Final Fantasy XVI is quite the departure from your usual FF game in terms of how it plays, but it sticks to some of the series' other classic strengths to still deliver a great game!
You play as Clive, a young princeling of a small duchy in the world of Valisthea who after a great tragedy is sold into slavery as a magic user. Once he's reunited with some old friends and introduced to new ones, he learns his fight for redemption is bigger than he may ever have thought.
This story weaves through a number of predictable and unpredictable turns, but while there are some tropey moments, they're handled well. It's a grand, epic tale that's rather entertaining minus some later higher philosophical elements that get unflatteringly Nomura-esque.
What really impresses writing-wise are the characters and side stories. FFXVI features a large swath of side quests, and while they start basic with some boring tasks, they quickly build into more ambitious, multi-quest storylines that help to flesh out the characters and world of Valisthea, especially since you can only access a decent amount of locales through these side quests. This really helped me connect with everything and made the big finale all the more impactful because I felt I knew these characters much better than I otherwise would. If you play this, I highly recommend playing the sidequests.
Speaking of playing, let's address the elephant in the room. The more action-focused, or should I say completely action-focused, gameplay has been divisive for fans of the series. While I respect their opinions, as someone who's only played a handful of FF games, I found the combat here very good. It starts simple, which can be a turn off early on as the enemies you generally face are SUPER easy. Stick with it like I did, for the spectacle if nothing else, and you'll see it evolve into a more engaging system that has you trading between multiple magic types for different scenarios. The main hordes of enemies never get all that challenging, but mastering the combat is a necessity for the bosses both required and optional. You'll want to tackle those optional bosses too as the Notorious Marks make for some of the best battles in the game. Overall, it's a combat system that starts off as more flash than substance, but eventually fills in the latter over time.
These are of course complimented by the big Eikon Moments at certain parts of the story where you turn into a big fuck you monster and fight other giant monstrosities. These are of course even more spectacle, but they do get a bit harder as you go on. You also get a few more abilities that help spice things up when you're just fighting as an Eikon, though the game does mix in some special set pieces with the Eikons that are just completely different. These are never the hardest parts of the game, but they do a great job of providing the bombastic elements they are here for in the first place.
My main gripes for the gameplay come outside combat. The structure, level design, and movement just have... a lot of issues. First, the game starts super linear but gradually opens up into a pseudo-open world you can backtrack through for sidequests or exploration. That is, except for specific mission levels that go back to being purely linear and only replayable through the Arete Stone in your hideout. Both of these suffer from some design flaws, but the mission levels are the worst. These tend to be overly linear with some offshoots that mostly lead to a whole lot of nothing. There's a lot of care and detail gone into these levels, but a good amount of it feels wasted as it's not filled with much except for the required combat encounters and the occasional hidden goodie. The semi-open zones fare better but tend to be too big and empty, exacerbated by the issues with movement.
In combat, you have some nice movement options through the Dodge, Phoenix Shift, Lunge, and later other Eikonic abilities I won't spoil here. Oustide combat though, these abilities have long cooldowns meaning you can't use them to move around the map. This is baffling as abilities in combat providing movement options in exploration has been a staple in AAA gaming for a long time. Instead we're stuck with a bad sprint that automatically activates after walking through a non-town area for a few seconds and a pathetic jump you'll never use outside of combat. Any "platforming" is done automatically as well when you approach a pre-determined spot for it or you hit a low fence in certain areas. You get a mount too if you do the right side quest (again, do those!), but overall movement is disappointingly limited for a game that does provide plenty of space and incentive to explore and backtrack.
Otherwise, the game is augmented by good but not great production values. The soundtrack is expectedly high quality though a bit disappointing given the series' pedigree. It does a good job in key moments highlighting the needed emotion, and any track that quotes or remixes a classic theme from the series is very well done. Outside that though, a lot of the original compositions were underwhelming to me.
Graphics-wise this game is very pretty for a lot of the time, but not without caveats. As you've probably heard a billion times, the performance, even on Performance Mode, isn't great. It's confusing a game made for PS5 primarily wasn't able to lock in 60 fps. A lot of the times, it'll dip no matter what you're doing. It was more a surprise when it was running at a higher framerate like it should have from the beginning than the other way around. The blander artstyle too fails to elevate its pretty vistas to anything more, and the character animation is decidedly stiff. It mars what are otherwise quality performances from the voice actors, which is a shame.
So those are the bits and bobs, but despite some of these flaws the overall experience does rise above them. It's easy especially past the halfway point, to get in a nice flow of completing side quests and hunts before tackling each story mission. This flow is when the game really sings, mixing its satisfying combat with great worldbuilding and character stories to make Valisthea come alive. Then you had off to the next big boisterous event to progress the story further.
It's not a short game (PlayStation says I played for 58 hours and that was to not only beat the story but also beat all the side quests as far as I could tell and all the hunts) and it takes some time investment for it to reach its high points. However, if you're willing to put in some early work for a game you'll really be able to sink your teeth in, I recommend Final Fantasy XVI highly.
