Review After 100% Completion: Final Fantasy XVI

FF16 feels like a heavier push into the action RPG genre for the Final Fantasy franchise. Gameplay-wise, it does one thing, and it does it very well.

Armed with the power of Eikons and limited by your own ability to chain combos and maximize damage, the game's combat system is its core gameplay which everything revolves around. If you've played FFXIV, Creative Business Unit III's bread and butter, you'll find a yourself at home with the lore references and some of the combat mechanics, as they very much look like FFXIV raid mechanics.

Couple all this around outstanding visuals and in-game rendered cutscenes (save for a certain few that are prerendered), you will be hooked to play CBU3's Final Fantasy.

Achievements:

• Missable Achievements: None, all achievements can be acquired, but you need at least 2 runs.
• 2nd Playthrough only Achievements: Yes, the Final Fantasy Mode achievement requires you to play the game at least twice.
• Multiplayer-Only Achievements: No multiplayer
• Time-based Achievements: None
• High-Skill Achievements: Yes. Most achievements are execution-based, like landing certain skills without touching the ground, or get through certain bosses without taking damage.

Gameplay:

• Gameplay Loop: Final Fantasy 16's Core Loop is combat. Multiple systems work together to support the combat loop and it works astonishingly well. To put it simply, the core loop consists of your character, Clive, striking enemies and dodging/parrying/blocking incoming attacks. But it is supported by different systems, like the Eikonic Abilities, Consumable/Torgal System, the Limit Break, Character Progression via Level Ups/Eikon Upgrades/Equipment/Accessories.
• Currency Grind: EXP, GIL, and Ability points are the currencies primarily used in the game. All currencies have accessories to make farming a bit faster. Completing all bounties and side quests gives you enough of all of them to not need to specifically grind for any of them.
• UI: UI disappears when not in combat. On-screen markers are available.
• Microtransactions: None
• Minigames: None.

Story:

• Voice Acting: Voice Acting is present and is available in multiple languages. All cutscenes are voiced, except for certain NPCs giving extra lore or insight for a chapter.
• Multiple Endings: Nope.
• Narrative: Story is told linearly. Narrative sometimes splits across different characters to show what they were doing at the time. Timeskips are employed, along with visual character changes. The Active Time Lore, a feature that allows the player to gain more information at their fingertips, is always available and allows a smoother experience without forcing awkward exposition during a cutscene.
• Tone, Mood, and Atmosphere: The tone, mood, and atmosphere of the game is dark, all throughout. It makes you appreciate the tiny wins and reprieves that the characters experience, but the weight of a dying world always pulls heavily on the player.

Lifespan:

• Chapter Select/New Game+ : Yes. There is a New Game+, and finishing the game unlocks Final Fantasy Mode, a challenge difficulty that gives you a slightly new experience and opens up new avenues of advancement to better suit this difficulty. The Arete Stone also allows the player to revisit chapters for the Chapter Select feature and get items that they have missed, and the player will also be ranked according to certain criteria during that run.
• DLCs: As of this writing, there are no DLCs, but rumors of one is circulating through some media outlets.
• Duration: HowLongToBeat lists the Completionist at 76.5 hours. I have 100%-ed the game at 130 hours.

Graphics:

• Graphic Settings: An update was released to allow Motion Blur to be adjusted. There are also two modes on the PS5, Frame Rate and Graphics mode. I primarily played on Frame Rate to ensure consistent gameplay instead of prioritizing graphic fidelity.
• Optimizations: There had been reports of issues on certain cutscenes causing the PS5 to crash repeatedly on Graphics Mode. General reports of the PS5 being really hot during casual gameplay. Non-combat scenes have a lot of frame stutters. Combat scenes triggers high framerate gameplay, possibly applying tradeoff optimizations during combat. I have not encountered any bugs during my playthrough.

Accessibility:

• Varying Difficulty: Story and Action modes are available. Additionally, there are accessories allowing a different experience with combat, generally called the Timely Accessories, mainly meant to provide assistance for those who struggle with this kind of gameplay.
• Controller Support: Played on PS5. So yes.
• In-game Button Remapping: None, but there are 6 controller layouts to choose from.
• Subtitles: Yes, with options to edit size, text background, and to include closed captions.
• Pause in Cutscenes: Yes.
• Skip in Cutscenes: Yes.
• Sound Cue has Visual Cue: Yes. There is an option to include Visual Alerts for Sound cues.
• Requires Button Mashing: Yes.
• Tutorials: Yes.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I'm giving this game an 8, because it does one thing and it does it well, which in my opinion is amazing. It's very easy to muddle up the game with lots of immersion breaking mini-games but they chose not to include any of it.

But I feel the downside of the lack of other core gameplay loops is the lack of variety in the sidequests. All of them are basically fetch quests that may or may not include a fight, and all fights are straightforward, which is to say you just kill the enemy and move on. The lack of gameplay loop means sidequests could only take advantage of the combat loop.

What I would suggest is to spice up the combat loop with additional objectives, like for example, an enemy with MAX defense, and can only be beaten by interacting with the environment, which would have been amazing during the Liquid Flame fight. Imagine staggering the boss and having Shiva cast Diamond Dust to chip off some HP instead of simply killing it with our own power.

While the raid mechanics in the combat is nice nod to FFXIV, it pales in comparison with how magnificent the raid mechanics are in FFXIV. FFXIV expects a level of metaknowledge in the higher tier boss fights; you need to know in advance what you're supposed to do, not just "evade the colorful shapes on the ground". I expected something of the sort in Final Fantasy Mode, not just "here's more colorful shapes on the ground you need to avoid". I feel like the dodge/parry mechanic along with the raid mechanics don't particularly mix well, since all attacks are "dodgeable" as long as you get timing right, which is particularly generous. That idea basically nullifies the raid mechanics, "Why do I need to step out of the colorful shapes when I can just dodge/block the hit and continue?".

This is not to say its not fun, only that the raid mechanics stuff should have been implemented better. Like remove Clive's ability to dodge (or make it undodgeable) if you want us to start respect the boss's mechanics. Because most of the time, we just need to remember to dodge on this certain frame, and we can continue dealing damage.

Anyway, this is a short rant in this review, but I love FFXVI, I promise. I just feel like it could have been better. I wanted to give it a 10, but it fell short.