Developer: Creative Business Unit III
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: 22/06/23
Platform: PS5
Reviewed on: PS5
Price: Purchased for £53.85 on hit.co.uk
***Minor spoilers are ahead but the game has been out for over two months now.
First up – full disclosure, I am about as far from a Final Fantasy fan as you can find. In fact when I watched Summer Games Fest a couple of months back and the final big reveal wasn’t Cyberpunk’s upcoming expansion and was instead part two of FF7 Remake I swore at the TV and turned the stream off to go play a game instead.
My formative experience of the FF franchise goes way back to the original FF7 hype machine back in the late 90s. As a PlayStation owner I couldn’t help but be intrigued by this apparent juggernaut of a game that everyone was raving about. I got hold of a copy and fired it up, really not knowing what to expect other than a “role playing game”. I played the first mission and quickly ditched it, finding it not to my taste at all. I mean what the fuck was that combat all about? Turn based? Fuck that.
And so started my long term ambivalence towards the franchise. I could see games coming out and people enjoying them but I didn’t feel any urge at all to dip my toe back in – after all, it wasn’t like I was short of games to play or anything.
This continued to this year. Again I was somewhat aware of the upcoming release of FFXVI and could see loads of people getting excited about it but, more to the point, we were getting a new Yakuza game in 2023!
I hadn’t bothered with any of the FFXVI trailers or read anything about the game but from my fellow Pure Dead Gaming Discord members I heard there was a demo expected to drop a wee while before launch. I was between large “main” games when it did and it had transpired that Like A Dragon Gaiden wasn’t launching til later in the year so I thought, why not give it a go?
The demo for the game consists of the first couple of hours and is essentially the prologue to the main story. We meet the protagonist and some of the main characters and are introduced to the combat system: melee and magical abilities.
Not having a clue what to expect from the story I initially found the exposition a bit confusing but soon settled into the game. And, I have to say, I really enjoyed it!
About the only thing I had known prior to playing the demo was that the combat had been changed to an action style and it transpired that I found it quite enjoyable. Clive (?!) our protagonist also starts off with one style of eikon (as I discovered the magic was correctly termed) ability which gives him fire based attack spells. To fast forward into the game itself the range of these abilities available to Clive is steadily expanded and they are upgradeable upon spending ability points which we accrue through completing quests.
Incidentally, one of the best aspects of this magic system to me is the ability to undo any upgrades you like with no penalty at any time which then allows you to respend points elsewhere in your build.
These eikon attacks operate on a cooldown system – the more devastating ones naturally taking longer to become usable again. Once you have built up a selection of abilities you then find yourself cycling through them during battles trying to unleash as much destruction as possible.
The positive thing about not having any prior attachment or commitment to the FF series is that I can take this combat system in isolation, without mourning the loss of the more traditional turn based approach which I know many players love dearly.
(On an aside I can 100% understand and sympathise with the attitude “it’s not a proper Final Fantasy game”. My most dearly loved game series of all time is Yakuza and when I learned that Yakzua 7 / Like A Dragon was to ditch its action brawling style for traditional JRPG turn based combat I was absolutely devastated. I initially completely rejected the game and wouldn’t deign to play it at all, only later softening and giving it a couple of tries. I was pleasantly surprised to eventually settle on “not hating it” but to me it wasn’t and will never be a true Yakuza game. I couldn’t blame any long term FF fan taking a similar stance with XVI.)
The main theme of this world is crystals – which facilitate magic for a host of purposes including mundane ones such as cooking. They can essentially be seen as a representation of electricity or technology. Hand sized crystal shards are derived from massive “mothercrystals” found in a selection of locations across the game world. And then we have bearers – humans who are born with the innate ability to channel magic without the use of crystals.
You might think that would be a good thing, being born with such a gift. Well, no, as the name “bearer” might suggest, it’s seen more of a curse for <reasons> and bearers are generally treated as a resource to be exploited. Kinda like slavery and you know, slavery is bad, mkay. The bearers are even branded with a large tattoo on their cheeks.
But these bearers have magical abilities, surely they could break the bonds of slavery if they used them to that end? No, for <reasons>.
And this started a trend for me – lots of things not quite making sense in my mind. I asked questions about some of the logical inconsistencies in the PDG Discord and was told to keep playing, all would be revealed / explained. Spoilers, all was not wrapped up satisfactorily by the time many many many many hours later I finally reached the end.
