Final Fantasy XVI

[Duraframe300]

I must say I find the praise for the glowing praise for the story somewhat bizarre. It's OK, not great. The demo was good but it went downhill pretty quick after that but perhaps it picks back up again (I'm only ~35% in).

Disagree on that. Prologue was ok, if too GoTy, but by far the best parts of the writing came after for me in the character and world-building.
Comes down to subjectivity I suppose.

Maybe. My perspective is that the prologue held some promise but that it's being betrayed by the rest of the game.

The world building only seems to get worse as the game goes along and the characters are childlike, despite the dark tone.

I'll not go into detail until I've actually finished the game and can give a fair assessment, perhaps things get better.

Very much agree to disagree then. That's ok.

They may not for you though. Prologue stuff does get picked up again, but the game builds on what it establishes so if you dislike that it's not going to get much better, if not worse as soon as certain things kick in.

 

[Duraframe300]

Speaking of which now in my 30's. Outside of combat the game feels very much like a love letter to Final Fantasy like 9 did. Lots of very well executed nostalgic moments. Gameplay Loop's now (somewhat, still issues) better as well. Time-Skip ended predictably with a bang. Of course,

FFT vibes

Maehrio I know you love FFT, but that's kind of stretching *paying homage to* isn't it?

Also loved the execution of Cid's character arc.

As mentioned, personally love how the game spends its time on character building and set-up. Also finally unlocked the time-based event map. Really nice extra feature (and again makes the gameplay systems not look good in comparison).

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

frame rate being locked at 30.

The frame rate is not locked to 30 fps... There are two modes... I honestly can't believe that you did not take a peek in the settings.

EDIT: And the butthurt imbecile still didn't check the settings, but he did leave a retardo.

 

[Stokowski]

TIL getting an aggregate score of 6.8 means being "review bombed".

Gaming journalists, eh?

 

[Matador]

Game is starting to open up exploration and combat wise. Areas are getting bigger, I'm getting some side quests,etc.

I got a new party companion also.

Combat is better when you start getting new skills. I'm starting to combine skills and movements and it's pretty fun.

The only problems I have is difficulty and screen cluttering due to excess of effects and numbers.

Also more gameplay/story ratio. So far the game has an ascendant quality trajectory. You can't judge it for the first hours

 

[Elthosian]

TIL getting an aggregate score of 6.8 means being "review bombed".

Gaming journalists, eh?

They deleted a bunch of stuff (maybe the reviews bitching about exclusivity) and it’s still at 7.8. If you look at the remaining bad reviews most are about FF16 being an action game which is completely fair and in line with what you would see in the CRPG section of this forum

 

[DJOGamer PT]

This game feels like a solid 7-8

nothing to really write home about

 

[tommy heavenly6]

This game feels like a solid 7-8

nothing to really write home about

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Fucked around with the combat system on a friend's PS and I think the underlying framework is decent. Snappy and responsive, has a nice variety of counters that feel good to land and most skills have their own little niche.

I do feel it relies too much on big stagger windows instead of more constant interaction with enemies. There's also no pressure element to it - stagger bar on enemies does not seem to recover, except after a full posture break, so you're never forced to engage, but that's more of a personal preference.

I'm guessing it works best in purpose built boss fights, so if there's enough of those, I could probably pick the game up on PC down the line for a boss rush play-through.

 

[Riddler]

frame rate being locked at 30.

The frame rate is not locked to 30 fps... There are two modes... I honestly can't believe that you did not take a peek in the settings.

EDIT: And the butthurt imbecile still didn't check the settings, but he did leave a retardo.

No I left a retardo because your comment was moronic.

Neither the performance nor the graphics mode stays above 30fps and the performance mode's fps fluctuates wildly, Which is even worse than the lower baseline of the graphics mode, and doesn't look very good.

