In my mind, I’ve always had a sort of bias that the quality of single-player Final Fantasies was on the decline ever since the launch of FINAL FANTASY X. Of course, I’ve never played these games but from just reading up on consensus from others over the years I came to that conclusion. Suffice it to say, however, this game makes me throw that bias entirely out of the ballpark. Creative Business Unit 3 hit not just a home run, but a grand slam with this game.
To start things off, to whoever says this isn’t Final Fantasy, go fuck yourself. Seriously. Maybe actually play the game before coming up with such a stupid claim. With the trailers for this game purposefully only showing perhaps the first 10 hours, on top of previous developer interviews with producer Yoshi-P, people thought that this game will be extremely different from the rest of the series. While there is some merit to that, Final Fantasy has always innovated in its rights. Lo and behold, this game also innovates a lot.
I, in good faith, however, cannot call this game a JRPG, much like the majority of Final Fantasy games before it; rather I’d call this a character action-adventure game. The combat system has evolved into something more reminiscent of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, while the story’s more dark and mature themes are like those of Game of Thrones. Normally, Final Fantasy is a lot more light-hearted in nature than all of these 3 series, yet this game still acts more like a love letter to previous entries to this series if I’ve ever seen one.
Namely, this game does a marvelous job of blending in a cinematic narrative with entrancing gameplay. Final Fantasy has always done this as a whole, but with this game being a PlayStation 5 exclusive these elements now get the perfect time to shine with the power of next-gen hardware. It is made abundantly clear in the Cinematic Dodges, Cinematic Strikes, and Cinematic Clashes that come up throughout various important fights throughout the game. With them, the player can see just how stunning everything is in this game by just looking at it. Also, as the game progresses through its story, the game also manages to almost flawlessly go from a gritty, dark, mature story to one full of hope that is reminiscent of previous entries in the Final Fantasy series. It manages to do this without being jarring at all, in fact, it does it entirely organically through the progression of world-building sidequests and character interactions.
Final Fantasy has also been renowned for its amazing musical scores and characters. Soken set the studio on fire with this soundtrack with seemingly flawless transitions, blending in the new songs with renditions of classic Final Fantasy jingles. During cutscenes with characters and other places with music playing, you can hear renditions of the Final Fantasy prelude or main theme from all the way back in 1987 when FINAL FANTASY first launched on the Famicom.
On top of that, the player can individually see the struggles of every single character, including the evil ones. The game starts off with Clive Rosfield losing everything he once knew in his life as royalty and becoming a fierce, rageful empirical warrior, to becoming a beacon of hope for others to build a better future for themselves even if it means throwing away the comfort of today. His character progression through the likes of his interactions with NPCs, his family, Gav, Torgal, Jill, Cid (who, by the way, is the best Cid I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching develop), and much more only makes Clive’s sad journey in the dark world of Valisthea into being a tragic hero all the more satisfying.
Even the smallest references to previous entries in the Final Fantasy series can be found within this game. Did you know Square released a CGI movie in 2001 called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? The average fan would probably not know, since it was a major box office flop back in the day. Hell, I didn’t know, since I wasn’t even born at the time. Yet, there is a boss fight in this game that utilizes a move called “Spirits Within”. Hunts are also in this game, similar to those of FINAL FANTASY XIV. That’s fitting, of course, since both XIV and XVI are made by the same people, but my point with this is that there are references to even the most minute things in the Final Fantasy lore that this game has to offer.
With all these elements, this game is probably the biggest love letter to the Final Fantasy series I’ve ever seen. This game is probably the most “Final Fantasy” ever. I can’t stress enough how much I really dislike the notion that people are truly out there saying this game isn’t. People need to get a brain for once. Jesus.
One final thing I’d also like to touch on is this game’s emphasis on world-building. Sidequests are there to tell you mini-stories about the characters around you and their struggles with their lives in this fantasy world. They can range from just simply killing monsters in order to save the village, to watching people come to terms with their losses and learning how others around them truly affect their lives. You just don’t get these stories through the main quest of the game. I tried my best with my run of this game to do every single one of these and a solid chunk of them managed to stick permanently with me. During the main story cutscenes, holding down the trackpad on the controller pulls up a menu for Active Time Lore, in which you can read more about the setting, story beats, and characters pertinent to the point in the plot you’re in. Finally, in Clive’s home base known as The Hideaway, there are 2 NPCs that help with this element too: Vivian and Harpocrates. When speaking to Vivian, the player can read up on events pertaining to the current point in the plot that Clive is in. When speaking to Harpocrates, Clive will report his journeys to him, and from there the player can read up on every element of the game up until that point, including characters, enemies, settings, and previous plot elements. If the player utilizes all of these elements in their entirety, there’s almost zero reason why the player can’t miss out on everything Valisthea and its inhabitant have to offer.
