Final Fantasy 16: A Game of Self-Owns

Behind all that fire and all that smoke Final Fantasy XVI must deliver. I step into Clive's shoes with a hopeful heart and an open mind.
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[@PKDeviluke25]

I 100% agree with your thoughts on the moogle, its like it was a late addition to the game and it so out of place with the art design and tone of the game. Like it had to be there to remind us we are playing a Final Fantasy game.

[@yodoleheehoo90]

to me it seems as though only Clive can see that stupid creature among all the people in the Hideaway and looks SO out of place in the game and no explanation as to why it even exists, NO ONE else seems to notice it hovering by the Hunt Board and it's the only means of accessing the board in the first place rather than interacting directly with the board, the moogle is just a nuisance every time I had to see the Hunt Baord :(

[@MisterHeroman]

Doesn't look any more out of place than most other moogles, except the XIII-2 one.

[@Bukkie661]

Still not as ridiculous as the Type 0 moogle.

[@kindridskylar7786]

​@kickingbackpunchingcones4099chocobos and moogles are a ff staple. I doubt any ff game will ever be without both. Maybe one, but never both

[@shugo2355]

After fighting Titan, I realized that Icon battles were all happening in a vacuum. As rediculous that battle was and how HUGE Titan became, litterally NO ONE SAW ANY OF THAT SHIT! No comments, no bystanders in the reasonably close town talking about it, nothing! We even had to tell people that we killed him and I was floored when that wasn't met with a resounding, "yeah we know..."

[@moonraven6145]

You would've thought something as gigantic as Titan Lost would've produced catastrophic earthquakes for that whole region, and yeah it's a little bizarre no one ever commented on the immense battle's that took place.

[@continuallyblessed44]

What’s even worse is how long they took. I dreaded every eikon battle because they were so drawn out. I’d rather have a 2 minute cutscene then move on over those mind numbing battles.

[@rappercentral703]

That was the worst part for me. Surely I though there would’ve been some acknowledgment of the battle right after or even during the fight but nothing, nothing at all

[@Thisisjustname]

​@@continuallyblessed44that's pretty much LL those battles where. I've those those kinds of cut scenes since they were first introduced.

[@stegoshark5116]

Problem with this. This world doesnt have instant communications, and im pretty sure its quite a distance between the area the titan fight takes place and the hideaway. People would see the titan fight, but the hideaway was likely outside the distance even titan lost could be seen. And even if it was, they wouldn't know that kupka was dead. All they would know is a giant version of titan appeared and eventually vanished. For all they knew Kupka could've won and simply exited the titan form.

[@Rex_Cosmos]

I love when I find a new creator and find myself saying “this guy gets it”. Great work

[@extrathicc78]

Ngl this question you pose here at 13:43 is one I wouldn’t blame on the tech, but on Yoshi P’s direction. So many of the games trappings are also trappings of 14

[@atf9536]

Careful there, the yoship zealots are gonna get ya, dude can do no wrongs!

[@samoth5161]

Seriously. I felt like I was just playing single player version of 14

[@collenjets123]

as someone who's played like 3000 hours of ff14, it was noticeable throughout that i was borrowing heavily from it's systems. It worked, but definitely could've done more with it.

[@HeadBangerExtreme]

Yoshi wasn't directing this though, he was producing it. Idk what video game positions are like, but in Film: Producers don't really have the same artistic control of a Director. Now ofc real life nuances change everything, but if Yoshi wanted to Direct it then he probably should've. Unless Producers, with finances and people management and scheduling on their plate, are the real creative players in the real world, the directors should be people you point fingers at too. Not just the one they're shoving in your face.

[@PlazDreamweaver]

​@@HeadBangerExtremeGame dev here. Title doesn't matter, it doesn't work like film. Creative Director is the general title, but it's fluid. It can be called Producer, there can be no Creative Director and just be a Producer. There can be no Producer. There can also be both, but the Producer has more control over the creative direction of the game. In XVI's case, it only takes a pair of working eyeballs to see that Yoshida, unfortunately, had the vast majority of control over this "game's" creative direction.

[@kasumi5772]

"in hindsight, i regret committing myself to playing through all the side quests because i probably would've enjoyed the game a lot more if i just stuck to the main story" this right here was my main issue with the game. i liked the rest for the most part, but the side quests man. yeah a lot of the later ones had more of a story to them but for the most part they were boring af and still felt very FFXIV-like. also there was when the end of the game and you hit the point of no return, an extra 13 or so side quests pop up all at the same time, just to say eff you

[@WowlxX]

Yeah man I did all side quests and by the end bang like what a dozen new side quests and I thought I'm so done with this I'll power through the end and call it a day f you for not respecting my time

[@Son_D._Bear]

I did some of the side quests and immediately quit the game.

[@DontStopCornPop]

​@WowlxX This is how I spent my day yesterday. I had thought the game was almost over and I was glad to be done with it, then all of the sudden 13 more side quest just cropped up. Big sigh, then knock them all out and power through the rest of them game. I did beat it last night but now I just feel glad to be done with it and I can go back to a game I was having a lot more fun with, like 7 remake.

[@WowlxX]

@@DontStopCornPop You're a better man than me! I gave up at the last batch and they are supposed to be the better ones. Oh well. Yeah same as you I was just glad to be done with it and couldn't wait to go play something more fun.

[@DontStopCornPop]

@WowlxX I don't want to make it seem like I didn't enjoy the game at all because I definitely had a lot of fun with it! My honest feeling is that FFXVI is a very good game that is just shy of being great because of some pretty unfortunate flaws. But I definitely don't regret my 120+ hours I spent on it.

[@RadinV1]

Glad I'm not the only one who thought Barnabas had so much potential as the main villain. His power genuinely seemed like the most menacing of every Eikon, and to me it seemed like he was building up to be a perfect dark reflection of Clive. Both are dominants, but Clive was a prince who had everything torn away from him, while Barnabas was probably born with nothing and had to use his power to rise up the world, neither of them seemingly got the motherly love that they needed in life, and both are working towards their own idea of a peaceful world; but while Clive surrounds himself with so many companions and cares about them, Barnabas only has Sleipnir which is an empty being of his own creation. I feel there was enough to there to have a really good hero-villain relationship, which I think has been missing from FF for a very long time. Instead of really exploring that though, Barnabas is overshadowed by Ultima before he's even defeated. I don't mind the "killing god and gaining our freedom" trope at all, but I think it comes at the cost of a way more interesting main antagonist. But I guess that's just another example of this story having way too many ideas that don't really go together.

[@joshuacoons9517]

I have to disagree with you. Every final fantasy as a sub boss to the final boss. Jeavona, Galbaz. Ect.. name the Final Fantasy I can name you the menacing sub boss. Typically the final boss is always a god like figure. God Kefta, Safer Sephiroth, Ultimcia, ect.. again name the Final Fantasy end game boss and there all gods of time, dimensions, the universe or of just Gia. I do think Barndabas plays a good Galbaz or Seymour. Just my two cents

[@RadinV1]

@@joshuacoons9517 Well yes I do agree that the final boss would have to be a "god like" figure, but it's usually a normal person who ascended to power and not a god from the beginning. Final Fantasy 1 had Chaos which was just a powered up Garland, the Emperor in FF2 was originally a human, Kefka in FF6 was also a human who absorbed a lot of magic, Sephiroth in FF7 was a super soldier and I assume he was amassing power from the lifestream, Ultimecia was a witch who got her final form seemingly from time compression and Yu Yevon was just a really powerful summoner who became like that after centuries of being Sin. Interestingly enough the villains that people like less are the actual godly entities that come out of nowhere, like Cloud of Darkness or Necron. Point being that this isn't Persona and the final boss doesn't have to be a literal god per series tradition. Odin in his full form (which we never got to fight btw) could have been enough to rival the likes of Safer Sephiroth. If a sub-villain really is needed, you could have it be Hugo, or maybe Benedikta doesn't die super early, I think that would work fine.

[@joshuacoons9517]

@@RadinV1 ultima was an alien. His species drain everything from there planet and he was the last savior. He made it to Valisthea and sucked up so much of the ether that he practically became a god. So, to get enough energy to take into the cosmos to save his dead world (or bring it back to life). He started a plan to suck this planet dry. That took a millennia (which he slept most of the time). So, I am confused. He was originally a normal being on his planet that got too greedy. Just like jeavona. Only difference is the Cetra stopped her and humans harvested her and created something far worst than her.

