[...]
Therefore, if there is no difficulty, delving into the different tools you have is unnecessary. All Eikon abilities can be upgraded with ability points in various stages, but this just means they're more powerful, and that you can equip them on other Eikons (for example, running Garuda's grapple ability alongside an Ifrit attack and a Ramuh attack), improving your mechanical diversity. But what does it matter, if the game does not encourage experimentation at all? Each summon has an associated element, but there is no vulnerability or element resistance implemented into the playable design. You can kill a Bom with fire spells without problem, and all enemies are equally vulnerable to the physical or magical attacks you launch, so it doesn't matter if you use Fire or Ice with triangle, for practical purposes it only changes the animation and nothing else. There is even a skill capable of killing all enemies on the screen with one hit once charged. Considering you'll constantly be encountering the same types of opponents with changing color palettes, knowing you're fighting different-looking punching bags doesn't give you much of an incentive to blow anything up.
[...]
Are you going to like Final Fantasy XVI? If you like good fantastic medieval stories, without a doubt. If you like to fully exploit the lore of the world of your games, too. If you love Final Fantasy XIV, well, this game draws a lot from it. But you won't like it if you are looking for an RPG, if you are looking for complexity, challenge, dungeons, explicit rewards for your exploration or effort. You might find a bit of it in Final Fantasy mode, unlocked by beating it once (sort of NG+). But demanding 70 hours (50 of which are very simplistic) to reach it is a price that not everyone will be willing to pay. And if they could make it more accessible, they could also make it more complex, although simply making enemies deal more damage wouldn't fix everything.
To everyone who is a regular player of the genre and the series, I would say this: this is not for you. You are going to find glimpses, pieces, that are going to appeal to you. You have bosses, hunts, ordeals and moments of challenge that will get you out of boredom and make you think "how fun is this". If you like good stories, here's an excellent one. But don't expect an RPG, don't expect dungeons, puzzles, don't expect too much thinking. Well, the new video game industry only wants you to consume, and it has relegated your role to a small redoubt of games that still continue to offer a challenge, even if it is far from the sources of commercial success that company shareholders seek. The essence of the Final Fantasy you grew up with is no longer in Final Fantasy. But it's still alive. Look for it in Sea of Stars or Eiyuden Chronicles, look for it in Chained Echoes, look for it in Fantasian, look for it in Persona 5 Royal. Paradoxically, you can even look for it in the Final Fantasy spin-offs like Stranger of Paradise. But don't look for it here, in the main saga. Not anymore. The essence of Final Fantasy is now something else, and it is no longer for you.
pal in another community, Google Translate should do a fine job for the rest of it but if you find it doesn't let me know and I can edit its output.