You play as Clive, a young princeling of a small duchy in the world of Valisthea who after a great tragedy is sold into slavery as a magic user. Once he's reunited with some old friends and introduced to new ones, he learns his fight for redemption is bigger than he may ever have thought.
This story weaves through a number of predictable and unpredictable turns, but while there are some tropey moments, they're handled well. It's a grand, epic tale that's rather entertaining minus some later higher philosophical elements that get unflatteringly Nomura-esque.
What really impresses writing-wise are the characters and side stories. FFXVI features a large swath of side quests, and while they start basic with some boring tasks, they quickly build into more ambitious, multi-quest storylines that help to flesh out the characters and world of Valisthea, especially since you can only access a decent amount of locales through these side quests. This really helped me connect with everything and made the big finale all the more impactful because I felt I knew these characters much better than I otherwise would. If you play this, I highly recommend playing the sidequests.
Speaking of playing, let's address the elephant in the room. The more action-focused, or should I say completely action-focused, gameplay has been divisive for fans of the series. While I respect their opinions, as someone who's only played a handful of FF games, I found the combat here very good. It starts simple, which can be a turn off early on as the enemies you generally face are SUPER easy. Stick with it like I did, for the spectacle if nothing else, and you'll see it evolve into a more engaging system that has you trading between multiple magic types for different scenarios. The main hordes of enemies never get all that challenging, but mastering the combat is a necessity for the bosses both required and optional. You'll want to tackle those optional bosses too as the Notorious Marks make for some of the best battles in the game. Overall, it's a combat system that starts off as more flash than substance, but eventually fills in the latter over time.
These are of course complimented by the big Eikon Moments at certain parts of the story where you turn into a big fuck you monster and fight other giant monstrosities. These are of course even more spectacle, but they do get a bit harder as you go on. You also get a few more abilities that help spice things up when you're just fighting as an Eikon, though the game does mix in some special set pieces with the Eikons that are just completely different. These are never the hardest parts of the game, but they do a great job of providing the bombastic elements they are here for in the first place.
My main gripes for the gameplay come outside combat. The structure, level design, and movement just have... a lot of issues. First, the game starts super linear but gradually opens up into a pseudo-open world you can backtrack through for sidequests or exploration. That is, except for specific mission levels that go back to being purely linear and only replayable through the Arete Stone in your hideout. Both of these suffer from some design flaws, but the mission levels are the worst. These tend to be overly linear with some offshoots that mostly lead to a whole lot of nothing. There's a lot of care and detail gone into these levels, but a good amount of it feels wasted as it's not filled with much except for the required combat encounters and the occasional hidden goodie. The semi-open zones fare better but tend to be too big and empty, exacerbated by the issues with movement.
In combat, you have some nice movement options through the Dodge, Phoenix Shift, Lunge, and later other Eikonic abilities I won't spoil here. Oustide combat though, these abilities have long cooldowns meaning you can't use them to move around the map. This is baffling as abilities in combat providing movement options in exploration has been a staple in AAA gaming for a long time. Instead we're stuck with a bad sprint that automatically activates after walking through a non-town area for a few seconds and a pathetic jump you'll never use outside of combat. Any "platforming" is done automatically as well when you approach a pre-determined spot for it or you hit a low fence in certain areas. You get a mount too if you do the right side quest (again, do those!), but overall movement is disappointingly limited for a game that does provide plenty of space and incentive to explore and backtrack.
Otherwise, the game is augmented by good but not great production values. The soundtrack is expectedly high quality though a bit disappointing given the series' pedigree. It does a good job in key moments highlighting the needed emotion, and any track that quotes or remixes a classic theme from the series is very well done. Outside that though, a lot of the original compositions were underwhelming to me.
Graphics-wise this game is very pretty for a lot of the time, but not without caveats. As you've probably heard a billion times, the performance, even on Performance Mode, isn't great. It's confusing a game made for PS5 primarily wasn't able to lock in 60 fps. A lot of the times, it'll dip no matter what you're doing. It was more a surprise when it was running at a higher framerate like it should have from the beginning than the other way around. The blander artstyle too fails to elevate its pretty vistas to anything more, and the character animation is decidedly stiff. It mars what are otherwise quality performances from the voice actors, which is a shame.
So those are the bits and bobs, but despite some of these flaws the overall experience does rise above them. It's easy especially past the halfway point, to get in a nice flow of completing side quests and hunts before tackling each story mission. This flow is when the game really sings, mixing its satisfying combat with great worldbuilding and character stories to make Valisthea come alive. Then you had off to the next big boisterous event to progress the story further.
It's not a short game (PlayStation says I played for 58 hours and that was to not only beat the story but also beat all the side quests as far as I could tell and all the hunts) and it takes some time investment for it to reach its high points. However, if you're willing to put in some early work for a game you'll really be able to sink your teeth in, I recommend Final Fantasy XVI highly.