If you’re looking for a breathtaking blockbuster, Final Fantasy XVI isn’t it. Square Enix’s latest entry in the long-running RPG series is often messy, oddly paced and frustratingly restrictive in its vision. More frequently, though, it’s subtly brilliant, with a bold and ambitious narrative, nuanced character development and some of the genre’s best localization and voice work. It’s a significant departure for the series and one that pays off, despite a few missteps along the way.
First, though, you have to get through the prologue, and Final Fantasy XVI makes a poor first impression in most of that. After a brief battle scene, it begins in the Duchy of Rosaria, a location that could’ve come from “Game of Thrones,” T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” or any medieval fantasy. There’s a wise ruler, his cruel wife who prefers one of their sons over another, a band of brash and loyal knights, and a smattering of happy peasants who serve them all.
The prologue shakes itself awake at the end, culminating with acts of shocking violence and emotional upset, and then when things finally slow down for a brief moment, Clive finds himself at The Hideaway with its leader, Cid. The Hideaway is a haven for Bearers — magic users reviled as second-class citizens and trapped in a system of chattel slavery — and the tavern owner asks Clive to help hand out food. It’s a simple act of kindness that forces Clive out of himself and makes him acknowledge people he probably would’ve ignored otherwise, people who would’ve served his father as slaves, and it has a changing effect on him.
That moment finally let me glimpse Final Fantasy XVI’s heart, the point of all this darkness and violence and a hint of the message that Creative Business Unit III seemingly wanted to get across. Final Fantasy XVI is a lot of things, including a meditation on guilt and atonement, but at the center of it all is a story about tearing down social prejudice and building a free and equitable society.
A very messy first act quickly swallowed that message for a few hours, however. Clive embarks on a series of raids and escapades with Cid with little chance for reflection or character development, and it all ends with some questionable development involving Benedikta, a villain who featured prominently in the game’s marketing.
It settles into something much more balanced and interesting after this first six hours or so, as the main story and character motivations finally start becoming more apparent. By roughly the middle of the game, Final Fantasy XVI balances at least four major plot threads — including large-scale war and political rebellion — with several character stories and even significant development for lesser characters.
For all the magical giants and talk of aether and live-giving crystals, Final Fantasy XVI treats its heavier topics with a dose of realism that sets it apart from games with similar themes, such as Bandai Namco’s Tales of Arise. Whether it’s the social and political structures that allow institutionalized “othering” to happen or a nuanced depiction of how people handle grief, regret, and atonement, Final Fantasy XVI lives up to the promise of delivering a “mature” RPG.
One of the quieter ways it fulfills that promise is also one of the more impressively executed from a narrative perspective. Your understanding of Valisthea, Final Fantasy XVI’s setting, gradually changes as Clive’s own does, transforming from a sheltered view seen through the lens of a duke’s son to something more dynamic and unafraid to face the world’s ugly side directly. Not that Clive willingly changes, at least not initially. He and Jill eventually recognize their privilege and vow to create a world where all can live in freedom — but only after a strong-minded tavern-keeper forces them to confront uncomfortable truths.
Final Fantasy XVI doesn’t shy away from the fact that people in positions of power won’t easily alter their views and help those in need without some outside help. There’s a quiet undercurrent of social leveling that runs alongside the main story, and it’s a strong complement to Cid’s vision of creating a world that’s safe for everyone.
That vision may sound a bit trite, and sometimes Final Fantasy XVI is trite. If you’ve played any Final Fantasy after Final Fantasy III, and especially Final Fantasy XIV, you’ll figure out the cause of the Blight, the reason Bearers are reviled, and who the mysterious Eikon depicted in ancient ruins is with little difficulty.
Even with these tired concepts, however, Final Fantasy XVI still manages to forge its own identity — with a side quest that makes the world and its people seem a little deeper, for example, or a cutscene that draws out the character’s emotions and lends weight even to some of the more predictable moments.
