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Qazi’s Disposable 2023 – Highlights

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Preface: Hints and inaccuracies

When I concluded last year’s round-up, I hinted at a few things that might end up in the highlight reel that is “Qazi’s Disposable 2023” – new tech purchases, gaming and streaming projects, lots of film watching. And, well, some of those hints were more accurate than others. So let’s get right into it.

Qazi’s Disposable 2023: Watching

Qazi's Disposable 2023

This was actually a lot more daunting for me to summarise than I initially thought – I imagined that I only found time for two or three big films, but I actually got through a number of decent movies in the past twelve months. As ever, I remained one step behind the cinema-goers and relied on Blu-Ray releases and streaming media access… but I still think I covered a number of great movies. After working through The Dark Knight Trilogy a while ago, I moved on to the moodier, darker “The Batman” film – a spectacular ride when you can actually see what’s going on amongst the darkness. I finally got around to watching Everything Everywhere All At Once – initially assuming it would be too wacky for my tastes, only to be blindsided by the rush of emotions and feels crammed into its runtime. I watched old and new David Leitch action films in the form of Atomic Blonde (which had plenty of atmosphere and great characters but perhaps moved a little too slowly at times) and John Wick: Chapter 4 (which had flashes of what made part 1 so special, but also got a bit silly), and enjoyed some thoroughly British comedy via Attack The Block and The World’s End. And I moved from the day-glo fantasy of the Super Mario Bros. Movie to the creepy horror of M3GAN. In all, I feel like I explored a decent amount of laughs, darkness, action and wonder spread across the year – and I have to commend streaming services for offering a generous range of rentals and purchases amongst their “free” offers.

There are more bits and pieces that could be mentioned, but I feel like the above gives you an idea about the range of films that have kept me occupied. I can definitely see myself going back to some of the films I streamed or purchased as digital rentals, and picking up Blu-Ray copies for my shelves. (I don’t know if it says anything about my bias when I recall that I only watched the Sonic The Hedgehog movie digitally but I bought the Super Mario Bros. movie as a physical disc.) As for the ones that missed out? I feel like a part of me wanted to completely dodge “Barbenheimer” (the social media trend referring to the releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer) – almost out of petty spite – because I was already tired of it filling up my timeline. Given that I’m used checking out older films months after the fact, I can see myself picking up both films sometime in 2024… and I’m sure you’ll get to read my ramblings about both of those in the future.

Qazi’s Disposable 2023: Listening

Qazi's Disposable 2023

After seeing Leftfield at Lakefest last year in one of the best live entertainment experiences I’ve been lucky enough to attend, I already knew that this year probably wasn’t going to top it. Even so, a few of my favourite musicians released some excellent EPs and albums. I already talked about The Chemical Brothers’ release of their tenth album (“For That Beautiful Feeling”) earlier this year, and even though I may have thought that it was a bit of a “safe” release that wasn’t taking many risks, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still listen to the likes of “Fountains” and “Feels Like I Am Dreaming” on a regular basis. Elsewhere, there was a short but sweet release from Aphex Twin in the form of the Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 EP. Seeing a listing of four tracks (well, one of them is a remix of another) might lead you to believe that it will all be over too quickly, but the EP manages to cover a decent range of moods and tempos – and honestly, it feels like so long since Collapse EP and the Peel Sessions release that I’m kind of happy to be getting anything new.

Additionally, there were a few decent individual tracks that slipped into regular rotation within the music library of my mobile. “All of My Love” by AC Slater and MPH is a glorious throwback to the house and dance sounds of the 90s, and rarely fails to put me in a good mood. “Catalyst” by Droeloe and Imanu sets a foundation of understated beats and a bouncy melody before building into a fantastic climax later on. And “Backshifting” by Ivy Lab demonstrated another shift in vibe that feels effortlessly slick and catchy. Finally, this was all helped by an impulse purchase in the summer when I received a discount offer on some wireless earbuds (Oppo Enco Air2 Pro). I’ve had some bad luck with wireless earphones in the past – they often lose sound in one ear, or they fail to charge after a few weeks – but hopefully these ones will be more reliable. I guess you’ll find out when I report back next year.

