After a morning of that final Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer, it’s time for Final Fantasy 16‘s time to tag in for the late afternoon as we just finished watching the latest State of Play presentation solely focused on the sweet 16th entry in Square Enix’s ongoing RPG series.
The 20-minute deep dive into the game was announced earlier this week as a standalone State of Play which revealed that more gameplay would be shown off plus more information focused on the world, characters, RPG elements, and so much more would be revealed during the game’s showcase. Getting into it, the presentation kicks off with the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida welcoming us, what to expect and hope you enjoy what you watch.
First, we get a tease of what to expect with a fusion of gameplay and truly impressive cutscenes while describing Final Fantasy 16 as the “first true RPG in the series” and that players who pick up the game can expect a “high-speed rollercoaster ride.” With that out of the way, we focus on the game’s protagonist – Clive Rosfield who players will see grow throughout his teens, 20s and 30s. He is the firstborn son of Rosaria’s ruling family who was passed for his younger brother, Joshua who becomes the Dominant of the Phoenix.
Getting into the gameplay, we get our first look at Final Fantasy 16‘s map emphasizes the game’s open world, where we get to see many of the environments Clive will visit on his journey. We then cut into gameplay where Clive is slashing through enemies via brutal physical, magic and summon attacks which was a treat to watch that somehow made me want to play the game even more. Jumping from gameplay to the game’s RPG elements, the game shows off the accessories and the game’s skill tree, which you can upgrade yourself, or if you’re bad at decision-making, you can choose for the game to make those choices automatically.
Now it’s time to focus on side characters of Final Fantasy 16; throughout your journey, you’ll run into characters from Clive’s past that will act as party members that automatically battle for you through the game’s AI, including Clive’s wolf, Torgal. After getting to a certain point in the story, the game introduces the player to “Cid’s Hideaway, where you can supply up, upgrade to more powerful gear and improve on your other stats too, plus a training mode where you can get beat the highest score of other players.
If there is one thing Final Fantasy 16 isn’t lacking, its boss fights in the form of monsters and the Eikons, which you’ll be able to fight one on one in Eikon vs Eikons battles play out in real-time. These battles are all unique, ranging from shooter to sumo-like wrestling matches are honestly the game’s selling point. As you can tell, they put a lot of budget into the boss fights alone. That was a great showcase of the first standalone single-player outing from the team behind the fantastic Final Fantasy XIV, but that’s only a taste of what’s to come, as Yoshida says there is more to come in the two months ahead.
Final Fantasy 16 is set to launch exclusively on PS5 consoles on June 22nd.
