Final Fantasy XVI — Evolving Final Fantasy with Both Big Steps Forward and Big Steps Back
Memorable and captivating characters. Rich RPG gameplay. Creative worlds. Kick ass music. Epic boss battles. Unforgettable stories and adventure.
The unique combination of these distinct elements is what makes Final Fantasy so great and gives the series its own identity differentiating it from other RPGs and video game franchises. Final Fantasy continues to maintain a loyal and diehard fanbase because the series consistently strives to preserve these foundational elements as the series grows and evolves with each new mainline entry. The original stories, settings and gameplay seen in each new Final Fantasy game is always a new interpretation of Final Fantasy’s characteristic style, with innovation in narrative and gameplay all happening within the boundaries that the series has established for itself. This careful approach to game design has allowed each new Final Fantasy title to feel fresh, and at the same time familiar.
As a relative newcomer to the series, Final Fantasy XVI was the first mainline Final Fantasy game I had the opportunity to play right at launch. XVI continues the series’ transition away from traditional RPG gameplay to more action-focused combat, with XVI arguably being the most action-centric Final Fantasy game ever released. Furthermore, XVI marks Final Fantasy’s return to a high fantasy medieval setting, which is quite a stark contrast to the steampunk and modern settings of more recent Final Fantasy titles. Final Fantasy XVI was positioned from the start to be a divisive game in the broader series, with some arguing that XVI’s new approach to gameplay challenges the traditional Final Fantasy formula more so than any other title in the series. At the same time, some might argue that many of the changes made in XVI will help the series attract a new generation of gamers and ensure XVI evolves in lockstep with changing expectations set by modern games.
Having finished Final Fantasy XVI with over 60 hours of gameplay, I can confidently say that the game lived up to the hype for me, with impressive world building and some of the most addicting third person combat gameplay I have ever experienced. However, some areas of the game did fall short, primarily because these aspects of the game failed to effectively capture the spirit of Final Fantasy. The key question I am hoping I can help you answer through this review is to what extent Final Fantasy XVI is moving the series in the right direction through everything it has delivered to the franchise.
Themes and Setting
Final Fantasy XVI’s new universe and setting immediately captured my attention, and it was clear the creative minds behind the game invested a significant amount of effort and attention to detail to bring this ambitious new world — Valisthea — to life. I loved how XVI highlights Valisthea’s unique history, geopolitical climate, and overarching social structure, and makes them central pillars of the game. XVI’s commitment to fleshing out these aspects of the world as the player encounters new characters and locations enriches the game’s narrative because it contextualizes the importance of the story’s major conflicts and events. It also helps the different parts of the world and overarching story feel more connected through common themes.
As the first M-rated mainline Final Fantasy game, XVI tackles many provocative topics and ideas more appropriate for an older audience. Prejudice, slavery, spiritualism, economic turmoil, vengeance and war are some examples, and I was impressed by how the game examined these ideas from multiple different angles. Ethics, right vs. wrong, diverse points of view among characters and the conflict that arises from opposing viewpoints are some of the ways XVI illuminates the nuances of these complex subjects. Furthermore, I absolutely loved how XVI contrasted the game’s diverse set of characters, factions and nations to better highlight these themes. The game’s characters and groups all face similar struggles, but it was fascinating to learn about each individual or group’s distinct attitudes on survival, overcoming catastrophe, morality and salvation and observe how these different approaches overlap and clash with each other. These intricate topics are explored through all narrative aspects of the game, including the game’s selection of side quests. Although a good chunk of side quests in Final Fantasy XVI are straightforward and not particularly special, there are a decent number of side quests that stood out to me because they offered new commentary on these topics by delving into them in different and unexpected ways. These quests were naturally more thought provoking with powerful moments and twists that will make them hard for me to forget.
Although Final Fantasy XVI’s world is rich and detailed, many players may feel overwhelmed from keeping track of every tidbit of lore and narrative exposition introduced during the game. Luckily, Final Fantasy XVI has an Active Time Lore feature which allows the player to pause the game during cutscenes to review lore entries directly relevant to the scene itself. Active Time Lore was a godsend, especially in the early game with how rapidly the story shifts across different timelines and locations. Ultimately, this is one of the most innovative features I have seen incorporated into a video game in quite some time and the best lore system I have interacted with in a game period. It is a great quality of life feature that makes it easier for players to understand and follow the story, and adds an extra layer of depth for players looking to enrich their playthrough with more background on Valisthea’s characters, locations and broader society. I hope Active Time Lore is a mainstay for Final Fantasy games moving forward.