Hopefully these things will get fixed but as it is there are performance issues regardless of whatever option you choose

 

[Jinn]

Find it funny this tard literally says the game is 10/10 and jerks off over the combat, but doesn't  once mention the complete lack of challenge - the one thing that completely illegitimizes the gameplay as a whole. Pathetic.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I don't find his assement contradictory
The game might be easy, yet if the gameplay mechanics are well designed then technically speaking the gameplay is indeed good

A similiar case imo is MGS5 - without the Harcore Mod, I found the game piss easy, but mechanically there's no denying the game is being reproach

 

[Jinn]

I don't find his assement contradictory
The game might be easy, yet if the gameplay mechanics are well designed then technically speaking the gameplay is indeed good

A similiar case imo is MGS5 - without the Harcore Mod, I found the game piss easy, but mechanically there's no denying the game is being reproach

I guess my position is that if a game is piss easy, then the gameplay is flawed by the very nature of that extreme lack of challenge. A game doesn't need to be incredibly difficult for me to enjoy it, but it needs to at least provide me with impetus to engage with the mechanics beyond the most surface level. Yeah, he says there's a lot of different ways to approach combat, but why even bother if adaptation isn't even required for 90% of the game? Therefore, declaring a game as 10/10, then blatantly ignoring perhaps its greatest fault is extremely foolish to me.

Either way, I'm still hopeful Squeenix will see the error in their ways and add another difficulty mode. It would address a great majority of the "lacking in depth" criticisms the game is getting in one fell swoop if you actually had to utilize the variety in combat. It just kind of blows my mind that it would release this way in this day and age.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

I don't find his assement contradictory
The game might be easy, yet if the gameplay mechanics are well designed then technically speaking the gameplay is indeed good

A similiar case imo is MGS5 - without the Harcore Mod, I found the game piss easy, but mechanically there's no denying the game is being reproach

I guess my position is that if a game is piss easy, then the gameplay is flawed by the very nature of that extreme lack of challenge. A game doesn't need to be incredibly difficult for me to enjoy it, but it needs to at least provide me with impetus to engage with the mechanics beyond the most surface level. Yeah, he says there's a lot of different ways to approach combat, but why even bother if adaptation isn't even required for 90% of the game? Therefore, declaring a game as 10/10, then blatantly ignoring perhaps its greatest fault is extremely foolish to me.

Either way, I'm still hopeful Squeenix will see the error in their ways and add another difficulty mode. It would address a great majority of the "lacking in depth" criticisms the game is getting in one fell swoop if you actually had to utilize the variety in combat. It just kind of blows my mind that it would release this way in this day and age.

Granted i will have to take the game when it releases for pc but is that easy?

 

[Gamezor]

I bought it after loving demo. Also turning off hdr fixed grayness. I can see it will be easy but there will still be fun in trying to kill stuff quickly and with style.

 

[Yosharian]

Thanks for beta testing game guys, when it launches on PC there will be proper difficulty settings!

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

frame rate being locked at 30.

The frame rate is not locked to 30 fps... There are two modes... I honestly can't believe that you did not take a peek in the settings.

EDIT: And the butthurt imbecile still didn't check the settings, but he did leave a retardo.

No I left a retardo because your comment was moronic.

Neither the performance nor the graphics mode stays above 30fps and the performance mode's fps fluctuates wildly, Which is even worse than the lower baseline of the graphics mode, and doesn't look very good.

What are you going on about?

Framerate mode is locked 60 fps. Performance mode is locked to 30 fps. It is like this for most PS5 games. Anybody in disbelief can easily google this.

Either you are fucking stupid, or a bad troll that doesn't actually own a PS5.

 

[Yosharian]

Dude just because it's locked to 60 FPS max doesn't mean it's won't drop below that lol

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

So locked 60 fps + some performance problems = locked 30 fps

Welcome to the Codex.

frame rate being locked at 30.

Neither the performance nor the graphics mode stays above 30fps

 

[Matador]

I don't find his assement contradictory
The game might be easy, yet if the gameplay mechanics are well designed then technically speaking the gameplay is indeed good

A similiar case imo is MGS5 - without the Harcore Mod, I found the game piss easy, but mechanically there's no denying the game is being reproach

I guess my position is that if a game is piss easy, then the gameplay is flawed by the very nature of that extreme lack of challenge. A game doesn't need to be incredibly difficult for me to enjoy it, but it needs to at least provide me with impetus to engage with the mechanics beyond the most surface level. Yeah, he says there's a lot of different ways to approach combat, but why even bother if adaptation isn't even required for 90% of the game? Therefore, declaring a game as 10/10, then blatantly ignoring perhaps its greatest fault is extremely foolish to me.

