Final Fantasy 16 is good, but it's missing the key ingredient (Full Spoiler Review)

Final Fantasy 16 was supposed to be a new beginning although Final Fantasy 14 eventually became a massive success and the new flagship of the final fantasy series the mainline single player games that once won Square such a claim have been divisive and often disappointing for the last 20 or so years Final Fantasy 16 was meant to change all of that and what better group of people to entrust this Monumental task to then creative business unit 3 who rescued Final Fantasy 14 from the brink of unplayable disaster and made it the most popular MMO in the world and with the assistance of combat director ryota Suzuki veteran of countless successful action titles the stage was set for a Smash Hit but even though Final Fantasy 16 is the return to form that square needed it's not the Triumph that many of us were hoping for the game is definitely good maybe even very good but it's not great and the large part of the reason for this is incredibly ironic since the game's first trailer was released back in 2020 fans have been battling it out online over one question does an action game with minimal RPG mechanics and no real party set in a dark brutal World reminiscent of game of Thrones really deserved the Final Fantasy name but the core of the final fantasy series has never been about The Superficial stuff like visual style tone or even gameplay mechanics it's about something much more fundamental and that's where Final Fantasy 16 fails because even though the game technically fulfills every requirement of being a final fantasy title it's missing the key ingredient that once made the series so special courage so put your feet up because this will take a while to explain and just to be clear this video will have massive spoilers for Final Fantasy 16. Final Fantasy 16 does something no numbered title in the series has ever done before while some earlier entries like Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy 15 have featured real-time battles and action RPG mechanics the 16th game is the first to offer a true action game experience one of the moves that caused a Big Splash in The Gaming Community around the time Final Fantasy 16 was first announced was the hiring of Veteran action game designer ryota Suzuki as their combat director Suzuki is often pigeonholed as the Devil May Cry guy but his experience goes far beyond just that series Marvel vs Capcom Monster Hunter and Dragon's Dogma are just a few of the titles on this guy's insanely impressive resume and there's no denying that the combat system he designed for Final Fantasy 16 feels very competent animations and movements are fluid and responsive and the game's highly lenient attack canceling system lets you play very aggressively without ever giving up the option for a split second Dodge and pushing your offense in the middle of a boss's multi-hit combo feels super cool enemy attacks have plenty of wind up and lots of warning and the clear feedback on successfully avoiding a blow makes dodging parrying and blocking feel extremely satisfying the game also draws inspiration from Final Fantasy 14's heavy emphasis on avoiding clearly telegraphed mechanics and some of the game's more complex fights have you weaving through multiple layers of colorful AOE markers which is just as fun here as in the MMO itself different defensive options all have their place in combat with dodging and blocking being the easiest while parrying and precision dodging come with higher rewards and when you do take damage you feel like you deserved it Clive's level and Equipment matters but the outcome of the game's combat encounters is mainly about player skill which is a welcome relief from classic jrpg design no enemy is ever Out Of Reach as long as you know how to dodge and hunting down the game's most dangerous notorious marks is some of the most fun I've had in a long while the iconic abilities you pick up over the course of the game give you a kind of rotation of special moves you can use to deal with different situations in combat and the abilities you choose to equip can totally change the way the battles play out chaining together attacks while weaving in Magic bursts and charging burning blade during your ability animations makes for a very cool feeling the Stagger mechanic adds a sense of pacing to battles making them flow through different stages with different objectives and wearing down the opponent's will to open them up for a brutal combination of your most powerful attacks during a limit break is a great feeling boss damage can be punishing at times but most mechanics are easy to recognize and have long recovery times during which you can safely punish the enemy as always with this type of action game experimenting mid fight to figure out the boss's moveset on the Fly is a lot of fun and the more advanced fights have this natural buildup where the enemy mechanics start relatively simple and escalate over time giving you an honest chance to learn as you go even in its action-focused Mode Final Fantasy 16 is a pretty easy game but I honestly don't don't mind this not every game has to be super hard and I think there's a value in keeping things light in a story heavy title like Final Fantasy especially since this is the first time the mainline Series has gone for this style of gameplay I generally found the challenge to be about rights to keep things interesting without getting frustrating I only died twice in the main story but many of the bosses pushed me to my limit which made them feel epic my only issue is the way the game handles death respawning with a full inventory of potions in the Final Phase of a boss fight feels a lot like just giving up it's hard not to draw parallels between Final Fantasy 16's combat system and the one from Devil May Cry and the game definitely draws a lot from Suzuki's previous work Clive's Reliance on his blade and Magic mimics The Sword and gun combo used by Dante in Devil May Cry and Clive's magic burst is very similar to Nero exceed but there are also major differences to how combat plays out in the two games and the most significant of those differences also happens to be Final Fantasy 16's combat systems biggest flaw some of Final Fantasy 16's basic combat mechanics feel kind of undercooked Clive's basic magic attacks are nice for some extra chip damage but there's really no reason to switch between fire and arrow and thunder in battle since they all work the same I'm not saying enemies should have had Elemental weaknesses but it would have been cool if the different spells had slightly different effects and there's just something about the timing of magic bursts that rubs me the wrong way I get that it's partly because I'm bad at it but even when I get it right it just doesn't feel very good for such a key combat feature this one felt like a big Miss character