Episode 1: Death to the Abstraction Machine!

 Piloting Glorious Flesh

Episode 1: Death to the Abstraction Machine!
Game: Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI IS a Final Fantasy game!

I’m sure that doesn’t come off as that bold as even a purely rhetorical statement. However I do think it bears repeating. Final Fantasy XVI is the latest entry in the long, storied, and much discoursed Final Fantasy franchise and the latest to launch into an existential chaos between fans, classic purist, and anti-fans. The same tired cycle that followed the divisive Final Fantasy XV, the 2nd MMO Final Fantasy XIV, the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, and so on and so forth. Final Fantasy is often compared to a sort of name brand of video game products rather than a linear series which I find a bit cynical but not strictly inaccurate. Final Fantasy as a series is ever evolving and changing form from game to game, although I would argue there is some design lineage connecting the various entries.

Final Fantasy XVI feels like the completion of a franchise spanning genre transition and reinvention. This transition can be felt arguably as far back as Final Fantasy IV with the introduction of the Active Time Battle system and active battles. As far back as the Super Famicom Final Fantasy sought to separate itself from its JRPG contemporaries by providing a more active and real time experience to the traditional turn based RPG. You can sort of see the ATB as the beating heart of a lot of the franchise’s game design lineage. It isn’t until the MMO Final Fantasy XI we see full transition to a full scale, seamless, real time combat. Final Fantasy XII would take these design principles to a singleplayer adventure. And at least we reach what I feel is the return and climax of the ATB system lineage in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.

The launch of Final Fantasy XV to me feels like a major turning point. Final Fantasy XV presents a somewhat messy transition into the action RPG subgenre. I feel the Final Fantasy franchise doesn’t really feel like a true action RPG hybrid until the launch of the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Final Fantasy VII Remake takes the design lineage of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy and shifts into an action hybrid paradigm. Which FINALLY lands us at the modern day with Final Fantasy XVI, a game I would argue accelerated this hybridization in favor of a full blown action transition!

This leads us to a bit of an existential question: IS Final Fantasy XVI even an RPG? I am going to simply shoot down this question with an emphatic YES, with the very simple qualification that the game’s producer Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi P) said it was an RPG. No seriously, that's all I need! I respect Yoshi P too much to even imply that he is a bold faced liar. HOWEVER, it is my immense respect for Yoshi P and the excellently talented Creative Business Unit III that also compels me not to hold back even my harshest of criticisms. So it is with a heavy heart burdened with respect that I must come to the sad conclusion: Final Fantasy XVI is at least especially BAD at being an RPG.

Now I don’t say this bold criticism without some compelling evidence. However we must first define a few things: What is an RPG? What elements of an RPG makes a game better at being an RPG than other RPGs? These questions would all probably require an entire essay SERIES to go into any depth so I am going to save you (and myself) the trouble by summarizing these questions into a simple concept: how well does this game emulate the game design ideas founded or popularized by tabletop roleplaying games? Or put even more simply: How good is the numbers stuff?

Well unfortunately the “numbers stuff” in Final Fantasy XVI I find terribly lacking. Sure the game does have the standard stuff you should expect from even the bare minimum of action RPG hybrids: experience levels with steadily improving base stats, equippable weapons and armor, accessories, and even a skill tree to facilitate distinct builds. That all sounds pretty normal if not even somewhat compelling, but the devil is in the execution.

I played Final Fantasy XVI to completion TWICE IN A ROW. I played the game both in its standard “action” difficulty setting and immediately replayed the game in its special New Game+ “Final Fantasy” difficulty. However what was very illuminating to me about the game’s design was the manner I played the first playthrough. I played the game in a manner one might describe as a “low level” or “minimum experience” playthrough. I sprinted through the game’s main story in a paralyzing fear of spoilers! I was also somewhat incentivized to play this way as the game was disappointingly easy so I wanted to use the RPG systems to customize a harder experience. To my dismay the game told me NO! Without touching any of the game’s numerous optional side quests, hunts, or other challenges I NEVER fell behind the game’s all too generous experience level curve. The first time I was underleveled in the entire game was when I started Final Fantasy mode in NG+! I find this decision puzzling. Why would you even bother implementing experience levels AT ALL if you are just going to spoon feed your players all the necessary EXP they need to play the game without at least expecting them to at least a little bit of your game’s extra curricular activities? This is even ignoring the fact I never once paid any attention to what any of these increasing statistics even do. I think it should be at least a little alarming that I have seen the level up screen in Final Fantasy XVI a little under 100 times between 2 playthroughs over 100 hours and I could not tell you what any of Clive’s base stats even are!

