What can I say. This is the first FF I have played since 7,8,9. College and post college life, time was not made to keep up with this series.
I think FF16 has enough interesting gameplay and monster design that, mechanically it's a great time. Perhaps not as robust and complicated as a God of War, Devil May Cry, or Bayonetta, but enough is there and fights can get dicey enough that you can feel awesome and not just bored when duking it out.
The music is excellent. Sure, you have to be onboard for full orchestration and opera epicness that the FF series tends to bring. But the music during combat and the Eikon fights are swell.
The Eikon fight, I mean what a great idea. Instead of summoning thing, you play as the summon. Excellent! These are great, but there are few and never the ability to whip them out outside of the main story beats.
For me though, where things bring this game down is, the side content, the story, and the characters. At the end of the day, for me, I never really felt attached to the world of Valisethia. Are some of the side characters enjoyable and you're curious about where things go? Yah! Is there even an awesome side quest of the dude who's devoted his whole life and creation of a village to the murder of a local lord? Yah that was a shocker, stuff away in a side quest. But so many side quests are ... walk around and press X for some whatever content. I ended up grabbing as many quests as were available and them optimizing (thread jumping) which quest I was engaging with to just finish them off as fast a possible. I did every side quest. And honestly .. probably could have cut 1/3 or more of them. In a world of magic, and gods, and Eikons, and the fantasy is limited in scope such that there isn't wonder to this world. Just ... it sucks, but we might as well all not die so we can at least live in this sucky realistic world.
The story is ... fine but lack the wonder and mystery you usually get with a FF. There are some great beats. The Eikon fights, the whole sequence with Barnabus (Odin). But there is also so much middling down time, and characters that interaction but feel stiff and for me I just could not feel connection to. You can see in some crystal ball, that this game was supposed to be about the 2 brothers, being torn apart, reunited, and ... (spoilers). But it just feels so stiff & formal to me. I just never fell in love or felt the emotional beats were deserved. The VO is great to good. But there is the occasional, ah you recorded lines that you could assemble together later moments, that take me out of the fantasy. Especially in a world with the Last of Us, BG3, and so many games going full mo-cap these days.
The story is straight forward. You know what the objective is early on ... and you do that thing. Big bad is introduced .... what are his plans? Does it matter, gotta go beat the big bad. Perhaps I'm being unfair and a reductionist, but the mystery of the plot just didn't exist, which means I needed character development and story. And ya know, some of that is there, and some of it is good. But it's all so weighed down by bad pacing and meandering side content.
The hunts were some of my favorite. Go fight this tough as monster, get cool battle music, get a reward. Great.
At the end of the day, should you play FF16? Yah, if you like Final Fantasies, play this game. If you're looking for an exceptional action-adventure RPG ... there is enough here to tickle that fancy, but don't count this one as your final ;).