customization is more about expanding your toolbox than actually making you stronger and since you can only equip three icons and 6 abilities getting a new icon didn't feel as exciting as it should have since you always have to give something up to get something new being able to mix and match abilities once you've mastered them is cool but I went through a lot of the game without having anything to spend ability points on and after I found my preferred play style I rarely saw a reason to change my setup the early games sheer variety of opponents makes every encounter feel like a totally different experience but the enemies you fight eventually start to wear out their welcome most monsters are re-skins and while this can lead to some interesting variations the game's heavy use of recycled enemies eventually gets tedious especially when many of the bosses you fight are things you fought before the game's battles also come in two distinct flavors depending on the hero's form while I found fighting as Clive consistently fun taking on icons and gods as Ifrit gave me mixed emotions these sequences are visually spectacular and entertaining to watch but they feel more like interactive cutscenes than a fight you can actually lose and from a gameplay perspective if they honestly ended up boring me challenging Hugo Kuka in his semi-prime form at rosalith Castle felt a lot more epic to me than the fight with Titan it's been said that producer naoki Yoshida personally recruited combat director ryota Suzuki with the express purpose of injecting expert know-how on action game design into the project Suzuki went to Great Lengths to craft an experience that would appeal even to players who aren't already familiar with action games while still offering a high skill ceiling for hardcore players and while the combat system isn't perfect it's fair to say that they got what they wanted at least when it comes to that first part a game like Devil May Cry can be enormously rewarding for those who take the time to master it but getting the hang of its complex combat system can be tough for new players in Final Fantasy 16 finding the fun comes easy but the game doesn't have the same depth as some of its peers there are some really cool abilities to choose from and the setup you go for can totally change your play style but it doesn't much matter when all of the game's enemies can be beaten the same way and where Devil May cry's combo system approaches the complexity of a fighting game final fantasy 16's combat is a lot more straightforward what the game does best of all is to sell the power fantasy of being a total badass with a big sword and the feeling of stopping a giant monster dead in its tracks to unleash a devastating chain of iconic abilities in response is hard to top but the lack of enemy variation and the shallow depth of strategy needed to win meant that by the time I was done with the story I was more than happy to put my sword away for good still Final Fantasy 16's combat system is a mostly successful experiment and I wouldn't mind seeing a more refined version in a future title but a lot of the system's flaws feel like trade-offs made to accommodate other parts of the gameplay experience because in spite of its shiny new combat Final Fantasy 16 is still an RPG and that label comes with certain expectations expectations that this game should have probably defied an unfortunate Trend in modern gaming is the idea that every Big Buddy title must be an open world experience the forced inclusion of half-hearted open world elements into games that don't need them can spoil a great product and Final Fantasy 16 is no exception the world of valisthea looks beautiful its environments are large and expansive and at first glance Final Fantasy 16 seems to offer up endless possibilities for exploration my first trip through the velcroy desert was a great experience wandering the vast sea of Sandy Dunes looking for nooks and crannies was actually fun and chasing down dead ends rewarded me with new materials a mysterious standing Stone to come back for later and a chance to take on a surprise notorious Mark but these experiences are few and far between because in Final Fantasy 16 exploration usually doesn't pay there's very little freedom in the game's areas the landscape isn't designed to invite exploration the terrain is awkward and restrictive and entire sections of the map are often closed off to stop you from going where you're not meant to be the world feels artificial like a series of linear stages disguised to look like open World areas navigation clunky and the absence of a minimap somehow hurts more than it really should and fighting in the open world can be pretty annoying since enemies will sometimes disengage from a fight and reset if they stray too far from their spawn point even if you weren't trying to kite them but the worst part is something a lot more fundamental being an RPG the one thing the game should have gotten right about its exploration gameplay was to make it rewarding and that's almost never the case there's rarely any point to taking a detour and even when you do find some treasure it's usually nothing worth mentioning when you go out of your way for five bloody hides or a measly 15 kill it's almost like the game is trying to tell you not to bother part of the problem comes from the Synergy between exploration and another of the game's major features or rather the lack of synergy Final Fantasy 16's crafting system is extremely simple and most enemies all drop the same basic materials so there's very little payoff to picking a fight in the open world there's only a handful of items to craft anyway and since weapons and armor have only two stats there's never an interesting choice to be made a wider selection of craftable gear offering a broader range of stats and effects could have been a great incentive to tour the world for Unique materials and I also think it was a huge missed opportunity not to allow crafting to upgrade accessories cutting and abilities cooldown by a few seconds or increasing its damage by 10 percent never really excited me much but the option to make these items stronger would have really pushed me to go hunt some beasts while Final Fantasy 16's open world environments feel more like an obligation than a core feature the game's more linear stages are a better fit for the action gameplay but I do think these areas could have been more inventive some early dungeons like the Fortress of care norvent and the glass mines at Drake's head are quite fun but later stages like Twin Side canvar and stonehur feel a lot more restrictive than they needed to be and for all of the game's Rich World building Final Fantasy 16's dungeons take very little advantage of it the Tower of reverie was built by Ultima to survey valistheus flows of ether but there's nothing inside that hints at that origin could have