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alienturnip · 2 months

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Finished FF16 a few days ago and I do have some (long) thoughts about it, so I'm noting them down below. Reactions include the Waloed & Origin arcs.

Tagging @zadien as you requested <3 My thoughts won't be organized but I'll try my best to articulate as I go. Wall of text alert!

I think this is yet another case of "the story didn't satisfy me a lot but the characters bewitched me body and soul" so here I am at the end of the roads... with a lot of grievances toward how the story was structured & written but also impossibly attached to the cast haha, needless to say I have fanart ideas planned and incoming.

Things that I enjoyed a lot:

CliveJill's scene with the snow daisies, where she tells Clive that she wants to spread her wings after all this is over. MY GIRLFRIEND... YOU SHALL HAVE THE WORLD.

Jill being so good with acting dkfjsl <3 <3 she's so cute....

Jill being as much of a ruthless mtfk as Clive, they're soooo in tune when it comes to wrecking havoc

Everything about Joshua he brings SO SO MUCH to the table both with his personalities and the themes he represents. I would ramble if not for fear of this post's length...

Dion's contradictory demeanor hahahahaha - he insisted everyone call him "Dion" but wouldn't shut up about "Ifrit" and "Phoenix", he also refused Harpocrates' gift but then gave another to Clive 2 seconds later, then sauntered off without even checking if Clive likes it or not...

I generally bemoan the lack of discussion on Dion's relationship with his country's imperialism and his hands in that (like, everything about him was perfect to address that topic even in very brief ways?), BUT I highly enjoyed Dion's theme about the loss of personhood and to be reduced to a vessel of power and worship, his multifaceted relationship with the concepts of power & duty & hierarchy. So subtly yet powerfully done with so little screen time... I think Clive's own engagement with the theme (which is supposed to be his central theme) comes short in comparison.

Dion's side quest with Harpocrates also scratched my brain in INCREDIBLY ways, but again I won't ramble too much in this post...

(Hahaha by this point I think everyone knows who my fav is)

Dion & Joshua's dialogues are all so well-written (maybe save for Joshua's last speech...)

Everything about Mid & Gav, they're beautifully done, I love them they have such solid places within the narrative and lovely personalities too. When I watched Mid navigating the Entreprise I was just squealing and cheering for her! Her talking about the dream of flight and the danger it might entail, and her plan of turning such a weighted topic into a lighthearted treasure hunt! My gosh 💗 Gav's drinking scene with Clive is also especially touching, I felt a lot for his burdens.

Lady Isabelle may I have your hand in marriage--

Clive holding Joshua or clutching his body...... breaks me every time I love love LOVE tragic siblings

I can honestly write an essay for each of the characters (especially Jill & Dion my thoughts about them are overflowing) but they will have to be separate posts at this point, let me know @zadien (or anyone else reading this 🫣) if you'd like me to talk some more.

NOW onto the criticisms proper...

Waloed & Origin arcs were pretty underwhelming, mostly because I feel like they haven't offered anything new that wasn't already resolved in the previous arcs...? I enjoyed Barnabas' vibe but his impact on me was a big fat 0, and here comes the conundrum because, well, I'm guessing him being emotionless & devoid of a personality is supposed to be the point with his worship of Ultima, but even that was not done well... All his bedroom scenes kinda ruined all of that, not to mention the out-of-nowhere 'mother' appearances that the story doesn't even bother to explore aside from showing her naked body (Benedikta got the same treatment after her death my god I'm so sorry my beloved)...

Idk what I'm supposed to take away from the character and, in consequence, the Waloed arc? I know nothing of who he was, his dialogues didn't even match Clive's growth at that point - again, why is Clive questioning his humanity NOW of all time, when the story has been going so well? Could they have, idk, shown Clive's fear coming back to him after reuniting with Joshua & discovering Dion's descend to madness, so that they can segue into the Waloed arc more smoothly - that despite Clive's best intention he may lose all his control at the most crucial point and ruin all that he holds dear (like Dion), and that he never let go of his guilt at Phoenix Gate, and having Joshua back unwittingly brought back the nightmares he'd lived with for 13 years? Maybe that would give his identity crisis at the beach some more substance instead of "Barnabas bested me twice and now I'm wet and sat" situation he got going on... I am thankful for Mid & Dion's arc & CliveJill romance & everything about Joshua but the main villain & plot points felt so distant... MY BRAIN WAS NOT SCRATCHED

(I adore Mid & Dion & Joshua hahaha they're so colorful in 3 entirely different directions, my silly children)

I am also not really convinced by Ultima's writing. The plot reveal of him being a God who created humanity but then abandoned us all *could* have been pretty powerful and on point if it wasn't executed in such fragmented ways. If only they dig deeper into one or two specific aspects of that concept to explore...

