I tried my hardest in not buying this game, and I told myself I’d wait until it went on offer or until it dropped in price. I did neither of these things, naturally. I bought it pretty much straight away, I did however manage to hold off from playing it for a while. Mainly whilst I completed Ghostwire, played some AEW fight forever and Tears of the Kingdom in between. I even put some hours into Tiny Tina’s wonderlands, as well as Timesplitters 2 and Burnout 3. Some would argue I have an attention problem, I’d be highly inclined to agree. Now I have been fully invested in the Final Fantasy games since the PS1 era, but I really came to love it with X, and then when XII came along I was fully hooked. This is somewhat similar to what XV was like, not everyone’s cup of tea. You’ll never please everyone and everyone also has a voice in expressing their opinion on what a Final Fantasy mainline entry should be. Now hear me out on this but that’s up to Square Enix and the team that makes them, so as long as it’s called Final Fantasy it is one. No point clinging onto the older turn based battle systems that let’s be honest fucked off like 20 plus years back now.
Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the newest entry much as I did XV before. Now XV did a fairly piss poor job of the main story but did well on the other stuff, exploration, dungeons, side quest, a nice open area, shit loads of enemies and bosses. This was a real complaint then and still is now, I still platinumed the shit out of it, as I intend to this once the DLC drops. So XVI excels in it’s story but real is a bit of wet blanket on the rest of the stuff it seems the flipped it around this time. Now luckily the story is is a good ‘un. Primarily focusing on Clive Rosfield and light spoiler here as he and his cohorts go about killing a God. It takes place at three points of his life, so from time to time there is a timeskip, which basically just adds longer hair and some face fluff. The linear design as a result means no direct open world. Rather more a Dragon Age Inquisition style of several large areas which are placed to make it feel as though you traverse the land mass of Valisthea. Now another feature that is primarily gone in the game is the party function. You do have several non-recurring characters that join you and fight alongside you, but you have no control over their move set or weapons etc. Now you do have Torgal (truly the bestest boy) at your side pretty much always and have some slight control, you have two attack commands and healing. Even I’d admit this is a bit of let down, one of the best features of Final Fantasy games and the like is the picking your companions, and creating a synergistic build. What you get instead is Clive and the special moves that come along with all of the different Eikon powers you amass.
This game’s highlight is definitely the big set pieces involving the boss fights. In this world special people become dominants and get the powers to turn into Eikons. Which from previous series you’d recognise as the big summons that do a boat load of damage, and usually require unlocking. Now these really are impressive, from fighting ripping through the Earth like Gandalf ragging on the Balrog, or from having meteors rain down on you as you fight a Bahamut above the world below. You get a sense of how much bigger and powerful these creatures are in comparison to the average human. As you fight them as normal, there are cutscenes sprinkled throughout them as well as quick time events and they just come off as incredible.
Overall the combat isn’t ground breaking and in terms of even combos it’s slightly lacking. It comes across a bit Devil may Cry and with the big boss fights even a bit like Asura’s Wrath crossed with God of War. It handles well and functions as it should. You don’t really have the items or spell set from previous games either which somewhat limits the overall feel to fighting. There also isn’t status effects or ailments. Another problem that at the core if you got rid of certain enemies, and move names you could pass this off as game that isn’t a Final Fantasy, which I can agree with somewhat. You still have returning favourites in Chocobos and Moogles giving a small sprinkling of the older entries.
The game looks super crisp and detailed, definitely sitting up there in the upper games that have come out so far on the PS5. Even though you don’t have a singular open world to explore, the 4 different regions are designed so well, it does make you feel as though you are trekking through one. Seamlessly going from the desert to the dying and derelict swamp lands of Waloed. All having beautifully imposing castles and mother crystals towering on the horizon. The are highly detailed and truly first rate graphics. The move set that Clive can access all look top tier as well, and quickly swapping between 6 high levelled moves from throwing lightning bolts from Ramuh, cutting the fabric in space and time itself from Odin, or even summoning the flames of the Phoenix or Ifrit all look fantastically individual and perfectly executed. Something that does come off as janky can be in game cutscenes, sometimes the mouth movements really don’t sync up well with what’s being said. This especially comes off when a pre-rendered scene plays out and the quality does spike somewhat.
It’s not the longest entry in the series, it took me around the 59 hour mark to do everything. This obviously included the main story, every side quest and hunts. It’s pretty hard to not to do the side quests as for most the game there’s like 2 or 3 that randomly pop up every few main quests. Then in the last quarter of the game you get two big ol’ dumps of them. I found this to be the most enjoyable time playing the game. Having a reason to do the hunts, the longer quest chains which unlocked several new craft able weapons and armours. Crafting again is massively minimal. I feel this is one aspect that really wasn’t fleshed out. There are few unlockable schematics and you can often just out right buy them instead of making them. Every now and again you can get a slightly better version, much like you can upgrade certain armour pieces or rings/necklaces you can wear. These also don’t do a fat lot. Most of the missions are just fetch or kill quests, which again feel under worked. I would recommend sticking it out though, as the last few especially really help give more character to a chunk of the supporting cast, as well as function to build world lore, so it’s not completely worthless.
Something else to mention here, unsurprisingly with the 18 rating stamped on this game. This is definitely the bloodiest and most violent game in the series. Outside of Type- 0 I can’t really remember there being much in the way of blood. It’s not overly gory and most of the extreme moments happen off camera, however the game is littered with corpses and blood sprays everywhere. No idea if this is to become the norm for what comes next but I don’t mind it. It fits the setting and tone of the game. It’s like a weird mesh of the Witcher, Dragons Dogma and earlier final fantasy games. What I personally found more of shift rather then the violence is the swearing, having Clive drop the word fuck and shit repeatedly is truly new. In saying that most the swearing seems to come from Gav. The general atmosphere of the game is grim, dark and mainly miserable. Again fitting the tone with the warring nations, it’s pretty much everyone is either dead, will be dead or you are looking for them and they are also dead. So, in having this grim more mature outlook could also be a bit of a turn off for returning fans but the narrative pays off in setting up this new world in which Clive is looking to change for the better, another point adding to the notion in sticking it out.
If you want some epic boss fights with a strong linear story driven game, all powered behind the engine that is the Final Fantasy series in all it’s glory and legacy, then this game is well worth your time, it’s stellar in so many aspects. It does unfortunately falter in a few minor aspects. This comes from mostly weak side quests, slightly underdeveloped side characters which also includes no control of them, next to no exploration, few items and honestly disappointing crafting. None of this directly hampers the game, and could be argued as a personal preference or just being downright picky. I will almost certainly play through the entire game again when the time comes to collect the platinum trophy. Seeing as the only two left to get are get all Eikon abilities fully upgraded, and to run it back on final fantasy difficulty on NG+. I am waiting patiently for the 2 paid DLC’s that have been announced. I’d honestly love if one was just side quests, items, more crafting, additions of a few hidden bosses, bring back the dungeons, a few new standard enemies. I feel padding out what’s already there is far more beneficial then potentially unnecessary story content which for the most part I think isn’t all that needed.
I rate this game a staggeringly high 9/10, Certified Pure Tasty Gaming.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game from top to bottom, it has it’s weak points as do most games, but mostly nothing too detrimental. The Eikon fights alone give this game a 6/10. Truly a highlight and something I’d very much like to see fleshed out in the newer entries of the future. It’s a great game with a strong start of lore/world building. Graphically it’s great the combat isn’t technical but looks hella flashy with the abilities. I’m excited for the DLC, given how engaging the story was this time round and who knows it may even get a sequel like 10 and 13.
Released 22nd June 2023 on Sony Playstation 5.
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