been an amazing set piece but the final dungeon is just a series of cutscenes and if the Fallen airships were supposed to be these enormous cities that soared through the skies it seems like an obvious choice to set one of the game's dungeons inside the gutted Hulk of such a vessel a little bit of lore would have gone a long way to give the environment's character the most fun I had with the game's exploration was hunting down those rare notorious marks you have to track on on your own based on the clues you are given taking on Atlas and swarg at a huge level disadvantage was also the most fun I ever had with the game's combat and I kinda wish all the notorious marks had been like this the truth is that Final Fantasy 16's open world could have been ripped out of the game without losing much of anything all of the game's best moments are found in the linear scripted sequences and a smaller number of well-developed areas with a richer sense of exploration would have been a better fit for the core gameplay but at least you can say one thing for Final Fantasy 16's world if a great canvas for telling the game's story in many ways Final Fantasy 16's valestaya is an incredibly well-crafted fantasy world there's an impressive attention to detail in the game's lore and everything from the mechanics of removing a bearer brand to the world's epic history feels thought out and where a lot of jrpg settings can come off feeling artificial like something made to order to tell a particular story valestia feels like something that might exist before and after Clive's Journey takes place but like any fantasy story Final Fantasy 16 has a lot of heavy lifting to do when it comes to inviting the audience into its unique World it mission is one of the hardest things to do well in a story and this is one area where Final Fantasy 16 truly shines important Concepts like the mother crystals bearers and the crystals curse dominance ether floods and akashics and the blight are introduced naturally throughout the story The Writers did an expert job of providing the information in subtle and immersive ways never leaning too heavily into awkward dialogue or forced explanations to give you the facts the story doesn't rush to spill its guts in heavy info dumps but rather introduces ideas step by step when it's actually relevant Clive's encounter with a bearer as rosalit Castle is a clever little interaction that gets a lot of info across without even saying it the clash between Bahamut and Odin at balonos tour teaches a great deal about what war is like in a world with dominance and your first first encounter with akashics at Drake's head is a Hands-On demonstration of the dangers of an ether flood while no single element of Final Fantasy 16's World building feels especially unique or imaginative the overall product is a solid setup and the execution is First Rate the game does a great job of selling a very compelling and believable world with tons of faction spinning plots at once there's a lot of stuff going on right off the bat and the story gets off to a running start so it can be kinda hard to keep up in the first few hours you the best of times Express session doesn't always hit right and the game tries to mitigate this in a few different ways the active time lore feature lets you reference related terms during the middle of a cutscene this is a tactic that could have seriously backfired if the story were to lean too hard on it since passing the game to read an encyclopedia should never be required to understand the stakes of the story but probably the highest praise I can give the active Time Lord feature is that I rarely used it the information presented is always interesting but never feels necessary to follow the plot while active time lore only provides details about what's going on at the time hypocrises the Thousand tomes offers a full Encyclopedia of all the terms you've uncovered so far on your journey it's a great way to dig into the game's lore during downtime and it helps to explain some of the game's more obscure Concepts but I never felt like the game pushed me to engage with this stuff if I didn't feel like it the fact that encyclopedia entries are updated over time with new information is a nice touch and being able to flip through the different layers of details on each entry is pretty neat but this feature only really comes into its own in another of the game systems which is by far Final Fantasy 16's best World building mechanic Vivian 9 tells the state of the realm is incredibly impressive on Vivian's table the ongoing conflict in valestia is Illustrated in luxurious detail through the Grand cast a complex relationship chart of all the game's characters and the situation map which shows past and present events as they play out over the course of the story and these features update as the game goes on being able to step back and forth to examine different aspects of the story is a really cool feature state of the realm is Rich detailed and truly above and beyond what the game needed it's an awesome way to learn about valestaya and its important players and I'd love to see a system like this in Final Fantasy 14 but the best thing about Vivian is when she gets personally involved some of my absolute highlights from this game are the lectures Vivian sometimes gives to set up the next scenario the production values of these presentations are are so good and Vivian is such a captivating teacher I was always super excited to get a new one honestly I could sit and listen to her talk about valestine politics for hours if the game would only let me of course solid World building is only part of the puzzle the real challenge is using that material to tell a great story and it's in this area where Final Fantasy 16's greatest strengths and flaws are found Final Fantasy 16 is without a doubt the most well-written story in the series history but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best story and for all of its merits it also has some serious flaws when it comes to individual scenes and line by line dialogue Final Fantasy 16's writers did an absolutely amazing job and that includes the English translators conversations are natural subtle and full of feeling the writing has at times a lyrical quality and some of the better lines read like pure poetry just like the game's World building the story also benefits from skillful Exposition and the writers go to Great Lengths to give you the facts you need within the natural context of the narrative Clive's strained relationship with his mother is conveyed with perfect clarity without ever stating it outright and when Sid's daughter mid shows up at the Hideaway you're left to figure out their relationship on your own since everyone already knows who she years all of this makes for some very engaging scenes the final conversation between Sid and benedicta at care norvent is thick