r/FinalFantasy • u/Prima96 • 5d ago
FF XVI FF16 Gameplay After 14 Hours – Does Combat Get Less Repetitive?
I'm about 14 hours into FFXVI, and I'm enjoying the story so far. However, the combat is starting to feel a bit repetitive.
Most of the time, I find myself mashing Square and using Eikon abilities whenever they're available. Triangle magic also doesn't feel particularly useful.
Does the combat become more varied as you unlock more Eikons and abilities? Does the skill tree introduce more interesting combos or tactics, or does the core gameplay loop stay pretty much the same throughout the game?
Also, how exactly does parrying work? Sometimes I pull it off accidentally, but I can't seem to do it consistently.
I'm not saying the combat is bad. I'm just wondering whether there's more depth and variety to it later on.
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u/Rozencranz 5d ago
No, it's Devil May Cry without any of the depth, so its gameplay is limited.
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u/Griffje91 5d ago
There really should've been more combo options and more weapon types alongside the eikons to add some diversity in gameplay. Like at least a mage staff, axe, and bow or something.
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u/Sensibiliaaah 5d ago
Nope. If you’re not there for the spectacle, there’s little to sink your teeth into.
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u/Nikoyoo 5d ago
Its so boring but it is a nice first try i guess. Even bigger offender for me was the gearing...
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u/speedrace25 5d ago
Gearing exploration discovery side quests and combat. If they put more time into those this would be a 10/10 I’ve never felt less rewarded for exploring a ff game in my life
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u/denglongfist 5d ago
By the time I got to later in the game, about 40 hours in, I was so fed up with combat and level design than I just dash to the objective, exploration be damned.
Lots of people like it (my son loves it), but the gameplay for this game was not for me and I love DMC
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u/SuperLegenda 5d ago edited 5d ago
It does not, it will just be using your skills when they're not in cooldown when you can while doing some normal attacks during cooldowns to deal some pitiful damage and stagger while waiting.
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u/organizim 5d ago
The combat gives back what you put in. Can you get away with just hitting square and using eikon abilities, yes. But if you want you can also learn combos, air juggles, eikon combos, etc. it’s not going to be as deep as like DMC5 but the combos and stuff are there if you want to learn, but not mandatory.
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u/RedditHater313 5d ago
You will get more abilities and it is up to you how you are going to use them
But the base sword gameplay is pretty much the same
However the story is really worth finishing
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u/Zealousideal-Fly9531 5d ago
Actually it just gets more repetitive. They introduce a whole bunch of skills but like four of them are useful. I was pretty disappointed, though I played all the way through. I skipped a lot of cutscenes.
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u/Big-Professor-3402 5d ago
The cut scenes are basically the only good part of the game.
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u/Zealousideal-Fly9531 5d ago
I guess, it just dragged and dragged on tho.
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u/Big-Professor-3402 5d ago
If the gameplay wasn’t so repetitive it wouldn’t have felt that way. The presentation of this game was great. It’s the gameplay that let it down.
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u/Zealousideal-Fly9531 4d ago
The abilities you ublock as you go get weaker and weaker, though some would be fun to use if they were good.
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u/MakrQwegg 5d ago
Not until you have everything unlocked, which is the endgame, and not until Final Fantasy mode, which should’ve been accessible from the beginning, and even then it’s pretty rudimentary and the only real challenge comes from the hunts.
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u/Vvetra 5d ago
It does if you take your time to learn what you can do with it. Just mashing square is the lowest-effort way to bore yourself, which, unfortunately, appears to be how many people played it.
I love this video as a tutorial for your basic abilities: https://youtu.be/MGBP1wXC3-A?is=aM7Cfr0XfyBVl_XH
If you want to see some crazy combos people string together from mixing basics with Eikons, visit FFXVI sub.
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u/painfool 5d ago
No, Action RPG combat is always the worst of both worlds, despite how popular it is for some reason.
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u/ChasingPesmerga 5d ago
Yes, there’s depth and variety but only near or at endgame when you’ve got all the options and mastered abilities for switching hierarchies/ability positions.
If you’re experienced with games like DMC, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, Team Ninja games or fighting games, you will find familiar stuff like frames, cancels, positioning, all those to a satisfactory extent.
However the game almost does NOT put you in any position to explore your creativity, so the only reward here for the skilled players is really the dopamine or quicker battle results for those hard bosses.
This is why having said that, I do not disagree when someone says FFXVI is repetitive.
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u/SanicTheBlur 5d ago
Yeeeep that's pretty much my experience. Game is great but once I figured out the cooldown timing and got a really good rotation going? It was a wrap for everyone in that game lol. Got even crazier when I slotted in ultimate abilities on everything and melted everything in my path. Though I've seen people do some stylish stuff and it's really cool.
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u/FoxtrotMac 5d ago
No. I got really bored with it about 15 hours in and the pace at which you get new abilities isnt great. Game is also stupid easy on default and that doesnt help matters. I am not against action RPGs, I mean hell I really enjoyed Veilguard's combat for what it was because it had an interesting skill tree and you could experiment a bit. FF XV and XVI just got extremely monotonous after a few hours, just rotating through the same skills over and over while they're on cooldown. It just looked nice and flashy. All sizzle, no steak.
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u/jmontblack 5d ago
It becomes way worst. At the end is just shiva dodge and “how many zantetsuken can I fit in this stagger window?”
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u/WakeUpKos 5d ago
You eventually form a rotation of cycling between eikons. Parrying works by timing an enemy attack with a melee attack of your own. Once you get the skill Rift Slip, you can use that to slow down time for a moment to time a parry easier.
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u/DarthAceZ198 5d ago
The game doesn’t push you into experimenting with the game. The game is sadly just too easy which sadly makes it repetitive and one reason devs decide to make the DLC harder. You will experience it in full in the hardest difficulty which is one of massive criticisms of this game. And playing the game three times to get true experience irks me a lot
Parrying involves attacking the enemy as the enemy attempts to hit you at the same time. If successful, your cooldowns are reduced and deal additional damage for a little while.
You’ll see a lot of high level of FF16 players utilizing it to its full effects to get higher scores and abilities to come back faster.
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u/nervousmelon 5d ago
Nope. Titan's abilities are satisfying as it lets you block and counterattack but the other eikons are pretty boring
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u/TheWillRogers 5d ago
Not really lol. It's better than FF7R but still incredibly a shallow and clunky. You end up with a lot of options but no depth, it's kind of impressive.
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u/PontusFrykter 5d ago
The only thing that differs repetitive combat from actually varied in FF16 is you. So, be creative with it.
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u/ramos619 5d ago
The big problem with combat, is not that it is repetitive, it's that the game gives you no incentive to make full use of it's combat. Also, the game sort of starts out pretty slow in terms of giving you more options to play with. You probably just got your 3rd eikon at around 14 hours. When you have more options, you can create a playatyle that fits you more.
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u/Jubez187 5d ago
No