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Sacred Symbols+, Episode 315 | Final Fantasy XVI Review Discussion and Spoilercast (Video) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-26 16:01:02
Edited:
2023-07-29 15:29:33
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Final Fantasy XVI Review Discussion and Spoilercast | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 315

It's finally time for us to gather and talk about Square Enix's brand-new PlayStation 5 RPG, Final Fantasy XVI. Frankly, it's a complex game to dissect because it does so much, and a lot of what it does it happens to do very well. Thus, we've assembled a great cast -- Dustin, Gene Park, Rick Hoeg, and yours truly (Colin) -- in order that we might get into the very meat of what makes Final Fantasy XVI tick. From plot, to characters, to gameplay, to aesthetic, and so much more, let's get into everything we loved (and didn't!) when it comes to what will be remembered as one of 2023's best titles. And that's saying something in a calendar year packed with so much quality. So hit play, already, and accept the truth!

Comments

Walker Simmons

Is Clive the most badass Final Fantasy character of all time? He straight up killed God

Zeke the Plumber

Clive is awesome Cid is awesome Tarja is best

Nikitas Gagas

I can't be the only one that thinks Uncle Byron looks like an aged Dustin? I chuckled every time he came on screen.

Pyo

Been waiting for this, soon done with 2nd playthrough and way over 100 hours

Anonymous

Completed the story this past weekend. Awesome to have this today!

Nicholas J Cruz

Literally just beat the game last night! So excited to listen to this

Shawn

I’ve been waiting for this one. Just platinumed the game a few days ago. This game has left me with that feeling you sometimes get when you finish an amazing game and you don’t know what to do now, you feel empty and sad that it’s over. The game although not perfect was a 10/10 for me. And my current game of the year.

Anonymous

Imagine calling Jill a blank slate

Michael Thew

So I have a theory on why games are no longer coming to Xbox. I heard that if they develop a game for Xbox they need it to be compatible with both the X and S, I don’t see this game even being able to run on the S.

Piston Pants

Anyone else not into this fill in the blank question form of discussion? Just have a free form talk.

Stinkling
>>113804362

havent watched yet (dont have the game) but yeah, thats gotta go.

Nathan Densley

Love Hoeg, but man I couldn't disagree more with each of his story takes. I was so animated sitting in my apartment, "What are you talking about Hoeg!??" Loved the discussion I was a long for the ride, but wish there was just a little more praise for this amazing game.

Anonymous

Loved the conversation. So far it's between this or RE4 for my GOTY, but i have a big love for CBU3. And Soken knocked it out of the park. I get not liking Hugo, but i didn't fully agree with some of the takes on the Titan fight. That was one of my favorites. You can't tell me that the final phase where you're fighting him while falling with THAT MUSIC playing wasn't one of the hypest moments of the game. Either way, it is a flawed game but I still loved it. :)

Michael Thew

What was everyone’s build? Mine was ifrit with wykes and rebirth / second playthrough judgement bolt. Garuda with diamond dust and aerial blast for stagger. Then Odin with gigaflare and of course dancing steel for Odins super. I tried a a bunch of combos but those seemed to work best for me. There was another poster who hopes Colin does another discussion with maybe Chris. Hopefully they do this and tell us their builds this time. At least it’s guaranteed that Colin will play it through the second time to get the platinum, so maybe it’ll happen!!

Anonymous
>>113816815

My first playthrough was a Wykes/Lightning Rod build with Garuda stuff and Upheaval. For my Final Fantasy mode playthough, I did the high damage Shiva/Odin/Bahamut build with the accessories reducing cooldowns on gigaflare and increasing Zantestuken gauge on dancing steel. Diamond Dust was my main will stagger gauge breaker and Judgment Bolt for high damage. And would use rift slip in between ults. Think highest damage I got to was almost 500,000.

Anonymous

Great conversations overall! I think this a gem for a lot of people and myself, yes it has its flaws but this what gaming is for and FFXVI delivers on a grand scale. Excited for potential DLC or a sequel if they wish to expand the universe.

Keith Huntington

i've never really played a FF game before (3 hours into ffx, 1 hour into ff7, and about an hour into ff1) but i just rolled credits on ff16 last weekend and what a fantastic experience. 😊 my favorite character or the whole thing was mid, mainly for the voice acting.

Rich Price

I agree with the gist of the assessment that this is a game with incredible highs but some annoying flaws. I think that’s just part of the JRPG genre though. Elements clash awkwardly at times. Is it a gritty Game of Thrones type story, or is it an anime style overblown action romp with bosses the size of cities? It’s kind of both. I also think the scale of the map and areas is all out of whack. If you link up the areas, the continent is tiny. Is it supposed to be ‘representative’ of a much larger world, or is it supposed to be to scale?

RK128

While I disagreed a lot with the story criticisms, good discussion overall. This is my goty so far and it was nice seeing Colin give this game its due roses. Major disagree and a firm stand down on the Titan Lost slander. That entire fight and it’s music was my personal highlight.

Zeke the Plumber
>>113839035

Yeah. The Titan fight is amazing, imo. I do agree with criticisms over the consistency of the game’s narrative, but the game is sill great

Matt salcido

Did they all say who they used as far as EIKONS?

Chris Van Buren

Just got the platinum trophy yesterday, so this is perfect timing! 100% my game of the generation so far.

