The big issue with this game and it's difficulty is that it can't be fixed. I think the main issue is that the animations for mob attacks are too slow, especially when we have such a great dodge button. You're simply not going to get hit if you have any experience with action games.

People say don't upgrade your weapons or final fantasy mode gets a bit harder, but that's not making the game more difficult. It's just taking a longer time to kill enemies because they have improved health or you're dealing less damage. The core issue that enemies have a slow wind up on their attacks that you can easily dodge remains the same.

I think that they wanted to really make this accessible to casuals, since I don't think the average casual has experience with stuff like DMC, etc that plays like this. Obviously game is a great success so it's worked out, but I think they could do better on that front.

Game also that yakuza like disconnect where you're laying hellfire onto people, wiping them out in under 30 seconds with devstating abilities

Then a cutscene plays and they're on their hands and knees out of breath. Cracks me up

Beat the game. 47 hours, 43/50 trophies. Final thoughts

The good: voice acting, graphics, cutscenes, score

The mid: combat, story, characters, designs

The bad: quests, "RPG" mechanics, pacing/structure

I was writing an in depth review of most of the game of systems but I'll just save it for now. Maybe post it later maybe not.

7/10 action game, 5.5/10 final fantasy game

What I kept thinking all throughout my 50 hour playthrough

FF games are never difficult. It is a story based game and if you are dying to enemies every five seconds and having to figure out a boss move set by dying 12 times it breaks immersion. FF games have always been fairly easy. Glad they added new game plus.

I wouldn’t say that you can definitely have a challenge in turn based FF. Like any turn based game you can opt to alleviate that by grinding levels like a dweeb, but that your own choice to over level.

Haven’t played the others recent ones besides 10. Platinumed Crisis Core and it def has some challenging fights, plus secret boss is the real deal too.

This probably the easiest Square game along with KH3

This really only applies to FF15 because the combat system in that game was so broken. FF13 if you don’t have the correct Paradigm setup a lot of bosses would be extremely brutal, either you died and have to change setups or the fight would take an extremely long amount of time. The other HD Final Fantasies gave you a challenge with the bosses occasionally too via status effects or bosses just hitting you harder than you would expect.

Ironically the action based FFs have by far been the easiest due to the combat system just being half baked (FF15 pausing the game when accessing the inventory and then giving you the longest i-frames when using potions or phoenix downs) or the game having no confidence in the player’s ability (FF16)

Yoshi literally said in an interview they purposely didn’t make it hard because historically that isn’t how FF games have been but ok.

What do you mean? I replayed FF9 last year and was wiped multiple times.

I haven’t even come close to dying once, and I’m 75% of the way in.

I figured the game would be a little more difficult given the accessibility rings, thought that was why they were here.

Hell, God of War: R on standard difficulty was harder than this.

We warned them

Come on man lol I played tactics advanced as a kid and an adult and it was more rpg than this with a budget of this .

This game is simply overly focused on being triple A action game over final fantasy or even having its own distinct reason for existing

It strings together that many side quest and filler to push 60 hours for no reason with a gameplay loop that by the end in many ways has grown stale . It’s a fun ass one time for much of it though for the bosses and to just enjoy the ride

At moments it’s a 6 at moments it’s a 8. At many moments I wish I got it on disc so I could lend to a friend . It’s one where if some one falls off the hype train they could easily not finish the game or come back to it in a month

Collecting soil doesn’t break immersion for you ? This continuous idea of no mini games because it breaks immersion and so many other things while having other direct elements that break immersion come on man . It’s fine to love this game again I love parts of it but we have to be honest . The game ups the difficulty with spongy or at times one hit enemies not enemies with more complex move sets at a point . I went into the final boss expecting to die first try when really every fight was about patience

Yeah like, RDR2 has mini games up the ass and it only ADDS immersion to the game.

Yakuza literally has entire games within the games

God, Jill is such a nothing character.

How in the f*** does the literal dog have more of a presence and impact on the main plot than her?

It’s clear she’s supposed to be the top supporting character, but there’s absolutely nothing to her.

Most side quest not reacting to the player in town is wild. I love the ones that do but even they are lacking. No permanent changes of like "wow you saved our f***ing town every time you come things will be on sale" or "wow I hear thats clive who slayed the griffin" or different interactables of some kind. The towns have no deep culture because there is nothing to do to them but run to the motherfucker with the green circle above their head and mash x because no one else will have anything to say to you

Like that is what breaks immersion LMFAO. The game has told you the sole npcs worth talking to in the general area. You talk to them then teleport near the nearest node next to the next green circle to accomplish the task then back to them over and over.

Again I enjoyed the 60 or so hours and first week highs but for many that get this later or don't have the launch hype or people to talk to about this they will have varying results. This game in terms of replayability should grip the player more but its really for the platinum or final fantasy mode when action mode is way too easy and final fantasy mode you would really expect more rpg to it

ONE JILL SIDE QUEST LATE GAME HELPS BUT YEAH LMFAO

The game feels more Fable to me than Final Fantasy but even then it still feels less RPG than Fable but them boss fights dope as f***. But if you remove all the boss fights or even one or two of your favorite boss fights the game is in a odd state where you are left asking yourself what went wrong at some points of pacing, scope, ideas of fun etc.

you can buy beer for the town but it literally just plays a cutscene and clive stands there and smirks

To be clear though I don't think difficulty is the biggest con at all. I don't think you have to see game over screen a lot for a game to be good

I’ve seen screenshots and it makes me wonder why it’s a side quest, because the main game gives you 0 reason to invest in her.

Also, she has 0 presence in any of the other side quests. Even 7R party members would chime in and s***. I don’t even think you can see them standing around when talking to NPCs, they just disappear entirely.

i liked Jill a lot actually. her and Clive were two f***ed up dysfunctional adults with a ton of baggage and i thought they wrote that really well.

They treat the gamer like we are brain dead all game

Honestly this game pans out like an MMO xpac, but I think it highlights the flaw in FF14 as much as it does the flaw in 16; where the combat outside of bosses is semi-looped but the reason for said combat isn’t really rewarding, the cutscenes are great but pulled back you could’ve just watched a “movie” of all the cutscenes, and the dialogue in non-cutscenes is so stiff it damn near is begging you to skip them.

The game doesn’t flow well since the “game” aspects are just a means to get to the cutscenes, while the cutscenes don’t go well because your investment in these moments isn’t there because side quests and all non cutscene moments are so skippable and dull looking.