Whatever goes up, however, must also come down. Such is Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which is applicable to everything in this world including this game. Therefore, this game isn’t short of its notable flaws.
The combat system of this game does away with MP, and now magical affinity is tied to an Eikon you can shift to at any given moment in combat by a quick press of the L2 button. Your magic spell can be performed by quick presses of the Triangle button on your controller, or by holding it and then releasing it to charge a more powerful magic spell. My issue with this is that the element of your magic spell does not matter at all; regardless of your Eikon’s element no enemy ever has an elemental weakness like previous Final Fantasy entries. I can mostly excuse this, however, since the combat system is still probably the most expansive out of the entirety of the series so far allowing for freedom to create your own setups and combinations to absolutely destroy anything that comes your way. I do wish that magic had more of a say-so, though, as it would allow for even more freedom in an already free combat system.
Speaking of Eikons, in combat they have abilities that can be performed based on cooldowns. You can collect AP throughout the game, just like the rest of the Final Fantasy series, that you can use on a skill tree to upgrade and master these skills. Not only is AP hard to come by even with certain AP boosting accessories, but there is also zero reason to master most of the abilities in the skill tree. The reward for mastering a skill is usually that in combat, you can link that skill to a different Eikon, meaning you will have 2 separate cooldowns for the same command. However, there isn’t much incentive to do that, as every Eikon has their own set of skills that are useful for their own ways. Some Eikons’ skills I used for whittling down an enemy’s stagger bar, while the others I used were strictly for the offensive. I really could not afford to let go of one skill in place for 2 of the same skill.
Torgal, Clive’s pet dog, also has some influence in combat. Pressing left on the D-Pad, the player can quickly shift between a menu for Torgal’s commands or a menu full of consumables one can use. Torgal gets 3 commands, just like Clive gets 3 consumables in combat, mapped to the other buttons on the D-Pad. While they do have their uses, I did find myself kind of ignoring Torgal and letting him do his own thing after some time since he is also AI-controlled otherwise. He’s too much of an inconvenience at times to fully play around with him. I’d much rather just play around with Clive’s abilities instead.
Of course, like any JRPG Clive must upgrade his weapons, armor, and accessories over time. Clive can craft and refine equipment, but I wish this system was way more expansive. It was super simple for even a monkey to understand this system, but in the end, it just boiled down to “big number go up get item”. You could also buy some of the necessary ingredients for a new weapon, but the items in the overworld generally suffice since the only items there are items that help with item crafting. There wasn’t a reason to actually spend time on an item crafting station, just go there, craft your new sword, and get out.
Moving away from combat, I mentioned earlier how sidequests were great for world-building. I also mentioned earlier that this game was made by Creative Business Unit 3, the same people who made the immensely popular MMORPG FINAL FANTASY XIV. All of the sidequests in this game made fetch quests from XIV look like heaven. Unfortunately, too, this style of fetch quest also bleeds into the main quest very often. It doesn’t help that in towns and other big named locations Clive moves very slowly due to a severe lack of a sprint button. Even in the giant zones too, Clive takes a while to start sprinting through the maps. Later on through a very specific sidequest, Clive gets access to a Chocobo which speeds things up significantly, but only in the giant zones then it’s back to slowly creeping through towns.
Finally, while the characters are great, the one character I wish had more development was Jill. She’s also a huge driving factor in Clive’s story. She’s there to bring the best out of Clive; his emotional support, and for that I love her a lot. I just wish that there was more to Jill’s story. She gets some elements of development around halfway through the story but after that, it kind of just stops with her. She’s an amazing character, don’t get it twisted, I just really wish there was more of her throughout the game.
