This will be the easiest review in the world for me for a few reasons. Firstly, Square Enix already hosted a round of “My First 6 hours with Final Fantasy XVI” articles. Secondly, it recently dropped a multi-hour demo that frothed you all up in the mouth further.
But, mostly, it’s because I’m the guy who’s played the crotch out of Final Fantasy XVI — sunk the full 57 hours needed to 100% it. I know every inch of the realm of Valisthea — all side quests smashed, every optional uber-beast hunted, everything. You’d be hard-pressed to find a critic more qualified to say if this entry elevates the series to greater heights or is a complete phoenix downer.
Though Final Fantasy XVI might have the outward appearance of a sword ‘n’ sorcery throwback to Final Fantasies I through VI, it ain’t your father’s Final Fantasy. There’s been a seismic shift towards the ‘action’ half of the term ‘action-RPG here’. Characters, themes and overall world tone presented are bleaker than the Blu-ray sales of Game of Thrones Season 8.
Final Fantasy XVI
That reference is relevant because Final Fantasy XVI shamelessly cribs off HBO’s poorly dismounted series. Forget your royal party posse and the car cruisin’ bromancing of Final Fantasy XV. This dark fantasy tale is, more often than not, a solo trek (if you discount the presence of a non-vocal [dire]wolf). As you demo players already know, your personal fortunes will change early in Final Fantasy XVI. By the time controls are handed to you fully, expect to be a royal turned indentured soldier turned outlaw known by various names.
More often than not, you’re Clive. Other times, you’re Wyvern. Sadly, at no point does a Professor Frink character ever show up and call you Clyvern. Monikers aside, Clive Rosfield — protector of his heir apparent younger brother, Joshua — is a likeable and well-rounded chap. He has a hint of Geralt gruffness and doesn’t get stuck in detached emo-mode, despite undergoing serious trials and tribulations. That being said, all his scenes are regularly stolen by Cid “Lorath from Diablo IV” Telamon. Dude has max levelled Charisma, and the mentor/mentee bond that forms between the two is delightful.
That friendship is a notable high point in a surprisingly complex yarn stepped in vengeance, love, duty, and the shifting political machinations of five vastly different kingdoms at war. The latter gets complicated quickly, thanks to Eikons (read: Summons), Dominants (demigod champions for each faction who harness the aforementioned), and Bearers (brutally enslaved, low-level magic users). Fortunately, a stupidly comprehensive codex exists to explain it all.
Pay close attention to the proceedings, and what’s woven will deliver you the most adult and surprising Final Fantasy narrative since… well, ever. Mind you, if I’m being completely honest, I probably got the most satisfaction out of playing “Spot The GoT reference”. Shades of G.R.R. Martin are everywhere. Insanely huge, magic-built edifices with complementary undead hordes: check. Uber bitch mother-figure out to Cersei her children into power and eliminate opposition: check. A multi-king brouhaha with backstabbing and a depressingly topical world-ending environmental disaster on the way: check.
Basically, I was stab-pointing my finger at the TV like no DiCapro’s business. Oh, and on that topic — all of the above gets sprinkled with way more f-bombs than is probably needed. Plus, there’s a notable uptick in gore and nudity, though they’re both tastefully obfuscated in cutscenes. For the record: I love all of that stuff. Some of you returning fans might feel blindsided by it, though.
On the topic of swording people out, Final Fantasy has ceased flirting with real-time action and made a full commitment in Final Fantasy XVI. Personally, I selected and proceeded to love the Action Focused mode which requires quick-thinking and even sharper reflexes. That said, you should know that avenues do exist to sort of ‘training wheel’ the challenge of it. For example, you can block up inventory slots (that might ordinarily house powerful stat boosts items) for ‘Timely’ ring items. They more or less automate complex combo attack strings into a single ‘win’ button. Alternatively, they can automate your evasive moves, enable last-chance auto-healing, and more.
Ignore those leg-ups, and it’s not like you’re being thrown into the deep end of action gaming. Action-Focused feels like My First Devil May Cry for the first five hours or so. During this very slow burn introduction to ultra-violence, you’ll get to grips with the three-button basics of attacking, dodging, parrying, perfect dodging, and Will Breaking your enemies through constant abuse.
