Final Fantasy XVI (16)

The game's sold 3 million copies in it's first week. Not bad for a game tied to one console. One of the highest selling PS exclusives too.

Started this proper last night. Got up to the title card.

Bloody Nora. Not messing about is it? Already shaping up to be the most ridiculous game I played since 2013. Combat is great, only really had two boss battles, but enjoyed both a lot. Love how they fleshed out the Dragoon class into a fight.

I get more enjoyment out of the early-mid Eikons than the latter ones, so I'm sure I'm absolutely not in the meta, but it feels way more fun to me to Gouge, Deadly Grasp into Downthrust and Ignition is just hilarous. Also, Windup.

Mainly just using the first dragon punch one you unlock and the other fire one where you grow wings and then basically nuke everything. Only time I ever really switch is when you stagger a boss / mini boss and then need to wail on them.

Made some decent headway over the weekend and it’s weird how much better it becomes after the 2nd Up until that point I was a bit bored the whole thing, but it seems to be going places now. Took its time though.

Glad it's not just me who prefers the first few eikons then. It really threw me when the O button move started to not always be a "close the gap" button.

Only have 2 slots but with Ifrit and Garuda, on a mid sized mini boss say, it's working it down to midway then it's grabbing them with Garuda to pull them down. Then it's sword magic combo to Wicked Wheel which usually breaks them. Mid air burning blade, downthrust, Will o Wisps and then Gouge, finished with Ignition. Not even taking into account the limit break. Usually have the upgraded Rooks Gambit for Wicked Wheel instead, which is never ever gonna go old.

So I am about 13hrs into this. I have just arrived at the Imperial capital and only have Ifirit and Garuda eikon powers.

Overall I am really enjoying this. It is mostly the story and characters which I am most invested in. I can remember when they were talking about the active lore system, I thought at the time that the game must be so convoluted to require a system like that. However I have found it really useful to help keep track of characters and which kingdom they belong to. Its something I could of done with during Game of Thrones when I lost track of the story arcs in the early seasons.

I have been trying to explore, even in the larger open areas. However there isn’t much to see outside of the set paths which has been a shame. Although on a plus note, I am glad this isn’t a padded out open world game, so overall this is a positive I think.

Gameplay wise, so far the combat is nothing special. After 13 hours, it is still quite basic, relying on the same 4 hit combo with a few special abilities sprinkled in. I thought it would be much more complex than it is, but perhaps it opens up more later on. You would think it would of opened up already after this much time has passed though.

I love how bleak the game is. The side quests are mostly rubbish, but in a good way. While basic, they do add context and lore to the world. There was even one which made me just want to kill the NPC’s for how they treated the branded, one of which was just a young kid. The tone of the story and world is captured very well.

Performance is shit. Tried to keep in performance mode but it was so juddery I had to switch to Quality. Once you get used to it though, 30fps is not so bad. It also helps that my TV has a ‘game plus’ mode (Samsung TV – NU8000), which can reduce the judder and make it feel much smoother while not introducing latency. It doesn’t always work well in some games as it can add some artefacting, but it works really well in this and it makes a huge difference when focusing on background detail during camera pans.

I think if it wasn’t for the story, characters, world and tone of the game, then this would just be a bog standard action game. As it is, I think its an excellent experience which I cannot wait to get back in to.

I’m using a ring that halves my Nuke cool-down and the other is the Berserker Ring that gives you a mini limit-break-esque damage and speed boost every time you perfect dodge.

richyroo

Performance mode is completely broken - don't bother with it until a patch drops.

The side quests get a little bit better later on, but not much. The combat definitely gets deeper the more Eikons you unlock though.

I completely ignore cooldown accessories. I always go for stat buffing ones.

I've got accessories that help my style of play. I use Rook's Gambit a lot so I've got one for that. and one for Flames of Resurrection or whatever it's called, that move is an absolute godsend for battles with Boss+add battles, it completely melts standard enemies and leaves you to focus on the big guy.

Heh, yeah. I rarely enjoy crafting stuff because it's usually so long winded and you often have no idea if it's worth your time. I much prefer finding, buying or winning stuff, so this is ideal for me too. With crafting, there is a fine line between streamlining it and rendering it completely meaningless, and I can see how for some people this might swing too far in that direction

It wouldn’t be so bad if 99% of what you find when wandering around the zones wasn’t just crafting materials or gil you’ll never use. It’s renders exploration a bit pointless too.

IGN put up an opinion piece that the latest God of War is more of an RPG than FF16. Which I guess if you look at the gear and accessories then yeh maybe you can create specific character builds that you can't in FF16. But then...everyone including myself always complained about how bad that whole system is in GOW and how its a pain anyway soo...And of the two I know exactly which combat system I prefer