Final fantasy is a series I've grown to adore more and more with each passing day.
My first entry was VII. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and while I didn't really get it at the time it was still gratifying to play one of the most famous games every made.
After that I played XV, a game I hold great fondness for but was obviously unfinished in a lot of areas.
Cut to a few years later, not having touched the series since, and on a whim I decided to pop in Final Fantasy IX and was, all joking aside, enraptured.
It was then where I truly fell in love with this franchise and saw the endless potential it carried. Since then I've jumped around, game to game, until I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase a PS5 to play...well, this.
And what did I think? I think the sidequests are ill-suited to being in a single player game of this length, there are far too many and all are borderline fetch quests with no gameplay variety to be found.
I thought the pacing was iffy in places and not enough focus was put on interesting plot moments the game implies to have happened, but you as the player did not experience.
And, while it didn't bother me personally, the turn the plot takes in the final act definitely isn't a graceful transition and could've been executed a lot smoother.
I opened up with my complaints because the remainder of this write up will be a continuous stream of gushing.
This game, while flawed as stated before, absolutely has the magic I was hoping it would. Every low point or complaint I found was counterbalanced by the most insane energetic visuals ever put to screen, and gameplay refined and fun enough to match.
The transition to pure character action gameplay was a bold and risky choice most definitely, and it does have it's drawbacks.
In prior final fantasy games the entire party felt so vital due to them having such emphasis put on them in gameplay. It's not just you as Cloud fighting Shinra soldiers, it's Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith and everyone else who eventually joins the frey.
Due to the shift to a more individualistic gameplay style, the same feeling of having a constant unit of characters to connect with isn't really there.
This is not a problem XV had, as "the boys" were there with Noctis for 98% of that game, where as characters will come and go at a moment's notice in XVI.
Gameplay wise, this makes sense. As all you really need is Clive and Torgal for the combat to function at full capacity. And Torgal is also there for 99% of the game, so this is not an issue.
That gripe aside, the gameplay on display here? Fantastic.
What starts as a fairly simple hack and slash evolves with each and every Eikon you attain, you're free to try out and trade in moves when and where ever you like. Let's say I liked a move Titan had but wanted to use it with Phoenix's dash, well all you need do is upgrade Titan's move and now you can put it on the Phoenix Eikon, or any other Eikon that you like.
The possibilities to mix and match is endless and I really have to tip my hat that they managed to keep the strategic aspect of the series in tact despite the genre shift.
The issue of difficulty, or lack thereof, was discussed to death before I started my playthrough but this was not a problem I ran into at all. I chose to balance it myself by not upgrading many of my Eikon's and refusing to use any armour at all and intentionally steering away from equipping my best swords. And by doing this, I believe I got to really squeeze the most out of the combat that I possibly could. It'll be my go to recommendation for anyone I talk to who's looking to try it out.
That tangent aside, I want to return to a point I made earlier, about party members not being vital anymore. Around 20 hours or so I realised that a lot of the issues I have with the story resulted in better pacing for the gameplay. A sudden time jump being jarring story wise had also unlocked a wealth of new content to play around with, and while I'm not sure if these shortcuts were worth it in certain cases I can at least see and appreciate the balancing act they had to pull in keeping the gameplay train moving.
Shifting gear, I want to take a moment to talk about the music.
Masayoshi Soken's prior work on the franchise had been on XIV, quickly becoming a fan favourite by any who played it. After this they tapped him with the main composer position for XVI.
And how did he do?
Well, to say he knocked it out of the goddamn park would be putting it lightly.
Every track, EVERY track is good. With many exceeding to greatness. It cannot be understated how big an impact music has in this series, the stand out moments are always met with masterfully produced sombre soliloquies, blaring horns, rising strings what have you. And this game is no different.
The Eikon battles (aka: "The big money sections") wouldn't be half as good as they are without his eccentric and hype as shit compositions. "Yeah, it's cool that I'm fighting a giant rock monster. But do your HEAR the robot vocals to this track!?"
Moments like that just endear me to this game so much.
One aspect I haven't spoken about yet is the story, which I will not be discussing in detail because we all have places to be.
But by the time the credits rolled I was left thinking that it was overall solid for what it set out to do, with moments of brilliance and some issues that have been talked about in depth my a plethora of podcasts/ reviews etc.
But one complaint I haven't seen anywhere is how...quiet some moments can be.
And I don't mean this as in "They intentionally chose to not score this scene so it would have more impact"
I mean it in a "This is just kind of unfinished" sense. A lot of scenes unfortunately suffer from this issue. And while the impact of these moments were not entirely lost on me, it is one place the presentation feels a bit lacking.
And it's obviously a time/budget issue, not every scene can be polished to a fine sheen but sometimes it does leave me feeling like I just walked in on two blokes talking about how they're going to punch each other real hard in the face whilst I'm trying to find the nearest exit due to awkwardness.
Anyways, I think that wraps up most of what I wanted to talk about with this one.
Final Fantasy XVI, while incredibly good in my opinion, isn't perfect. But as long as the series continues to innovate and try new things, it'll always have my attention.
