Will you play Final Fantasy XVI?

[The Grimace]

So Final Fantasy XVI is finally coming to PC on September 17th. I know there are a lot of people who were waiting for it to no longer be a PS5 exclusive before they play it, but it's been literally over a year now and I'm afraid most of the hype for the game will have died at this point. Is there anyone here who does still intend to play it now that it's finally being released elsewhere?

I highly enjoyed XVI but I will also say that it is not a game for everyone due to the heavy atmosphere of the story. I'd place it at a 8.5 or a 9.0 personally. When the game goes hard, it goes hard. But when the game lulls, it lulls bad. I've been putting off a replay of the game because my girlfriend wants to play through it herself, and I don't want to spoil anything... but I've been really anticipating playing through again because the game is a lot of fun mechanically, and I want to experience the DLC they added over the past year.

Regarding XVI, it's done by Creative Studio III, the devs of FFXIV. Its method of plot and dungeon beats are identical to XIV's, but plugged into an offline game this time- and it's interesting to see how they make this formula work at times and falter in others.

But I digress- will you play the game now that it will be more accessible?

[Kustom]

I will try it out.

I think this port will basically serve the purpose that the FF15 port did, it gave the PC master race folks access to the title.

I'm sure it'll have its quirks like most ports do, but I'll eventually buy it. I actually downloaded the demo off steam to give a try tonight.

Regarding XVI, it's done by Creative Studio III, the devs of FFXIV. Its method of plot and dungeon beats are identical to XIV's, but plugged into an offline game this time- and it's interesting to see how they make this formula work at times and falter in others.

This is something I'm highly skeptical of to be very honest. I often hit breaking points with the filler storylines and cadence in FF14, and if that trickles heavily into FF16 it'll be very hard to trudge through it. Honestly if FF14 wasn't such a love letter to the entire series, littered with easter eggs and throwbacks, I probably would never have bothered with it.

I only got a few hours into FF15 before having to put it down because it was such a HUGE gameplay and story departure from the series. First FF title I will never finish. Hopefully it wont be the same case for FF16, and I'll go into it with a open mindset.

[The Grimace]

I was actually just thinking about how I feel like replaying FFXV. If I were to do that, I would be best off playing on PC so I could find a way to mod in QoL features, or the Assassin's Creed event that has since been removed. As a person who primarily games on consoles, it's sad for me how much better games can legitimately be on PC, and that's driving me to get more games on Steam. Now that most PC games are made with controllers in mind at the outset, I feel like consoles have maybe one more generation, tops.

This is something I'm highly skeptical of to be very honest. I often hit breaking points with the filler storylines and cadence in FF14, and if that trickles heavily into FF16 it'll be very hard to trudge through it. Honestly if FF14 wasn't such a love letter to the entire series, littered with easter eggs and throwbacks, I probably would never have bothered with it.

I only got a few hours into FF15 before having to put it down because it was such a HUGE gameplay and story departure from the series. First FF title I will never finish. Hopefully it wont be the same case for FF16, and I'll go into it with a open mindset.

You will be disappointed with their methods with XVI. There's one part in specific to my memory that drags and is noticeably long-in-the-tooth for the sake of adding gameplay, reminiscent to Titan's Feast or gathering aether-enhanced jars for Garuda. It's the most egregious part in the game, but XVI definitely has it, and it feels just like one of XIV's filler moments. If anything, I hope that they will have learned from this that offline games do not need "filler." There are other ways to let the plot breathe, and if they need to go this route, there are ways to make it far more interesting to the plot at large.

By saying this, I hope people do not consider it to be a spoiler, but I think it's good for people to know what to expect.

I will say that XVI's combat is extremely fluid and fun and I would take it over XV's combat any day.

[Selbaek]

I really liked FFXVI. The Lull periods are pretty jarring, like mentioned by Grimace - but ultimately, I believe a lot of the lull is in the optional side quests.

There is a lot of great character development in those side quests, but if I'm honest the only thing that makes it all great is when you do them all and reach the unlockable capstone quests that bring all the mundane stuff to fruition.

I personally won't get it on PC because I have it already on PS5, but I really do recommend anyone pick this game up no matter what platform you can get it on. It's super fun and the story is really dramatic, but wonderfully so.

[Kustom]

Played like 30 minutes of the demo last night and had a good time with it. It definitely made me realize it might be time to finally upgrade from my 1660ti, rofl. It is graphically intense.

Adding onto the console vs pc talk above, my trusty wireless Xbox360 controller was sending it. Controls felt very good.

[The Grimace]

I will say that I enjoy the narratives of the side quests, but the tedium of going from Point A to Point B to do something menial before returning causes them to be demotivating. XIV suffers from this too, and I often feel like just automatically transporting me to and from the quest area would solve some of the tedium.

Final Fantasy VII Remake does a fantastic job with its sidequests, and the director specifically tailored them to be like Witcher 3's side quests in scope. I think they need to continue workshopping ideas for how to do sidequests in the future, to make sure they continue on this good path. Unfortunately XVI came out before and didn't quite get the memo.

[Random Encounter]

My main gaming desktop is starting to get long in the tooth, so I'm not sure how well it will do with XVI. But my living room PC is a little beefier, and I'll probably give the demo a swing at some point. I may also need to get a larger SSD for it, though; these new games are super bloated.

