4/5 ★ – kstrand317's review of Final Fantasy XVI.

Final Fantasy 16 is good, it's so good that I'm mad it's not great. While the game is undeniably flawed, it's still an absolute blast and ultimately, greater than the sum of its parts.  It’s difficult to discuss the reception of Final Fantasy 16 without talking about the time/circumstances in which it was released.  Final Fantasy fans are notorious for being purists and hating any form of change, but as the online discussion of games has grown more toxic, so have fans of this series.  At the time of FF16’s release, Balder’s Gate 3 had been released, and that in conjunction with the rise in popularity of Yakuza and Persona, led to a resurgence in the favor of turn-based combat.  Final Fantasy purists were already hesitant with the darker tone, but while other franchises were going back to turn-based, Final Fantasy was boldly experimenting with action combat, something that was growing increasingly unpopular amongst JRPG purists.  Additionally, people were starting to tire of the Sony First Party over-the-shoulder, cinematic action games and were disappointed that Square Enix was also moving in this direction. Console-waring fanboys also made every effort to rake FF16 over the coals for being a third-party PlayStation exclusive even so far as to make a major controversy revolving around motion blur of all things (It’s real look it up).  My point is, that people wanted to hate this game, and it’s incredibly sad that so many immediately wrote this game off because of the action combat or the darker tone.  Now I have my own problems with FF16, but I still stand by that this is FAR from the disaster that people on Twitter and Reddit would have you believe.  I’m very much looking forward to when FF17 comes out, all the fans start hating that game and begin declaring how much of a masterpiece 16 was (as the Final Fantasy cycle goes).  Is this a perfect 10/10 game?  Not remotely.  Is it a great game?  Sometimes.  Is it a good game?  Beyond a reasonable doubt. Final Fantasy 16’s narrative is overall good, but not great.  It takes heavy inspiration from Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, yet while it reaches some of the spectacles of its inspirations, it doesn’t quite manage the same heart or intrigue.  The game attempts to toe the line by being more of a political drama in the first half and slowly transitioning into a typical Final Fantasy (good versus evil story) in the second half.  I personally would’ve preferred had the game maintained its political intrigue roots, but I’m still mostly satisfied with what we got here.  I really do like Clive, and I honestly find him one of the most compelling Final Fantasy protagonists, but I do think that Clive gets too much focus on the detriment of the other characters.  I love many of the companions (won’t name any for the sake of spoilers), but I do wish we had gotten more moments with them.  Your companions as you explore the world are often dead silent, and almost always interact solely with Clive in cutscenes & not amongst each other or in gameplay.  The quality of the writing also varies.  Some characters (like Clive) are written extremely well, while others try to speak more medieval-esk and feel like the writers were trying to hit the word count on an essay with a thesaurus on hand.  Thankfully, the good writing far outweighs the bad writing and overall, the story had moments that genuinely really hit me in the feels.  There’s an incredible amount of detail in the world of Valisthea, things you wouldn’t think of like certain nations have a unique gesture of salute or this world’s version of curse words and slang.  I do think the game is just straight up way too long and really could’ve benefited from cutting 10-15 hours out of this game.  The writers also did make some unfortunate decisions that really hampered the game’s story from being great, but for the sake of spoilers, I’ll save that for a separate section.  In terms of combat, this game has a fantastic combat system and plenty of opportunities to use it.  It’s heavily inspired by Devil May Cry (made by the same designer actually) and while I found DMC5’s combat just ok, I found 16’s more compelling with the amount of variety with the different Eikons at your disposal.  Additionally, this game also has the stagger gauge taken from FF7 Remake/Rebirth and while I don’t think it fits quite as well here, I think it’s a welcome addition and helps provide a bit more strategy to the combat encounters.  I found that even when I thought I had my dream team of Eikons, the game would throw me a curveball and I’d find yet another Eikon I loved, making my loadout choice that much more difficult.  