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This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy XVI takes one step forward and two steps back.
The story tries to juggle several different premises at once, mixing a revenge story with political intrigue and the typical esoteric themes of the FF games. It succeeds in some aspects — several characters are tied together by the theme of revenge, and the "evil god" villain, typical of Final Fantasy games, is much more intriguing with knowledge of Christian myth (Genesis 1:27). Unfortunately, the story stumbles to its knees much more often. The cast is too large to be properly utilized, and several characters fade in and out of focus as the story goes. The pacing is frustrating: there are entire questlines dedicated to lesser NPCs, who somehow get more focus than the second-most important man in the story. The Iron Kingdom; the Crystalline Dominion; the other continents of Valisthea: I couldn't tell you why all of those have less screentime than helping an orphan build a ship engine. Overall, it's hard to be invested when everything gets shafted so fast.
Next, the combat is too shallow for a game this long. The enemy design is uninteresting: there is no middle ground between trash mobs and mini-bosses, with too many of the latter group having only two or three stock combos and a couple of special abilities. The shallowness of the enemies means that there's little incentive to use Clive's full moveset, either; like the game was just not designed around those. Clive's moveset is too limited, as well. Most of his abilities are on fixed cooldowns — other than that, he only has one combo (each for ground and air) and assists from Torgal. Most fights are on flat spaces, without gimmicks or stage hazards to shake them up. Even the stagger meter is severely watered down: attacking a staggered enemy is like squeezing blood from a stone. You can't smack it around, launch it, disable it in any meaningful way other than making numbers go up. Needless to say, this unsatisfying combat system wears out its welcome fast. The Eikon fights are designed around this limitation and are genuinely fun and engaging for it, but those are too sparse to carry the campaign.
The graphics are visually pleasant, but visual fidelity can't hide that the world of Valisthea is drab, colorless, and overly homogeneized; not from the Blight, but rather its lack of inspiration. I have been to this world before, in countless Computer RPGs. In many cutscenes, the characters are too inexpressive to fully convey dramatic impact, especially during a heated battle — it's even worse in the English voice track, where every line is delivered like a snappy comeback. It gets grating fast.
Even the soundtrack blends together, with many tracks having the exact same "bombastic orchestra and choir" or "acoustic guitar and bongos" arrangements. One of the latter is FF standard The Prelude, and it gets overused ad nauseam. Sometimes I think there were only five tracks playing throughout the whole game.
One particular dungeon, Mount Drustanus, is a microcosm of the game's wasted potential: it presents us with leading girl Jill Warrick's time-skipped backstory, an evil church typical of Yasumi Matsuno's works (Vagrant Story, FF Tactics), and a boss fight that pays tasteful tribute to the Final Fantasy mythos. Jill and the church are brushed aside after the dungeon ends, like all this was a contractual obligation. At least the boss was cool. Speaking of Matsuno: it's no secret that the developers of FFXVI are überfans of his works, but if you seek something like those, don't get your hopes up. There's not enough political drama to be important; Clive's stakes are hardly personal (even with his genuinely interesting parallels to Ultima); Matsuno's pet theme of clerical corruption is a mere curiosity; and the characters aren't fleshed out enough to complement Clive Rosfield.
After all that, I still haven't addressed the true Blight at the heart of Final Fantasy XVI: its lack of audacity. A Final Fantasy game is defined by deliberately unorthodox gameplay systems (no matter how imperfect), plus a juxtaposition of sentimentality and camp. You won't find that here. The setting is a stale blend of The Witcher and Game of Thrones, and the combat is a watered down copy of Dragon's Dogma. Nothing happens that is bizarre or campy enough to be memorable.
Square Enix's internal studios have released three big action RPGs in the past four years, and all of them were more interesting than XVI: Kingdom Hearts III brought extreme air-jousting parkour to its series, Final Fantasy VII Remake put a new spin on Active Time Battle, and Stranger of Paradise perfected Nioh's combat with true co-op and a FFXI-esque job system. Coming off of those games, XVI does nothing that hasn't been done better before and feels more derivative than a remake of a 25-year-old game.
The story tries to juggle several different premises at once, mixing a revenge story with political intrigue and the typical esoteric themes of the FF games. It succeeds in some aspects — several characters are tied together by the theme of revenge, and the "evil god" villain, typical of Final Fantasy games, is much more intriguing with knowledge of Christian myth (Genesis 1:27). Unfortunately, the story stumbles to its knees much more often. The cast is too large to be properly utilized, and several characters fade in and out of focus as the story goes. The pacing is frustrating: there are entire questlines dedicated to lesser NPCs, who somehow get more focus than the second-most important man in the story. The Iron Kingdom; the Crystalline Dominion; the other continents of Valisthea: I couldn't tell you why all of those have less screentime than helping an orphan build a ship engine. Overall, it's hard to be invested when everything gets shafted so fast.
Next, the combat is too shallow for a game this long. The enemy design is uninteresting: there is no middle ground between trash mobs and mini-bosses, with too many of the latter group having only two or three stock combos and a couple of special abilities. The shallowness of the enemies means that there's little incentive to use Clive's full moveset, either; like the game was just not designed around those. Clive's moveset is too limited, as well. Most of his abilities are on fixed cooldowns — other than that, he only has one combo (each for ground and air) and assists from Torgal. Most fights are on flat spaces, without gimmicks or stage hazards to shake them up. Even the stagger meter is severely watered down: attacking a staggered enemy is like squeezing blood from a stone. You can't smack it around, launch it, disable it in any meaningful way other than making numbers go up. Needless to say, this unsatisfying combat system wears out its welcome fast. The Eikon fights are designed around this limitation and are genuinely fun and engaging for it, but those are too sparse to carry the campaign.
