Final Fantasy 16 is the latest game in the Final Fantasy series and sees yet another major change in the combat system. Despite the changes to the combat it still features the extremely detailed and convoluted story telling of the FF series. Starting with what was done right in this game, the combat.
The Good
FF16 has one of the best combat systems from any game I’ve played, with a large range of basic skills as well as more specialized powers from each Eikon (extremely powerful being created by the antagonist of the game). The Eikons are as follows
Phoenix: Great speed and dominating power, as well as great rejuvenation.
Garuda: Claws of wind to tear enemies to shreds.
Ifrit: An extreme inferno that allows Clive to surpass his limits
Ramuh: The master of lightning, quite shocking
Titan: Boy it would sure be a shame if someone parried your attack
Bahamut: Charge your laser(s)
Shiva: Freeze everything
Odin: Vergil enthusiast
Combining the different powers of the Eikons together lets you have completely different play styles on the fly if you just change around your abilities. The basic combat abilities you wield also give you a lot to work with without actively using the powers of the Eikons. The basic combat reminds me of a toned down Devil May Cry system.
You can also command Torgal, your pet wolf, to do different actions in combat, but I have not taken advantage of this function much at all. It can be very useful if you time Torgals abilities correctly..
FF16 chose to not do a full open world and instead has the overworld broken up into different sectors rather than doing one sprawling open world. This way of doing it flows better with how the game is designed and makes it feel a little better to travel through the different areas. As well as the large number of side quests the game constantly makes available. The side quests also feel important because the world will change based on the quest you choose to do. One example is a village becoming mana flooded forcing all the residents to flee and it becoming infested with the Akashic.
The side quests also have potion and item upgrades hidden behind them, the game emphasizes doing sidequests or else you’ll be locked out of getting the best items in the game. The dev team really wanted the player to interact with the world. The general mood and story of the game however is very dark, as it’s a dying world slowly being consumed, shown by areas becoming barren as you progress. There are quests that are very, very messed up, such as one noble believing you to be the Branded he ordered to be killed by his son’s hound for said sons entertainment. Or another one where a little girl is crying about her “pet” going missing. At the end of the quest you learn that it was actually a Branded who died because the little girl made her use her magic too much so she was petrified.
The Bad
The gear in the game has a lot of issues. As far as equipment they are only stat increases and don’t have any unique effects attached to them. The reason this is an issue is that Final Fantasy weapons usually have unique effects attached to them the further you get into the game such as elements or abilities, but FF16 has none of that. Also when you start NG+(New Game Plus) your equipment will quickly become obsolete because of this design so your sword that’s literally called the “Twilight of The Gods” is obsolete to a sword you can craft pretty early on.
Speaking of obsolete, if you get good enough at using Odin’s abilities you really don’t need to use any other because of how quickly you can build up tier 5 Zanteksuten. The only downside to using Odin’s sword is that you don’t earn as many stars, but whenever you do a tier 5 it’s the max number of stars. Like sure you could tag the group of enemies with Ramuh’s power, dodge and use Gigaflare with Bahamut, then use Phoenix to finish off the stragglers by teleporting. But why do all that when you could use the funny darkness sword and delete anything that doesn’t have a stagger bar. I understand that it’s the hardest to get so it should be the most powerful, but it’s more than just powerful, it’s overpowered.
The creators of the game, Square Enix, didn’t do enough with Clive’s dominant form. They designed a whole moveset for while your Ifrit and you can only use it in QTE (Quick Time Event) heavy fights that feel like playing a cutscene. These sequences are really cool, and I understand that lore wise, Priming decreases a dominants lifespan, but Clive is far from an ordinary dominant so they could’ve really taken advantage of his Ifrit form more. Mentioning Ifrit while Clive is in his dominant form he gains access to new abilities. The abilities are very powerful, and it would’ve enhanced the experience if they put an altered form in the Ifrit skill tree.
This next complaint is with Square Enix the publisher of the game. Why does the seventy need two DLC(Downloadable Content). Now why is this a bad thing? Because it means I’m gonna dump probably another 30 hours into the game and I’ve got other stuff to do. In all seriousness I’m looking forward to the DLC but my wallet is not.
Final Fantasy 16 is a milestone for the series fully embracing what started in its predecessor as being an action adventure, rather than turn based. The game is very good and is in my opinion the best contender for Game of the Year out of what’s been released so far this year. For its rating I’m gonna give it a very solid Genji Gauntlet out of Arm of Darkness.
