Final Fantasy 16 draws high praise from the father of the JRPG series

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By Hirun Cryer
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Hironobu Sakaguchi puts the "fan" in Final Fantasy 16

Final Fantasy 16's Clive looks bashfully at Jill, who is off screen
(Image credit: Square Enix)

The father of the Final Fantasy series has high praise for Final Fantasy 16.

If you didn't already know, Hironobu Sakaguchi is often viewed as the "founding father" of the Final Fantasy series. In the years since he stopped working on the series, Sakaguchi has still remained a huge fan of Final Fantasy's modern games, and now he's got high words of praise for Final Fantasy 16, hailing it as the "ultimate fantasy" in the tweet below.

That's got to be music to the ears of developers at Square Enix who've worked on Final Fantasy 16 over the past six years. In the follow-up tweet below, Sakaguchi summarised his thoughts on the Final Fantasy series in general, mentioning "adventurousness, courage, and determination" are all key qualities of the historic RPG series. 

It seems like Sakaguchi is saying Final Fantasy 16 embodies all of these core tenets. When the founding father of a series asserts his opinion of the series at large, it's hard to really argue against him. Sakaguchi might be gone from Square Enix, but that doesn't mean he's done with Final Fantasy completely.

This sort of praise from Sakaguchi isn't really unexpected if you're familiar with him. He's been one of the loudest supporters of Final Fantasy 14, and its director, Naoki Yoshida, over the past three years or so, while also pestering Yoshida for any news about Final Fantasy 16 at literally any opportunity. It's sort of surprising Square Enix didn't give Sakaguchi a copy of the game as a gift, to be honest. 

Speaking of Final Fantasy 14, we've no doubt Sakaguchi will be excited for Final Fantast 14: Dawntrail, the next major expansion for the MMO coming next year in summer 2024. That expansion will be preceded by Final Fantasy 14's patch 6.5, which is coming later this year in October, followed by a second part early next year in January 2024.

Fantasian might finally be getting a PC release, meaning there's a chance we could actually purchase the latest RPG made by Sakaguchi and company at Mistwalker. 

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.

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