with shared history and strong emotions the dalmakian conference where Empress Annabelle shows up to Parlay with koopka is intriguing and captivating and Clive's reunion with his uncle Byron is creative stirring and utterly convincing the game's cinematography Also Rises to the level of impressive at times and not just in the game's spectacular fight scenes the feast in the Great Hall at Phoenix gate with the soldiers drinking singing and telling stories is dynamic and energetic the chaotic mid-fight debate where Byron tries to convince the dalmakian general to commit his men to Clive's cause is a ton of fun and the whole segment at the delamil Inn where Clive gets into a fight with a group of a looter Knights while Joshua escapes out the back might be the most well-crafted sequence I ever seen in a video game final fantasy 16 also has a lot of great hooks that draw you into the narrative and in its best moments the story had me holding my breath while waiting for answers what's up with the mother crystals and the blight why did Annabelle betray the grand duchy how did Jill end up with the iron Bloods and who is the mysterious second dominant of fire the early story is also very grounded and the situations the characters get into feel very real Sid and Clive's journey to lost wing and their infiltration of care norvent shine because of this attention to detail character motivations are believable and not everything is black and white the scene where Clive and Jill rescue a group of bearers only to be cursed by them for getting their friends killed shows that good intentions aren't always enough and I also appreciate just how brutal the story can be it's kind of refreshing to see a jrpg where the hair Heroes will outright murder the people who actually deserve it on the opposite end of the spectrum the game's fancy new combat system helps raise the hype level in the story's action sequences the battle with the Knight of the blinding Dawn in the courtyard of Phoenix gate is an early example of the kind of high energy scene made possible by Final Fantasy 16's combat and the game keeps them coming from start to finish the encounter with shirata at lost wing the face up with koopka at rosalit Castle and the duel with sleep near in Canberra are all super cool and the game's epic set piece confrontations with Titan Bahamut and Odin are absolutely spectacular the scene where Odin splits the sea with his sword is one of the coolest visuals I've ever seen but the heart of Final Fantasy 16 story is in those few critical scenes that form the backbone of this epic tale Sid's death at Drake's heart the moment Clive accepts the truth the love scene on the shore between Jill and Clive Joshua's death in origin and the hero's final Victory against Ultima these are the scenes that were designed to blow us away the perfect capstones to a great story or at least that was the intention because even though I'm a very emotional guy there was never a moment in this story that broke my heart and when you look at these scenes in isolation it seems like they really should have the reason for that is simple Final Fantasy 16's climactic moments lack the proper buildup they need to hit truly hard because of four major problems and the first of these has to do with something called narrative Drive narrative Drive is what gives a story its forward momentum and keeps us engaged with the plot even though we know it's Fiction it's a combination of countless factors that come together to create a feeling that just won't go away until you finish the story but a lot of it comes from the character's motivations and the best parts of Final Fantasy 16 story are the ones where its Heroes have the strongest needs Jill and Clive's journey to mount drustinus is one of the game's most compelling sequences and part of its power comes from Jill's personal quest for Redemption the task is of vital importance to her emotional well-being so it becomes important to us but for most of the game this sense of passion is seriously lacking Clive's hunt for vengeance for his brother is what drives the story in the early game but once he learns the truth about what really happened at Phoenix Gates a lot of the forward momentum is lost the quest to destroy the mother crystals eventually provides a new goal but the game fails to sell the urgency of this task the heroes never seem to be in much of a hurry to finish the job and the game doesn't do very well in conveying the threats of the blight it's mentioned a lot but we almost never see the direct consequences of its approach even though the five-year time skip after Drake's head would have been the perfect place to show its disastrous effects instead most of the story Spotlight is on valastair's institutionalized persecution and exploitation of bearers and a lot of this content is very good but the game seems to imply that all of this would go away if the crystals were crushed and I don't see how that would be true if anything a world without crystals should be even more prejudiced against the only people who can still use magic and even then it's hard to understand why Clive would prioritize the mother crystals over everything else going on in his life he never bothers going after Ultima until the very end he doesn't search for his missing brother even after he finds out he's still alive and he never takes direct action against his treacherous mother even though she's responsible for almost every single bad thing that ever happened to him it's really a shame because Final Fantasy 16's prologue is a master class in how to start a story and the first few hours of the game have an amazing energy everything up to and including the battle against Garuda is seriously great but after that the story takes kind of a nosedive and a lot of this has to do with how the game handles or rather doesn't handle tension most of the hero's triumphs come way too easy infiltrating oriflem and reaching Drake's head should have taken a lot more effort the confrontation with high priest imrian at Mount drastinus seemed a bit too simple considering that they're dealing with a guy who's shown himself willing to use children as hostages to control others and there's a bizarre lack of pushback against Clive for going around destroying the world's mother crystals I get that Ultima meant for this to happen but shouldn't the countless people whose lives depend on those crystals be out for his blood Eva even when the story manages to generate some actual tension it's always released too soon and too easily the way Clive is rescued at rosalith Castle makes koopka look like an absolute [ __ ] and the scene where Barnabas destroys Clive at canvor is a great setback but then the king of elude just leaves it doesn't help that the story lacks good villains benedicta is great but she dies a couple of hours into the game Barnabas has a lot of potential Until you