Genre: RPG
Year: 2016
Developed by: Square Enix Business Division 2
Published by: Square Enix
Platforms: PS4, XBOX One, PC
#130
Feeling Like: Florence and the Magitek
I beat Final Fantasy 16 earlier this year. I tried to be as open minded as possible, since the last few mainline Final Fantasies have been…well, let’s say different. Gone are the days of turn based combat and it’s about time I accepted that. Still, the 16th iteration deviated even further from the proven formula by making it solely an action game. It’s harder even still to say it’s an Action RPG, as most RPG elements are streamlined to the point of being borderline unnecessary. I liked a lot of it, mainly the monstrously massive set-pieces against various Eikons. In terms of shout-out-loud, jump out of your chair, screaming pleasant obscenities, no game in the series has Final Fantasy 16 beat.
However, there were a lot of drawbacks. I felt like the pacing was way off, and the game’s length was too long; I can manage 50 hour plus RPGs since a lot of that time is spent chilling in towns, or talking to townsfolk, or going through menus. You do that in 16, but interspersed with intense combat and boss fights that can last 10-15 minutes. A little brevity would have gone a long way.
Also, I desperately missed having a party. That’s one of the biggest appeals of RPGs, at least for me, and not having a group of three or four in the majority of battles was a major downer. I mean, Cid was incredible, but he can’t carry the whole game on his back (he very nearly does).
As big a mess as Final Fantasy 15 is…was? I dunno, it’s one of those games where I played it at launch when it needed another year or two in the oven. Plus the story is a mish mash of a mess interspersed with some genuinely touching moments. This one also has some moments that can compete with anything in the series, but also has its flaws; like how to get the full backstory, you had to watch a movie AND an animated TV series. Which I did, naturally, but neither were particularly good and I was left wondering why they didn’t include these stories in the game.
Also, more than a few important plot points occur off-screen entirely. I learned later that all the DLC was included in the “Royal Edition”, which of course I never played. So if I was more patient, like I never am, odds are this game would be at least a dozen spots higher on the 500.
It starts beautifully. Florence and the Machine sing their version of “Stand By Me” while the four heroes push their broken car to a mechanic. Ok, it’s not exactly Magitek Armors marching through the snow towards Narshe, but it’s certainly one of the better openings to a game in recent memory. It immediately shows you what this particular fantasy is about – the relationship between Noctis, the prince and his three cohorts. As somebody tells him, they’re not your bodyguards, they’re your brothers.
I mean, this is cheating. Road trips with the boys? Florence and the Machine? The best graphics to date in a Final Fantasy? Classic Final Fantasy songs available to play in the car while you’re driving around? Oh boy, you hit the Henry-likey-this-game button.
It was also the first Final Fantasy where I felt the dialogue, finally, felt natural. Like I could imagine real people having these conversations. There’s proper pacing, cadence, pauses, volume, intonations and slang where I felt like Prompto, Ignis, Noctis and Gladiolus were friends and had known each other for years and aren’t just spouting unnatural exposition. There’s very little cliche anime brooding, or statements where I felt the translation missed something…OK there’s some of that too, but it’s surrounded by lines that made me smile and endeared myself evermore to my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brosome foursome.
Combat was a frantic flourish and probably the most controversial part of the game when it originally launched. You only control Noctis in real time fights, but you can use various abilities of your buddies with proper inputs, counters, etc. I thought it was a good compromise; the battles seemed very realistic and intense, but there’s still enough RPG elements where you could slow things down a bit and plan your next move. Final Fantasy 7 Remake perfected this system, so maybe this was a trial test.
Unsurprisingly, the graphics and soundtrack are a delight. At the very least, you can always count on a Final Fantasy to have one or two unforgettable tracks and contain peerless window dressing. Some of the cities are impossibly gorgeous, others are crowded cities that aren’t too dissimilar to something you’d find in Western Europe…or the American Mid West? Honestly the “feel” of the world is jumbled, true to its messy development cycle I imagine.
Chapter 13 is tiresome, no doubt about it. You get separated from your homies and it’s just you as Noctis going through these industrial hallways that had a few jump scares and it seemingly goes on forever. Naturally, they’ve patched this in recent editions to make it more endurable. Why do I always have to be a guinea pig with these types of games? Because I do it to myself. Blame my irresistible draw to anime and Japanese Role Playing Games.
