A ton of hands-on impressions just dropped for Final Fantasy 16, and you can see some fun videos on PlayStation's official blog capturing gameplay, but during all this there's been some discussion about a mechanic designed to address the difficulty.
To be clear, these are not accessibility options -- they are just difficulty adjustments.
In a roundtable interview attended by IGN (opens in new tab), combat director Ryoto Suzuki explained that he wanted to create a system that made the player still feel connected even on the easiest of difficulty options.
This mechanic takes the form of accessories, specifically rings, that the player can equip in order to ease the combat. These are the five rings:
- The Ring of Timely Focus: Temporarily slows time before enemy attacks connect, providing more time to react and dodge.
- The Ring of Timely Assistance: Automatically issues commands to your pet dog, Torgal.
- The Ring of Timely Strikes: Executes combo attacks with just one press of the attack button.
- The Ring of Timely Evasion: Auto-dodges most attacks.
- The Ring of Timely Healing: Automatically uses potions to keep your health topped up.
You can only equip two of these rings at a time. This is a fun mechanic for abled people who struggle with action games. The intention is great for what the developers designed it for and that's it. It's not accessibility.
Accessibility is invulnerability, instant-kills, and more without restriction. Accessibility is this (opens in new tab) or that (opens in new tab).
As seen by Game Informer (opens in new tab), these are the rest of the settings available during the hands-on demo.
- Subtitles
- Chatter Log
- Controller Layouts:
- Target Follow
- Visual Alerts
Square Enix wrote in 2020 (opens in new tab) that the company would make a commitment towards better accessibility in its games. We'll see if the company can fulfill that promise when Final Fantasy 16 launches on June 22, 2023.
