One could be forgiven, if they squinted, for thinking Final Fantasy XVI was a Final Fantasy game. There are crystals. There are summons Eikons. You get to ride a chocobo. Truthfully, FFXVI feels like trend chasing. I get the feeling that after the development hell and lukewarm reception that XV went through, Square Enix stepped back and looked at other popular games from the time period, copied their homework and watched some Game of Thrones.
The setting tries to mix a classic, killing-the-gods Final Fantasy story with something a little darker and grittier. I actually enjoyed both parts of the story; I just don't think they worked well together. There's little time to care about the plight of the downtrodden magic users when the world is imploding. It's difficult to focus on normal warfare when battles are decided by the world's Dominants. The true problem with the story, though, is the pacing. Completing the game (with DLC) took me about 75 hours. I'd estimate that more than half of that time was spent in cutscenes and many of them suffered from the stilted dialogue characteristic of most games in the genre. There were positive moments though. A couple of the Dominants were standout characters for me: Kupka being an absolute force of nature and Dion having what I thought to be the most interesting individual arc of all of them.
Square Enix have admitted that they had little experience with action combat prior to developing FFXVI, but I'm not quite so charitable. Several spin-off titles in the series have had a complete lack of turn-based mechanics and FFXV was wrapping up development as XVI was getting started. The combat we are left with—which we must assume went through several iterations—manages to be both tremendously exciting and entirely boring from moment to moment. Individual sword swings feel like slapping a wet noodle against anything other than the weakest of foes, so combat devolves into waiting on cooldowns and cycling through your Eikons. The big fights as Ifrit, however, are cinematic and unique enough to be worth waiting for. It reminds me a little of the Yakuza series with its setpiece fights that make the rest of the game worthwhile but doesn't quite have the same irreverent charm.
Is it Worth Playing?
Not really. Final Fantasy XVI is only for the very patient super-fans.
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Loot for the Hoard:
A burning feather representing the blessing of the Phoenix and 273,295 gil.
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