Circling back to the demo, the game’s prologue sets the scene for what is to come. We are introduced to a royal family who rule a duchy which is one nation amongst a few which inhabit a pair of continents in our fictional world. Much has been said about the influence of Game Of Thrones on FFXVI so I won’t dwell on that but political intrigue in a fantastical medieval type setting is most definitely a major theme in the game.
Events ensue and in due course we meet – and experience an epic battle between – two eikons: massive magical beasts that sit within a human host and can be brought forth to engage in combat. As Clive progresses through the game he battles various other eikons and takes possession of their different abilities, thus enlarging his own magical arsenal.
The eikon battles in FFXVI are definitely the spectacles of the game. They bone shakingly convey the scale and power of these “kaiju” combatants and are accompanied by fittingly epic feeling music.
Regular combat isn’t quite as spectacular but is engaging and enjoyable, if very repetitive. I am aware that some accusations of it being a button masher have been made. While this is not really the case there are undeniably aspects of hammering the attack buttons. Skill is needed however for dodging attacks and the timing of counters and the aforementioned management of the cooling down magical attacks.
I found the initial eikon battles quite fun but the novelty wore off quite soon (well relatively speaking, 10s of hours game time later). This was particularly evident in the battle against Bahamut. It went on for around FORTY MINUTES! It was of course visually spectacular but the battle itself was utterly uninspiring and largely consisted of button mashing, trying to dodge incoming attacks as far as possible and very little else. The end phase was an “epic” battle in space (yes, you read that correctly) and required fuck all skill. This encounter could have easily been half or even a third of the length and been far more enjoyable.
In fact I would say that is a fair summary of how I feel about the game overall. Enjoyable in parts but way outstayed its welcome.
Combat can be supported by various items which can be equipped to basically make things easier in different aspects. As the game introduced these I dutifully equipped a couple (and thought it did seem to make things a wee bit too easy) until I was informed that they were in fact accessibility options! While I personally went on without these items I do think their inclusion is to be applauded. Changing the combat system so utterly would run the risk of leaving some non action fans behind so adding extra support to allow as many players as possible to enjoy the game is a great move in my book.
Main story quests invariably consist of “cutscene – travel somewhere – battle waves of enemies – fight sub boss(es) – battle boss – cutscene”. Nothing wrong with that at all but nothing to write home about. And this is representative of my opinion of the game as a whole. Decent, enjoyable game mechanics but nothing original and it all feels a bit meh to me.
The Active Time Lore system in FFXVI is a feature where you can access supporting lore information during cutscenes. Hitting pause then the Dualsense touchpad calls up a screen which lists locations, characters and other relevant factors to the current scene which you can click on to gain more detailed info. If there is new info for any particular aspect the section is highlighted so the player can easily just check any fresh lore.
This is a great system and has rightly been lauded as a delivery mechanic for the detailed game lore – with a caveat in my opinion. On a few occasions I found I needed to use the ATL to explain plot aspects which to me were important enough to be explained by the cutscene itself.
Side quests are even more derivative than mainline ones, the vast majority of them being insultingly simple fetch quests. “Aha, but you said Yakuza is your favourite series ever and those games are brimming with fetch quests?!”. Yes, I did and yes they are but the difference for me is that I was never properly engaged with FFXVI and so the side quests felt far more like busy work than anything else. Whereas in the Yakuza games I was all in with the story (absurdities included) and the game world so was happy to run to the other side of the map, pick something up and bring it back to an NPC. Although, to be fair, Yakuza side quests are infinitely more entertaining than delivering fucking soup to three tables in the same room as one of the early FFXVI sides has you doing.
There are exceptions of course – unlocking your chocobo stead (and thus making the slow traversal slightly quicker) is the reward for a side quest and there is another which painfully illustrates the lowly status of bearers in this world. Another later on in the game expands your inventory capacity. However for the large part side quests are not especially impactful. I wanted to do all the side quests but the longer the game wore on, the more I got scunnered with it and with around a third of the main story left I switched to beelining it and didn’t bother with any more side content. I did not regret this decision.
I have seen some comments in the few other reviews of the game I’ve read for some context (didn’t read many as I wanted to keep a reasonably open mind) bemoaning the lack of non white characters. I know I’m almost certainly a lot older than the folk writing this stuff but come on. Seriously? It’s a video game with the actual word “fantasy” in the fucking title. There’s plenty to find fault with here without resorting to the virtue signalling “not diverse enough” bullshit card.
The “official” reason for this state of affairs from Square Enix is that, although a fantasy world, FFXVI is modelled on medieval European states and peoples. And “there were black folk in medieval Europe” is the alleged complaint. Yes, there probably were but 1) not very many and 2) there are non white people in the game. Again, not very many but how many NPCs are in the game total? We’re not talking thousands so a handful of non white ones seems fair enough.