Speaking of alarming, about halfway through this first playthrough I found another method to try in vain to customize a challenge in the game: I unequiped all my defensive gear! My Clive frolicked naked through the fire and flames of the back half of the game as I piloted his glorious flesh with Newtype precision. I tried to turn Final Fantasy XVI into CLIVE MUST DIE… and the game STILL did not budge an inch as Clive’s various defensive trinkets were proven to be mere illusions as an unprotected Clive only took a marginal amount of additional damage. And I’m not going to even bore you with an additional paragraph about accessories which do give actual meaningful changes to your Clive’s build, at least if you consider reduced cool downs and damage up buffs to specific skills as meaningful gameplay choices. In short, the gear system SUCKS!

My Clive ended his journey naked AND stupid, just the way I like my men!

Okay sure, that’s all pretty disappointing, but Final Fantasy has never been renowned as a series for its deep and complex gear systems or ball busting level spikes. If I were to pick a single, RPG element that the Final Fantasy franchise excels at above all else is the series knack for novel character progression systems. You are likely familiar with a few such as: the Job System, Materia, the Sphere Grid. Sadly, by comparison Final Fantasy XVI has a picture book for toddlers of a progression system. Final Fantasy XVI has a skill system where you can spend your acquired Ability Points (AP) on individual skills either from Clive’s base moveset or equippable skills from the game’s unlockable Eikons. And that’s about it! The system is at least commendable for its abundant generosity. You can at any time get a full refund on all your AP so you can freely respec your Clive’s abilities. This is thankfully the game focusing on its strengths as an action game, as you can easily mix and match abilities to keep the game’s combat fresh.

Perhaps we should assess Final Fantasy XVI from another direction. Does a Final Fantasy game NEED to be an RPG at all? I’m sure if you asked most Final Fantasy fans you’d probably hear people mostly say yes! At some point I probably would have said the same. But honestly after playing Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy XVI, and soon Final Fantasy VII Rebirth I am strongly reconsidering my stance on the franchise’s genre purity. I came to the conclusion that at the very least Final Fantasy XVI might actually be a far superior game if it were NOT AN RPG AT ALL!

That might on the surface seem like a bit of a leap, but personally I would rather the talented people who spend agonizing years of their lives on these multi-million to billion dollar projects focus on making things with their strengths or their interests and not their weaknesses. For example, CBU3 hired the excellent ex-Capcom combat designer Ryota Suzuki of Devil May Cry V fame. While I don’t doubt the man does have the passion and the skill for RPGs and to design combat around these shapes I can’t help but feel like those talents might be better put to use on much more pure action projects. Final Fantasy XVI does have immaculate combat not unlike a Capcom game, but could the combat or boss fights be even better if CBU3 weren’t also having to juggle the expectations of what needs to be included in a JRPG? Just as an example, the combat might be a lot more fun and expressive if your Eikon skills did not have to be balanced with cool downs. If these could be simply accepted as tools for your action game moveset and not need to be tinkered with through a pretty lackluster accessory system we might have ended up with a superior game.

The more I think about it, I’m realizing a lot of this game’s systems that come from its ties to RPGs or previous Final Fantasy games are a complete mismatch for the gameplay. Take the Stagger system, I love the Stagger system in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, I even love its inclusion in Final Fantasy VII Remake. In those games the stagger system helps the game feel a lot more dynamic and tactical. In Final Fantasy XVI I feel the stagger system just gets in the way of a good time. The Stagger system incentivizes a gameplay style where you save all your cooldowns outside the ones used to do will damage until you Stagger the enemy. I had some fun trying to fit as much damage as I possibly could inside the Stagger window to maximize damage, but that came at a cost of the game feeling like there’s a lot of down time between stagger windows and I didn’t want to use my skills because the several nuclear bombs I was carrying have lengthy cooldowns that I want to save. I felt the game’s systems were asking me to optimize the fun out of the combat. 

