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Did ff16 flop?
By Drayco 2025-04-10 11:40:40
I'm almost done with XVI. Have yet to finish the DLCs or "Origin". As an English northener I can appreciate it for more than its accents, of which many are faithful, while others are a little OTT. I really love this world more so than I did 12, 13, or 15s. The music is awesome! And the Eikon battles are beyond epic.
My only gripes are that it's too easy, even on the "Action" difficulty. Combat requires very little thought. Stick on the combo and evasion accessories, and the game near plays itself. Some of the quests are dumb, too. For example, one guy asks Clive to talk to three guys so they can meet him for a drink... when he could have just got off his lazy backside, walked for two minutes and achieved the same thing. But this is SE and dumb quests don't surprise me.
There's little to think about in terms of upgrading, either. Some games have convoluted and detailed ways of leveling and equipping, but this is barebones. I feel much like 15, they wanted this game to be more accessible to casual gamers, so again, it doesn't surprise me.
Some of the characters feel underdeveloped. Especially Dion. No spoilers here, but I think they could have done a lot more with him before the end of the game. There are many characters in this game and I can appreciate how much SE tried to make a larger cast this time around. And finally, I don't believe SE took full advantage of the 18/MA rating. There's some blood and swearing, but nothing over the top to where I'd feel super bad about playing it in front of a teenager.
Aside from those gripes, FFXVI has been very enjoyable. I'd definitely recommend it. I'd only suggest to not expect anything too amazing outside of the Eikon battles and music, which are most definitely its strengths. I've had a lot of fun with it. I'm about 70% done with New Game Plus right now on Final Fantasy difficulty... It's really not any harder, just enemies have a ton more HP so fights are longer. My first playthrough I was very focused on using my abilities to get through fights, however on my NG+ playthrough I'm doing more sword focused fighting, only using moves once staggered. It's really made the combat more engaging and enjoyable, rather than a constant cycle of abilities and waiting on their timers.
The game is every bit as enjoyable the 2nd time through on NG+. I do have complaints about the game, but not many compared to most other modern games. Some of the mission progression feels very filler material, but at least the game NEVER loses scope of the lore or world. You may be asked to go pick flowers and bring them back, but at least it's by a doctor and needed for a medicine. Not like FF7 Rebirth where absolutely every side quest has nothing to do with anything.
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 Cerberus.Kylos
Server: Cerberus
Game: FFXI
Posts: 4807
By Cerberus.Kylos 2025-04-10 12:06:20
I also forgot to say that XVI borrows a LOT from FFXI, which I appreciate as well. Some of it may be from XIV, but that game also borrows from XI. Many people will play XVI oblivious to this... but we know. We know all too well.
I'm almost done with XVI. Have yet to finish the DLCs or "Origin". As an English northener I can appreciate it for more than its accents, of which many are faithful, while others are a little OTT. I really love this world more so than I did 12, 13, or 15s. The music is awesome! And the Eikon battles are beyond epic.
My only gripes are that it's too easy, even on the "Action" difficulty. Combat requires very little thought. Stick on the combo and evasion accessories, and the game near plays itself. Some of the quests are dumb, too. For example, one guy asks Clive to talk to three guys so they can meet him for a drink... when he could have just got off his lazy backside, walked for two minutes and achieved the same thing. But this is SE and dumb quests don't surprise me.
There's little to think about in terms of upgrading, either. Some games have convoluted and detailed ways of leveling and equipping, but this is barebones. I feel much like 15, they wanted this game to be more accessible to casual gamers, so again, it doesn't surprise me.
Some of the characters feel underdeveloped. Especially Dion. No spoilers here, but I think they could have done a lot more with him before the end of the game. There are many characters in this game and I can appreciate how much SE tried to make a larger cast this time around. And finally, I don't believe SE took full advantage of the 18/MA rating. There's some blood and swearing, but nothing over the top to where I'd feel super bad about playing it in front of a teenager.
Aside from those gripes, FFXVI has been very enjoyable. I'd definitely recommend it. I'd only suggest to not expect anything too amazing outside of the Eikon battles and music, which are most definitely its strengths. I've had a lot of fun with it. I'm about 70% done with New Game Plus right now on Final Fantasy difficulty... It's really not any harder, just enemies have a ton more HP so fights are longer. My first playthrough I was very focused on using my abilities to get through fights, however on my NG+ playthrough I'm doing more sword focused fighting, only using moves once staggered. It's really made the combat more engaging and enjoyable, rather than a constant cycle of abilities and waiting on their timers.
