When discussing Final Fantasy as a franchise, the question about favorite Final Fantasy games is inevitable. For many people like myself, the answer is XIV, Square Enix’s long-running MMORPG. When it was announced that XVI‘s producer was also Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida, it was hard not to get excited. Final Fantasy XIV is known for its emotional beats and the magnitude of its grand fantasy plots, and XVI is much the same.

While some of the pacing and story beats can seem strange or even uncomfortable at times, the bulk of the game is fantastic. Despite debates, FFXVI strikes me not only as a Final Fantasy game from top to bottom, but also as a role playing game. It may be an action/adventure RPG, but the core elements that define an RPG are still present. While the crafting may be basic and you may get no option to pick or control your party, there are still stats at level up, skill trees, and quests to explore. These things may not be enough to satisfy turn-based Final Fantasy fans, but my time with the game was still enjoyable.

FFXVI‘s graphics capture small details and massive environments

On the PlayStation 5 the visuals really shine. Character models move, breathe, and even have small little details that help characterize and place them. There’s a point in the early game when Clive is younger and struggling to keep his emotions in check. The camera shows his adam’s apple bob as he swallows dryly, which stunned me. Body language, clothes, and magical graphics get an upgrade from previous installments, but I still wish we got to see more frequent emotion in facial expressions. The world itself is gorgeous and feels real, but some of the placidity in characters’ features feels less authentic at times, even in dramatic moments.

In combat, the game didn’t have many issues. I set my graphics to performance mode and encountered little to no tearing, lagging, or general glitching until boss fights. When certain elemental particle effects overlapped between multiple targets, my game briefly lagged, but it only encountered a major freeze one time. This was in the middle of an Eikon boss fight cutscene, and I had to pause the game for a brief moment to make sure that I didn’t miss any quick time event inputs. Aside from this singular issue, the game ran great for me, and was beautiful to behold both in and out of fights.

The story feels best when it focuses on Eikons

In a lot of ways, FFXVI feels split between two key plot lines: the slavery/political plot, and the actual grand sweeping fantasy plots that the Final Fantasy franchise is known for. More than once, the game mentions slavery, and the persistent slapping of insults towards Clive rubbed me the wrong way. The Branded aren’t treated like people, and it’s something that’s impossible to ignore in the story even if you push through and don’t pay attention to the side quests. This is one of the weaker plot points, even if the game’s verdict is that slavery is bad. A similarity drawn between a wolf and a Branded slave within a home together remains a head scratcher even if the game reaches the right conclusion. FFXVI also often seems to forget its female characters, only allowing them a few moments to shine before they get put back up on the shelf.

What FFXIV does well is the mystical aspects of the narratives. Every Eikon fight varies, but they’re all magnificent. These are elemental powerhouses, wardens of forces of nature themselves. Each fight does a great job of showing how different these wardens are compared to normal folk. This is a Final Fantasy with the graphical power to achieve the grandiose visuals the writing lends itself to. While the fights are the best part of the game, the story does a good job of filling the gaps between each Eikon fight, even if the pacing is strange at times. The narrative proved easy enough to follow, despite the difficulty I often have with political plots. For what it’s worth, I rarely used the active time lore to elaborate on things I missed, and instead used it to get more information about the world and the characters outside of the lore the game provides during the course of the story.

FFXVI is action RPG combat done right

The Devil May Cry, Dragon’s Dogma, and Kingdom Hearts influences were clear the second the demo dropped, and are more than welcome. The gameplay is dynamic and quick with many different methods to achieve victory. Once Clive obtains more Eikonic abilities, the variety of combos available to him grows.

If an enemy is about to run to create distance, there are three different ways to close the gap.. My favorite is any dash variant, which brings me closer to the target. From there, a wealth of combos are available, from hitting with a sword, stomping, using a normal spell, or any of the elemental abilities Clive has at his disposal.

Players have a variety of objectives to complete, such as the main story, side quests, and hunting down targets for rare crafting materials. Crafting is rather straight-forward as far as RPG systems go, though it is the best way to get powerful weapons. I simply wish there were more options or combinations.

The only thing I wanted more from in combat are the controls. There was no button mapping available at the game’s launch,which made finding what was comfortable difficult. Action RPGs require a lot of hammering of the same buttons, but it was the dodge that troubled me in control format A. I swapped to format B, immediately got into a boss fight, won the first bout, and then died in the second phase. I went back to control format A after that, though I wasn’t fully comfortable. Still, this is a difficulty that’s easy enough to overlook once the fights fall into the rapid, rhythmic, fluid action that this game does so well. I could easily see myself replaying FFXVI for the gameplay alone.

The Final Verdict:

Score: 7.5 / 10

This game has some magnificent boss fights that often make up for any shortcomings within the writing. Truthfully, I felt like the game mishandles its Branded plot, to the point of making me uncomfortable at times. I feel like the story could have proceeded without a slavery subplot, or substituted other forms of magical subjugation. It also could have benefited from a bit more time to explore nuance in relation to the Branded within the narrative, and the impact they have within each nation of Valisthea. They make up the bulk of the world’s economy, after all, so without proper time to explore the full consequences of slavery beyond death, it maybe shouldn’t have been included at all. The writing of the female characters also leaves much to be desired, as they rarely get even a fraction of the consideration the narrative puts into Clive’s emotions.

Players who have the same issue with the writing that I did can still find joy in the fights, graphics, music, and voice acting, along with familiar Final Fantasy style story beats. There are Moogles, Chocobo, and one of the best iterations of Cid the series has ever created. This game is definitely worth your time if you’re a fan of action RPGs, or of the franchise in general, so long as you can look past some of the rougher patches.

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