These quiet moments are often the game’s most powerful and surprising, and one of my favorite is when Clive first arrives at The Hideaway. The script prior to this point is your standard high fantasy fare, full of lords, sires, and language that clearly denotes social standing. It changes to something a bit looser once Clive reaches The Hideaway, though, and that change is a subtle nod to the kind of world Cid wants to build, one where people can do, say, and think without fear of oppression.
Final Fantasy XVI’s localization and use of language in general is a remarkable achievement, brought to life by one of the strongest sets of vocal performances in the genre, led by Ben Starr’s phenomenal performance as Clive. Cutscene direction and animation are equally superb, arranged in such a way that even small gestures and simple moments are imbued with meaning.
Clever editing and insightful side quests don’t rescue Final Fantasy XVI from all of its unsound decisions, though. Sticking so closely to the “create a dark Western fantasy,” as Creative Business Unit III said it did, also limited the team’s creativity in some respects. We’ve seen some key plot points and character ebats so often before already, and Final Fantasy XVI doesn’t try doing anything with them. It’s tired at best, and in some of the more egregious moments – using a broken woman’s death as a catalyst to spur men into action, for example – are downright harmful.
Final Fantasy XVI moves further away from these as the game progresses, though they’re still difficult to ignore.
Also difficult to ignore is how substantially different Final Fantasy XVI’s combat is compared to previous games in the series, though not in a bad way, as long as you’re not expecting a traditional RPG. Clive has only a limited range of customization options, a streamlined equipment system, and an emphasis on combos over carefully selecting the right move at the right time.
He wields one weapon and has slots for a few pieces of defensive equipment, but deciding what to buy and equip requires little thought. Using crafting materials from key enemies to forge a new weapon feels more like a way to mark story progress than an act of character building, and I’m fine with that. RPGs that aren’t based on tabletop games often rely on the illusion of choice anyway, by presenting you with several options when the right solution is always whatever gear bumps your stats up enough.
Deciding which Eikon abilities to use offers some measure of character customization, and it’s deeper and more satisfying than you might expect. Clive gets a handful of abilities for every Eikon’s power that he absorbs, each with a distinct function and a cooldown timer that requires some planning to use properly. The final Phoenix ability, for examples, burns nearby foes multiple times and restores Clive’s health, while one of Garuda’s abilities deals less damage and greatly reduces a foe’s stagger gauge, leaving them vulnerable to stronger attacks.
Battles are oddly balanced at times, an issue that’s more apparently early in the game when your attack options are less varied. Dealing with basic enemies is fine, and there’s a rhythm to boss battles. Fights against elite opponents drag on for longer than they should, though, and there’s quite a few of them. the issue becomes less annoying as you progress in the game
You eventually get access to several Eikons and a respectable array of abilities at your disposal, with enough variety to build some distinct playstyles and turn those lengthy encounters into something less like drudgery. Final Fantasy XVI isn’t as complex as something like Bayonetta, but it has a surprisingly high skill ceiling that will lend itself well to arcade mode and other high-level challenges Square Enix added in the postgame and New Game Plus modes.
Then there are the Eikon battles, Final Fantasy XVI’s setpiece battles where two giant monsters throw fire, wind, and ice at each other until one of them dies. Despite the scale and drama, these battles are much more simplistic than they look. You have only three attacks, and the sequences rely heavily on cinematic cut-ins where a timed button press moves the fight forward. They’re basically just visually spectacular interactive story segments, though the narrative context around them means they’re almost always emotionally gripping anyway – unless you have to replay them, when they lost rather a lot of their luster.
Final Fantasy XVI might get in its own way at times, but the story it eventually tells is one Final Fantasy’s better narratives and certainly one of its more ambitious. Its combat is a thoughtful evolution of the series’ core concepts, and the localization and presentation are exceptional. It might not be what you’re expecting, but if this is the future of Final Fantasy, it’s a promising one.
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