Evan

Good conversation. I really enjoyed the game, but am far more critical than most about the periphery outside of the main quest. I’m glad Hoag was on for some much-needed point-counterpoint. Clive is awesome and this game has one of the best final boss fights ever. Here are some thoughts and criticisms on my end: BOSS FIGHTS Most final boss fights are bad. I appreciate the devs understand that spectacle over challenge can be just as impactful. The Eikon fights were pure spectacle, a reward for winning the regular fight leading up to them. Totally fine with that. THE HIDEAWAY Missed opportunity for Clive and company to feel like a crew. Every conversation is them standing in a circle, shot-reverse-shot, when the pub and mess hall are right there to mix up the presentation w/ them celebrating in the pub or using Clive’s office/war room for strategic discussion. Also, for the weakest sidequests of the game, instead of Clive choosing who to go pick up sand with, why not have him delegate as a leader and have some benefit or consequence come out of that decision? Would’ve made him feel more like the leader and less like “I have to do every small quest b/c everything revolves around the player controlling me.” SIDEQUESTS Think about your favorite sidequests. I can name half a dozen from the Yakuza series, RDR2, and The Witcher 3 that do a far better job developing & building relationships between characters and the world w/o leaning on “go here, collect this, come back.” 98% in FFXVI has terrible presentation and design that make them feel like an after thought. THE WALK N’ TALK This game sorely needed to adapt the walk n’ talk aspect of God of War and Horizon in the open-world sections. This could’ve killed several birds with a single stone by filling the empty traversal in big areas for sidequests and notorious marks with conversation with Jill or Joshua that further developed their characters and relationship with Clive. In particular, GoW Ragnarok did a great job with keeping the tedium of going from A to B to a minium in the open sand and water areas with meaningful banter. This game should’ve done the same. THE MAP I was fine with the look of the world map until I talked with Vivian Ninetails and saw the topographic map she uses for exposition. It’s full of beautifully-drawn detail like kingdom borders, roads, rivers, mountains, and even a detailed look at the small island chain between Storm and Ash. It gives you such a better, clearer picture of the two continents and the spread of the Blight. In comparison, the world map you use in the game is a blank map full of white sand w/ no topography.

Anonymous

The only major criticism I have of FF XVI is the Eikon fights. I could clearly see the budget on display but it often felt like a Transformers movie with too many details all over the entire character models and I couldn't tell what I was looking at, specifically the Bahamut fight after Dion goes mad. My only minor criticism is a lot of the Eikon fights felt like fighting the Blue-Eyes White Dragon at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2; interactive cutscene vibes.

Blue

Glad Hoeg was on the show. He mirrored a lot of how I felt about the game and my big gripes.

Joe West

Can we get a part 2 without Hoeg on? I feel like he dominated the conversation with a lot of negativity about the game. He had many fair criticisms but his approach to podcasting with other was way off. COUNTLESS times he interrupted someone and completely derailed the conversation to talk about what he wanted to talk about, and it was like that from the very beginning. Colin is trying to have order and structure to the show and talking points and Hoeg kinda fucks everything up. I would have liked to hear more of Colin and Dustin’s thoughts I felt like neither of them, epically Dustin, really spoke much at all about the game. Maybe get Chris and Matty on with Colin&Dustin for some different perspectives for a part 2, I feel like there was more conversation to be had.

brody_low

Hoeg's ability to recall details and plot info is very impressive. No wonder he's a damn good lawyer.

Michael Ferrari

I felt like this game was great, but after thinking on it for a while, I think what the game almost was, is what’s getting the praise, and it actually falls short in a lot of ways. Some plot stuff just doesn’t make sense or is actively dumb, like why the f wouldn’t Joshua find Clive sooner? It felt like a lot of stuff was undercooked, and with things like Joshua being some shadowy figure for a while it was just done for the sake of mystery, even though everything was SUPER obvious.

Anonymous

I think we just have to appreciate the content. At this price. Yes Chris et Colin are more interesting, even more so when they’re together, but this is valuable content. Hoeg is with us less often, but I can see how he triggers Colin (and us) sometimes. Cheers!

Anonymous

Could we get a part 2 of this discussion, maybe with just Colin? I really hated how most of these talking points resulted in nitpicking random story beats (often misinformed even). I thought we were trying to get away from this style of game reviewing..

Cormac

I’m only listening now after beating the game yesterday…. I didn’t realise Clive was Ifrit either and literally let out a “oh shit” when I was playing it🤣🤣

Anonymous

Rolled credits this morning, Such a great game. Was pretty strange as an Englishman hearing so many recognisable British tv/movie actors in the cast.

Anonymous

Excellent discussion guys. I found myself in agreement with pretty much everything you said (besides Mid, she's great even if she came in out of nowhere). One of my favorite things about this game has to be the way in which the developers showed their love for other media, whether it be the Game of Thrones similarities or references to the rest of the Final Fantasy series (including the titular quote at the end). I'm playing through on NG+ right now and just finished up the Garuda boss fight, and there's also a bit in that fight where Ifrit gets his arm cut off and then regenerates it mid-punch, which is not only an awesome moment but also appears to be a pretty blatant Attack on Titan reference.

Zack Fair

How are you four all thinking that Cid or Cid 2 sent Benedickta"s head to Kupka, it was sent by Barnabas to manipulate Kupka

Zack Fair

Dustin needs to speak up more, he gets drowned out and even Colin in this episode which is surprising. Hoeg seemed to take over the show

Will_Gear

This may have been discussed previously on a different episode (I haven’t finished this episode yet), but did anyone here deal with the game crashing their console? And before you mention dust, I can assure you that’s not why. I opened up my ps5 a handful of times after the crashes and it was barely dusty. After 48hrs and then beating the game, it probably crashed my ps5 fifty times. No other game has ever done this so it cannot be my console.