realize the guy's ultimate goal is to die by Clive's hand and Ultima may be the most underwhelming antagonist the series has ever had sure his motivations are solid and the acting is great but it's hard to get too excited about a villain who's got all the personality of a wooden log by far the game's most engaging villain is Annabelle and her despicable black Shields and for quite a while I thought the game was building her up for something greater but the story's focus on Ultima and his save the world plotline means that all of Final Fantasy 16's intricate World building amounts to almost nothing the early game is so fascinating with its complicated politics and Rich Intrigue and I really wish they'd had the guts to stick with that story instead of throwing it all out the window for the standard Rebellion against the dark God and His zombie hordes still all of these issues could have been overcome if it wasn't for the game's second major problem because intentionally or not Final Fantasy 16 has inherited one of Final Fantasy 14's biggest flaws if all of Final Fantasy 16 had the pacing from the first few hours this would have been a story for the ages the early game moves at Breakneck speed every half hour has a major boss a hype set piece or some great drama and even when you think things are about to slow down like after defeating benedicta at care norvent the story kicks into a higher gear and throws you straight into one of the game's most epic sequences at this point of the game the story had me thoroughly hooked all of that changes when you get to Martha's rest because this is where the story gives its first taste of unfortunate things to come Final Fantasy 16's writers just don't know how to Pace a single player game in Martha's rest a tiny Gap in the town's Bridge keeps you from proceeding on your way forcing you to complete a bunch of unrelated tasks while you wait for repairs in dalamil lubor demands that you track down some soldiers selling Black Market crystals Before He'll open the gates and in boxland gootz has his passport stolen by a thief sending you on a wild goose chase to get it back and all of this is straight up filler that isn't to say that the content is boring or that it has no meaning the reason why the story has you doing these tasks is to hammer home the most important elements of its World building Martha's rest is designed to build Sympathy for the plight of the bearers and introduce the concept of the Crystal's curse dalamil demos trades how crucial the supply of crystals is for the people's livelihoods and baklad is meant to show how refugees are being taken advantage of as a result of the world's conflicts all of this is interesting stuff but it doesn't drive the story forward and there are many ways this information could have been conveyed without stopping the story these are gatekeeping tasks designed to slow the player's progress and path The Narrative and it's the exact kind of content that makes the worst parts of Final Fantasy 14's otherwise amazing main scenario quests an absolute chore the game's pacing perks back up in some stretches like the infiltration of Drake's head Jill and Clive's journey to mount drustiness Hugo's trap at rosalith Dion's coup in Twin Side and barnabas's attack on canva but it never reaches the same level of intensity as in the early game leading up to Garuda and every time they build some momentum they go and do something to tear it all down after Drake's head there's a super awkward five-year time skip during which the heroes apparently did nothing at all worth mentioning after defeating Titan Clive drops everything to go on a series of tedious fetch quest for Mid even though the ship she's building won't be relevant until much later in the story and even after Jill's abduction when the heroes are supposed to be using that ship to chase after the inhariar Clive has time to travel all the way back to the Hideaway on a wild hunch that Sid might have left something important behind for them to find the story is constantly pumping in the brakes when it should be building momentum for an epic finale every exciting action sequence is followed by a round of tedious busy work and it's pretty obvious that these sequences are meant to give us a breather but good pacing isn't about giving the audience a break from the story it's about providing Rhythm and variation a sort of natural Cadence that keeps the audience from burning out or getting bored and that can all be done within the story without using filler at all they could have had the heroes doing research on ultima's true nature gathering information about koopka's whereabouts or setting a trap for King Barnabas these are opportunities to spend some time developing characters advancing the relationships between them and building tension for their next action sequence engaging fun slower scenes that still address the story not a bunch of unrelated fetch quests that kill the story's momentum the great irony is that even if they wanted to give the audience a breather they didn't even have to do that within the main story because this is a jrpg and jrpgs are self-paced anytime a player needs a break from the action all they have to do is complete some side quests or at least that's how it should be because Final Fantasy 16 side content holds both the cause and the solution to the game's problems with pacing it took me almost 70 hours to finish this game but about 30 of them were spent doing side quests I wouldn't normally see this as a problem because optional content can be a lot of fun when it's something you choose but Final Fantasy 16 has a problem with how it handles its side quests because the way they're designed they don't always feel very optional most of the game's side quests could have been lifted straight from an MMO they're usually about fetching some item or killing a monster and the structure of the tasks gets pretty repetitive there's only so many times someone can ask me to find a missing person before it starts to get boring while the dialogue and voice acting is consistently great it doesn't seem like they had a lot of resources to pump into these scenarios and some of the game's best side stories are tarnished by just how cheap Everything feels in the conclusion to the dalamil questline lubor Lays out this elaborate plan for defending the town against the horde of akashics but what it actually comes down to is for live to head into the desert and kill a bunch of Bandits and during the defense of Northridge against ultimate thralls instead of fighting monsters in the street with the townspeople at your side you just ride out to kill some recycled enemies in a field even most MMOs can do better than this but not all of the game's side quests are this bad helping the hideaway's aspiring young Engineers put mid scales back together is fun and cute assisting an antiquarian in deciphering the