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

What caught me off guard about FF16 final mission is how similar it is Xenoblade chronicles 3. Same location (even name), your friends you've made helping you win, Zed and Ultima being very similar designed final villains (even sharing the same voice actor). That said, what Zed is is far more interesting than what Ultima is. That said, the boss fights of FF16 are really something special. Not just budget, but design. A blend of combat focused bosses (like Soulsborne), and event driven bosses (classic GOW).

NinjaDC

I’m almost certain you posted this on twitter too and I gave out to you for being an ass and you described it as “constructive criticism”.

Cormac

If you guys love the battle music by Soken you should definitely look up the sound track for Ffxiv. As someone that has played 14 for ten years now I expected nothing less from Soken. If you really want a feel of his music in 14 look up bgm videos on YouTube with the fights in the background.

Yuushin

15 came out almost a decade ago

Sam Brown

"very basic knowledge on gaming" You obviously don't listen to the show LOL, stand down

Sam Brown

Very disappointing Dustin in your Kingdom Hearts knowledge. You weren’t even sure if Donald cast that spell in 3 let alone not knowing he cast it on Lingering Will…this saddens me. 🥲

Robbie Agnew

I would be say Chris is the one that doesn’t know shit about anything lol. Dustin is best boy.

Zachary

Correction for the last several podcasts for Collin. Final fantasy 10 is a turn based game. You can leave and it will be waiting for you to take your turn. No active system. I know Collin barely played 10 but I’m so sick of hearing him say 3 is the only turn based ff.

Zachary

You're a nice guy

Matt Soucy

Dustin is the reason I can't be bothered as I used to listening to SS. He's the anime filler you watch waiting for good stuff to happen. He has very basic knowledge on anything gaming related, he's insecurity and introvertism is painful to watch and the show was simply better with Colin and Chris. Back to the glory days. But what can you expect from a guy with limited vocabulary, who starts each and every sentence saying either "I don't know" or "I'm trying to think."

Zibi Majewski

Hoeg is REALLY killing the vibe

Or have asked for questions before the spoilercast. And yeah I know Hoeg said he liked it, but it sure didn't seem like he did.

Angel DeJesus

Ya there was quite a bit of mistakes made in the spoilercast. In that case I Wish we heard from more voices in the spoilercast than hoeg because not only was he extremely negative on the game he was just blatantly wrong a few times.

Shawn

At the end I used Phoenix and Garuda. The third slot, and sorry I don't know the names, I used Shiva circle, Ramuhs heavy attack, and Bahamuts move with the four light balls.

Angel DeJesus

Titan and Bahamut were my favorites

Angel DeJesus

Come on. How do you not get it was Barnabus who sent Benidiktas head to Hugo? He was manipulating things at the behest of Ultima.

Angel DeJesus

The other hooded person,was mythos. Annabella did what she did cuz the love for Joshua ruled everything. Then Ultima had control over her third child and influenced her there.

Angel DeJesus

Yep agreed. I’m kind of bummed I’m not enjoying the game as others are. The the fact is I’m just not having fun playing it.

Michael Mashpotato

Kinda where I'm at too man. If you're gonna go full action game then I'm gonna be comparing you to the likes of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, and that's not a favorable comparison for FF16. Pacing is the biggest problem I have with this game.

Benito

Totally agree I was really looking forward to hearing Colin’s deep dive on this game and I feel like this might be the least I have heard him talk on a sacred product. Totally fine with Hoegs criticisms but he completely dominated that conversation. Round 2 with Dustin and Chris would be great.

