Final Fantasy 16 Review

before we begin a quick note about spoilers I'm going to do my best to keep this review spoiler free by mostly showing gameplay from the first third or so of the campaign but some mechanics and talking points I will be going over don't appear till much later it's all stuff that will be familiar to you if you've watched the Final Fantasy 16 focused state of play but if you'd like to go in entirely fresh you can leave knowing that Final Fantasy 16 is one of my favorites in the series to date okay you've been spoiler warned now on with the review thank you even with 16 Mainline entries 20 if you include X2 13 2 Lightning Returns and Final Fantasy 7 remake and a slew of spin-offs there's no Final Fantasy game quite like Final Fantasy 16. the latest in this legendary series is more an evolution of the character action genre than the RPG Foundation that the franchise was built on it merges quick twitch reflexes with character building RPG mechanics but focuses far more on the former than ever before and look it's not a perfect mixture while the combat is phenomenal for an action RPG it is immediately lacking when compared directly to the greats of the character action genre but even an imperfect mix is potent enough when paired with ff16s epic 50 plus hour story it's packed with Unforgettable characters outstanding World building and incredible soundtrack and knock your socks off moments of sheer spectacle the likes of which are rarely seen in any game [Music] foreign picks up the ball that ff14 got rolling and continues to move the series back down the path of high fantasy taking more than a little inspiration from Game of Thrones along the way its story spans decades worth of history in the realm of valestia a land brimming with both Beauty and death as an encouraging blight forces neighboring kingdoms to fight over untainted resources including five enormous mother crystals that are the primary source of the realm's magic at the heart of this tale is your character Clive rossfield the eldest Prince of the kingdom of Rosaria and protector of his brother Joshua the dominant of Phoenix and if you don't know what that is don't worry we'll get to it later but let's not get bogged down and jargon for now Clive is a fantastic well-rounded protagonist brilliantly brought to life by actor Ben Starr he undergoes a lot of change and development over the course of the decades-long story but always remains supremely likable relatable and an absolute badass when the need arises as it very often does we've played your games and now tell me where he is the rest of the cast is fantastic as well Jill played by the excellent Susanna Fielding is Clive's childhood friend and acts as a wonderful companion that understands and empathizes with Clive on a deep and emotional level in the tender scenes between them are always a highlight as their relationship grows Sid is probably my new all-time favorite Final Fantasy character what trouble are you looking to get yourself into now the best kind he's got an almost young Liam Neeson Vibe going on despite being voiced impeccably by Ralph innocent who's having quite a 2023 in the world of video games stop the decency to join me for supper Sid is a natural leader full of Charisma and charm and without going into detail his cause is one that's very easy to Rally behind and made me excited to follow him and his band of Outlaws the greatest achievement of Final Fantasy 16 story though is how it never leaves you to drown in its lore this is a massive world complete with five kingdoms each with their own forms of government rulers religions and ideals a whole encyclopedia's worth of realm-specific terms like bearers icons and dominance and a grand history of the world that you're expected to keep up with if you want to get the most out of the big story beats it would all be a little overwhelming if not for an ingenious quality of life feature that I truly hope becomes standard throughout all story heavy video games active time lore at any point during any main story cutscene or conversation you can hold down the Dual sense touchpad to bring up a series of contextual compendium entries that are relevant to what's going on in that scene so anytime a character mentioned a term character or location that I either didn't know about or need to remind her about that freed Imperial Paris I could bring up the active time lore and a succinct entry would be right there to get me up to speed these entries change with the events of the story too updating with new information about the state of the world and Clive's knowledge about it as it happens having this kind of feature was a godsend later on big missions are also proceeded with stylish history lessons by your crude scholar that fill you in on what you need to know about the region you're about to visit who the rulers are their Ambitions their allies their enemies and so on I know that might sound like school but it actually did a really effective job of bringing me into and keeping me invested in the realm of valestia one of the most interesting elements of the story and one that also ends up being an awesome addition to the already excellent combat is the existence of icons and dominance icons are supremely powerful beings that Final Fantasy fans will recognize as the usual summons from previous games and dominance are the special humans who are able to tap into their power even to the point of fully transforming into them dominance are so powerful that they're almost used like nuclear deterrence saved as a last resort due to the potential mutually assured destruction that would be caused by their fights but fight they will and every time they do it's an unforgettable scrap of gargantuan proportion I'd be remiss to spoil these encounters by talking too much about them but I will say they're absolute spectacles some are like giant Kaiju fights mixed in with Dragon Ball Z others take the gameplay in a completely different direction and play out like a Panzer Dragoon level but nearly all of them brought back memories of playing Asura's Wrath or God of War 3 and that feeling of just being absolutely floored by the breathtaking sense of scale and overwhelming power Final Fantasy has been shifting further and further away from its turn-based RPG routes for a long time now and with Final Fantasy 16 it feels like a metamorphosis that has been in the works for years is finally complete Final Fantasy 16's combat is a straight up action game full stop it's fast flexible extremely reflex driven and is full of opportunities to absolutely Style on your enemies with air combos jump cancels and a huge arsenal of extremely powerful spells and abilities some sacrifices are made to facilitate this transformation you only ever control one character levels are far more linear than they've been the past and many of the actual RPG elements have been made to play second Fiddle in ways I'll discuss shortly purists might not be a fan of these drastic changes but I found this approach far more preferable to ff15's more hybrid take on combat and equally enjoyable to ff7 remakes unique take despite how chaotic the action may look it's actually elegantly simple once you break it down Clive can execute a 4-hit melee combo by mashing Square he can shoot magic with triangle to hit enemies at a distance he can use an ability unique to whatever icon power he currently has equipped and he also has access to up to two abilities from that icon as well in familiar Final Fantasy