Overall, this seems to be a return to form for the Final Fantasy series. This is a huge reminder that even after 36 years, a whole half a lifetime, there’s a reason why Final Fantasy still holds up as a series. 4.5/5 for me, and is very easily my contender for Game of The Year. Let’s just hope Geoff Keighley also agrees. :P
“And thus did our journey end…"
EDIT: Brought down to 3/5. See comments.
To start things off, to whoever says this isn’t Final Fantasy, go fuck yourself. Seriously. Maybe actually play the game before coming up with such a stupid claim. With the trailers for this game purposefully only showing perhaps the first 10 hours, on top of previous developer interviews with producer Yoshi-P, people thought that this game will be extremely different from the rest of the series. While there is some merit to that, Final Fantasy has always innovated in its rights. Lo and behold, this game also innovates a lot.
I, in good faith, however, cannot call this game a JRPG, much like the majority of Final Fantasy games before it; rather I’d call this a character action-adventure game. The combat system has evolved into something more reminiscent of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, while the story’s more dark and mature themes are like those of Game of Thrones. Normally, Final Fantasy is a lot more light-hearted in nature than all of these 3 series, yet this game still acts more like a love letter to previous entries to this series if I’ve ever seen one.
Namely, this game does a marvelous job of blending in a cinematic narrative with entrancing gameplay. Final Fantasy has always done this as a whole, but with this game being a PlayStation 5 exclusive these elements now get the perfect time to shine with the power of next-gen hardware. It is made abundantly clear in the Cinematic Dodges, Cinematic Strikes, and Cinematic Clashes that come up throughout various important fights throughout the game. With them, the player can see just how stunning everything is in this game by just looking at it. Also, as the game progresses through its story, the game also manages to almost flawlessly go from a gritty, dark, mature story to one full of hope that is reminiscent of previous entries in the Final Fantasy series. It manages to do this without being jarring at all, in fact, it does it entirely organically through the progression of world-building sidequests and character interactions.
Final Fantasy has also been renowned for its amazing musical scores and characters. Soken set the studio on fire with this soundtrack with seemingly flawless transitions, blending in the new songs with renditions of classic Final Fantasy jingles. During cutscenes with characters and other places with music playing, you can hear renditions of the Final Fantasy prelude or main theme from all the way back in 1987 when FINAL FANTASY first launched on the Famicom.
On top of that, the player can individually see the struggles of every single character, including the evil ones. The game starts off with Clive Rosfield losing everything he once knew in his life as royalty and becoming a fierce, rageful empirical warrior, to becoming a beacon of hope for others to build a better future for themselves even if it means throwing away the comfort of today. His character progression through the likes of his interactions with NPCs, his family, Gav, Torgal, Jill, Cid (who, by the way, is the best Cid I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching develop), and much more only makes Clive’s sad journey in the dark world of Valisthea into being a tragic hero all the more satisfying.
Even the smallest references to previous entries in the Final Fantasy series can be found within this game. Did you know Square released a CGI movie in 2001 called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? The average fan would probably not know, since it was a major box office flop back in the day. Hell, I didn’t know, since I wasn’t even born at the time. Yet, there is a boss fight in this game that utilizes a move called “Spirits Within”. Hunts are also in this game, similar to those of FINAL FANTASY XIV. That’s fitting, of course, since both XIV and XVI are made by the same people, but my point with this is that there are references to even the most minute things in the Final Fantasy lore that this game has to offer.
With all these elements, this game is probably the biggest love letter to the Final Fantasy series I’ve ever seen. This game is probably the most “Final Fantasy” ever. I can’t stress enough how much I really dislike the notion that people are truly out there saying this game isn’t. People need to get a brain for once. Jesus.
One final thing I’d also like to touch on is this game’s emphasis on world-building. Sidequests are there to tell you mini-stories about the characters around you and their struggles with their lives in this fantasy world. They can range from just simply killing monsters in order to save the village, to watching people come to terms with their losses and learning how others around them truly affect their lives. You just don’t get these stories through the main quest of the game. I tried my best with my run of this game to do every single one of these and a solid chunk of them managed to stick permanently with me. During the main story cutscenes, holding down the trackpad on the controller pulls up a menu for Active Time Lore, in which you can read more about the setting, story beats, and characters pertinent to the point in the plot you’re in. Finally, in Clive’s home base known as The Hideaway, there are 2 NPCs that help with this element too: Vivian and Harpocrates. When speaking to Vivian, the player can read up on events pertaining to the current point in the plot that Clive is in. When speaking to Harpocrates, Clive will report his journeys to him, and from there the player can read up on every element of the game up until that point, including characters, enemies, settings, and previous plot elements. If the player utilizes all of these elements in their entirety, there’s almost zero reason why the player can’t miss out on everything Valisthea and its inhabitant have to offer.
