At a latest hands-on for Remaining Fantasy 16, we obtained to play a great six hours of content material from throughout the sport. Although all from a work-in-progress construct that Sq. Enix was cautious to notice had been particularly designed for the media tour, a lot of what we performed seemed to be just about the ultimate model of the sport.
You do that job for lengthy sufficient and also you get fairly good at figuring out when one thing has been stitched collectively for a hands-on versus when it’s achieved – and this sport seemed to be nicely and actually completed at this occasion, virtually a full two months from launch. There’s an air of confidence round how completed it’s, the truth is – I’ve been instructed that there’s no day-one patch to tighten issues up, as a result of it’s simply not wanted. The sport is completed, polished, prepared. It’s a stark distinction to Remaining Fantasy 15, which had a messy last preview that was adopted by a last-minute sprucing delay earlier than the preview embargo even lifted.
That’s the primary main level I’d make about Remaining Fantasy 16, the truth is. It’s clear that that is probably the most assured and full main-line Remaining Fantasy sport at launch for the reason that PS2 period; it’ll match as much as the wonderful launch state of Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake. From a fit-and-finish perspective, I’d confidently say that high quality is now not a query. The dialog shifts, then, to the sport as a murals and design – and if persons are going to be selecting up what it’s placing down.
That’s what results in this headline, actually. To color a full image, I obtained to play the primary 4 hours of Remaining Fantasy 16, adopted by a pair extra hours’ of content material from later within the sport. Of the preliminary 4 hours, the primary virtually two hours includes the sport’s prologue – and that is the content material the general public will be capable of expertise in its upcoming demo.
The time period ‘vertical slice’ is usually bloody silly exec-level converse that isn’t typically very suitable with the way through which video games are made – however this phase of FF16 is likely one of the greatest examples of that time period in motion I’ve ever seen. Within the prologue you play as a youthful model of Clive, FF16’s protagonist, experiencing a small characterful slice of day-to-day life earlier than occasions unfold that set him on the trail to his grownup life – which is the place the sport actually will get going. Nevertheless, primarily based on what I performed of the remainder of the sport, just about the whole lot you should see is within the prologue.
There are each light character-developing story scenes and bombastic motion. FF16’s brutality, which is actually new for this entry, is on proud show. Troopers and docile handmaidens alike get their throats slit in full view of the digital camera. Clive heads on a preppy non-essential mission with two momentary celebration member NPCs (sadly not referred to as Biggs & Wedge), that mission performing as a tutorial for fight and culminating in a battle in opposition to an iconic FF enemy. Throughout this time, you’ll degree up and get used to the fight, and by the point you come from this mission you’ll be prepared for the actual factor – which is for one of the best, because it all then kicks off for actual. All of it builds to, after all, a bombastic Eikon battle.
It’s, broadly talking, all there. It looks like these two hours are the complete sport compressed and shoved right into a blender. There’s components that aren’t right here, after all – extra sophisticated fight powers, upgrading Clive and his gear in full, extra open-ended areas, and full context on the narrative’s occasions – however anybody with a half-decent online game data can extrapolate what these will probably be like primarily based on these first few hours and the data that God of Battle 2018 was a significant structural touchstone for FF16’s growth.
That is the precise factor Remaining Fantasy 16 wants, too. This can be a sport with a wildly totally different proposal of what a Remaining Fantasy sport will be – and it’s additionally undoubtedly aiming at a broader viewers, a lot of whom don’t know the franchise intimately. That makes this demo very important, actually: it’ll enable newcomers to see how totally different this FF is to their preconceived notions from informal observance of a 30-year historical past, and it’ll additionally enable present followers to determine if this entry continues to be for them or not.
Mainly, all people ought to play FF16’s demo. You’ll come out of it with a really sturdy concept of if this sport is for you or not.
Past the Demo
This can be a preview, after all. And so that you in all probability need to know what I believe. And, nicely… gosh, it’s sophisticated? I believe Remaining Fantasy 16 is great, although as a collection fan for years, I’m nonetheless not 100% satisfied that is what I needed from the sport – although I tremendously loved my time with it regardless.
The fight, which is extra Satan Could Cry than the rest, has that character motion edge. In a boss battle, with the music pumping, you’ll end up shuffling to the sting of your seat. I may sense my shoulders rocking forwards and backwards in time with the rhythm of the music and the fight. Harder encounters, like bosses, noticed me slowly slipping into one thing of a trance. That’s all the time a sure-fire signal of some good-ass battles.
One factor pulled from different FF video games is the idea of ‘stagger’, the place you construct up stress on an enemy to place them right into a semi-stunned state the place they’re extra susceptible to large assaults. That turns into the rhythm, even for small enemies – stress, stress, stagger, unleash. Even with grunts, that second of launch as you blast them full-power is extremely satisfying.
There have been plenty of arguments about how a lot of an RPG FF16 actually is – and we’ve even had the builders wryly poking enjoyable on the discourse in a PAX panel. It’s worthy of dialogue, although. And the reality is, that is in all probability the least classically RPG a numbered Remaining Fantasy has ever been. Relying on the place you stand, that may be for good or unwell in equal measure. One of many issues I cherish most about Remaining Fantasy is its chameleonic skill to vary to match the occasions. And so I welcome the brand new route.
In case you’re attempting to place a finger on precisely what it’s like, the action-versus-RPG tug of conflict will be summed up in little issues, actually. Like how, regardless of being a sport centered on grand elemental creatures, there’s no elemental side to fight. Utilizing hearth strikes on the ice-clad Shiva means nothing. Or in therapeutic – you’ll be able to’t garner an enormous stack of Potions to brute drive by fight in that traditional RPG approach as a result of there’s a therapeutic restrict, so you’ll be able to carry about 5 potions complete.
