Final Fantasy XVI
Naoki Yoshida's bold attempt in the single-player realm, a work attempting to revolutionize the FF series. Breakthrough achievements in visual presentation and Eikon system, but with obvious shortcomings in story and narrative.
Art Appreciation
Rating Breakdown
Deductions
The gear system is a bit too barebones. The Eikon system is flashy, but combat overall isn't all that engaging. The playable cast is limited, with no adventuring party; the dog is actually the one teammate who's always with you, which is pretty fun.
Highlights
The Eikon system is quite innovative, coming up with a jinchuriki-like concept: Eikons genuinely become part of the combat and story balance, rather than, as in past entries, living in magicite or somewhere and being done once they've cast a skill.
Combining multiple Eikons still feels great.
Highlights
Amazing, there's a full-nude scene! Say what you will, Yoshida really was bold, and there's innovation too; if this had gone to another producer, say Kitase, there's no way it would have been done.
Gorgeous, gorgeous, so gorgeous! This is surely the game's defining feature: pouring every resource into letting you revel in heavenly, wildly intoxicating Eikon battles.
Soken is reliable, of course.
A very curious entry: the Japanese sounded a bit off to me, so I switched to English to finish it. Yoshida himself also recommended playing this one in English.
Deductions
During production, Yoshida declared that every staff member had to watch all of A Song of Ice and Fire, so the opening gives you a grand, Game of Thrones–style start. And later? The struggle between nations simply vanishes; the team couldn't handle a backdrop like that.
It follows straight from the characters' motivations: you're looking for your brother, so you look for your brother. But the story after Cid's death unfolds a bit inexplicably and can't be called coherent.
The main villain is terribly written! He feels shoehorned in, and his final-battle lines force the theme home so hard that I couldn't help laughing. The male and female leads aren't very distinct either; they're apart for over a decade, and what happened in between is never mentioned. I actually quite like the heroine, but looking back at the whole thing, there really isn't much distinctive to say about her; this game simply falls short on characterization. Plenty of supporting characters are forgettable too. The medicine-selling girl shows up so many times that I assumed she was foreshadowing something, but no, she really just sells medicine.
After Cid dies, the hero takes over as the new Cid, and from there his motivation gets very strange. Just like the villain, it's shoved in from who knows where, with his motivation and the villain's forcibly lumped together.
The first and second halves are completely different in tone, for the same overall reason as the holes in the story's logic.
It imitates the chore-like feel of an MMO; the main story is like that, and the side quests have the same flaw. There are still a handful of side quests worth doing, like the ones that flesh out Jill's character a little.
A "the end of the book" ending is just too clichéd... And many players say they dislike the open ending about whether the hero survives.
Same old problem: the first and second halves don't match up, and using Cid's death as the dividing line creates a strong sense of fragmentation.
Yoshida definitely wanted to innovate; that's precisely the standing he was meant to be given within SE's leadership. But holding a classic IP like FF, he couldn't stage a full revolution, so he had to play it safe, and the result is neither one thing nor another. Honestly, this is a very un-FF entry.
Highlights
The English localization team slipped in plenty of their own touches, which actually makes the world feel considerably more complete and grand.
The Eikon set pieces are beyond reproach.
Deductions
It lacks completeness: many settings that get mentioned are never fleshed out, the Eikons aren't all there either (Leviathan was added in a DLC), and most likely it's yet another problem with the project timeline.
The quest system draws a lot of criticism; running through chain after chain feels very much like an MMO. We all know FF14 made Yoshida a legend, but he seems to have forgotten that single-player games still need to be made somewhat differently.
The collectibles are pretty much optional; I couldn't be bothered to look at the ones displayed in the hero's room again.