellish dungeons, some puzzles, even very rewarding secrets for exploring.

Yeah I felt the same about the world feeling small too. A few small plains with villages while the big cities all conveniently full to ruin as soon as we get there.

On Action RPGs I would say that a lot of them can have value when they properly build on your kit, but a lot of games cheap out and just give you +5 to attack. Beyond that a proper action RPG should lean on the Role playing element as well in my opinion which most modern “RPGs” fail at.

Hope you’re trying out Armored Core! Best action game of the year easy!!

i need leather straps on my leather straps on my belts.

About the story/lore, i think it is well designed and the best in the series. Theme of the game is the same as in other final fantasy about main hero secret, planet destroying, fighting a god, religious/phylosophical references, overcoming difficulties, but is done on a very high level from a narrative pov. And also voice acting with the music are superb

So after watching review since I don’t wanted to buy PS5 for 1 game and was waiting for steam realese, but who am I to miss GamingBrit’s rewiev? I’am a bit dissapointed because I thought Clive will be a vengeful strugler guy a bit like Guts from Berserk and story will be darker, but FF beign FF it’s all “rainbows and unicorn poops”. Sadge.
Anyway thanks for you work. I have question tho, did you played Soulstice?

Me every time this channel upload a new video:
Curtains close. Check
Laundry done. Check
Self grinded black coffe. Check.
Cellphone turned off so nobody can bother me. Check.
“Go fuck yourself” Sign outside my door. Check
Let the show begins

“It’s like stopping half way through a tiramisu so you can down a packet of pom bears”
Wait I’m confused, are you saying that’s a bad thing? That’s just dinner.
On a more serious note, rather than just making “number go up” as an artificial, tedium-inducing, momentum-halting roadblock, I don’t mind more menu-based or in-depth RPG mechanics in an action game if they actually influence combat. Things like heavier armour providing more protection but locking you out of certain movement options, or different weapon types allowing for different movesets. Perhaps each limb would have individual stats, allowing you to mitigate downsides and tailor your character’s strengths and weaknesses to your preferred playstyle. Increasing the strength of your arms whilst neglecting your intelligence would allow you to play as a hulking idiot that – whilst incapable of using magic – can freely dual-wield broadswords and swing them around like a lunatic.
With all that said, perhaps it’s still just better to intelligently pick a predefined set of “builds” and allow the player to choose from them at will. It’s very possible the decrease in menuing and increase in actually playing the fun part of the game is worth the decrease in customizability.

That slander of teenagers at the end can not go unpunished

About bearers and why they are slaves and dominants are not, it was answered in the side quests at the end of the game.
There was a war between “bearers” and People who couldnt use magic. People Without magic wins and decide to make this system. Dominants appears only later and yeah because they are powerful, People treat them different)

Final Fantasy 15 is already 7 years old…

THE INTRO HAS RETURNED
WE’RE SO BACK

I decided to write some of my ideas after video and playing game
– I think, that mini games are present in the game in a form of eikons fights
– world was beleivable for me due to great lore of the world, a lot of characters banters, dialogues. Some towns/characters reacts on your actions during story
-side quests are the side quests, so if you want only action packed level, than it is okay to stick with the main story. But for People who want to learn more about towns, characters, history of the world, it is a great way to spend your time. And i think it is helps you to beleive in the world more and doing some soul moments. And also it Cid/main story philopsophy to help People. Also side quests are the best in the series. And they wanted to be side quests from the witcher 3

The most negatives for me were difficulty itself (also ranking from the arcade should be introduced to main mode)
And bad japanese game design for example in the side quests. Also some animations were very cheap in the side quests.

Lore, story, some side quests, epic, fighting and experimenting with abilities were super fun for me

Things that would improve the game in my opinion:

Only the ultimate attacks should have cooldown.

It should have elemental resistances and weakneses.

