Final Fantasy XVI is going to be a huge blockbuster experience. Big AAA games that are seeking to reach a large audience need to accommodate a wide variety of prospective players. How does Final Fantasy XVI fare in the Accessibility Options department?
Options
If you check out the ‘System’ tab in your main menu, you can find a slew of options that can improve your experience. Under ‘System Settings’ you can Load/Save your game and re-view Tutorial Messages. Under ‘Game Settings’ you can change the lock on type from ‘Toggle’ to ‘Hold’ to match your preferences. ‘Camera Settings’ has your standard camera control settings. ‘Graphics Settings’ lets you change Screen Brightness and Game Performance Modes on the fly. ‘Sound Settings’ and ‘Language Settings’ have what you expect, but they also include accessibility options.
Accessibility Options
In the ‘Sound Settings’ you can turn on visual alerts that give visual indicators on screen to assist those with hearing impairments. ‘Language Settings’ also includes various subtitle options along with specially made Hearing Impaired Subtitles.
Subtitles
You can increase the size of subtitles, add the speaker’s name, and give subtitles a background to help them stand out even more.
Visual Alerts
The Visual Alerts on both sides of the screen communicate audio data visually as if it was mixed in stereo. This can allow the player to know what kind of sounds are coming from which direction.
The three colors of the Visual alerts are:
- Red – Music
- Green – Sound Effects
- Blue – Voices
‘Timely’ Accessories
Timely Accessories are accessories that the player can equip Clive with to make interfacing with certain aspects of the gameplay easier. Here is a comprehensible list of these accessories and what they do.
| Accessory | Description |
| Ring of Timely Strikes | When equipped, complex ability combinations can be executed by simply pressing ‘Square’. |
| Ring of Timely Evasion | When equipped, Clive will automatically evade attacks, as long as the attack can be evaded. |
| Ring of Timely Focus | When equipped, time slows before an evadable enemy attack strikes Clive. No effect when equipped with the ring of timely evasion. |
| Ring of Timely Healing | When equipped, Clive will automatically use a potion when his HP falls below a certain point. Potions will be used before high potions. |
| Ring of Timely Assistance | When equipped, pet commands are executed automatically and Torgal’s actions will adapt to Clive’s. The Ring of Timely Assistance’s effects are included in the Ring of Timely Strikes. |
These accessories can be mixed and matched in order to give the player as enjoyable of an experience as possible. Players who have concentration problems, multitasking issues, delayed reactions, or are poor at action games can use these to still enjoy the game! Although, keep in mind that these don’t prevent game overs and don’t require absolutely zero skill to use. You can still get a game over if you don’t proceed with caution.
Critiques
Minor Misgivings
There are handy Subtitle options to meet many players’ tastes and needs, however, there are no greater text options. I feel that there could have been UI text options for the menus and such. I’m also aware that some bigger Sony AAA games have the option to turn off adaptive triggers for those with weaker grip. While used sparingly, I do think it should still be here.
Controls
This is one of the main shortcomings in my opinion; there are three presets for controls. In this day and age, I kind of expect free controller binding. I understand consoles offer a system-level version of this, but that doesn’t change button prompts and takes significantly more effort. This exclusion stings more because in action games especially I want to freely select what my buttons do. I have built up certain preferences in games of this nature. I will stick to the default controls and get used to them.
Visually Impaired Options
Final Fantasy XVI can be a VERY visually noisy game. Spectacular and stylish, but difficult to parse at times nonetheless. I think that, because of this, having some additional settings for the visually impaired or for players who have difficulty telling what is going on could have been excellent additions.
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