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Sega Vocal Entertainment: Astal, Clockwork Knight, Dragon Force, NiGHTS into Dreams and Victory Goal '96

SegaCon Vol. 1: Ashura, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Space Harrier, Space Harrier 3D, Phantasy Star, Hoshi wo Sagasite..., Aa Harimanada, Vermillion, The Super Shinobi II, Shadow Dancer, Sorcerian, Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III, Phantasy Star IV, Switch, Virtua Racing Deluxe, OutRun, OutRunners, After Burner, Indy 500, SDI, Enduro Racer, Quartet, Galaxy Force, Gain Ground, Samba de Amigo, Super Hang-On, Sky Target, Sega Strike Fighter, Sega Rally 2, Turbo OutRun, Dynamite Dux, Daytona USA, Cyber Troopers Virtual-On, Virtua Fighter 2, Power Drift, Fantasy Zone and Pengo

Sonic Team Unplugged: Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Burning Rangers, Sonic Heroes, Space Channel 5 Part 2, Phantasy Star Online and NiGHTS into Dreams

Final Fantasy 16 is a game I do like, but it has some very baffling and major problems in all aspects.

The gameplay is fun, I like combining abilities and the Eikons are all fun to use, The problem is the fact that there is only 1 combo, so the combat gets very repetitive very fast. Even one more combo string could have made things more stimulating. The big controversy is the lack of a proper party member system and yeah the game kinda needed it, especially since they had a good cast of characters, Torgal, Jill, Gav, Cid, Joshua, Dion, Byron and Mid is a solid roster of characters but they had to essentially force them to not be party members, Torgal, Joshua and Jill are good companions but they are basically non entities outside of the main story cutscenes, and in combat they just throw themselves at enemies until you win. I don't want to constantly compare to 7R but I do like how they handled a party system in gameplay. The Eikon battles were ****ing rad though, filled an Asura's Wrath shaped hole in my heart.

Oh yeah the story, pretty generic all in all, yet again it is a racism metaphor using fantasy elements, this one makes a tiny bit more sense than say robots or predator animals, but it still lands wrong, and isn't a very good metaphor. The tone is my biggest clashing point with the story, it needs to unclench, it takes itself too seriously, there is nothing wrong with taking yourself seriously, but it seemed like it was trying too hard to be a dark fantasy, as seen by its most overused event of "Burning down a village and killing all the innocents" it does that like 6 different times (At least it knows that it is not too good for moogles or chocobos) The other major problem is the pacing, there are far too many side quests and they are placed at the most inconvenient times and times when they break the pace and momentum entirely if you decide to do them.

The characters are a high point though, Clive is one of my favorite FF Protagonists IMO, I like his interactions with the rest of the cast and Ben Starr gives a fantastic performance. All the performances are really good Ralph Ineson as Cid was inspired. Gav, Torgal and Byron are probably my next favorite characters, Gav and Byron were always entertaining and Torgal is a cute dog. I also like how you get to really know the personality of the rest of the hideaway. Unfortunately this is where we come to how badly they dropped the ball with Jill, She has one great moment and then after that they basically just forget she existed, and then took her powers away, after she jobbed multiple times and then she basically has no story presence outside of her relationship with Clive, it's very annoying and frustrating considering how she is pretty much the only major good guy woman character who can fight in the game. I also wish we got more interactions with Clive and Joshua. The villains were fine too, some of them were clearly more developed than others and Ultima is kinda lame.

Presentation, no real complaints actually it looks really pretty, the character models are flawless. The music is great too, although I do prefer Soken's work in 14. I wish the color correction wasn't so brown though.

Despite all my ******** I did say I like this game and I do, because those high points are really damn high. One of those high points is the demo, those first 2 hours of the game is a strong ass start and I do wish it could have kept that momentum for the whole game but alas.

Also despite everything the ending, made me cry

I think there is a really fantastic Final Fantasy somewhere with the foundations here.