[@continuallyblessed44]

As soon as they brought in ultima I was done and bored. I wished they had kept it more grounded but no, had to do the all powerful mysterious force trope again. I felt nothing at the end of the game because I was so checked out. I yawned at every death lol.

[@joshuacoons9517]

@@continuallyblessed44 sorry to hear that. Every main line Final Fantasy game end boss is god like. These is always a switch to them in the story. FF1 1/2 why through chaos, ff2 dark side of the emperor end game, FF3 cloud of darkness end game, FF4 Zermous end game, FF5 neo Exdeath end game, FF6 Kefta switch to him at 3/4 (most of the game it was the emperor till Kefta killed him), FF7 1/4 through to Septhroith, FF8 Ultimecia end game, FFX Yu Yevon end game, just to name a few. So I guess you don’t like any final fantasy. 🤦‍♂️

[@Epiphanystone]

I miss having a party and being able to make different characters leader and use their abilities. Hopefully they revisit that again.

[@onisixx]

I actually was happy to see a solo character game. Just not this game lol

[@Meop79]

Unlikely. They are obsessed with action games. They are idiots.

[@threestars2164]

Strangely the criticism of ffxiii must have been forgotten or just not considered during the development of FFxvi, how else would one explain why they just went full ai like dragons dogma. It's come full circle!

[@alexandersmith4731]

Not entire the devs fault, remember how much western game journalism and criticism is basically hating those in the early days? They got the feedback from there and now we end up where we are

[@endrancemackenzie6168]

Whats wrong with turn based? Persona games make it works. This games is so weird the battle system is just meh

[@TheOneGreat]

I remember when I killed a bomb with fire magic and my heart immediately sank. Such a waste of potential.

[@residentevilclone]

Dude. I am so tired of 50% or more of stories and world building being on data cubes or in journals. It just absolutely destroys pacing.

[@cherryblossom2371]

Exactly this

[@AICW]

@@cherryblossom2371 Remember when Destiny's entire story relied on going to Bungie's website just to read the lore? haha.

[@ExtremelyDumb]

Everyone that agrees with this is the exception to the rule, most people who play video games or consume media don’t have time to learn all the lore That’s why most games hide it, because it ought not be necessary, and if it is, you need to incorporate it so well that the game length skyrockets

[@ExtremelyDumb]

If you want more game just say that

[@thebiggestgarlic1194]

I've always said that FFX has the best and most well paced world building in modern FF games. Tidus is thrown into this new world and the player learns about the rules and history at the same time he does. The game doesn't throw all these terms and abbreviations at the player, and we have no idea what they mean. Every FF since then relies heavily on data logs or outside media to tell their story.

[@thiagomuaythaiboxe21]

"Let's not celebrate mediocrity for the sake of tribalism" You nailed it

[@kjh4496]

Yup. Can’t stand FF fans. Nasty delusional toxic people.

[@Zeen987]

31:54 “Why’d you take his pants off?” 😂

[@petes1772]

It's been like 4 months since this game came out, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a writer somewhere thought it was a great idea to have Clive need to rescue a captive/kidnapped Jill three times in the story.

[@vorpalinferno9711]

Its a deconstruction of a dominant. Jill is a vengeful character whose sole motivation is taking revenge. These stereotypical characters usually need some sort of excuse to go on a violent rampage. However by making Jill need rescuing this overused revenge archetype is subverted. Jill is shown that the world does not revolve around her selfish revenge nonsense. Its quite genius writing.

[@Astro_Vagabond]

@@vorpalinferno9711sure, it can be great writing, but it’s not conducive to fun gameplay. …In a game…

[@djjones2407]

I watched the game awards and they announced e 2 DLCs for this. I don't feel any urge to go play them. This was not a FF game to me.

[@SephirothOwa13]

@@djjones2407 Same. Normally I'm all over anything FF. Not with FFXVI. I won't be buying these DLC's.

[@ceeeff2559]

@@vorpalinferno9711 surely you're joking lmfao. jill's revenge was fulfilled long before they encountered kupka. what point is there in beating an already resolved character arc into the ground? not to mention the desire for revenge was just a miniscule aspect of jill's (barely present) personality. this analysis makes no sense.

[@BlackRabbitDigitalP]

It is very simple in my opinion: The FF franchise defined itself from all other RPG of its era by doing its own story telling and game mechanics, and over the years it has instead chosen to not not only abandon its roots but copying stories and game mechanics from other games. Did the pay off win them the new fans they had to trade off for the old? Nope, it was an unnecessary, stupid gamble, a "forced evolution" which they said the franchise desperately needed in order to appeal to the standards of modern audiences, well.... Persona 4-5 and Baldur's Gate 3 would disagree. IT is not the mechanics that gets old, it is the presentation and the lack of innovation upon those mechanics.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

1- are there enough old fans to reach the sales numbers square aims for? a question yet tobe answered. 2- FF was always behing DW/DW. they are not copying stories but taking inspirations from many things, as always. The issue here may be that they follow what is fashion because they thing is what will make the game sell. that if, for better and worst, true to a certain extent. 3- Bad examples imo. Persona 5 is not a great game in my book and it sold well because of outside reasons, namely a period without great jrpgs before its release, a huge marketing campain and visuals( that square uses to sell as well). BG in an old franschise with a loyal fanbase.Good gamethat benefited from the diablo controversies.And it is not an jrpg.

[@Filip_Agrippa]

I bought the game exactly because I am a fan of dark fantasy like Witcher or Dark Souls. I really loved the setup, characters and the world, but introduction of Ultima subverted everything. He was a generic shounen manga villain in a dark fantasy story and took valuable screentime away from the actually interesting characters like Barnabas or Dion.

[@vvbvgeneraltsung2913]

He was a very detached villain and he felt exactly how he looked, alien. The little influences he pokes and prods carefully and calculated I enjoyed the demenor and the way he interacts with each person. He feels godly but dismal as well reminds of the phyrexians from mtg which is good

[@MisterHeroman]

It just did what Tactics and FE do. And XII to a lesser extent. Grounded political world making way for higher fantasy.

[@vvbvgeneraltsung2913]

@@MisterHeroman its more slavery excentuated than any other final fantasy and parallesl that of actual slavery in the europes

[@vorpalinferno9711]

I hate the violence and abuse fetishizing 'dark fantasy' and its very disturbing to me how people enjoy that kind of sick stuff. I like positive things. Do you know of any positive and 'light' fantasy stories/games in recent years?

[@vvbvgeneraltsung2913]

@@vorpalinferno9711 99% of nintendo's releases they give me the lighthearted fantasy and wonder I need. Kirby, loz, mario, sonic they're all great i dont understand why a mature audience has to pander to people who can't stomach it just go play something else. If you want positive go play a POSITIVE GAME, STOP TELLING PEOPLE HOW TO MAKE A STORY WHEN NONE OF YOU ARE QUALIFIED BY A DEGREE.

[@CthulhuTheory]

Square Enix seems to have forgotten how to write villains. Each single player game since FFX has had one core repeating theme with them: Help the villain achieve their goal. You help Vanat break the cycle the occuria oversought. You help Barthandalus and Caius trigger their doomsday plot by killing them, and then Bhunivelze with your soul gathering for his new world. You help Ardyn escape his immortality. You help Ultima with his plot to destroy the crystals and absorb the power of the disparate eikons so he can rez his people. Hell, even in SoP you're literally becoming Chaos, the villain. Contrast that with the prior games. You kinda help create chaos, but stop him. You stop Mateus from taking over everything. You stop Xande from spreading darkness and spend the game cleansing the world of it. You stop Zeromus from his global domination. You stop ExDeath from casting the world into the void. You fail to stop Kefka from becoming a god and splitting the world, but overcome him and cast him down. You stop Sephiroth from destroying the world. You stop Ultimecia's time kompression. You stop Kuja and Garland's attempt to unite two worlds, which would doom one. and You stop Yevon's cycle of giant gravity whale induced death. In each of the pre-enix era games, the bosses are all trying to do something a bit different, and your role is never such that you're aiding them to directly attain that goal. In all the post-Enix games, however, that's the entire plot twist every time. And it might work if it weren't every. single. fucking. game. But it is. And it's getting boring. So very boring.

[@drazirac117]

But for those that get into FF recently will enjoy it & arent getting bored yet from that formula.

[@VampireNoblesse]

ff14 villains are top tier, especially Shadowbringers

[@joshnok6369]

I agree however Venat isn't the real villain and at least there is more nuance to the plot.

