Final Fantasy XVI Review and the Franchise’s Future

Happy National Video Games Day! If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, congratulations. I hope you’re full from all the good eating you’ve been doing recently. This year’s Summer Games Fest concluded with an exclusive new story trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the much-anticipated second part of the remake trilogy of Square Enix’s groundbreaking fantasy RPG. Plus, a teaser trailer for Dawntrail, the newest expansion for the award-winning MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, premiered at FF14 FanFest earlier this summer.

But perhaps most importantly for our purposes, Final Fantasy XVI released on June 22 — almost three years after it was first announced at September 2020’s PlayStation Showcase. The game’s marketing boasted that it was unlike any Final Fantasy that fans had ever played before, and in most ways, that’s absolutely true. Only time will tell if that’s a good thing for the series or not.

It certainly has several very quintessential Final Fantasy elements like magic crystals and killing gods, but Square Enix took a big risk with FFXVI‘s pivot away from the traditional RPG elements that are characteristic of the franchise. Let’s take a closer look.

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Clive or Dante?

The fast-paced action of FFXVI will be familiar to anyone who has played Devil May Cry 5 (combat director Ryota Suzuki worked on the Capcom masterpiece), but it is very different from the usual gameplay mechanics of other Final Fantasy titles. While it’s true that both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy XV use a mix of real-time combat and more traditional, menu selection-style gameplay, the majority of the rest of the franchise’s entries use turn-based combat systems. This style of gameplay is much slower and more deliberate than FFXVI. This is certainly not a bad thing, but it is usually this exact mechanic that keeps a lot of new players from trying Final Fantasy games and RPGs in general. By completely eliminating all elements of the turn-based system, FFXVI doesn’t allow unfamiliar players to dip their proverbial toes into that style of gameplay to see if they like it.

Another gameplay element departure from previous Final Fantasy games is the party system, or rather FFXVI’s lack of one. To use the two most recent numbered entries as examples once again, the player has some degree of control over members of Cloud’s and Noctis’ respective parties during combat. On the other hand, controlling only Clive and allowing the rest of his party to handle themselves frees up a lot more brain power for… well, controlling Clive. Jumping into older Final Fantasy games means juggling more playable characters, each with their own jobs, weapons and armor, stats, specialties, and the like which could get overwhelming very quickly for anyone unfamiliar with the franchise and the genre.

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Are we done yet?

Another notable update is the sheer amount of side quests: Final Fantasy XVI has 76 of them. They make for good worldbuilding and often deepen Clive’s relationships with important NPCs, but it doesn’t take too long before they can get tedious. A lot of players opt to skip them entirely, and really, it’s understandable why. Plus, much of the game isn’t actually fully voice acted; there are portions of side quests and some conversations with NPCs that don’t have voice lines.

Instead, the player has to read and then click through several screens of dialogue before regaining control of Clive, further halting the game’s pacing. If Square had stuck to the action game formula and left out a good chunk of these side quests, the game might be more streamlined and more likely to entice players to try the older titles. What saves the game is that these side quests are optional, and while some are unlocked through main story progression, they aren’t time limited. Any side quest can be finished at any time once unlocked or, as mentioned before, completely skipped. The ability to control more of the game’s overall experience turns out to be a prominent selling point.

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Of course, if Square Enix is only looking forward, hoping that FFXVI will keep new players on the hook for future titles rather than encourage them to revisit previous ones, then Final Fantasy XVI serves as good bait. The combat is fun with enough customization options to suit multiple play styles, and the story delivers the signature Final Fantasy emotional damage when it needs to.

What are your thoughts on Final Fantasy XVI? Join the conversation with other Final Fantasy fans, meet us over at Sideshow Social Network or in side.show/geekgroup — don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!