Final Fantasy XVI Review Discussion and Spoilercast | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 315 

I’m pretty sure Barnabas was the one sent Benedikta’s head to Hugo in order to manipulate him. I never thought Cid or Clive sent the head but maybe I’m wrong.

Dlc idea. Uncle Byron is Leviathans Dominant. And when asked why he's never brought it up before, he just shrugs and says 'nobody ever asked'

Not a single mention of Gav. Shoutout to my boy Gav.

1:54:07 I'm sure someone mentioned this, but Cid nor Clive did that. It was Barnabas/Slepnir/Waloed who did that bit at the behest of Ultima to my understanding.

The fill in the blank style questions need to go.

While I really wished Matty could've been on this, I loved Hoeg's and Gene's contributions to the conversation. Loved that they had history with the series, like Colin.

What? Titan was the best Eikon fight in the game, and the music was incredible! Some of the best in the game!

I love Hoeg and appreciate his input on the game industry and game mechanics at large. I have noticed though, that it seems when it comes to his criticisms of story, I feel as though he might just be missing the point to some of these call outs. In this review and God of War Ragnarok, it seems a lot of his problems with mishaps or plot holes come from him not connecting dots that are in fact set up in the story around it. Either way love the review and glad to see he's doing well and able to come back on and play games.

I was surprised that nobody on here saw the crystals as a analogy for fossil fuels. Also, wasn't the "hooded man" sometimes Ultima getting into the mind of Clive to manipulate him? The hood didn't always look like Joshua's.

This was the Hoeg and Gene show apparently

Take a shot every time Hoeg interrupts someone you’ll be wasted pretty quick.

Ahh bummed matty couldn't make it

I think Ultima would've worked better if he was handled like he was with Olivier. Possessing people around Rulers and Eikons like Sleipnir, or Benedikta's Attendant. Then being revealed towards the end. Also I think Joshua was revived and Clive died but I saw an explanation that the ending is opened to two possibilities; Logos v. Mythos. Joshua is the Logos ending where logically he's the writer that carries Moss' chornicles around, and Clive likely healed him with Raise that Ultima wanted Clive's body for. Clive is the Mythos or myth option where he had many names and there are implications he could've survived but there are no facts on his side to guarantee that option.

Welcome to the Hoeg hates FF16 spoilercast where he derails every conversation and interrupts everyone saying something positive about the game to say how much he didn't like anything.

Shocked by Hoeg's criticisms, considering he gave it a 9.5/10 in his review

Overall: first time I’m saying this but I’m actually kinda disappointed by this “Spoilercast.” I feel like they didn’t get into the minutiae of the actual “story” enough. Would have liked to see a “beat by beat” discussion of the story where each member got to give their thoughts on what happened. I also would have liked to hear Colin defend his opinion on the game more considering how glowingly he talks about it. Side note: Neither Cid nor Clive sent Benedikta’s head to Kupka. That’s so out of alignment with their characters.. I think we’re supposed to realize it was Barnabas or his crony that did it. Overall, I’d give FF16 a solid 8/10. Really enjoyed the characters/cut-scenes, definitely missed the RPG-ness that FF is known for, as a lover of action games I thought the combat was passable but not GREAT, and I could have done with 1/3 of the side-quests.

Jesus Hoeg I love ya and super happy to see you doing well but my god I don’t see how you can say you loved this game but you didn’t mention almost anything positive about it. Something you gotta work on my friend when doing reviews is balance. Also you got a few things wrong about ultima but like you said “no one can change your mind about ultima” so why bother I guess. Other than that you all did a great review. It’s funny it’s 2 1/2 hours but it felt like you guys only scratched the surface. We demand a part 2!

Not only was it hugely inspired by Game of Thrones, but also Attack on Titan. It is wild. Loved the game, but hated the ending.

I like Hoeg but man was he interrupting a lot. Let others speak their minds Hoeg!

