Although I've played several Final Fantasy games over the past couple of decades, Final Fantasy XVI is the first one I've ever actually beaten. There is a damn good reason for that. In fact, I'm kind of itching to jump right back into NG+ but there are a lot of other games to play and I think I'll wait to do that some other time. It is rare that a single player game holds my attention for 10 hours, let alone over 60 like FFXVI has done, and that fact alone is a testament to the game.

GRAPHICS:
In regular gameplay, you won't anything here that looks much better than Witcher 3. It doesn't use ray-tracing for its lighting, for better or for worse, but the lighting on display here is gorgeous. The textures all seem to be quite low quality, as even playing on maximum texture settings I could often see how blurry they were on characters and the environment. Once you start getting into the battle sequences, especially the boss battles, the graphics ramp up to 11 with a brilliant showcase of particles that is downright stunning. It's the stuff of a video compression algorithm's nightmares so you'll never be able to see it for what it truly is unless you play the game yourself, but it is a visual delight. The art style is great as well, grounded in reality but still just stylized enough so as to not be distracting. There was some ghosting with the DLSS but it was only noticeable a few times throughout my playthrough for extremely short animations like putting a sword back in its sheath quickly in a close-up cutscene.

AUDIO:
The music is incredible and actually very catchy. Since starting the game back in September at launch, I've had its soundtrack randomly pop into my head and get stuck there, which is a pretty powerful thing for an instrumental composition to do. The sound effects are all perfect for what is on screen at any given moment, although there is a nitpick I have with the weird squeaking of Clive's boots(?) that happens when he's walking around. It gets a little annoying and makes me feel like Mr. Krabs in that Squeaky Boots SpongeBob episode. On a brighter note, the voice acting is absolutely impeccable. I found no flaws in it whatsoever, and every single voice actor delivered extremely believable performances. Even the random side quest NPCs were well-voiced, but the main cast of characters were really sold to me and I grew quite fond of them all, the voice acting being a large part of that.

STORY:
The story's pacing could have definitely used some work. The main problem is that oftentimes, the periods where there is downtime in the main story and when a bunch of side quests become available doesn't line up. There is a certain amount of a video game-y aspect to how it is handled and while that can be endearing, it can also sometimes feel like you're being ripped away from an important moment if you're someone who likes to get quests done as soon as possible. You definitely should, too, since you'll be getting good stuff from them to help you along the main story. These side quests are full of interesting characters and lore, and that made them a lot easier to stomach for me in terms of how they are placed within the game's overall narrative. The main story is fantastic, with themes of the indomitable human spirit, overcoming guilt and shame, and favoring liberty and freedom over anything else while acknowledging that those ideals are at their best when everyone has a common goal and will work together to achieve it. All of the characters, including the more prominent side quest characters, really took me by surprise with how much I ended up liking them by the end of the game. There's not really a single one of them I can say I'm not a fan of, and it would be hard for me to pick a favorite. They have great synergy and the way the writers handled their relationships was very natural. Without going into spoilers, I'm not too sure of how I feel about the ending, but I realize what they were going for and I can't be too upset about it. For all the rough edges and flaws the game has, I believe the story and characters really make up for a lot of it and they're why I think this game rates so favorably for me.

GAMEPLAY:
You can definitely tell that this was directly influenced by, if not largely copied from, Devil May Cry. It is distinct enough to say it is its own thing though, with less of a focus on flashy combos and more on timing. Not just timing when to dodge and when to parry, but there is also strategy in deciding when to use potions, limit break, and each of your abilities to be the most efficient with your monster slaying. The downside to that is unfortunately that once you have nailed down the exact flow chart for taking down enemies, there isn't much more depth to the combat system and no reason to ever switch up that strategy. A lot of RPG designs are strangely missing, such as elements and status effects. All you get is raw combat here, and while that combat is really fun and good enough to last the entirety of the game, I can't help but wish that those classic designs were around. It would have helped make the combat much more interesting and gave it way more strategy. The massive Eikon fights you have are a lot less interesting in terms of how you play them, but they are quite the spectacle so it's really fun to experience. As far as the quests go, they all come down to a mixture of talking to people, collecting things, and killing monsters. The story is enough to get you invested, but there is little in the way of actual gameplay variety there like you'd have with older Final Fantasy titles with their minigames and such. It's not like you're going to be fighting one moment, then racing around on a motorcycle, then playing a rhythm game, then doing some more fighting, then trying to beat someone in a push up contest, etc. Overall, the gameplay is engaging through its sheer spectacle, but it does lack variety and depth.

PERFORMANCE:
This is the biggest sore spot of it all. If it weren't for how poorly the game performs, I would be much more confident giving the game a 9.5/10. I don't understand exactly what is going on here either, because the game will stutter and hitch all over the place when you're in towns but as soon as you get into fights, even the crazy boss battles with tons of stuff happening all the time, the game runs flawlessly. Maybe the developers only had a limited time to optimize things and so they put it all into the actual gameplay, which is honestly commendable if that's the case. The poor performance definitely doesn't detract from that experience thankfully, but it is super distracting when you're running around and seeing the game chugging along. This will happen seemingly on any graphics settings as well, and I've got what I'd think is a decent computer. Part of me wonders if there wasn't too much further optimization for the PC port just because it was all done on the PS5 at 30 FPS. I'm sure if you locked the game to that on PC it would have much smoother performance overall. It's just that, for how the game looks and its lack of any super intensive graphics settings like ray tracing, you're really not getting the performance profile you'd think you would.

In summary, although the game certainly has flaws and does suffer from performance issues as well as a bit of pacing and gameplay problems, the peaks that Final Fantasy XVI reaches are more than worthy enough to shoot it into being one of my all-time favorites. It's not an experience I think I'll ever forget and I'm extremely glad I was able to play it. I'm sure the soundtrack is something I'm going to go back to every now and then and I'll hold the characters and their stories close to my heart. If you're more a fan of the traditional gameplay of the Final Fantasy games of old, then you might not like this one too much. If you like action games, and/or are really into those classic RPG stories, you'll have an amazing time like I did.