The real-time combat present in Final Fantasy 16 wasn’t inspired by action games like Devil May Cry like fans believe, but instead by deep fighting games like Marvel vs Capcom.
Game Informer spotlighted Ryota Suzuki, the combat designer for Square Enix’s upcoming JRPG. It turns out that Suzuki has previously worked on Devil May Cry 4, 5, and the fan-favorite fighting game Marvel vs Capcom 2. Knowing that a Final Fantasy game of all things will have a combat system by this man is pretty wild.
“There’s actually something from Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 that we took and put into Final Fantasy 16, and that is, as you may or may not know, in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, we had the Assist system where you could give orders to your partner in battle,” Suzuki says. “And by implementing that system, we were able to create the sense of not just one-on-one but multiple people fighting at the same time to create this very frenetic battle system.”
This is why Clive can utilize numerous abilities traditionally found in fighting games. For example, the character can use his allies' assist attacks to extend combos and do massive damage, which genuinely sounds amazing.
Seeing such a combat-focused Final Fantasy is still kind of surreal, as the series had always put more of its effort into the story and characters. Thankfully, it looks like the latest installment still has plenty of that, as fans are already in love with Clive and his super good dog who kicks ass. All that being said, we definitely can’t wait to try out the 60 FPS combat, even with the 30 FPS environments.
Prior to Final Fantasy 16, the series had already embraced real-time battles with Final Fantasy 15 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Both games mixed hacking and slashing with turn-based elements to huge success. Seeing a more intense version of this with Marvel vs Capcom-style assists sounds insanely fun.
Final Fantasy 16 launches on PlayStation 5 on June 22 with a PC version coming later.