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.

I'm sure that this might surprise nobody, but Final Fantasy 16 sounds like trash. But did we really expect anything less from this franchise? I mean, aside from FF14, I'm sick of this series.
https://youtu.be/PzfUardkloY

Well, looks like Final Fantasy 16 will come out next summer. It's...Game of Thrones. No use hiding it. The trailer is freaking Japan's take on Game of Thrones. Except that they can transform into summon monsters?

I can tell that the Kingdom Hearts crew is working on it, though. The whole battle interface looks more like a Kingdom Hearts setup. Either way, I feel like I'm getting too old for this. Now two of the characters are in bed together and like, this isn't the Final Fantasy that I grew up with? I mean, it looks cool. But yeah.
https://youtu.be/NtpBEfrtE1s

I only care about killing chaos. And blasting tunes by Linkin Park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZavtHhk508

https://i.imgur.com/AAYM26p.jpg

I looked up more information on FF16. Turns out the director is the graphic designer for the Romancing Saga series, Hiroshi Takai. He last worked on FF14: A Realm Reborn, so maybe this'll turn out better?

Or at the very least, it'll turn into the RPG version of The Bouncer. Lol.

Final Fantasy games after 12:
Needs mor crystals

Final Fantasy still exists. I guess. But I dunno, I've been waiting for the final one for a long time...
https://youtu.be/2tBnBAkHv9M

I should complete more of these

So after writing my big post I decided to take a closer look at the credits for the Final Fantasy games over the years to pinpoint just who the talents and the people who ruined it actually are, and it turns out the Wikipedia credits aren't to be trusted and I've actually been wrong about a lot of things all these years, and I think now I have a good idea of who the key names to look out for actually are for better or for worse. If you share any of my opinions about Final Fantasy you'll probably want to take note of this. If any of these people are directors, or involved in scenario or events, it's a good or bad sign, and this is of course my own personal opinion, but one name in particular could spell hope for the future of Final Fantasy:

SpoilerThe Goods:

Hironobu Sakaguchi - Original creator, his FF games started off simplistic, but after he started working with Kitase and Ito he upped his story game, no longer works with Square, now director of Mistwalker, but they've stopped making classic JRPGs.

Yoshinori Kitase - Directed FF6, FF7 and FF8, co-writer for FF5 (IMO the first really good one) and writer and event director for FF6. Was promoted to producer so now probably has little creative input. If he's ever listed as a director and writer, though is unlikely since producer is a higher position, this would be a VERY GOOD sign.

Hiroki Chiba - Event planner for FF7, 8, 9 and 10, and co-writer for FF8. I think this is /myguy/. Event & scenario director for Dirge of Cerberus. Lead writer of Type-0, which I've barely played, need to give another try knowing this. Game director for World of Final Fantasy, whose story people are praising, I haven't played. People seem hopeful he might direct a future numbered Final Fantasy game since he did so for WoFF. With what he did for 7-9, this could be a second wind for Final Fantasy if it happens?

Hiroyuki Ito - Directed FF6 and FF9 and designed gameplay for all pre-10 games. IS also named as director and designer of FF12, but ya boy Silent Gamer confirms he was a late addition, replacing the prior director/designer Matsuno for health reasons. So he probably wasn't responsible for the state of FF12.

The Bads:

Yasumi Matsuno - Original director and also writer of FF12. Also directed, wrote and designed the battle system for Vagrant Story, which explains why I don't like that game. Also directed and wrote Tactics, I haven't played that. Basically, he seemed to make sure his games didn't have traditional combat.

Mamoru Toriyama - Director of FFX-2 and FF13, but was also event planner for FF7 and event director & co-scenario writer of FF10. 7's quality may have had more to do with Chiba and Kitase? And 10 also had Chiba working for him.

Daisuke Watanabe - Lead scenario writer for the FF13 trilogy, scenario writer for FFX-2, FF12 and Dissidia. Was a scenario planner for FF10, though.

Tetsuya Nomura - Directed Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts with its awful FF character representations. Directing the FF7 Remake.

Kazushige Nojima - Co-writer for FFX-2, concept writer for FF13, and sole writer for Advent Children and for KH1 and 2 with its awful FF character representations. Did also co-write 7, 8 and 9, but seems plausible we can choc their quality to his co-writers.
*Possible* that his influence over the state of these games was small though, as he could have been told to write what he wrote. Writing for the FF7 Remake.