Poll: Are You Playing Final Fantasy 16: The Rising Tide?

I lent out my copy but will be picking it up today 😄 Very excited to polish this off.

Traded in our copy of FFXVI for Super Mario Wonder on Switch so no won’t be playing this. But even if we still had it releasing so soon after FF7 Rebirth seems like a bad decision to me. Maybe Squenix will be complaining out loud about that decision in a couple of months.😂

I only got XVI a couple of weeks ago, but I’m liking it a lot more than I thought I would. The last patch seems to have improved performance mode too (either that or I’m getting used to it). I’m definitely interested in the DLC now, but I’m getting Rebirth next

No, i still have blisters from all the combos I was pulling in vanilla 🫥

Going to check out the free Dead Island 2 DLC first because free. I'm still looking forward to this though.

Maybe not right away, but yes. Absolutely. I want to clear out my backlog a bit first so I have time to appreciate the DLC and go into new game plus.

I rarely ever return to games I've completed, and thus basically never buy DLC unless it's a rare gem super amazing rare favorite game, or a game I bought a complete edition of before I played it.

In this case, the DLC launched right when I finally started the game from the backlog, and the bundle DLC was cheap enough and included a quest that takes place during the original playthrough, so I'd actually preordered the DLC. I doubt I'll get to playing the new stuff in it for quite a while though as I'm juggling trying to play XVI mostly as a button mashy palate cleanser between also getting into XIV and P3R all at the same time and XIV is the life-consuming one of the bunch.

Engine's terrible, game's really fun even though I'm bad at perfect dodging, and I still think it's the dumbest name in the world for an obvious hack&slash spinoff game. But still great for what it is rather than what it isn't. Just needed a different name. Maybe "FF Stories: A Good Boy & Torgal."

As I play through it what amazes me about it, though is while it has had a hugely positive reception, basically everything about it is a continuation of the main, most hated design elements of XIII and XV combined (linear hallway navigation with no exploration and mostly fixed leveling/gear of XIII, button mashy zip -dash combat of XV without weapon switch and party switch depth), yet everyone now loves it. Is it the dog that made the difference? Heck even the way it just goes into raving about Dominants and Bearers and Eikons reminds me of going straight into L'Cie, Fal'Cie, Cie'th with no idea what they were talking about. It's got to be the dog.

I got FF16 when it came out, finished it, un installed it and never thought about it again 😅.

If the dlc turns out to be really really good and it's on sale somepoint then mabey I'll check it out even though I didn't think 16 was all that great

No option for: “Nah, **** dlc!”?😎

I got the game and played it over Christmas. It was fun at the beginning but it really became copy/paste/repeat after a while.

The idea of more of the same really turns my guts like the 8th helping of treacle tart.

I'm knee deep in Rebirth right now but I will buy this DLC and play it later this year. I loved XVI!

@NEStalgia I always really liked XIII and its lore so I was enjoying all of that in XVI 😂 It really should have been a Fabula Nova Chrystallis game. I think the XIII hate was overblown as evidenced by how much ppl like similar things in different packages (stagger system in Remake/Rebirth came straight from XIII)

I'm not going to play it this time. The ending remains unchanged and that for me it doesn't make sense to have this dlc. The ending is the way because Clive doesn't get Leviathans power, in the dlc he gets it. Maybe it gets explained in the dlc but to me it seems they didn't think it through completely.

FFXVI was actually my Game of the Year last year so naturally I got Echoes of the Fallen and I just got Rising Tides.
It saddens me its the finale of the adventures of Clive Rosfield.
I'll be missing him.

Never going back to this game after the platinum, I liked it for what it was but there is not enough there to go back. The combat was deep but all of the nuance felt really unnecessary given how easy the game is. Characters were pretty uninteresting and there is just no incentive to return for any expansion imo

Unfortunately, i couldn't even finish the main story of the main game. It was so slow and leveling up took forever. The voice acting was fantastic, but the lack of new weapons and armor, the not being able to use the Eikons whenever you wanted, and the non-open world was making it boring. I will eventually finish it, but they needed to keep it open world, add way more weapons and armor and being able to change the look of your characters, have more special abilities, change the music because it was horrible and i felt like i was in a Church the entire game.

@3Above I think the good an bad of it is that it is an FNC game At least in design and approach if not actual story universe. But really the story feels so similar it's just FNC with the names changed, and less colors used.

