Final Fantasy XVI is (almost) everything I wanted it to be

You can pet the Torgal

Play time: 45 hours
Played on: PlayStation 5
Difficulty: Default - Action Focused

Some spoilers ahead, nothing too serious. If you want to go into this game completely blind, I recommend you to avoid this article. Turns out I have a lot to say about this game and that includes spoilers.

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I have always been a Final Fantasy fan. Final Fantasy IV introduced me to JRPGs and it has been downhill from there, in a good way. For more on my journey with this franchise, you can read it here and here.

What I liked

Final Fantasy XVI is a game that I was incredibly excited to try, boy did it deliver.

I finished this game at 2:30 AM on a weekday, fully crying my eyes out in the living room. Yes, I tend to feel… a lot about fictional stories and characters, but who says that’s a bad thing? I think we are way past the discussion of whether video games can be considered art or not - they just are. And art can evoke feelings in us, that’s normal.

First of all, Clive Rosfield is a wonderful protagonist. For some, he may seem boring or cliche, but for me he was a joy to play as. Powerful as he may be, he is also a fiercely loyal, good natured, kind and loving male protagonist who isn’t afraid to do what it takes, can be even brutal, but also isn’t afraid to cry, joke around and love unabashedly.

You can find the gruff and tough male protagonist anywhere in the gaming sphere, but a gruff and tough male protagonist who embraces his softer sides this much is always welcome in my book.

He has definitely risen pretty high in my character rankings of Final Fantasy games - or even JRPGs in general. It feels very satisfying to see his development throughout the game. Though I admit that I have a pretty soft spot for ‘determinators’ (as dubbed by TvTropes) - they are like my Kryptonite.

‘I’m here to even the odds. Any objections?’

Having Ben Starr as his VA also doesn’t hurt. What a phenomenal performance.

The supporting cast is generally also really good. All of them are very interesting, even though they are not fleshed out as much. That’s not inherently a bad thing, as Final Fantasy XVI is a game that focuses on almost exclusively on Clive’s journey. I do have an issue with a side character that I’ll mention at the end though.

My one complaint with the ‘party system’ is that they could have had more interactions with the ‘party members’. This is something that Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake excelled at (not Rebirth though), and I wanted to see more quips and banter between the characters.

Excuse me, that’s my emotional support Torgal

The vibes were immaculate, as they say. This was one of those games that I loved everything about visually, environmentally, musically. I just… vibed with it, for lack of a better word. I love me some medieval fantasy fiction, and this game made me feel like I was living in one.

One thing that sets this game apart from others in the franchise is definitely its tone - namely, how mature it is. Since it was rated M, they did not hesitate to put some pretty gritty scenes in the game. And honestly, good for them. This was one of my biggest complaints in Final Fantasy VII Remake.

This guy isn’t doing so well.

Not that I enjoy violence or anything - in fact, if you know me, you probably know that I hate unnecessary violence for the sake of shock value (looking at you Game of Thrones). But some scenes require it to be realistic to be taken seriously, and that sometimes means a more graphic scene. In the other games, there were times where I’d not take the stakes seriously because I did not believe that they were in mortal danger. Here, I did.

I also appreciated that our heroes were willing to do whatever it took.

There is no ‘being the bigger person’, no ‘being better than them’, no sparing the villain.

Incredible voice acting here, I cannot praise Ben Starr enough

The Eikon battles are nothing short of spectacular. Nothing I can say or show here will do it justice, so it is best to play it for yourself. My husband was watching me play the game from time to time and he would almost always comment on how good everything looked and how incredible the visual effects were.

This really doesn’t do it justice

(Though I have to admit that every time Clive swore while in Eikon form, it made me giggle - it’s just a little silly for such an intimating creature to yell ‘Oh f*ck!’ mid-battle.)

Clive and Jill: A Highlight

The relationship between Clive and Jill was one of the highest points of the game for me. I have always been a sucker for the ‘childhood friends’ trope, and wow do they nail that. Their chemistry feels natural and the way they interact with each other is just lovely. Even the way they talk to each other is different, such that even Clive’s voice actor Ben Starr comments on it:

I think some people have noticed this in trailers and such, but Clive speaks differently to Jill. A lot of the time, he has this particular persona, but he completely lets his guard down when he talks to Jill.

To see such a well developed relationship between its main characters, to see them grow together and face their hardships… It makes it believable. Maybe I am getting too old and growing out of the shy and awkward, teenage-y romances in fiction, but their relationship felt very grounded and real.

Love is swearing to kill your oppressors together

They both have stuff going on in their lives, but take care of each other along the way. I’ve seen some people call it ‘dull and uninteresting’ because of no apparent conflict between them, but is that really a bad thing? Does that really make them dull? Again, maybe I grew tired of the old ‘will they, won’t they’ trope, but I was happy to see confident characters who are devoted to each other, who are comfortable in each others’ presence, who are not afraid to touch, hug, comfort each other.

Which brings me to my final point and also my biggest disappointment with the game (which may contain spoilers, depending on what you consider spoilers).

Jill Warrick Deserved Better

This scene sent my cute aggression through the roof. LOOK AT THEM

Oh, Jill… I wish I didn’t have to write this, I don’t want to write this but this is by far my biggest issue with the game. After praising the romance between our main characters above and then complaining about one half of it might seem like an contradiction, but Jill’s character is such a wasted opportunity that I have to write about it.

Without giving away too many spoilers, the way that her arc is written is simply unsatisfying. It’s not even like an afterthought, it’s like the writers didn’t know how to write her arc. So they just… didn’t. What she goes through, her experiences, her entire character are so, SO compelling on paper but they didn’t deliver on that.

Probably among my top 10 JRPG character designs

Jill’s character when she is with Clive is wonderful, because weirdly enough, she feels like her own person when she is with him, which is usually the opposite for female love interests. She talks about her own interests, her own struggles…

But any other moment… She needed more. More screentime, more dialogue, more agency, more interactions with other side characters. She needed to have more input in their decisions, react more to the events. We should have seen more of her struggles, more of her past. There were several big moments in the game where I said out loud, ‘What is Jill doing right now? Where is she?’.

I just wish her character was handled better.

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Verdict

Overall, Final Fantasy XVI proved to be an absolutely fantastic experience for me. The soundtrack is one of a kind, as expected of Masayoshi Soken, visuals are unmatched, voice acting is incredible. Some people apparently claim that this ‘isn’t Final Fantasy’, but disregarding the lack of turn based combat, I don’t think it gets more Final Fantasy than this. I could absolutely imagine this story in pixel format, and yeah maybe the Eikon battles would not be as impressive, but it is very Final Fantasy at heart.