Look, I'll admit it, I've always been a bit of a JRPG snob. That attitude doesn't come from the quality of these sorts of games, not at all, more my own reluctance to try something totally new and completely foreign for a guy that grew up playing very westernised video games. This week though, I decided to download the Final Fantasy 16 demo that shadow dropped on Xbox during Microsoft's recent games showcase - and what I thought would be a bit of a 20-minute laugh has me completed hooked. I'm hovering over that buy button as we speak.
Of course, I'm coming in as a complete newbie and don't understand much of the lore that props up FF16's storyline, but I didn't feel like that really mattered during my few hours with the demo. The Square Enix RPG does a good job at establishing itself anyway, and I quickly latched onto the game's characters, their motivations, and where the story is heading next as I finished the intro. The voice acting and performances are top notch, and everything oozes AAA quality, which certainly helps as well.
Wandering around the game's starting areas for a bit, soaking up the medieval architecture and listening in on what's going on and the battles that lay ahead, I was actually getting slight Hogwarts Legacy vibes from this introduction. To be clear, the 2023 Harry Potter adventure is about my level of RPG — I rarely dip into the genre to be honest — but yeah, something about the game's grand atmosphere, magic-based combat and convincing characters was scratching that itch for me.
My lack of experience with JRPGs always makes me terrified to enter combat arenas in these sorts of games too, but a handy tutorial followed by a much more action-RPG focus has really helped ease me in here. FF16 really doesn't play how I'd expect a Final Fantasy game to play - although my aging brain loads in a few hazy PS1 memories whenever the name pops up. If you're like me and are often put off by the sheer complexity of certain JRPGs, I'd recommend giving this demo a whirl to see what you think.
Although this short introduction to Final Fantasy 16 is quite cutscene-heavy, the team's demo is pretty generous overall. You can get a couple of hours from it if you do actually sit down and pay attention to the non-playable bits (which we recommend doing so) and better yet, your progress carries over to the main game should you pick it up. And, I honestly never thought I'd say this, but I'm very tempted to part with some of my hard-earned cash on this game. Who knew, eh?!