In my first attempt to try and get into blogging non-technical things that are taking up some of my time, I want to take an opportunity to go over how I feel about the newest addition to the Final Fantasy universe.
TL;DR
9/10. Excellent story, great combat system. Held back from a perfect score with side content following a basic formula and gameplay being a grind.
The Story
The story is excellent. It tends to follow the general mainstream Final Fantasy formula in parts, but primarily I've seen a lot of clear influence from XIV in the (successful?) attempts to pull on your heartstrings and tell a well-put together story. Much like XIV we also start to feel some sympathy for the villain as well. Not really too much more I can say here without diving in to spoilers.
The Gameplay
The combat honestly makes me wish all future Final Fantasy titles remove the party management aspect entirely. It's wonderful to be able to focus on maximizing a single character without scrolling through menus trying to find the best abilities to pop at a given time on other party members. Everything feels fluid, and trying to identify opportune times to use abilities that make you vulnerable is a great addition to the challenge.
However... I do feel that given the amount of button mashing, it does become mentally and physically draining beyond a certain point. By the time I reached the last third of the game, I started to use the assist rings. This allowed me to relax and enjoy the story more but also multitask through some of the side quest monotony.
The Content
The main story has roughly 30 hours worth of content, which is excellent in the era of gaming we are in now where a release title is now $70. There's a decent amount of side content included in the same play-through, I've racked up over 50 hours going for as many trophies as I can on the first pass.
The side content is where this game really leaves me wanting. Almost every side quest devolves into either: super monster, group of monsters followed by super monster, or talk to other NPCs and refer to formula 1 or 2. The stories are also fairly dry, but I did enjoy the last 12 or so quests.
Final Fantasy mode is included as a new game plus, enabling you to start with all the abilities and gear you have acquired and take on new, more interesting challenges. While this will change up encounters and AI, this is truly just a replay, and adds another 15-30 hours depending on your desire to re-watch the cutscenes.
Closing
Final Fantasy XVI earns a 9/10 from me and is an excellent game. It's not perfect in that it has some room for improvement in providing some variety with the additional content, but is great as is when focusing purely on the main story. The gameplay is great but can become tiring combined with the length of the game. The repeatability I would say is good both to revisit the story and also see the new challenge that Final Fantasy mode presents.