I do think the combat does get a little repetitive over long stretches, as the same basic strategy works on each enemy (outside of differing dodge/parry windows), but I’ve also been spoiled by the level of strategy that FF7 Remake/Rebirth combat requires.  Many people claim this game’s combat would benefit greatly from elemental weaknesses, but I don’t think they fit here.  In other Final Fantasy games, multiple characters are controllable, and equitable magic is almost limitless (especially with three controllable party members). In FF16 all you have control over is Clive who is locked to three Eikons maximum which means you’ll always be lacking over half of the elements at your disposal.  However, I do think this game’s combat would benefit GREATLY from the inclusion of the pressure system from FF7 Remake/Rebirth.   Having a pressured state in which the stagger gauge is more susceptible to damage, forces players to figure out what triggers their pressured state and adjust tactics accordingly.  For example, parrying a very specific swipe from a troll would pressure him providing a small window to do extra damage to his stagger bar (different pressured state triggers/actions depending on the enemy type).  I also wish the game had allowed Clive to access four Eikons at once, as by the end of the game you’ll have 4-5 Eikons sitting on the sidelines.  Ultimately, this game’s combat is really solid, although I still prefer God of War’s and FF7 Remake/Rebirth combat, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I had a ton of fun demolishing enemies as Clive. The soundtrack is yet another extremely high point of the game.  I have never played FF14 nor do I have any plans to primarily because of a lack of interest, time & patience for MMOs, but I know the name Soken. He does some absolutely incredible work here and I’m beyond happy I was able to experience his music here in 16.  I adore his use of leitmotifs for each Eikon and how they’re woven throughout the story.   Find the Flame, Heart of Stone, and Ascension have to be some of the most intense and bombastic songs in the history of gaming, but the soundtrack also has a great balance of more gentle themes for areas like the Hideaway.  This game even has my favorite arrangement of the Final Fantasy Prelude (titled “Land of Eikons”). Overall, this goes down as one of the best soundtracks in a series that is already renowned for its music.   I feel like I may be coming off far more negative than I intended, but I really did enjoy my time with this game.  I would absolutely love to see this team get another chance to make another mainline Final Fantasy game. With a few minor tweaks to story/combat, a far shorter length, and revamped side quests, you really could have an all-timer game (they don't have far to go). There are a lot of spoilers to discuss, so I’m saving them for a section below, but I want to close my thoughts here.  At the risk of sounding pretentious, a slightly modified Quentin Tarantino quote perfectly sums up my feelings on this game, “This game is good, is so good, I’m mad that it’s not great.” SPOILERS BELOW As I mentioned previously, I have very conflicted feelings about this game’s narrative.  I do truly believe that despite being a great character, Clive gets too much focus.  It’s bizarre when you consider that his arc is primarily concluded in the first quarter of the game.  Once he accepts the truth of who he is (in an incredible scene btw) and takes on Cid’s name, his character growth is practically wrapped up.   It’s strange that he really doesn’t grow as a character in the last 75% of the game and yet he remains the game’s sole focus.  The focus is on Clive so much that it comes to the detriment of the other characters, the best example of that being Jill.  Jill is a fantastic character who is criminally underutilized.  She is given so little to do in the story and it really bothers me that they wrote such a cool character, who barely gets to do anything.  Compared to Tifa, Aerith, Celes, or Terra who all feel like co-protagonists, Jill is firmly a side character.  There are moments between her and Clive are some of my favorites in the game, but their actual interactions are so few outside of “We need to destroy this mother crystal”, and “How do we go about destroying this mother crystal?”.  This leads to a larger problem with the game as it sorely lacks character interactions, especially those outside of cutscenes.  Compared to FF7 Remake/Rebirth, which has SO MANY amazing moments to flesh out the whole cast and make them feel alive, FF16’s characters somehow feel underdeveloped despite the massive amount of time you spend with them.  