I tried to like Final Fantasy XVI, I really did. I played it for 42 hours (why I persevered I'll never know). This is another Final Fantasy that deals with "politics", which in this series is code for "the plot takes place in some far off region of the world and your character has basically no involvement in it". What this amounts to is 20+ hours of middling about achieving nothing of value before the actual game begins. The combat, while bright and sparkly, ultimately amounts to juggling cooldown timers while you wail on an unresponsive enemy. The stagger system isn't implemented very well, and only exists to give you free hits on the very spongy enemies. By contrast, the Final Fantasy VII remake series (which came out at a similar time) provides all sorts of benefits including giving access to summons, and increasing limit gauges, as well as having different requirements to initiate staggering. This essentially means staggering functions as a reward for solving the "puzzle" of each enemy, whereas in Final Fantasy XVI, it is just a bar to be filled before you can actually harm your foe. Once the game actually begins (after two time-skips and myriad hours of aimlessly travelling through a drab, uninteresting Game of Thrones set) there is actually a lot to like. The combat options finally start to offer some variety and you can explore (very simple) combos. There are monsters to hunt and hideouts to improve. And Clive finally stops pissing about long enough to actually find a goal to pursue, which unsurprisingly starts to bring out some sort of character arc. It is at that point that the game starts to feel like a Final Fantasy game. Traditional elements of the series start to show their face, and the characters and boss battles start to shine. One thing I cannot fault is the support cast, which are always a delight to interact with. The same cannot be said for the main "party" (if you can even call it that). I spent 40 hours in this game and I consistently forgot the name of the main heroine. With no plot to engage with, and being entirely AI-controlled, he character was left to stagnate, making her just another NPC. Perhaps I will give it another shot one day, but for now, this is one Final Fantasy that is far too generic and uninteresting for my tastes.