Final Fantasy 16 review: excellent action wrapped in an awful story

After 16 mainlines, it’s hard to say that one thing defines the Final Fantasy series. There are some immutable, iconic pieces that have to carry over between games, such as Chocobo, Cid, and Moogle, but the shapes they appear in are always different. In my mind, this looks like a series of dials that turn up and down depending on who’s in charge each time. Some people like the game when the Angust Dial is maxed out, while others want to see a little more volume in the dungeons and puzzles. Every Final Fantasy is someone’s favorite Final Fantasy.

final fantasy 16 Definitely someone’s favorite Final Fantasy. Thrilling is often the case, but that’s not my thing. I am drawn to the epic, melodramatic stories of Final Fantasy. final fantasy 16‘s story is extensively melodramatic, but it’s also boring and boring, and I felt like the game wasted my time. What a shame that this is a story with engaging combat designs and encounters that I didn’t get enough of.

final fantasy 16 A fast-paced action game that will keep you coming back for more. You play as protagonist Clive Rosfield, once a prince of a principality and now a slave soldier, and during excursions to check out the scripted scenes and side quests that propel the story forward. Play this guy as a puppet from combat encounter to combat encounter. Combat director Ryota Suzuki said, final fantasy 16I also worked on dragon’s dogma And that’s shown not only in the game’s electric combat, but also in the ability to replay every stage in pursuit of higher grades.

Rather than summoning characters like Garuda and Shiva to fight for himself, Clive is imbued with the elemental power of these Akon. Akon is the physical embodiment of the elemental powers of his users of super-special magic called Dominants (yes, they’re always called Dominants. No, that’s never funny). In fictional worlds, only Dominant can summon Akon’s powers or transform into Akon, and he can only be one Akon at a time for each element.

Each unlocked Eikon provides a new set of elemental powers that can be used in combination. First, Phoenix’s Blessing, which allows him to instantly close the distance to enemies, as well as two of his abilities, the ability to set nearby enemies on fire, and the ability to inflict a fiery kick on a single enemy. These abilities are useful not only for shaving off an enemy’s health in combat, but also for staggering them and allowing them to attack while they are temporarily incapacitated. These operations are wonderfully animated and make you want to use them as much as possible.

The abilities bound to each Eikon are as diverse as they are versatile. Garuda brings enemies closer to him, while Ramu slows time and gives him the ability to target multiple enemies with a powerful lightning bolt. Many unlockable abilities change the overall tide of battle. Will o’ the Wips summons a fireball that surrounds Clive, continuously attacking enemies that come within range. Whirlwind, obtained after unlocking Garuda, lifts multiple enemies into the air before slamming them to the ground. By the end of the game, you can tweak your ability loadouts to create a true killing machine unrivaled. At first, I was a little worried that the amount of customization would be too much to handle, but by the time the credits rolled, my newfound power felt natural.

Image: Square Enix

I approached each battle final fantasy 16 With hunger like an animal that can’t be fed. No matter how much I disliked other aspects of the game, every time I encountered combat it lifted my spirits. When traversing some open areas of the game’s map, killing low-level enemy loitering mobs too quickly could feel like a trick.was necessary more: Clive hops from enemy to enemy, lunges, throws enemies into the air, stabs swords, electrocutes, sets fire, quickly switching between these elements and the screen lights up around me to see the With all the colors of elemental magic.

It’s fun just to play around and see what’s possible and how the combat abilities interact. Once, while fighting a dragon, I was able to summon a ball of lightning and swing it with my sword, creating more chains of lightning. The dragon opened its mouth and spewed fire, and with very little health left, I scrambled out of the way, even though I desperately had to kill this damned dragon before it killed me. I was lucky The fire hit my lightning ball, activated its chain lightning, and killed the dragon. I screamed in my empty apartment.