Whatever goes up, however, must also come down. Such is Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which is applicable to everything in this world including this game. Therefore, this game isn’t short of its notable flaws.
The combat system of this game does away with MP, and now magical affinity is tied to an Eikon you can shift to at any given moment in combat by a quick press of the L2 button. Your magic spell can be performed by quick presses of the Triangle button on your controller, or by holding it and then releasing it to charge a more powerful magic spell. My issue with this is that the element of your magic spell does not matter at all; regardless of your Eikon’s element no enemy ever has an elemental weakness like previous Final Fantasy entries. I can mostly excuse this, however, since the combat system is still probably the most expansive out of the entirety of the series so far allowing for freedom to create your own setups and combinations to absolutely destroy anything that comes your way. I do wish that magic had more of a say-so, though, as it would allow for even more freedom in an already free combat system.
Speaking of Eikons, in combat they have abilities that can be performed based on cooldowns. You can collect AP throughout the game, just like the rest of the Final Fantasy series, that you can use on a skill tree to upgrade and master these skills. Not only is AP hard to come by even with certain AP boosting accessories, but there is also zero reason to master most of the abilities in the skill tree. The reward for mastering a skill is usually that in combat, you can link that skill to a different Eikon, meaning you will have 2 separate cooldowns for the same command. However, there isn’t much incentive to do that, as every Eikon has their own set of skills that are useful for their own ways. Some Eikons’ skills I used for whittling down an enemy’s stagger bar, while the others I used were strictly for the offensive. I really could not afford to let go of one skill in place for 2 of the same skill.
Torgal, Clive’s pet dog, also has some influence in combat. Pressing left on the D-Pad, the player can quickly shift between a menu for Torgal’s commands or a menu full of consumables one can use. Torgal gets 3 commands, just like Clive gets 3 consumables in combat, mapped to the other buttons on the D-Pad. While they do have their uses, I did find myself kind of ignoring Torgal and letting him do his own thing after some time since he is also AI-controlled otherwise. He’s too much of an inconvenience at times to fully play around with him. I’d much rather just play around with Clive’s abilities instead.
Of course, like any JRPG Clive must upgrade his weapons, armor, and accessories over time. Clive can craft and refine equipment, but I wish this system was way more expansive. It was super simple for even a monkey to understand this system, but in the end, it just boiled down to “big number go up get item”. You could also buy some of the necessary ingredients for a new weapon, but the items in the overworld generally suffice since the only items there are items that help with item crafting. There wasn’t a reason to actually spend time on an item crafting station, just go there, craft your new sword, and get out.
Moving away from combat, I mentioned earlier how sidequests were great for world-building. I also mentioned earlier that this game was made by Creative Business Unit 3, the same people who made the immensely popular MMORPG FINAL FANTASY XIV. All of the sidequests in this game made fetch quests from XIV look like heaven. Unfortunately, too, this style of fetch quest also bleeds into the main quest very often. It doesn’t help that in towns and other big named locations Clive moves very slowly due to a severe lack of a sprint button. Even in the giant zones too, Clive takes a while to start sprinting through the maps. Later on through a very specific sidequest, Clive gets access to a Chocobo which speeds things up significantly, but only in the giant zones then it’s back to slowly creeping through towns.
Finally, while the characters are great, the one character I wish had more development was Jill. She’s also a huge driving factor in Clive’s story. She’s there to bring the best out of Clive; his emotional support, and for that I love her a lot. I just wish that there was more to Jill’s story. She gets some elements of development around halfway through the story but after that, it kind of just stops with her. She’s an amazing character, don’t get it twisted, I just really wish there was more of her throughout the game.
Overall, this seems to be a return to form for the Final Fantasy series. This is a huge reminder that even after 36 years, a whole half a lifetime, there’s a reason why Final Fantasy still holds up as a series. 4.5/5 for me, and is very easily my contender for Game of The Year. Let’s just hope Geoff Keighley also agrees. :P
“And thus did our journey end…"
EDIT: Brought down to 3/5. See comments.
