#it's crazy but i went into this game for clive and jill but CID is really *chefs kiss*

[aeikon]

i'll be here after i complete ffxvi & will be doing a starter call that is free of spoilers and whatnot for those who haven't played it yet.

[sapphire-weapon]

I honestly believe the game went through a LOT of re-writes. There's things in the story that seem like they're going to develop into something then get dropped, I really got the impression they were bits left over from a previous draft. It's interesting because there was a leaker who got a lot of the plot right but other parts a bit wrong which makes me think they saw an early draft, in their leak they said "Clive, Jill and Torgal all live." An ending edit where its more clear he lived perhaps?

I do remember Yoshi-P and/or Koji Fox saying that XVI was originally two discs but they cut it down to only one, and I'm like... wait a minute, what did you cut, exactly. Because there are some BIG holes in this game.

On my second playthrough, the one that really jumped out at me was Cid knowing who Ultima is and implying that he also knows why Ultima wants Clive. He says that, and then he dies, and it is NEVER revisited after the fact. All that time that Tomes was trying to find info on Ultima, how the fuck is it possible that Cid never mentioned him even once?? Considering that a portion of Ultima was at the heart of every Mothercrystal, you'd think that that would be... idk... important information for Cid to be sharing, if he had it?

The fact that Clive's power as Mythos is never explained is also fucking crazy to me. He takes Dominants' Eikon powers away from them, except no he doesn't because they can still Prime if they freak out hard enough, except no they don't even really have to do that because Jill just keeps all of her powers regardless, but she's not allowed to continue in the fight anymore because fuck you.

And don't get me fucking started on Leviathan.

I'd be really interested to see that leak, if you can still find it. I'm curious to know what this game's story might have looked like, once upon a time.

[tallulademetriou]

now that i’ve watched a complete ass playthrough of FF16, some (jumbled) thoughts under the cut, though mostly about the story:

full spoilers ahead as well!!!!!!!!!!!

i didn’t have high hopes for the story since i played through heavensward and that was... an Expansion for sure, and i expected to have the same nitpicks about FF16 as i did with HW. it still surprised me though lol

maehiro cannot write complex women to save his life. period.

but strangely enough this isn’t even maehiro at his best so i wonder what actually got cut during development.

the world-building is immaculate as always and for once i actually want a dlc to explore more of it.

also this game’s cutscenes oozes with fucking money cbu3 is insane. what was your budget yoshi-p!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the way benedikta was easily one of the most interesting eikons in this line-up and yet she was done dirty by being killed off so early in the game.

even jill felt shallow at times and while the romance was pretty cute i will not lie, she just sort of fell flat for me at the end parts. maehiro i am in your walls.

i did love her mini-arc though and i wish there were more moments like that.

there’s a point near the end of the game where the gang encounters barnabas and i kept hoping jill would be playable but no... she was not.

cid is really well done though. like i LOVE him.

joshua/jill/clive could have been my all-time trio but they didn’t have the time to marinate well.

clive grew on me as well, thanks to ben’s performance (partly) but i was not expecting how lovely he is a protag... 

something about him being raised in a lonely castle by an abusive mother then growing up into a shy, traumatized shell of a man who just wants to atone for his sins and protect what he couldn’t protect, but realizing soon that there’s more to his life than sorrow. i love you clivefinalfantasy.

the side characters are also fucking great it’s so unexpected.

i also enjoyed dion and barnabas for what they were worth. everyone expected dion to be a traitor or evil and for barnabas to be a complex and tortured king but it turned out to be the complete opposite.

barnabas you are fucking crazy. i can respect that.

political intrigue as the pretty backdrop to an evil alien overlord/creator is nothing new but it’s just so fucking funny they went that way. the most classic of all FF move.

ultima as an end boss does nothing for me personally but i always love a good punch your god in the face so it actually did end up as a +1 on the scoreboard for me.

the pacing could be jarring at times with some strange choices story-wise. really wish they’d done less awkward sex scenes that didn’t really give us anything and gave us more time to explore the eikons and their dynamic with their respective dominants.

the jill/clive naked moment can stay tho that was precious. 

though now that i think about it, i do wonder if they were going for the shb route but ultimately changed it so it wouldn’t be too similar. the fallen is just Too similar to what we get for the Ancients, with ultima trying to save his planet from the blight this time around, except he was a selfish god at the end trying to preserve legacy and not life.

and yep i fucking cried at the end LMAO. i cried so hard my eyes were fucking swollen the next day it was actually unbelievable?????

clive holding joshua’s dead body while he has flashbacks of joshua holding hands with clive as children, then the moment when his brother bestowed the phoenix’s blessing, to joshua as a baby had me fucking bawling lmao fuck this game actually.

most of my complaints err on the narrative side of the game. the gameplay looks fun and from what i’ve played in the demo i always knew i was gonna love it, but gonna add any remarks here once i’m actually done with that.

it can be as easy as not cycling through multiple eikons but once you sit down a bit with it, it’s complexity shines with how well you can string together combos and maximizing each eikon’s moveset... it’s really fun and as a previous black mage main....... big numbers go boom.

the sidequests can be abysmal design-wise but as someone who has played ff14, it didn’t really faze me so it can be a YMMV thing. 

i need a fucking dlc because we didn’t see Leviathan... my fucking queen WHERE IS SHE

[harmonicstupidity]

Oh I never posted my thoughts on FF16 after finishing it, did I.

It was good. Very good.

Soken for Best Soundtrack and Ben Starr for Best VA at the game awards pls.

Crazy how this is the first mainline game that feels like a complete experience from one man's vision since... FF10? (from what I've read and heard anyway, I started it for the first time a few days ago)

Maybe 11 if we want to count the MMOs. Still, that's around 20 years of troubled developments until we got 16. Not to say the finished product was perfect tech-wise, performance issues are unforgivable for a PS5 exclusive. I get the XIV engine is built on spaghetti but if a game makes you feel genuinely nauseous during exploration then something went wrong. Of course during combat it's all hunky dory and runs very smoothly but it leaves an unforgettable sour taste in your mouth.

Aside from that it's a high recommendation from me. The story I'd put up there with Heavensward (& Dragonsong). Shadowbringers remains the king of FF stories but that was to be expected. We need to clone Ishikawa's brain, that mad lass.

Oh and when I say Starr deserves all the awards I mean it. Holy shit. He revealed during interviews he lost his dad and grandad during development and you can hear it in his acting when tragedy strikes Clive. That one scene before the final fight left me shaken to my core.

In fact, all the VAs deserve major credit. Highlights are Yndis (Benedikta), Ineson (Cid), Clarke (Dion), and Fielding (Jill) who gave every scene their all and it puts most voice performances in games to shame. Dubs or otherwise.

I might post more the next time I feel like rambling, but I had a great time with the game.