HiggySmalls

I’m 50 hours into this game and I’ve never wanted a game to end so badly. I guess I am part of the very small minority who just isn’t enjoying this game. I feel this game loves to rob you of having fun. I love action games and I almost play them exclusively. I just find other games with the same kind of formulas to be better. Games like Ys 9, Tales of Arise, FF7 remake were absolute masterpieces IMO. Especially with combat. I guess I just expected more out of this one. The boss battles are definitely epic, but I agree with Chris when he said after fighting a giant boss and then having to go collect sand is whack. The combat is repetitive as well. Clive looks like the Crimson King (Adol). Imagine if Falcom had a budget like this? I’m glad everyone else is enjoying it though. But I have some major issues with this game. I’m looking forward to FF7 Rebirth because I find the FF7 remake to have the best combat I’ve ever enjoyed. Well… it’s back to boring side quests for me.

Michael Mashpotato

This is a star studded cast!!!

Justin

No, I wished they did though.

Michael Thew

Ya there’s a few spoilers in this one. Currently playing through the pixel remasters and they spoiled a few of the games. Oh well their usually pretty good about it what can ya do?

Shawn

Did they say who they all used as far as EIKONS?

Matt salcido

Colin W for bringing up Jote being goated

NotSkyWalker

GOTY

The Rose Experience

Will look forward to listening to this. I hope you’d take some questions though. I want to discuss Great Greagor’s Gash.

Rich Price

Yeah I agree. Also every time another mother Crystal heart was destroyed, a piece of Ultima was freed and he became stronger. At the start he was subtlety influencing the course of events, but by the end he’d full on posed Barnabas and was directly pulling the strings.

Rich Price

Oh they banged for sure

Rich Price

Awesome Final Fantasy 15 spoiler at 1:27 mins from Rick

Mason M

Love Gene's reference to Clive's Big Booby Body 😂 Hoeg also has a tremendous knack for pointing out plot holes nobody else would see.

Your Boi Nicky V

Dustin they weren’t drying their clothes, there were some much bigger (hey, whooaa) implications. The trophy after is titled “become one” it’s not super subtle. It’s possible they even imply Clive took Jill’s power by the act of clapping those cheeks, food for thought.

Maxwell Ford

To Hoeg’s point, I never got the impression that Jill was viewed by Clive as a sister. They were totally into each other the whole time. Vivian is the one chick I didn’t see as a waifu. 😅 I’m all about Jill and Benedikta. Love and lust. Completely disagree with Col on Control’s texts not being done right. They give you the option to read everything or not, and it’d be saved for you in the menu whenever you wanted. I gobbled all of that up every time. 1 of the best lores and setting in any game I’ve ever played.

NeO JD

Phoenix - Flames of Rebirth, Rising Flames Titan - Earthen Fury, Windup Odin - Gungnir, Heaven’s Cloud Mainly went for damage with some HP back and block at times.

NeO JD

What was everyone’s build? Mine was ifrit with wykes and rebirth / second playthrough judgement bolt. Garuda with diamond dust and aerial blast for stagger. Then Odin with gigaflare and of course dancing steel for Odins super. I tried a a bunch of combos but those seemed to work best for me. There was another poster who hopes Colin does another discussion with maybe Chris. Hopefully they do this and tell us their builds this time. At least it’s guaranteed that Colin will play it through the second time to get the platinum, so maybe it’ll happen!!

Michael Thew

I wish they would of talked about their setup, mine was ifrit with wykes and rebirth / second playthrough judgement bolt. Garuda with diamond dust and aerial blast for stagger. Then Odin with gigaflare and of course dancing steel for Odins super. Prolly going to post this again because I’m very interested in other builds

Michael Thew

What took away from the Titan fight for me was some segments felt a bit too repetitive. Like it didn’t demand my full attention at all times. Overall, I still liked it a lot. Odin was the only one that underwhelmed me.

Joseph Gedgaudas

Yeah. Those fights are amazing

Zeke the Plumber

Yeah after that and Bahamut fights, I was almost disappointed, almost lol, with the Odin and Ultima fight. Shit was something out of a DBZ episode and was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before

Michael Thew

I think the constant arguments against “people who are saying” that aren’t even in the room to discuss with is getting kinda old. I don’t care what some dolts online are saying; I care what the people on the show think. I wish Colin in particular would stop arguing against ghosts.