They also never really talk amongst each other and solely interact with Clive, leading to them feeling more like NPCs than actual people.  When I mentioned mistakes the writers made early on, I’m mainly referring to how they killed off Benedicta and Cid in the first 20% of the game.  Benedicta was a great villain who easily could’ve been one of the main antagonists, but ultimately really needed more screen time. Even if you maintained how early Clive had taken Garruda from her, she easily could’ve been present throughout the story manipulating both Titan and Odin. Killing Cid especially so early on was a crucial mistake, as his character brought a level of banter, levity, and dry humor that is sorely lacking in the rest of the game.  I really like the idea of Cid being Clive’s inspiration and Clive even taking up Cid’s name to honor his mission/legacy, but Cid desperately needed to be in the game more before that happened.  His character even had the inter-party banter that I referred to earlier, but once he’s gone that virtually dries up too.  This also comes in conjunction with one of the most underwhelming time skips I’ve seen in a game.  Time skips in games are so incredibly cool because you get to see how characters have changed/grown over a lengthy period of time.  Unfortunately, outside of Clive having his scar removed, and a different Hideaway location, it feels like almost nothing has changed in the five years since Cid’s passing.  Jill and Clive’s relationship somehow hasn’t progressed at all in five years, Joshua is still on his same side quest, Hugo is still hellbent on revenge and pretty much everyone is in the exact same place character-wise.  At most, it feels like maybe six months have passed, not five years.  A common complaint is that this game’s narrative gets worse as it goes on, but I really do think that’s mostly due to Clive’s arc wrapping up so early, Cid’s demise, and the killed momentum following the time skip.  I’m also really not a fan of Ultima as a villain, he and Barnabas really feel like they recite entire paragraphs to convey information that could be spoken in a single sentence.  They’re extremely shallow JRPG antagonists, waxing poetic about “Strength” and “Will” for hours, while in reality, saying very little of substance. Joshua also really sadly fits into that same writing category as Ultima and Barnabas in that rambling, pretentious medieval writing. I didn't feel the brotherly connection between him and Clive nearly as much during the adult years as in their youth, primarily due to the two brothers barely speaking of anything outside of the greater threat. None of these problems actively ruin the game's narrative, but the culmination of them all greatly weakens the overall package. However, despite that whole previous paragraph about all my complaints with this game’s narrative, I cannot deny this game really has moments.  The first three hours, introducing the world/character and leading into the Phoenix vs. Ifrit fight is genuinely one of my favorite prologues in any game period.  It phenomenally sets the stage, but it doesn’t stop there.  The Clive and Hugo rivalry is so insanely cool, leading up to their confrontation in the Rosiarian castle and eventually the utterly insane fight with Titan Lost.  I absolutely adore the chapter where Dion goes crazy, starts raining fire upon the Empire’s capital, and cultivates into possibly the coolest boss I’ve ever seen in a game.  I had no idea how they were going to top the Titan fight, but they somehow managed to with a battle against Bahamut in space.  I love the moment when Jill returns to take down those who enslaved her and Clive reunites with Uncle Byron.  Uncle Byron and Dion are extremely underappreciated characters and ended up being some of my favorites in the entire series.  Byron brings a jovial energy & joy that is lacking in the rest of the cast and Dion probably has the best arc in the entire game. Despite the side quests being pretty dull, many have some shockingly good writing, such as the ones where you get your Chocobo, Dion reuniting with his childhood tutor, helping Tarja remove the poisonous brand on a magik user, and the final side quest with Jill.    By the time you reach the final battle, and you reach the moment where you hear the voices of all your friends as you’re beating down Ultima, it genuinely moved me.  The game ends on such a bittersweet note (although I am firmly in the camp that Clive survives, based on a ton of hints throughout the game), but I felt satisfied with the story as a whole.  Ultimately, like the entirety of Final Fantasy 16, the narrative is a mixed bag, but despite all my little complaints, I absolutely enjoyed my time with it.