Clive’s story is shaped largely round a revenge mission that intersects with an ever-escalating struggle fought between the ruling powers of a fantasy, faux-medieval Europe and North Africa. As Clive navigates this tumultuous setting, gamers will slash by way of innumerable waves of people and monsters each, enter cutscenes the place characters focus on their targets whereas splattered with blood, and untangle deeper conspiracies that, with higher or lesser levels of success, interrogate subjects starting from slavery and determinism to local weather collapse and apocalyptic warfare.
They’ll additionally achieve this by way of a mode of fight additional departed from the collection’ turn-based RPG roots than any entry so far. Although Last Fantasy has experimented with action-heavy battle design earlier than, XVI’s fights extra carefully resemble the button-annihilating thumb exercises of collection like Devil May Cry or God of War than every other sport from the collection. Clive’s swordplay and magic assaults, rising in complexity as he positive aspects new powers all through the sport, mix colourful anime kineticism with a weighty, impactful buying and selling of blows between protagonist and enemy. Although not completely dissimilar from the flashy menu-driven battles of different current Last Fantasy video games, it’s nonetheless a major departure in type that lends an acceptable sense of immediacy to the fights.
Courtesy of Sq. Enix
Given this new method to fight and tone, audiences could surprise why XVI isn’t positioned as a spin-off or authentic launch. The reply comes as soon as the novelty of its type and battles wears off and its plot progresses past what looks like a massively prolonged prologue. Whereas XVI is overtly darker than many previous video games within the collection, that darkness reveals itself to be largely superficial. Past the blood and guts, cursing and politicking, the story it tells will not be far faraway from the broadly optimistic, apocalypse-preventing core that has united Last Fantasy throughout its many years of unconnected tales.
It might be extra keen to indicate a naked butt or a pile of maimed corpses than previous video games, however XVI will not be deeply involved with the deeper dramatics of the occasional intercourse and prevalent violence that runs all through its narrative. These topics are largely window dressing for a narrative which will discover plot gas within the atrocities of whole struggle or systematic prejudice and the political implications of world leaders’ lusts and romances, however is in the end targeted on much less particular themes.
The commentary it provides on real-world points are indirect sufficient—and too diluted as metaphors by the inclusion of literal magic and godlike characters—to finish up as rather more than worldbuilding pillars supporting its actual curiosity: providing (a reasonably subtle) have a look at the mechanisms that allow and propagate authoritarianism and its intersection with spiritual religion. Like the most effective Last Fantasy entries, XVI is ready to elevate a very basic paean to the ability of neighborhood, friendship, and equality into one thing that turns fable into emotionally compelling drama.
It’s aided on this by the pure grandeur of its painterly environments, which, even when suffering from lifeless our bodies and slavering monsters, create an crucial to protect a fictional world that extends past exposition in regards to the significance of doing so. The commonly top quality of its dialog and its voice actors’ dedication to their performances—particularly the vitality and nuance lent to Clive by actor Ben Starr—add an identical degree of depth to the narrative {that a} easy description of its plot factors wouldn’t seize. Model and tone are a lot the crux of XVI that they kind its lasting impression.
