My original enthusiasm towards FFXVI began a downward spiral after defeating Bahamut. Originally, I thought the monotonous gameplay loop is the culprit – after all, the main quests are battle arenas one after another, and the side quests are always fetch-this-fetch-that, or go-to-A-then-B. But after putting some thought into the reason, I realized that there is a bigger design oversight at play: the main villain Ultima cast a spell which covered up the sky. Afterwards, the sky is always cloudy and the whole game is covered by a purple filter (like the green filter in Fallout 3) which completely destroyed all the beautiful scenery in the game. To make matters worse, wherever you go the background music is always a variant of depressive tracks.
In the respect of narrative, this makes sense - because the world is turning to shit. But in my opinion, this move should have been pushed to the very final moment of the game. At its current placement in the story, it put the players into an extremely long hollowing experience, further enhancing how monotonous of the gameplay loop. Every non-major cutscene involves characters standing face-to-face against each other, repeating the same animations during dialogues. Many of these characters are also deadpan serious, with the exception of one or two. Monotonous gameplay loop, repeating animations, serious characters, and the f**king purple filter and depressing music turned the final 1/3 of FFXVI into a painful long stretch.
In videogames, sky is a crucial element to create the proper vibe. In Red Dead Redemption 2, slowly strolling through the wilderness on horseback, look up – there is the starry sky; In Xenoblade Chronicles X, there are multiple moons in the sky. Their sizes tell you that they are very close to Planet Mira – an alien scenery that you cannot find on Earth. Back to FFXVI, the purple sky represents danger and apocalypse. Yes, the world is at the brink of destruction. “Hero, quick! Save the world!”, the sky was literally screaming. But the game proceeded to throw you 5 boring fetch quests.
I found myself dumbfounded by this dissonance. World-changing event is always a cool thing in videogames because many often this represents a result of evolving narrative or a reflection of players’ agency. But this change in FFXVI actually made the game worse – the atmosphere is so depressing and gloomy that I have difficulty putting in over 2 hours into the game per session. Bundled this with other gameplay flaws and foes, FFXVI is unsatisfying and even uncomfortable to play. What a shame, that is, because the combat was fun and many side quests had great writing. All the good perks were overshadowed by the sky.
Maybe Ultima actually won, because he is destroying my enjoyment from the game.
