Following in the footsteps of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, FFXVI takes the departure from turn-based combat one step further by attempting to become a full-blown action RPG. Does it succeed? Yes and no.
To be clear, the “no” portion of this review will be very brief and might not even concern you at all. It didn’t bother me in the slightest but in the interest of clarity, it has to be mentioned.
But before we get to that, some background.
Final Fantasy XVI is set in the realm of Valisthea, a realm beset by war, political in-fighting and ridiculously monstrous creatures known as Eikons. It’s basically Game of Thrones but a bit less interesting and a lot more Japanese.
You take on the role of Clive Rosfield, an absolute unit of a man who somehow isn’t dragged down by his first name. You are the first-born son of the House of Rosfield, a fact that doesn’t seem to have granted you any privileges as you didn’t awaken to the power of The Phoenix, one of the legendary Eikons mentioned above. Instead, this burden falls to your younger brother Joshua. After some betrayals and big explosions (I’ll not spoil anything), Clive is alone, his family dead and nowhere to go.
From here you find a band of outlaws, gain untold power, and become the Chosen One. All very classic Final Fantasy tropes but FFXVI does a good job of presenting likeable characters and giving depth and weight to the, frankly ludicrous, narrative.
With that said and done, the first thing anyone should notice when playing FFXVI is the grand scale of its set pieces. Giant monsters duking it out in the skies above Valisthea never gets boring, nor does it become played out. Each titanic clash is a feast for the eyes. FFXVI feels like the first truly next-gen title to me, although I can’t say I’ve played everything. The particle physics are spectacular and somehow despite the sheer volume of them on screen in certain fights, it never seems too noisy or complicated. The only negative I have in terms of graphics is that the frame rate for far-away creatures drops significantly, something all too common in modern-day video games.
Combat feels fine, the powers you are granted throughout the story are fun to experiment with but the sheer volume of fights against waves of similar enemies does get boring at times. They’ll freshen things up now and then with a mini-boss type enemy with a stagger gauge but even these get tiresome after a while. Bosses are genuinely tricky at times though and present a decent challenge although the game does come equipped with items that can make your life so much easier if you’re just here for the story.
The big debate is the move away from any time of turn-based mechanics to a more God of War-like system. Whilst long-time FF fans won’t be hugely on board here, I think the move makes sense in order to attract more players, whether or not it’s worked is up to Square Enix’s profit margins to tell us.
The sound design is superb, as you’d expect from a Final Fantasy game, Masayoshi Soken’s score is magnificent and grand in all the right places whilst being sombre and tender when the story calls for it. The voice cast absolutely nail it with Ben Starr (Clive), Ralph Ineson (Cid), and Katie Clarkson-Hill (Mid) being personal highlights. Additionally, I am obliged to mention, this game has at least two Geordie characters, so it’s an instant 10/10.
As for the RPG of it all. There are some elements that work and some that feel a tad pointless. There is a crafting system, which is fine but necessary as all you do is, between missions, head to the blacksmith, craft the best gear you can, and move on. There’s no real consideration for farming materials or anything to create the sword you like most. Also, there are only three gear slots anyway so why bother?
There’s a skill tree of sorts where you can upgrade your Eikon abilities to do more damage or last longer. Once again, it was something I interacted with for as little time as possible, sometimes even forgetting it was there altogether.
Finally, there are a ton of side quests that lead nowhere, very modern RPG. Some of the stories are good but some are just fetch quests with no real weight to them.
Final Fantasy XVI is an absolute triumph. One of the best modern-day action RPGs out there if you can stand the Final Fantasy-ness of it. For newcomers to the franchise, it’s best to start either here or with Final Fantasy VII Remake then go back if you like what you see. Fans of traditional games may not like the departure from the traditional style but there’s still a lot here to like in my opinion. My final (fantasy) comment is that Torgal is the best boy, and you can pet him as often as you like!
P.S. Sorry for the unusual quantity of screenshots, I just couldn’t leave any out, this game is gorgeous.