[@angelemiliosantana6335]

Do you really think ex death is a good villain and an example of good writing?

[@CthulhuTheory]

​@@angelemiliosantana6335 No, not really, but I still give them credit for originality at the very least. It's a bit derivative of Xande and his association with Darknesss, but it's still fresh enough that the approach is unique. Compare to modern era where everything boils down to [____] wants to destroy humanity to get what he wants and - this is the important part and the big problem - YOU ARE GONNA HELP.

[@Karn_EX]

Really fantastic video, successfully summed up a lot of my more nebulous thoughts on why I didn't click, at least all the way, with 16. Great stuff!

[@orion8550]

Thank you very much!!

[@Urbish-v3t]

That quest complete edit with the Stormblood jingle really made me laugh, great video! And yes, this game screams CBU3, and it's quite worrying. I thought many of the problems with 14 were limitations of it being an MMO with dodgy code, but now I realise it's just what they consider good game design. That is an enormous concern for me.

[@cattysplat]

It's absolutely fascinating that so much problematic mechanics of what we thought were limitations of the crude rebuilt FF14 engine and are thus given the benefit of the doubt by the playerbase, are actually much of the developers intentional design themselves. Whom when given a blank canvas with FF16, repeat the same game design with the same issues.

[@georgemeyers7172]

CBU3?

[@coolyeh1017]

​@@georgemeyers7172Creative Business Unit 3. They are a subdivision in Square Enix in charge of FFXIV, DQX, and maintaining FFXIV which are all MMORPGs (to an extent). They are also in charge of developing DQ Builders as well.

[@silentlore2458]

Creative business unit 3. The division of square enix who makes those games @@georgemeyers7172

[@HendyVelarius]

@@georgemeyers7172 CBU3 stands for Creative Business Unit 3, the team in charge of FFXIV, led by Yoshi-P. I can't help but wonder though if all these are limitations that are given by SQEnix themselves. I can't help but wonder that since the modern FF main series and remakes are all so so similar to each other.

[@TheRetroPerspective]

Ever since a Square developer claimed that doing a world map would be "impossible on next gen consoles" referring to PS3, the series has been a lifeless husk in terms of world building. No world map, instead an encyclopedia entry about the town you're in and where it is. It is anti-fun at this point.

[@joshuacoons9517]

This is why I am so glad on what there doing for Rebirth!!!!

[@dreamxhollow]

I think Rebirth is going to change the entire line of FFs going forward. Such a shame really, 16 had so great lore just presented poorly.

[@TheRetroPerspective]

@@dreamxhollow really? FF7 remake was pretty bad. Can't see rebirth being much better.

[@joshuacoons9517]

@@TheRetroPerspective negative ghost rider. Are you living in a bubble. First off I think FFVII Remake was great. Second Rebirth is going to be fully open world. Now am I worried what are they doing with the story. Yes! I see it as a double edge sword. They can ruin it or nail it. Ultimately remake was 98.9% faithfully remake. Less than 7.5 min of the game (not encluding the final fight at the end) was faith ghost bs. Everything else was a one for one remake of midgar. They also added to the back story of Jessie, Wedge and Biggs (I thought this was awesome). By far it has the best combat system I have ever played (perfect mixture of turn base and action base).

[@TheRetroPerspective]

@@joshuacoons9517 the combat has a dodge and block mechanic that are useless. The majority of regular combat encounters are trivially easy and whilst many of the bosses are fun, they also don't have any real tactics to them. You just spam attacks and abilities. Hard mode is essentially "figure out the best way to exploit and cheese the game whilst doing the same attacks over and over for hours" kingdom hearts 1 has a combat system that is infinitely more intricate and thoughtful about how enemies are placed and how their ai works to swarm the player, but the player can always control the pace of the combat if they are good enough because block, dodge and the magic system are all actually functional and useful....and KH is a PS2 game.

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

I agree with most of what you said, I will say, I don’t dislike what the story did with the political standing of each dominant , with it being different in every country, but at the end of the day with them being used as tools until they’re used up in all of them just like the bearers. A change I would make, personally; give SOME kind of conflict between Clive and Jill. Girl woke up from a coma as the most agreeable person alive. Honestly, I’d have Clive give her a near fatal wound before he recognizes her at the start, and have it leave a scar, it would even work on a symbolic level, with it being a reminder of either guilt for him and/or fear/anger for her, and symbolizing their broken relationship, and give a reason why they NEVER GOT TOGETHER UNTIL THEIR 30’s

[@propheinx2250]

The more I think about the modern Final Fantasy franchise, the more I think Squenix are short sighted morons. They got rid of the genre they were leading in exchange for a genre that had STEEP, heavily entrenched competition. So instead of remaining the king of their genre, they became the mediocre of another genre. 2 console generations later and they still haven't made it anywhere close to the top, or even middle ground, of their new genre. A decade later and the genre shift still hasn't paid off.

[@raulrojas9253]

Dragon Quest XI was an excellent game. So they traded FF for Dragon quest when we could have both.

[@Darkfawfulx]

I was thinking this myself earlier. The fact that THE top name RPG got scared that there's an audience that likes shooters is laughable. They brought this on themselves. I see people praise XVI and I wonder how you can play a 40 hour game with 1 combo and 6 abilities on cooldown. Not to mention the poor pacing bringing down the story and game play.

[@Tercel5750]

Did you think 12 and 13 were peak RPGs? I didn’t, you’ll find few who would agree. They were not leading the RPG era since PS1

[@propheinx2250]

@@Tercel5750 12, yes. 13, no. 13 was the start of the fall. 12 just needed to be ps3 instead of ps2.

[@Darkfawfulx]

@@propheinx2250 HD was unkind to this franchise. Balloning graphics costs plus SE's insistence on looking the best led to slower game output.

[@TheHylian64]

I was looking forward to this for months. I finally finished watching, and my goodness, I'm so happy to witness this video in full. What a fantastic work all around!!! The script, the editing, the voice over, the music choices, it is truly top tier. Your take on FFXVI is one I deeply resonate with, and I'm pleased to see how well you covered the game's fundamental problems. Amidst a storm of blind fan worship and mobilization against criticism, it is truly refreshing to behold such a reasonable and thorough video on the topic. It is no secret, to me you are easily one of the best content creators on this platform covering Final Fantasy. Truly worthy of all the praise you've been garnering over the years! To some of the people who know me already, I don't give this kind of praise lightly. To the people who are reading this, liked the video and aren't subscribed... what are you for? Give this man the support he deserves! All the best, Orion!

[@orion8550]

Receiving those comments from someone whose work I greatly admire truly means a lot to me! Thank you, Hylian!

[@infamousincubus2888]

I completely agree with this comment

[@Great.Gospel]

They should had a Kefka-like villain who learns that Eikons can be absorbed from dominants and desires to become the ultimate god-like Eikon. Then they could have killed off Joshua in order to motivate Clive and Jill to pursue this baddie. Then the twist at the end would be that absorbing too many Eikons ends up corrupting Clive and before he becomes too far gone he asks Jill to destroy him so that the Eikons can be reborn into new vessels to restore balance. Or an alternate ending where Jill has to be the one to sacrifice herself in order to contain this villain by expending all of her aether to create an ice prison. Final Fantasy games don't need to get overly complicated as they already pull from the same template for most story beats, it should be super easy to create slight variations at this point.

[@Terrakinetic]

I feel like the low-fantasy atmosphere was more off-putting than the other aspects when you still have Bahamut, magic, and everything else. No Moogles, Cactaur... The chocobo look like horses instead of meteor casting magic birds or fun like Boco from ff5. 39:23 The fact this game as a "Final Fantasy" made you feel this way means that everything has already gone wrong with the story.

[@crimsiden]

I loved this video tbh. Most people focus on the "no turned based" being the primary reason old fans are salty about ff16. But you demonstrated that its so much more.

[@alwaysdrunk5461]

This game shouldve been a spin off, not a main FF title

[@anthroposmetron4475]

33:53 "She was like a sister to Clive, and soon they're lovers. Like two stars, destined to fall in love, for no other reason than being the male and female leads." Noctis and Luna say hi. Just one of the many aspects of mainline FF games where you have to go back a very long way now to see it done right.

[@Rithysak101]

It feels like they didn't do the Jill story quests or didn't pay attention much to their backstory if that's the conclusion they draw from the game.

[@Nyakomata]

Yuna and Tidus. Cloud and maybe Tifa. FF doesn't have deep romances, they just happen.