The visual and level design of Final Fantasy XVI was hit and miss. I found most of the dungeons reserved exclusively for linear story missions to be memorable and well designed. The fact that each of these missions took place on their own unique map with environments and set pieces the player would not be able to explore elsewhere made these missions especially fresh and exciting, and helped distinguish them from everything else in the game.
Outside of these missions, the game takes place on five large “open zones” which the player can explore freely. Although these zones were visually stunning with beautiful vistas and landmarks scattered across them, they lacked the interactivity needed to leave a lasting impression on the player. Most of these zones were empty and served no purpose other than to create space between settlements and other points of interest. Without a quest objective already active, there is hardly anything worthwhile and valuable for the player to do on these open zones. Apart from fighting the same fodder monsters over and over, there are no meaningful items for the player to find and loot (and believe me, I checked thoroughly) and few unmarked dungeons and crossroads off the beaten path to uncover. This is quite a step back from older Final Fantasy games, which better incentivized thorough exploration of the in-game map. The playable maps for these games were more thoughtfully constructed with a wider range of secrets and unique areas of interest not openly communicated or revealed up front to the player.
Characters and Narrative
With regards to characters, Clive Rosfield is a great Final Fantasy protagonist. I liked the direction the Final Fantasy XVI team took with his story and character arc, which chronicles Clive’s evolution from a man craving vengeance and broken from his past misfortunes to a selfless, respected leader driven by a more noble purpose — to build a better, more just world. Clive’s voice acting and performance was also stellar, with many intense and emotional moments throughout the game. Kudos to Ben Starr for all his work in bringing Clive to life.
Final Fantasy XVI’s focus on Clive enables the game to meaningfully highlight his unique personality as a protagonist and show how he gradually grows over time, but I feel that the game could have done more to develop the other supporting characters Clive encounters on his journey. I would describe most of the other characters in Final Fantasy XVI as fit for purpose. Although these characters have some standout moments in the game, I felt most of them were limited with a predetermined role they needed to fulfill in the story. For instance, Jill Warrick accompanies Clive on his travels for most of the game and she has a unique storyline focused on vengeance that gets resolved around the game’s halfway point. I honestly felt that this was the climax of Jill’s entire character arc because she is not really given anything as meaningful afterwards apart from becoming a romantic love interest for Clive. I feel the same can be said for most of the other characters. These supporting characters already have a strong presence on screen as well as interesting scenes and dialogue, but I honestly believe XVI could have done way more with these characters and different things with them to help them feel less one-dimensional.
On top of the XVI’s emphasis on Clive within the game’s overarching narrative, the design choice of having Clive as the only controllable character is another aspect of the game that works against the game’s supporting characters and their ability to leave a lasting impression. Playing multiple different party members has been a cornerstone of the Final Fantasy series since the very beginning, and the act of customizing different characters and controlling them simultaneously in battle helps the player distinguish the unique qualities of each character and build an attachment to them. This is basically absent in XVI, as party members like Jill are fully CPU controlled and deal almost minimal damage, even to fodder enemies. I often forget that there are other characters fighting with me during combat and their near negligent impact in combat opposes the game’s depiction of these characters as powerful, adept fighters. Although XVI’s combat system is designed for one playable character only, I still feel that more gameplay interactivity with the game’s non-controllable party members would have ensured these characters truly felt as important as XVI’s narrative established them to be. I think God of War: Ragnarök’s approach to non-controllable characters, providing them with basic button commands, combo techniques and customizable abilities unlocked through a skill tree, is a good middle ground that Final Fantasy XVI could have drawn inspiration from to address some of the issues I described.
I mostly enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI’s main storyline. The story has an unforgettable introduction that does a fantastic job of establishing the game’s tone, and it continued to keep me intrigued afterwards through careful introduction of the game’s characters, branching storylines (involving other in-game characters), key themes and yet to be explained mysteries. The Eikon battles (Eikons are essentially traditional Final Fantasy summons, each controlled by a different characters) were the high points of XVI’s story and delivered some of the most incredible and downright crazy moments I have ever seen in a video game. I always looked forward to these stretches of the game because they continually pushed the boundaries of what players were expecting the game to deliver with each part always having something surpassing the last. The amazing execution of these battles is one of Final Fantasy XVI’s biggest achievements and have already set a new standard for how gameplay, storytelling and visual presentation can weave together to reimagine how games can be experienced.