I kind of like FNC/XIII in hindsight as well. XIII is such a weird problem. I was absolutely part of the hate mob when it launched. But then I'd get fond memories of the world for many years. And when I went back to try it again a few years ago, I actually like it. The battles were almost puzzle games designed for set solutions.

If I think back to what I, and probably most people reacted to at launch, is that the linearity and lack of exploration, optional anything, materials/money acquisition for any purpose, towns to arrive at of any kind or any sense of control over your own adventure, we played the whole game thinking "this is that slow burn beginning of an RPG before it opens up, I bet it'll open up soon" and before you knew it you're 40 hours in and it was just the intro the whole time. (Until Pulse which feels like awkwardly bolted on post-game even though it's main quest.) It was a sense of expectation disappointment because what you were waiting for never happened so it felt confined. The extent of exploration was "do I take the loop around the hole, or the straight path?" And the extent of towns was "here's 4 people on a loop around the main road."

Add OBNOXIOUS English VAs on Hope and Vanille, and a poorly written Snow, couple it to dropping you into an expectation of lore understanding that's never explained and it was such a bad presentation.

But when you play it again, there's a great game in there. The devs at the time responded to complaints saying "people wanted more minigames" which was a facepalm moment, but they sure did fix that in Rebirth lol!

XV...kind of doesn't count it was SUPPOSED to be the button mashing spinoff companion of XIII. It's different with its hack and slash play, but it was always meant to be a spinoff until they just randomly rebranded it a sequel. But that kind of fixed the world and gave back free open exploration, economies, resource collection, gear management, everything but just added a mashy combat mechanic instead of tactical play, and released really really poorly. And duplicated not explaining the story by expecting you watch a movie sold separately to understand it.

Everyone hated both. Then XVI comes along, once again drops you into a story with no explanation whatsoever plus technobabble, takes the button mashiness of XV, strips off any and all complexity and depth, then glues it to what literally looks identical to XIII map design, slap a Game of Thrones skin on it, add a dog you can pet, and suddenly it's GOTY material

I mean, I do like the game, but I also like XIII now. But I get whiplash that most people won't stop dumping on XIII but love this with almost identical level design

@NEStalgia Well said 😂 I think those who like XVI but dump on XIII havent actually played XIII. And now Twitter begs for a XIII trilogy remaster every chance they get.

As a FNC fan who believes we got duped by them saying they always planned XIII as a Trilogy to encompass FNC while cheating us out of Versus XIII (XV is NOT Versus just by another name imo) I really enjoyed all the mother crystal talk in XVI. Shout out to Type-0 who did nothing wrong as was actually good.

Still playing Dragon's Dogma 2 which is 10x the RPG that FFXVI is, in my opinion. I think my pawn has more personality that Jill too.

Yes, but I haven't even finished the main game yet and I'm still playing FF7 Rebirth.

Not to mention that my preordered copy of Stellar Blade is coming next week. LOL!

Finished FF16 two days before and uninstalled. Great story, but those side quests were endless. I have enough of that game for ...maybe forever.

@3Above @NEStalgia I actually loved XIII at launch. Yes it was more linear experience then previous FF's but if you really go back so was X. XIII for me feels like a mix of VII and VIII. I mean you can even compare a lot of the characters with each other.

I think the reason people hate on some entries is because they compare it to the entry they love. Final Fantasy has always been a series were each mainline is a hit or miss for you. You can either completely love everything from one game and feel completely disappointed with the next one.

I'm a big FF fan and like each entry because it brings something else. XV is the only one that really left me disappointed, but that game is just ruined because it lost its identity in the development hell it was in.

@Jimmer-jammer yesss! Psi ops mindgate conspiracy! One of my favourite 6th gen games and so underrated.

@Martijn87 People do always compare XIII to X, and I agree, a lot of that level design is the same. I also think in both cases it was designed as it is due to technical limitations, though. Although X was divisive due to that at the time as well, I think where the two differ in perception is, X still had proper towns, with proper in-town slice of life quests, with proper shops that broke up the gameplay and gave it the usual "road trip movie" feel despite the linear dungeons. The journey was what you did between meaningful destinations. XIII was designed like ramps floating in a void more like a platformer rather than environments, and never had any "road stop" town, meaningful destinations, or in-town quests that sort of punctuate the adventure the way even X did. It just felt like always moving forward on the flying ramps toward the next enemy. XIII would have gone down a lot better if they'd solved that one little problem. You keep waiting to get to the next "town" but there aren't any. And the towns are the waypoints you remember. If you think of VII nobody really remembers the roads and fields they went through to get between Costa del Sol and Nibelheim....you remember your time at Costa del Sol and Nibelheim. Same with X and Besaid and Kilika. XIII lacked that. You just had a named NPC with a shop icon off a side ramp.

