- Tested on PS5.
- Game bought.
- Adventure shipped in 30 hours shows in hands. We deliberately ignored secondary quests.
- The tester is not a "fan" of the franchise, but has already travelled several opus of the series. On the other hand, he's an ardent lover of beat-em all 3D.
- Homeshots.
Should we still present the prolific franchise of Square Enix? A name that has resonated across the globe for decades now. The release of a new numbered opus is, no doubt, an event for a part of the public. Gage of quality, the license also rhymes with complicated development. The latest episode, Final Fantasy XVI, however, makes the statistics lie with a gestation without significant difficulty. If this is not the implicit obligation to realize a game different from its predecessors, but no less ambitious. A direction that continues to follow Square Enix with the series, without betraying its essence. So let's go back to the ambitions of this sixteenth opus, and the failure of the process.
Michael Bay Fantasy
At the dawn of 2015, Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda proposed the realization of the sixteenth episode of the franchise to Naoki Yoshida, newly celebrated for his work on Final Fantasy XIV, literally saved from a burning failure. A legitimate decision, even if one is entitled to think that the unavailability of the Yoshinori Kitase teams, already occupied on the remake of Cloud's adventures, had to weigh in the balance. However, Yoshida declined to entrust him to Hiroshi Takai, in order to honour his responsibilities towards the MMO dependent on long-term follow-up.
Naoki Yoshida will oversee the overall direction of the work and will respond to the producer position, in addition to bringing together the creative team. Initially, a small group of people focused on screenplay, aesthetic research and gameplay. The goal was to tell a more mature story to fans who grew up with the franchise. In knowledge of the causes, he left the writing of the history and the main axes of the game design to Kazutoyo Maehiro – also a co-director.
The latter, like artistic director Hiroshi Minagawa, (Final Fantasy Tactics, FF XII, Vagrant Story) collaborated in the past with the talented Yasumi Matsuno. A game designer and screenwriter used to more stories « adults » and whose work particularly affects Naoki Yoshida. From the beautiful world of gathered for a fairly long gestation, human reinforcements only appeared in 2019. It is during this period of recruitment that a rumor is circulating: the next Final Fantasy lorging towards pure action. The information will go to Ryota Suzuki's ears.
The gentleman made a acquaintance by participating in the production of combat systems on Dragons Dogma and Devil May Cry 5. According to several interviews, Suzuki shared all his experience with Capcom and transcended the less experienced teams of Square Enix in the field. It must be noted that, with the controller in hand, the result works and convinces. Naoki Yoshida wanted a friendly combat system for the unusual players of this type of gameplay. Exist the complexity and depth of a DMC. On the other hand, wealth is sufficient to appreciate the time of the endless adventure, despite a challenge too weak to exploit its potential, among other flaws, but we will return to it further.
The douche dinner
As explained, a small committee was working first in the shadow of the project. Final Fantasy XVI. The idea was to ensure a common direction and vision, without scattering, which became inevitable as people added to the creative process. First, the main foundations needed to be solidified. The main foundations, the script and the gameplay, around which the game design will be shaped. It's also the two elements that Yoshida picked up, when he peeled the answers from a survey of fans from around the world.
According to her, the best way to tell a story and transcribe a desired film experience is by linearity. The game designer does not fail to recall the narrative failure of the 15th installment of Noctis. The open world did not allow the expected commitment – something that was already noted in the MGS V Kojima and his teams. Hence the choice of a linear adventure for Clive Rosfield and a hand bet on rhythm.
Yoshida also evokes the desire to merge film and video game for the sake of immersion, and probably to follow a vision constantly defended by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the franchise. Both narrative and playful influences are omnipresent in this episode, to the point of often being too explicit. Let it be Game of Thrones, The Last Remnant, Shingeki no Kyojin or Kaiju-Eiga (films featuring giant monsters), borrowings may seem rude.
Moreover, although the mature tone is emerging quite quickly, it is also suddenly evacuated without knowing why. Instead, emphasis is placed on a awkwardly narrated and rather immature romance. Similar finding for the political dimension and the multiple intrigues of courses that are sold to us by the narrative. Final Fantasy XVI Wishing to hybridize cinema and video game for an almost disturbing result...
Talk them all
History is languishing to disappoint. The most interesting subjects, such as the political dimension outlined in short scenes, will never be explored. We go through the adventure in about thirty hours, and this without taking on secondary quests, to undergo a fragmented adventure, which passes next to the best. Rhythm falls affect the experience and the narration is simply distressing. It's barely more ambitious than Final Fantasy XIII. The narrative carrot is vain, interest being only the sight of a Kaiju show which, moreover, tends to dispossess us from Clive, complicating our attachment to the character.
If the first confrontation worthy of a kaiju eiga is effective, not all will be as impressive. The cause being the existence of Bayonetta 2 and 3. And let's just say right away, for who played these two titles, the comparison with Final Fantasy XVI hurts. The exuberance shown by Square Enix here ends up serving the seriousness claimed by his universe. In addition to showing the failure of a film ambition that explodes in the middle of the flight. Because the narrative of the soft is unbearable and only goes through dialogues.
The writing of the latter has also experienced better days in frankness: many characters have nothing interesting to say but do not take away from them, and most of the main actors of the story lack depth. The game also takes a clever pleasure to waste our time, as with the incessant back and forth from one NPC to another. This can take several minutes. Sometimes you have to get off in another place on the map – you'll go back for the narrative consistency on this point – and walk for 600 meters. Actually, Clive is running, but given his speed, it's laborious... Moreover, it is unable to jump above 30 centimetres. All with a target indicator impossible to remove despite the linearity of the title.