The game is every bit as enjoyable the 2nd time through on NG+. I do have complaints about the game, but not many compared to most other modern games. Some of the mission progression feels very filler material, but at least the game NEVER loses scope of the lore or world. You may be asked to go pick flowers and bring them back, but at least it's by a doctor and needed for a medicine. Not like FF7 Rebirth where absolutely every side quest has nothing to do with anything.
Good to know. I don't believe I'll do NG+ as I have at least ten other games lined up to play, but in the distant future if I have nothing left, I may revisit it for nostalgia on FF mode.
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By Viciouss 2025-04-10 13:32:13
Soken is one of the only people who has the ability to speak out like this, almost all of the rank and file have no ability to do so. If they do they will get a job in the basement.
Also Japan is unlike western countries, if you get a job you have a job for life because they can't lay people off. So because of this they can't hire more people to work on extra projects, they just overwork what they have.
Which is what happened under Yoshida and 16, when you overwork people and have them working on different projects you get two bad projects.
It's so cute to watch you flail when you get caught lying.
By Godfry 2025-04-10 13:54:23
It's so cute to watch you flail when you get caught lying.
Says the biggest deflector-lier around here! lol
 Carbuncle.Nynja
Server: Carbuncle
Game: FFXI
Posts: 7306
By Carbuncle.Nynja 2025-04-10 14:05:47
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By Viciouss 2025-04-10 14:25:47
It's so cute to watch you flail when you get caught lying.
Says the biggest deflector-lier around here! lol
Nice lie. Didn't work at all.
Cerberus.Kylos
Server: Cerberus
Game: FFXI
Posts: 4807
By Cerberus.Kylos 2025-04-10 17:53:33
Having just finished the DLCs, I loved the end battle of Echoes and all of Rising Tide from start to finish. Rising Tide's scenery is absolutely gorgeous!
The DLCs feature some of the most fun fights in the game, and the most beautiful area. My only gripe is that they are too short, but they are DLCs after all. Echoes probably isn't worth the price tag, but Rising Tide most definitely is.
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Necro Bump Detected!
[69 days between previous and next post]
By RadialArcana 2025-06-18 12:25:59
@Viciouss
>flopped on steam
>flopped on xbox
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By Draylo 2026-04-17 05:50:16
A year later. Multiple sources saying this game was a huge disappointment. Majority of buyers of FF7R are over 30. Time for SE to give up this crap with trying to appease GenZ. They should focus on their core audience and maybe leave the experimenting to the side games.
All the people in this thread trying to support this are wrong like I originally said. It flopped, case has now been closed!
By RadialArcana 2026-04-17 06:02:41
I don't think Square Enix even know how to make good games anymore, they are captured so hard by shareholder/focus group pandering that the inherent passion and creativity they used to have is all gone.
At least Nintendo know what they are, they are member berry *** pandering to 30+ year olds pretending to be kids again. Square Enix still don't know where their actual audience is, and still think they can capture zoomers and GenA and ignore their actual customers.
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 Asura.Sechs
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 11286
By Asura.Sechs 2026-04-17 06:15:09
Worldwide sales are a bit shy of 4 millions of copies.
Now clearly that's not a success, should we call it a failure? Well, a disappointment sales-wise for sure, it sold way less than they expected/wanted it to sell.
Now though calling it a HUGE failure? I mean 4 millions is clearly not what they were aiming for but "HUGE" failure is something else.
Personally I loved pretty much everything about the game, it was absolutely brilliant as an *ACTION GAME*.
Is this what I dream of for a FF main?
Well, clearly not.
It's still full of love for FF and in several aspects, ironically, it ends up being more FFesque than FF15 and 13, which is... kind of a paradox I guess lol
So yeah, imho an incredibly cool game pouring love for FF from every single pixel, but the fact it's an action game, while a pretty good one, is not what most of us desire from FF main titles.
Hopefully they finally understood that with the success of Clair Obscur and we're gonna get something different for the next FF? Which won't happen I'm afraid in many years I'm afraid.
PersonallyI think that if they called it "Final Fantasy somethingsomething" instead of 16, a lot of people who (understandably) were incredibly biased about it, would've greeted it in a much different way.
