Well, the beast is out. Final Fantasy XVI was officially announced during Playstation’s livestream in september and I am unable to stop rewatching the trailer every week since then. It is packed with new stuff and opens up to a lot of speculations that fans and the specialized media have been debating since then. Because of that I will also try to reason about what we can expect from the new-generation entry of this beloved franchise.
Yoshida and Final Fantasy XIV
One of the hottest topics about the announcement was the fact that the game is being produced by Yoshida, the guy behind the revival of Final Fantasy XIV. From that fact alone we can get a lot of info. First, it turns out his wish to create a more “high fantasy” entry for the franchise is exactly what is happening. Final Fantasy XVI, from what we can get from its trailers, feels like a mixture of some western RPG’s atmosphere along with the super-powerful entities and flair of what Japan typically offers to us.
Second is that, from the lengthy amount of stuff released within the world of Final Fantasy XIV, we can see how things may turn out in Final Fantasy XVI. The protagonist, for example. Well, it is the Derplander vanilla Warrior of Light all over. It feels even boring to some extent because his face is so damn generic. It hurts, really. However, from the special powers we can see from the trailer, it is safe to assume he is not just a regular mercenary. Nope, he seems like a guy who can channel every Eikon there is. He can use Titan’s fists to chain combos and perfect guard, he can unleash Garuda’s talon for severe damage, he can sprout Phoenix’s wing to air-combo. He will probably wield a multitude of eikon’s powers throughout the course of the game, being some sort of “chosen one” or whatever.
This is Final Fantasy XIV‘s formula, where the Warrior of Light is not just simply a mercenary turned hero. He is an entity that is bound to change the world. Considering it is amazingly delivered by that game, it is safe to suppose Yoshida will keep to what he knows in such a high-risk game as a new numbered Final Fantasy, especially when the franchise’s fans are so hard to please.
Takai and The Last Remnant
Another major element for me is Hiroshi Takai being the director of the game and this seems to be underestimated by almost every outlet and fan theorizing about the game. Final Fantasy XVI will be Takai’s second run at directorship, so it is very important to understand what he enjoys about the way a videogame must go. His first and only run as director was with The Last Remnant, a game thrown to the sidelines but that I think deserves much, much more attention. You can see my review of that game here.
The Last Remnant, in fact, seems to fit perfectly the shoes of what Yoshida wanted and Hiroshi Takai being picked as director is a natural choice. For those who haven’t played The Last Remnant, you should understand that it is a game that feels like a Final Fantasy to its bone, only morphing into something else during combat. It has an amazing high fantasy setting, it has a multitude of weird and funny races, it is infested with powerful monsters to battle, it is tormented by medieval politics and warfare, and it is bathed in the unnatural atmosphere of the Remnants, which are massive entities/objects entrusted to a few selected nobles and heroes.
Final Fantasy XVI, from what we can gather from the trailer, is perhaps exactly what The Last Remnant would be if it had the franchise’s name. Instead of Remnants we have the Eikons, instead of the chosen nobles we have the Dominants/Summoners. It seems a world engulfed in war, facing a blight that is even more aggravating to kingdoms who lack the protection of the “Mothercrystal”. much like how the Conqueror was causing havoc in The Last Remnant. The trailer war scene is weirdly similar to the initial war scene of The Last Remnant too, taking place in a barren land, Shiva and Titan joining the fray like David’s Remnant, and an overall artistic choice that also feels quite similar. The only change, for now, is that Final Fantasy XVI have not presented us fantastic races, just regular humans.
What Gamers Want
Final Fantasy XVI will be released for the Playstation 5 with some sort of exclusivity, most likely a timed exclusive before being out on PC as well. This means revenue will not be that big. Final Fantasy XV reached 10 million units sold with some hard push from Square Enix, and the fact that continued support was abruptly ended indicates the game did not exactly perform as well as they were hoping. Final Fantasy VII Remake, a timed exclusive for the Playstation 4, reached 5 million units as of august. Considering Final Fantasy XVI releases somewhere by 2022 and only for the Playstation 5, it is unlikely this number will be much different than Cloud’s achievement.
What I take from this is: 5 millions is shit. This is Final Fantasy, the biggest RPG franchise from the east. These guys sold 10 million copies of a game in the past, selling 5 millions now when we have The Witcher 3 or Skyrim reaching 20 and 30 million units seems completely wrong. Square Enix, however, may have noticed that these numbers are unreachable for the genre and the style of the franchise, especially because Final Fantasy XV did so well in sales and even then it may have not been enough to provide a solid profit.