Either way, I'm still hopeful Squeenix will see the error in their ways and add another difficulty mode. It would address a great majority of the "lacking in depth" criticisms the game is getting in one fell swoop if you actually had to utilize the variety in combat. It just kind of blows my mind that it would release this way in this day and age.

Granted i will have to take the game when it releases for pc but is that easy?

I´m at Level 21. So far the regular encounters are very easy, some mid bosses can beat you If not playing carefully, and the same for bosses.

But I don't think every game has to be hard and punishing to be considered good. It´s enjoyable to have fun, juggle enemies and killing them in cool ways like in DMC lower difficulties. They tried to create a package that's easy to relax and enjoy. (Gorgeous environments/graphics, good music, responsive combat, decent story and characters)

The thing is, the game is heavily combat focused, but in DMC you have a robust scoring system, so beating missions in normal with C rate is kind of lame, so you are encouraged to play better.

I agree that FFXVI could have benefited from a higher difficulty setting selectable from start.

My summary is FFXVI is a good game in most aspects that could be have been great with just 3 things:
- Bit more challenge
- Better rewards for exploration/combat (areas are good when the game opens up, but chests doesn´t contain cool items and enemies mostly drop crafting materials)
- More fleshed out character development (equipment and skills are very limited)

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

So an action game with no difficulty options! Wtf! Piss easy games get so fckn boring as it goes on.

 

[Matador]

So an action game with no difficulty options! Wtf! Piss easy games get so fckn boring as it goes on.

It's not boring for me that have actually played it and also beaten hardest action games in hardest difficulty. I see a strange urge for people not playing it to piss on it.

It's not necessary for every game to be super hard or punishing to be enjoyable.

If you always need that in a game, just go to other games that have that, like Elden Ring, but in an unsufferable and lame way.

 

[Anonona]

The thing the game is heavily combat focused, but in DMC you have a robust scoring system, so beating missions in normal with C rate is kind of lame, so you are encouraged to play better.

This is probably one of the biggest issues for the perception of FF XVI combat being about easy or "about mashing buttons". DMC 5 is actually quite easy at normal levels, a lot of the enemies are very passive as well and, if we are speaking strictly of beating levels, doesn't really ask much of the player in terms of combos and using all your tools. You could get by perfectly by just spamming the strongest attacks or using just basic combos and dodging. But the Ranking does encourage players to perform better and kind of "mocks" you if you do not try to improve. For some strange reason they decided that the normal difficulty of FF XVI wouldn't show the scoring, supposedly so players can focus on "the experience".

To add to this, the fact that there is no score penalty for using healing items, coupled with bosses having checkpoints in their fights (so if you die you don't have to start from the beginning of the fight) and no score penalty for dying, makes the game feel more lenient to players. Hi-Fi Rush has this system too, and while it is not a hard game, it does offer a decent challenge to get good ranks because while dying doesn't make you restart a fight, it does count for your final ranking. Having a average of S rank and dying once at the end of the level is quite a kick in the balls. So even if a boss is decently challenging, players can heal a decent amount of times trivializing the fight.

They shoot themselves in the foot, probably triying to be too accessible for people that do not play actions games and by trying to smash together RPG elements with Hack n' Slash gameplay.

 

[Yosharian]

Honestly I would be happy to play an FF game that just doesn't have a fucking terrible story, at this point

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

So an action game with no difficulty options!

Story Mode (three timely accessories equipped)
Action Mode
Final Fantasy Mode (unlocked after finishing the game)

The game is not super hard, but also not as easy as some are claiming. You won't die constantly like in Elden Ring, but if you don't pay attention to the battlefield and don't dodge/parry/avoid attacks, then you will die very quickly. You can also get one-shotted in boss fights if you don't avoid the ultimate attacks.