 Asura.Eiryl
By Asura.Eiryl 2026-04-17 06:22:41
A mainline FF title doing that poorly is a absolute disaster. Simply calling it a failure is too nice.
Quote: FF 16 has 3.5M sales after 2 years. Clair Obscure has 3.3M sales after 33 days.
Final Fantasy VII 1997 - 15,300,000
Final Fantasy VIII 1999 - 11,292,792
Final Fantasy IX 2000 - 8,900,000
Final Fantasy X 2001 - 14,663,667
Final Fantasy XII 2006 - 7,971,624
Final Fantasy XIII 2009 - 9,300,000
Final Fantasy XV 2016 - 10,000,000
Final Fantasy XVI 2023 - 3,500,000
Stranger of paradise was a complete failure too, but no one talks about it because it's not pretending to be a mainline game.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin 2022 - 906,633
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By Tarage 2026-04-17 06:25:50
A year later. Multiple sources saying this game was a huge disappointment. Majority of buyers of FF7R are over 30. Time for SE to give up this crap with trying to appease GenZ. They should focus on their core audience and maybe leave the experimenting to the side games.
All the people in this thread trying to support this are wrong like I originally said. It flopped, case has now been closed!
It's funny you say they were appealing to genz when the guys I know who played it and are DMC fans are 40...
By RadialArcana 2026-04-17 06:39:18
A lot of people are brand captured, if you release anything with a brand they like they will buy it based on brand loyalty (star wars, star trek are good examples). The copies sold would be good for a new brand, but this is a very long established brand and so selling 3-4m is a flop.
FF16 and ff7 remakes have all been financial flops, ff15 was where the rot started imo (it sold well, but it was a crappy game).
They failed to attract new audiences, and divided the actual fans that they should have heavily pandered too. They failed on both fronts, even in many fans liked it many didn't.
Square Enix are terrible at pandering to their fans.
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Asura.Sechs
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 11286
By Asura.Sechs 2026-04-17 07:28:30
It's funny you say they were appealing to genz when the guys I know who played it and are DMC fans are 40... I don't think it was trying to cather to genz in particular, for the style of the game.
That's something I could say maybe for FF15 and 13. They were clearly aiming for new audiences.
Style-wise everything in FF16 is very solid, "adult", it aims for FF fans, FFXIV audience and fans of Fantasy Shows like GoT etc.
Now if we're talking about the gameplay... it's the opposite. They clearly were aiming for a completely different public with their full-action style of gameplay. They thought that given how everything else was exactly what a lot of people have been clamoring for over the years would've been enough for that same audience to "accept" the action style.
Well appearently it wasn't :-P
By GetHelpNerd 2026-04-17 07:50:32
where'd that one guy go that was always talking about how square enix is a good investment. afania or something?
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Cerberus.Balloon
Server: Cerberus
Game: FFXI
Posts: 453
By Cerberus.Balloon 2026-04-17 08:00:45
FF16, for me, set up a lot of interesting premises then just outright refused to answer them. The most annoying one being the climate change allegory.
Magic is the mechanics to which this world works. We enslave people for it. It is at the core of empires, of economies, and indeed every days people lives.
But it is destroying the planet.
A team go out of their way to destroy the way it is created. They do so knowing the short-term pain that it'd cause.
Except we never _focus_ on the short term pain of it. Instead we just do a fight with a big bad in a split ocean. Then there's that stuff with Ultima.
It felt like they saw Game of Thrones, were like cool I want swearing, sex, and a dog ***ending too.
That ending... It's a story book, because nobody can remember the world with magic! It's all just fake now. - I'm sorry, but what? If we got rid of all electricity tomororw I'm fairly sure 100,200,500,1000 years into the future we'd be talking about the ramifications of that decision. Especially if electricity was the only way we could navigate a world full of bloody killer monsters.
Other things I felt that were really odd:
At the start, you can cast Cure with Joshua - In the opening cinematic. Healing magic is never seen again after that.
The combat devolved into hitting 3 buttons. I played on Hard, the game was decidedly not that. I had to SLOG to get to the end.
Gear progression. Unlocking Excalibur, just for it to be immediately replaced. I found that stuff incredibly frustrating.
I didn't hate the game. I just think it really overstayed it's welcome and by the end I was really happy that it just ended. I no longer cared.
On the sales... I do think it suffered from being a PS5 exclusive. I'd argue until recently there wasn't a lot of reason to get a PS5. Cross Platform games lasted a hell of a lot longer this generation. And when it came out I'm not sure how many PS5s were sold. And I don't think anyone was going to buy a PS5 for FF16.