Honestly my opinion on the game soured quite a bit on my 2nd playthough. Final Fantasy mode is a neat inclusion. It increases the game’s level cap to the full 100. It also remixes some of the enemy encounters within the game’s stages. Disappointingly this changes very little. The game isn’t significantly harder. The game doesn’t demand enough from the player for different enemy formations to matter. You deal with enemies all the same way, especially in NG+ where you can just unleash your endgame kit to just delete most encounters. In this playthrough I did do all the side content and that’s also a mixed bag. Hunts are fun, there’s some optional challenges which are neat, without spoiling too much the endgame does feel rather lacking. Sidequests are in themselves a mixed bag. There are WAY too many sidequests. The game also has the nasty habit of dropping a dozen on you at a time. The sidequests also lack variety. It's a shame because I do feel the sidequests are important for fleshing out the world, lore, and some feel pretty important to the game’s themes. I do prefer having them, but I would have taken a quality over quantity approach. You can really feel the MMO quest design fingerprints on the side content and it just feels cheap and out of place in a game like this.

Final Fantasy XVI feels like a game shackled by its past traditions. Final Fantasy XVI is a slave to the Abstraction Machine! RPG traditions exist in part to abstract combat and progression of real blood and guts combat and training. Now personally I LOVE RPGS, and I love Final Fantasy RPGs, but I don’t love empty promises. Final Fantasy XVI is a game that is afraid… of itself! The game seemingly cannot commit to a full on action direction so it needs to compromise itself. While I can sympathize with that due to Final Fantasy’s rabid, insatiable fanbase, I find it cowardice. TO HELL WITH THAT! DEATH TO THE ABSTRACTION MACHINE!

And I don’t feel like I’m being all that extreme here. I do think the game textually supports the stance. I will not cover the story due to spoilers and brevity concerns, but you can see what I mean with the game's very marketing tagline: The Legacy of the Crystals Has Shaped Our History Long Enough. The game is about questioning the validity of legacy and how we should move on towards our future. I don’t think it's too much of a stretch to say that the gameplay might also be designed around these themes. Perhaps my naked, stupid Clive has the will and the strength to transcend the very abstractions that look to define him. As I pilot my Clive we scoff at the very idea of an evasion check as we dodge and weave our way through waves of enemy attacks. My dexterity syncs with Clive’s dexterity as we perform stylish action combos on Gods, monsters, and men.

I LOVE FINAL FANTASY XVI! I know I’ve spent a lot of time ragging on the game’s many, many flaws, but I do it out of a labor of deep, affectionate love. I think it's a beautiful game that masterfully introduces immaculate, stylish combat to the world of Final Fantasy. It's a deep emotional story of a man who goes through a hellish journey of revenge and repentance. I think it's a bold new direction for the Final Fantasy franchise. It's a breath of fresh air that introduces a dark, gritty, gory tone without becoming hopeless, nihilistic, tragedy porn.

Do I want all future Final Fantasies to be like this? Of course not! Something I think that is magical about the franchise is that rarely are two entries alike. Final Fantasy XVI is a very different beast from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which is different from Final Fantasy XV. Final Fantasy IV introduced me and a lot of other people of my age to the potential for a video game to tell an epic story, which was immediately followed by Final Fantasy V, a game that plays like a toy box and reads like a cartoon in the best ways possible. I hope Final Fantasy XVII is every bit as different as those two games. What I am saying is, I want a new premium AAA game with top of the industry, professional voice acting to deliver a scene as silly as Exdeath turning into a splinter and embedding himself inside the foot of one of our heroes.