origins of Tabor is a nice way to keep you engaged in the lore and the sequence where Clive evaluates a potential Scout and you get to give some actual input into the final decision is kind of cool another highlight among the game side quests is the one where you accompany Doris to balmond dark to search for her old friend there's a bit of exploration some really neat World building a chance to get to know a character you wouldn't otherwise see a lot of and the promise of a big fight at the end of it pretty much everything I want out of a good side quests and even the most menial of the game's side quests helped drive home the game's lore retrieving a lost crystal for a fishmonger in Martha's rest is meant to show you just how important these items are to ordinary people's lives the Dame's Quest chain Builds on the natural consequences of the fall of the empire of some break and there is roughly 1 billion side quests that explore just how horribly the bearers are treated which helps to build anger towards this cruel system but at some point I realized that doing side quests had gone from something fun to feeling like a burden every major story beat unlocks new side quests and they all take a decent while to do so you'll be spending more time on the side content than the main story if you want to do everything and that can seriously screw with the story's momentum at first the answer seemed obvious just do less optional content and I really think I would have had a better time with the game if I'd bailed on most of the side quests the pacing would have worked a lot better enemy encounters wouldn't have gotten so repetitive and the best fights would have been more challenging since I wouldn't be over leveled and I would have been done with the game 30 hours earlier well before I felt a drag but this is is not as obvious a solution as it first might seem because a lot of Final Fantasy 16's best character development and relationship building is hidden away in the game's side quests Clive and Joshua are visiting their father's grave the proof of torgo's Devotion to Clive and a beautiful conclusion to the game's romance or all scenes you'll only see if you do your side quests and since you never know when you're going to get the good stuff you'd better do it all which means that what was meant to be optional ends up feeling kinda mandatory Final Fantasy 16 would have been a much better experience if the best of this content had been part of the main story and as we've already established there's a lot of straight up filler that could have easily been cut to make room for it all of the major character development for the main cast Joshua Jill torgel Dion and probably gav should have been woven into the fabric of The Game's plot you shouldn't have to go looking for this content because these relationship tips are absolutely fundamental to the experience of Final Fantasy 16 and that leads us to the third major problem with this story which is that this is the Loneliest Mainline Final Fantasy game of all time Final Fantasy 16 has a great cast The Game's characters are well written and nuanced and the voice actors do a fantastic job of bringing them to life scenes like Benedictus meltdown after losing Garuda Dion's tragic confrontation with his father and Clive's reaction to Joshua's death are made absolutely real with Incredible passion and energy open your eyes Final Fantasy 16 has some of the best acting I've ever seen in a video game and even minor characters like tarya Karen and gootz have a lot going for them Final Fantasy 16 story is a political drama an action adventure and an Epic Quest to defeat a merciless God but above all it's a story about the bond between Clive and his allies his love for his brother Joshua the Deep affection he has for Jill and even his close friendship with gab the story's most powerful moments are built on the strength of these bonds so it's a real shame that you don't spend enough time with these people part of the problem is that the game's best character dies too soon my favorite part of the story is the early game when Clive gets to go on adventures with the original Sid Sid is a very entertaining guy with a lot of Charisma and his chemistry with Clive is a lot of fun but this great Dynamic is lost when Sid dies and his absence from the rest of the story leaves a huge gap characters like gav mid and Byron all have strong personalities that Vibe well with Clive stoic persona but none of them gets nearly enough screen time to make a difference it's cool that the game keeps cycling different allies for different scenarios going to Drake's breath with Jill is a lot of fun and hanging out in the desert with Uncle Byron is a great time but I honestly think the story would have worked a lot better if you'd had a traditional party This Is The Loneliest experience I've ever had in a Mainline Final Fantasy game you spend a lot of the time alone with your dog and as much as I love torgel he's not much for conversation and even when you do get some human companions they're so passive it's hard to remember they're even there they barely lend a hand in battle their combat dialogue is nearly muted and you almost never feel their presence while fighting the few times your allies actually have a role to play in battle are some of the coolest parts of the story fighting liquid flame as Jill Shields Clive from the fire while primed into Shiva is really fun tag teaming Bahamut with Joshua before merging into a single form is pretty awesome and three dominance unleashing try disaster on Ultima Prime is a sight to behold but it's not just the game's heavy emphasis on solo combat that causes problems even outside of battle your companions are way too Anonymous I can't tell you how many times I spun my camera around just to see if Jill was there or not the Allies almost never participate in side quests even during conversations that should concern them and the game consistently fails to include your friends in the action whenever there's an obstacle to climb a gap to LEAP or a ledge to cross the camera conveniently hides your companions while they teleport to your side these situations could have been the perfect place for a bit of character interaction and a few times the story bothers to do it are quite entertaining but the worst part is something much more fundamental the game simply doesn't devote enough time to really explore their relationships between Clive and his allies the bond of Brotherly Love between Clive and Joshua is one of the best things about the whole story but there's not enough bonding between them outside of the prologue the flashbacks shown after the final battle are awesome so why not give them to us earlier in the story where they could have helped to make the relationship stronger and why isn't there a heart to heart between the two brothers after they reunite Clive spent 13 years