fashion for bigger enemies and bosses there's a stagger meter that you can fill by Landing attacks and once it's full they can be put into a staggered State giving you an opportunity to build up a multiplier and lay down huge amounts of damage for a limited amount of time much of the skill involved with combat comes from your ability to quickly stagger enemies and then maximize the amount of damage you're able to do while they're staggered by optimally using your skills and switching between your icons to that end there's a lot of smart mechanics in place that reward skillful play if you just mash the attack button you won't build up staggered very quickly but if you use carefully timed magic attacks in between your melee attacks you'll execute and match bursts which do more damage and build more stagger on top of that perfectly timed evasions give opportunity for counter attacks that deal big stagger damage or if you're feeling extra fancy you could try to time an attack to clash with Theirs to trigger a pair which slows down time and allows for even more punishment it's a great combat system that kept my brain firing at a rapid Pace as I balance timing my magic bursts with matching my skill cooldowns and keeping an eye out for enemy tells to be ready to dodge on top of just trying to look cool for the sake of looking cool which is always an important element of any action game in my book one of my favorite touches is that you can issue commands to your Hound torgle one of which will launch weaker enemies allowing me to zip right to them in the air juggle them with some quick aerial hits and then send them crashing back down with an explosive Helm splitter style attack all that said this is a long game and while you do pretty regularly get new icons and abilities they don't change up combat in ways that make the basic fights substantially different or more engaging which means they do eventually lose some of their luster that isn't helped by lots of recycled enemy types in the Open Fields and linear dungeons that you explore either at least the bosses were always fresh and exciting with many playing with some fun Final Fantasy tropes like having the names of big attacks show up on screen and some exceptionally dangerous techniques even having a countdown that ends with an extremely powerful blow if you're unable to do enough damage to stop them from getting it off many of the bigger boss battles also have qtes that do a wonderful job of adding extra cinematic Flair and punctuate the phases of a fight with some truly awesome moments as touched upon earlier the weird Twist of Final Fantasy 16 is that while the action elements are all top-notch the RPG elements are a little underdeveloped loot seems like an afterthought I never once felt incentivized to explore either the corners of the linear main levels or the Open Fields of the interconnected overworlds and in general there just aren't a ton of character building choices that you can make to customize Clive in any sort of unique way the deepest it gets is that you can equip Clive with up to three accessories that can have a variety of useful effects usually powering up specific special abilities increasing your combo damage or increasing healing potency you also begin with a total of five special rings that are designed to take some of the edge off of combat in lieu of lower difficulty modes one essentially lets you mash square and let the AI Take the Wheel as it automatically casts spells switches icons and uses basic attacks while another will automatically Dodge as long as an attack is capable of being avoided while I personally didn't feel the need to use these rings I do appreciate their inclusion as a completely optional way to adjust the difficulty in very specific ways of course the downside is that if you do equip them you won't have the space for other stat altering accessories thus removing the one element of RPG like customization altogether we'll wear Final Fantasy 16 really impressed me was in the quality of its side quests well eventually they actually start out pretty generic and menial with objectives like finding X number of Y items out in the field or delivering three hot bowls of soup to people in The Hideout however in the back half of the story these side quests act as smart ways to button up all the loose threads outside the main campaign Side characters are given proper send-offs pieces that were toppled over in the central story are satisfyingly built back up and characters that you wouldn't really expect to have very deep backstories open up to you in often very moving ways it's exactly the kind of side content that I want in a big RPG even though it takes a little while to get there in addition to Side Quests there's also a bounty board that you can use to locate exceptionally challenging monsters for some greater rewards many of them are just stronger versions of enemies that you've already fought but others are boss encounters unto themselves and make up some of the hardest fights available all things considered there's a fair amount of extra content here to keep you busy and you'll want to do as much of it as you can to be ready for New Game Plus which significantly UPS both the challenge and the level cap and introduces New Gear upgrades even beyond that there's also an arcade mode that you can use to go through previous levels and try to set high scores to upload to an online leaderboard needless to say there's a lot to do even once the credits finish rolling and oh my God the soundtrack by Muhammad's Grace the soundtrack prince is with us [Music] it manages to perfectly accompany every big scene whether it's the tender moments between Clive and Jill The Quiet Moments of respite inside the Hideaway or the absolutely epic battles between icons I don't know if I'm ready to claim it in the top Final Fantasy soundtracks of all time just yet but it's certainly one of the best soundtracks of 2023 so far Final Fantasy 16 looks stunning too the performance may not hold on to a consistent 60fps all the time even on the prioritized frame rate graphical setting but those minor hiccups don't stop it from still being one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played Final Fantasy 16 will likely be looked back upon as a turning point for the mainline Final Fantasy games taking its combat fully in the direction of an action game but I hope that conversation doesn't overshadow its dark and captivating tale its memorable characters and the innovative ways in which it helps you keep track of it the active time more feature is incredible and should be standard for all story driven games going forward and while the combat may not live up to the sky high standards as some of the best games in the character action genre among other action RPGs it's near the top of the heat pair all of that with one of the best soundtracks of the Year incredible performances from top to bottom and drop dead gorgeous visuals and you've got a game worthy of an orchestral Final Fantasy Victory fanfare for [Applause] more Final Fantasy 16 make sure to check out the first minutes of the game and for everything else keep it here on IGN

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Keywords: Final Fantasy 16 Review, Final Fantasy XVI Review, FF16 Review, FFXVI review, Final Fantasy 16 impressions, FF16 impressions, final fantasy, square-enix, final fantasy review, ign game reviews, ign review

Id: jCB-ZYUk5Qk

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023