[@anthroposmetron4475]

@@Rithysak101 Feel like making the romance of the protagonist explicable is something that should be in the base game, or the developers are doing it wrong. It shouldn't be something a player can 'miss'.

[@Rithysak101]

​​​​​​@@anthroposmetron4475 but the developers did make it explicable in the base game. Like having the two bonding countless of times in the main story isn't explicable enough. I don't think some players need it to be jammed in as the main narrative focus like it's final fantasy viii for it to not fly over their heads. I also do not think it's fair to blame the devs on this for our own failings to pay attention to their relationship? The missable side quest isn't even needed for players to understand why the romance worked either. If game like final fantasy 7 that most purists love can have crucial backstory moments for the protagonist be missable, then some small side quests that expand on the protagonists in xvi shouldn't be an issue either.

[@anthroposmetron4475]

@@Rithysak101 Let's be real here, this kind of stuff is about paving the way for DLC. FFXV did the same, and paywalling massively devalued the story and characterisation of the base game. As long as S-E is producing mainline FF games which are founded on segmenting the story and characterisation as much as possible for commercial reasons, the series will suffer.

[@jruby9113]

I feel like one of the biggest things missing from modern final fantasy games is the constant feeling of learning world shattering things about the world. Ff7 was amazing in part because every major area in the game would massively change the tone and throw some new piece of information about the world at me. Midgard was a grimy city that embodied the ideas of pollution and unrestricted greed. We go to the wild Vegas-esque gold saucer, which just had this generally happy vibe. Then we start to see the less developed areas, the villages and towns that are places shinra abandoned once they weren't profitable enough anymore. And then out of left field, sephoroth was actually near dead the whole time, we've been following clones under his control and pieces of his mother (an ancient shape shifting alien btw) the whole time, Seph is actually off regenerating his body, there's the whole backstory of the ancients, the black and white materia... It turns out Cloud's identity is a delusion... Then the weapons come into play... There was just so much whacky shit pulled out of a hat and it all worked really well. Ff8 you're a mercenary schoolboy fighting to stop a sorceress and the country she seized power in. And then at some point there's aliens in the moon, you go to outer space to fight a sealed away sorceress, and the game ends with some completely unknown 3rd sorceress being revealed as behind it all, and she collapses time. The more recent final fantasies in contrast don't really have interesting worlds - they just have really realistic ones, based more off of real history and real cultures than the more whimsical and unpredictable worlds of the older games. You get the reveal that you're ifrit, and you get the reveal that it's all been part of ultima's plan, and otherwise the world and characters all feel... Predictable, and like I've heard these stories before. The older games literally felt like the writers had a grab bag of tropes or ideas, pulled a few out, and said "alright, we've got ecoterrorism, capitalism, John Carpenter's "The Thing", and ego death. Now we gotta make a world and a story around those." The new ones feel, like you pointed out, like the writers just said "we need to use whatever process George R R Martin uses"

[@louradean9293]

What about 6,9 and especially 10 which to me has the best world building and plot of the final fantasy games.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

Hum, many thing to unpack here. First of all, did you consider that the "I've heard these stories before" is just a you problem, a normal side effect of getting older and experiencing storytelling through the years? i sure fell that asavery real thing. On the construction of the most recent FF: all fanstasy worlds are based on real life places, events and memories. Those influences may more or less evident to you but they sure are there. In FF7 for example you can see a lot of the history of industrialization and the rise of ecogical movements. FF4 is classical medieval european and 6 dived into" steampunk", and 10 has the pacific lifestyle as a base- all this to say that i think all games share the same general construcion but the mixture is diferent and that i why we dont feel it like we usded to.

[@mpo48]

@@goncaloferreira6429 there's absolutely nothing to unpack. older games were better. that's all there's to it and its an objective truth

[@threestars2164]

Any ff before X doesn't even deserve a paragraph written in its honor! And yes supposing they did copy from grrm, whose legacy will outlast that of the entire gaming industry and who is only rivaled by the likes of Tolkien, it would be a good thing!

[@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725]

​@@mpo48this

[@sephondranzer]

THANK YOU: the point about how little you cared couldn’t be better stated. This is exactly what their games after FFX seem to really have in common with me. It’s always escaped me as words but it’s this actually striking level of bad story where you don’t have to introspect or look back at your notes to see you didn’t care about the story. It’s just so shockingly and consciously there to me. They even managed to do this to FF7!! Square Enix is just a Japanese Disney. They laid off all of the professional story tellers and they’re left with nothing but corny people left. They *can’t* make a good story anymore and they likely can’t restructure into a company that can. They’re done man.

[@uchihajunior5648]

I wasn't around in the ps1 era, but this year i played ff7 trough ps plus extra, and i gotta say, in regards of storytelling and worldbuilding... ff7 is kilometers further in quality then ff16, and after playing other old ff games, i can say the sakaguchi era was the golden age of ff storytelling.

[@murddeath]

I finished this game JUST today and it really feels like they missed some easy opportunities in this story. Clive seemingly doesn't learn any lessons or change as a person. Jill brings up the "death and destruction" thing like once and his answer is "we fight for freedom" but Clive is never forced to acknowledge the humanity of the people he's fighting nor forced to come up with a solution that doesn't involve murdering whoever is in the way which is why I feel bad killing Kupka and Benedikta because they're as much victims of fate and this world as Clive is but the game NEEDS bosses for you to kill and doesn't want to force Clive to think about his enemies. It could have been an interesting piece of growth for him with helping him move past his time as a slave-soldier but they simply don't give a shit. They could have even tied this back to the Ifirit thing and showed Clive becoming the man he thought he was when he "killed" Joshua but nah, Square can't have the heroes challenged in any meaningful way. Another problem I have with the writing is how homogenous the world in the game really is, both in terms of the actual environments and the countries involved. I remember there was an error in the subtitles during the Ironblood island segment that called one of the offscreen guards an imperial but I thought about it for a second and thought "I guess it doesn't really matter because every country in this game is interchangeable with the empire anyway." All of them are basically the same medieval European kingdom populated solely by humans with a desert level too. It's Final FANTASY and we know that there's FANTASY races in this franchise but for some reason, they refused make any other species let alone distinctly different cultures which they could have used to make the slavery subplot better but it doesn't matter because every kingdom on two separate continents have decided that the branded fucking suck and should be slaves with no nuance or in-between. This game was basically a Hollywood movie and it tried to subvert our expectations to a degree with "UM ASCKCHULLY MAGIC BAD FOR YOU AND THE CRYSTALS ARE ALIEN" but it was The Rise of Skywalker " Let the past die. Kill it if you have to"-tier towards the end only to hit you with a Fast and Furious ass line from Clive. He tells Mythos "I got family" and then fucking kills him and that's the thing Mythos somehow didn't understand? That you have bonds and he doesn't? You couldn't come up with another reason like "You created us and you're our father but like any child, they always go on to take what their parent teaches them to do better than them." AND TIE IT BACK TO FUCKING CLIVE'S DAD AND MOM?! The game and writer's want so desperately to be accepted by the west that they can only give us what they THINK what people in west would like and what we really want is something written with some Japanese sensibilities in mind because we already have a billion things from the west to choose from.

[@BlackXSunlight]

26:10 dramatic irony: we, the audience, know things the main characters don't, which adds layers of dread and suspense when the characters go along with things without this pivotal knowledge. When we, the audience, can't tell if the irony is purposeful or an accident, usually means it wasn't written well.

[@Alessandrosaiyan]

The bigger mistake of this story is: starts as a Game of Thrones, ends like a Naruto, with superpowers. But the gameplay made all this 100 times worst…my god any element of it is painfull…

[@dood3530]

Man, this channel is severely underrated. You're the first one I've seen who really *gets it* in regards to modern Final Fantasy.

[@Dzzy123]

I agree with a lot of your points. Ultima being the villain pulling the strings makes the political intrigue less interesting. It was odd to me that Clive took Shiva from Jill when it was pretty clear by that point that that was what Ultima wanted. Moreover, Ultima's choice to try claiming Clive when he did was odd since Clive didn't absorb Leviathan, which meant to me that Clive was not yet a perfect vessel.

[@PlazDreamweaver]

Profit over passion.