hating himself for failing his brother so shouldn't he have a lot to say to him when he finds out he's still alive and of course Joshua is not the only character who matters here how hard the story's ending hits is entirely dependent on how much you care about these relationships and the fact that the game does so little to develop them takes a lot away from that impact and that's especially true when it comes to another of the game's most important relationships the one that had the most potential Clive rossfield and Jill Warwick have a lot in common they're both born to royalty but had to find their own path in life they are both dominance heirs to a terrible power that others seek to control and they're both trying to atone for the sins of their past Clive and Jill are equals in the truest sense of the word they're both equally strong but also equally weak they are two wounded people choosing to walk together in support of each other and from this perspective Final Fantasy 16's Central romance is an absolutely beautiful love story Clive and Jill have genuine chemistry the gentle Bond of affection between them feels very real and they share some truly Great Moments throughout the tale the unspoken feelings in the prologue's moon gazing scene the emotional conversation at the Docks before setting out for Drake's breath and even the scene at Hannah's home where Jill goes for a kiss and gets rejected by a grieving Clive is a great setup for the eventual payoff Clive and Jill thrive on these introspective moments of doubt and fragile emotion and when the romance is firing on all cylinders the feelings between them could not be clearer and these feelings come into their own in the story's best seen the tender love scene on the shore following the hero's dramatic pursuit of the ainharyar is one of the most heartfelt and romantic I've ever seen in any medium brilliant writing and fantastic acting come together to create something truly special a captivating display of vulnerability and love that feels utterly real and it breaks my heart to say that it's mostly wasted because once again the build up the scene needed just isn't there to make a romance work you need to keep the fire burning even if at times it only smolders but Final Fantasy 16 lets its Love Story burn out for lack of attention the main issue is that the lovers just spend too much time apart the story is constantly coming up with excuses to separate Clive and Jill and it's hard to build momentum for a satisfying Romance when the two Heroes get so few opportunities for face-to-face interaction but even when Jill is around their relationship moves very slowly I am all for a slow burn romance and relationships that are allowed to develop naturally over a longer period of time are often the most satisfying but the key to keeping the flame alive in that kind of story is to give the audience just enough of the meaningful moments that serve to reaffirm their relationship and show that they're still falling deeper in love it's not just about the grand gestures but also about the subtle little cues one of my favorite moments in this story is when Jill and Clive clasp hands as they commit themselves to Sid's cause it's a sweet little gesture that says a lot about their feelings and I only wish the game had more of this I would have killed for a brief nod as the party came ashore on that same Beach on Ash with Clive and Jill sharing a smile or squeezing each other's hand as they return to the place where they first made love but of course that could have only happened if they hadn't left Jill behind I also would have liked to see Jill play a larger role in The Game's action sequences fighting side by side with Clive in the story's big battles and there are so many interesting conversation they could have had that we never got to see how does Jill feel about what happened at Drake's breath after she's had some time to digest it what about their lives during those 13 years apart swapping stories about their tortured past would have been a great way to bond and the time Clive and Jill got stuck in a thunderstorm together which was mentioned in a side quest could have made a great flashback at a critical moment of the main story but the biggest issue with Final Fantasy 16's love story is that it never addresses the core question namely that there is no reason why Clive and Jill shouldn't already be a couple they clearly have feelings for each other and there's a sense that some trauma keeps Clive from acting on his feelings but we never find out what exactly that is if we're to root for two people to get together we must first understand what's keeping them apart and trying to get clever about this means you risk losing out on a lot of the romance's emotional power hour which is kind of the point when we're talking about a love story this is still a top tier romance for a video game but it could have been so much better Clive and Jill's relationship gets better with time but it never reaches its full potential and that's exactly what the fourth and final of the game's major problems is also all about let me first give credit where credit is due it feels very good to be Clive Final Fantasy 16's protagonist is a total badass and controlling him in battle feels every bit as awesome as taking the reins of a hero like Dante from Devil May Cry or Raiden from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance but as cool as Clive is in combat outside of battle he's kind of a boring guy he's a safe standard hero with no real color or great Charisma the kind of character no one's going to dislike enough to put down the game this is in no way a reflection on the performance of his voice actor Ben Starr did an absolutely Stellar job with the material he was given and in the moments when Clive breaks out of his stoic shell the quality of the acting is truly superb you'll get no pity from me cooker no pity and no mercy Clive's most interesting characteristic is the pain and guilt he carries inside and star conveys these complex feelings in a very convincing way Clive might not be the most entertaining character but there's a lot to work with beneath the surface and the character Arc the game sets its hero on could have been one of the all-time greats the only problem is that it ends too soon Clive starts the story consumed with grief and self-loathing and these feelings only grow stronger when he realizes he's been chasing a shadow but once Clive confronts his demons in the ruins beneath Phoenix gate and accepts the truth his internal struggles are pretty much over Clive's journey of redemption ends prematurely and the rest of the story suffers as a result in spite of all the external threats the heroes face Final Fantasy 16 is really the battle for Clive's Soul Clive's character Arc is absolutely Central to this story and it should have run in parallel with the plot from start