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Original Article: So with the release of Final Fantasy XVI, I’ve seen about six months of people arguing about whether it’s too different or if it should even count as a Final Fantasy game. The obvious answer to this is yes since it has the words “Final Fantasy” in the title but really thinking about it, it’s an interesting topic to talk about.

Final Fantasy has changed a lot in its over 35-year history. Even back when the series was just turn-based, we went from the job system to the ATB system, to the junction system (pls never again) to the sphere grid. Now mainline Final Fantasy includes MMOs, open-world games, and most recently hack ‘n slash mechanics.

And yet, most of these games still feel uniquely Final Fantasy in spite of how different things get. So what makes a good Final Fantasy game?

The Feel of The Series

One thing you easily notice looking at a lot of long-running series in gaming is that many of them have changed things up. People complain that Final Fantasy is an action RPG now but Yakuza/Like A Dragon shifted to being turn-based. Zelda likewise went from linear action-adventure to an open-world game and even decades ago Persona traded out pure dungeon crawling for waifu dating.

The thing is though, as ironic as it sounds, video games, especially nowadays are more than just the gameplay. It is definitely an important part of a series but not the main part. Games are also the art, the storytelling, the recurring characters, the themes, and just how fans tend to view the series.

Resident Evil changed a lot with 4 and then changed even more with 7 but as long as it has one-liners, and scary science experiments gone wrong, it still has the experience of Resident Evil. At the same time, Halo Infinite was still a first-person shooter, with the same enemies, and Master Chief armor, yet fans still say it missed the charm of the older games and didn’t feel right.

Ultimately developers really need to boil down what the magic of a series is. Admittedly, that’s a bit harder with Final Fantasy with the games taking place in different settings but it’s still very much there. It’s very clear to notice when a game is Final Fantasy even if it’s not like the previous ones.

Interactive Fantasy

If I were to pin down the essence of Final Fantasy, it would be based on that second word: “Fantasy”. For me, the Final Fantasy series is the closest video games really have to Lord of The Rings or Star Wars.

The series is about letting the player experience an interactive Fantasy novel, not just letting you explore a fictional world like Zelda or Skyrim but giving you that form of modern epic storytelling: of flawed heroes battling evil empires with sinister villains, in a world with its own culture and mythology based around a mix of magic and technology.

The first Final Fantasy I played was FFVI only a couple of years ago and for a game that is almost 30 years old, I was captivated by how immersed I was in its storytelling.

Right from when you boot up the game, the atmosphere is poignant. You’re greeted with a chilling title drop, a Star Wars-style opening prologue that succinctly explains the setting, and an ominous opening credits scene (seriously what SNES game has an opening credits scene). This is all done to the masterful music of Nobuo Uematsu whose score expertly takes you into a world of mystery and magic.

From there it just keeps going. It’s astounding how much character development, world-building, and traditional fantasy atmosphere they could squeeze into this 16-bit game. The characters here don’t even have mouths and yet when one of them breaks down and attempts to commit suicide because she thinks everyone she loves has died, you feel that.

Forever Fantasy

And it’s not just VI, Final Fantasy VII, IX, and X, they all have moments like these. Sure some are more sci-fi, some more lighthearted, but in all of the best Final Fantasy titles, the gameplay, graphics, and music all work in tandem to create an interactive high fantasy experience with three-dimensional characters in a living fantasy world. The countries of their world have different cultures and political turmoil and they experience the horrors of war, poverty, and oppression in some form.

In my opinion, the more contentious games in the series are the ones that aren’t able to execute this as well. Final Fantasy VIII, with its tedious junction system and flat characters, XIII’s over-linearity with no towns or NPCs to get invested in, and XV which had that epic fantasy feel but locked loads of content under DLC, anime, and a movie.

These all rip you away from the Fantasy experience but even then, they each still have some of these elements which is part of why they all have fairly strong followings in spite of their flaws.

Chocobos are Cute

This fantasy experience and the interconnectivity between each game are further held together by the many recurring images that continue into each game. You got your chocobos, moogles, Cid, and the summons showing up in one form or the other. Then there’s the excellent music, with the Victory Fanfare, the Crystal Prelude, and the main Final Fantasy theme.

Not every game has each of these but most of them are included to some extent and serve as a reminder of what series you playing. They also further reinforce the fantasy feel of the series. Like how different cultures have their collections of myths and monsters, Final Fantasy has its own bestiary and magic that are subtly reinterpreted through each game.

One of the fun parts of playing the latest title is seeing how these familiar elements pop up like having the crystals be objects of power or destruction in different games or the various names for summons: Espers, Eidolons, Aeons, Eikons.

The joy of Final Fantasy is that it has such a wide legacy of different characters and imagery to pick and choose from, creating something that is familiar, perhaps even subversive to previous entries while still being very much its own entity.

The Legacy of The Crystals

Final Fantasy is a series that changes a lot. The series started as an attempt to bring D&D to the NES, only to add steampunk and sci-fi elements, to take inspiration from East Asian and Mediterranean Culture. It’s been dark, it’s been comedic, it’s been philosophical and it’s been a high school drama. It’s funny people say Final Fantasy XVI is too different when setting-wise, it probably has more in common with the first Final Fantasy than FFVII does, going back to pure fantasy.

Like many of the best video game series, Final Fantasy draws people in because it’s more than just a certain gameplay style. The appeal is the overall experience it creates within the medium. In this case, the feeling of a fantasy epic is familiar and unique in how it uses previous material.

As long as Final Fantasy XVI can do that, then it will be a good Final Fantasy game. And from what I’ve seen of the demo, it has a fascinating world, likable characters, interesting mythology, and chocobos, it even brought back those annoying little goblins from the early games. It still feels like Final Fantasy.