The Final Fantasy 16 demo went live on June 12th and my response is WOW! With the release a little over a week away, Square Enix gives us a taste of the game with this demo. It did not disappoint and left me wanting more! Potentially minor spoilers!
Great Story
Final Fantasy 16 is set in Valisthea, which is a world divided between six nations. These six nations hold power through access to magical Crystals and Dominants. The latter are humans who act as hosts for each nation’s Eikon. Tensions between the nations escalate as a malady dubbed the Blight begins consuming the land. Clive Rosfield, a guardian to his younger brother Joshua, witnesses his kingdom destroyed and goes on a revenge quest to pursue the dark Eikon Ifrit.
In the Final Fantasy 16 demo you get to experience a little bit of everything. You get introduced to the game’s world and story. In addition, players get to experience different combat scenarios whether Clive is fighting enemies or you are in an Eikon battle. Not only does a Chocobo get blasted in the face after a sweet save, but there might even be some betrayal leaving you thinking, wow! The demo does an amazing job showing the story and getting players ready for what they will experience in the full game.
Beautiful Graphics and Design
From playing the Final Fantasy 16 demo I can say that this looks and feels truly next-gen. The graphics in the demo looked immaculate and the attention to certain details is phenomenal. In the beginning, when you are walking in the mountains, you can tell the details they put into the rocks and rubble. Looking off into the distance at other areas still allows you to see the time they put in to make everything look so good. You see a battle begin to take place between 2 Eikons and everything about it is perfect.
All the cutscenes and voice acting help you stay immersed in the story wanting to know what will happen next. Even while you’re engaged in combat, the fighting and visual effects really pop and help make things look good. All the character models look flawless down to the finest detail. If you know me, you know how important the way the games look are and Square Enix did a phenomenal job here with Final Fantasy 16.
Equipment, Abilities, and Combat
Final Fantasy 16 demo provides a small look at abilities and gear in the game. You get to equip a weapon, belt, bracers, and 3 accessories from the looks of it for Clive. One cool thing about the equipment is some of the gear can help out newer players quite a bit. Some accessories will allow you to automatically dodge whatever attacks you can dodge. Some items slow things down giving you more time to properly execute a perfect dodge. Then there is even an item that will automatically use a healing item when you are at low health. Lastly, there was an item that allowed for you to essentially just be able to attack over and over and it would chain the attacks for you. Obviously, you don’t have to use these, but they were what was available in the demo.
Final Fantasy 16’s ability system is rather simple too. As you level up you get skill points which allow you to distribute them to make skills better or learn new skills. There was even an “auto distribute” which will automatically distribute available skill points. I am also lord turn-based for sure, but I actually enjoyed the action style of combat in this game. The combat seemed smooth and wasn’t clunky at all. I was able to beat down an enemy, and chain attacks to another one, all while dodging incoming attacks. Like I said I prefer turn-based combat, but this was actually really fluid and smooth.
Final Thoughts
Final Fantasy 16’s Demo provided an excellent idea of what to experience when it comes to the full game. I think it shows why sometimes demos can be very useful and important to a game. One of the great things about the demo is once you complete it you unlock the chance to try out the Eikonic Challenge and I’m not going to spoil that for you. Final Fantasy 16’s Demo allows you to carry over your saved file into the full game which I love. I have never played a perfect game or given one a perfect score. But if you asked me to score the demo I’d be crazy if I didn’t give it a 10 out of 10. It was nearly flawless. Make sure to pick it up when it releases on PlayStation 5 on June 22, 2023.