I saw the Active Time Lore/Tomes as a very sophisticated evolution of Jiminy's Journal from the Kingdom Hearts games. I can see KH4 will take a lot from this game in these aspects. So many KH games worth of convoluted lore would greatly benefit from a character like Vivian.

Great show! Still working through my NG+ playthrough, but, criticisms aside, I've thoroughly enjoyed this game.

where's Matty?! I wanted the back and forth between him and colin!

Took me 88 hours to Plat. Overall I really enjoyed the game. I do agree with the people who aren’t happy about the side quests. There are a handful of meaningful quests near the end, but the vast majority of the rest are nothingburgers On my NG+ Final Fantasy run I figured out a great ability combo (centered around Dancing Steel and Lightning Rod) that melted most bosses

This game dragged and dragged and never ended. It had many epic, fun boss fights, but mostly everything in between was tedious and uninteresting. I don’t care if the game slows down for character development, make it engaging. That’s your job.

Interestingly enough, the one thing that caught my attention with FF 16 was how similar the story felt to Tales of Arise.

OMG finally listening to this. Hoeg you and I saw this game exactly the same. Amazing. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words!

Perfect timing, just beat this last night! Tip for others: skip the side quests that drag it down. I'd probably give this a 'good' or a 7/10. What a gorgeous game with a cool story and fun combat.

This game is essentially Ff14 with a different combat system. They used a lot of the spells, abilities and phases from the Ff14 raid bosses, UI is the same, the way they do MSQ in 14 and mmo tier side quests that you can and should ignore. The +sign quests to distinguish the things you should pay attention to. The story is essentially a heavensward remix with ascian types kind of shoehorned in. Dungeons are just a corridor with encounter arenas. Gear and stats are inconsequential. The map and zone system are identical. This is not to say I didn't like it, just very obvious to anyone who's played Ff14 through at least heavensward

donald saying “i am become death” while casting Zeta-Flare is FUCKING HYSTERICAL!! 😂😂😂

Playing FF for the first time ever, with XVI being my introduction is fantastic. That intro battle with its homage to LOTR The Two Towers immediately hooked me.

Finally got around to listening to this. This was great. Great discussion guys!

This made me realize Donald Duck is the strongest mage in final fantasy universe. Mind blowing 🎉

I miss the old school IGN style spoilercasts. These podcasts are more nitpicking than anything. If you guys truly loved the game then talk about it! This is 95% review discussion and 5% spoilercast.

Did everyone play on Performance mode? I appreciated the sharp visuals of Quality mode but once I tried Performance in combat I couldn’t go back to 30fps. The visuals do get pretty fuzzy in performance mode tho

I definitely didn’t know Clive was Iffrit as it wasn’t made obvious in the prologue, so not sure what you guys are talking about. Clive’s voice when the phoenix was being killed was a little strange

I agree about Ultima . Every time he spoke I couldn't give two shits.

Elemental magic damage would have been great in this game

I really liked the story, but as a RPG fan, it left a lot to be desired. The sidequest were boring (I'm used to fetch quest btw) and I don't like the last part of the game because of the color palette, it started with such vibrant environments that the change es kind of jarring

What an amazing discussion! I really need to pay for your patreon. Would love to see this type of content sooner. Good job overall.

Also Clive didn’t know about the undying, only the king knew of them

Hearing Hoeg complain the entire time made this SC pretty annoying and tiresome, not gonna lie.

I’m surprised you guys were so negative on the game. I loved it, and Ultima is awesome

thx collin for that heads up on cyberpunk spoilers

I was expecting this game to be a lot more open like dragons dogma. There was a lot of stop and go and a lot of those annoying visual markers telling you where to go that made me feel like I was on rails.

I honestly think the game was disappointing. And I also think in 5-10 years, when the graphics aren’t that impressive anymore, nobody will go back to this game like people go back to FF6/7/9/10. We’ll all just think “Oh right, that happened…”. Since this is a review discussion, reply to me if you want to know why.

