Final Fantasy 16 is, without a shadow of doubt, the most rich, complete, and coherent a new mainline Final Fantasy game has been from the get go in a long, long time. Final Fantasy 15 was an absolute mess, and even with its post-launch DLC, it never managed to get to the level of quality you expect to see from the franchise. Final Fantasy 13 was hugely divisive, and though not without its merits, was regarded by many to be a low point for the series. Final Fantasy 12’s stock has certainly risen significantly since its release 17 years ago, but at launch, it was considered to be too separated from what made Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy. You’d have to go all the way back to Final Fantasy 10, more than two decades ago, for the last time a new numbered instalment in Square Enix’s fabled franchise was loved by the masses right out the gate.
So yes, the wait for the franchise to truly return to form has been a long one- but if ever you needed evidence of patience being rewarded in spades, this game would be it. Final Fantasy 16 is an incredible experience, and it flies ridiculously high in so much of what it does- the combat, the music, the story, the world-building. A few aspects of the game do falter, whether it’s the level design, which tends to be a bit too linear more often than not, or the shallow RPG mechanics, but this grittier, more mature take on the long-running franchise feels like a significant step forward for it, while still feeling like what you’d want a Final Fantasy game to feel like- though that bit admittedly remains nebulous as ever.
What stands out in 16 right off the bat is how fun its combat is. It’s been a long time since Final Fantasy has been fully turn-based, but instalments like 12, 13, 15, and 7 Remake have all still incorporated command-based elements in their combat systems. 16 ditches that aspect entirely, instead adopting a fully real-time, purely action-driven approach, to craft a combat system that much more closely resembles what you’d expect to see in a character action game. It’s obviously a new direction for the series, but Final Fantasy 16 takes that first step with such confidence, it feels like its hundredth. The combat starts out fairly simple and straightforward, but even in the early hours, the loop of hacking and slashing, dodging and parrying, and using air combos and abilities remains fun and satisfying, thanks in large part to its immediacy and its fast-paced nature.
The more you play though, the deeper and more complex the combat system becomes. Not only are you constantly upgrading your abilities and naturally learning new tricks during the course of fights, you also frequently add new Eikonic powers to your arsenal, with each set coming with its own unique elemental properties and moves that tend to differ significantly from anything else you might have in your toolset. You get a surprising level of control over what you want your combat style to be – it’s like multiple different kinds of character action games all rolled into one experience – and what makes the system really sing is how easy and seamless it is to quickly swap between different Eikonic abilities during combat. Mixing and matching on the fly and stringing together combos of flashy, bombastic attacks to pulverize your foes never, ever gets boring.
And there’s so much flash here. Final Fantasy 16 is all about the spectacle, and takes a lot of pride in how it pulls that off. The core of the story always remains rooted in personal arcs, and yet the game keeps finding ways to escalate things to a level where you’re going to be picking your jaw up off the floor time and time again. The boss fights and set piece moments on offer here are unlike anything you’ll have seen. No adjective seems to do justice to just what they are. It’s clear that the development team has taken a massive amount of influence from the older God of War games and their ridiculous sense of scale, because words like “epic” and “massive” can’t begin to describe the things that you see on the screen here, and how you engage and interact with them.
Final Fantasy 16’s focus on fast-paced action comes at a cost though, because the actual RPG side of this experience feels lackluster. You can equip accessories in a limited amount of slots, you routinely buy new gear to upgrade your loadout, and you spend ability points on upgrades after leveling up, but that’s… pretty much it. It’s a disappointingly shallow execution of RPG systems, and it feels even more of a letdown because this is, after all, a Final Fantasy game- a series that has always prided itself on consistently being in the upper echelons of the genre. The versatility and complexity of the incredibly combat system do go a long way toward making up for these deficiencies, but they are notable deficiencies nonetheless.
An area where you’ll find little to no issues, on the other hand, is the story. I always have high expectations from Final Fantasy stories, as do many others, but I don’t think I’ve been this enraptured by the tale being told in an FF game for a long, long time. I’m a massive fan of its more mature tone, not only because it allows the game to let loose when it needs to (rather than having to place restrictions on itself in hopes of avoiding that M rating), but also because it doesn’t go overboard with those elements. Final Fantasy 16 takes a measured approach in its execution of a grittier story, and it’s much more impactful for that.
The story itself, meanwhile, is equally impressive, and that’s thanks in large part to the incredible worldbuilding on display here. The world of Valisthea is vast and complex, and learning about its different kingdoms and their cultures, the many conflicts that plague the land, and the political conflicts that brew in every corner is among the game’s very best highlights. The game also deserves a lot of credit for – once again – the measured and incredibly coherent approach it takes in doling this information out. Rather than relying on lengthy exposition dumps, it drips out new details on its world bit-by-bit, which helps it strike the perfect balance between ensuring you always have questions you want answers to, and that you never feel like you’re lost in the story. You’re always thoroughly immersed in Final Fantasy 16’s fantastical reality, thanks to the excellent job it does of authentically building up and fleshing out its world.
It’s worth bringing up that Final Fantasy 16 does have a bit of a slow beginning, the prologue notwithstanding. The prologue is a bombastic, riveting affair that does an excellent job of pulling you in in the game’s first couple of hours, but once it’s done, the pace slows down significantly. From that point, the game takes about 6-8 hours before it really gets going again- but when it does, it does so suddenly, and it just never lets up. And once you hit that point, the memory of that slow beginning starts getting rather foggy very quickly.
Where Final Fantasy 16 ranks among the best of the best the series has had to offer is a question we’re all going to be asking ourselves and each other over the months and years to come, but though it’s too early yet to firmly nail down a place for it in that list, one thing I can say very confidently is that it’s surely going to be close to the top, at the very least.
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