TheRealTurk

No. First, I would like to point out that GoT isn't even the best comp here because FFXVI's story and gameplay are like 85-90% the same as Tales of Arise, just done much worse.

However, if using Game of Thrones is the comparison points, then it seems all the devs took from it was "It's Dark(TM)". They didn't take the time to understand why that darkness worked for GoT.

The game continually makes the mistake of showing events that are "dark" without not putting in the necessary time to establish context or get the player to care. For example, when the Red Wedding happens in the GoT show, viewers have had nearly three full seasons to get attached to the characters. You understand what's happening, why, and also what the events mean for the larger story.

By comparison, FFXVI tries to pull a similar trick right off the bat, and it completely falls flat. Bad things are happening, but I have no emotional investment in any of the characters (I couldn't tell you most of their names at that point), don't have any grounding in the major factions, who's driving events, or why. It just ends up being contextless misery porn.

Similarly, they show all these big battles and it's mostly just incomprehensible. I usually have no idea where things are taking place because while the game is more than happy to flash a fantasy place name on screen, the map doesn't have any labels on it so I have no idea where events are happening in relation to anything else. I usually don't know who is involved because the game has a depressing habit of introducing characters it clearly things are super-important and then not having them show up again for 10+hours. As a result I don't even know why most of these things are happening, which makes it really hard to care.

As far as the gamplay goes. No. Just no. I honestly don't have a problem if FF wants to be an action franchise, but if that's the case, then make a good action game. This is very much not a good action game. The combat is mind-numbingly shallow and repetitive with very few avenues for self-expression, unique use of abilities, or any need to use anything beyond the same basic-ass combos over and over and over again.

@natzal: The launches (and combat in general) are weird in this game. There's a lot of it that feels inconsistent in a way that makes me think they left out some pretty fundamental tutorial messages. Or the game's just broken. For example, Torgal does *way* more stamina damage if you use him after a perfect dodge. I suspect his launch might work in the same way - it will either only work, or at least be more reliable, after a perfect dodge. Then again, some of the Eikon abilities that are very specifically described *as launchers* work maybe 50% of the time. So, who knows?

Having said that, I will admit that I very rarely use the launches because it sort of feels like there's no point. It's not like your attacks are any more powerful in the air and there doesn't seem to be any increased damage benefit from juggling enemies. For example, I haven't been able to bounce enemies into additional attack strings, and cooldowns don't recharge any faster because you rack up large combo numbers.

Like I said, it's weird. Maybe I've played too much Nioh and God of War, but I keep getting to points in fights where I would expect a thing to happen that then just . . . doesn't happen.

Now that I'm some ways into the game, I'm struck by just how dated this game feels. Everything about it feels like it might have been good 5-7 years ago, but now it just feels old. I can rattle off several games (God of War, Elden Ring, BotW/TotK just to name a few) that absolutely eat FFXVIs lunch when it comes to things like story, gameplay, quest-design, or world-building.

It's kinda depressing actually. FF used to be the series that was way at the forefront of gaming. It was the thing you point to and say "this is what gaming can be." Now it feels a bit like Disney-era Star Wars - reduced to trying to mine a bunch of fan-service moments in lieu of coming up with anything new or exciting.

@atheistpreacher: On the basis of the demo, it's very far away from Tales combat. Particularly Arise, which I actually like quite a bit. They're just too stuck in between the old and new. They want to ditch turn-based combat, but they don't really want to commit to making a good action game.

In fairness to the demo, it was an early slice of the game, so maybe things get more complex, but I just don't see this being very satisfying. It really does feel like they were going for "baby's first action game." The problem is, I don't think that's going to really make anyone happy. The hard-core RPG folk will probably still feel overwhelmed. If you're an action person, it will lack the depth of something like a Nioh or DMC.

I have to admit, I did not feel the demo. It was really intent on grinding my gears in very specific ways. That whole opening is paced extremely poorly. It's generally one of my pet-peeves that gameplay sequences where all you are doing is just pressing forward on the stick should either be a cutscene or just cut entitley. It's the video game equivalent of "this could have been in an email." The problem with that is that there are already an inordinate amount of cutscenes going on so you might not actually play for the first 20-30 minutes if they did that. It's not quite Zenosaga bad, but it was definitely getting there.

Also, not digging the combat a whole lot. It definitely different, but it seemed really, really basic and I felt like most of the attacks lacked a satisfying sense of impact. Plus, the camera was absolutely atrocious. It was so slow and didn't focus on what you were trying to attack most of the time. I didn't play around with the settings much, so maybe there are some options in there, but I could definitely see it being a problem if fights get chaotic at all.