The average fight is always a bit of a mash-a-thon against foes who are too healthy. In the opening phase of the assault, the idea is to study their wind-up animations and the number of hits in their limited special attack combos. It’s also wise to do some mob-control prioritisation of hanger-on units when you can (e.g. spellcasters need to get got quick). From there on out, it’s a game of super-attack cooldown management. Out of what will eventually become six options, Clive can house three elemental combat styles to quick-cycle between. (And no, you can’t rethink those selections in battle, because reasons.) Each element can be tailored with two (of four available) “Eikons” to be used when their cooldown meter permits. You’ll hear a ready ping, or see them light up on your HUD, and then a shoulder toggle will unleash them.
Cue: hellacious amounts of damage and a small supernova of VFX. On rare occasions, you might also get to trigger the odd Limit Break deployment (L3+R3 to tankily do super-duper things). From there, it’s just rinse and repeat until the enemy carks it.
The controlled madness/mashiness of the combat steadily grows in complexity, I dug it by the midpoint of the game onwards. Clive handles well, and for me to call his assaults “showy” is an understatement on par with saying “Final Fantasy’s character designers like multiple buckles and single-eye injuries”. Indeed, half the difficulty of any engagement is discerning exactly WTF is going on behind all of the explosions, cyclones, blizzards, and numbers being shotgunned onto the screen.
Weird admission: by the halfway point of the game, I was fighting heavily by feel and sound, instead of sight. Finding myself so blindly in tune with Clive’s abilities, and my enemy’s capabilities, felt… great. Mind you, if you crave a visual onslaught that rivals dropping acid and going to Sydney’s Vivid festival, go try a Final Fantasy XVI boss battle. Square Enix goes full “last ten minutes of a Power Rangers episode” here. Clive transforms into a Balrog on the reg and will go the tonk with anybody and anything. Sometimes in space. Sometimes against something ten times his size. Sometimes against somebody roughly the same size, but wielding a sword the size of a skyscraper.
Square tries to include a secondary combat system during these moments, but they all kinda devolve into a mini-game, sprinkled with the odd quick-time event or Panzer Dragoon shooty-shoot. Not gonna lie, it’s massively impressive stuff in the early hours, but by the third act the gargantuan scale and spectacle were going way too big, far too often for me. I honestly never thought I could get Giant Kaiju Explosion fatigue. But it definitely set in during the start of the third act. Fortunately, it was at that time that I gave myself a breather by mopping up 12 odd hours of menial task sidequests for some salt-of-the-earth NPCs. By the time I was done being a Door Dasher for low-stakes pay and consequences, the climactic final act felt suitably epic again.
That being said, on the other end of the wow-factor meter is Final Fantasy XVI frame rate (on PS5 at least). As always, I chose the Frame Rate visual option and was mighty underwhelmed with the very uneven results. Despite the odd hitch, you can expect combat, boss fights and in-engine story moments to be as smooth as you please. However, trudge anywhere in the overworld, and Final Fantasy XVI will lose frames like a virus-ridden bowling auto-scorer. It’s such a shame, too. The realm of Valisthea isn’t a fully open world, but it certainly opens up wide in places and delivers mind-blowing vistas. This game is undoubtedly gorgeous, but chug-jogging through it just made me sad. Worse, was the fact that Square Enix had the temerity to say no day-one patch was needed to fix it (they’ve since changed tact here).
Speaking of cons, it also has to be said that there’s not a lot going on in the RPG half of the formula. Loot chasing and obsessive gear swapping are barely a thing, thanks to a paltry three blocks to hold slot-less items, plus there are no cosmetic changes to Clive (beyond his sword). Likewise, there’s no real party dynamic to speak of — allies are autonomous and cannot be tinkered with. Now that we’re being handed a dark-fantasy actioner that’s inching into The Witcher 3’s territory, I think it’s fair to wonder why we can’t have our cake and eat it too in terms of combo-tastic combat, darker tone, and sufficiently deep RPG elements. The answer is most likely: baby steps. Some future Final Fantasy XVII may offer the full package.
All that said, I could barely put my controller down during my 57 hours with Final Fantasy XVI. It represents a huge milestone for this franchise, thanks to its bold shift to more adult story-telling (and language), addictive real-time combat, and gargantuan VFX spectacles that are best in class. Marry all that with what the series is already known for — epic orchestral OSTs and phenomenal world-building — and Final Fantasy XVI is nothing short of a must-own.
Final Fantasy XVI was reviewed on PS5 using code provided by Square Enix.