[@InsomniaticDeathWish]

For me, the beginning of the game honestly did a better job getting me invested in Cid, than it did in Clive. And by the time I finished, I could definitely say that Clive was the protagonist, but it still felt like Cid had a bigger impact. And I think that means that my emotional peak, the moment in time I was most invested, was Cid's death. After that, I just kind of felt like, yeah, these Eikon fights are cool, and the combat is fun, at times, but there isn't a character in this game I felt as much for as Cid, and without that, the story isn't resonating. I just don't care as much. And Barnabas was someone I was really intrigued by, and then Ultima was introduced, and that killed basically every expectation I had for him, because I knew he couldn't be the main antagonist. He could have impact, he could be a cool Eikon fight, but without the weight of being Clive's final fight, his story just, really didn't matter to me. So yeah, I definitely get the feeling of wanting more from it. The story was intriguing at the beginning, and the characters had enough depth to them to keep me at least semi-invested in them, but when it feels like the centerpiece of the world dies half way in, and you're kind of just running around not doing anything, even though you're doing everything, that just doesn't equate to a satisfying experience for me. Sorry if none of that makes sense, but I finally finished the game, found this video, and wanted to ramble

[@EugeneKurlikin]

How do you only have 1k subs?! This video is of the highest quality. Your script is insanely well written. Delivery is hella composed. Dude, well done 👏. Sub earned. Love finding these channels before they get big and start shoving Raid Shadow legends down our throat.

[@karmaceutical3963]

big agree, only halfway through and the quality here really started to sink in, this matches up or exceeds many of the bigger channels, hope he gets the subs, making something so well articulated, voiced and paced is a lot of work

[@orion8550]

Sincere thanks to both of you for the kind words. Hearing that makes the whole process all the more worthwhile for me. Greatly appreciated!

[@kofinart]

The fact that I heard FFX and XI music throughout this, means you have taste.

[@AceGunnerManEIR]

Excellent review. I noticed all this stuff on my play through and ended up not finishing the game. I dont understand why there was so much die hard defending of this game?

[@kjh4496]

FF fandom is notoriously delusional and absolutely nasty to anyone who doesn’t agree with their opinions. They actually hate FF because they think everything is either a romance or needs to be remade and changed completely from what made the original great.

[@wildinstinct1585]

Man i love this man's video. I am already waiting for what ff7 rebirth video would sound like

[@ABenAbides]

This is the first Final Fantasy that bored me so much that I couldn't finish it 😅

[@86lanzo]

Great Video again coming back after months. I think a great video idea is "what makes a mainline final fantasy gaming??".. and going back through the history of the series from 1 to X and drawing on some core concepts that makes a mainline game. personally, I don't think a mainline game can just be a one character solo game. I think a key concept of final fantasy mainline games ...maybe even the key concept is A story about various people from a variety of backgrounds coming together to Proform a task (saving the world) that they couldn't on their own. enemies become friends friends become enemies they grow as the story progress and the world changes around them in reactions to their acts Sakaguchi basically laied out the blueprint of a mainline final fantasy game with 9. 9 is the quintessential final fantasy mainline game

[@VulpineSol]

I wish Final Fantasy would make an RPG again, i really miss FFRPGs. The last time they made an RPG was FFX back in 2001. Wow... twenty three years of no FF RPGs... twenty three.... wow... An entire generation has been born and grew up without knowing that Final Fantasy used to be the greatest RPG property. Kids today will just assume FF makes action games... sad.

[@Eqvil]

Yo yo yo yo! Bro, you do not drop me the FFIX map theme without warning! I wasn't ready for those feels this early in the day!

[@Amp5150]

yoshi pee only saved ffxiv by making it a wow clone, that doesnt make him a genius.

[@cartoonvideos5]

So I'm not insane. Good to know.

[@Ross8k60]

Remember they DID let us play as Joshua for half a minute?? He even had Curaga. Just imagine if they would've let us play as each of the main villains for a while to develop their stories and make us connect with them! Instead, the game feels like it had a bunch of disconnected and basically unrelated plots randomly unfolding at the same time. Are we fighting for a world where bearers aren't slaves? Or are we destroying the Crystals, because they suck up the ether from the planet and make the blight spread? Or are we chasing our brother's murderer? Or are we running errands and picking flowers and collecting dirt for all kinds of random people? Where do Sleipnir and Barnabas suddenly come from? And why should it matter to Clive?? Why should he fight any of them?? Now suddenly Clive's The Chosen One™?? Why did Joshua avoid Clive in the first place? Oh, and Jill's here too. uuhmmm.. awkwarrd... Halfway through the game, I was hoping that Ultima would actually be invincible and that Clive would realise that the only way to defeat him, is to kill himself, so Ultima can not get his perfect body holding all the Eikons. Would have been a better conclusion of the story instead of a punch in the face, in my opinion. Wayyy too much budget went into the world's assets and textures. Everything looks gorgeous and super high quality (even though sometimes you notice repeating patterns in floors and mountain sides a bit too well). Way too little budget went into animating the conversations. Absolutely no budget went into the crafting system, interesting or meaningful items, the side-quests, the weaknesses and strengths of enemies, the enemy designs as a whole... And every time I was hyped to go somewhere and explore the place - pow, highly scripted set-piece on rails, riddled with invisible walls. You better stay on this exact path instead of exploring this new interesting city, or else! Also, what is with the levelling being capped at 50?? Such an MMO thing to do. Also, I didn't grind at all and reached level 49 right before Ultima. There wasn't a single enemy, monster or boss, I couldn't defeat easily. No hidden super bosses?? S mark hunts were laughable and all of the fights were "just more of the same". No strategy necessary, just stagger them with Phoenix and Ramuh, then blast them with Bahamut. And can I finally just add... Video Game Logic® Transforms into an ethereal being larger than life and flies to literal effing space... can summon the Gods of Fire and Thunder... but can't jump over a two feet wide hole on a bridge... or open a wooden gate without doing a fetch quest first to appease the random npc that will never be seen again. Also, WHY can I go to dozens of areas where absolutely NOTHING happens or can be done unless I trigger the meaningless quest for that specific area, which summons just another gang of bad guys or monsters that pose no challenge at all... Ugghhhhhhh

[@FartKnight777]

Sakaguchi was final fantasy

[@omensoffate]

The lost odyssey was the last final fantasy game

[@MASJYT]

@@omensoffate I heard Fantasian is pretty good.

[@KrokPanther]

I couldn't finish the game. The combat felt a bit drab and maybe I didn't get far enough into the game, but Clive as a main character was so boring and uninteresting. The flashback scenes were of him as a broody teen which was fine cause he still had an innocence. Then the tragedy of him killing his brother and... 13 year jump... 13 years!? Holy hell, he'll be a completely different person after all that time- Oh he's just as broody and depressed as he was as a teen. No history to dig into, no mystery, just the same guy just more sad. Could you imagine if when we meet him as an adult we see him smiling and laughing with his companions? Like he is with a group of expendable soldiers who have bonded over their shared trauma? He seems to have moved past his demons (or at least learned to suppress them). But no, they leave no room for curiosity. What happened to him over those THIRTEEN YEARS? He's just a slave that whole time. He didn't make a single friend after being enslaved, no confidant, and not once succumbed to anger after turning into Ifrit again accidentally. I wish we could have played as young Clive through the game and witness his coming of age story, learning about the world. He was interesting, and we could experience the world as he did with new wondering eyes. Again, I didn't finish the game. I stopped shortly after Cid died and there was another time jump. No time can be wasted dealing with loss shortly after. We have to wait to deal with it. I wanted more than a moment to process it. Also, maybe it was the editing, but it felt like the game was gaslighting me into thinking that Clive wasn't Ifrit. I guessed it immediately when he showed up at the end of the young Clive scene but everyone kept talking like it was someone else and I felt so confused. Anyway, sorry for the rant.

[@merleetomlin6218]

Time jumps!!!! Ugh!!! DX

[@eW91dHViZSBpcyBjZW5zb3JzaGlw]

13 years? yikes. that time changes a person drastically. L move yoshida.

[@YeOldeMachine]

I think they just tried to appeal to too many fanbases without satisfying any of them. I dont know who FF16 is for. The OG fans wanted a typical FF experience. Dark fantasy fans want something more akin to FromSoft, Fans of a narrative storytelling were let down by a derivative and incoherent narrative, and action game fans were bored by the oversimplified DMC system. I think most people also wanted some worthwhile character progression and exploration. They were content making a dollar store Game of Thrones with little else.

[@BlackXSunlight]

This string of critical reviews of XVI is giving me so much catharsis. I was quite critical of the game during its launch week as certain gameplay and narrative elements scratched at the back of my mind, and you couldn't say anything even close to negative about the game without someone duct-taping your mouth closed and screaming "You just wish they kept remaking the old games over and over again" in your face. As if anything in IV or VI or VIII or X had anything to do with what bothered me most about this game.

