‘Final Fantasy XVI’ hands-on gameplay preview: Turn-based no longer

This is a special version made for media to experience, and contents may differ from the final version.

Final Fantasy XVI is ready to drag the famous RPG series from Square Enix into the future. Or, at least, a future where everyone agrees that Devil May Cry is awesome.

After playing a couple hours of the latest entry in the 35-year-old franchise and talking to some of its creators, I came away equal parts fascinated and impressed. Square and the developers at Creative Business Unit III have made a lightning-quick, overstimulating action game that’s trying to please both fans of the genre and people who prefer a more traditional and tactical Final Fantasy experience.

It’s a hefty order to bring those two often disparate audiences together, but if the small slice of Final Fantasy XVI I played is any indication, there might be real meat on this bone.

The Final Fantasy XVI demo experience

Even though its initial trailer debuted two and a half years ago, you’d be forgiven for not quite knowing what kind of game Final Fantasy XVI actually is. After all, this is a series that constantly reinvents itself; XIII was almost entirely linear, XIV is a massive online game, and XV was an open-world adventure.

The tiny bit that I played can help shed some light on that particular issue. While the developers assured me that there will be plenty of time for exploring large expanses in the new fantasy realm of Valisthea, Final Fantasy XVI is not an open-world game like its predecessor. The sequences I saw were pretty linear, with a tiny bit of latitude to explore side rooms for items.

Here’s a rundown of how the basic combat in FFXVI works.

Combo-ing through a castle

Dodge and counter.
Credit: Square Enix

The demo started with our protagonist Clive Rosfield, his trusty hound Torgal, and a lightning magic-infused homie named Cidolfus (who goes by Cid because of course he does) hanging out in a castle dungeon. Their objective: Find a prisoner, get to the top of the castle tower, and get the heck out of there alive.

Right off the bat, the biggest change from previous Final Fantasy games is that you only directly control Clive. You can issue some simple attack and heal commands to Torgal using the PS5’s directional buttons, but Cid and any other party members you meet throughout Clive’s journey will act on their own during fights.

The good news is that controlling Clive is a whole lot of fun. He can mash out basic melee combos, dash, jump, and use a seemingly huge variety of magic abilities he’ll unlock throughout the game. These abilities are tied to Eikons, mystical demigods that appear in the story (which I won’t discuss here because the demo didn’t give me much to discuss). Clive can equip up to three Eikons at a time, and each Eikon comes with several flashy abilities, two of which Clive can map to face buttons for easy access in fights.

You’ll spend a lot of time equipping new gear and abilities here.
Credit: Square Enix

While the basics of combat are simple enough to grasp for anyone who’s played an action game like Devil May Cry, the precise tuning of FFXVI’s combat is what made it work in the demo I played. Windows for canceling into and out of attacks are fairly generous, while timing a dodge just right gives you a brief Bayonetta-like moment to counterattack. Landing big hits feels powerful, and the Eikon moves add visually resplendent animations to the mix. 

Needless to say, unleashing a massive combo that includes furious claw swipes, flaming bird wings, and a weighty stone fist slam on the ground feels pretty awesome.

And for people who aren’t used to this kind of game, there are optional accessories to equip that can make the game easier. One of them substantially lengthens the amount of time you have to dodge attacks, while another will automatically bang out sick combos with just one repeated button press.

Bossing around

Oh yeah, there are quick-time events, too.
Credit: Square Enix

Against regular enemies, these mechanics come together as they do in any other action game. I was able to just spam my greatest abilities until each room in the castle was clear, swiftly dodging and teleporting (a nifty Eikonic power) around the gloomy, dark grey environs. In boss fights, however, you have to use your brain a bit more.

As much as you can, anyway. Bosses in FFXVI are aggressive, leaving little room for tactical planning without pausing the game. Your goal against bosses (and some stronger normal enemies) is to deplete their stagger meter by smartly dodging, attacking, and parrying whenever you can, which requires you to diligently study attack patterns. Once it’s all the way down, the boss will sit still for a few seconds, allowing you to wail on them.

Get ready to dump points into new skills.
Credit: Square Enix

The bosses I fought, which included two winged sentries in a castle chapel and a major story character on top of the tower, had a ton of health to work through. Staggering is important not only to stop the aggression, but to give you a chance to actually inflict real damage. You’ll need to manage your ability cooldowns so everything is ready for this stagger window, giving you maximum damage output.

This is obviously a different kind of tension from what you’d get out of a classic, turn-based Final Fantasy game. It’s less about carefully planning out a tactical fight and more about reading and reacting to things that happen very quickly. Figuring out which of your many Eikonic abilities do the most damage to any given boss will be key, but mostly it’s just about staying alive and picking your spots to do damage.

How Final Fantasy XVI is trying to make you love action games

The “Ring of Timely Assistance” will help out people who have trouble dodging.
Credit: Square Enix

Truth be told, I don’t know yet whether or not people who prefer the more deliberate combat in older Final Fantasy games will pick up what XVI is putting down. However, after speaking to several top creatives on the game, including producer Naoki Yoshida (you may know him as Yoshi-P), main director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki, I can at least see their intent: To get people on the action game bandwagon.

Unlike most of the other people working on FFXVI, Suzuki isn’t a Square Enix veteran. He only just joined the company after 20 years at Capcom, working on games like Dragon’s Dogma and (you guessed it) Devil May Cry 5. Suzuki told me he had to take a different approach to designing combat for a big RPG like Final Fantasy.

“In [DMC5], you want to have battles that are stylish. That is the most important thing,” Suzuki said. “The most important thing for Final Fantasy XVI is that you need to make a system that is accessible to lots of different types of playing styles…that want to be more technical, stylish, and for players that, again, are not too into action.”

The ability to unlock and equip a huge amount of different abilities is, in that sense, for the fans who care deeply about character development and customization. The developers at the event compared equipping different Eikons to changing a character’s class in an older FF title. 

“We cannot alienate [longtime fans]. You need something that’s going to keep them engaged as well,” Takai said. 

And the “Ring of Timely Strikes” is for people who have trouble with combos.
Credit: Square Enix

Along similar lines, those accessories that make the game easier are meant to be like training wheels for action game newcomers. Equip the dodge timing one and you still have to press the button; you just have more time to do it. In other words, even the most action-averse players will have to actually play the game. There are just some nifty in-roads to make that easier for them.

Yoshida, who acted as producer on this game while also carrying the burden of being in charge of Final Fantasy XIV, expressed interest in attracting new fans who have never played a Final Fantasy before, too. Like every Final Fantasy, this one stands alone narratively, so you don’t need to play the others to get into it. 

However, Yoshida understands that it’ll take great word of mouth to sell this game to skeptics, and it’ll take plenty of classic Final Fantasy vibes to sell this game to the day-one crowd.

“We don’t necessarily need everybody to play the game on day one. We want those people [who do] to get so excited that buzz goes out and it gets people excited for this game,” Yoshida said. “We have to have enough Final Fantasy feel in the game to make sure those players [who play at launch] are not only excited because it’s a great game, but excited because it still feels like Final Fantasy.”

And for action game veterans, the kinds of people who have a keen eye for infinite combo opportunities, I’ll just leave you with something Suzuki (who I will remind you worked on some of the greatest action games in recent memory) said.

“I think what I’ve created in Final Fantasy XVI is the greatest action game that I’ve ever made,” Suzuki said.

Big words, indeed.

Final Fantasy XVI launches on PlayStation 5 on June 23.

This is a special version made for media to experience, and contents may differ from the final version.

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