From the trailer, it seems Square Enix is moving away from trying to make Final Fantasy a graphical marvel. Final Fantasy XVI looks good, but not special. It seems, in fact, a downgrade in the graphical department when compared to Final Fantasy VII Remake. That’s good. That means less money spent on trying to please horny north-american teens who only want real-life-like graphics. They need to please their core audience if they want to hit the 5 million easily, and spending more for graphical fidelity, from what they could understand from Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake, does not immediately mean selling more copies. The average US audience is not fond of story-heavy games unless they are ripe with sexual innuendo or are about super-manly guys being baddasses. Those things are not Final Fantasy and never will be.
The open world concept has also faced an expected wear. The japanese creators, in particular, have tremendous issues when creating open-world games, often just achieving big empty maps like in Final Fantasy XV and Breath of the Wild. Final Fantasy VII Remake linearity was not a problem early this year because people are tired of everything being an open world. It’s rare for open world games to get things right, even more so when their ideas don’t even need the big maps to work. I hope Final Fantasy XVI follows suit with Final Fantasy VII Remake, presenting a linear experience, perhaps with some big maps, but nothing disproportionate.
The Money…
However, despite knowing how to earn the money of long-time fans, Final Fantasy XVI is likely to attempt the same thing as Final Fantasy XV did, which is bringing in newcomers. Square Enix needs the game to sell and just old-timers like myself buying the game will do no good for them. From the trailer, we can see two strategies that will likely play out to attract a new audience.
The first is with its combat. Final Fantasy XVI brought staff from Capcom for a reason. They want an action combat that feels youthful, fast, and appealing to new players. The trailer is obvious in this regard. When it comes to combat scenes, Final Fantasy XVI is unlike any other game in the franchise. It is pretty much a Devil May Cry combat with some hints of Nier: Automata to it. I hate it, to be sincere. It can work to catch a new audience though.
What perhaps annoys me the most from these scenes in the trailer is the fact it seems the game will be just about the generic hero. No party members, no hints at changeable jobs, armors, weapons, and anything else. It doesn’t play like Final Fantasy and it seems it will not feel like one in the menus either. Of course, this was just a teaser trailer, but I really hope to see a diverse party walking around. Final Fantasy VII Remake hit the mark with a fast-paced combat that made perfect use of a party, it will surprise me if they really throw away everything achieved in the remake to start from scratch in a generic action game.
May I remind you that japanese action games with button mashing are typically bland and clunky. Platinum Games and Capcom are perhaps the only guys who really hit the spot in these kinds of games. Overall, japanese games are typically much more fun due to their customization and strategy aspects.
The second way Square Enix may attract new people to play the game is to mimic what succeeded in recent years in the US. This means copying Game of Thrones and The Witcher 3 the most they can. The trailer already gives us this dark-medieval vibe with angry old men and nobility. This is good. I was expecting the new Final Fantasy to be a bit more goofy, like Final Fantasy IX, but having a full-on serious game with blood and dark rooms is also wildly interesting to me.
It will be, however, uncharted territory for Square Enix and perhaps every member of the development team. Final Fantasy XII and The Last Remnant may be high fantasy titles to draw inspiration from, but both of them were quite light in their approaches when compared to what is typically seen in western medieval shows and games. Japan, in general, struggles a LOT to create gritty high fantasy scenarios. The anime industry, for example, only got this theme right on two occasions, and even then they could not sustain the theme for long before transforming into a typical teenage-wet-dream of super powers. Well, I mean, there’s nothing of dark fantasy besides the first chapter of Berserk and Claymore coming from there. Any other medieval show trying to be “dark” ends up losing itself to some ecchiness, super-powers, or happy people that doesn’t make any sense.
So…Well, these are just my initial thoughts about what may end up being Final Fantasy XVI. I really hope it succeeds, it does have a great example to follow from the amazing Final Fantasy VII Remake, it is being led by Yoshida and that guy KNOWS how to lift a tale, and is being directed by Hiroshi Takai, which helmed the last original IP made by Square Enix and is one of my most beloved games of the last generation.
My worries, however, are about how Square Enix will try to earn more money with the game, especially when turning the game into an action button-masher like it seems to be the case, ditching party members from a game whose most glorious moments came from the cast and their interactions, as well as trying to perform a dark fantasy tale, which is something japanese authors have always deeply struggled to do.
Anyway, for now we can only wait and see what news comes in 2021.