Final Fantasy is a series that I love, but it's always been a series I tend to like more in theory than in practice. They're such a massive time commitment, and since FF9, the games have seemed less and less interesting to me. From the time I first saw the reveal at the PS5 original reveal, though, I loved the look of Final Fantasy XVI. It looked dark, violent, and full of political intrigue, and that's completely my jam. I know there's been some criticism online for the complete exclusion of any non-white characters even as incidental NPCs, but all I'm going to focus on here is the game itself; I'll leave the arguments about social issues to Kotaku, Tumblr, and Twitter (although I guess it's just "X" now thanks to Elongated Muskrat). The main character, Clive, is the elder son of the archduke of the Grand Duchy of Rosaria, a small but proud country in the west of the continent of Storm. Most people are just regular people, but a small number are born as bearers, people who an use magic without a crystal. These people are brutally discriminated against by the non-magical majority and enslaved with a tattoo brand on their cheek. A select few people are dominants, those who can not only use magic but can harness the power of an eikon associated with one of the seven element. Rosaria's archducal family has always had the power of the Pheonix, the eikon of fire, passed down in its family line. Clive did not awaken as the dominant of fire, but his younger brother, Joshua, did; as such, Clive instead trains as a soldier to be the First Shield, the knight whose primary duty is the protection of the dominant of fire. Most recent Final Fantasy games used an active time combat system that's not truly turn based but not a true real time action RPG. Final Fantasy XVI is a full fledged action RPG, though. If you just stand there, you're not going to attack at all. You've got your basic attack with square and your basic ranged magic attack with triangle, but you can use magic abilities to chain attacks together. It takes some getting used to, but once you get a feel for your abilities and how to chain them together effectively, you can absolutely devastate your opponents. I still prefer classic turn based combat, but I do prefer this over the hybrid system that Final Fantasy has used for a lot of the past several entries. It should come as no surprise given that it's the first current generation Final Fantasy game, but Final Fantasy XVI is a stunningly gorgeous game. You've got two visual settings, graphics and frame rate, as is usual, but the use of the two settings here is sadly minimal. The frame rate setting wavers a lot, especially when exploring. It will range anywhere from near 60 to low 40s and high 30s. The combat frame rate, at least, is a fairly consistent 60, but the inconsistency of frame rate is a real bummer. The graphics setting, on the other hand, looks much better with details, and while the frame rate is obviously much lower, it's fairly consistently 30 fps. I almost always go for frame rate when there are settings, but in this game, I opted for the graphics setting for the sake of the consistency. Final Fantasy XVI is, potential social issues aside, a fantastic RPG. It's one of the shorter Final Fantasy games if you stick just to the main quest, but if you 100% the game like I did, it will take probably 80 hours for a playthrough. If you want the platinum trophy, you'll have to do a New Game+ playthrough on the Final Fantasy difficulty that is unlocked upon finishing the game once. It would be nice if they could fix the inconsistency with the frame rate visual mode, it would be an even better experience. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and may well do another playthrough on the Final Fantasy difficulty later on. Gotta give a shout out to my buddy, Gordan; his brother won a download code for Final Fantasy XVI from a contest, but as neither Gordan nor his brother have a PlayStation 5, they gave the code to me. As a result, I got to play this incredible (and $70) game for free. My Rating - S |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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