So if Final Fantasy is a genrefluid franchise… What makes a Final Fantasy game Final Fantasy? While it's easy to give a cynical answer like, “It's whatever Square Enix says it is,” I prefer a much more interesting answer to this existential question: to me Final Fantasy is a feeling. This feeling is ephemeral and defies traditional definition. I know this Final Fantasy Feeling when I see it. I felt it first in Final Fantasy IV when a character sacrificed his life for his friends which taught me that video game characters CAN DIE. I felt it in the very opening credits sequence of Final Fantasy VI. I felt it when the opening cutscene of Final Fantasy VII had the most visceral and realistic cg I had ever seen and it seamlessly transitioned into gameplay. I felt it during every elaborate summon animation from Final Fantasy VII onward, especially the summoning of Alexander cutscene from Final Fantasy IX. Speaking of Final Fantasy IX, taking part in a play so I could kidnap Princess Garnet unmistakably gave me more Final Fantasy Feeling than I think I could even handle as a little boy. I could do this literally all day, I’ve only just wrapped up the Playstation 1 mainline games, but for brevity’s sake I will ask you to imagine your own like every time you hear “Blinded By Light '' in Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy XIV is a Final Fantasy Feeling factory that delivers that feeling on a regular patch by patch basis. Even Final Fantasy XV, a game I did not enjoy nearly as much as any other Final Fantasy game, still had it as I drove by the countryside.

Make no mistake: Final Fantasy XVI has that Final Fantasy Feeling! Now I will avoid spoiling any of the plot relevant or late game moments, but what I can share is I felt that feeling at every masterful flourish from the game’s excellent soundtrack composed by the one and only Masayoshi Soken. I can say I felt it in many emotional scenes where Clive screamed, bled, and cried with the wonderful performance by Ben Starr. Clive himself is a walking and talking embodiment of that good ol’ Final Fantasy Feeling. That feeling may have waned or our senses for it may have dulled over time, but Final Fantasy XVI is proof that the Final Fantasy Feeling lives and breathes.


Not too long ago it was relatively common for people to cry that “JRPGs are Dead!”. This phenomenon was tied to a lot of different things relating to the video game market at the time, but spiritually was an argument laid at the feet of Final Fantasy. A myth born out of a stigma that the Japanese game industry, if not just Square Enix specifically, had lost their way. This hit a fever pitch as some loud classic Final Fantasy purists, or even just as likely uninformed hecklers, did not like the direction of Final Fantasy XIII. History and… frankly basic research and common sense has proven that Final Fantasy was fine. Final Fantasy still sold well, it was still critically well received, it still had a chokehold on the culture surrounding the genre outside of Japan. The same fate seems to be something Final Fantasy will not shake free from. Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy XVI are also successful games that have a divisive reputation. I do think it would behoove people to take a bit of a step back from the hysteria and breathe. Even if you don’t like this entry, the next one might be totally different. Final Fantasy is not going anywhere. And even if you never like a Final Fantasy ever again for the rest of your miserable life, at least go and play other games in the genre that uphold the qualities you like. Hell, Square Enix themselves even still make them. Play Dragon Quest! Play Octopath! Play SaGa!

I say this as it is very likely that Square Enix might never make a Final Fantasy like they used to ever again. I do not think it's wise to cope and plead for something that the company is simply not interested in making. It could be due to their market research telling them that no turn based game has sold the tens of millions they want to sell. We could pray that Square Enix look upon successes like the Like a Dragon franchise, Persona, or even more recently, Game of the Year award winner Baldur’s Gate 3. It could just as likely be however that Square Enix likes making big budget action games now. There is less of a stigma and more industry prestige in big, expensive action games like God of War. Maybe the senior staff are just more interested in making action games after decades of traditional turn based games. Maybe the new staff they have hired are more accustomed and talented at designing action based games. Trust me I want a big fancy turn-based PS1 JRPG made with cutting edge modern technology like they used to make as much as anyone else, but I simply refuse to be a divorced dad about it. If Final Fantasy has moved on I should too. I’m happy to enjoy whatever wild and crazy thing Final Fantasy XVII is!

We bear final witness to the dusk of the old world, the legacy, the abstraction, and we fantasize of the dawn of the new.

7/10

Next Time on Piloting Glorious Flesh
Episode 2: Long Live the Abstraction Machine!

Part 2 of the Abstraction Machine duology. We’ll cover the Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) franchise’s own genre transition from cinematic, beat ‘em up action to traditional Like a Dragon Quest turn based combat. The end of an era leads to the beginning of a new future. The strange and wacky world of the Like a Dragon’s Japan embraces abstraction!

A wiseman once spoke to me in a language I do not speak, but in words I could understand. “Abandoning your uniqueness is equivalent to dying. So don’t write generic lyrics based on other concerns. Write what YOU want to write.”

See You Next Mission, Flesh Pilots