[@Yobama007]

Excellent review I felt the same. It had so much potential but none of it was fully realized. It felt like a demo that never ended.

[@FoxMcCloud-64]

20:53 press x to stay conscious is the mini game in ff16

[@marcusclark1339]

41:00 sums it up so well, complacency hoping it would work out and being shocked at the most obvious thing of it, in fact NOT working out Series is indeed in a bad state, from FF7 milking to biggest game either being a fart in the wind or a MMO lets be real its dead, what made it work isn't "good enough" in their minds and they keep missing the point for broader appeal which never lands cause the audience wants one thing, the brand to be the brand people will say the obvious defense "its not THAT bad/its not the worst thing/I've seen worse" as if not being egregious is somehow a good thing, and not realizing how desensitized they are to not realize this IS the worst thing

[@ChaosAngelZero]

If not Sakaguchi, it would be interesting to see a Final Fantasy game written by Yoko Taro and/or Gen Urobuchi.

[@KymariGaming]

And for that you need to play a PS2 game, watch a theater, listen to a CD and play the game 5 Times, jokes a side yoko taro has a place by the Gods

[@einharjar]

if we are clamoring for adult/mature final fantasy games like tactics and ff12 or Vagrant Story why not give it back to Yasumi Mitsuno?

[@suiken3149]

Bring back Hiroyuki Ito in the series. Its criminal that he's reduced on making budget games while these talentless hacks have access to big budget resources.

[@MASJYT]

@@einharjar Matsuno is great at medieval political intrigue but absolutely awful at writing character dialogue and banter. His characters always come out as unbearably stiff and one note. His approach is assign them a job/occupation (general, princess, knight, thief), write the most stereotypical dialogue around it and never ever deviate from that. - Oh this is the knight character, he speaks like a knight, acts like a knight and does knight things, what does he do when he isn't a knight? Who tf knows.

[@jerrym1218]

I think Clive is a strong bad ass character and he may well be one of my favorite male characters in Final Fantasy, HELL!! He debatably might even be the most strongest, but, the game just didn’t have that Final Fantasy feel to it. I did like some of the characters in it though. I am going to say that almost everything that is made nowadays doesn’t have that same passion that all the things of the past did. A lot of people feel that way too. What has happened to everything in these modern times?? It’s like that South Park episode called “You’re getting old” where Stan and some others feel like everything in that current time to him and others sounded and looked like 💩 lmao 😂.

[@lpstweetytv5242]

Lack of effort, thats the difference between old and new

[@jerrym1218]

@@lpstweetytv5242 it seems that way, they just want to finish their project get paid, then move on to the next project.

[@johnk.2167]

20 mins in so far and I couldn't agree more

[@wandinugraha4310]

My friend said this game is just another Sony first party cinematic game

[@nicholasrova3698]

Pretty much.

[@Lex_Nocturna]

While 16 wasn't bad , it definitely left me wanting as a fan of the seires. Perhaps in time when FF17 comes out , we can be able to look back at FF16 not in disappointment but in gratitude for giving its best aspects and lessons for FF17 to learn. And maybe raise it up to more than it can be.

[@leonwolf4]

After the turn around in XIV, I was hyped for Yoshi-P being given a single player FF. But boy did 16 disappoint me massively. Pretty much rank it at the bottom of my FF tier list. Upsetting too cause I was such a huge fan of 14.

[@Chris-fg7bx]

As soon as i delivered that soup, i knew id hate this game.

[@maxmillianwiegel1643]

That’s a pretty ridiculous thing to say.

[@1SpicyMeataball]

The way you describe it, this game has a lot of good ideas given zero time to fully cook.

[@lsffan]

God hearing ff9 overworld’s theme in the background made me tear up

[@neolives]

I don’t know why SquareEnix can’t create a world full of life. I thought that with the power of the PS5 they would do more but that’s not the case. Even Xenoblade running on a crappy system the world feels 100x better than this or even FF7 Rebirth

[@drkmgic]

holy shit this was so good. dang i was not expecting this from such a small channel lol

[@fredo3161]

I played it to the end. Floored by how lackluster it was.

[@kevinburke1325]

Yeah, it was extremely boring.

[@callymac182]

Same here, just beat it yesterday. Talk about ending with a whimper, where was the end of the story? Ultimate is defeated then… idk, we’re meant to guess? Catharsis, meaningful resolutions - Pah, who needs that when you can just not, and give a nonsensical end credits scene that answers absolutely nothing. Who needs to know what happens to the characters we tried to make you care about, look, here’s a healthy tree! I used to beat ffx over and over just to get the ending, with that music, the emotion, the resolution. It felt like a reward for playing. This? I played to the end and its as pointless as the rest of it.

[@Yung.Ert.]

Fucking same

[@hotcoldman77]

Easily the second worst FF right after 15. They've been awful smh

[@kitezzz360]

it was a struggle for me, saw how boring the side quests where so skipped them, put the game on easy and ended up speed running it fast forwarding dialogue that you could, it was a snoozefest from start to finish. Better of just watching the cutscenes on youtube, if you can manage that without falling asleep

[@mujiha]

I began disliking this game from the very beginning. And I mean VERY beginning. When you finish the tutorial battle as Clive, and gain control of him to walk around, you witness bearers all around doing menial things. I felt my brain open up to the world and the story that it’s trying to tell. Then I went to where the next story moment was. Cutscene, fair enough. I went to go back out to the courtyard and bam, locked door. That’s the moment I felt my brain shrivel up in resentment for this game. I subconsciously closed my mind to it’s story and characters at this point. It seems so small yeah, but I just do not like the trend of modern games being so god damn obsessed with corralling the player to the next cutscene, cutscene, cutscene. I am playing a video game and i want to get lost in your world through INTERACTIVITY. Just let me explore the fucking courtyard man

[@DetectiveChick]

Thank you for this incredible video. There's not much else to say as you've pointed out literally everything wrong with not just this game, but the discussion and community attitude around it as well. I really hope more and more people stumble upon this video and watch it because it has been very dismaying to see so much blind praise to the point that I could easily distinguish that it's not just a matter of personal preference to them, it's just blind tribalism just to claim this as a win as you have so well stated in the end. Also I could feel the love you have for the series oozing despite you claiming your struggle through making this video. I think a lot of us who love this video can relate to that feeling of misery and struggle of just getting through the game, desperate to be proven wrong. I remember tearing up at the Bahamut battle because I finally felt the spark only for the moments after to snatch it away from me again. Thanks again for this work and I hope Square Enix watches it too and not just the sensationalised hype videos around this title.

[@orion8550]

Thank you!!

[@MisterHeroman]

I've seen more criticisms and complaints than blind praise, sure you're not using confirmation bias?

[@markyboy3749]

FF16... It made me appreciate FF7R SO MUCH MORE!

[@kar12894]

both are shit

[@threestars2164]

lmao ffvii "REBOOT" is below marvelslop

[@ItsSVO]

Been waiting for this for a longgggg time.

[@heatrayzvideo3007]

I wish they'd do a turn based game. I loved final fantasy 4 to 9, I never really enjoyed much after that. When they made ff9 the producers said it was the last of its type - I think they knew something we didn't.

[@MariaIsabellaZNN]

Dark Fantasy FF should be more like Berserk than Game of Toilets For those that do not know Berserk: It would be something more like Dark Souls I guess, which was ALSO inspired by Berserk. You know what, still a bad fit. The darkest FF I remember was FF6 and I feel that worked, but it still had its own identity.

[@86lanzo]

It's sad when the creators of a product doesn't know what it is... What's the core of a mainline final fantasy game?? What are the things that if you changed them it wouldn't be a mainline final fantasy game anymore.. I don't think there's anyone at square who could answer that in a meaningful way anymore... Which means there games will be hit or miss for final fantasy fans.. Who I think have a great feel for the series In my opinion 15 feels more of a final fantasy game than 16.. 16 could've been called anything else and it would've made more sense .. It feels like a vagrant story sequel to me.

[@technicallyme]

I 100% agree. There was a point in the middle where I was enjoying the game but it kind of died from me at the ship fight. Final fantasy 15 and 16 have been a low point for me in the franchise 😢

[@seanedwards2857]

Really enjoyed your writing on this one. Thank you for your efforts

[@Mortified42]

I haven't played this game yet, but i have to say. Ultima coming out of nowhere is the most "Final Fantasy" thing to happen in the entire story. I mean literally 80% of the games in the series has that final boss that comes from nowhere.

