The Best PlayStation Game Every Year 1994 - 2024
2. 2023 - Final Fantasy XVI
It feels wrong to give Sony, Insomniac and Marvel's superb Spider-Man games the silver medal every time (2018, 2020, 2023), but what made Final Fantasy XVI such a delight was that it was both a return to form for a franchise that had fallen from its throne and something entirely unexpected. Best of all, it stood confident in a way the series hadn’t for a long time.
This was immediately obvious from the game’s story and worldbuilding. Unlike most other mainline FF titles from the last decade, Final Fantasy XVI is designed to feel like a complete experience. The game was measured in its pace but thorough in its execution.
Like God of War Ragnarök the year prior, Final Fantasy XVI tied its themeatics across the entire experience. Whether it was facing down the cruel ruling class in screen-filling boss fights or delivering hot meals to the impoverished, the game was all about working towards a better world for others on macro and micro levels. As such, having Clive Rosfield as the singular playable character - whilst it seemed alien to long-time FF fans at a glance - totally made sense.
Final Fantasy XVI’s combat was no slouch: heavy, immediate and satisfying. What started as simple as hacking and slash grew to include a tool set of abilities and skills that could be swapped to on-the-fly to craft some truly incredible battle scenes.
That said, it wouldn’t be Final Fantasy without a certain degree of production and the first talking point upon FF16’s release was that the setpieces here were some of the best in the series. The Eikon battles are spectacle like nothing gaming had done before or since, and a hugely rewarding high-point when it came to story pathos.
Sure, it might not have been what every Final Fantasy wanted but with a series running so dehydrated for so long, FF16 was an oasis.