And yeah having access to all moves would be cool

And well thats pretty much it, i Loved FF 16

The dissonance between gameplay and story is negative in the sense that you’re a special chosen one with anime powers who makes a habit of engaging in attack on titan kaiju battles, which can brush up against the less extravagant plot elements- but the whole game ties together thematically under the concept of everyone having freedom and personal choice , so crying about that and acting like the actual theme was supposed to be a collectivist one just because there’s some light talk from your party members about working together specifically within that context comes off as media illiteracy, though I’m sure that’s just an attempt to personally justify being salty about not having turn based battles

The game being too long is a great criticism of the game’s stretched out and insanely unvaried content, but is less great when the complaint is “ow oof ouch yikes I refused to take a break for an actual full week of my fucking life and now my fingies hurt how could square enix do this to me :(((((“. This especially falls flat right after bringing up Kingdom Hearts, which are both actually difficult games depending on difficulty selection, and decidedly not 12 hours long

The “QTEs” aren’t to test your reflexes, they’re to separate the fights into stages with cutscenes while adding a bit of tension that makes sure you’re not going to sleep the second the UI disappears

I’m glad I skipped on this game, demo was really disappointing. Here’s to hoping Rebirth will be worth the money. Game is already dropping price in my country (40 euros new), by the end of the year it will probably be 30 euros.

Nice review! Still finishing up FF16 and I salute you for using the PS2 version of FFX, the one with the better high-res faces that were butchered in the “HD remaster”

Final fantasy 16 is amazing

I actually scrapped my review but I’m glad you conveyed your thoughts. It’s basically verbatim to what I wanted to say.

ff16 being nothing but fightng remindds me how i ntales of araise every side quest was a boss fight when they usd to have mini games.

More like final fartasy

So many names being butchered. Good lord.

I’m not sure on that conclusion, I don’t know if the teenage audience is really picking up on this game. The game’s sales really dropped off after the initial release, and the way I read it is that the die hards bought in on day one but the casual audience hasn’t really gotten on board. When XIII, XV and now XVI are representative of the last 15 years of FF, I don’t really see a new fandom being cultivated.

I agree with almost everything except for the beginning where you talked about micro management.

I love that kind of stuff in action rpgs. It’s like half the fun of the monster hunter experience tbh.

I understand why they cut it out almost entirely, but the effect it has on the game is that it get’s monotone and boring twice as fast. The combat is a joke thanks to the break gauge and cooldown skills. And 70% of the encounters can be cleared by doing two skills. I never had any need of improving or thinking about anything in this game. Dodge is basically the ultimate skill.

There is just so much wrong with how all of the ideas the game has don’t work together at all.
And that is just me scratching the surface about the combat system. I dont even want to talk about the story and characters…

Honestly, the most frustrating part of this game, for me, was the complete lack of comeuppance for the slavers. Everyone, near on EVERYONE, in the Empire deserved to be left to die… but the game is like “nah they’re in trouble we should help”. Screw that.

I think you made a really great point when talking about the perfect dodge, a point I’ve had in mind for a while. As much as I love Bayonetta 1 for example, I couldn’t help but think that the way you dodge attacks was a downgrade when compared to DMC 1. It’s like you said, what does it matter what the enemy is doing exactly, when no matter the nature of its attack, you just press 1 button right before you get hit? Not to mention that some games give enemies irritating and nonsensical tracking properties, because they’re expecting you to use i-frames in the first place and those properties can render other methods of dodging ineffective. I believe action games are generally better when they revolve around movement rather than i-frames.

lmao Think this is the first review I’ve seen that praises the lack of rpg stat elements, good stuff. Shout out to that one hidden Waloed-Dhalmekia treasure hunt without a quest marker that 99% of people probably missed.

Though I gotta gripe about showing and talking about the Garuda fight as the example of the Eikon fights’ moveset, when in nearly all the other ones Ifrit keeps all of Clive’s base moves, only lacking the Eikon specials, which get replaced with new ones instead. It also kinda makes me think back to the GoW 2018 review, specifically that one section going into defense mode of old GoW entries’ spectacle, which made me rethink a bit of my snob-like takes on setpieces with good design, overall leading to greater enjoyment out of video games in general, esp. when they do keep you in control for the majority of them like the ones in XVI do.

I’d consider it quite the home run, and I don’t think I’d have enjoyed it as much had I not done all the side stuff, it’s well worth it for those seeking to maximize world building. Core gameplay is strong enough that I don’t mind the structure being on the basic side. Kind of like a reverse Witcher situation where the structure HAD to be interesting to make up for basic gameplay. I mostly wish there was more utilization of the game’s sick political setting with more twists and turns in that sphere, and some Oriflamme exploration cause it really does look awesome. And cooldown timers of course, could’ve done without them lol, though in this case they keep some of the old turn based spirit I guess

Playing as Ifrit looked cool but uhhhhh the game play was iffy as hecc and finding out Platinum also worked on this game was hardly a shock.

