I've seen a lot of positive praise and sentiment for XVI even from longtime fans and I find that worrying. I finished the game and thought it was a solid 5/10 at best and was happy for it to be over. The game felt closer to Genshin Impact than it did Final Fantasy.
The music was generally quite good and the eikon battles were a fun and new take, but just about everything else I found lacking.
spoiler
- The main story retreads themes that have been told many times and offers nothing unique. It's clear early on we are on a quest to collect the rings of power to fight the big bad who thinks the only solution to the problem is starting over.
- Most characters were flat and uninteresting
- Combat was very simple and unengaging. It was simply not fun. You can only use about a quarter of the abilities you collect (not that theres many more youd find useful enough to use anyways)
- Crafting/itemization was pointless
- MMO-tier side quests (ironic considering XIV has some interesting ones)
- Story format is lifted straight from XIV as all "engagement" quests (ones with the red crossed swords on the map) are the same as XIV dungeons (trash, minor boss, trash, minor boss, trash, major boss)
- Empty world with no incentive for exploration
- Minimal play style variety despite the different eikon flavors
- No class system (I would have expected something listed as a "role playing game" to have some sort of class system)
- No party system in any form
Overally, fairly worried about the franchise since so many people are over the moon as it implies we might be getting more of the above. It feels like XVI took heavy inspiration from XIV but did a worse job at the highlights of XIV (story, job/battle system) and straight up copied some of the bad parts of XIV.
Now that it's been a few weeks, hopefully more people have finished the game. What are your thoughts?
While I agree with you that the game fell flat in many areas, I think a 5/10 is a bit too harsh. Of course, it's your opinion and I'm not telling you it's wrong, but for me a 5/10 is a game that is barely playable, either filled with bugs, or visually an ugly mess, or just plain boring. FF16 does indeed have its shortcomings, but it is still a beautiful game that performs great most of the time.
That said, I think the game would have benefitted from a shorter story. By the end of the game I was just tired of the simple gameplay and the anemic side systems. As many others have said, the crafting is barely an afterthought, and so is the equipment and items. I did enjoy the sidequests, especially in the later half. I think they did wonders to flesh out the characters, and that's why I can't agree with OP's statements that the characters were bland. If anything, that's the strongest point in the game.
All in all, I think the game is an improvement over ff15 (although I enjoyed ff15's weapon systems more than I did ff16's Eikons), and it's overall a solid game. I also enjoyed it way more than FF7, but I think many will disagree with this take.
I do think the game does not feel like a proper Final Fantasy, but it is not due to the action combat. It's just lacking many elements of the gameplay that make ff feel like ff. No status effects (save for Shiva's freezing), no elemental advantage and immunities, no classes, no healing, basically no party. It also feels a bit smaller in scope than the traditional ff. The twin islands feel small, and thus the stakes never feel grand, even if we go against god by the end of the game. That's not to say the game is bad, it's just lacking that FFesque feeling.
Finally, Torgal bestest boy ever. Fight me.
The first half of the game really gives a sour impression of the side quests. They get much better, but you'd never know that was going to happen. Like, there's no indication that they'll start containing really good, emotional stories that flesh out a lot of the characters. There really needed to be some kind of symbol for character quests.