Ultimate Fantasy 16 has rather a lot going for it. In addition to a return to a extra conventional fantasy world – eschewing the apocalyptic boyband aesthetic of the earlier sport – the sport appears to have a extra severe tone, a world filled with political intrigue, and a core forged of characters with grizzly backstories, potent motivations, and suitably unlikely names. By remembering what made the sequence nice, Sq. Enix’s subsequent blockbuster RPG may proper the latest wrongs of the sequence.
However, regardless of among the methods the sport is returning to Ultimate Fantasy’s retro roots, there may be one place the sport is innovating: fight. Early on within the sport’s life, it was confirmed that Ultimate Fantasy 16 won’t function turn-based fight – one thing that was a staple within the video games up till Ultimate Fantasy 12. As an alternative, the motion will focus extra on real-time, player-directed sequences just like one thing a participant might discover in, let’s say, Satan Could Cry 5.
And that’s not simply me pulling a reputation out of an air juggle combo to make a degree. Ultimate Fantasy 16 has employed the abilities of DMC5’s fight director, Ryota Suzuki, to move up the motion on this sport. After fumbling the fight a bit in Ultimate Fantasy 15, and realising that some bastard hybrid of real-time and turn-based isn’t actually what a brand new numbered title within the sequence wants, Ultimate Fantasy 16 has totally dedicated to pulling the satan set off and going all in on the joy. And I couldn’t be happier about that.
From what we’ve seen of the sport to date, Suzuki’s notable abilities have been put to good use. The video under reveals off footage from Satan Could Cry 5 held in opposition to footage of FF16 protagonist Clive in motion (taken from the sport’s earliest reveal trailer). You may even see Clive ‘juggle’ some enemies within the footage – one of many key fight strategies within the Satan Could Cry video games. The YouTuber, P44/GPRS, has managed to focus on which strikes may have been ‘impressed’ from Satan Could Cry 5, particularly from sorta-main character Nero’s moveset, and reveals what inputs they could possible be in FF16.
It’s an academic watch, and actually highlights how action-orientated FF16 goes to be. And that’s earlier than we get to these over-the-top, huge summon battles that we’ve seen devoted trailers about (I reckon they’ll really feel extra like Bayonetta’s huge setpieces than something notably DMC, however we’ll see).
So, why am I bringing all this again up? Satan Could Cry 5: Particular Version (learn; one of the best model of the sport with a completely playable MYSTERY PERSON) is out there on PS+ now, at no further price, for anybody with the Premium or Further subscriptions. That is the PS5-optimized model of the unique launch, and represents the head of fashionable motion within the sequence to this point, a minimum of from a technical standpoint. It is all realised with the apparently limitless potential of the RE Engine. If you need a tasty demo of what fight in FF16 will really feel like, or one thing to point out off your PS5’s chops (the sport has next-gen options like ray tracing expertise and enhanced 3D audio), you may do worse than checking this important motion sport out. You may learn our evaluation of Satan Could Cry 5 right here.
On condition that Ultimate Fantasy 16 is being dealt with by the identical in-house studio at Sq. Enix that’s chargeable for the earth-shatteringly standard Ultimate Fantasy 14 MMORPG (with producer Naoki Yoshida and director Hiroshi Takai heading up growth on the title), the overall consensus about Ultimate Fantasy 16 is that it’ll be A Good One. The crew concerned in Ultimate Fantasy 15 break up, to some extent: some went on to work on Forspoken – and we’ll see how that lands subsequent week – while others had been siloed into the Ultimate Fantasy 7 Remake mines. And you may see the thumbprints of FF15 in there, someplace.
FF16, although, is a very totally different beast. It’ll possible find yourself being as totally different as Ultimate Fantasy 9 felt, nestled inbetween FF8 and FF10 – and that’s simply what we’d like. The sport is shaping as much as be a throwback to a really totally different period of Ultimate Fantasy – a high-fantasy romp, brimming with menace, and filled with motion. If the sport sticks the touchdown, it might be one of the best single-player Ultimate Fantasy sport in years.