My favorite Final Fantasy game gives me something I’ve never seen before. final fantasy 16 It is full of dazzling spectacle moments.boss fight final fantasy 16 This is a kind of theme park ride. I fought a giant Akon on top of a mountain and stuck its palm swiping at me. I transformed into the fiery, demonic Akon Efreet, turning my fist of fire on the technology of my long-lost pioneer race. I fought a dragon, was launched into space, beat the enemy to death, then fell into the atmosphere. Even the quick-time events, which are aesthetically beautiful but silly additions to most game boss fights, add to the thrill. These set pieces made me feel really powerful and gave me moments of catharsis even in the midst of combat.

Image: Square Enix

all the parts final fantasy 16 As great as the boss fight was, this is going to be one of the best games ever. But the scripted story is frankly boring. It’s not that I don’t like the characters. I fell in love with Clive through his romance with Jill, and I found Syd to be a welcome escape from the dark and unforgiving story. Lots of banter during missions also made the characters feel more wholesome. The Valistian world inhabited by these characters is the real problem, as is the tendency of the narrative to push the characters from traumatic event to traumatic event with little rhyme or reason.

final fantasy 16The plot of 1960’s is one of the more corny medieval fantasy tales on this side. game of thronesBased on “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R.R. Martin The series takes all the fantasy tropes that Martin was commenting on and plays them completely straight. The result was a story of mostly European whites realizing for the first time in their lives that slavery was wrong.

As far as I know, every country in Valistia relies on slavery to keep its economy working. Magic users, known as bearers, are tested and enslaved at birth and tattooed on their faces so that anyone can identify them at any time. They are abused and traded to death, and are not considered human except by magic users. Syd recruits Clive with the lofty goal of freeing the slaves, but this comes with the boredom of having to watch the player, Clive, come to the realization that slavery is wrong.that is a bit Playing as a guy who realized about 5 minutes ago that owning humans was wrong is a big deal, even if the game goes to great lengths to show that it’s always kind to its slaves. It’s uncomfortable.

This slavery subplot doesn’t make much sense, even though the majority of the game’s first few dozen hours are spent detailing this slavery. But never fear. This deeply uncomfortable and poorly handled subplot suddenly vanishes, revealing an end-of-the-world-level threat. The political situation in the Valistia nations no longer has any effect.

Image: Square Enix

Despite how long it takes the game’s many cutscenes to set up the lore surrounding the magic system, final fantasy 16 doesn’t seem very interested in slavery or the politics of enslaved people, or the story in general. Unfortunately, some of the plot details have been relegated to the in-game Wiki. The emperor of the French-flavoured nation of Saint-Break continues to threaten other nations with a very special flower, but it is only through the optional feature text that he learns that the flower is the literal symbol of the country of Saint-Break. is only when I read the entry. It’s a testament to the game’s priorities that such strong symbolism and character motivations are assigned to the menu of options. Action is the focus, story is secondary.

Worst of all, the plot is diametrically opposed to the gameplay. Wooden if the gameplay is vibrant, mechanical if the gameplay is original. During some cutscenes, I found myself sleeping and the character’s lines slid from my brain like water down a duck’s back. This is not to deny the voice actors who are doing their best with very tired material. Ben Starr’s performance as Clive is particularly outstanding, as is Ralph Ineson. game of thrones fame. However, I have seen this exact same story almost every time, not only in novels, but also in movies, songs, video games, and even other Final Fantasy games. in fact, final fantasy 16 Recreates some of the same plot beats final fantasy 14,for that FF16 Producer Naoki Yoshida will be directing.

As the credits rolled, I threw my hands up in the air, unperturbed by a determination I didn’t feel. final fantasy 16 was earning Then, after waiting a few minutes and reaching a bit, I restarted with New Game Plus. I chose the highest difficulty. I skipped all the cutscenes and jumped into the action instead, killing mobs and bosses alike using a series of very specially designed Eikonic powers, thinking: Why did this game seem so tedious just a short while ago?Then a cutscene played and I felt my eyelids getting heavy and my tiredness was increasing and I nodded on the couch.

final fantasy 16 will release on PlayStation 5 on June 22nd. This game was reviewed using a pre-release download code provided by Square Enix. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, but Vox Media may earn a commission on products purchased via affiliate links.discoverable Additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy can be found here.