TapTap Game of the Year 2023 #6: Final Fantasy XVI - the next step for gaming’s greatest series

I realize that headline might be a little provocative. Gaming’s greatest series? Really? Well, yes. For my money, at least, no single franchise has had a larger impact on my personal life in video games than Final Fantasy. The original game introduced me to Japanese RPGs. Final Fantasy VI taught me how much a video game story could affect me. Final Fantasy XIV is probably the best MMORPG ever made.

And Final Fantasy XVI? Final Fantasy XVI was Square Enix finally charting a reasonable path forward for the series after a decade-and-a-half of floundering.

Final Fantasy XVI is everything a Final Fantasy game needs to be - Final Fantasy XVI Review

https://www.taptap.io/post/6065897

Some players scoffed at the focus on action in Final Fantasy XVI’s combat, and I get it. Change is hard. But this is a series that has always changed; it’s never really repeated the same combat system from game to game. What’s important is that Square Enix did the action right. They pulled in Ryota Suuzuki, one of the developers behind Devil May Cry, to serve as the battle director.

The result is one of the most intense, fast-paced, and utterly satisfying combat systems ever to grace a JRPG. And despite being more action-oriented, it’s not like the game’s scope was lessened. Final Fantasy XVI still tells an epic tale that stretches across a vast world. I ended up spending over seventy hours in the game, making it easily my most-played game of the year, and I still didn’t complete everything.

Final Fantasy XVI does one thing better than anything else though: its characters. Protagonist Clive Rosfield starts the game as a sullen jerk; I thought he’d be as unlikable as the original Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife or Final Fantasy XIII’s Lightning. I was completely wrong. The game spends a lot of time giving players insight into Clive’s past, showing why his growth was stunted, and then letting us watch him break out of his shell, bit by bit.

Clive’s relationships with other characters really drive home how special this cast is. It’s in the protectiveness he feels towards his brother Joshua; the reverence he has toward rebel leader Cid; the tender love he holds for his childhood flame Jill; even his willingness to work together with one-time enemies. Clive begins the game bathed in a Game of Thrones-style cynicism, but before the end he embraces a cheery optimism, a refusal to back down even in the face of the end of the world, that feels so much more true to Final Fantasy’s legacy. And, I hope, to its future.

Check out the rest of TapTap's Game of the Year 2023 picks at this link, and share your own choices in the comments or by making a post and using the tag #TapTap GOTY 2023.