Nothing about this game worked for me. The combat was fresh and fun to start with, but it has no depth and no strategy - not to mention, the lack of challenge on display discourages you from ever mastering the combat. The story has one of the strongest starts in any Final Fantasy game and had me immediately hooked; I preordered shortly after playing the demo and was excited to see where the story would go. This is the first "mature" Final Fantasy in both rating and nature. Critics compared it to "Game of Thrones" in tone... but later in the story, it definitely begins to feel like a JRPG in terms of characters and story. It might be my personal preference, but I wish the development team had committed fully to telling a Western fantasy-inspired story. The characters are all bland, forgettable, and their character designs are even uninspired - so much so that I had a hard time telling characters apart or remembering characters as they were reintroduced in the story. While this is also a personal preference, I became sick of how much of the game played out in cutscenes which would often last for minutes at a time, jumping from scenario to scenario. It made me long for Final Fantasy XV, which allowed at least some autonomy during exposition-heavy segments by allowing you to control the character or the camera. But the worst offender is that the story ends up being run-of-the-mill JRPG fare. Nothing we haven't seen before but also, not even delivered in a captivating way. The music is overall unremarkable - my favorite piece, one of the battle themes, is lifted directly from a random Final Fantasy XIV track that originally scored one of the optional areas in that game. Those who didn't play XIV wouldn't notice it, but to me, reusing a random track is very odd. As a big fan of XIV's music overall, I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this game's soundtrack more since it's by the same composer. There's a lot more to say about this game, but for now, I'll end by saying that I haven't given up on the franchise - I do appreciate the switch to action combat and the potential for future entries. But this game is even bad as much as it is bland. Which, for a series as important to me as Final Fantasy, is almost heartbreaking.
Review of Final Fantasy XVI