XVI is between the two. Towns are more fleshed out than "NPC on side ramp", but feel like cookie cutter clones more than unique places you've journeyed to. Hideout excluded as the exception.

MOST FF games have more in common than different. Even XV has a lot in common with the "old" FFs. The weird standouts (MMOs aside, though they also feel classic, simply paying $156+ a year to play it makes it something else) but X stands out as somewhat weird, somewhat familiar. XIII stands out as really weird but good in its own way. XVI, IMO has the most in common with XIII than anything else.

But it's so weird that everyone loves this and hates that, but they're the two that are more similar and different from every other entry. It's so similar! If I still hated XIII I would not have gotten along with XVI lol.

I have to say I love XV, I don't think it lost its identity, and it as a refreshing return to being an actual RPG after XIII (despite XIII having the better combat) but I think it released incomplete and broken and that really hurt the experience. But I also never finished the game because the MonHun quests were so long and dragged out that I'd put so many hours in before even getting to key parts, I was just kind of burned out.

XVI will sit as a weird entry like XIII to me where it's a game that I really like, but I also can't think of it as an actual FF RPG game at all. Both of them feel like spinoffs. (The XIII sequels, though, do feel like FF RPGs. Maybe they'll do that with this.)

@ApostateMage "I think my pawn has more personality that Jill too."
ROFL!

@3Above I kind of wonder if the hate for XV would have been the same had it simply not been "the one after XIII" and had actually released properly without messing up the story and then finishing the story in little DLC chunks you have to launch separately across years. It fixed most of the complaints people had with XIII. It was an actual RPG again, lots of exploration, questing, towns, economy stuff, materials, purchases, a big adventure across the land. Everything about XV was proper FF, except that they ripped out the battle system for the button mashing, and IMO the side quests were far too dragged out (waiting in real time to travel was creatively cool but after 100 quests became a real drag.)

It was technically supposed to be Versus, and "officially" is actually still FNC, yet they ripped out everything FNC from it that even references it. But officially it really is FNC.

XV maybe action mashy, but it was at least an honest to goodness ActionRPG, warts and all. XVI, great as it is, is not an ARPG no matter how much they say it is, it's just a straight forward action/action-adventure. There's no RPG here. If anything my head canon says XVI is XV:Versus more than anything.

Still deep in Rebirth!

@NEStalgia so i bought FF16 on the black Friday deal. I have always respected and admired the detail of characters and the music in the FF series. But i just don’t enjoy true RPG turn base for hours on end. Wish i did and maybe now that i am a little older i might need to give them a try again. So when i seen the action genre was coming to FF16 i knew i needed to give it a look and boy am i glad i did. It’s my favorite PS5 exclusive. Well until the complete edition comes out for PS5 and Series X/S. Anyhow i think the game did do what they intended which was get newer players into the universe. But i agree with you that maybe for the real FF fan’s this should have been a Spin off title instead of mainline series. Either way i would have liked it all the same but it could have kept some heat off square from their real fan’s that have supported them for decades as opposed to myself that rarely gives them $2.00 and the time of day.

PS. If i ever build a killer PC rig i would buy this and try to max it out at the 120fps just to experience it and see if it can really be done on what seems to be a less than ideal optimized engine.

I’ll play it this summer once my backlog lightens up

@ApostateMage lmao! it drove me crazy the praise some of the characters in this game got they are as deep as a puddle. their defining qualities are just "loyal" and that is all there is to it. wild to me that anyone could see it differently

Sold my disc copy after im done with the game. Really love it but i need to buy the disc back in other to play the dlc lol 😂 so for now im skipped

@HonestHick That's the weird thing with when they take a turn based game and make it action and everyone's like "well it's different' and that's cool". If someone took God of War and made it a turn based tactical game people would be freaking out far more and be less accepting than FF fans are of action games, lol.

I still don't know why square refuses to just have two different FF series, an action one and a turn based one. It makes sense. They were supposed to with the "versus" series. and then they just went and blurred it all together. Logic and Square seldom meet.