There’s honestly not a lot of games where I think leveling is a good thing.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on BioMutant’s combat

God damn, now I have to buy the game, to play trough it, just to watch this amazing review (because they always are) without spoiling the game…will be back in a month or so, to watch this TGBS msterpiece video

The concluding point about gaps between releases is a good insight, and a rod in Final Fantasy’s back. Yoshi-P said as much. Final Fantasy games are expected to be epic, to tell great stories, to please all Final Fantasy fans, and of course to sell a lot. In that context FF XVI’s flaws make sense – it’s unfocused, appealing a little too hard to casual fans, leaning into trends, and padded. I liked the game, warts and all, but warts are a harder sell in that environment.

I can’t tell you how much I missed seeing that intro

1:04:50 – 1:05:06

So FFXVI actually goes “It’s Final Fantasy’in time!” and then Final Fantasy’d all over the place.

If there one person’s opinion that I want to listen to about this game, it is yours.

The game is just aggressively mediocre. It’s paced horribly after the early game. At some point you’ll just be chasing quest markers around 4 area maps straight out of an MMO in order to do quests straight out of MMO. Eventually you’ll enter a dungeon that is a straight line, right out of FF14, end then repeat the whole process. Itemization is bland. Reasons to explore are nearly non-existent. Combat is passable but lacks depth seen in similar games. Story has it’s moments, but is nothing to write home about. I’m stunned that I know people who say this is a 10/10 masterpiece.

Won’t be watching the full review until I get to the game. But watching the intro really put into words all the problems I have with rpg mechanics in real time action games. The competing, conflicting design language of abstracted menus vs real time action hurts both sides of the equation.

Leaving a like and a comment, will return in a year or so when I reach FF16 on the ol’ backlog.

Edit: A concern I have seeing just a bit of what FF16’s game play ended up being, with its clear action game influence and direction, is that the moveset looks too familiar. A lot of familiar action game kit checklisting, with a focus on Devil Bringer’s and Rebellion’s movesets in particular.

This is a bit troubling to me, as a big reason why action games work for me is they’re sort of the peak of using action for role play purposes. Dante’s moveset says a lot about the kind of character he is. the Wonderful 101’s tranformation weapon switching says a lot about the themes that game is going for. Sora’s moveset throughout the kingdom hearts saga says a lot about his confidence as it gets progressively more free and animated as the series progresses whilst *also* embracing the iconic menus that represent final fantasy. The thing the separates really good action games from being spectacular for me are how each action system reflects the ideals and themes of the characters you play as.

I look at Clive and I don’t see a character or theme I can’t wait to sit down and embody, I see rebellion and devil bringer duct taped to bunch of cooldowns.

I’m sure when I end up sitting down with the game I’ll feel differently, but this is the impression I get looking at ff16. It’s an issue I also had with Metal Gear Rising, which felt like a safe reuse of mechanics that were very thematic for Bayonetta but didn’t say much unique about Raiden.

2:00 The difference between action game and action rpg is that you have to manage the difficulty setting in a convoluted way (stat systems) in action rpg.

31:53 Plowing Benedikta gave me great pleasure

I just want another psx era title is that really so much to ask in an era where that could potentially just take months and not years to make?

25:38 This bit bothered me, the intro showed us that Anabella hates Clive more than her husband Elwin, but Elwin gets impaled but Clive gets a free pass.

I mean I guess there’s no game without Clive, and it’d be a bit underwhelming if the game ended at hour 3 🙃

The dev team tried to pull inspiration from Game of Thrones but they really didn’t get character motivations and decision making very well. I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end because big bad orchestrated all the game’s events from the background.

