As someone who has played every game in the series, the trend has been to make them less like RPGs and more like action games. Gameplay wise, this was far and away the best action-y one and had a decent enough story. Anything compared to 15 would have looked like a masterpiece, lol.
I vastly prefer the more traditional RPGs overall though. 16 was a pleasant surprise since I came in with a bit of a bias against the shift towards action games, and really only gave it a shot because the director has earned a lot of credit with his handling of 14 (the MMO)