If you haven't given XV a try and like XVI, do give XV a try. It's not the most popular FF, but it's not turn based, it's a button masher like XVI, but much more of a real open world RPG than the very corridor GoW-type action game that is XVI. I bet you'd like it. I like it, just never quite got around to finishing it. But you literally need an internet guide for when to play what DLC which is why it's a mess. CHunks of story are missing, filled in by DLC, and you launch them from the main menu....and the game doesn't tell you when.

But yeah, it's not like FF hasn't always had spinoffs in tons of genres. This game is very much not "big RPG", like you'd expect in a numbered entry. It really deserved to be it's own spinoff series rather than "fighting" the RPG fans. Silly branding mistake IMO.

If you ever want to try your hand at turn based games again, I'd recommend going with modern ones that are less stodgy than the retro stuff. No Legend of Heroes/Trails games or classic FF for you! Something like SMTV, the Persona games, actually FFXIII is semi turn based. It's menu based but you're on a timer and must think fast. IDK if it's on Game Pass anymore but it's stupid cheap often. XII is also on a timer, but feels much more vintage.

Then there's the MMOs which are a whole other thing. Neither action nor turn but sort of a semi-mash rotation of commands that sits between the two. Slow burns though. But you play Xenoblade, right? And I know you play WoW. XIV may fit you. It's more text than movie, of course.

I love XVI but it's no RPG. Not an action RPG either. It's a straight forward action adventure. But if you've finsihed XVI and are looking for more and haven't tried XV, definitely do it, it's more similar than different in terms of combat. But a true "sandbox big RPG" in that Bethesda/CDPR sense than XVI otherwise. XIII if you're feeling daring for a pseudo turn system but not quite feeling the classic.

Beat it a couple hours ago. Little mixed if I’m being honest, they talked up the difficulty a LOT but it felt much easier than the base game. It’s more FF XVI, which isn’t a bad thing but it kind of left a sour taste in all transparency.

@NEStalgia Thanks, yeah i may look into others. Heck i like FF16 better than GOWR. God of war this last go round felt bad to me in the mission and rpg lite mechanics they try and do with the armor and all that. Square out god of war’d Santa Monica in my opinion. Really hoping GOW losses the fluff and get backs to the action and boss fights the series is know for. Ok GOWR disappointment rant over. I am liking RPG’s more and more. I want to give Avowed a try. Still not sure it’s for me. But i liked what i seen the last time it was shown. I expect we will see more of it in June with its 2024 release date.

@HonestHick "better than GoWR"

YES!! Finally someone else is saying it! I've been saying the same thing. Technically GoW has deeper combo mechanics but that doesn't save it from the fact that the time between battles feels like it's walking around in cement boots.

I'm basically sold on anything obsidian, so I know avowed is a must for me. They've never really let me down, though neither had insomniac before Spiderman.

And yeah give xv a try at the least if you're on an xvi high. It's a more sprawling open world questing affair but it's the same type of fast combat as 16, if a little more heavy on hit and run and less on dodge timing. It's the other action one. 13 is semi turn based but fast, and 14 is the MMO. But if you like wow you might be in for a treat with it. It's huuuuuge though.

@NEStalgia in a time where my 360 was becoming my all time favorite console ever over the SNES. I was finding less and less reason to play PS3. The controller alone was just hard to get into. We won’t turn this into a controller rant, cause me and you can easily do that Haha. It was God of war time and time again that i just wouldn’t leave my PS behind. I say all this to say God of War is and was very important to me and my connection to PS. When they rebooted in 2018. I was unsure but i had high hopes it would be for the better of the series moving forward. Plus every game on PS4 was action/ adventurer 3rd person it seemed. So i assumed it was the direction of not only Santa Monica but Sony. Wow it really blew the doors off for me and i called it one of the best single player games in a long long time. For me and my play style, it was near flawless. So of course i am going to LOVE GOWR right? I was so excited to start it up even tho i wish it wasn’t PS4 cross gen, i was like it don’t matter. For a little while i was like yep this is still just as amazing as the first game and then it just stalled out like a car going 90 on the highway. I was like what is this, what is that? How much longer do i need to do this. I never said those things before. By the end i almost was just like please hurry up and get me to the credits. FF16 albeit not most true FF fan’s favorite game. Just works for me. I never find myself not interested in something, sure the side quests are your basic bare bones fetch filler that lot’s of games use. But i find myself really liking 90% of FF16 and will more than likely double dip it when it comes to Xbox. GOWR and i know i will and have taken insults for this comment but is overrated and a step back from 2018 reboot to the point of i hope the next game is another reboot.