And although the likes of Jill and Cid will be part of you in battle as celebration members, they largely appear to be there for aesthetic causes. The celebration banter as you stroll round is gorgeous, however in battle they might as nicely not be there, awkwardly shuffling forwards and backwards earlier than tossing out an assault that lands with the ferocity of a butterfly. There’s actually not one of the grand team-up assaults of FF15 or the puzzle-box model multi-character design of FF7R. It looks like they’re current in battle extra out of obligation to FF’s repute as having a ‘celebration’ of fighters than the rest. There may be no less than yet one more fruitful ally, nonetheless: Torgal, the canine who is a continuing companion that may prolong combos and heal on command.
These design issues extra carefully resemble character motion video games – however that’s actually what FF16 is, no less than in its fight.
FF16 Producer Naoki Yoshida is correct when he kicks again and says that is nonetheless an RPG, although. That style is available in all sizes and shapes, and FF16 has loads for followers of it. Clive ranges up and grows. There’s a variety of drugs slots, upgrades, and expertise to be unlocked. And in Satan Could Cry, you’re not going to discover a aspect quest by going off the crushed path in a zone – so it does differentiate. It’s essential to know that it’s all lighter-touch, although. And that’s by design.
By way of the open-ended components, we should always shortly discuss concerning the sport’s construction and zone design. So far as I can inform, FF16 seems to have the identical kind of ‘hub and spoke’ design as present in video games like God of Battle. As soon as the story settles into its rhythm, your ‘residence base’ will probably be Cid’s Hideaway, a sort-of traditional headquarters with all of the mod-cons of Mass Impact’s Normandy. There are retailers, NPCs to improve issues, you’ll choose up and switch in plenty of aspect quests right here, and also you’ll return right here repeatedly to take inventory earlier than heading out on story missions.
The zones you head out to from the hideaway will both be extra dungeon-like – with a transparent linear path that ushers you from one story beat and battle to the subsequent – or open-ended. The open areas are maybe greatest considered ‘open zone’ reasonably than ‘open world’: they’re giant areas which have a linear goal objective inside them, however will be extra totally explored. Inside Remaining Fantasy, a good comparability might be The Calm Lands in FF10 or Gran Pulse in FF13, although the one zone I noticed was in all probability bigger than the previous however smaller than the latter.
What stays unclear is the ratio of those areas. Within the later phases of the hands-on, I discover one, Three Reeds, with roaming enemies to battle and some aspect quests to choose up. Largely, although, the areas I performed had been of the extra linear selection: grand castles that look lovely as you move by them, however design-wise walled gardens that you would be able to’t discover very a lot of. I’m hoping for some extra widely-explorable cities and castles within the last sport.
The vibe I get from the preview is that FF16 will probably be a sport that’s greater than the sum of its elements. I walked away from the hands-on expertise more than happy and excited for the ultimate sport, but it surely’s additionally truthful to say that I didn’t have a ‘wow issue’ second, one thing that actually made the sport stand out. There’s nothing so courageous as FF7’s visible spectacle or FF12’s Gambit System, for example.
I believe within the thoughts of the builders that is what the Eikon fights are for, with their enormous, PS5-justifying spectacle. However actually… I simply discovered the 2 I performed a bit rote. It simply wasn’t interactive sufficient for me. Way more fascinating was a battle in opposition to a personality who was half-transformed into their Eikonic kind – resulting in a tense and thrilling one-on-one battle within the common fight system.
There’s nothing fallacious with a sport not having one thing that knocks you in your arse with how shockingly good it’s, although. FF16 looks like the kind of sport the place a bunch of fine concepts come collectively to make one thing nice, even when it’s much less prone to provoke a tidal wave of social media posts about how good it’s. Typically the alchemic steadiness of a bunch of fine stuff we’ve already seen elsewhere working in excellent concord can ship a greater expertise than a sport that has one thing actually earth-shattering in it. In reality, a number of of one of the best Remaining Fantasy video games – like 9 – have been video games precisely like this.
If there’s an X-Issue, although, it’ll in all probability be the story. I can already inform that when it comes to voiceover and efficiency, that is undoubtedly going to be a collection excessive. All the English-language forged – who recorded first, earlier than their Japanese counterparts – are good, evocative, and likable. And British! Which is all the time a bonus. And whereas I get vibes that I’ll be capable of predict the place it’s going, I reckon the narrative is taking some courageous swings, no less than within the context of what Remaining Fantasy tales sometimes are. FF16 will hit totally different.
That reality leads us to the one query this preview can’t reply, the truth is. Evaluations from video games critics who know FF nicely received’t reply it, both. That query being: can FF16 discover a new viewers?
Earlier than FF16 was even publicly introduced, I used to be instructed that Sq. Enix knew that the route they had been taking the title in would alienate a not-insignificant portion of the present FF fanbase. However that was a calculated threat, and arguably precisely what the collection must do. This can be a Remaining Fantasy for a brand new period, eventually, particularly an FF for individuals who love Sony’s status third-person motion titles with all their cinematic aptitude and artistry. Will this sport lose some entrenched old-school FF followers? Completely. Will it garner a brand new viewers? I actually hope it does.
As initially envisioned by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Remaining Fantasy is supposed to be a collection that consistently morphs and modifications. After a good quantity of spinning its wheels, FF16 is eventually a sport that returns to that imaginative and prescient, seems to be on the world round it, and decides {that a} regeneration is required. Remaining Fantasy itself goes by Phoenix’s Rebirth Flame – however for such a rejuvenation, some issues should burn. It’s a courageous wager, and I can already inform the sport goes to be sturdy. I simply actually hope it finds its viewers.
