Final Fantasy XVI (PC/PS5) - June 22, 2023

[Tymon]

The final quests feel like filler gameplay wise, since most of them just unlock a hunt. Story wise they are very necessary to the overall plot though.

[Eurell]

Just finished.

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Loved it blah blah blah. Obviously not perfect but still an amazing game.

My major complaint is that I was hoping for a better villain. Yoshi and his team crush it over and over in 14, but Ultima seemed fairly bland to me. I was excited when he got introduced early, but he was always just sorta meh. Kept coming back stronger and stronger but nothing about him truly changed or mattered.

Also. Clive is dead af, right? Literally just beat it last night, so maybe Im missing something. But he brought Joshua back to life, said out loud that even his own body couldn't contain all this magic. Then washed up on shore and was becoming petrified like all the branded we watched it happen to throughout the game.

Dion dead. Joshua lives and writes a book. Clive dead and Jill cries as she feels his aether disappear. Not that it matters. The epilogue went ff7 and gave us a (basically) 500 years later cutscene. Everything that happened is basically considered a fairy tale.

[Vaspinne]

After sitting on the final fight for like a week (and finally getting through that mountain of final quests the last couple days), I have also finally finished

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I enjoyed TotK more :3. Especially the ending. Maybe I'm just sappy as fuck, but a clear and concise happy ending was just more enjoyable for me.

Enjoyed XVI though. Definitely some things I wish they did differently. Agree with Eurell that I thought Ultima wasn't the greatest of villains. I dunno if it was the sidequests that pulled me out of it or what, but I just wasn't that invested in hating him or anything like that. At least shit like Phantom Ganon filled me with a sense of fear the first couple times I came across him lol. Ultima's overly robotic analytical tone was just kinda tired for me I guess. Plus it just reminded me of how they did Ultima Weapon in XIV waaaay to much.

Again, overall I did enjoy XVI and I only have the 'beat Final Fantasy mode' and 'master all abilities' trophies left, so I'll get around to those eventually. Up there as a great FF game for me but deffo not my favourite

[Celeras]

Hated the ending and it mars an otherwise enjoyable game.

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Fuck this open-ended bullshit. Who is this satisfying for? Seriously, please tell me. Everything is building so nicely, and for once Final Fantasy went relatively straight forward with their narrative and wrapped up everything in a tight little bow. All the mysteries are explained by the end and quite reasonably so. Not a single "Nomura" to be found.

If you want to kill Clive, FINE. Personally I thought it was wrapping up rather nicely towards a melancholy reunion, and didn't really see the logic in blowing yourself up at that particular moment. Bury your brother, kiss your lover. But whatever, that's not really the point. He does what he does and we get him waking up on a beach somewhere with petrification on the tips of his fingers, which is presumably what he felt when he said "The vessel can't handle Ultima's power after all". OK. Did he pass out from exhaustion when he tested his hand or did he die right there? Was Metia going out a signal that he died per Jill's initial reaction, or symbolic towards her wish (to bring him back to her)? Did he survive and ghost write the Final Fantasy novel in the post-credit sequence using Joshua's name? Did someone else? Did his mending of Joshua's chest somehow illogically save him from the explosion that "killed" Clive?

I've even seen some people say that there's a fucking ship coming into the hideaway during the final daylight scene, but I watched it a dozen times and I'll be damned if I see anything. Too many questions open to interpretation and I find it extremely disheartening. An extra 10 seconds of the petrification spreading up his neck (and I guess a slight tweak to the post-credits), or a 2 second stumble into the hideaway at the very end. I'd prefer something like the latter, but either would have been infinitely more satisfying and instead I am left with blue balls.

[Odesseiron]

I cannot rightfully disagree with anything you said and mostly feel the same about those types of endings (including this one).

[Karbuncle]

Hated the ending and it mars an otherwise enjoyable game.

Spoiler: show

Fuck this open-ended bullshit. Who is this satisfying for? Seriously, please tell me. Everything is building so nicely, and for once Final Fantasy went relatively straight forward with their narrative and wrapped up everything in a tight little bow. All the mysteries are explained by the end and quite reasonably so. Not a single "Nomura" to be found.

If you want to kill Clive, FINE. Personally I thought it was wrapping up rather nicely towards a melancholy reunion, and didn't really see the logic in blowing yourself up at that particular moment. Bury your brother, kiss your lover. But whatever, that's not really the point. He does what he does and we get him waking up on a beach somewhere with petrification on the tips of his fingers, which is presumably what he felt when he said "The vessel can't handle Ultima's power after all". OK. Did he pass out from exhaustion when he tested his hand or did he die right there? Was Metia going out a signal that he died per Jill's initial reaction, or symbolic towards her wish (to bring him back to her)? Did he survive and ghost write the Final Fantasy novel in the post-credit sequence using Joshua's name? Did someone else? Did his mending of Joshua's chest somehow illogically save him from the explosion that "killed" Clive?

I've even seen some people say that there's a fucking ship coming into the hideaway during the final daylight scene, but I watched it a dozen times and I'll be damned if I see anything. Too many questions open to interpretation and I find it extremely disheartening. An extra 10 seconds of the petrification spreading up his neck (and I guess a slight tweak to the post-credits), or a 2 second stumble into the hideaway at the very end. I'd prefer something like the latter, but either would have been infinitely more satisfying and instead I am left with blue balls.

I've been afraid to say it to be honest, bravo to you.

