Finished it.

As a whole I’d rate it around a 6.5.
Definitely the best FF since 12, but the inconsistent pacing, filler main content, underdeveloped exploration, easy difficulty which renders the combat system into being fairly mindless ability spamming, significant narrative decline in the last act (essentially every JRPG finale cliche rolled up into one and done as on the nose as possible with absolutely 0 pivot to break convention), weak final villain, mostly dull dungeons, terrible crafting and reward systems, makes large parts of this game fairly mediocre.

The Eikon battles for the most part are a highlight, though I found the final one to be fairly obnoxious in presentation, a lot of the participle effects at the point becoming overbearing imo.

I think it’s a pretty good game, but not one I see myself revisiting anytime soon, if at all.

(As an aside, I liked it a bit more than 7R, which I felt had even worse pacing).

EDIT:

Oh yeah, enemy variety was surprisingly disappointing as well, lot of recycled mini-bosses, sometimes within just a few hours of each other.

Also, the fact that Hunts ended up just being recolored bosses entirely, actively worse than 12’s (possibly even 15’s) while being a core component of the side content was not something I was expecting.

As an aside, my ranking for games I’ve played so far this year would be:

1. TotK-9
2. RE4R-8
3. Dead Space-7.5
4. Diablo IV-7.5
5. FF 16-6.5
6. Hogwarts: Legacy-5

loving this so far

As an aside I found it pretty annoying that Jill gets side-lined at the very end of the game just a couple of hours after saying she’d never leave Clive’s side. Like yeah, I get the curse and all, but that’s supposed to be the primary supporting character that just ends up getting shoved aside yet again.

6.5 f*** outt here

yeah a lil low lol but 7-8 fair man I really think it could have been a 10 with the right elements added

lol story wise they were just doing what they felt like

6.5 is pretty good.

I use a full ranking system.

You think I’m about to list all my issues with the game, then turn around and give it a f***ing 8, when I gave something like Resident Evil 4 Remake an 8?

Do you feel that any of my criticisms are wrong or misplaced?

6.5 is fair I got it like 7-8 somewhere it has 8 moments s*** it has 9 moments but its got a lot of low moments

6.5 is wild as f***
Your rating system is all f***ed up
Then again you gave Zelda a 9
I should Not be surprised

LOL

“Twilight” on the orchestrion

What’s f***ed about it if 5 is average?

Bro gave it a 6.5

kill me if you want but re4r was a 10 for me, i liked it better than totk which was a 9

ffxvi is weird because it’s i have a genuinely hard time ranking it, like at its worst its 7.5 but then when its great its 9.5-10 …it might not be the best game this year but to me it’s probably the most interesting. would love to have been a fly on the wall during development

still diehard ff for life bro!! even the bad ones!!!!!

yeah 6.5 is way too f***ing low. the conservative hater video game critic in me would give it an 8.5

because 5 is considered a failure in every context

Nah let him cook, everyone has their own rating system. 5 is average to me as well and the majority of games I play end up in that 5 range, doesn’t mean you didn’t enjoy the game, just means that the quality of that game is on par with everything else you played (to me anyway)

No it’s not. I (generally) enjoyed the combat, cutscenes and set pieces, story I found to be fairly decent for 2/3rds of it, but I lost interest when the third act came around, almost felt as if they didn’t really know what to do with the story so they fell back on like every endgame JRPG cliche as a crutch and pumped the melodrama up to 11.

I enjoyed most of the side quest chains, but the one offs for the most part I found full. Also the soundtrack is pretty killer.

All of the other components outside of the game (crafting, loot, exploration, Hunts, party interactions was absolutely an afterthought) I found to be underdeveloped, below average, or just straight up not good.

Doesn’t help that the game is 50+ hours which I didn’t feel was really justified at all given how mindless and stripped back everything was.

To put it into perspective, games I played last year that I thought were 6.5 (s) :

Wasteland 3 (first time playing)
Bayonetta 3
Metro: Exodus (first time playing).

7 (s) were:
Triangle Strategy
Control (first time playing)
Spider-Man (2018)

God of War: R for instance I gave a 7.5.

He put god of war ragnarok above this game

Cant make this s*** up sometimes

Only gets better and better enjoy the ride

I enjoyed the characters and moment to moment gameplay more. Combat wise I found them to be fairly on par with another (on their respective difficulties, probably different on FF/Ultima since I’m assuming you have to engage with the game’s systems much more). Though I did actually die in God of War, while I didn’t in FF16.

Biggest criticism is the anti-climatic ending and the game being pretty bloated, also needless companion chatter.