Very good convo between all of you guys. I’m almost certain that DLC they do is going to be about Leviathan. Will be very cool to see done sometime soon.

I was so disappointed that there wasn't an airship.

If got about half way through and got bored. The boss battles were really long and drawn out. More of a button masher than anything 😐

In regards to Clive not knowing he was Ifrit: I don't know if this has been brought up yet but I think the reason Clive and Joshua don't realize Clive was Ifrit is because they primed in a very emotional estate. They both just had their whole families murdered in front of them and lost complete control. Graruda, Titan and Bahamat all did this and lost complete control. Now some how Dion realized he did the destruction of his city, but he's been knowing about his powers of Bahamut for awhile. Garuda and Titan both die afterwards so they don't have the chance to understand what chaos they just caused. Just my thoughts. Loving the podcast, thank you for everything!

It’s always Joshua as the hooded figure, the Phoenix is forever

Even thought I much prefer FFVII Remakes combat, I still loved FFXVI. It's easily my GOTY so far. My only complaints was lack of actual RPG elements and no playable party and it was kinda easy. I loved the story, the characters was fantastic, all of them was great but Dion was the standout character for me. His entire arc was so good. I also liked the world, writing and the music was good but not Soken's best. That still belongs to FFXIV

If you do the blacksmiths side quest you see that thr village couldn't survive without crystals wnd magic because they needed it to light firr to make swords so thats how the technology advancement to make fire eithout magic comes into play in a good way of showing the affects on society from destroying the crystals

I like Rick a lot but he’s gotta learn not to interrupt as much. Otherwise love these discussions

Man I love 15 so much I always stand by it and say it’s underrated. It’s kinda shitty Gene just outright spoiled the ending.

Was a little surprised, no mention of the performance? It's quite sluggish at times outside of combat. And was a little surprised Colin hadn't explored the combat much, with lots of trophies tied to the Eikons. Just trying out the first 3 is kind of missing a bunch of the gameplay imo. Also, similar to Colin in missing out the game, Dustin hadn't done much of the side questing and almost no hunts in the game judging by the trophy list.

FF 16 is one of my favorite games all time

Thank you Dustin 🙏🏼

The iron kingdom was literally one dungeon, I felt cheated

Bro , Titan's fight was fucking epic. None of the other fights came close to matching the epicness or scale or music or anything 😂

Tales of vesperia also did the eco shit with blastia

The soundtrack is so good!!! Im going to wait for Starfield to come out to make my final decision, but as of right now, soundtrack of the year for me.

SPOILERS! 1. Clive clearly used the power of the Phoenix on Joshua before sacrificing himself. 2. Clive’s survival is left purposefully ambiguous. After washing ashore, it looks like he uses the Phoenix on himself. It may have worked a little, but fades out and his hand turns to stone. 3. I thought it was clear that the head was not sent by Cid, and that Joshuas mom’s actions were clearly orchestrated by Ultima/Waloed. 4. It was stated somewhere that Joshua thought that if Ifrit and Pheonix were united it would be a bad thing. He later understood this wasn’t true. That is why he tracked Clive but didn’t reveal himself. 5. The Undying were never revealed to Clive because it was unnecessary. Lord Rosfield and Joshua would have been the only Rosarians that would have need to know about them.

Just started watching, would you guys consider adding timestamps

Boy theres some strange takes in this...

Have a fantastic wedding day Colin. Happy days ❤️

When will colin man up and talk about game pass games not selling ?! I'm looking forward to it.