[@zephyr8072]

It's about the only Final Fantasy thing in the entire game. Well unless you count the model airship thrown in to troll fans.

[@Yung.Ert.]

I mean. He’s like… in the entire game lmao. Consistently. You just don’t know his name the whole time.

[@zephyr8072]

@@Kalishta00 FF was never GoT style medieval, it was high fantasy. It was also never hard medieval, and hasn't been in any way like that since FFVI. You're also going on about superficial elements. And seriously. Amnesia? That's an element in 90% of JRPGs. Your defence of this pathetic trash game is laughable. I'm so sick of fools pretending FF is medieval, that this ugly, vulgar, misogynistic garbage is "true" FF. It's offensive. This is not Final Fantasy. It never was and it never will be. You are just another member of the Cult of Yoshi-P no doubt. I'm so sick of the simpering for that fraud.

[@Apamaru]

The whole crystal theme of the game is incredibly final fantasy, down to the grand, fantastical aesthetics of it. Same with the heavy emphasis put on the Eikons/Eidolons. I'd say this was considerably more final fantasy than 10 or especially 12 were.

[@cattysplat]

@@Apamaru Much of it was built on similar themes done by the same developer in FF14, which is a huge theme park of all the old Final Fantasy aesthetic, music, monsters and bosses making cameo appearances. They are a masterclass at this.

[@corxeth1177]

@18:50 that face coupled with seething rage, as i keep pondering to myself, why everyone in these games seems to inundate the hero of reality with menial quests and objectives…. I quit TotK for this very reason…. That, and the sense of exploration had run it’s course…. Culminating in the emptiness of it all….

[@linkin1907]

I completely resonate with the sentiments expressed in this video. As a dedicated Final Fantasy enthusiast for the past 25 years (I even have Kefka's Tower tattooed across my upper body as a testament to my love for the series), I found myself going through the same mixed emotions while playing FF16. The journey often felt painstakingly tedious, leaving me devoid of any meaningful connection to the story. The pacing in this game is totally off, and there were countless moments where I found myself wondering what the hell have they been thinking?! I want to thank you for this brilliantly written critique. Your insights and observations were a true delight to watch and listen to and captured very well what many of us fans felt while playing! 😘

[@orion8550]

Thank you very much!

[@j0nnyism]

Yea some of the boss battles were incredible and I enjoyed the hunts but the environments just weren’t fun or exciting to explore

[@onixtalks]

I genuinely enjoyed the video as a fan of Final Fantasy XVI. A fan that has also been playing FF for over two decades, my biggest gripe with the title is that the pacing and story overall lacked focus. Besides that, I think the emotional core of the game is there, enough to bring out genuine emotions from me. Though I have to pose a question, near the end of the video you mention that fans of the game shouldn't settle for mediocrity in order to score a win, but if the game isn't mediocre to me then how am I settling? To me it seems that detractors of this game aren't understanding how to view the title from what it is vs what they wish it were.

[@shepherdstar14]

I'm of the same opinion, I get the sense that Japan keeps wanting to emulate the west when it comes to fiction and mature themes, but the story being the central focus is what it's all about. There is plenty of media out there that use over excessive foul language, over excessive sexual content, over excessive violence, but it all is meaningless unless you can provide a good story along with it. Final Fantasy XVI is a brilliant story, albeit with themes that have been heavily used before and get tiring, at it's core the brotherhood and love story are what makes the story so good.

[@weedgoku69]

so much of the story talks about living on one's own terms, and the players can't treat the game the same way

[@onixtalks]

@@Bletelsnort My intention isn't to disregard the scrutiny or even opinion of others, but rather that a lot of the complaints I see sound similar and ring hollow when viewed from the lens of creation: what does the game try to do vs what I want it to do. Specially when someone's message, like the one in this video, directly references people who are fans of the work as "settling." P.S. I also love XIII.

[@alenezi989a3]

It's good that you enjoyed it atleast some people did the same way there are fans of FF15 and FF13 trilogy. I think FF16 has a lot of fans and that's great it proves it's not an all round bad game. Even though genuinely dislike it introduced my favorite Cid ever and one of the most interesting villains Anabelle (although her death was not good imo).

[@waskithonugroho3955]

so maybe doesn't branding it as numbered FF if they just want to make different game?

[@michaelperrigo]

The fact that you played FFX music throughout this entire video tells me all i need to know about your love for story, the series and your disappointment with 16 😂

[@spouwnerring]

The person who voices the final boss of this game also voices the final boss of Xenoblade Chronecles 3 and the locations you fight both characters in are floating orbs called Orgin.

[@drumjod]

Wow, the games ending hits me way harder with the song you put in here. Makes me think of Clive or Joshua (maybe Dion as well) being regarded by their friends as someone who inspired them. It's especially brilliant because of the potential double meaning for the lyrics, "You raised me up to more than I can be." I'll admit, I raised my expectations of this game higher than it was able to live up to. The strengths of FFXVI were high enough for me to love the game, yet the weaknesses and low points stood out so much it really did sour the overall experience. Overall, I do agree with your overall sentiment. I'd love to get a shortened playmode that cuts all of the dull content into a 20-25 hour experience to re-live the best parts and fix some of the pacing.

[@thecrimsonpugilist]

I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING, ALL OF IT!!

[@sHART1780]

This was the only FF game i ever finished that made me feel absolutely nothing, other than im glad i dont have to play anymore.

[@bukojoetheslapsoils8273]

Same. At least, I felt things with FF15. Haven't played 13 so I have no idea how it ends.

[@astrothsknot]

yeah, Baldur's Gate 3 means we don't need to worry about this becoming game of the year.

[@obi-wankenobi4337]

Doesn't matter, both are going to lose to Tears of the Kingdom anyways 😂😂😂

[@josephmoore9706]

Everything losing to MW3 anyways 😂😂😂

[@Zemeckis_]

​@@josephmoore9706cringe

[@BodieB]

​@@josephmoore9706crack is bad for you

[@hotcoldman77]

This didn't age well smh

[@Koustav_04]

I know you hate 7 remake (I love it) but I'll be waiting for your review of 7 rebirth. You are so articulate that I can't help but respect your opinions even when I disagree.

[@orion8550]

Thanks very much! I appreciate that a lot.

[@somederp8915]

That shows you how a good argument should be, both sides having a different standpoint, both being allowed to keep their PoV, but respecting the others see it differently. Maybe their word make you consider your standpoint. But ultimately, we all need to form our own opinions!

[@EpicMinecraftFail]

Chad comments

[@yodoleheehoo90]

I absolutely agree with you on everything mentioned here! I absolutely despise time skips in most instances in stories: not only was there a 13 year skip after the Prologue, but also a SECOND time skip of 5 years, that's 18 years that NOTHING happens in the world of 16 until Clive teleports on the nonsensical map and things start "happening"!! I felt nothing for the main characters and their plights, and I don't even remember the side characters where you do unimaginably boring fetch quests for them! None of the interesting plots and potential scenarios were EVER resolved or delved into more, so it just made the whole world so empty and forgettable. What would have been neat and a cool twist is if ALL the Dominants were recruited over the course of the story and by the end of the game they all united in defeating a common, more threatening enemy: that being Ultima! Just imagine the dynamic relationships of each character if they had more screen time and interaction with each other! Oh, and an actual party to customize and level up of course! Ultima could have not even existed in the story and it would have still been an engaging story with human characters. I wanted to add this in: The list you mentioned @49:40 were reversed by SE and made in the oopposite order in which it should have been made! They thought of these epic battles between cosmic beings first, then thought of everything else after... They never learned their mistakes from 15!

[@peterparker1683]

Calling it now: Final Fantasy 17 will be a souls like game akin to Elden Ring since Square Enix loves chasing trends and not defining them

[@3782luke]

Smoke chasers

[@2changotb]

Squaresoft was built off of copying dragon quest, even though I vastly prefer some of the FFs I can still see their first 3 ff games were them making a dragon quest clone and trying to make it their own. They have always done this but some like sakaguchi in his youth strived to stamp their own name upon it, now that leadership is just jaded old men they simply do paint by the numbers approach.