You can make all the boy band memes you want, but the evolving relationship between Noctis and the rest was truly great, a cut above most Final Fantsies…even most RPGs I’d claim. The last few hours in particular were incredibly effective, as morose and hard-hitting as anything I’d played in a long time. They don’t cheat either – it’s not a single outburst out of nowhere, or an emotional speech apropos of nothing. It builds on the times you’ve spent camping together, cooking together, fighting together, struggling together. When Noctis says “You guys are the best“, I believe him. The voice acting is strong here, restrained and subdued. No screaming YOU ARE MY FRIEND I WILL PROTECT YOU, or silly jokes to undercut the seriousness of the moment. There’s a shot that just shows empty camping chairs, and I never thought that image would get to me.
There’s so much to discuss, I can’t get to it all. Like how it had, for the time, one of gaming’s best photo modes. Prompto will constantly take selfies of the group, only for them to show up at the end credits. It’s way more effective than it has any right to be. Or how Ardyn, the main antagonist, is charming and interesting, I can barely get a read on him throughout the game, but I think that’s the point. His visual design is so different and he doesn’t give off the impression that he’s the source of a corruptive plague and wants to wipe out your entire kingdom. Certainly one of the more memorable villains in the series.
The romance and other minutia of the story escapes me, but the final shot of Noctis and Luna packs a powerful punch and is the kind of tragedy I wanted to see. Not everything needs to have a happy ending – looking at you, Final Fantasy X-2.
Below is my entry for Final Fantasy 15 written seven years ago for the Top 10 of 2016. Many of my thoughts remain the same, so I’ll cap off the entry with it. Suffice to say, the Royal Edition has me curious. Despite the story-telling jank, I could tell it was one of the best games I’d played in a long time.
I’m a Final Fantasy nutjob. I’ve played and beaten 18 games with the name in the title and was feverishly awaiting Final Fantasy 15 like I have no other game. Did it live up to the hype? It did, but not without footnotes. It’s an incredible, beautiful mess. Somebody said it was the Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain of the series and I couldn’t think of a more perfect description.
Let’s start with the bad, before we move onto the weird and the good. The story structure is bizarre. My friend Andrew wrote a good piece on it, but the story is not just sparse in places, it’s downright missing. Gorgeous landscapes are barely glossed over, major events aren’t even seen by the player and characters seem to appear and vanish without any resolution. It’s disappointing, but in hindsight not really a surprise considering the ten year development cycle that it endured. Few games get out of that kind of time frame unscathed and Final Fantasy 15 is no different. The fact that Square-Enix is looking to add DLC to improve the main story line speaks volumes on what the current state of the game is (EDIT – HA!). One year from now, we may see an entirely different outlook on the story and I’d be perfectly fine with an excuse to replay it.
Onto the weird.
It’s an odd game. I have no idea what it’s trying to be. It has a mix of fantasy, futuristic and modern elements. It has magic. It has flying cars. It has mobile phones. Huh? Well, it also has ostrich sized chickens, robotic assassins and diners straight out of Midwest America. Whaa? How about bloodthirsty monsters the size of mountains, giant mechs to fight and lots of camping, complete with Coleman and Cup Noodle branding. I am so confused…
But it has a lot of good. So many times I caught myself smiling. Just absolutely thrilled and engaged. I couldn’t believe how many hours I was wasting away by fishing, driving the landscape, listening to old Final Fantasy soundtracks and reveling in the main menu’s version of the crystal theme. I’m about as big a Florence and the Machine fan as I am Final Fantasy, so to hear Florence Welch belt out “Stand By Me” while Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto pushed their broken down car through the desert was immensely pleasing.
There’s too much to talk about here. Prompto taking photos of your journey is a mechanic I’m outright jealous I didn’t think of. The banter between the four main characters is natural and engaging. The real time combat, a first for a main Final Fantasy game, feels incredible, despite a sometimes wonky camera. It’s a true road trip, complete with boy band look, anime tropes and an ending that really resonated with me. The dust is still settling in my mind, but it’s a game I’ll never forget and will cherish for a long time.
The 500 