This might sound like an obvious statement but Final Fantasy XVI absolutely shines for the people that want to invest in it. It feels counterintuitive to make a game for the people that like it (because what comes first: the game for the people who like it or the people liking it?) but ultimately that's my takeaway. It feels like a game made by a solid studio with an uncompromising vision, who know they're not going to get everyone they want to enjoy it. It just is entirely too weird and obtuse in some areas to have universal appeal, and too outside-the-box for traditional Final Fantasy fans (whatever "traditional Final Fantasy" even is now).
No, what really elevates this to a fantastic game are the setting and characters. This is one of the tightest-knit Final Fantasy casts in YEARS. Despite not having a real party-system, the companions in this game are constant from basically the beginning and never go away, creating such strong motivation through such a long journey. It all starts with the prologue and the fake-out of Joshua's death by Clive's (or Ifrit's) hand. From this beginning, this isn't some aloof, rag-tag group stumbling upward towards godhood. Clive is a royal, but not quite chosen at first. After tragedy befalls him and his family at Pheonix Gate, he is knocked so far down, and we spend the entirety of the game building him back up to a place of freedom. The emotional throughline starts with Joshua as a child and goes then through Cid. And oh my god, CID. Brilliant interpretation of the character. The chemistry between Ben Starr and Ralph Ineson is unmatched. Ben should've won the Game Award for best performance and he should've spent that 30 seconds shouting out Ralph.
And while I'm on the topic, this is perhaps the strongest VA in a video game, ever. I was enthralled by everyone's performances, top to bottom.
Cid's death and passing of the torch reveal the true take on the character of "Cid", who is not just a man but a moniker and a symbol of trust. Clive goes from narrow-minded in his path towards inner redemption to someone willing to recognize a second chance when it comes to him. From Cid we get to Jill and Torgal, and nearly complete Clive's cycle of inner redemption. Jill, another noble reduced to a similar fate to Clive, reminds him not of his younger duty, but his younger innocence. And Torgal is the line of hope constantly thrown to Clive. Some say that reuniting with Joshua or Jill is what ultimately saves Clive, but I don't know if it happens without Torgal.
But it ultimately ends with Joshua's re-reveal, and Clive's realization that he didn't kill his brother after all, as he finally learns to forgive himself. How fitting it was that a journey that started out of Clive's regret revolving around his undying loyalty, ends with Joshua's reimbursement of sacrifice. The brotherhood of Clive and Joshua is the emotional center FFXVI. I want to shout out the particular cutscene after the Bahamut fight between Clive, Joshua, and Anabella - such an emotional weight to that sequence I've experienced plenty in the game already but somehow it still manages to surprise me and reach new heights. In a game that takes its sweet time developing its characters and relationships, it becomes a product with a ton of these moments, maybe more than necessary. With this much dialogue, people are likely going to get turned off by just the sheer breadth of conversation and cutscenes, but like I said in the TL;DR - this is a game that insists on fleshing out its world, knowing that it's pushing away a certain audience. Thankfully, the tools are there to keep up; Active Time Lore is something I only ever used twice but it is perhaps the best new idea for an RPG of this size. Valisthea is so dense with lore, packed with history, that IMO, sometimes it runs into problems when it remembers that it's also the home for a mainline Final Fantasy story.
People can rave all they want about the Bahamut fight or the Titan fight (personally found these two, especially Bahamut, quickly escalated past the grandeur of the moment to being an overstimulation of rising stakes), but anytime a climactic event boiled down to two humans, I was far more invested than I was fighting beasts, Eikons, or even Final Fantasy staples (outside of Behemoth, I really loved how that fight was portrayed, like how Meteor was cast on Clive and Joshua). Clive VS Hugo Kupka, before the battle against Titan at Drake's Fang, was maybe my favorite fight of the whole game; the stakes between these two warlords, the very real vengeance these two were motivated by. You really wanted to kill Kupka and Kupka wanted to kill Clive. It's a prime (no pun intended) example of the game using its biggest strength to elevate its combat. The Typhon fight I loved because it was the first introduction to controlling Ifrit, while only dipping a toe into more traditional Final Fantasy fare (in other words, I felt the game show restraint in this area). But in my opinion, no setpiece was better than the first encounter with Barnabas on the ocean floor after Odin split the sea. I'm never a huge fan of programmed losses but it did help illustrate Barnabas/Odin as true forces to be reckoned with. And visually the surroundings were breathtaking. Felt like the appropriate amount of awe.