The graphics are visually pleasant, but visual fidelity can't hide that the world of Valisthea is drab, colorless, and overly homogeneized; not from the Blight, but rather its lack of inspiration. I have been to this world before, in countless Computer RPGs. In many cutscenes, the characters are too inexpressive to fully convey dramatic impact, especially during a heated battle — it's even worse in the English voice track, where every line is delivered like a snappy comeback. It gets grating fast.
Even the soundtrack blends together, with many tracks having the exact same "bombastic orchestra and choir" or "acoustic guitar and bongos" arrangements. One of the latter is FF standard The Prelude, and it gets overused ad nauseam. Sometimes I think there were only five tracks playing throughout the whole game.
One particular dungeon, Mount Drustanus, is a microcosm of the game's wasted potential: it presents us with leading girl Jill Warrick's time-skipped backstory, an evil church typical of Yasumi Matsuno's works (Vagrant Story, FF Tactics), and a boss fight that pays tasteful tribute to the Final Fantasy mythos. Jill and the church are brushed aside after the dungeon ends, like all this was a contractual obligation. At least the boss was cool. Speaking of Matsuno: it's no secret that the developers of FFXVI are überfans of his works, but if you seek something like those, don't get your hopes up. There's not enough political drama to be important; Clive's stakes are hardly personal (even with his genuinely interesting parallels to Ultima); Matsuno's pet theme of clerical corruption is a mere curiosity; and the characters aren't fleshed out enough to complement Clive Rosfield.
After all that, I still haven't addressed the true Blight at the heart of Final Fantasy XVI: its lack of audacity. A Final Fantasy game is defined by deliberately unorthodox gameplay systems (no matter how imperfect), plus a juxtaposition of sentimentality and camp. You won't find that here. The setting is a stale blend of The Witcher and Game of Thrones, and the combat is a watered down copy of Dragon's Dogma. Nothing happens that is bizarre or campy enough to be memorable.
Square Enix's internal studios have released three big action RPGs in the past four years, and all of them were more interesting than XVI: Kingdom Hearts III brought extreme air-jousting parkour to its series, Final Fantasy VII Remake put a new spin on Active Time Battle, and Stranger of Paradise perfected Nioh's combat with true co-op and a FFXI-esque job system. Coming off of those games, XVI does nothing that hasn't been done better before and feels more derivative than a remake of a 25-year-old game.
This review contains spoilers
Once upon a time, Hideki Kamiya had the resumé to back up his ego.
The Wonderful 101 is not only a pastiche of superhero comics and old tokusatsu shows, but also a celebration of PlatinumGames's achievements up to its initial Wii U release, coming off of a near-perfect streak of four beloved action games.
The story wears camp on its sleeve, with an amusing cast of characters and over-the-top setpieces. Overall, it's decent, but it's bloated by some unhinged plot twists, inappropriate tonal shifts, and the most pathetic antagonist you'll ever meet.
The combat is finely crafted, with extra-versatile weapons and highly intricate enemy design. Only one enemy forces you to play by its rules, but even that one will give up on gating you eventually. Even just standing still with certain weapons will auto-block some attacks, making your arsenal feel like much more than just strength and speed.
The actual gameplay, however, seems to value spectacle above anything else.
Although W101 has great combat, about 1/3 of the game plays in entirely different genres. There are so many shoot 'em up sections, it made me wonder if Kamiya would rather be directing that instead of action games; and there are entire ten-minute segments that mimic Zaxxon and Space Harrier, severely disrupting the flow of their levels and making the game a poor replay. And that's a shame, because in spite of its obnoxious pacing, W101 is probably the most passionate game in Platinum's library.
The Wonderful 101 is the end of an era in many ways. It is the last game directed by Hideki Kamiya before he atrophied his frontal lobe rage-baiting randoms on Twitter, and the last great game from PlatinumGames. It is absolutely worth your time.
The Wonderful 101 is not only a pastiche of superhero comics and old tokusatsu shows, but also a celebration of PlatinumGames's achievements up to its initial Wii U release, coming off of a near-perfect streak of four beloved action games.
The story wears camp on its sleeve, with an amusing cast of characters and over-the-top setpieces. Overall, it's decent, but it's bloated by some unhinged plot twists, inappropriate tonal shifts, and the most pathetic antagonist you'll ever meet.
The combat is finely crafted, with extra-versatile weapons and highly intricate enemy design. Only one enemy forces you to play by its rules, but even that one will give up on gating you eventually. Even just standing still with certain weapons will auto-block some attacks, making your arsenal feel like much more than just strength and speed.
The actual gameplay, however, seems to value spectacle above anything else.
Although W101 has great combat, about 1/3 of the game plays in entirely different genres. There are so many shoot 'em up sections, it made me wonder if Kamiya would rather be directing that instead of action games; and there are entire ten-minute segments that mimic Zaxxon and Space Harrier, severely disrupting the flow of their levels and making the game a poor replay. And that's a shame, because in spite of its obnoxious pacing, W101 is probably the most passionate game in Platinum's library.
The Wonderful 101 is the end of an era in many ways. It is the last game directed by Hideki Kamiya before he atrophied his frontal lobe rage-baiting randoms on Twitter, and the last great game from PlatinumGames. It is absolutely worth your time.