Now.. for that Ratchet and Clank review

We definitely needed more people to be more critical of this game. Just don’t get the near unanimous praise this snoozefest is getting…

Your statement about this feeling like a transitionary title could pretty much apply to every Final Fantasy game since XIII, if you don’t count XIV which I still haven’t played. They honestly should have either picked a Game of Thrones like story with more emphasis on a larger cast of characters, or they should have gone full Devil May Cry or Asura’s Wrath with absurd epic set pieces and story. Instead it feels like they tried to do a bit of everything and failed to stick the landing with this game. Unfortunately this game and XV before it are some of the most boring RPGs I’ve played to date, and I would like to see the series eventually get out of this slump. Maybe FFVII remake and it’s upcoming sequel are the answer for this problem, I still need to play that game though.

I’m just thankful that Monolith Soft is still providing excellent Final Fantasy like experiences with the Xenoblade series, and I’m also hoping that the rumor that Fantasian from Mistwalker will see a console/PC release at some point in the future as well. If I were to give Square any advice to help them improve this series for the 17th entry it would be to look at what the companies that broke off from them in the past are doing now and take some notes. Heck if they want to do an action RPG game take notes from Falcom’s Ys series more than DMC, though I think FFVII remake kind of did that to some extent, again need to find time to play it before Rebirth comes out.

I did not expect such a long video from the man himself, the length probably means a lot of criticism but I am absolutely hyped to watch. My favorite game in a long time.

With the Typhon situation his original name “テュポーン” is just a “Tyupoon” cause it was originally based off of Typhoon like the weather but I guess this game they decide to change it to “ティフオン” which now sounds out to how his english name is “Tifuon” so it was probably for pronunciation sake rather than a new character tbh

this opening was pretty gay, dont do it again

Really great and fair analysis of FF16 but you said Chocowboe weird

Ok no ignore his advice pls do all the sidequests yes some are boring as hell but a lot of them expand the lore or develop the characters in an amazing way. Some are even related to the ending so i would 100% recommend them

I’m the 25 year old teenager obsessed with this game, thank you.

my review : it’s a good action game, but not my Final Fantasy…

On the subject of cooldown timers, I can imagine a system where you incorporate a style meter as a kind of mana bar.

Basically, you start off with the basic move set and build up mana by doing combos, then as the meter fills up you can spend points on tiered magical abilities that ramp up the speed at which you gain meter, eventually giving you the most powerful abilities in the form of a finishing move or a devil trigger mode where you have unlimited access to magic until the points run out. In order to justify it in the context of an RPG with character progression, the meter ranking at the end of the encounter could be converted into a consolidated currency for spending onto unlocking moves, buying and upgrading equipment and purchasing consumables. Maybe they could also have given players the opportunity to ‘bank’ points during tough encounters – so if a player is underpowered for an area and wants to grind they can work on building up the meter as far as they can before voluntarily going back to the lowest level in order to ensure that they will keep the points that they have built up, with maybe a multiplier added to any points built up afterwards in order to maintain investment and ensure that it’s not just giving up on the fight. Maybe you could even have a class built around doing this so that every time they bank points they progressively get buffed over the course of the fight – starting weak and fragile, only to snowball into a glass cannon with ridiculous damage output who can smash bosses but is not able to take more than a couple of hits in return.

I guess that it might be a bit difficult for the target audience for a Final Fantasy game to really engage with because it’s so unlike what people expect from that series and it’s pretty much inevitable that someone will find the means to completely break it, but if implemented well I can see it being a means to make the flow of combat encourage experimentation in order to get the most efficient ways to build up points and access the most powerful moves more often whilst punishing people who don’t engage with the system.

There’s a point you make about the final boss of the game being about the culmination of humanity coming together to face the final trial of the game and how that worked a lot better in older games because of their party systems, but I feel like that’s not entirely what FF16 is going for, at least in terms of the character story being presented in that final fight.

I think the game hits the strongest if you care for the world of Valisthea and the characters within it, because the final fight is essentially a “my friends are my power” moment, it’s a fight between a godlike being who put themself above humanity and refused to acknowledge those below it, and a man who has godlike power, and is able to triumph over his creator, because forging those bonds with the people he’s around has given his life purpose and meaning beyond Ultima’s primal fear of death and urge to continue living. Ultima is fighting for itself while Clive is fighting for the people he wants to protect, and all that hits the player better if they care about those characters and the menial tasks they ask of you throughout the game.

So this was a round about way of leaving a comment about how it’s less about “humanity coming together to overcome trials” and more how being human and forging connections can make an individual stronger.

