Final Fantasy XVI is the new AAA RPG from Square Enix and the next main installment in the popular Final Fantasy series. At a preview event, Irina Moritz from MeinMMO was able to try a demo of the game and was amazed at how often she had to think about the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
This is FFXVI: The latest installment of the nearly 35-year-old RPG series returns to the roots of Final Fantasy for its setting. You will be transported to the magical world of Valisthea, where everything revolves around the Mothercrystals. The giant crystals are the source of life and magic in the world, but also of conflict, as the individual states and factions want to bring these crystals under their control.
The protagonist of the game is Clive Rosfield, the son of the Duke of Rosaria. He is also the protector of his little brother, Joshua, who carries the power of the “Eikon Phoenix.” Eikons are the classic summons of the FF games.
In FFXVI, however, they are not simply called upon. Instead, their bearer, the Dominant, transforms and becomes the respective summon. During a preview event, we from MeinMMO were able to play the first gameplay demo of Final Fantasy XVI.
Action combat system with a lot of potential
The focus of the demo was on the action combat system of the game and especially on the bombastic Eikon battles, the summons of Final Fantasy XVI. The lead designer of the combat system is Ryota Suzuki, who was responsible for the combat spectacles in games like Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon’s Dogma.
The demo represents a snippet of the game that was slightly adjusted for the preview event. We had access to more abilities while playing than would be possible at that time in the game, allowing us to thoroughly test the combat system.
The protagonist of FFXVI, Clive, gains access to the abilities of the Eikon summons he encounters during the course of the game. There are a total of 6 Eikons, and each one gives Clive up to 5 different abilities.
In battle, you have access to up to 3 Eikons simultaneously, each of which can have 2 abilities and a “special skill” activated. In combat, you can fluidly switch between the summons and use their skills situationally. In the demo, I was able to try out several abilities from Phoenix, Garuda, and Titan.
- Garuda and Phoenix delivered quick attacks with many hits
- Titan’s abilities could be charged in advance to achieve maximum strength
The Eikon skills have two status values: Attack, which determines the strength of the ability, and Will, which represents a kind of “stagger system.” The enemies in FFXVI have a “Will bar.” When this bar is emptied through attacks, they briefly collapse, allowing you to deal massive damage to them during this time.
The abilities don’t cost any resources like MP, but they do have a short cooldown. This resulted in a pleasant flow during boss fights:
- I rotated between the Eikons and focused on the enemy’s Will bar by using skills that had a higher Will value.
- Once the enemy was staggered, the Limit Break was activated, unleashing the strongest attacks to deal as much damage as possible.
Occasionally, there were scenes where you had to dodge or counter through quick-time events. They added more variety to the combat and made the whole experience feel more cinematic.
The abilities can also be improved by using skill points and can be utilized at maximum level, called Mastery, by all summons. So you can, for example, have Shiva as an Eikon active while using the abilities of Odin.
This option primarily provides greater diversity in skill builds late in the game. After the last upgrade, the abilities can be freely combined. If you want to use the “Identity Skill” of Phoenix, but don’t need its other skills, you can replace them with others.
Eikon battles: Like in a real Kaiju film!
One of the highlights of the demo was the battles against Garuda, the Eikon of Wind. There were three different versions:
- Hybrid form: Benedikta, the Dominant of Garuda, grew wings and used wind attacks
- Garuda form, which Clive fought against: Here, the transformation was complete and one had to face the giant Eikon “on foot”
- Garuda against Ifrit: In this fight, Clive transformed himself into Ifrit
In particular, the “Eikon vs. Eikon” battle was strongly staged. It became immediately clear to me that two forces of nature were tearing each other apart. Trees were being uprooted and thrown around, massive boulders were hurled at one another.
It conveyed the feeling that I was in a real Kaiju battle.
I really felt the power behind every blow. It truly felt like two gigantic beasts were fighting, laying everything to waste.
However, the Eikon battle was not without its problems. On one hand, I found the camera perspective suboptimal. It was often very close, and due to all the effects, it was sometimes hard to see what was happening on the screen at all.