The isn't to take away from the overall Mothercrystal subplot, the "Reverse FF6", if you will. It's a strong motivation that drives literally every main character at all times. It's Ultima, actually, that I can go either way on. Barnabas as the moniker of "The Last King" could've really worked as a finale, (especially with the use of the menacing size and scale of Odin throughout the fight) but Ultima is the embodiment of the worry I had about the game halfway through. I had started to feel the game drift closer and closer towards generic JRPG God-Killing plot. "God doesn't think humans are worth it, humans want freedom from benevolent God, humans and God talk about the meaning of life and existence, etc". But there is a key difference here. As opposed to FFXVI's other overindulged spectacles, we're seeing Clive, Joshua, and Dion sent to Ultima after an emotional farewell of every character we've been interacting with for the last 50 hours, not knowing whether or not they're going to return, leaving Jill, Torgal, Mid, Gav, Tarja, Otto, etc. behind. When I was worried about losing the feeling of relief in the story after OG Cid dies, I didn't expect that space to be filled with so much heart, comfort, and security in its characters all living out their lives in the New Hideaway. People don't just thank Clive for his good deeds, they acknowledge Cid's ideals are actually the right stewards for them. You get the sense that despite all of this hardship and war, the people know that this is the best place to be for a life of peace. They don't just thank Clive, they're grateful for Cid.
This can almost work as a summary of my thoughts too; this is an example of the game working practically in spite of itself. FFXVI does not have the strongest combat; for Platinum Games, there's not a lot that can be linked together until the very end when you've mastered a lot of arts, but it still insists on being very hack-n-slashy. It does not have the strongest level design; seeing how regions connect upon revisits is nice, but it never feels necessary to explore them afterwards since quests are specifically marked and fast travel can happen with relatively no loading time. It does not have particularly strong RPG mechanics; leveling feels incredibly linear and guided, 97% of side quests boil down to "go to place, kill the horde, talk to person" with scarce deviations, hunts are a cool idea but they're not challenging enough, not rewarding enough, not varied enough to be excited to seek them out after a while. There are rough edges literally EVERYWHERE. But Final Fantasy XVI knows that none of that shit matters without proper stakes. And you may use the same Magic Burst combo for 49 chapters, but you're going to bask in it when you finally kill Hugo Kupka and avenge the people of Cid's original Hideaway. Maybe you can trade 5 hours and 2 chapters for less repetitive enemies. But really, after all this, I wouldn't make that trade. Those stakes, what really drives Clive's every swing of his sword, are NEVER taken out of focus. Even when Ultima is rambling monotone about humanity's place, even when Joshua realizes Ultima's weakness before he dies, the genuine and earned feeling of brotherhood and community is still present, helping all of the tiring standard fare go down smoother. It's the best chaser to a bitter whisky; the revelation about Ultima's godhood isn't as important as it is being said BY a dying Joshua catching his breath in Clive's arms, both racing to make the sacrifice to the other at this moment, not wanting to see the other go, but knowing that an end is coming.
And even in its ending credits we never lose focus. In a gutsy move, Clive, Joshua, and Dion all do not return. When the rest of the garrison learns of this, we don't pull away from their grief. Gav cries knowing that he's lost a comrade; not only one Cid, but two. Jill cries having lost the love of her life. Torgal howls at the moon having officially lost his master he searched years for (I shed tears for this one specifically). We get the post-credits scene in the far future about how this is all encapsulated in a storybook in a world without Magick, but for the immediate ending, the game continues its focus on what mattered; the gang. And not just the new world they wanted to create, but the utopia they already had with each other.
And when we reach that end, we rest as Clive does. Knowing that we did all we could, hoping for our seeds of community, tucked away in the hidden pockets of Valisthea, to sprout and green into a realm reborn.
What a game. I'm honestly not sure I'll play it again for a looong time but I really loved it.