Oh wow. Now I will have to buy the game just to have the context for your review.
Worth it tho.

Thumbnail goes hard

I’ve had tons of fun with this game. Whenever I’d get a new eikon ability, I’d go straight to the training room to see what sort of ridiculous juggle combo I can pull off. I’ve probably spent over 30 hours of playtime over 2 playthroughs in the training room trying to cook things up, doing things such as using Ignition primarily for closing the gap, using Rift Slip (aka Roman Cancel), launching an enemy just to yank them back with Mesmerize, etc. I have a different loadout for when I’m progressing the game, of course. Busted counters and all. There’s definitely some worthwhile sauce and tons of flexibility with the combat system, and it’s fun coming up with self imposed challenges so I can bombard my friends with combo videos. I’ve had a blast with it. That being said, the pacing in the latter half sucks eggs, and not being able to sic Joshua and Jill at my enemies was a missed opportunity.

Thanks for dropping a juicy analysis as always, Charlie👍

Honestly surprised you didn’t mention anything about the plot hole regarding the identity of the hooded figure. Literally the most confusing inclusion in the story and felt like it was a set up for something only for none of the cast or plot to ever actually acknowledge it. Feels like the writers forgot about it half way through and said “Ah yeah that was Ultima haha lol”.

Overall, FF16 is one of my if not my favorite game ever. I very badly want to replay it after watching this, I agree with many of your points and disagree with just as many. In a nutshell ou really put it all into perspective for me. Thank you, Amazing video.

Lol homeboy thinks the games ending is out of place

No one tell him what literally happens in ff14 endwalker. (It’s literally the same ending)

i had no idea this game even came out lol

its nice to see a more critical review on this game. i feel like a lotta ppl were either afraid to speak on anything in this game that might be a genuine flaw or just absurdly lost in the spectacle of combat.
personally this one felt like more ff15 just taking the leash off combat. I hope for the next game square takes a different direction for combat more akin to ff7r

kh did action better imo

Agree to disagree, I enjoyed the game and it had some pretty serious themes in there too, rape, racism, sacrifice, suicide, beheadings and entire religious cult that not only defiles children but kills them too, yep lol this is definitely some teenager stuff lol, a lot off this is really close to what’s happening in our world, also the tone off your voice, feels like a typical complainer voice, like one of those people that works at the desk, thinks they know all, blames others for their own problems lol and is never appreciative about anything

Oh look, it’s that edgy FF spinoff with a number for some reason

I disagree with how positive this review is, but it was well done nevertheless.

Love to see the return of the animated intro

I love this Game sooooo much

This beggining is weird.
Division 2, for example, is a lot about making builds to change how you play. Its a 3rd person shooter rpg that is about shooting well and having a good build.

Stopping to check menus interrupts gameplay even for turn based games. You do interrupt the flow of combat on FF X when you are on the menus, and that is not a bad thing.

Tales of Arise is a good example of action rpg. You change stats to help you during combat, and it all works well together.

You stopping to change gear is part of the appeal of an action rpg. They work well together and it is not always about you playing well, some action rpgs require you to have levels and gear to be able to overcome challenges.

About XV: you can tap and have 100% control of every single attack you do. Tapping or holding attack is the same thing… if you wanna “feel” the attack, just tap and it will be just like kingdom hearts

There’s big hints that Clive survived at the end. But ambiguous endings like this are pretty annoying. Hope the game improves more in dlc and they address some of the criticisms/issues.

I just finished the game like, 10 minutes ago, and I gotta say I fell in love with the characters and the world. The story did need some more work though. Combat also has its addictive moments and building my Eikon loadout was pretty fun.

Ben Starr absolutely NAILED it as Clive as well, his portrayal of pure emotion in the late game adds such a nice weight to everything.

The greatest failing of Final Fantasy XV, beyond the decade-long development cycle, is the fact it was a multimedia project. It’s hard to get invested in a game’s story when character introductions are in a spin-off anime, essential plot details are in a movie, and yet more story content is chopped off for DLC and the multiplayer. It’s like Final Fantasy XIII burying the plot in the Encyclopedia, but worse.
Hopefully they’ve actually learned their lesson this time.

