This thread can be used to freely discuss the game once you've finished it. You can feel free to post unmarked spoilers about ANYTHING in the game in this thread.

...So.

Hmm. I'm still digesting it a little, the credits are rolling. EDIT: Oh, credits just ended and there's a post-credits scene. Let's see what happens... eh, okay. Nothing to add there. Not gonna bother with New Game + either.

I don't really like that our character dies in the end. I kind of felt it might happen but I definitely didn't want it to happen. Not because I was deeply connected to the character or anything, but because I feel like he and Jill deserved to get their overseas journey. It would be cool if after these credits, Clive shows up on a boat with one rock hand, but otherwise okay.

The ending fight wasn't tough but I'm generally of the opinion that ending fights never really should be terribly difficult, just epic. And it did decently on that. It's still not even close to my favourite fight in the game, which for me goes to the Garuda battle, followed closely by Titan and Bahamut battles, and then the Svargos hunt because the scale made it look great.

By the end of the game it felt far more like a Final Fantasy game than it did in the first 30 minutes, so I'm happy for that. But it was still missing some seriously massive components for me, and I hope the next Final Fantasy won't be moving even further into the Soulslike genre. I want my cactuars, my victory fanfare, my full chocobo theme, stuff like that for me is just core to it all. Didn't even have a tonberry or a mandragora, now that I think about it. At least they managed to fit in one moogle, and a touch of lore about it.

I'm very much annoyed that they made eight magicks and then completely wrote off water/Leviathan. Like, why? At least explain it. It was never explained at all. Sigh. When Ultima was rolling off all the magicks, he neglected water entirely too, which made no sense because he didn't absorb the magick from Clive, he had them from the get-go. I was half wondering if Ultima was going to go "Water!" and Clive was going to go "wait no" or something. Speaking of amusing moments, Ultima's "Oh." to Bahamut firing around the side to him as he died was great. The lack of any notable attention to Dion's death was a bit of a shame but I get the reasoning (needing to keep things moving).

I like that we end with the baby and the howling, but I still would 100% prefer to end with Clive turning up after all. I like my Final Fantasy games to have genuinely happy endings, not this bittersweet trout. Oh well, as I say, the credits are still rolling, so who knows how I'll feel about it tomorrow. But generally, Final Fantasy as a series hasn't been the best at endings anyway.

As for where this ranks in the series, I'd say the overarching plot was good, the ending let it down, it was the least "Final Fantasy" game in the series... best cinematics in the series, tied only with Final Fantasy XIV's highest detail cinematics. I'd say it still beats the first three games as an overall game. I'm not sure I'd put it above much of the mid to late games in the series right now just because I'm annoyed about the ending. I suppose it might have a good duel in my brain with FFXV for right of placement, because it has some things better, some things worse. But I think FFXV still beats it because the overall gameplay was far more diverse than just "fight stuff". The sidequests were way too numerous at the very end for my liking, too. I never like it, even in FFXIV, when five or more quests pop up immediately after you finish a MSQ. I liked it when there were 2-5 around the world, but I think there were something like 10-20 (it felt like it, anyway) just before Origin.

If they had put in some good writing regarding Leviathan (or just added him in), had Clive turn up at the last moment for feel-good factor, and added a fishing game or something... could be right up there. It did better with the potential in many areas than FFXIII did with it's quite frankly huge potential, but there are still so many areas in which FFXVI just dropped the ball.

The scene before we go to Origin was nicely done.

Best character: Mid and Benedikta, tied. Gav was excellent too. Byron along with basically every major character within the Hideaway were great too.
Best fight: Benedikta. Titan and Bahamut after that.
Best plot point: I'm not sure I can think of many "oh trout" moments that happened? Us being Ifrit was a surprise to me, idk if people had that known before the game was released but I avoided the demo and news on the series for a long time.
Best music: For the moment it was played: Titan fight, easily. For overall, songs I would listen to a lot because I like the music? None spring to mind. They were all solid though.
Best area: I loved the oasis area. The water was so pretty. None of the areas gave me prominent 'fantasy' vibes though, everything was very much based on reality, blight aside.
Best town: New Hideaway, easily. I'm not a huge fan of generic medieval towns, and none of them really gave me much in terms of atmosphere because the tone was dictated so heavily by current events rather than current location.
Best chocobo: Ambrosia obviously, although the colouring on the comet addict was the best aesthetically.
Best boi: Torgul