With Remaining Fantasy 16, traditions have been damaged. From a real-time fight system that rewards trendy play to an absence of emphasis on get together members, with gameplay as a substitute specializing in a singular character. Regardless of this, nevertheless, Remaining Fantasy 16 was effectively accepted when it first got here out on the PS5 final 12 months. The brand new PC launch additionally manages to supply a wonderful excuse to revisit the epic fantasy journey.
Let’s get some of the vital issues out of the way in which. The PC port of Remaining Fantasy 16 is downright incredible. It offers loads of graphical choices to tinker with, and manages to play surprisingly effectively with mouse and keyboard controls. I’d nonetheless, nevertheless, advocate utilizing a controller to play, since Remaining Fantasy 16 is a reasonably fast-paced sport and the frantic motion may find yourself being a simple to smash your mouse’s switches.
Working the sport on a mid to excessive ranged PC—AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB of DDR5 6000 MHz RAM and an AMD Radeon 7800 XT—was easy with each setting pumped as much as its highest setting. Enabling AMD’s FSR 3.1 setting working at native decision additionally meant that I used to be capable of get effectively over 100 frames per second whereas enjoying at a decision of 1440p.
Surprisingly, the sport’s framerates did sometimes dip right down to the excessive 60s, however the prevalence was so uncommon that it signifies that the dip was the results of the sport loading in additional giant belongings within the background. Curiously, regardless of working its cutscenes at 30 frames per second, the sport was capable of seamlessly transition between gameplay and cutscene with out a lot in the way in which of drastic or dips in body charges.
“The PC port of Remaining Fantasy 16 is downright incredible.”
With all of that out of the way in which, it’s additionally value speaking in regards to the visuals within the PC launch of Remaining Fantasy 16. Whereas it was already an incredible-looking sport again on the PS5 launch, the PC launch appears like gamers which have the methods to deal with it may possibly get one of the best of each worlds—beautiful visuals because of the commonly quicker {hardware} on fashionable gaming PCs, in addition to steady excessive body charges, permitting for the motion gameplay to actually shine by way of because of responsive controls.
The visuals particularly shine by way of when a few of Remaining Fantasy 16’s a number of set items within the type of the Eikon battles come into play. Proper from the primary one you get on the finish of the prologue the place Phoenix faces off in opposition to Ifrit, the sense of scale supplied by these set items is rivaled solely by both among the older motion video games. These battles are additionally the venue for among the most attention-grabbing music. Whereas numerous fights characteristic the long-lasting orchestral music that the Remaining Fantasy 16 is understood and beloved for, particular point out has to exit for tracks like Do or Die from the Titan combat, and Catacecaumene from the Typhon combat.
These extra eclectic tracks are joined by incredible orchestral items just like the theme tune Land of Eikons, which blends components of recent orchestral music with components of traditional RPGs, and the bombastic monitor Away acts because the theme for one of many sport’s earlier set items.
“The visuals particularly shine by way of when a few of Remaining Fantasy 16’s a number of set items within the type of the Eikon battles come into play.”
Remaining Fantasy 16 additionally manages to have the darkest basic tone and setting of any of the video games within the style and manages to kick issues off with what may simply be one of many best prologues of any sport on the market. Whereas the participant is thrust into gameplay nearly instantly with the epic battle between Phoenix and Ifrit enjoying out, finally, protagonist Clive Rosfield is launched, and thru flashbacks, we get a extra full image of what went down 13 years in the past, which in the end led to a younger Clive being one of many solely survivors of a army operation, betrayed by his mom, and bought off into slavery.
Slavery is a reasonably main theme all through Remaining Fantasy 16, and far of the sport’s earlier chapters revolves round exploring the world, the way it treats the folks that it has branded as slaves—known as Bearers—and the way the protagonists can go about altering this reality. Alongside the way in which, the colourful solid of characters—Clive, Cid, Jill and Torgal—should additionally work out how they’ll cease the blight that’s slowly spreading all through the land of Valisthea, making the land uninhabitable because the soil can’t help life for vegetation and animals, and magic doesn’t work in blighted areas.
Remaining Fantasy 16’s story is simply as grand and bombastic as one of the best of the style may need to supply, and the solid of protagonists will journey everywhere in the world to finish their goals, which may vary from sparking rebel and destroying the large Mothercrystals which are believed to gas the magic within the space, to even participating in some political intrigue right here and there. Contemplating the sport’s huge solid of characters, one among its greatest options can be the Energetic Time Lore window, which principally permits gamers to take a look at how completely different characters are associated to one another, why they may hate one another, and what their motivations is perhaps. The characteristic can be used mid-cutscene, simply in case you neglect who the characters presently within the scene is perhaps.
“Considered one of its greatest options can be the Energetic Time Lore window”
The one actual draw back in Remaining Fantasy 16’s storyline is that it suffers from some pacing issues. Whereas the primary and remaining acts are excellently completed, there’s a center half the place the sport’s story comes grinding to a halt. Whereas this does provide some respite, since this a part of the story, which revolves round constructing an airship, after the moderately high-octane components it comes on the heels of, the collection of quests you must do are fairly bland, usually being little greater than fetch quests, and positively go on for too lengthy. When you recover from this 5-7 hour hump, nevertheless, issues rapidly choose again up once more as Clive and Co. set their sights on the Mothercrystal on the capital of the Sanbreque empire.
The story additionally suffers by focusing nearly solely on Clive. Whereas he’s the protagonist of the sport, the dearth of an actual get together system signifies that the supporting solid and crew get little to no display screen time, and even pivotal characters like Jill really feel moderately underdeveloped. This additionally applies to the villains, with characters like Annabella and Benedikta, whereas incredible antagonists in their very own rights, feeling fairly wasted since they simply don’t seem within the story as usually as they need to have.
All this apart, Remaining Fantasy 16 remains to be a incredible sport, and the PC launch now signifies that extra gamers will get an opportunity to expertise some of the fascinating, darkish, and outwardly political tales within the style. Positive, its action-based gameplay may seem like it calls for an excessive amount of from you, however the gameplay itself has been tuned so finely that each newcomers to the style, in addition to skilled motion gamers will discover one thing to take pleasure in.
This sport was reviewed on PC.