[@Dragconus]

One of the few complaints i did have is as you said : vast, empty worlds , and you can't even fuller explore them. FF 16 and 7 rebirth

[@EdgardoJCruz-dk5kv]

I don’t think they were trying to hide that Clive was Ifrit and “killed” Joshua, but rather the event was so traumatizing to him that he subconsciously or mentally repressed it in order to save his own psyche from falling apart prematurely. Til of course he learns of it himself later even then he is still in denial because it stands against the principles and promises he held dear especially towards his brother. So it was this way until he could not deny it no longer when goes into his family crypt.

[@joshuacoons9517]

I agree. I think he misinterpreted the plot a lot!! Most of his points about the plot in this video are off. Makes some good ones, but most are off base. As far as plot goes. FFXVI has that in droves. FFXVI really suffers from Pacing issues. They have 3 side quest that should be main quest. Get rid of the rest of the side quest, then they have about 20 main quest that should be side quest. If they did that. You would have a 9/10-9.5/10 game

[@lovelybiz]

It was confusing in the story when they showed the (camera angle? Or viewpoint I think?) from Torgal. They were being a little like sneaky there. I think the point is it was confusing. In different reviews people get different conclusions. I think You have a good theory but that was what you got from it.

[@orion8550]

I have no problem that there might be a 'why' for Clive (i.e. he repressed the event), but what I was trying to get at was the 'why' as a story mechanic. I mention that I firmly believe Clive is responsible because SE have given no other logical explanation for what happened due to them hiding Clive throughout the scene. However, there seems to be an attempt at ambiguity by the addition of the 'flaming man' and then seeing the fight through another character's POV (as the poster above me referenced) - the fact that it's Torgal may not be immediately obvious to many. That raises some questions for me about what SE were hoping people would see here. And if they hoped it might confuse a portion of the audience. In the end, as I say, I accept that this is the story SE want to tell. Overall, my point was that I didn't find it fun following Clive on a revenge chase that I knew was a hopeless red herring. That seemed like an odd choice on SE's part.

[@joshuacoons9517]

@@orion8550 the publicity leading up to the release told us he was Infrit. The case it came in told us he was Infrit. The description on PlayStation store told us he was Infrit. SE wasn’t trying to hide it from the player. They where hiding it from Clive. Clive saw ultima in the cloak. Then Ultma turned into the burning man. Remember every Ekion is technically a part of Ultma. I think Ultma gave Clive Infrit in that moment and or awaken. Remember also, every dominant in the past knew how to use there Ekion immediately. Clive has to learn how to use Infrit. Being it didn’t happen naturally. Pretty sure Ultma did explain this.

[@orion8550]

@joshuacoons9517 I get your point for sure. If we accept all the marketing and promotional material and we carry that into the story with us. That makes it all the more strange to me that SE seemed to create some ambiguity around this scene. But as I mentioned in the vid, maybe SE meant nothing cryptic at all, and that was just how I read it. I'm wondering though, does everyone know and accept that Clive is Ifrit at that specific point in the game? (set 13 years before the main story). Because if, as you theorise, Ultima had to give Ifrit to Clive in that moment (i.e. Clive was not born with it), it's not so out of line to imagine, at that point in the story, in some peoples' eyes, Ifrit could be a seperate entity until Clive attains him later on (perhaps by killing its original owner, perhaps receiving it from Ultima later on). Just out of genuine interest, did you enjoy that period in the story where Clive was hunting the second Eikon of fire? When you knew it was Clive all along. I appreciate your insight.

[@olcloudy1618]

As a kid who grew up playing ff1-12, i used to dream about how epic ff would be in the future. Turns out elden ring is what i wanted it to be.... Elden ring did what i wished ff would have done.

[@that_damn_kiddo]

Incredibly done video that perfectly goes over many if my frustrations with the game. Honestly, I could argue you may have even been too kind to it.

[@orion8550]

Thank you!

[@sean2552]

thank you so much for the video as always

[@CthulhuTheory]

I didn't even need Barnabas to be the main villain, I just needed a better setup. Clive faces him and is outmatched by design and loses twice... then he sleeps with Jill and is given Shiva, and miraculously he's able to best barnabas with such relative ease? Meanwhile he was able to face off 1v1 with Garuda, the actual eikon, and its overwhelming power with only phoenix powers under his belt? Barnabas wasn't just a threat because of his power, but also because of his skill as a fighter. They should have had the faceoff with Clive happen much earlier so set the tone for the fight. Have Barnabas as a looming threat to deal with later... have him be the bar Clive's power and skill has to contend with and overcome, not just be a next stop boss on the way to the final fight. Which is what the writing, I feel, ultimately did.

[@Kromheim]

I faintly remember that when a friend of me asked me what I thought of FF16 all I could say was "It's Holywood" Bombastic Cinematography but ultimately forgettable. The only things I do remember about FF16 is that Byron is an amazing support Character, someone who many other writters would have just turned into a moneybag with no redeeming qualities but instead we got someone who was infuriated over a potential pretender of his dead distant relative just to start weeping when he realized that it was really Clive that's standing infront of him and it happened again when Joshua turned out to be alive aswell. And instead of disappearing into the background he activily supported their cause not only with coin but traveling with them on two occasions. This was, sadly, the peak of writting a human story for FF16 in my opinion. Then there is Jill who got hit by writters incompetence and cowardice. We've seen her lowpoint, being not only reduced to a slave but to a warmachine that wasn't considered a human but a monster until Clive managed to free her. Everything was great till her personal character arc was resolved but after that she was turned into the damsel in distress again and again and both times it involved the "Anti-Eidolon" Bullshit writters shackels to make her meek. In the end I felt like Jill was just a cheap tool to make the player feel something. Anger when she was captured, sadness when she looked up to the sky not knowing if Clive survived his encounter with Ultima or not.

[@neh1234]

Not the worst thing ever, but yeah, I'm going to argue that there's a breaking point in the franchise, after which, it loses focus of what made the older titles so beloved. For me, that point was 13. Inbetween the increasing focus in cinematics, main characters hogging the screen, and Square Enix being increasingly tempted to keep the cow alive for as long as possible with the hopes of turning every single entry into another FF 7, the newer titles haven't delivered as one would wish. Then we have Yoshi-P and his team. I'm a XIV player and I'm happy with how things are done in the MMO, but the thing is that XVI isn't one, yet many common practices there seeped here and it showed. That and the apparent phobia of being labeled a JRPG made 16 become, ironically, too western, but ironically, not where it mattered (I'm looking at you, Ultima) I think they should have looked back at FF6's endearing cast and over the top performance. It didn't need fancy graphics or fully rendered scenes to convey the due gravitas of the story. The FF6 cast made the story feel like a group of people doing their best in an unfair world. 16's rush to sell itself as a deep story, just made it the Clive show, featuirng NPCs being props of his story. Needless to say, I'm not happy. I still it's better than 15, but 16 looks and plays like an entry in the franchise that seems to be ashamed of its predecessors.

[@glorioustigereye]

I think Yoshi already mentioned this in several interviews but there is a phobia of wanting to be seen as a JRPG. There was or is a belief that the slow style of JRPG's would not sell and are overall convoluted.

[@tomaszzajac1765]

There's also the fact that YoshiP is a fan of western games. He modeled FFXIV after WoW when he took over the project. It's surprising for me that people are surprised that XVI has very western style when YoshiP never tried to hide from where his inspirations come

[@waskithonugroho3955]

​@@glorioustigereyedo you mean that Yoshi P interview abour JRPG term as derogatory? kinda funny meanwhile Kitase just treat as label to identify which RPG created through japanese style and culture

[@KyngD469]

I dont think its ashamed as it has so many references to past games.

[@JTSuter]

YoshiP should never be allowed near another Final Fantasy Game Development ever again.

[@trollingisasport]

BASED AF

[@yeahyeahyeah688]

It's so refreshing seeing more people talk about this. So many times have I been gaslight into thinking the game is excellent and I have bad taste

[@ridleyroid9060]

God Im so glad I found this, what catharsis! This game was just an unfinished mess, they didn't know what they wanted to do with the pieces they setup. We just go places, and do stuff, the story is just an excuse to get you from one set piece to the next.

[@zephyr8072]

Ah but what's not to love about this game. The terrible one-button gameplay, the dull world, the boring medieval Game of Thrones ripoff setting, the gratuitous sweary dialogue, the gross misogyny, the vulgar plank of a sole protagonist. This was truly worth diverting resources and development time from FFXIV for.

[@ShawnWeeded510]

A return to something closer to FFX or FFXII world building imo. FF without a job system and a full party isn't a real FF game imo. FF16 feels more like. Devil May Cry V spin off.

[@fabiankrummeich5414]

Can't wait to eat dinner to this