While I have a lot of issues with the gameplay the story was top notch. I love the ending, the entire game was building to Clive dying, I'm so glad they followed through with that

Well i havent finished the game yet. So ill listen for a little till spoilers start then fome back later lol

The side quests build into something amazing, you missed out if you didn’t do them

I finished this game right before Spiderman 2 went live tonight and I honestly can't think of a single other game ending I despise more. Made me wish I could just go back before I spent 70 hours on it and stop myself from ever buying it, which is wild to consider because the game has some of the most fun, jaw-dropping sequences I've ever experienced in any game, chief among them being Bahamut. The more I think about it, the more I dislike it, and that's the worst thing I can really say about anything I experience. I resent the fact that so many fun combat mechanics and so many all-time great boss fights are stuck in the shell of what is, for me, maybe the most awkward, stitled, tryhard, and overall worst-written story I've ever played through in a game. I'm so over this obsession with character deaths and these desperate "please take me seriously, I'm a big boy now" tragic endings and writing that feels ironically immature. People have this knee-jerk tendency to go "well happy endings are just clichéd, not everything needs to be happy" and I can't figure out what alternate dimension these people are from, because the only cliche and trope in 99% of "serious" media these days is just misery-p0rn aimed at edgelords. Meanwhile, some of the most iconic, meaningful, and mature stories of all time, which stick with people for years and years, are ones with happy endings, such as movies like Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo and Return of the King, and games like God of War: Ragnarok. There's no teenager-esque sense of desperation in those stories, and instead you feel like they're being steered by the wise hand of an incredibly mature person that understands life fully and is at peace with it. Looking back at FF16 my eyes are rolling back into my head thinking about how high-school-teenager-writing-his-first-film-screenplay the whole thing really is. I'd hinge some hope on the DLC/expansions rectifying the ending, but I know better than to expect a redress, most likely what'll happen is going to be similar to the extra pages that were released after the ending to attack on titan, and it'll just make things worse.

It’s such a long game, I feel like you all forgot a lot. Joshua didn’t tell Clive because he believed that ultima needed them together

Hoeg is a professional pessimist, enough with him on spoiler casts please, respectfully.

Finished it. Horrible story, mediocre open-world mechanics, boring combat, bad Performance mode. 8/10 at best.

My first Final Fantasy game. Great story! Boss battles are epic and spectacular. Great vocal performance. Music is generally outstanding, but can come across as a bit schizophrenic when you go from exploring, to combat to exploring to combat. Combat can be a bit button mashy. Side quest dumps suck! Too long. I was skipping dialogue for side quests in the final third, which I've never done before. Overall, really enjoyed it. Blockbuster experience.

Hoeg's analysis of everything is spot on! So many flaws that could've been resolved, but still doesn't take away from the game's overall greateness. Jill is underutilized and there's a severe lack of Shiva for sure.

Loved the game but was kinda bummed that the type of magic you use doesn't really seem to matter at all

Are we allowed to speak freely here? Rick was extremely nitpicky, wtf.

Missed opportunity..how could you not ask everyone what their favorite eikon power is? Everyone has one. Mine has to be gouge. It’s the one I keep thinking about when I think of playing the game when I’m not playing

I loved the game but my issues with it was it was too ez and that ending sucks

A true FF VI remake would have me both very excited and terrified… those are my fuzzy childhood memories you’re messing with. But after 7 remake let’s do it.

I think it was a 9/10 the story didnt end up as good as I wanted but really liked the characters and the Bahamut boss battle was probably one of the greatest of all time. It went from godzillas duking it out, to panzer dragoon up towards the sky, to zone of enders in space - INSANE!

I thought the quests were pretty good for world building and characters but they just had garage rewards.

I really enjoyed XVI. It felt like a full fledged cohesive experience that didn't have significant development issues like the last few. The combat, music, characters, and story were engaging. I have issues with how they handled itemization and treasure chests (bat fangs and 3 gil wtf) but it was an experience I will not forget. I hope they do go multi-platform with both Xbox and PC in the future releases. Just eliminate the narrative from fanboys and grow the brand already.