My biggest complaint with Final Fantasy XVI’s story concerns its inconsistent pacing. The game teeters back and forth between epic story mission with major plot ramifications to drawn out, seemingly filler questlines that take place on the open world map. These slower stretches of the game, where the player visits new settlements in Valisthea and interacts with their inhabitants, are especially gruelling and almost feel like mandatory side quests with how they are structured. Although these sections serve an important purpose in showcasing the state of Valisthean society outside of the battlefield and royal palaces, they usually feel like a distraction the player needs to power through to reach the meatier set pieces that lie just around the corner. The sluggish pace of these sections is further exacerbated by Final Fantasy XVI being a cutscene heavy game — a long stretch of dialogue will tend to make individual parts of the game feel lengthier than they truly are.
These open world missions ultimately never detracted from my enjoyment of the story’s high points though, which were polar opposites with regards to their overall level of engagement, presentation, gameplay design and importance to the narrative as a whole. In the end, these bombastic and exciting missions were almost always worth the wait and some of the best I have ever experienced as a gamer. Despite the sheer magnificence of these parts, the general lack of imagination surrounding the open world quests sandwiched between them is the sticking point that prevents XVI’s story from being a true masterpiece.
Soundtrack
Final Fantasy XVI’s soundtrack is f***ing amazing.
I literally cannot think of a better way to describe it. I consider it to be the second-best video game soundtrack I have personally heard, only falling behind Nier: Automata.
The game’s OST is comprised of over 8 HOURS of music, ranging from softer melodies that match perfectly with XVI’s more emotional scenes to up tempo, orchestral boss music which makes you feel like you are challenging god himself to a duel where the fate of the world is in the balance. The game also leverages a one of a kind sound engine which greatly improves player immersion. This sound engine modulates the tracks being played so it matches the intensity and actions of the player in the overworld.
I loved XVI’s soundtrack and overall music direction, and I would encourage those who do not own the game yet to listen to a few tracks and marvel at the greatness of this game’s music.
Combat Gameplay
The third-person action combat in Final Fantasy XVI was extraordinarily well designed, and arguably one of the most polished, fluid and fun combat systems I have played from a mechanical standpoint. XVI’s combat is simple to pick up and play, yet possesses a high skill ceiling that rewards players who put in the effort to master the system’s versatile movement and attack options. Combat encounters, especially the game’s collection of incredible bosses, are designed to ensure that players take full advantage of their movement and offensive techniques. These battles challenge players to stay constantly on the move, make quick, calculated decisions on how to engage enemies and balance offense with dodging and other defensive maneuvers. Players will find it difficult (and not very fun) to attempt these battles in a way that goes against the spirit of what XVI’s combat strives to ultimately embrace — fast, close quarters combat that demands good timing and precision from the player. Having the room to develop and hone my mechanical skill with XVI’s combat system was incredibly gratifying, as polishing my execution of basic techniques like dodging and mastering advanced moves like parrying continually expanded how I could approach upcoming fights. The continual opportunity to optimize gameplay and freedom of experimentation for attack combos and movement kept combat fresh and engaging. I always looked forward to combat, even during times when dungeons and enemy hordes started to get repetitive.
Outside of standard third-person combat encounters and boss battles, the Eikon Battles (the player controls Ifrit, battling another Eikon) I mentioned previously function completely different from the rest of the game and will absolutely subvert what players expect to experience in XVI from a gameplay perspective. These battles are the most exciting and unpredictable parts of XVI because each Eikon Battle is built from the ground up to have its own gameplay, artistic and cinematic direction. Even though these battles embrace the principles of the game’s core combat system, they truly begin to shine when they diverge from it by introducing mechanics exclusive to these sections like fully aerial combat, shoot ’em up combat, platforming sections and unique combat/movement abilities.
The biggest shortcoming of Final Fantasy XVI’s gameplay is the game’s implementation of RPG customization. It is very surface level and customization decisions have a minimal impact on overall combat performance.
The first area of customization in XVI concerns Eikonic Feats and Abilities, which are unlocked as Clive channels the power of different Eikons like Garuda or Titan over the course of the game.
