The game itself is fun, but the performance drops off a cliff out of nowhere. I guess i shouldn't be surprised since most ports that square puts on pc are generally abysmal. Frankly, whoever keeps greenlighting the releases with such awful performance issues needs to be fired. This isn't some small indi studio, they have the resources to ensure this runs smoothly. I'd refund if i could but the issues popped up long after the refund window passed. Guess i won't actually finish this unless they pull their heads out of the dirt and make it playable.

FInal Fantasy series have never let me down once. It's a franchise made with passion, love, respect to fans. Square Enix delivered it once more with an extremely high quality product named Final Fantasy XVI.

A year ago, I remember the director of this game said 'they want PC port of FF XVI being a no loading screen game. And it will take time to do it.' So as they say, they really did it after a year or slightly more. The port is delivered as promised. Not only this, it's excellently optimized, no crashing, no stutter moments, meanwhile with stunning visuals, smooth combat, more importantly, all of these can achieve in 4K HDR with a not so advanced rig like mine. So, I don't see why such a good port doesn't deserve my hard earn money? Full price? Not a problem, you guys deserve the hard work.

Despite I haven't finished the game because I'd like to do everything in one go, I take my pace slowly. However, I just have the confidence to say, this game won't let me down, judging by the journey I've been so far, I am pretty sure of it even though the ending hasn't come yet. It's one of the reasons why I write this review before even finishing it, don't see the reason it would go wrong in the end. Btw, I hardly write a review making conclusions before I finish a game.

For the game content part, I do appreciate that FF XVI's combat is 'devil may cry' style, not the 'players' souls may cry' style, probably because the combat director who newly joined this project is from Capcom, he had worked that company for 20 years. I don't know about you, but I am pretty sick of most of ARPG games are soul-like nowadays, it was supposed to be a small branch of action games family, not all of it. The trend has gone for a off road track for already too long. FF XVI is like a fresh wind in this genre. I do enjoy doing a set of combos for higher damage meanwhile don't need to worry about being hit once or twice by bosses that I would have to die. Quite the opposite you know, I never like watching bosses enjoying themselves in battles, while I get the chance to hit them once or twice every 10 seconds or more. I am the protagonist, not the bosses. Another reason I never really liked soul games. Thank god, I have FF XVI on my side.

One more plus, every time I play a FF game with full English environment, I can learn one thing or two from both speaking and writings. It does help me with the improvements of my level of English in a certain degree which I also appreciated, it couldn't be more beneficial. As a full time gamer, I just don't have much time to spare for improving a language which isn't my mother tongue, but it doesn't mean I gonna give up striving for better. It's a window for world communication after all.

Last but not least to say, a short sentence: JRPG or ARPG fan, doesn't matter; for all the good part this game does offer, it's not the gem you should miss out in your library, really.

The good:

• I haven't had this much fun with a FF game since FFX.
  
• Great story, great art, and really well done voice acting.
  
• Story is gritty and dark. It's not a 'Tales' game.
  
• The music was decent, but could have been better in towns and overworld.
  
• The combat was a lot of fun and unlocked in an easy to understand way.
  
• It took me a little under 50h to beat on normal mode, really great ending. Felt like I got my money's worth.

The meh:

• I had a consistent hang in a single cutscene that I had to skip to be able to continue the game.
  
• The side quests were a little on the bland side
  
• Combat focused difficulty was still a bit too easy for me until the last ~5 hours of the game.
  I haven't tried the NG difficulty yet so I don't know if it's more challenging.
  
• It's also got Denuvo and I have a blind hatred for middleware that treats me like a pirate.