*super spoiler*

Spoiler: show

Honestly the open-endedness kinda drowned out to me when you got to the scene where the end-result of your actions is the planet is basically a boring Earth 2 now with all the magic and uniqueness drained out of it entirely and the entire exploits of the game being nothing but a distant fairy tale was gross to me.

Then again theres the other interpretation, what with "How did a dead man write this book?" is that everything you did was simply the imagination of those two kids at the end who looked suspiciously like the two main characters, acting out the story in that very same book they had read.

Either way, the ending just wasn't satisfying to me, for many reasons

[Salodin]

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I like to think FFXVI is a prequel to our earth and universe

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[Mertron]

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I like to think FFXVI is a prequel to our earth and universe

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but we kept the racism with the bearers

[Salodin]

I didn't miss them, right? There def was a lack of colored characters in this world right? They got the bigotry down pact, but the only colored guy I recall was the not-middle-eastern bearer in the desert city that I can't recall the name of cause most of the world is just uninteresting lol

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[Odesseiron]

You did not, this made the rounds a while back

https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantas...%22realism.%22

[Mertron]

anyway beat the game, have no original ideas that haven’t already been stated in the thread

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how reviews when the game first came out said the story was a weak point make no sense to me

combat good but too easy aside from svarog and behemoth king but those fights weren’t that hard either. the Eikon fights were very pretty but basically impossible to lose (at least on original mode)

everything surrounding the titan and bahamut fights were top tier vidya. kupka having to learn to eat with his chopped off hands rest in piss bozo. the Dion flashback cutscene after you beat bahamut followed by the cutscene of him killing olivier and anabella yeeting herself was great

i also hated the ending for being “open to interpretation.” i am choosing to believe clive lived, wrote the book in Joshua’s name, and lived out his days with more Jill naked time

anyway good game, will do ff mode at some point but that’s enough for now

[Tymon]

Definitely taking a break before I do FF mode, I was a lot more interested in it before beating the game but after realizing how there isn't really an endgame, I lost quite a bit of interest. I hope they add superbosses in as DLC.

[Tymon]

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I have another minor complaint, but I might just be misunderstanding the story. I don't understand why all of the characters seem to indicate that Clive permanently took Shiva from Jill. Aside from Odin because he croaked, every other Dominant shown in the story was able to prime again after a while. And yes - two of them did die, but Dion didn't. Well he did, but you know what I mean. Why was Jill different? Did Clive take more of Shiva than he did the others? We know she can still use ice powers, she did so later on in Waloed. Was she too far gone with the curse to prime again without dying?

[Salodin]

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I'm assuming it's my hero academia rules and the previous one for all holder could still use the powers but much weaker over time until eventually it was all gone (summoning wise)

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[Salodin]

https://twitter.com/The_Ben_Starr/st...BpyWvVp7g&s=19

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[Vaspinne]

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I have another minor complaint, but I might just be misunderstanding the story. I don't understand why all of the characters seem to indicate that Clive permanently took Shiva from Jill. Aside from Odin because he croaked, every other Dominant shown in the story was able to prime again after a while. And yes - two of them did die, but Dion didn't. Well he did, but you know what I mean. Why was Jill different? Did Clive take more of Shiva than he did the others? We know she can still use ice powers, she did so later on in Waloed. Was she too far gone with the curse to prime again without dying?

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It seemed a bit sketchy how they explained it but the best I got was that she wasn't able to fully use Shiva's powers. Couldn't semi-prime and stuff like that. I don't think she was supposed to even be able to use basic ice magic either but then she joins your party again towards the end after you do her quest and uses ice magic while fighting so..... yeaaaaah

And then going full Shiva would only happen as a result of her losing her shit like Benedikta and Kupka... but then Dion did it with ease at the end so that ended up being a bit of a plot hole lol

Edit: I guess you could make the argument that Dion WAS in a highly emotional state what with killing his own father and massacring his own people and etc, etc and striving for redemption. He just had his emotions in check unlike Benedikta and Kupka

[Uzor]

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They did talk about how it is possible for them to Prime again, but that doing so would lead to them losing their will and the Eikon taking over.

Dion’s response was basically ”I’ll just have to have a stronger Will. I need to redeem myself for what I’ve done, I’ll either succeed and die or fail and die.

It’s why he refused the flower in the bookkeeper sidequest; he said he didn’t deserve it until he’s redeemed himself, strongly hinting that he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be returning and that he had every intention to sacrifice himself.

[Melena]

Not sure if I agree with everyone on the ending.

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I'm pretty sure Clive died. Unless I'm misremembering something, I could have sworn Gav made a comment at the end of a side quest that he would write a book about everything. If that is the case, it would make sense to use Joshua as his pen name, as who would read a book written by an outlaw, which would also eliminate using Clive/Cid as the author.

Overall, excellent game in my opinion. My only gripe is I wish Clive got a happy ending with all that he endured, though I'm pretty sure there was no amount of therapy that would undo everything he went through. My only other gripe is that Anabella took the cowards way out by committing suicide. She deserved a worse death.

[Salodin]

Damn I forgot all about that melena. Good catch, cause I woulda never noticed it until I replayed this on PC a year from now lol

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[Kaslo]

Some end of game thoughts

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So the final mission implies that there were 16 "Ultimas." I wonder if it was 1 for each Mothercrystal and Dominant, or if it implied that every Mothercrystal had 2 dominants, but that they only ever awakened the ones we know.