I think most friends are quite clear about the value of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” to SE. After experiencing the failure of multiple works in a row, this may be the “biggest opportunity” for a comeback.
Moreover, the production of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” was taken care of by the man who “saved” Final Fantasy XIV “- Ji Tianzhishu.
In addition, the pre-released demo has already aroused everyone’s appetite. The accumulation of many buffs has made “FINAL FANTASY XVI” a new game that many players have been eagerly anticipating to save the reputation of the “Final Fantasy” series (“FINAL FANTASY XVI” is a limited-time exclusive on the PS5 platform, and PC friends will have to wait a bit longer).
Currently, it looks really different from previous versions of Final Fantasy.
The first and foremost is the real-time action system shown in the trailer and experienced by players in the demo. The demo shows the combination of the three summoning beast abilities of “Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan”. In the official version, players can unlock more summoning beast abilities by continuously advancing the plot, and match the summoning beast sequence that suits their own combat style.
The regular combat of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” also incorporates a red knife mechanism similar to Nilu’s in “Devil May Cry”. During the slash, instant magic can be interspersed to produce more bursts in the same amount of time. Coupled with the skills that come with summoning beasts, many players may feel that it has a real-time action game flavor when they first start playing – but as long as they play for a while, they should be able to come to their senses. In fact, it still has a JRPG flavor.
Many elite monsters and bosses in the game have added endurance bars in addition to health bars, which can be reduced through continuous combat. When the endurance bar is cleared, it can achieve the effect of breaking through defense and falling to the ground. At this time, even if you perform continuous battles, you can have a higher damage multiplier than regular battles.
In other words, those Cool Down summoning beast skills have different lengths and should not be used with the idea of “using them early and getting cooldowns early”.
Of course, speaking of this, I believe that “experienced players” can already imagine a rough battle mode: relying on basic attacks and skills with shorter cooldowns to clear endurance bars, increasing damage multiplier through combo attacks, and then pouring out all those high-output skills in the latter half of the enemy’s fall.
It can be said that the change in gaming experience from real-time command combat to real-time action is all-round. However, “FINAL FANTASY XVI” chose to retain the setting of “accumulating skills for burst damage”, but did not completely lose the feeling of being a JRPG.
Not only that, based on real-time combat, “FINAL FANTASY XVI” has well balanced the needs of both plot and action experience. At the beginning of the game, players can choose to “focus on the plot” or “focus on the battle” to adjust the difficulty of the game’s battles.
The so-called “focus on the plot” does not reduce the difficulty by simply reducing the enemy’s attack desire or attack power. In this mode, players can equip multiple “automatic rings”, such as automatic dodge, automatic togar (follower wolf), automatic chain…
Different rings can provide corresponding “foolproof operations”. For example, the most typical automatic dodge. After wearing this ring, it can provide a high fault tolerance QTE before the enemy attacks, and only needs to press the button within the time limit to achieve perfect dodge. While the difficulty is greatly reduced, it will not make everyone feel frustrated like they have become a puppet with an “automatic ring”.
After the official version has been released for several days, I believe most players have already noticed this significant problem: as a work that claims to be an RPG, the equipment system setting of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” is really too crude.
The equipment slot includes a total of 6 equipment slots for weapons, armor, wristbands, and three accessories. However, as an ARPG, the only difference between the main equipment such as weapons and armor is a slight change in value, which does not provide enough new abilities or additional special effects for skills.
The importance of the other three accessory slots is even slightly lower. As mentioned earlier, the “Focus on the Plot” mode of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” can assemble automatic rings with different effects, which occupy the accessory slots. If you choose to fill all three slots with automatic rings, congratulations, you can completely ignore these three equipment slots.
If you want to make it a little harder for yourself to replace one or two automatic rings, there are still very few accessories to choose from – their effects are mostly quite simple “reduce ** skill cooldown * seconds”, “** skill damage increase *%”.
In addition to the huge change of real-time combat, another thing that attracts everyone’s attention must be the summoned beast battle that looks quite exciting, and the scene is grand, such as the battle of “Phoenix vs. Yi Fulite”. There are many more games in the later part, but because the combination of this part of the battle content and the plot is quite close, it is difficult to talk in depth to avoid spoilers – but it is not a problem to just look at the battle.