2 Comments
This comment was deleted
Coming back to this review months later, I've let this game marinate in my head a bit more. One of its biggest problems is shallowness. While I still do agree with the world building aspects, that this game is a love letter, and Soken's work with the soundtrack of my original review, many if not all of the problems I mentioned here are due to the game being extremely shallow in its writing, combat, everything really. Some quick thinking and you could probably piece together that this game is designed from the get go to appeal to everyone in the gaming sphere, which it clearly does as it's sold over 3 million copies as of October 2023, but this comes at an expense of good writing for anything.
I mentioned in this review that ability upgrades, magic, and Torgal have no real meaning, which can be chalked up to the combat in general being quite shallow. For a game that comes from a series that originally started from a JRPG to now evolving into what they want to call an Action-RPG, the RPG elements are indeed quite thin in the combat and I touched on that briefly in this review. I couldn't call this game an RPG; it's strictly an Action game. I'm not opposed to Action games, in fact some of the better games I've played in the last few years are Action games, but if you're going to market a game as an RPG as well it should actually be one as well.
In this review, I touched up on how doing the side quests in this game are a slog, especially since they bleed into the main quest as well. I think I forgot to mention that when you're doing these quests the open zones you do them in are severely empty as well, hereby being shallow. There's just nothing there. The occasional goblin nutsack used in weapon crafting (again, entirely shallow and pointless) or 2 Gil (also basically useless and shallow, who would have guessed?) may be lying there on the ground, but that's not a justifiable reason to go out into the vastness of this world.
I mentioned Jill being a weak character in this game, but her nothingness as a character can also be attributed to other characters in this game as well. We, as the players of this game, are expected to spend time with these characters to get to know them, but there's nothing to get to know. The main villain of this game has a huge grand reveal at maybe a third into the game, but truly all he could do in this game is monologue about how he wants to destroy the world like the generic (and shallow) villain number I lost count. Only at the very end is there some backstory about this villain, but at that point it doesn't even matter anymore; the game's just about over. Even characters like Gav who show up in your pathetic excuse of a party don't really contribute much other than saying "fuck me" in an Irish accent.
I remember I wrote my original review pretty quickly after beating the game, that too stream of conscious. I just want to add on more to it while letting my original thoughts stand and without replaying this game. Definitely not the 4.5/5 I gave this originally, but still my contender for GOTY.
I mentioned in this review that ability upgrades, magic, and Torgal have no real meaning, which can be chalked up to the combat in general being quite shallow. For a game that comes from a series that originally started from a JRPG to now evolving into what they want to call an Action-RPG, the RPG elements are indeed quite thin in the combat and I touched on that briefly in this review. I couldn't call this game an RPG; it's strictly an Action game. I'm not opposed to Action games, in fact some of the better games I've played in the last few years are Action games, but if you're going to market a game as an RPG as well it should actually be one as well.
In this review, I touched up on how doing the side quests in this game are a slog, especially since they bleed into the main quest as well. I think I forgot to mention that when you're doing these quests the open zones you do them in are severely empty as well, hereby being shallow. There's just nothing there. The occasional goblin nutsack used in weapon crafting (again, entirely shallow and pointless) or 2 Gil (also basically useless and shallow, who would have guessed?) may be lying there on the ground, but that's not a justifiable reason to go out into the vastness of this world.
I mentioned Jill being a weak character in this game, but her nothingness as a character can also be attributed to other characters in this game as well. We, as the players of this game, are expected to spend time with these characters to get to know them, but there's nothing to get to know. The main villain of this game has a huge grand reveal at maybe a third into the game, but truly all he could do in this game is monologue about how he wants to destroy the world like the generic (and shallow) villain number I lost count. Only at the very end is there some backstory about this villain, but at that point it doesn't even matter anymore; the game's just about over. Even characters like Gav who show up in your pathetic excuse of a party don't really contribute much other than saying "fuck me" in an Irish accent.
I remember I wrote my original review pretty quickly after beating the game, that too stream of conscious. I just want to add on more to it while letting my original thoughts stand and without replaying this game. Definitely not the 4.5/5 I gave this originally, but still my contender for GOTY.
Marrow
9 months ago
Don't worry, it's mostly people who didn't actually play the game, maybe PC gamers and XBots salty they had to watch the cutscenes on YouTube.