The longer I play this the less I get the hyperbole surrounding this as well as the 9-10 scores.
The structure is stuck in the 90s ....
Cutscene -> run through tiny static dead level -> find random generic enemies in tiny static level -> kill them in a flashy way -> Cutscene.
The combat is braindead, even with all rings off...but at least it looks good.
All sidequests combined and a good chunk of the main quest could have been a singular boring email.
Exploration? None.
Visual quality? Highly uneven. From drop dead gorgeous to "this looks like they ran out of bduget half way through" everything is in there.
Story pacing...what pacing...but it`s cheesy FF so I expected that and could live with that if it wasn`t for all the other nonsense....
By far the best (tiny) parts are the eikon fights, those are spectacular. If I could skip everything else and just have the eikon fights lined up as some kind of Boss Rush mode I´d absolutely do that at this point....if it wasn`t for those I´d have already dropped the game.
6-7 / 10 for me.
Agree completely. Not even a hater, I haven't been engaged with the FF series for ages so it's not like I'm big mad that it's a full on action game.
It seriously plays like a PS3/360 game, that in itself isn't a bad thing whatsoever but the combat truly is mindless compared to other action games. Exploration too, even the areas that are "open" are tiny and there's nothing to do, just an occasional item or wooden box to open. The story is edgelord grim dark stuff and the side missions are just goofy and don't match the grim dark vibe at all.
Last night I realized that it's just a purely cinematic action game, nothing wrong with that but not exactly the type of game I seek out. I truly don't understand the 10/10 or GOTY talk, it's not even game of the week for me, lol.
I will say though, the best thing about FFXVI for me is that the demo got me thinking about FFXIII so I booted up an old save and made it to Gran Pulse Wednesday night. I actually wish I was playing FFXIII but I'm so intrigued by FFXVI due to the praise it's getting, I'm curious if the game becomes anything more than what it is. I don't think it's going to change much, it is what it is.
Again, I don't think the game is awful but it's just kinda big, loud and dumb. Square went all out for the mass appeal aspect. I'm glad it's so easy so far because there really isn't much that would keep me engaged if the combat was super brutal. I imagine this is what binging a TV show must feel like.