Blockbuster JRPGs like Final Fantasy 16 are known for their devotion to spectacle, but I must ask – exactly when do we hit the point of diminishing returns? I think FFXVI might have passed that threshold, as it's not uncommon for even a minor melee with a few orcs to become an impenetrable haze of particle effects, projectiles, auras, explosions, emanations, radiations, radiances, and, look, I don't mean to sound like a confused grandma peering affrontedly through her inch-thick spectacles, but I can't tell what the fuck is happening in half of these fights, damn it!
This isn't a matter of slowed reactions or confusing camera angles. No, I mean that I literally can't see the fight happening at all. Even the standard powers unlocked through the story generate such enormous clouds of fizzing magical excess that Clive and whatever frightened Chocobo he's going Super Saiyan on are completely concealed; like they're in one of those big all-encompassing dust clouds that Scooby-Doo characters love to fight in. Reflexes and reaction times don't mean anything when you can't even see anyone involved, and there's no skill level that'll let you peer through a dozen layers of crackling energy to the fight that, presumably, is happening somewhere in the middle of it all. Clearly – or rather, unclearly – this is a problem.