Perhaps to reflect the heaviness of the battle between the two behemoths, the rhythm of the summoning beast battle is relatively slow, and the moves are also relatively monotonous. At least in my opinion, it is not that satisfying. However, almost every summoning beast battle means that the plot of a chapter has reached its peak. The immersive plot combined with this battle makes it difficult for me to give any negative comments on this part – it is really enjoyable.
In the demo released earlier, the Duchy of Rozaria where the protagonist Clive was located was destroyed, and his younger brother Joshua, as the manifestation of the Phoenix, also “died” at the hands of the manifestation of fire. Clive himself was also kidnapped at the end of the demo and became a soldier of the Kingdom of Sambrecht…
From this perspective, it seems to be a JRPG-style “Prince’s Revenge”, which may be a very straightforward and righteous story. However, this is more of a prelude. Clive embarks on a path of revenge for his brother’s death, and then gradually reveals the truth and saves the world, which is the true core of the story.
The power struggles within each country and the negotiations between them are already reflected in the prologue. In the official version, this part of the content will become more precise, combined with the “adult content” that has already attracted many friends’ attention: love between men and women, amputations, and blood plasma.
The existence of these elements transforms the plot of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” from the originally expected “prince’s revenge story” suitable for all ages into a more mature and darker royal revenge story full of adult elements.
Of course, perhaps for the sake of combat and immersion, “FINAL FANTASY XVI” does not come with the “open world” that almost every RPG in this era must have, nor does it even provide the common box-style map level of JRPGs.
The different locations scattered on the map can only be reached through teleportation. The general progress of different chapters is the process of “base preparation – map pushing, battle – boss battle ending, broadcast”. To be honest, this kind of gaming experience does significantly enhance my immersion while playing, but the flaws in map design are difficult to conceal.
There are almost no forks in the main task process, even if there are occasionally two intersections to choose from. Often, one is the way to continue the plot, and the other is an elite monster or some miscellaneous rewards. In other words, the excellent action experience and immersion that players feel in “FINAL FANTASY XVI” comes at the cost of almost no map exploration fun.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning the map guidance mechanism of “FINAL FANTASY XVI”. Long-pressing “L3” to display guidance is a standard feature in many games, but in “FINAL FANTASY XVI”, it needs to be adapted even better – guided by the follower wolf “Togar”, which undoubtedly appears much more natural than the usual “forcibly reversing the player’s perspective”.
Most of the content and settings of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” are quite excellent in my opinion. Even though the linear map somewhat abandons the fun of map exploration, it indirectly enhances the immersion and combat experience for everyone when playing.
The only thing that made me feel a bit awkward while playing was the combination of real-time action and traditional JRPG, which did not perform very well in “FINAL FANTASY XVI”, and can even be said to be somewhat disjointed.
As mentioned in the previous combat system section, ” FINAL FANTASY XVI ” has a mechanism similar to the “Red Blade” in “Devil May Cry”, where magic is interspersed between attacks, and there is also a perfect dodge and counterattack setting. This part of the setting looks very cool and ACT setting, but it is not the same in real play.
On the one hand, the main output of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” still relies on different summoned beast skills. The output efficiency of flat slash is too low, and the “red knife” mechanism of interspersed magic has some lack of positive feedback for players under the premise of unclear benefits and less cool actions. At least, I did not have the years of practicing attack and interspersed magic like I did with Nilu’s “red knife” (although I still haven’t mastered it).
On the other hand, in order to maximize damage, many powerful but long CD output skills need to be saved for use when the enemy breaks through the defense and enters the Break state. This very JRPG setting also makes me relatively constrained to use the combination of small skills with faster cooling and peaceful chopping during regular battles, and unable to achieve my expected “ace air combat”.
From all aspects, “FINAL FANTASY XVI” can be considered a subversion of the series. The combat system has transitioned from real-time commands to ARPG-style real-time actions, and the slightly dark main storyline full of adult elements has undergone significant changes compared to the past.
But obviously, this subversion was very successful.
Emphasizing the plot, the entire main drama is about 10 hours of broadcasting, combined with the soundtrack of “FINAL FANTASY XVI” which is quite in line with the atmosphere , it can definitely bring enough immersion to every player.
Valuing combat, even though “FINAL FANTASY XVI” is not so perfect for the integration between ACT and RPG, the numerous summoning beast abilities, the scene is hot and the summoning beast battles that make people’s blood boil, still left a deep impression on me.
As a subversive work of the “Final Fantasy” series, there is no doubt that “FINAL FANTASY XVI” is absolutely excellent.