This game had such high highs but also such low lows

It’s my game of the year unless Spiderman steals the show

Been waiting months for this one lol

Mid is so annoying, don't even at me

Such a good game. Instant classic for me

The game is really mediocre, I really wanted to love it and I was really hyped for it too. But the game is such a let down in so many ways. The level design is awful, exploration is pointless, you keep picking up 16gil, 8gil type of loot. Why even have it on the map. Killing hunt mobs only give you materials for the hilariously barebones crafting system. There’s no interesting loot from killing these hunts at all. No fire sword from killing the dragon hunt or maybe even a dragoon spear from killing the dragoon hunt mob. Just something besides crafting mats. The part where you confront the final boss is so anti climatic. There is barely any build up. You just go there and meet him. No final level dungeon or map to fight through or any build up. Compare it to even XV, you will have to get through a monster ridden insomnia and some additional bosses before the final encounter. The gear is incredibly boring too. 10% increased damage to this ability or 5% increased damage to another ability. The genji gloves that you get at the end is a joke. 5% increase dmg. All the major cities that you see in the trailer and not one you’re able to freely explore and traverse. They look amazing in the trailers/cutscenes but all you can really do is look at them from afar. The primal fights are all spectacle and barely any substance. It’s too simplistic. The gameplay loop in the boss fight is so predictable and basic. Too many QTEs too. Felt like we were in the PS3 era sometimes when games started implementing QTEs. Every time you level up, you see this list of stats that you gain. What is even the point. The stats are meaningless, you can’t actually increase specific ones and tailor your character around a specific stat. It’s just there. It really feels like the game peaked at bahamut and then they had to conserve their budget. Anything after bahamut felt rushed and not fully realized. The Odin encounter was also quite anti climatic, didn’t help that the lead up to Odin was just incredibly lazy level design with the fallen enemies on elevators. Also I wish there is more eikon battles between the other nations. Felt like we just got a handful of cutscenes. There are some positives about the game. Such as the world of valisthea. The voice acting, the active time lore system. The mature themes of the game. The cutscenes are great and the characters are interesting and the soundtrack is really good. But overall the game is very average. I hope that moving forward Square does not entrust the IP to CBU3 again. They’re great at making MMOS and they should stick to that. They had the canvas of a single player final fantasy but designed the maps, gear and quest system like a goddamn MMO. Invisible walls here, invisible walls there, can’t even swim and jumping is pointless half the time. What a shame.

Clive definitely died. And Joshua definitely survived. What was the point of Clive casting a healing spell on Joshua and then showing the result? His curse is healed and he is on the mend. The question is how he got out of there. My suspicion is Dion also survived and got him out of there before origin exploded.

Absolutely loved this game. Really fell in love with the world, the characters, the gameplay, the music, and the story. The boss fights were so beautiful and fun and made me audibly scream from joy. Can’t remember the last time a game did that for me. The side quests, while seemingly pointless at times, all helped to build the world. Definitely my GOTY and among my top 5 Final Fantasy games.

Clive definitely lived.

Spoiler casts have so much potential, fuck the fill in the blank questions. I like the free flow ramble but seperate by topic story, gameplay, and other intangibles. Discuss favorite moments and show them on screen

The combat sucked for me very basic one button game I would have liked a better system combos more depth like dmc and character control for variation sake the only thing that pushed me was the story and characters the moment to moment for me was extremely boring. Bad side quests except the ones that are related with Jill it was beautiful and lovely everything else sucked I get going simple for the casuals but for me as a gamer who plays everything give me more depth and let the casual player one button play it allow everything meaning difficulty and other choices for the player to play the way he wants but don't forget the core gamer !

FF16 is still my GOTY. Well see what Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 can do to compete otherwise it's an easy pick for me.

Hoeg was spot on in his narrative assessment.

Hoeg is giving me a stroke every time he interrupts people

Hoeg critics are insanely professional and deep, given he is a lawyer that doesn't have the time to invest in video games like the rest. He could easily be a recurring guest for this spoiler casts.

Bohammet is my favorite religious figure after Mohammed. Very fun conversation.

Game was too long and the boring parts were way too boring... Looking forward to the dlc and hoping they fix other things with the combat too.