Final Fantasy 16

I['ll get lucky here - I am out of town from this afternoon until Sunday but will get back Sunday and my wife is out of town for the week leading into 4th of July week so I'll have a whole week at least Then the weekend after that.

I also enjoyed FF15, but it's down with FF2 in terms of where I rank it for the series and I never played it a second time. The world is kind of cool and the brotherhood of the four characters worked well. The villain Ardyn is also probably the best FF villain since Kefka. Not even joking. He's almost like a Kefka homage at times while still being his own man. The graphics are extremely good. Really pushes the PS4 the same way FF13 pushed the PS3 and FF12 pushed the PS2.

All of that said, FF15's combat was doo-doo, the world felt unfinished (because it was), the story in the second half was wildly rushed ala Secret of Mana, and the villains were totally un-developed compared to the main one. I have no idea who the Emperor or his generals really were because they all appear out of nowhere and disappear out of nowhere. It's obvious Aranea and Lunafreya were supposed to be playable and was cut. Lunafreya and Noctis' original designs were much better than the release designs. The story made me care at first, then petered out quickly. The combat was literally "hold X" despite being purportedly action-based.

So yeah I liked playing 15 once but it wasn't what I'd consider great. I get a strong feeling from 16 that it's basically "15 except good" and follows a lot of the same story framework / battle style. Has so much in common with 15, just...refined, I guess? Feels like they sat down with clear goals and focus and got this done, as opposed to FF15 which was on and off of a drawing board for years getting revised and re-worked and cut and just generally coasted-through by the devs.

I'm getting my car back the day this comes out, with 2 weeks of work to catch up on. Outstanding. I'll try to get around to it next week. This weekend is gonna be torment.