Final Fantasy XVI

This game wears its influences on its sleeve and a lot of it feels like a cheap imitation of those. It does have some merits however.

First, let's start with the poor design choices, after that, the good, or at least better ones.

Things I think this game does poorly:
- Most of your time is spent watching cutscenes. There is absolutely no environmental storytelling or subtle exposition through gameplay. I do not buy and play videogames to watch a movie or read notes and lore pages. This is not a movie, nor a book.

- Quick time events are dumb and do not add actual gameplay or immersion and do not excuse excessive use of cutscenes.

- Holding R2 after pressing X to open a door is not immersive or interesting gameplay. It is a dumb way to forcefully add haptic feedback "gameplay" which is probably some criterium laid on by Sony.

- Itemization and loot in general is very uninteresting and most of the time worthless. New items are just +damage +whatever and there is never a real choice to consider what equipment you will use. New items are always better. Tying equipment progression to crafting is also not interesting. The only (somewhat) interesting gear choice is in the amulets, but even those provide mostly boring effects like reducing cooldowns or an increase of +% damage.

- Expanding on the previous point, exploration is never rewarded and always felt like a disappointment.

- Most of the characters are uninteresting or bland. This is true for a lot of the main characters, all of which I didn't care for or disliked, but especially so for the side characters. Not only in their personality, but also in their design. Most characters look like random MMO quest npc's.

- Side quests are a complete waste of time and uninteresting pretty much all of the time. They only exist to prolong the game length, in other words; to waste your time.

- The game is very repetitive. In the main story you go to fight another dominant, first in human form, then eikon form. Cinematic quick time events, another surprise phase 3 eikon battle, absorb their power, rinse repeat until the end.

- Environments felt uninspired. Breath of the wild has a big influence here, in the design of quite a few enemies and environments.

Some positives:
+ The combat is fun, though simple and too easy in the regular game.

+ Graphic effects during combat are cool end the abilities feel great and powerful. Combining abilities is fun.

+ Story is interesting enough and had some good moments. Unfortunately let down by bland characters and poor character design.

+ Eikon fights are cool, but again, riddled with cutscenes and quick time events.

+ Most monster designs were very cool, Eikons especially looked great.

Conclusion
Overall I guess I enjoyed my time with this because the combat was cool, but on the other hand it felt like a huge waste of time, which is a shame because there is a lot of potential. It is clear they were inspired by the latest Zelda games, The Witcher, Game of Thrones and even Souls games. But never did it really get interesting enough to set it apart or provide a unique and worthwhile experience.

The only compliment I can really give is in regards to the combat design, which carried the game, but was unfortunately overshadowed by poor storytelling and lack of gameplay.