Zackery Parkerson

I’m with Hoeg and Dustin on the fate of a certain character all the way.

Zackery Parkerson

I gotta say that old southern man voice thing is getting kiiinda old.

Bogey Zero

They spoil it. Colin even says at the start he isn't into doing a non spoiler opening and tells everyone that may have not finished it that they might want to leave and come back down the line.

Piston Pants

I think you guys might have missed a point on Benedikta's head being sent to Kupka. It wasn't Cid and it wasn't Clive, it was Ultima. The whole game Ultima is manipulating the Eikons to get them to fight Clive so that Clive can absorb their power. Ultima / Barnabas sent that to him to provoke Kupka into going after Cid and Clive.

Jay

Great episode and discussion of the game from everyone. I gotta shoutout Hoeg’s input in particular, I found his contributions regarding overall the narrative and storytelling analysis were very insightful. I was thrown back to my high school days of teachers interpreting literary pieces like important novels. Hoeg is a wonderful individual in so many aspects, not just for obviously his professional expertise in legal matters. Please do forward this to him and I hope we keep getting more Hoeg appearances not just for legal matters but just in games’ discussions. Cheers all and thanks for the excellent work.

Manuel Nascimento

Gotta respectfully disagree with Dustin about the Titan fight. That was fucking awesome

Zeke the Plumber

I want to listen to this so badly but I am only at 48% complete and I am not going to Dagan-it.

Ansley Freeman

Regarding side-quest design, a big difference between compelling side quests in Cyberpunk/Witcher and boring side quests in FFVI is whether they follow an "and-then" structure (and then this happens, and then...) vs "therefore-but" (therefore this happens, but then something new happens, therefore...).

James McGivern

Felt like everytime Colin started to speak I would get super interested and then Hoeg would cut him off and change the subject to something barely related that he didn't like. I appreciate the criticism, but was really looking forward to hear Colin speak more about the game in a deep way and I feel like he barely got the chance to talk at all, especially anytime he tried to say something positive about the game. Wish he pushed back a bit more. Would be nice to have another discussion akin to The Last Of Us Part II, maybe with Matty and Chris if he finishes it.

badlybrave

I would say there is overwhelming evidence Clive survives if you read some of the analysis on it. I realized how great of a game this was when you 2 1/2 hours went by, and I felt like several things I wanted to hear about weren’t even mentioned. The Jill relationship wasn’t covered much, would be awesome to keep talking about this game in the coming months if and when possible. Rick was also fantastic, his analysis is top tier.

Tyler Kaminski

it’s all spoilers baby

Gene Park

I’m so glad Rick brought up the possibility that Clive survives in the end. I didn’t read the ending that way at all initially, but now I don’t think the hints can be ignored. Torgal wasn’t howling in mourning, he was howling to show Clive the way back home!

Shane Dohn

Big spoilers throughout. Just come back to be safe.

Joshua Hutchens

Does this review just spoil the game or can I listen then jump out when they are ready to spoil. I'm still playing the game and don't want to ruin it for myself. Thanks!

Kevin Padua

The analysis from you all was awesome. Great pod

FourEyes Malone

Probably would have been with Matty. He is more down on the game than anyone

Zeke the Plumber

This is one of the few games where I really noticed the lower resolution on Performance mode. It still looks good but it can get really fuzzy in Performance mode. That being said, 60 fps in combat is essential

Zeke the Plumber

I figured this would be a 3 plus hour conversation.

Jason Polite

Planning on beating it in the next couple of days so this is pretty good timing.

Eric

I finished my play through just in time! Can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts on this beauty.

Tyler R

Glad this is here. I'll finish the game tomorrow. Wish you had given a chance for questions to be submitted though

Angel DeJesus

The Battle Theme has been in my head since the game came out 🥲

joefray_

Yessir!

FourEyes Malone