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FF16 is the worst paced game I’ve played in a very long time

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Filben

Member
In case anyone is wondering like "huh, how could the game be a slog 🤔...."





Imagine dozens of hours worth of NPC interactions like this. I skipped stuff for a bit but after a few hours I was like, "no, I want to experience this game as Square intended."

The directing in that particular sequence is... weird. Awkward camera angles and cuts, animations and movement of characters. Feels more like theatre on a stage than 'cinematic'.
 

tmlDan

Member
It feels like a 2006 MMO quality quest. The structure of these quests are almost always identical to each other and you're forced to engage with these ''special'' NPCs over and over again

The low-budget cutscenes plus the awful lip sync just makes them even more painful
You're not forced to unless you do all the side quests, you interact with her a couple of times in the game...one other time later.

I dunno, in every FF there's always weird shit like this and its always painful. Even when Prompto confesses to Cindy he had this dumbass look on his face for the entire conversation:

oQvepiI.png
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Yeah, your opinion is much like what I saw from folks that didn't enjoy it OP. The flow of the game,
and the slog of the questing. Majority said great things about the combat, but of course it's everything else outside of the combat that is an apparent issue. That's a shame.

I'm curious to know how I would feel about it, but I don't plan on finding out very soon.
 
The problem isn't the side quests (haven't touched a single one), the problem is 70% of the main story is filler. The game has incredible highs with its eikon fights and some boss battles and an occasional emotional moment that makes you feel something... but than you have to do 2 or 3 mandatory fetch quests that supposedly have world building (?) just to progress to the next high. The game should have been a 12-18 hour high octane action game that goes hard the whole time and instead of the bloat fest that it is. Absolutely zero re-playability for me because of it.
 
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Spyxos

Gold Member
I was actually going to buy it this week. The reviews were very good, but when I read here, I'm not sure if I should get it at all.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
I was actually going to buy it this week. The reviews were very good, but when I read here, I'm not sure if I should get it at all.
If you have $70 to burn and are curious, by all means. If $70 is a lot and will potentially really bum you out. Please hold off and save the money or get something else. 🙏
 
Glad this was a PS5 exclusive at release, I was going to check it out when it releases on PC eventually, but after reading this thread I'll pass.
 

LakeOf9

Member
I was actually going to buy it this week. The reviews were very good, but when I read here, I'm not sure if I should get it at all.
Glad this was a PS5 exclusive at release, I was going to check it out when it releases on PC eventually, but after reading this thread I'll pass.
I’ll say there’s enough good stuff here that it’s worth checking out but maybe not for $70. Wait for a drop, at $40 or so this is probably worth it
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
In case anyone is wondering like "huh, how could the game be a slog 🤔...."



Lol the way the camera pans like that, reminds me of Cocomelon (YouTube channel that was designed to hypnotize toddlers into a trance-like state).

Scenes like this have no joke put me to sleep at least 4 times so far. It’s not just one or two scenes, there are so many like this. Every time you walk into a new settlement they make you go talk to ~3 people and it plays out just like this.
 

Spyxos

Gold Member
If you have $70 to burn and are curious, by all means. If $70 is a lot and will potentially really bum you out. Please hold off and save the money or get something else. 🙏
I would be able to get it significantly cheaper. I played the 2 hour demo and I found it quite ok. The final fight of the demo looked interesting. But as I understand it, there are only fights that happen from time to time and otherwise there is not much going on?

Gamefly for the win!
We don't have anything like that here.
 

hyperbertha

Member
I was actually going to buy it this week. The reviews were very good, but when I read here, I'm not sure if I should get it at all.
Do you demand challenge from your game? Character development? Do 30 hours of fetch quests put you off? Do you need more than high budget setpieces in your game?
If yes to two or more, stay away.
 
I love the game, but fully agree with you.

It doesn’t help that there’s no real rewards for these chores either. I keep getting these useless crafting ingredients and a occasional trinket that shaves some time off a cool-down.

I could’ve done without the whole gear system tbh.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Of course it's a direction problem.

I understand the purpose of the scene too but it's still bad by any standard. The fatal flaw is that there are dozens of hours of those scenes, it's legit probably 60% of the game.
Probably an issue on their development logistics. They must've spend a lot of time and budget into the 'main' parts of the game then cheaped out on this side stuff. Its not uncommon in JRPGs like this. Yakuza does this too, but since that game is over the top silly it somehow works there.
 
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Are the side quests been worth doing for item rewards or does the main story just give you what you need. Ie just skip the vast majority? If I do buy it. I want to skip all the filler.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Are the side quests been worth doing for item rewards or does the main story just give you what you need. Ie just skip the vast majority? If I do buy it. I want to skip all the filler.
You occasionally get some solid items for side quests (potion count increase, potion strength increase, useful item for upgrading, etc.) Side quest is also how you get the chocobo but the chocobo is useless and unless you plan on doing NG+, the occasional decent sidequest item probably isn't necessary because the game is incredibly easy.
 