I specifically held off on buying this iffy action game until Brit reviewed it. Thanks Brit 🙏🏽

I enjoyed it a bit more than that, but the criticisms are fair. Especially the big fantasy castle only being in a cutscene. That really killed me. You NEVER go a big city in this game and that is such a missed opportunity.

Of course gameplay analysis comes first. As expexted

Oh yeah, the intro is better than ever, keep it going Mate

What a great review tho.

Too bad that this game is trapped on the PS5. Probably one of the reasons it sold so poorly.

Good review, one thing I disagree with, control during the big set pieces. Outside of Garuda, you have tons of control in every other Eikon fight, yes they still have QTE’s but thats only for phase transistions and final finishers. You are still very much in proper control for the vast, vast majority

I was very curious to hear what TGB would have to say about cooldown timers in this game. 😆 I personally wish they put in more melee combos, with the classic, wait-between-button-press DMC graced us with.

All of the gameplay issues would have been fine for me if not for 2 things: the story and the music.

The story by the last 4th turns into a copy paste of Xenoblade 1 and really turned me off with how unoriginal it was and how Clive just turned into a walking anime cliche spouting machine.

As for the music, it’s all passable, some songs are amazing, but the sound quality for almost everything is really really bad. The synthesized violins and brass sound like they could come out of a GameCube. It would be one thing if this was a one man game being sold for $15, but it’s a $70 flagship PS5 exclusive, so GameCube level technology is just not acceptable. If Octopath Traveler 2 could have a live orchestra and FFVII Remake could have synths that are almost indistinguishable from real instruments, then what is FFXVI’s excuse? It’s really just baffling. I was constantly taken out of important story moments because the music was so grating and distracting and that really didn’t help, especially near the end. The soundtrack to this game basically sounds like a fan cover you could find on YouTube rather than a professional composer making a hundred million dollar original game score. You just don’t see this low level of quality for other games at the same price point and there is no excuse to be made for it.

Square was like: “We have dmc at home”
I cant believe they had the genius idea of only having one single weapon and one BnB combo for an action game. Amazing work.

Bruh, British moment. Imagine smashing so many completly different games into one genre. How can one be so ignorant.
Neither Dark Souls or K.Hearths are Action RPGs. They have some elements but they are not.
Action-Adventure, Hack and Slash, Dungeon Crawl, Metroidvania, Spectacle Character Fighter et cetera are not Action RPGs.
Brit-boy needs to look up Seer channel on YouTube for ACTUALL ARPGS and what it means to be an ARPG.

The Reason Final Fantasy main entries are taking so long now is because of how much FF14 original screwed up. The PS3 was the last time a main entry had more than one entry on it. Final Fantasy 13 came out 3 years after FF12 on the PS3. But then FF14 came out right after and was a piece of shit. They had to redo FF14 again to become A Realm Reborn. This pushed FF15 back and put it on the PS4 gen.

After that, the FF13 team started working on the FF7 remake and the remake took over the slot of a main entry so now the PS4 and PS5 have one main entry and 1-2 remakes of Final Fantasy 7.

I’ve had like zero interest in this game since release since virtually all of the talking points about this game felt like I had seen them done better in other games. A game that splits the difference between action game and RPG while telling a more intimate story that focuses on racism/discrimination and eventually evolves into stopping a world-ending threat? That’s just Last Story, mate. Sakaguchi himself showed how to do this over a decade ago with actually fun sidequests and optional chapters too. Plus I’m not impressed by the big setpiece moments at all. The Wonderful 101 already hit the limit on what you can do with big setpieces and there were more exciting ones by the end of the first chapter than anything I’ve seen from 16.

CID’s daughter was definitely forced in to get check off a quota glad you said it because that’s exactly what I was thinking when she showed up. I didn’t care for her at all, not endearing and she felt forced like the devs thought I should like her cuz she is cute and corky nope, I skipped all her cutscenes f that

After years of games with protagonists being lambasted for their anger, to hear a review complain about a protagonist with the mental fortitude and maturity to not use his pain as an excuse to be a twat, that was an unexoected half hour of ranting to ease my frustration.
Was hoping for a complaint more like the delivery of his dialouge sometimes feeling a bit off, cuz ny mind is telling me something was fishy but I don’t remember when in particular.