My first entry was VII. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and while I didn't really get it at the time it was still gratifying to play one of the most famous games every made.
After that I played XV, a game I hold great fondness for but was obviously unfinished in a lot of areas.
Cut to a few years later, not having touched the series since, and on a whim I decided to pop in Final Fantasy IX and was, all joking aside, enraptured.
It was then where I truly fell in love with this franchise and saw the endless potential it carried. Since then I've jumped around, game to game, until I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase a PS5 to play...well, this.
And what did I think? I think the sidequests are ill-suited to being in a single player game of this length, there are far too many and all are borderline fetch quests with no gameplay variety to be found.
I thought the pacing was iffy in places and not enough focus was put on interesting plot moments the game implies to have happened, but you as the player did not experience.
And, while it didn't bother me personally, the turn the plot takes in the final act definitely isn't a graceful transition and could've been executed a lot smoother.
I opened up with my complaints because the remainder of this write up will be a continuous stream of gushing.
This game, while flawed as stated before, absolutely has the magic I was hoping it would. Every low point or complaint I found was counterbalanced by the most insane energetic visuals ever put to screen, and gameplay refined and fun enough to match.
The transition to pure character action gameplay was a bold and risky choice most definitely, and it does have it's drawbacks.
In prior final fantasy games the entire party felt so vital due to them having such emphasis put on them in gameplay. It's not just you as Cloud fighting Shinra soldiers, it's Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith and everyone else who eventually joins the frey.
Due to the shift to a more individualistic gameplay style, the same feeling of having a constant unit of characters to connect with isn't really there.
This is not a problem XV had, as "the boys" were there with Noctis for 98% of that game, where as characters will come and go at a moment's notice in XVI.
Gameplay wise, this makes sense. As all you really need is Clive and Torgal for the combat to function at full capacity. And Torgal is also there for 99% of the game, so this is not an issue.
That gripe aside, the gameplay on display here? Fantastic.
What starts as a fairly simple hack and slash evolves with each and every Eikon you attain, you're free to try out and trade in moves when and where ever you like. Let's say I liked a move Titan had but wanted to use it with Phoenix's dash, well all you need do is upgrade Titan's move and now you can put it on the Phoenix Eikon, or any other Eikon that you like.
The possibilities to mix and match is endless and I really have to tip my hat that they managed to keep the strategic aspect of the series in tact despite the genre shift.
The issue of difficulty, or lack thereof, was discussed to death before I started my playthrough but this was not a problem I ran into at all. I chose to balance it myself by not upgrading many of my Eikon's and refusing to use any armour at all and intentionally steering away from equipping my best swords. And by doing this, I believe I got to really squeeze the most out of the combat that I possibly could. It'll be my go to recommendation for anyone I talk to who's looking to try it out.
That tangent aside, I want to return to a point I made earlier, about party members not being vital anymore. Around 20 hours or so I realised that a lot of the issues I have with the story resulted in better pacing for the gameplay. A sudden time jump being jarring story wise had also unlocked a wealth of new content to play around with, and while I'm not sure if these shortcuts were worth it in certain cases I can at least see and appreciate the balancing act they had to pull in keeping the gameplay train moving.
Shifting gear, I want to take a moment to talk about the music.
Masayoshi Soken's prior work on the franchise had been on XIV, quickly becoming a fan favourite by any who played it. After this they tapped him with the main composer position for XVI.
And how did he do?
Well, to say he knocked it out of the goddamn park would be putting it lightly.
Every track, EVERY track is good. With many exceeding to greatness. It cannot be understated how big an impact music has in this series, the stand out moments are always met with masterfully produced sombre soliloquies, blaring horns, rising strings what have you. And this game is no different.
The Eikon battles (aka: "The big money sections") wouldn't be half as good as they are without his eccentric and hype as shit compositions. "Yeah, it's cool that I'm fighting a giant rock monster. But do your HEAR the robot vocals to this track!?"
Moments like that just endear me to this game so much.
One aspect I haven't spoken about yet is the story, which I will not be discussing in detail because we all have places to be.
But by the time the credits rolled I was left thinking that it was overall solid for what it set out to do, with moments of brilliance and some issues that have been talked about in depth my a plethora of podcasts/ reviews etc.
But one complaint I haven't seen anywhere is how...quiet some moments can be.
And I don't mean this as in "They intentionally chose to not score this scene so it would have more impact"
I mean it in a "This is just kind of unfinished" sense. A lot of scenes unfortunately suffer from this issue. And while the impact of these moments were not entirely lost on me, it is one place the presentation feels a bit lacking.
And it's obviously a time/budget issue, not every scene can be polished to a fine sheen but sometimes it does leave me feeling like I just walked in on two blokes talking about how they're going to punch each other real hard in the face whilst I'm trying to find the nearest exit due to awkwardness.
Anyways, I think that wraps up most of what I wanted to talk about with this one.
Final Fantasy XVI, while incredibly good in my opinion, isn't perfect. But as long as the series continues to innovate and try new things, it'll always have my attention.