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yep. this's what continues to confuse me. it was all very obvious...
As I mentioned in the review thread, I was quite surprised by the archaic design of this game, based solely on the first hour of gameplay. However, if the game was intentionally developed this way to ensure smoother, less expensive, and more timely development, then so be it. still a massive disappointment tho.
 

the_master

Member
Feels like a direction problem. I understand the purpose of this scene (basically frame this woman as some reliable type), but the execution feels weird. NPCs and VA are all stiff and lack the correct type of emotion, with these awkward long pauses in-between conversations, also needlessly drawn out.
I think they added the secondary quests late and low budget. Someone “realized” the game needed sidequests to appeal to the west, and with the little time they had they decided to make many cheap quests instead of a few good ones. Thinking that scope would make the world feel full of things to do and players would like it.
Imho, I would have removed 90% of the sedequests and add a bit more quality to some main story quests and the 10% sidequests
 
I felt that the pacing of the main story was fine up until around the halfway point (specifically, Kupka's death), but it slowly gets worse from that point on. The side quests are mostly terrible, and the sad part is that most of the good ones are backloaded into the last 20% of the game, likely after many players will have decided that they're not worth doing.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
It’s fine , long but fine, ignore all side content. It’s all padding and has no value in this game.

Did the same for FF7 and will likely do it for every game I play.
Agreed. Only do few side quests in the veil. Others not so much. I wouldn’t even do + side quests. The blacksmith ones were so boring.

Ff7 remake you should avoid quests because aerith dress is better without quests lol
 
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Batiman

Banned
Haven’t played this yet but I don’t think there was a single good side quest in ff7 remastered either. No memorable npcs either.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I think they added the secondary quests late and low budget. Someone “realized” the game needed sidequests to appeal to the west, and with the little time they had they decided to make many cheap quests instead of a few good ones. Thinking that scope would make the world feel full of things to do and players would like it.
Imho, I would have removed 90% of the sedequests and add a bit more quality to some main story quests and the 10% sidequests
Oh yes the_master senpai. They clearly added all these side quests to appease the gaijin dudebro audience. At least we still have real JRPGs like Xenoblade with their Nippon-centric design and sensible number of quality side quests.
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
In case anyone is wondering like "huh, how could the game be a slog 🤔...."





Imagine dozens of hours worth of NPC interactions like this. I skipped stuff for a bit but after a few hours I was like, "no, I want to experience this game as Square intended."

It's on a whole other level when it comes to slog.

So you can either skip the dialogue and do the slog of side missions to get the occasional useful items. Or skip them entirely and focus on main quests which still contain slog elements.

It's a really bizarre game.


Bring back well-written text and forget these atrocious "recorded alone in a booth without context" voice actors. Almost all gaming sounds this way, no matter the budget.

When the writing had to stand on its own, they didn't write stupid filler sequences and just hope the actors would make it interesting... they had to use subtle humor in the written word. In a good RPG, every person you meet should have a unique characterization, even shopkeepers don't have to be boring. But VAs always make it boring and literal as hell.

aIPams3.jpg
 

TheMan

Member
I didn’t really like the game at first but it did grow on me after opening up a bit. Still, I agree that the side quests are shit and most of the rpg trappings are really weak. I really dislike that your party members are a complete afterthought in combat. Can’t even upgrade their gear! That could have at least given you a reason to use all those useless mats
 
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Lokaum D+

Member
In case anyone is wondering like "huh, how could the game be a slog 🤔...."





Imagine dozens of hours worth of NPC interactions like this. I skipped stuff for a bit but after a few hours I was like, "no, I want to experience this game as Square intended."

It's on a whole other level when it comes to slog.

So you can either skip the dialogue and do the slog of side missions to get the occasional useful items. Or skip them entirely and focus on main quests which still contain slog elements.

It's a really bizarre game.

my god, u ll be using this video to the end of days XD.

every thread u use the same video, u need help lmao
 

KXVXII9X

Member
The game simply has like 10 hours of good content milked into 50++.

I got so burned that i had to put it aside until i get the strenght to finish the last 5-10 hours, and the worst part is that from what i'm hearing you need to do all the final batch of sidequests to better understand the finale or some shit, too bad the sidequest (and like half of the main quest) are what burned me in the first place.

Being a mindless cakewalk for 98% of the encounters and having a very poor rpg part doens't help with keeping you engaged, at best you mix the eikons ability to search for the most damaging combo and the combat styles are almost all interesting.
This is unfortunate. I thought the game being not open world and being more straight-forward would forego a lot of padding that is common in a lot of games. I also thought it would be more story heavy all the way through. I think side content should be 10-20% of a game, not the other way around.
 

Ozzie666

Member
There are definitely a few sections which get derailed by 'side quest' type material in the main story. Part of the problem is the side quests are extremely basic and hardly side quests at all. I rather they did something like in Mass Effect 2, where each character had a significant quest arc with some meaty content. I rather less of them but more meaningful to support the characters and story. Cut them out of the boss rush mode story too.
FFXIV was the exact same, with so many running around filler main story quests. It sucked then; it sucks now.

Some of the Plus quests are still laughable, but at least give you something worthwhile. But yes, the Pace suffers and drags the game down a little.
 
Pacing huh.. how does one feel about pacing in Persona 4 and Persona 5? There are literally days, weeks where nothing happen and nearly all memento side quest are fletch quest. Don;t get me wrong i like persona, but that is what i call pacing issue
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
my god, u ll be using this video to the end of days XD.

every thread u use the same video, u need help lmao
It's a main quest and "the dame" is some character that the narrative tries to hype. I could post endless shit videos of the NPC interactions but that one sums it up succinctly.

Putting you on ignore.
Ice Cube Friday GIF
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
Yeah the pacing is absolutley dreadful. The parts between main story sections are so painfully dull, the side quest quality content they force you to do as part of the main game. IM not saying ffxv or 7 remake are perfect games, and god xv had so many issues, but you know…I enjoyed my time with those games more than xvi. Because for every bahamut level boss fight there is nearly an hour of talking too wooden looking npc’s and picking up sand.
 
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