Even when the areas are a larger hair, there is no incentive for exploration. Nothing to find, while the clashes do not abound either. We spend a lot more time at « Run » in all senses and to discuss futility rather than fighting. Only the end of the game reverses the trend a bit. Fortunately, visually the soft can enjoy. It is not uncommon to stop for a moment to contemplate the environment. The problem is that Final Fantasy XVI is aware and abused. Losing time unnecessarily is a feat of this opus! Even more for an overtly directed title beats all. Because, even if FF VII Remake does not get prayed, writing – characters as universe – helps to accept. Besides, the script carrot is up to it.
House of Kaiju
This is not the case here. Final Fantasy XVI can't brag about proposing an engaging intrigue. Apart from the narrative concerns that hurt the whole, the treatment of the gallery of characters does not offer enough consistency to touch us. Despite what Clive is going through, the plot is sewn with white thread and the emotional impact is absent. Not to mention the ubiquitous manicheism, as well as the unfortunately evicted social and geopolitical themes. There will be little but the superb musical scores of Soken, some of which were composed in duet with Nobuo Uematsu, to touch us.
The impressive lore imagined by the writers confirms the care taken to write the world building (also accessible at any time of adventure). Without engaging us and proposing convincing characters, Yoshida and her teams succeed in effectively presenting the dramatic issues. However, the studio's approach escapes us, because few choices work. Square Enix's proposal smells like rotten pot and shows a decade delay on aspects of its game design. The more occasional audience will probably find something there, especially via the universe depicted, though.
Final Fantasy XVI attests to a stagnation, a questionable ambition, to a thousand sites of attempts at FF VII Remake and/or Rebirth. As for the Kaiju clashes punctuating adventure, difficult to forget them. Not that they are memorable, we have already played Bayonetta, but the studios literally bet everything during these sequences. The realization is salutary, the visual and pyrotechnic show deployed awakens us from our torpor.
When the game lets us incarnate a creature, we have fun for a time in rapidly borderlike confrontations. On the other hand, disappointment appears during the best moments of a boss confrontation. Visual and dragonballic follies are sadly interspersed with lamentable QTE. No stake in their realization (the margin of error is outrageously permissive), we simply hammer two keys. All the time. All the time. God of War III and above all Shenmue Do better.
Square Enix May Cry
The great master of the QTE, Asuras Wrathis clearly summoned. However, the comparison only supports the ridiculous proposal of Square Enix. Just ordinary kinematics seemed wiser. The QTEs abound and do not interest, no playful asperity is envisaged. However, boss fights, structured in several distinct phases, intelligently try to renew the gameplay and summon the epic. Too bad Bayonetta 3 do better and the reference is too obvious, once again. Final Fantasy XVI supplies itself in competition, but neglects digestion.
This sixteenth episode shows all its fragility. Gas is here, we feel it. We know we're playing an FF. However, the above-mentioned models appear as ringed, neither more nor less. For players with a few years of counter games, Final Fantasy XVI will only accumulate disappointments and already vision. The combat system is not spared. Without demanding excessive wealth, having a minimum of complexity and inviting us, via a mechanics, to experiment with gameplay should have prevailed. Spam is therefore rigorous, which is more in view of the propensity of the game to swing bags to PV.
PV bag that are nothing more, because the IA is not very aggressive and patterns are not very elaborate, in addition to being repetitive – in the same way as the bestiary elsewhere. If only a system of elementary weakness existed. Fortiori, when Clive runs an elementary arsenal... But no. Only the regulars of beats all or the players who do not support the repetitiveness of the fights will try creative combos to break the monotony. The only reward will be personal pleasure. And then, the more skills you have, the more elementary explosions will invade the screen until you create confusion.
The camera comes out relatively well compared to the competition. However, readability is infernal. There are far too many visual effects and absurd fioritures. This spoils the fun of playing and sometimes, yet impressive cinematics suffer. The top of this visual chaos is the final boss, just ridiculous. Final Fantasy XVI, it's great show, a blockbuster who does not hesitate to bid more than reason, at the risk of pointing out with his serious posted. And if the great moments of the plot are carefully staged, the others are openly neglected. Too many game design choices highlight the glaring wanderings of the soft. And we did not talk about the limited bestiary or the aberrant rate of acquisition of new weapons.
Lepic is here. Soken is here, but the project sounds hollow and already seen. To believe that Final Fantasy XVI shines more in the pain of development. Because, in the end, it's the impression of a sloppy project that remains in the lead, despite laudable ambitions for implementation and an incursion into the beat-em all significant. And if the score remains honorable, given the sad competition offered by the AAA, it bears witness to a franchise in loss of brilliance and which should seriously question its vision of narration in the video game. The opus does not even match an FF XII or XIII on this aspect, a peak for a franchise known for writing characters and its impacting stories.
For
- A solid and functional DMC gameplay sauce
- Soken's music is excellent
- The game can fill its sight
- A top achievement
- The boss fights effectively punctuate the adventure
- A working lore
Against
- History is uninteresting, and the most relevant themes are ousted
- A globally questionable writing, including dialogues
- Narration exceeded, even catastrophic
- Gallery of underexploited and unattractive characters
- Rhythm worries and a long-lasting adventure
- Futile side quests (hence our snobism)
- Non-existent and unnecessary RPG mechanical challenge
- The rate of arms acquisition is aberrant
- ridiculous and boring QTE
- Lisibility regularly damaged by excess pyrotechnics
- The many references are coarse
[...] tending is rather to the dark worlds and the worlds of Dark Fantasy peasy (we refer you to our article on Final Fantasy XVI), proposing a colorful environment making the part beautiful to a luminous vegetation and [...]
[...] extravagance and its cap. A soup that stands and shines with a thousand fires, unlike an FF XVI unable to assert or honor its influences, as we said in our paper [...]