It’s just such a disingenuous thing to make an issue out of. Square Enix Creative Business Unit III are a Japanese team. They have already populated their fantasy video game world with people who are not Japanese and are racially different to themselves. It’s like complaining Sucker Punch didn’t put enough white people into Ghost of Tsushima FFS. Moaning about lack of diversity in a fantasy video game is classic looking for something that’s not there to complain about.
Since upgrading to the PS5 a few months ago I have absolutely embraced the “60fps is superior” school of thought and as a matter of course select performance mode at all times. To say I was disappointed with this mode in FFXVI would be an understatement. It’s awful. I first noticed the frame rate drops in the cut scenes of the demo but was advised 30fps was an artistic choice for these. Fair enough I suppose as long as the game maintains 60. It doesn’t… I don’t have a means to measure frame rate but it is abundantly clear it drops way below that in places. Bizarrely it seems to happen not so much in combat which you might expect but just cutting about (sparsely) populated areas like your hub area, the Hideaway.
Happily this means it doesn’t impact your gameplay too much but it is bloody ugly and I don’t think this is acceptable for a game released only for (and therefore optimised for) the PS5. I am peripherally aware of the 30fps Starfield furore (not being an Xbox owner I filter out most of that stuff) and I believe the argument is something along the lines of “the world is so complex that even these modern consoles can’t cope with calculating that and producing 60fps visuals”. Sorry, I’m not buying that. There obviously must be reasons that frame rates don’t achieve 60fps in certain games, I’m not suggesting studios deliberately create games that underperform But in my opinion games of this generation should set out with 60fps being the standard performance and develop the game to this end.
So, yeah, the performance of FFXVI ain’t good in many places and I’m not going to give it a pass. If Jedi Survivor got marked down for its (I believe far worse but the point holds) poor performance then so should all games, Square Enix’s baby included. 30fps performance in games should be a thing of the past.
For a supposed role playing game there is a distinct lack of mechanics you might expect from an RPG. I’m personally not bothered by the lack of a party (you often have a small party but you only ever control Clive) but I know some “FF purists” are. There are other omissions which felt quite glaring to me. Again as a reminder, I have no Final Fantasy history so I accept there may be things going on with the series that I’m not aware of but XVI was absolutely not what I was expecting RPG wise.
Weapons upgrading is perfunctory at best. Periodically there is a slightly better sword / piece of armour available to buy and then you can upgrade it a wee bit at the blacksmith. Then a couple of hours later you do the same. Then a couple of hours later you do the same… That’s it. You don’t get to craft interesting modifications that alter the stats of your weapon in strategic ways or even choose different weapons (although I guess the big sword on the main character’s back thing is a FF standard so they probably don’t want you using an axe or something instead for aesthetic reasons).
I’ve never experienced a journey like I have playing through FFXVI. Like I said I picked up the demo on a whim, with no expectations whatsoever. And, after really enjoying it, I went and pre ordered the game and was super excited to get it on release day. But then, the more I played the less I enjoyed it. So often I thought to myself “is this it?” or “that doesn’t make much sense” or “get on with it” as I watched another long as fuck cutscene. The story never grabbed me, I found the characters unlikeable and the gameplay was never particularly exhilarating.
I didn’t like Clive and I didn’t particularly like many of the other characters in the game – it has been suggested to me that this might be partly due to me playing the game with Japanese dialogue. Perhaps but I’m not sure that hearing Cid speak in a Geordie accent would endear him any more to me. To me the game looks like an anime film so it makes sense (in my head) to play it with Japanese audio.
One last observation from me is that I found the way Final Fantasy deals with themes quite lazy and heavy handed:
- Crystals – obviously a metaphor for fossil fuels – are BAD.
- Slavery – the bearers are treated as slaves – this is BAD.
- Dominants and their eikons are akin to nuclear weapons, for a nation to be fully capable of defending itself, it really needs to possess these.
And of course Clive is a messiah who will save the world and humanity from these evil influences…
I’ve looked on Opencritic and I can see I’m clearly in the minority – plenty of reviews give the game full 5/5 or 10/10, many calling it a masterpiece, and I’m absolutely baffled. Did we play the same game? To sum up, I’ll quote myself from a tweet I posted when I happily traded the game in after finishing it.
“Bloated beyond any resemblance of fun, unlikeable characters and incoherent pish for a story.”
-Calum