It made me wish Square would get off this "we must make an action RPG" train they've been on the last several years. Someone needs to tell them there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned turn-based system. It's what the series came up on and it still works damn well for Dragon Quest. Outside of the FFVII Remake, Square has shown no inclination they're very good at action combat design anyway.

The more I'm getting into the endgame, the more I'm feeling that the fundamental leveling experience is flawed in some foundational ways.

For one, I thought the 1-50 experience absolutely sucked. It was grindy, you never felt like you could get on top of the power curve, the skill twig (it feels unfair to call it a tree) was disappointingly basic, and you were entirely reliant on RNG drops to try and fill out your build. I was never excited to level up 1-50 because I knew that I was always going to feel weaker than I did a few seconds ago and whatever points I could put into the twig were going to make such a marginal difference they basically didn't matter (3 extra Mana on a Sorceress . . . hooray?)

Then I got to 50 and the experience started to change for the better.

For one, even a single basic node on the Paragon board is vastly more interesting than anything you could do 1-50. Choosing your path around the board actually gave you something to think about, and you can pursue bonuses that actually matter for your build.

Basically, I think this game would be way better if the Paragon Boards were just the entire leveling system.

It's extremely inconsistent, though. You can sometimes ride right over mobs and they won't aggro - until suddenly they do. Sometimes they leash back to their original location in a couple of steps, other times they follow you for miles across the map.

The horse panic meter has the same problem. It doesn't fill at all - until suddenly it does. Sometimes it keeps filling when there's nothing around. Other times it won't fill even when you are being attacked by multiple enemies.

I also 100% agree about the open-world. This game would have been so much better off without it. It's the most garbage-tier MMO-lite-style map possible. It feels like they made the Ubisoft mistake of building the world first and then needing to fill it with mindless activities to fill it up rather than designing the activities to be fun and then sizing the map to match.

It doesn't help that the zones are all extremely one note. I literally cannot think of a single unique feature in any of the zones that you could use as a guidepost to navigate. Instead, it's just "this zone is all snow" or "this zone is all desert" or "this zone is also all desert, but it's a slightly sandier desert."

I'm beginning to settle on "Well made but badly designed" as my verdict on this game. There's nothing in here that's outright bad - there's a ton of systems that were very clearly put together to flow into one another and for the most part they do. But it really feels like the devs spent so much time asking themselves "Do these systems fit together?" that no one bothered to ask "Are these systems fun?"

For example, they clearly want legendary aspects to change how you play, but they know they can't just rely on random drops so they let you get minor versions of those traits by running dungeons. That makes a certain amount of sense. But the consequence of that system is that it results in a lot of fiddling around in town at various shops to then get your gear set up. Like, a lot of fiddling around:

Go to the enchanter. Find the legendary aspect. Realize you don't have the right mats. Off to the blacksmith to deconstruct some stuff. Back to the enchanter. Dick around in you inventory trying to figure out which item is best to use. Realize the best one is in your stash. Go to your stash to get the item. Back to the enchanter. Apply the aspect. Then reroll the stats on the item. Back to the blacksmith to upgrade the new legendary. Then go to the jeweler to upgrade your gems. Socket those gems. Now go to the potion person because upgrading potions is a system that exists for some reason. Then after 25 minutes you might be ready to actually play again.

Add on a bunch of really obnoxious UX stuff and it just gets tedious after awhile.

@efesell: It was super overpowered in the beta. It cost about half the mana it does now and did more damage. There was a legendary that let you summon more than one at once, plus a passive that would periodically generate another five-headed one once you'd spend enough mana. Then there's the skill tree perk that has it generate four heads if you cast it above a certain level of health.

Basically, you could pretty easily generate three hydras with a total of 13 heads for about a third of your total mana. I was melting dungeon bosses in less than 10 seconds without doing anything other than spamming the summon button and just standing there.

@atheistpreacher: I don't think the problem is that there is or isn't a campaign. The problem is far more fundamental than that. I'm currently level 26 and so far the game shares the exact same issue I had with Diablo 3 - the leveling process is fundamentally unsatisfying to the player.

In Diablo 3 that was because of the utter lack of player choice. You reached a level and you were handed a skill. You didn't get a choice, you didn't get any stat points to assign - you were told what you were going to use and if that skill didn't thrill you, too bad. That made the process feel really poor because you didn't really have any control over your character.

In Diablo IV the issue is that the reduction in power the level scaling gives you is so stark that it always feels bad when you level up. I don't think I can emphasize that point enough, because it's absolutely terrible. Diablo, a franchise which is built around the player power fantasy, makes you feel bad when you level up. Which is exactly the opposite of what you want in a game like this.

So the experience for both games is fatally flawed in slightly different but related ways. That's not something that dumping a campaign is going to fix.