Although the game boasts an incredibly flexible system for spending and reallocating Ability Points to experiment with new Eikonic Feat and Ability combinations, XVI’s combat fails to offer meaningful incentives for players to frequently engage with this system and regularly retool their builds. This is the case because enemy weaknesses to specific types of damage or individual Eikonic Abilities are entirely absent from game. The best Feats and Abilities to use for a specific battle ultimately comes down to the player’s individual playstyle, with no Feat or Ability offering any explicit advantage or disadvantage against a particular enemy or boss based on factors like status effects and increased damage multipliers. Consequently, combat success in XVI boils down to mechanical skill and how the player uses their Feats and Abilities, with the actual equipped Feat and Ability set mattering very little to the outcome of battle they were used in. This starkly contrasts past Final Fantasy games where players had to constantly make deliberate, tactical decisions on which offensive abilities and spells to bring into battle to counter individual enemies and bosses according to their move sets and resistances.
My only other comments on customization in Final Fantasy XVI concerns the player’s sword, armor and accessories. The player’s sword and armor all play a limited role in combat because they only increase the player’s base stats without offering any other bonuses influencing other aspects of combat like movement or Eikonic Feats and Abilities. As a result, these pieces of equipment only serve to make combat slightly more forgiving by slightly increasing your base damage output, reducing damage taken from incoming attacks and increasing your base HP. Final Fantasy XVI’s approach to weapons and armor is as barebones as you can get, and completely forgoes the strategic decision making players would expect an RPG gear management system to encourage. There are no trade-offs that the player is challenged to make when it comes to deciding which sword or piece of armor to equip, as there are zero incentives for using statistically weaker equipment due to their lack of non stat based attributes.
Outside of weapons and armor, players can equip up to three accessories which usually enhances the user’s attacks or equipped Eikonic Abilities, raising their damage or decreasing their cooldown time. Although selecting the right accessories to use demands more critical thought compared to picking weapons and armor, I believe accessories generally have little to no value in battle because their buffs are too superficial (often no more than a 10% increase in damage or reduction in cooldown) to provide the player with a noticeable edge in combat. The limited impact of equipment in battle also devalues the game’s crafting system and loot grind, as the value that the game’s best items add to combat do not measure up to the effort required to get them. Ultimately, equipment in Final Fantasy XVI ends up feeling like more of an afterthought rather than a fine-tuned system that rewards players for learning how to fully engage with it.
Lastly, I have a word of warning for more experienced action gamers looking for games that provide a reasonable challenge. As a slightly above average enthusiast of third-person action games and someone who always plays on normal difficulty, I found XVI’s combat to not be difficult at all when I took full advantage of the game’s healing system. I found XVI’s in-combat healing to be a bit too generous — there is no penalty for healing with potions, and bosses often do not possess the damage output needed to defeat a player with a full inventory of potions. There are also unlockable upgrades and accessories which can further increase the player’s healing output, greatly increasing the player’s survivability. For the first three-quarters of the game, I realized that most battles would be a cakewalk if I used my full allocation of potions, so I elected to not use potions at all to make these battles tougher. It was not until the last area of the game where the bosses became difficult enough to the point where potion use became necessary for me to overcome these fights. Although XVI’s difficulty does a great job of accommodating players new to third-person action games, I recommend that players more familiar with XVI’s style of gameplay adopt a more restrained approach to healing to make the game’s battles more fulfilling to complete.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I personally have a positive impression of Final Fantasy XVI overall. XVI’s fluid action combat, rich in-game universe, amazing soundtrack and cinematically mind-blowing Eikon Battles are its greatest achievements, and in many ways has raised the bar for what an action RPG can deliver in this latest era of gaming.
Although XVI excels in many areas, there are several areas where I felt the game did take a step back. More specifically, I am not particularly a fan of XVI’s weaker supporting characters and lack of multiple playable characters. I also think that the XVI’s RPG systems are too barebones and fails to meaningfully complement and elevate the game’s exploration and combat. In my opinion, key elements instrinsic to Final Fantasy’s DNA were eroded away in XVI as a result of these kinds of design choices.
Final Fantasy XVI is a well-produced game, and I am hoping that future Final Fantasy installments continue to embrace the same level of quality and innovation as XVI. However, XVI has demonstrated that a better compromise can be found between introducing new narrative and gameplay elements and honoring the core gameplay components inherent to what makes Final Fantasy… Final Fantasy. The Final Fantasy franchise undoubtedly has a bright future, and it is my hope that gamers who play a Final Fantasy game for the first time can continue to fully experience the aspects of Final Fantasy that long-time fans would say makes the series so special from all the other RPGs and games out there.