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By Dodik 2026-04-17 08:26:34
In the ps1 and ps2 eras final fantasy games were reasons people, particularly in Japan, bought a PlayStation. I personally bought a ps3 just for ff13. Never again.
I suspect the exclusivity deal is a hold over from that, and SE were locked into a contract with Sony that forced exclusivity for some period of time.
Carbuncle.Nynja
Server: Carbuncle
Game: FFXI
Posts: 7306
By Carbuncle.Nynja 2026-04-17 09:28:54
Stranger of paradise was a complete failure too YouTube Video Placeholder
Carbuncle.Nynja
Server: Carbuncle
Game: FFXI
Posts: 7306
By Carbuncle.Nynja 2026-04-17 09:30:28
YouTube Video Placeholder
Banger after banger after banger
By warmech 2026-04-17 12:53:28
hey, strangers was awesome! they just screwed up by dropping it when elden ring came out imo. jack is a beast!
Asura.Sechs
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 11286
By Asura.Sechs 2026-04-18 05:00:38
On the sales... I do think it suffered from being a PS5 exclusive. Not just that. Also the fact that the installed base of PS5 was very very low (compared to, say, the base of PS4 and PS3 when FFXV and FFXIII came out respectively).
Those two aspects really hurt the sales at release.
But even if I could bet all my money that FF16 would've sold much more if it was released on PS4 as well, at the same time we can't deny that being locked on PS5, while a truly relevant factor for low sales, is NOT the only factor.
In other terms: even if FF16 was released on PS4 and PC at the same time as PS5, I could bet it still wouldn't have surpassed FFXV's sales.
It would've reached something like, I dunno, 7-8 mils at best, maybe?
Which is still solid! But not what they were looking for probably.
Then again I'm not entirely sure FF has that charm for the broad public after all. They should be spending less money and make more realistic expectations for sales.
Expecting to sell like Elden Ring or GTA is not realistic for a FF, even if it's a "proper" jRPG like everybody here wants it to be.
Asura.Sechs
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 11286
By Asura.Sechs 2026-04-18 05:07:57
Since someone defined "shy of 4 mils" an embarassing total historical failure, I'd love to know what is your term of comparison?
Because titles that sell 30+ mils ain't exactly the "standard". A FF never sold that much.
FFX is probably the most high selling title. If we sum up all the versions of all FFX for the countless formats it was release for across over 20 years, it reached ~20m
FFXV passed 10m (and was called a success)
FFXIII passed 11m (and was called a failure?)
FFXII with all the recent updates and zodiac stuff is shy of 9 millions.
FF7R sold ~7m (and was called a success)
Original FFVII with all its versions is at around 16m
The beloved FFIX is at ~9 mils.
I mean... Different times, different eras, different formats, different "size" of the Videogame world in their respective eras, sure! Hard to compare these numbers 1:1 because of all the huge difference, but the point is that FF never reached such huge numbers even in their golden era.
And interest for FF as a brand, if anything, is constantly going low through the years.
So yeah, expecting a FF to easily sell 15+ mil in the first year is just not realistic?
I'm saying this in general not for FF16. Despite the fact I liked it as a game even if clearly it wasn't an RPG, I wouldn't dare to call it a "success", it's quite obvious it wasn't.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/s/RaHUHowvkO
I think matusai should be the one to to lead ff17 he is entitled to have it, not only he worked in 11 for 20 years he was a director for crono trigger.
Not to mention he also was moved to 14 to fix the battle for arr!
I don’t understand this stupid mind set by yoshi that it has to be action, look at baldurs gate, ff needs to evolve in the turn based genre, don’t change what is already main to the franchise..
We dont want action rpg
I want to cast haste reflect double magic limit break and nuke stuff!!!!!!!
What makes dragon quest xi good its still a turn based game!!
Square needs to treat ff like dq!
Make a vagrant story 2
Make a new kingdom hearts
Dont add shit to finalfantasy
Satisfy your older fans if you want a new generation of fans, or else they will lose their 30 years of their fanbse, ff was a lifestyle to me do you guys dont remember waiting for a new console to imagine how a new ff will be like in that console?
The sales is bad for 2023-2024 standards alot of the fans are grown up too it should be much higher
https://www.vgchartz.com/game/226241/final-fantasy/
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