With Last Fantasy 16, traditions had been damaged. From a real-time fight system that rewards trendy play to an absence of emphasis on social gathering members, with gameplay as an alternative specializing in a singular character. Regardless of this, nevertheless, Last Fantasy 16 was properly accepted when it first got here out on the PS5 final yr. The brand new PC launch additionally manages to offer a wonderful excuse to revisit the epic fantasy journey.
Let’s get one of the vital essential issues out of the way in which. The PC port of Last Fantasy 16 is downright incredible. It gives loads of graphical choices to tinker with, and manages to play surprisingly properly with mouse and keyboard controls. I’d nonetheless, nevertheless, advocate utilizing a controller to play, since Last Fantasy 16 is a reasonably fast-paced recreation and the frantic motion would possibly find yourself being a straightforward 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 operating at native decision additionally meant that I used to be in a position to get properly over 100 frames per second whereas enjoying at a decision of 1440p.
Surprisingly, the sport’s framerates did often dip right down to the excessive 60s, however the incidence was so uncommon that it signifies that the dip was the results of the sport loading in additional giant belongings within the background. Apparently, regardless of operating its cutscenes at 30 frames per second, the sport was in a position to 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 Last Fantasy 16 is downright incredible.”
With all of that out of the way in which, it’s additionally value speaking concerning the visuals within the PC launch of Last Fantasy 16. Whereas it was already an incredible-looking recreation again on the PS5 launch, the PC launch looks like gamers which have the methods to deal with it will probably get the perfect of each worlds—beautiful visuals due to the commonly sooner {hardware} on trendy gaming PCs, in addition to secure excessive body charges, permitting for the motion gameplay to actually shine by way of due to responsive controls.
The visuals particularly shine by way of when a few of Last 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 offered 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 a number of fights function the long-lasting orchestral music that the Last Fantasy 16 is understood and cherished for, particular point out has to exit for tracks like Do or Die from the Titan battle, and Catacecaumene from the Typhon battle.
These extra eclectic tracks are joined by incredible orchestral items just like the theme tune Land of Eikons, which blends parts of contemporary orchestral music with parts of traditional RPGs, and the bombastic monitor Away acts because the theme for one of many recreation’s earlier set items.
“The visuals particularly shine by way of when a few of Last Fantasy 16’s a number of set items within the type of the Eikon battles come into play.”
Last Fantasy 16 additionally manages to have the darkest normal tone and setting of any of the video games within the style and manages to kick issues off with what would possibly simply be one of many biggest prologues of any recreation on the market. Whereas the participant is thrust into gameplay virtually instantly with the epic battle between Phoenix and Ifrit enjoying out, ultimately, 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 navy operation, betrayed by his mom, and offered off into slavery.
Slavery is a reasonably main theme all through Last 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 truth. Alongside the way in which, the colourful solid of characters—Clive, Cid, Jill and Torgal—should additionally determine how they’ll cease the blight that’s slowly spreading all through the land of Valisthea, making the land uninhabitable for the reason that soil can’t assist life for crops and animals, and magic doesn’t work in blighted areas.
Last Fantasy 16’s story is simply as grand and bombastic as the perfect of the style might need to supply, and the solid of protagonists will journey everywhere in the world to finish their aims, which may vary from sparking rise up and destroying the enormous Mothercrystals which are believed to gasoline 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 in all its greatest options can also be the Energetic Time Lore window, which mainly 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 likely to be. The function can be used mid-cutscene, simply in case you neglect who the characters presently within the scene is likely to be.
“Certainly one of its greatest options can also be the Energetic Time Lore window”
The one actual draw back in Last Fantasy 16’s storyline is that it suffers from some pacing issues. Whereas the primary and closing acts are excellently carried out, there’s a center half the place the sport’s story comes grinding to a halt. Whereas this does supply some respite, since this a part of the story, which revolves round constructing an airship, after the somewhat high-octane components it comes on the heels of, the collection of quests it’s a must to 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 shortly 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 virtually solely on Clive. Whereas he’s the protagonist of the sport, the shortage of an actual social gathering system implies that the supporting solid and crew get little to no display time, and even pivotal characters like Jill really feel somewhat 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 only don’t seem within the story as usually as they need to have.
All this apart, Last Fantasy 16 continues to be a incredible recreation, and the PC launch now implies that extra gamers will get an opportunity to expertise one of the vital charming, darkish, and outwardly political tales within the style. Certain, its action-based gameplay would possibly appear to be 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 recreation was reviewed on PC.