to finish Clive's use of ultima's power to resurrect Joshua should have been the final payoff an act of redemption made possible only by his growth and that growth should have been set against the deepest wound in Clive's heart I cannot imagine the pain of going through life knowing your own mother didn't love you and the Clive Annabelle story arc deserved a much better end the key to this story is the moment Clive accepts the truth about itself the confrontation with Clive's Shadow is very cool but it's also poorly timed major turning points in a character's inner Journey have so much more power when they're linked to some significant external impulse and having Clive suddenly face down his demons after viewing a faded mural at the bottom of a dungeon feels anti-climactic Clive surrender to the truth would have hit that much harder if it came at a critical moment when renewed strength and conviction were desperately needed and to me there's an obvious place where it belongs the way it's portrayed Clive's final battle with Odin makes very little sense Barnabas is set up to be an overwhelming opponent and twice before Clive has tried to fight him with disastrous results to the point where he wonders if the warden of Darkness can even be beaten but in the end the solution is simply to try again when Clive confronts Barnabas atop the Tower of reverie the story tries to make it a battle of wills and I think we're supposed to believe that what Clive gained from his love scene with Jill is what makes the final difference but I didn't find this argument very compelling at all and I don't think the game did a good job of setting it up if Clive's character Arc were still in play this would have been the perfect place to end it throughout the desperate fight against his indomitable opponent the hero would have wavered still suffering the scars of what happened so long ago at Phoenix gate Clive still fears unleashing the Flames that burn inside him but here at last he comes to the end of the road a power incomplete a heart filled with hesitation cannot match the king's power on the cusp of defeat with Odin's great sword about to slice him into a thousand pieces Clive Richard treats inside his own mind to confront the Enemy Within at last he accepts the truth but he is good enough that he is worthy of love that the monster inside is nothing but his own self-doubt and once he Masters that every bit of power within his soul is his to command at peace with his own nature plive unlocks the true power of a freed and unleashes a fully powered limit break fire and darkness roaring in the sky tearing the tower asunder an explosive end to the hero's Ark as Clive in the barren lands of Ash finally finds the flame a feat which unfortunately Final Fantasy 16 itself never quite manages before I go on I just want to say if you enjoyed this video I'd be super grateful if you could hit the like button and leave a quick comment as it really helps the video reach more people I read every comment I get no matter how old the video is and if you want to support me consider subscribing to my channel so I know people want to see more videos like this at the start of this video I said that Final Fantasy 16 lacks courage it might seem strange or even unfair for me to level such an accusation against this of all games after all doesn't Final Fantasy 16 completely break the mold and challenge every notion of what the series should be but the truth is that none of this is new for over 35 years Final Fantasy has been a canvas of constant change and over this time every aspect of the series has seen major shifts Final Fantasy 16 is not the first game in the series to make massive changes to combat and no two stories in the series before have ever been truly the same the point is we've been through this all before the only difference is that Final Fantasy 16 can't seem to commit to a single Vision instead it's trying to be all things for all people it's a fast-paced action game with a solo Focus but also an Epic Quest with a huge cast there's a vast world to explore but not enough game to actually see it there's open world exploration and a crafting system but it's only there because the fans expect it the story's got tons of filler so that people won't complain it's too short the game is crammed full of superficial Final Fantasy references but it misses the mark where it really matters it's a Revenge story a political drama a rebellion against an oppressive system and a world-saving struggle against the dark God it's a brutal world where life is cheap but also a high fantasy spectacle full of battles between gods and dragons and this identity crisis can even be felt in the game's soundtrack because the game can never quite decide on whether to hold back or go all out masayoshi's sokun's Brilliance Is tragically muted there are some really good music in there and there were moments where it almost reached that final level but there was nothing in this game that hit me with the same Force as best work from Final Fantasy 14. here his compositions feel somehow restrained and the result is that the game's best scenes lose some of their power Final Fantasy 16 soundtrack is very good but it never truly blew me away and the same can be said for the whole game final fantasy 16 is good but it's not great it's the worthy successor I expected from this team but it's not the Masterpiece I was quietly hoping for I enjoyed my time with the game but the magic was gone long before I finished it the final battle was great but it should have had me shaking with adrenaline the ending hurt but it should have had me in tears and it only took me a day to get over those feelings and it all comes back to courage because I'd rather have had a final fantasy 16 that tried to be its own thing then I compromise between new and old any direction would have been fine as long as it was bold at least then it would have been true to Final Fantasy spirit because this series was never about icons or chocobos or a guy named Sid it's about the courage to try new things even if they're not what people expect still this is the best Mainline title in 20 years and for a lot of people it's gonna be their first brush with Final Fantasy a love story that lasts a lifetime and that's an amazing thing and if nothing else then at least this game gave us the greatest character in Final Fantasy history the goodest boy in the end Final Fantasy 16 is a heartfelt story about two brothers forming a human centipede to fist fight a dragon in outer space and these are just my personal opinions whether you agree or disagree I'd love to hear about your experiences with Final Fantasy 16 in the comments below thank you so much for watching and have a great day

Channel: Altercate TV

Views: 3,082

Keywords: ff16, ffxvi

Id: Xzm8FPIZBqo

Length: 59min 59sec (3599 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2023