Qazi’s Disposable 2023: Playing

Qazi's Disposable 2023

This year I kind of wanted to avoid the outcome of 2022, where I ignored a bunch of notable releases in favour of playing more Elden Ring. It worked out, in a way – I got to play a lot of games I had been meaning to get around to. I covered Jet Set Radio, Final Fantasy XVI, Persona 3: The Answer and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow on this site – but looking at those games again, I see that one out of the four games was actually released in 2023. The thing is, I didn’t ignore the notable releases… but the notable releases weren’t from 2023. I skipped Bomb Rush Cyberfunk in favour of playing its inspiration. I skipped Sea of Stars – a game I had been looking forward to for months – but played through The Messenger for the first time. And I got around to checking out Super Mario RPG shortly before a remaster of the game would be announced for the Nintendo Switch. That being said, I feel like my year in gaming has been about as successful as my year in film, as these are all things that I had wanted to check out for a long time, and so it’s nice to finally see each of them through to the end.

Anyway, Final Fantasy XVI is pretty much my Game of the Year by default, since I barely played anything else that was actually released this year. (One possible exception could be the Quake II remaster, which manages to offer a fun oldschool experience in its single-player campaign whilst also providing unmatched entertainment in multiplayer – it’s that unique kind of pull where an entire evening can disappear in moments because the chaos experienced with friends is too good.) At the time of writing, Final Fantasy XVI has also received its first piece of DLC that expands the story experience with some new quest content. I’m not going to get back into it immediately, but it’s nice to know that I have a good reason to revisit the world of Clive & co. It also managed to provide a nice distraction before next year’s release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (which I might actually play when it’s released, unlike Remake.)

Qazi’s Disposable 2023: Streaming

Oh dear. Nothing but bad news this year. I had a few positives with my streaming adventures – beginning with a Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland playthrough at the start of the year, and then with me reaching the true ending of Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins for GBC over Halloween. However… I really wanted to do a blind stream for my first playthrough of Final Fantasy XVI. And almost every time I tried, I would watch the stream back only to find that the audio glitched – or dropped out entirely – without me knowing. The first few streams came out fairly well, but I felt like the problems occurred more often as I got further into the game. Part of me is tempted to get new streaming hardware in the new year, but I have other purchases in mind that may be prioritised. Ultimately, I haven’t been completely deterred – I already have some ideas for streams next year that should be less ambitious but still quite enjoyable.

Time Extended

I feel like I’ve already planned out the first month or so of 2024 – I’ll have some music and films to catch up on, I have games from the Steam Winter sale that I’m going to get into in the new year, some retro games I want to attempt, and hopefully another stream project. I may even pick up that new tech I told myself I’d get in 2023. Thanks to everybody who has read, shared and enjoyed our content – I hope you stick around next year, and don’t forget to read Dan’s Disposable 2023 whilst you’re here.

Opinion: Hire the experts

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Note: this article may loosely describe certain combat abilities unlocked in Final Fantasy XVI after a period of playing. If you have not played the game yet, please keep this in mind.

Prelude

Hire the experts - img 01

On June 3rd 2022, the X (formerly Twitter) account @finalfantasyxvi published a list of notable development staff who were working on Final Fantasy XVI. Much of it was as you would expect – Naoki Yoshida (FFXIV) was producing the game, Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV) was providing the soundtrack, and the full list included various other directors who’d previously had experience with the mainline RPG series in one way or another. However, there was one individual in the list who did not have Final Fantasy games credited to them. His entry on the tweeted list read:

Combat Director: Ryota Suzuki
Devil May Cry 5
Dragon’s Dogma
Marvel vs. Capcom 2

In any other series, this might have been a cause for concern – but after hearing other people talk about Final Fantasy XVI – and the trajectory of the mainline Final Fantasy series in general, many considered it a cause for celebration. More than a year later, having now completed the game myself, I have to commend the decision to bring Suzuki on board. Not for the first time, we find that when you hire the experts you can get fun action gameplay out of your RPG franchise.

