Final Fantasy XVI Review: The Best Part Might Surprise You

Forgive me if this is a bit sloppy and short, I’m typing this out on my phone, lol. But I wanted to share my thoughts about Final Fantasy XVI which my wife and I finally finished recently.

We both ended up loving 16 and it’s not hard to see why. The game is extremely high quality with jaw dropping visuals that come across in every aspect of the game. Whether it be Square Enix’s patented “unrealistically beautiful characters” and some of the most gorgeous environments I’ve seen in a game.

An awesome soundtrack composed by Final Fantasy XIV composer Masayoshi Soken. A stunning action based combat system from a veteran of action games like Devil May Cry V. And a whole lot of people at Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit III which continue to make Final Fantasy XIV one of the best ongoing games out there.

To top it off the game launched in an extremely polished state, which is sadly an outlier during these times where Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi Survivor still hasn’t fixed the problems it launched with half a year ago now.

All of this is commendable and made for another expertly crafted game in the storied Final Fantasy series. But there’s one aspect above all others that really made this game special for my wife and I.

It’s the story and the characters. And arguably the glue that holds all this together is the games ludicrously well realized side quests.

Now I can already see this is where I’m going to lose some people, but let me explain.

Final Fantasy XVI follows in the footsteps of its predecessors in being another epic cinematic experience that presents the player with a lengthy story complimented by some of the video game industries leading visual productions.

What you’re getting here is a character action game part of the time, and a cinematic story more often that not.

I can easily see this being the breaking point for a lot of players. If for some reason you came to a Final Fantasy game specifically for its new action based combat and nothing else, you’re going to be disappointed.

Similarly if you’re here for the story as well as the combat, but you hate all the side quests, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

If you’re playing the game and the characters and the stories don’t click with you, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

So yes, I can easily see why some players might not like this game as much or at all in some cases.

BUT

If you do like all of that, then the combat almost becomes a non-factor.

For example I really enjoyed the “Clive” combat A LOT, but the Eikon fights for as cool as they were, could feel pretty mindless and drag on for too long.

I would have been fine with a different combat system entirely. But this one is very flashy and fun most of the time.

But for us it really was the story that sealed the deal as this being our favorite game of the year.

Clive’s journey is an emotional one that is many times dire and somber, but there’s always a bit of light and hope fueled by companionship to help the people of this world to come together and overcome the worsening state of the world.

The story deals with some heavy subject matter and can be very grim and ugly at times. And while the game does borrow from Game of Thrones (sometimes a little too much) I think Yoshi-P’s intention for having the development team all watch that series was to get a feel for the atmosphere and the tone of the world.

And yet the game does have many of the familiar qualities of the Final Fantasy games when it comes to providing a parallel to the rest of the game’s dark nature.

Clive meets many people during the course of his journey and most of the major characters including the important side characters are interesting and endearing with their own lives and stories that eventually tie together in a masterful way.

There’s always the main plot pushing things forward, but the side quests allow you to continue the stories of each individual area and the characters within.

Many of the side quests have some of the best writing in the game, and in fact out of most games this year.

In particular I love that the side quests revolve around the constant state of the world, many of the areas they take place in change dramatically as the game goes on.

Several of the larger side quests chains will actually see you reclaiming previously lost areas in the world to resettle people into. Or areas allow for a change of leadership that is affected by your very actions.

I realize that many of the things you’re actually doing in these side quests are very repetitive and certainly take cues from the nature of your typical MMO quest.

I also realized that good quests rewards, at least in a material sense, are few and far between.

But every time we finished a major point in the story and had a wealth of side quests to look forward to, it was a treat.

The connections you make, the relationships you have with your crew, and the obvious effects of your actions in the world and how these things all chain together.

The writing is phenomenal, but another key ingredient here are 16’s stellar presentation. Unlike your typical MMO side quests every side quests in this game is fully voiced and animated. All of the characters involved get a chance to express themselves with outstanding voice acting, and an animated conversation that has just enough going for it to not feel too far removed from the rest of the games dialogue scenes.

I feel like this is a huge deal and helps make the impact of the side quests even more meaningful, and I don’t think they’d be half as good without it.

It’s brilliant.

That isn’t to say the main story isn’t compelling, but it does suffer a bit.

There are a few too many villains in play and some are dramatically better than others. Sadly the game’s main antagonist is among the weakest and most things involving them fell flat for us.

Similarly while there are a ton of great characters in the game, there are very few notable female characters to speak of and some of the ones that are there are weak.

This seems to be a problem CBU3 has, seeing as how I feel there are also way too few compelling female characters in XIV as well. And don’t get me wrong I’m usually the type to prefer the ladies. But I think this team just leans heavily in favor of endearing males.

Another big issue with the story is the relationship between Clive and Jill. I like Jill decent enough, she’s not great, but not terrible either. But regardless I just feel there’s very little chemistry between the couple.

They’re obviously the canon couple of this game, but the game seems to want you to just accept that fact because they say so, not so much that they show it.

Some harsh opinions aside, overall I still loved the main story. There are some extremely affecting moments when it comes to stirring the emotions. And we were fully invested from start to finish.

I guess this did get kind of long, so I guess I’ll close it out with this.

I think Final Fantasy XVI will ultimately be in the same boat as Final Fantasy XV. They’re both games that are completely enjoyable to play, but have some issues. But the moments of greatness between characters and story are second to none.

Some people will be unwilling to overlook the flaws, or maybe it’s just not to their taste. But I think after the disaster that was the XIII trilogy of games — if we count 14, 15, and 16 — This has become a new favorite generation of Final Fantasy for me.

Not since that PS1 days have I been so on board with these games. And I’m glad we have more of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series to look forward to. But I love these new entries in the series on their own terms. Arguably more than the expertly crafted nostalgia of the remakes that give me that dopamine rush.

And I think that’s a good place to be at.