I'm going to start off with my rating is low and honestly it should be lower and that's because there's plenty of things wrong with the game. Magic for example can only be charged up to the second tier spells nothing more. So that leaves me and a lot of other's wondering where the good third and fourth tier spells are hiding? In the ability page there is an ability called CHARGED SHOT and this is a must have if you want to go from first tier spells to second tier spells. The ability CHARGED SHOT has 2 ranks and that's "learned" and "mastered" so learning the ability allows you to to cast fira, thudara, blizzara, stonera, aerora, diara, and finally darkra. But you'd think that since "learning" the ability CHARGED SHOT allows for the use of second tier magic spells then "mastering" the ability CHARGED SHOT should allow for the use of third and fourth tier spells but it doesn't and in all actuality there's no way to charge up to the third or fourth tier spells. "Mastering" the ability CHARGED SHOT and then trying to figure out what "mastering" it even does was a tough one because there is literally almost no difference in the ability at all from just "learning" and "mastering" the ability. So here is what "mastering" the ability CHARGED SHOT does "and like I said it's barely even noticeable if ever was at all" but "mastering" it reduces the time it takes to charge your magic from tier 1 spell to the tier 2 stage of whatever spell you're using and that's like maybe 1 second shorter charge time of that.
There are plenty of other things that I could go on and on about with this game like how it's all stat based with no elemental strengths or weakness for example. "In all the other final fantasy games lightning is strong against water and fire is weak against water" but that's not the same case here in FF XVI. On Final Fantasy XVI the only elemental strengths in the game come during the times when you get to play as the flame eikon Ifrit and that's the only time when you get to use your fire magic to heal yourself during combat. There is no elemental weakness and here's another example of what I mean if the previous example was confusing but "when you use the magic spell blizzara on a fire type monster like "bomb" and the damage is 1575 but then you swap to a different eikons abilities to use fira which should heal the monster "bomb" but instead does 1575 damage the monster. This tells the gamer that it's all stat based damage and no elemental weakness nor strengths. So to me, a person who has played every Final Fantasy game ever made and loved them all with the exception of "Final Fantasy X-2 which I could not stand it because in my opinion they butchered it compared to the original" this to me isn't Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy games have always been amazing and really well polished where this one is nowhere near polished. But I gotta say Final Fantasy XVI has a really good story and graphics, but as for the gameplay it's really rusty and needs a lot more polishing for it to have that Final Fantasy feeling that everyone's knows and loves.
That's all I'm going to say about the game or I will keep typing for days as there's so much more to say. I do hope my review doesn't scare anyone from buying the game as it has a real good story and since it's a Final Fantasy game I'm sure it will get the polishing it needs to be a stupid awesome game.