>>713029508>>713029707There are moments in the game where you literally watch a 45 minute cutscene, regain control, walk five steps forward, and get thrust into another 45 minute cutscene. The moviegame bloat is unreal, complete with slow forced walk and talk segments, squeezing past narrow corridors, and 'hold the triggers to do thing' QTEs. There are over 20 HOURS of cutscenes in this game. And that's not including the stilted canned emote sidequest cutscenes you'll spend another 20 hours watching.
Sidequests are ripped straight out of FFXIV. They exist just to fill time and for nothing else. Listen to someone spend 10 minutes telling you how and why they need an object on the other side of the map. Walk over and pick it up. Go back. Bam, more crafting materials you can't use. Thrilling.
There is no exploration. There are four giant open world areas with nothing in them but MMO sidequests, and there are hallway dungeons. The hallway dungeons are also ripped straight from FFXIV with the same two trash packs -> mini boss -> two trash packs -> mini boss -> two trash packs -> final boss structure.
Eikon fights have spectacle, but that's all they have. Segments like the Phoenix fight at the start, or the Garuda fighting game segment, or the Phoenix vs Bahamut segment are all on rails and impossible to fail. They're cutscenes.
The only time the game is remotely challenging are in the chronostones (I think that's what they were called) where you have to use one specific eikon and fulfill challenges to keep your time up. The rest of the game you can sleep through. FF Mode isn't any better because you have all eikons out the gate and can just blast everything even more easily than in normal mode.