A few days ago, the Final Fantasy XVI demo hit the digital shelves of the PlayStation store. It is exclusive to PlayStation 5, for the time being; and it clocks in at just under 17GB.
A demo, at 17GB suggests to me that this is a pretty heavy game in terms of textures and other bits and pieces. Apparently, the total install size of the game will clock in at around 100GB, which is consistent with the recent FF7 Remake on PS5.
I can't remember any of the character's names. They're unremarkable, and unmemorable - but the game opens with four non-descript blokes with British accents watching over a battle about to become a killing field.
Lucky I have my wife:
You explore some rocky crags that suddenly become unstable rocky crags, which feels more of a "look what we can do with the tech" than anything that actually adds elements to gameplay.
A long winding exposition about the battle and the two opposing sides follows, before we flashback to "several summers earlier", as though to look upon the youth of our protagonist.
He's in training, and you get the first taste of a battle system that is not quite Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but rather a real time variation of the menu driven gameplay of Final Fantasy XIII ; with the aesthetics of Final Fantasy XII , or FFIX.
It is a pretty fluid (and fun) system, though with "story" mode turned on, it is laughably easy and unchallenging. Perhaps as more enemy types are thrown at you, it may become more challenging, and target prioritisation may be more important. In the early stage, it seems simple, visceral, and satisfying, and that's fine.
Battles should be fun. In Final Fantasy games, they normally are.
The use of British accents throughout the game and the aesthetics in use makes it feel as though this title borrows heavily from Game of Thrones , and indeed, the language used throughout is a combination of Game of Thrones and Dragon Age - right down to the blood splatter on character faces after battle.
You don't see them remove this with cloths or any cleaning of blades, so that's a missed opportunity. Even the latest Fire Emblem game on the Switch saw you shining up your bracers and rings in a somewhat questionable mini game. Note to self: play the new Fire Emblem game.
The story and pacing of the demo are glacial. At least you can carry content over to the main game. There's some sequences that show the team's desire to be influenced by Devil May Cry and its ostentatious battle scenes with impossibly large combatants, which is part of the summon system in FFXVI, which has some unclear lore as explained by the game on its face value, as a player.
There's a new gimmick called "Active Time Lore" or something silly, where you can press a button to get more information and story telling meeting during a cut scene. It reeks of a laziness of imbuing this naturally into the story. "Show, don't tell" comes to mind, and so far, FFXVI does a lot more telling than it does showing.
I'm still keen to work my way through the full game when it arrives in about a week's time, but for the time being, I'm left uncertain at this particular instalment as a mainline Final Fantasy title. So far, there's Chocobos as mighty "War horses", but beyond that, there's nothing distinctly Final Fantasy about this.
There isn't even a single treasure chest. Items in the environment are just on the ground, but they glow, so you can find them. That's a bonus, I guess.
Furthermore, there was some frame rate issues on the PS5 when in "Graphics" mode, and I think this is a combination of a failure to hit 30FPS, and some frame pacing issues. Will be interesting to see if this is present in the release version. Additionally, there's horrible motion blur on some objects in gameplay, which isn't something you can turn off, looks to be an artefact of the shaders used by the team within the game engine.
I'm looking forward to being critical out of love of the series, but it will be an interesting time to sit down with the complete package.
So far, I'm less than lukewarm, and that's okay. I would prefer to be surprised than outright disappointed.
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