Hire the experts – and make FFXVI a joy to play

Final Fantasy XVI has layers of RPG staples throughout – the experience points and levels, the unlockable skills, a lot of gear customisation, a job system (of sorts), chatty NPCs, vendors and a central hub, plenty of sidequests and areas to loot, and a story that takes place across an expansive world map with diverse regions to explore. Take away the combat and how it plays out, and what you’re left with is recognisable as a modern RPG template – and so I don’t think it’s strayed too far from its genre roots. Instead, the biggest change is felt when Clive swings his weapon. As we’ve seen modern Final Fantasy games lean towards action-oriented gameplay in Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake, we’ve come to accept that traditional RPG combat is at risk of being left behind in this series. So when Final Fantasy XVI has action game talent informing its combat, we get to see this transformation in a form that immediately feels polished and satisfying.

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On the surface, nothing seems that extraordinary – there is a melee attack, a button to shoot projectiles (these have an elemental property based on the Eikon – this game’s equivalent of Espers or Summons – that is equipped), a lock-on, a jump. However, as Clive proceeds through the game he obtains more Eikons to “equip” – each of these Eikons has a unique action that can be performed at any time, a skill tree where more abilities can be unlocked, and two “slots” where those abilities can be bound to controller shortcuts. What makes this special is that a lot of the abilities don’t feel like the kind of commands you would select in a battle menu during a traditional RPG – instead, it feels more like the Eikons are fighting game characters and you’re unlocking special moves to bind to your shortcuts. Even as I played through the game, I found myself mentally referring to particular abilities as “the uppercut move” or “the gamma wave” – a special move from Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Just like special moves in 2D fighting games have applications for certain circumstances, there are a lot of combat abilities in Final Fantasy XVI that allow you to dictate the way these battles in 3D space are played out.

Hire the experts – but be sensible

RPGs have always enjoyed making the player feel powerful in new ways – every time you recruit a new party member in a modern Persona game, one of the first things you’re keen to know is what their persona’s full skill list looks like. In Final Fantasy XVI, it feels like each of the obtainable Eikons are as much of a party member as Jill, Torgal, or anyone else who might join Clive on his journey, and they definitely elicit the feeling of wonder as you’re keen to unlock each ability and work it into your combos somehow. When you hire the experts you can end up with memorable action experiences, but the gameplay structure is still sensible enough to stagger each Eikon acquisition so that you’re not overwhelmed with options. By the end of the game, you will have come up with some favourite abilities anyway (abilities can be upgraded for more potency, and even bound to ability slots of other Eikons) – consequently, you’ll already have decided what options are right for you.

So it’s taken this long for Square Enix to modernise the combat in one of its beloved RPGs? Not quite – because I feel like we have been here before. Just like Capcom talent revitalised combat in a new Final Fantasy, a lot of my time spent with Clive and co. led to me thinking about how Nier reinvented itself. The 2010 game had serviceable combat tied to some awkward pacing and dull sequences – several years later, another decision was made to seek action specialists (this time PlatinumGames) for Nier Automata, and it resulted in a spectacular 3D action vessel that still respected the roots of the original. And whilst it may simply be because Final Fantasy XVI is fresher in my mind, I daresay that it is even more accomplished than Automata was. Obviously we don’t need every 3D RPG to follow this evolution (Atlus is doing just fine with conventional turn-based combat, and even Yakuza managed to make it work for their own re-invention.) However, if real-time combat is a focus for an RPG developer, it helps to hire the experts.

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Final Fantasy XVI is available now for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 and PC. Nier Automata is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch

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