Board 8 > Final Fantasy XVI

(+) Yeah! (+)

I bounced off this pretty hard when we got to the desert. managed to push through to the big titan fight, which was an even split of fun and dumb. spectacle is really all this game has going for it, I think. I'll probably still finish the game but I really don't feel compelled to keep playing

Who was it that actually sent Benedikta's head to Hugo?

Game did leave me wanting for more big budget FF content, so hopefully we don't have to wait 5+ years for a non-Remake entry.

• Side Quests are 95% uninteresting trash padding with no decent rewards whatsoever. I do not need more stacks of Magicked Ashe.

• Even some of Main Quest tasks feel like these Side Quests. Talk to A to talk to B to talk to C to talk to D to slay 5 monsters to talk to E. The MMO DNA is thick. The pacing is brutally bad, after learning mind shattering god level information you're forced to deal with political negotiations about grain or some shit. Like cmon now, does CLIVE really need to deal with this low level stuff? There's kind of bigger things happening.

• This definitely lacks the color and pop of previous entries, but that was expected after I watched the first trailer (The ONLY thing I consumed before playing it too, I went in basically blind). But man, I was getting real bored of seeing the next town or area be more brown and grey. Dark Brown and grey. Black and brown. Black and Grey. Yes, it makes the magic and combat pop more in contrast, but for as beautifully designed the areas are they really started to bore me with their drab color palette.

• Motion blur was obnoxious, glad that got patched out.

• Game is piss easy. I only died a few times when fighting Hunts WAY above my level. And even then I still beat them after learning their easily telegraphed patterns. Will get into FF mode to see if that helps, but if it's just a "Enemies do more damage and have more health" I don't think that will improve things, it will just make battles longer and not more difficult.

• Music is forgettable save for a few tracks. "Our Terms" though rivals Besaid Island for me for chillest FF track of all time. I could listen to that forever. Boss theme is also a bop, glad it played for every Hunt. The rest is "Dark Fantasy orchestrated filler"

• The characters are quite wooden and uninteresting, which unfortunately includes Clive. There were a handful of characters who brought some life to the screen like Gav, Cid, Byron, and a few of the villains like Bennie and Kupka. The rest you could almost swap their personalities and you'd never know the difference. Clive, Josh, Dion, Otto, etc. Torgal best boy though.

• The customization/loot is really dull. Whenever I got a new sword with bigger numbers, I never felt it at all. That and you're completely dumped on with crafting materials non stop that barely matter whatsoever. It got to a point where if I saw a shiny thing on the ground, I wouldn't even bother swerving to pick it up. The only equipment I felt made any difference is accessories which reduce your CDs.

• Party members might as well have not have existed, I almost never felt their presence in any battle, including Torgal. I saw their spells and saw them doing some stuff, but they don't have any HP and can't die so I never felt the need to give a crap.

• Stop taking my control away during boss fights to do needless QTEs. Who actually likes these?! If you want to show something cool happen, just show it. Don't freeze the game until I press Square.

• The game teased and didn't deliver on a lot of FF staples. Won't say them here, but man...The FF fan in me was disapointed more than once. Seriously KYLE and WADE? You know what you did.

• Voice acting is incredibly well done. Like damn, no more anime sounds between sentences makes everything feel much more natural. Lip syncing seemed to be pretty good as well.

• Graphics are unbelievably good. I could not BELIEVE some of the stuff I was seeing being pulled off, mouth was agape for much of the run.

• 0 Loading times, how in the hell?! Much appreciated especially when trudging through a lot of the uninteresting quests.

• Combat feels really good. Despite it looking like there's 1000 things happening on screen, I always feel completely in control and know exactly what I need to do/how to do it. I also feel this is where Clive really comes to life and drops the dull whispery voice in favor of some brutal grunts and trash talk. The trail challenges were also very fun to master.

• Story had me hooked from start to finish. Even despite the brutal pacing, I always wanted to know what the hell was going on. A lot of my predictions did come true, but many did not and that impressed me.

• Boss fights are the incredible escalation of the game systems put to the test as they should be. Still wish they were a little tougher, but I was always dumb founded at what I was seeing play out. I felt the weight of the situation in a big way.

• Eikons. Man. The scale of their power was sold SO well. More plz.

• Really important side quests were marked with a + rather than a ! which was a nice touch.

• Active Time Lore was definitely needed and I hope it appears in every story based game ever from here on out.

• The game does not feel incomplete, glitchy, or otherwise needing polish. This AAA game came out finished, and it's sad that I need to praise this nowadays but I do.

I also didn't care much for how dreary the 2nd half of the game is, but they're big FF6 fans so I kinda took it as they were going for a World of Ruin look

It was clearly Barnabus, or rather under his orders. Benedikta's whole relationship with Kupka was undertaken on his orders in the first place. That's why they bother showing Benedikta shacking up with Barnabus in the first place. They were always playing him, even if her feelings had some truth to them. But no one ever says directly, no. The fact that Sleipnir is even aware it happened is fairly telling in itself, though.

The soundtrack is fantastic by typical VG standards, but it doesn't hold a candle to any given XIV expansion independantly, much less as a whole.

I do think it's very thematically appropriate! As mentioned before, Soken is just able to go buck wild with whatever he wants in XIV due to it's nature, while he was fairly constrained here.

What would you have made the rewards

meaningful weapons and armor, but that would've required meaningful stats to begin with

Torgal skins

Speaking of, holy shit Payback

That was one of my favorite side quests of all time.

I think you can have meaningful stats/items/equipment without making it a looter!