Very excited to go back to it and replay the game with all the changes and the season pass content.
But, i am too busy with other games atm.

Nope.
It doesn't make sense, given how the main game ends.

@Martijn87
I'm with you.
There wasn't dlc planned originally so that makes it seem even more forced / a money grab to me.

@TheDaddyOtaku Please do your research, they said that there was no content planned but would be considered if the fans wanted it.

The problem is I did not like ff16. Took me 6 months to finally complete and the pay off was terrible. I did like the world and the characters are nice, but the overall story was kinda meh. The ending was really boring.

So mad. I mistakenly purchased the FF16 deluxe edition add on instead of the DLC season pass, that was both marked $24.99. Sony wouldn't refund me so I guess I won't be playing. Not given them more more money. Ugh....

might be the first time I skip DLC for a main entry FF game and ive played all of them over 30 years if Rebirth got DLC in a heartbeat but FF16 I feel the story concluded and they are just milking it for more money I dont care about Leviathan as the main focus on a DLC that much to spend more money on it

I still haven't finished the main game. Once I do, I'll get the DLC bundle. If this isn't my favorite Final Fantasy game it's a 1a. to Crisis Core: FF VII's (particularly Reunion), no. 1. I like the action-focused combat.

Yeah and really loving Leviathan moveset!

@NarutosBiggestFan "not being able to use the Eikons whenever you wanted"

Finally someone else says it. For me, this is one of the biggest bits about FF for me. I just love calling in a new Summon for the first time and watching a crazy over the top cut scene. Was gutted to find out that you just earn a boring power after defeating them.

Seeing as I didn't end up finishing the main game it's a no

Much as I loved the game, I'm not sure I feel compelled to jump back in. The game felt complete, and shoehorning some DLC in doesn't attract me when we have so many other great titles to play. Maybe in the future if I ever run out of titles I'm playing (which seems unlikely).

Well these poll results are a bit surprising to me. I guess now I know why publishers embrace the DLC strategy so much. Personally, I just can’t get behind the whole concept. First of all, it’s partially because some DLC does feel like cut content that’s been held back to sell later (notice I said some, so everyone hold your horses) which feels a little scummy, and then secondly (and more importantly) because there’s a complete loss of momentum after completing a game that makes it difficult to go back to a game you shelved many months ago.

But hey, you do you. I personally can’t recall a single DLC I’ve ever purchased separately, and only engage with post release content if it’s my first playthrough and the game has been out for a while and already has a complete edition.

Started yesterday, but couldn't do a deep dive into it yet. The new region is ASTONISHING BEAUTIFUL. The most breathtaking place of the game!!

Bit late for me. Enjoyed the game, tailed off by the very end, but the game itself doesn't offer enough for a replay if that is what is required for getting to the DLC parts.

So long, and thanks for the memories etc, etc.

Really enjoyed my time with the base game, yeah the side quests were terrible, but overall the game was enjoyable. I had already paid for the DLC bundle so will jump right on it after I finish RE4 VR which is fantastic so far. Picked up a new C3 oled since my original playthrough so I am curious to see how much better the game will look with those colours going full pop.

As above I am also here for the XIII love, really enjoyed my time with the first one even if it was linear. The sequel was a bit meh mainly as I felt the story got far to convoluted just for the sake of it. Its genuinely dissapointing that they never sorted out a port for PS4 / PS5 as its the only one you can't replay on the modern machines.

@freddquadros Yeah, I couldn't believe the visuals when you reach the new area

@NEStalgia yeah I agree. XIII is more like a rollercoaster ride, it really missed the slow moments in the towns, but I still enjoyed the game for what it did. The same with XV. Even though you could notice that alot was missing, the great parts were really great. Alot of what worked can be found back in both remake/rebirth and XVI.

For me XVI has the most in common with X. Even in the way the story is told. You can easily compare the highpoints of both stories and see a lot of parallels. Even the ending feels the same.

@Shepherd_Tallon I never played XI either. I must say I never found that game in the store back then.

The something new and different in every mainline is what I love the most about FF, every game brings something new to the table and keeps it fresh.

I platted XVI last year (loved it) and will wait for the dlc to go on sale. Currently I'm playing Rebirth so I'm good with FF.

Nah, 16 had a great start but it quickly became tedious and I grew to hate the story. No desire to play any of the DLC and I regret my initial purchase. It’s a shame because I adored that demo.