[The Grimace]

It's not a pleasant thought, but I can understand (to a point) why they made FFXVI only for PS5 at first. Aside from the monetary seed money Sony provided to hep the title be developed as a timed console exclusive, it's an extremely graphically intensive game, and optimizing it for a "one size fits all mindset" as with a console would likely have been a lot easier to release for them than also releasing on PC, where players have myriad different specs to play on.

On the other hand, this is the dev team behind Final Fantasy XIV, and they constantly have to release content and patches for many different play options- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Mac. They are no strangers to this work. I would be curious to see just how well the game runs on different types of PCs. I don't generally play graphically intensive games on PC and if I do, I'm used to playing them on lowest settings because most of the computers I have owned in the past have not been powerful.

If anyone checks out the demo, I would like to hear how the experience goes!

[Mr Croft]

It's not a pleasant thought, but I can understand (to a point) why they made FFXVI only for PS5 at first. Aside from the monetary seed money Sony provided to hep the title be developed as a timed console exclusive, it's an extremely graphically intensive game, and optimizing it for a "one size fits all mindset" as with a console would likely have been a lot easier to release for them than also releasing on PC, where players have myriad different specs to play on.

On the other hand, this is the dev team behind Final Fantasy XIV, and they constantly have to release content and patches for many different play options- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Mac. They are no strangers to this work. I would be curious to see just how well the game runs on different types of PCs. I don't generally play graphically intensive games on PC and if I do, I'm used to playing them on lowest settings because most of the computers I have owned in the past have not been powerful.

If anyone checks out the demo, I would like to hear how the experience goes!

I think I will give the demo a shot out of respect to yoshi p; but honestly the game isn't on my radar after they lied to us. I think alot of studios learned that skipping pc is fairly detrimental to overall sales of a game (especially with these insanely bloated dev costs which I guess is another discussion topic). I'm still shocked the game only sold this many copies on ps5 so its obvious skipping pc on release is suicide.

[The Grimace]

What lie are you referring of? In regards to sales, I'm guessing? Because yeah, being a timed console exclusive for a series as prolific as Final Fantasy definitely was a terrible decision in this case. I don't deny that the extra money and development tools helped the game look even better, but when it was at the cost of a huge contingent of potential players, the gambit clearly did not pay out.

If anything, I'm glad Square-Enix took this as the nail in the coffin for console exclusivity. It seems they're taking it this way after their recent meltdown over XVI and VII:Rebirth, atleast. I'm sure making a game that looks as good as it can is a great feeling, but if a company is alienating millions of buyers in the process, I don't think it's worth it. I'm sure there are cavalcades of PC players who were frothing at the mouth to play these games day 1, but got subtly screwed out of the chance thanks to marketing tactics. I think many of these same gamers feel ambivalent after a year of waiting. This tactic may have helped them during development, but after release, they left a tremendous amount of interested fans in their dust.

[Kustom]

What lie are you referring of? In regards to sales, I'm guessing? Because yeah, being a timed console exclusive for a series as prolific as Final Fantasy definitely was a terrible decision in this case. I don't deny that the extra money and development tools helped the game look even better, but when it was at the cost of a huge contingent of potential players, the gambit clearly did not pay out.

If anything, I'm glad Square-Enix took this as the nail in the coffin for console exclusivity. It seems they're taking it this way after their recent meltdown over XVI and VII:Rebirth, atleast. I'm sure making a game that looks as good as it can is a great feeling, but if a company is alienating millions of buyers in the process, I don't think it's worth it. I'm sure there are cavalcades of PC players who were frothing at the mouth to play these games day 1, but got subtly screwed out of the chance thanks to marketing tactics. I think many of these same gamers feel ambivalent after a year of waiting. This tactic may have helped them during development, but after release, they left a tremendous amount of interested fans in their dust.

I was so pumped when they were first showcasing the FF7 remake, and was super disappointed when they announced exclusivity. By the time it actually came out on PC, combined with a somewhat badly optimized port, I was wayyyy over the hype.

I still haven't played any of the remakes.. and those who ask me about will get my now aging joke that I'm just gonna wait for the trilogy to come out with a greatest hits version in 2030.

SE needs it to really sink in that some of us just fucking refuse to buy a playstation.

Signed.
A sad PC enthusiast that loves FF7.

[Mr Croft]

It's pretty clear now that pc gamers are pretty much buying more games than console gamers. Helldivers 2, black myth wukong, elden ring and even palworld sold way more on PC. The exclusivity deals can't be worth it anymore. I did buy rebirth on sale and it does look amazing tho

[The Grimace]

Rebirth is indeed a fantastic game, barring some small irritations. Definitely one I'd rate an 8.5 or a 9.0 out of 10. The team learned a LOT between Remake and Rebirth, and it makes me excited for the finale of the trilogy.

The card game "Queen's Blood" in Rebirth is a lot of fun. It's not as good as Triple Triad to me, but it is definitely better than Tetra Master and I actually enjoyed the campy quest revolving around the mini-game.


... Oh, uh, now that I've gushed, I will say it is equally infuriating that it still isn't out on PC. I really hope that these titles are the last instances of SE only making games on one specific console.

[Althena]

I would like to try it at some point. Lately my time is mostly taken up by FFXIV (which is one of the reasons I really would like to play XVI) and the various Valiant Gamers GotMs. I'm not sure I have enought room for a game like XVI in my life right now.