Apart from the members, few people remember it today, but I had the privilege of being at the birth of the Czech and Slovak FFF (Final Fantasy Fans) community over twenty years ago, and I was already participating in the annual gathering back then. For me, Final Fantasy is more than just a series of games: it was an identity, an ideal that connected me with a group of similar enthusiasts who collect not only games from the series, but also soundtracks, figurines, decorations and other valuables. The program from the live music concert for Final Fantasy, signed for me by Nobuo Uemaku himself, is still one of the most valuable in my collection. However, a few years ago I gave a lecture at Animefest about how disappointed I was with the fifteenth episode of the series and how I fear its decline. So you can imagine with what tension I waited for the last numbered volume of Final Fantasy, which in many ways is drastically different from the previous ones.
Although we received the game for a pre-release review, for which we are very grateful, unfortunately, there was not enough time before the release for me to play it completely. Since the genre of JRPG games, and especially the Final Fantasy series, is defined above all by a strong story, I naturally decided to postpone the review until I finished the whole story (and also try out new combat options in New Game Plus, as the developers themselves suggested). ). If you want to get an idea of how far along I am at the time of writing these impressions, that’s roughly twenty hours, which, according to in-game hints or indicators, is about half the main story. One of the things that is (pleasantly) holding me back is the side missions that I decided to do everything – I’ll explain the reason in a moment.
Dark Game of Thrones
Final Fantasy XVI is a return to pure “high fantasy” shamelessly mimicking the Game of Thrones series, from the general bleakness and bloodshed to the political intrigue between multiple empires, even to the strikingly similar map you plan your next progression on. between missions. Based on pre-release previews, I was a little worried that the whole story would revolve around the protagonist’s desire for revenge, which is a big cliché, but that was mostly the case recently in the somewhat “quirky” comedy Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins. Luckily, it becomes clear pretty soon in the game that there’s more to this story than just revenge – without revealing too much, the story is dominated by themes like civilization’s dependence on magic (an allegory of modern technology) or even the bold theme of slavery.
The desire for maturity and seriousness of the story, its tone and individual events in it is one of the most significant differences between the new Final Fantasy and previous parts. While Final Fantasy Tactics hasn’t skimped on dark politics, things are taken to the next level with more realistic graphics and animations, where some scenes are really very naturalistic – whether it’s the passage where someone’s throat is cut, or the scene where you find the torn bodies of peaceful inhabitants in the murdered village. The creators of the series mentioned in an interview that they were concerned about some of the show’s decline in popularity, and therefore decided to bring the latter part closer to its aging and more demanding witnesses, as well as a more hardened modern audience. .
Lovely set
While I’m talking about more realistic graphics, it’s pretty hard to put into words how photorealistic the graphics are in some places. In particular, the inanimate environment around you looks completely photographic in places, for example, when you are standing inside the castle, I can swear that the textures of the peeling walls are not painted, but actually photographed. I was left with the same strong impression, for example, from the landscape in the forest, which, moreover, in terms of vegetation types very noticeably resembles Czech forests (fallen firs, etc.), so that I really felt “at home”. “there. I believe that the creators must have made a trip somewhere in our climate zone in Europe, because there are too many details in nature and landscape that perfectly match our local reality.
As for the technology itself, Final Fantasy XVI runs on an unspecified internal new engine, which was reportedly assisted by engineers and experts provided directly by Sony (the game is completely exclusive to the PlayStation platform for at least half a year). year, and although in theory a PC version should eventually appear, it is possible that console exclusivity will last even longer or even forever). The creators push the graphics to the maximum not only because of the beautiful scenery, but also because of the epic battles of giant monsters nicknamed “Eikoni” (of course, popular “conscripts”), which often explode with a stream of particles and light. consequences. Considering the quality of the graphics, it’s sadly almost a miracle these days that a game offers two modes at all – resolution and smoothness. Playing the latter, it manages to maintain 60 fps most of the time, but occasionally drops to 30. Luckily, this doesn’t happen very often.
wild action
While the ambitious story and megalomaniac quest are longstanding features of the series, a brand new feature, at least in the main numbered installments, is the fully real-time combat system. Already in the fifteenth part (or maybe in the remake of Final Fantasy VII) a step in this direction was taken, but still some functions were included to slow down or stop time and provide instructions to other characters in your group. While Final Fantasy XVI also has a group of characters, in the sense that you often have your wolf named Torgal and another minor character or characters on your side, you always and only control the main character, a magically gifted knight named Clive Rosfield. At the same time, he fights not only with the help of all sorts of magic at a distance and in close combat, but mainly with the help of extremely acrobatic jumps across the battlefield.
It is no coincidence that it looks (and feels) reminiscent of the action series Devil May Cry from Capcom, because the creators have attracted one of the main designers of the combat system of this series to the team for the new Final Fantasy. So forget about turn-based or tactical combat, this is a wild action ballet that rewards your good reflexes rather than tactical sense. But if you want to “just enjoy the story” and the wild combat system scares you rather, don’t worry: in addition to customizable difficulty, you can also put special “pendants” on your character at any time that will make Clive automatically use combos, dodge himself or even self-medicate. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a challenge, you can have a good time literally in every fight with every opponent, if you drop all the mentioned crutches and set the “action difficulty”. Connoisseurs will still find the option to play it again after each chapter to get more points, and New Game Plus even promises two special modes for harder replay battles. It will be interesting to see if the game will appeal to action fans as much as (J)RPG fans.
So far impressions
If I were to be very subjective in describing my experience with the game so far, I’ll admit that it’s been quite challenging so far. On the one hand, I really like the attempt at a more serious and adult story, but at the same time it seems to me that it is compromised by the classic “anime clichés” where, for example, the characters go from a very serious debate/scene to a fight with an acrobatic jump to ” battle arena.” Likewise, I can be put off by the fantastical costumes of some of the characters, which are sometimes in stark contrast to the truly realistic environments. Some of the dialogue is very mature and interesting, but others are full of other “anime cliches” and unnecessary over-the-top screaming. At first, I did not like Clive himself with his phrase “I will kill you.” The longer I play, the more the story deepens, and the characters, including Clive, develop in an increasingly interesting direction – in my opinion, the appearance of the main female character Jill on the scene – and her influence on Clive.
As the game got more and more interested in the characters, the world, and the context around it over time, I found myself wanting to complete all of the side missions. While they’re not (at least not yet) storytelling marvels in The Witcher 3, many of them nicely deepen my understanding of the game’s world, its politics, and its characters. Side missions can also “afford” to kill their main characters, so they contain a few unexpected twists. Maybe I’m a little sensitive to these themes given current events in the real world (Ukraine), but when Clive finds a carved-out village in a side mission and stands over the relatively realistically rendered bloody civilian corpses, it really blew me away. . As I wrote, I’m apparently halfway through this final Final Fantasy world, and so far my experience is getting better and better by the hour. I can already say with confidence that this is an exceptionally good audio-visual game, with fun fights and an interesting storyline. To what extent all these advantages will be used in general, we will soon talk in the review.
Final Fantasy XVI releases Thursday, June 22nd on PlayStation 5. Other platforms have yet to be confirmed.
Source :Indian TV