On the other hand, the frequency of quick-time events increased drastically towards the end of the battle, making it consist mostly of QTEs at some point. This led to me feeling less like an Eikon myself and more like a spectator occasionally pressing a button.
I hope that this was only a problem with Garuda, and that the other Eikons will feel more involved.
I feel at home here
It is no secret that producer Naoki Yoshida took part of his MMORPG team along for the work on FFXVI. After all, he is the head of the Creative Business Division III:
- The director of the game is Hiroshi Takai, who was also the development supervisor of the expansions Heavensward and Stormblood
- The music is composed by Masayoshi Soken, who did nearly the entire soundtrack of FFXIV by himself
- The English localization and a large part of the lore of the game is done by Michael Christopher Koji Fox, who performs the same tasks in FFXIV
- The creative director is Kazuyoto Maehiro, one of the writers of the popular expansion Heavensward
And the list goes on. In an interview, Takai revealed to me that he repeatedly asked the FFXIV team for help and their expertise during development.
It is therefore no wonder that playing FFXVI felt incredibly familiar to me. It was as if I were reading a new book and immediately recognized the author by their writing style.
Of course, the two RPGs could hardly be more different in terms of gameplay. After all, FFXIV is a tab-targeting MMORPG and FFXVI is a modern action RPG. However, the atmosphere and overall impact of both games seem very similar to me.
The FFXIV team is known for incorporating many references and Easter eggs from earlier FF games into their MMORPG. The same has now been done with the new main title.
In FFXVI, I saw smaller, larger, and really thick details at every corner, filled with so much personality that I couldn’t help but think of FFXIV:
- It started right away with the music in the boss fight against Benedikta, which is a remix of a track from the MMORPG.
- The Garuda sisters Suparna and Chirada posed a mini-boss fight.
- Many designations came directly from FFXIV: The name of the arena where you fight Garuda, as well as designations of skills.
- The language of the characters reminded me of the expression of NPCs from the MMORPG. The writing style was similar.
- The focus on summons: In FFXIV, the bombastic battles against Primae are one of the highlights of the game. FFXVI uses the same concept adapted for single player.
- “MMO elements” in gameplay: Even though the action combat system of FFXVI has almost no similarities to the tab-targeting of FFXIV, the battles still feature the typical “red circles” and danger zones familiar from MMOs.
- Even the switch between Eikon abilities felt almost like a job rotation.
However, the biggest nugget was Benedikta’s line “What are you?” directed at Clive, which was taken word-for-word from King Thordan from FFXIV. It is such an iconic quote that most story fans will recognize it (the German translation deviates from this).
I brought this up in the interview with the developers, and Yoshida confirmed that the line was intentionally taken because the situations of Thordan and Benedikta are very similar (and the devs think the line is cool). Both are essentially overpowered beings who lose against someone who should be much weaker than them.
Yoshida also said:
[…] It is a kind of Easter egg for the fans of the series. If you are not a fan, you miss nothing, but if you are a fan, you immediately have that “Ah, that’s from FFXIV!” moment. We are delighted.
In general, we have many Easter eggs from the earlier flagship Final Fantasy games. It is something that players now expect from us. It’s just a coincidence that the demo you played today contains particularly many FFXIV references. But that does not mean there will only be FFXIV references.
Naoki Yoshida
Players who don’t know FFXIV need not worry. My dear colleague Linda from GamePro hasn’t played it and didn’t feel lost in the FFXVI demo at all. You can find her detailed preview of the game here. Prior knowledge is therefore not necessary, and I assume that people who have nothing to do with FFXIV will not find it any harder to play.
This is also exactly the same working method that can be seen with the developers in the MMORPG. It is full of references for FF connoisseurs, but they are organically integrated into the game and do not feel out of place if you do not know the background (except for the Nier raid. That one is weird).
For me as an active player, it greatly contributed to me feeling immediately at home in FFXVI. I therefore recommend fans of the MMORPG, and especially its story, to at least try out the new FF installment.
I am sure you will have a similar experience to mine, even though these are two completely different games from different genres.
Here’s also the link to the interview with the developers:
