I’ve waited two years to play this game. Square Enix thought it was a good idea to cuck the people who play on Xbox, but I waited. I waited, and it was worth it. A part of me don’t like supporting Squeenix, because they pretend to be a small indie company, and I think that’s stupid – but the developers (Creative Business Unit III) did a really, really good job with this game. So my 50 euros felt justifiably spent.
FF16 is a very divisive game. Mostly because it’s the newest mainline Final Fantasy game, and for some reason people ALWAYS like to hate on the newest entry. In this case, a lot of the critique stems from how different 16 is from the rest of the franchise. Personally, I think this is silly. It’s by far the most different Final Fantasy game to date, but the franchise has always been pretty keen on introducing new systems and getting rid of the old. It’s been an evolutionary franchise, that don’t like to stay the same. I like this, I think it’s great. The essence of Final Fantasy is very apparent in 16. It definitely feels like you’re in a Final Fantasy universe, and I’m glad that I got to experience said universe through new and interesting mechanics. Some of the other critiques are more justified though, which I want to talk about first before I start gushing about the game as a whole.
Final Fantasy 16 is a brutal rendition in the franchise. It’s the first 18+ Final Fantasy game, and a lot of uncomfortable themes are explored in the game. Rape, slavery, murder, suicide, etc. The combat is very similar to Devil May Cry, focusing on a more action and combo oriented feel. The combat feels very good, and it fits the more brutal tone of the game.
But… it’s way too easy.
There are two main big issues in this game that holds it back, and some minor ones, and the big ones have to do with combat. As you progress through the game, you will engage in a lot of epic and grand battles, but you will never feel as if you’re in any real danger. Enemies hit you like a wet sponge, and that’s when playing on the harder difficulty. It’s a real shame that they didn’t give players a bigger challenge from the beginning, since it holds back the potential of a lot of battles. They already have an easy mode, SO LET US HAVE A CHALLENGE! On top of this the enemies are way too tanky. You’d spam multiple abilities on the same enemy, and it would still take ages before killing them. Preferably I’d want enemies that hit harder but die more easily. As of right now it feels like the combat has a lot of lost potential. I still enjoyed the fighting overall, but I couldn’t shake it out of my head that it could’ve been so much better. If they were to fix this with a patch I’d EASILY give this game an 11/10 – but as of right now it needs to stay at 10/10.
The more minor issues with this game has to do with the RPG mechanics. An example is the crafting. The game is very linear, same with gear progression. There are very few pieces of gear that you get outside of following the main route, and even those only require you to do a set of sidequests. There is absolutely zero reasons for them to have a crafting system. It feels like a tacked on system that they put there because “every RPG has crafting”. The game doesn’t need to be like other RPG’s, but it feels like it’s trying to roleplay being a roleplaying game. You also have an extremely beautiful world that you can explore, but exploration amounts to absolutely nothing. You won’t find anything worthwhile doing it, and most sidequests will bring you to the areas that are more “visually unique”. This is also fine. I don’t mind having a world I can run around in, explore and find lore-nuggets without any character progression to it. I found it to be a beautiful world, but again they decided to tack on systems that felt super unnecessary. They could’ve left the open world content exclusive to hunts, sidequests and the story – and it would’ve been absolutely fine. They tease you with potential that isn’t there, and it’s completely unnecessary. The character customization is also very limited, like I mentioned before. There are no status effects (which is sad, would’ve loved that), no party customization and the gear is very straight forward. This is actually something that I wished they put more emphasize on. It could’ve been much more interesting, but I also won’t say that it was definitely “needed”. There are many games without any real meaningful customization that are still great. Lastly, the movement speed on Clive is too low. That’s it, it needs to be increased.
These are the negatives. They’re not “game breakers”, well, maybe the combat ones are, but the others are pretty minor in terms of how it affected my enjoyment of the game. I’ve seen people critique the sidequests as well, but I found them to be very interesting in narrative, albeit a bit lacking in gameplay. They weren’t really a hit or miss, and I enjoyed most of them.
But now I want to mention what I liked.
In terms of story, this was probably within my top 3 Final Fantasy stories of all time. The characters were super charming and fun to interact with, the voice acting was insane and the music an absolute blast to listen to. The boss battles had some of the most hype moments I’ve experienced in games, and I’d comfortably say that I felt more badass fighting them in 16 than I felt playing through Metal Gear Rising – and that says a lot. The story was interesting throughout the whole game, and even though there were low points, I never wanted to stop seeing what was going to happen next. It kept me hooked from start to finish. Everything about the narrative and artistic aspects of the game were great, and I wish I could wipe my memory to experience these moments again. The combat it still extremely solid, even though it’s too easy. Sidequests were mostly fun, and doing the Hunts were also very fun.
This game managed to create some of the highest highs I’ve experienced, while also having some of the biggest lost potential in a lot of other aspects. All in all, I can’t recommend it enough, and I feel like people are way too harsh on the game. It’s not perfect, but what it does good, it does extremely good. It left a genuine void in me after I finished it, something that’s pretty rare for me with media in general.
I am positive that in a couple of more years, this game will be praised by a ton of Final Fantasy fans. 9/10!
And Gav is also the best Final Fantasy character, hands down.