Final Fantasy 16 hands-on: Action-packed game is full of Game of Thrones references

Another season of Game of Thrones is coming. I’ve seen it. Or rather, I played it.

And, well, it’s not really Game of Thrones. It’s the latest entry – the 16th – in the main Final Fantasy series, one of the biggest series in all of games.

I was recently invited to spend a few hours with Final Fantasy XVI, or FFXVI as we call it, in a glass-walled room in London several weeks before its June 22 release date.

I came away from the experience feeling… thrilled.

But more than that, I came away thinking about Game of Thrones and Westeros and the Starks and stuff.

And not just because FFXVI deals with warring kingdoms whose rivalries pale next to a greater threat, known here as the Blight.

Not even because there was a fair bit of betrayal and – shall we say – heavy straddling going on in what I played.

No, FFXVI refers even more directly to Game of Thrones.

The main character of the game – a chivalrous species named, er, Clive – has a dire wolf for a companion, just like the Stark kids. During my playthrough, I encountered a lumbering giant of a man carrying a child in a wooden frame on his back, much like Hodor.

And the references extend beyond George RR Martin’s work.

The parts of FFXVI I played started with a great battle between two giant beasts known as Eikons. A phoenix.

The other a fiery, demonic kind of thing. They crash into each other until they break through the very ground itself and descend like a comet into a mysterious underworld below.

Yes, just like when Gandalf fights the Balrog at the beginning of the second Lord of the Rings movie. Exactly the same shot.

I mention all this because it’s strange; strange to see a decades-old series of Japanese role-playing games be so unabashed – dorky, even – in its love of western fantasy media.

But also because it helps to situate FFXVI. The worlds of Final Fantasy have always been fantastic, of course, but they often have swords and sorcery mixed with sci-fi or even plain old, earthy modernity.

In the last game, for example, the protagonists drove around in a black convertible, about as mystical as a trip to Tesco.

This one, however, goes completely medieval. Even though there are mysterious, futuristic-looking ruins scattered across FFXVI’s landscapes – they’re said to have fallen from the sky – what I played was all castles and spells, highwaymen and bodies.

FFXVI also feels like a television series in its scope and narrative ambition.

While there was plenty of fun gameplay in the three to four hours I endured, there were also plenty of stunning-looking cutscenes to just look at – more, it felt, than even the usual Final Fantasy release.

This game has a story to tell and, based on Martin and Tolkien’s cues, it does so with enough skill that my controller fingers rarely started to itch for action.

And so we follow Clive, in flashback and flashforward, as he endures a family tragedy, is exiled in the service of a nefarious empire, is rescued into the care of a community of outlaws…and so much more.

The plot seems to revolve around people called Dominants: the ones with so much elemental power in their veins that they can transform into those massive Eikons.

Clive’s younger brother, Joshua, was one of these Dominants – he basically became that phoenix.

Clive has enough of the same blood in him to wield great, flaming powers in the game’s combat.

But what about those fights? And the gameplay in general? FFXVI also distinguishes itself from many of its predecessors here.

While the series has long since shifted its original emphasis on slow-paced and strategic turn-based combat to the faster real-time action of FFXV and the recent remake of FFVII, this latest game feels like a total departure.

Here the combat is a frenzy of button pressing and special powers – reminiscent of the combat in another Japanese series, the Devil May Cry games.

Make a phase jump at your enemy, give them an uppercut with a flaming spectral wing and keep slashing with your sword until that wing shoots back up.

As your companions, including the wolf, Torgal, whirl and flash in their own murderous way.

It may not be for the purists, but I had a blast with FFXVI’s combat system. The combat is challenging at the right level, your growing amount of powers are satisfying to deploy, and the enemies play their part too.

In an early sequence, Clive and friends – including someone named, er, Wade – come across a village infested with goblins who are arguably – and I don’t say this lightly – the best goblins ever in gaming.

They’re fussy, snivelling, scratchy little things that run away when they know they’ve been beaten…

…and run straight into the swampy lair of a huge Venus flytrap-like monster. Another wonderful fight ensues, this time more difficult.

Much of what I played was bounded in similar ways. Walk a fixed course through a village and then defeat the big beast at the end.

Walk a steady course through a forest and then defeat the big beast at the end. Although there were tantalizing signs of what else FFXVI will be.

For example, there was the hideout, a beautiful space where Clive hangs out with his outlaw friends, listens to the bard, picks up quests, etc.

You feel that you can build a home and community here, in the spirit of the Dragon Age games.

Then there was the lake open, grassy area where I got to spend half an hour.

This was an expanse of beautiful scenery, monster encounters, and other little distractions, made for wandering.

I helped a man with his overturned cart and hurried to a goblin outpost to clear it out. I love those leprechauns.

We don’t have to wait long now until we can all discover what else is in Final Fantasy XVI.

The full game will be released on June 22, while a demo about Clive’s younger years will be made available a few hours before.

Prepare for it by binge-watching Game of Thrones again.