I am especially fond of the idea of Ultima as symbolic for "the absent parent" and "the narcissistic parent" (both in the intimate familial context and the wider context of head-of-state/leader figures), which could have paralleled SO WELL with Anabella & Sylvestre & EVEN ELWIN had they not cut off Anabella's presence immediately after her death, or had they make Dion reflect deeper upon his relationship with his father beyond "I killed him I am so sad", or had they make Joshua's and Clive's memories of Elwin more complicated - maybe in how they (especially Joshua) worshipped his as their father & leader, but less so as a man, someone human & flawed? And then they can explore how the children gaining autonomy & freedom despite their parents & the circumstances that shaped their childhood as a direct mirror to them breaking away from Ultima? The frustrating thing is, I THINK they did try to do that, what with all the Inner Voice snippets and the initial buildups and all, but the execution keeps coming up short...

Ultima & the Eikons as symbols of "power that binds & enthralls" in contradiction with Clive's fight for a "free world" could've been much more relevant and poignant if maybe they allowed us to get more invested in Ultima's backstory (flashback cutscenes perhaps? more involved murals? a more multifaceted discussion around the concept of will? some attempts at humanizing Ultima's race so that when Clive says "you're just like us" we feel it a bit deeper?) instead of just having the guy monotonously narrating all the plot twists... my god. Not to mention all the on-the-nose dialogues of power of friendship & crude slavery allegories... I don't know! I think Square did NOT do it well in this one.

That's all I can pull from the top of my head at the moment! Ready to hop into replies or asks to talk some more, but yea!

#ff16 #I have both love and frustration for this game in equally intense measure #hoping that the general impression didn't come off as being too negative but yeah...#...at this rate I am just listing all my wishful thinking for things that might have happened #trying to rewrite the game in my head etc. etc.#On an unrelated note #I was fighting the Knight of Splendent Heart and was again filled with longing for A TERENCE BOSS FIGHT #for twinside arc #that'd be my dying wish...#Just-- Square #listen #just lift these moves in wholesale #or maybe even reuse Clive's later Bahamut skills #MAYBE DION BLESSED HIM LIKE JOSHUA DID CLIVE I DON'T KNOW--#jura plays ff16 #ff16 spoilers

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illegiblewords · 9 months

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Some post-FFXVI analysis.

I figure there were themes throughout about how a parent is supposed to love their child and want to see them grow, and then exploring questions of power imbalance not only between parents/creators and their children/creations but also the world itself (non-bearers) vs the few with great and terrible potential (bearers and dominants). I think the theme has echoes in Otto and his son, Dion with his father as well as Anabella, Edda being protected by her child and Gav stepping into a familial role despite not having any obligation, Charon doing similar with Goetz, the Waloed orphanage director and his daughter/bearers where he utterly betrayed those children, OG Cid and both Bearers as well as Mid (adopted), abandonment of Benedikta by Cid, and even Mid’s choice not to make the airship because she doesn’t trust the potential and power it holds. Plus like (in case I need to explicitly say it) Ultima vs humanity and Anabella vs Clive, Joshua, and Olivier. It’s basically caretakers and the choice to nurture potential or not, and different characters make different choices because there isn’t a single answer to how those kinds of relationships unfold. I get that.

The spots I want to zoom in closer are these questions though.

1) What the fuck is even happening with Barnabas thematically/symbolically with the Oedipus complex?

He’s technically fucking both Ultima (parent to humanity) and his own mother (how Ultima presents to him) with his goal to sacrifice the will of not only himself but humanity overall in Ultima’s name. Ultima is the Jungian devouring mother who doesn’t seek to see her children grow but to use them, live through them, and keep them forever stunted. This is also Jungian Tiamat, who devours her own children (dragon’s mouth = yonic)--basically Barnabas is on the one hand artificially kept a child when he should have been an adult, entirely in thrall to his mother who seeks to destroy him to her own ends. On the other hand, he is willingly surrendering himself and humanity this way so the horror comes from doing such a thing with full, adult agency. It’s a similar perversion--he has taken Ultima’s side and chosen to engage in Ultima’s goal (not treating child/creation like a child/creation) and, despite being possessed of his own will and thus an adult, engages in Ultima’s inappropriate mission willingly. He becomes an active participant at Ultima’s side victimizing humanity and himself. There might be further nuance to it but the situation feels like trying to twist my brain into a pretzel. 2) What is going on with Anabella and Ultima!Olivier?

Anabella is analogous to Ultima in her entire mindset, and I guess she sort of... she doesn’t personally love any of her children, but she loves what Joshua and Olivier represent to her in ambition and tools. Olivier has been basically dead the whole time and Anabella didn’t even notice, because she doesn’t care about his will or him as a person. Olivier being Ultima like... is it kind of like saying her own child is dead because of how she views/treats her children as extensions of herself, and she effectively is parenting an analogue of herself instead in Ultima? The reason she commits suicide isn’t just the destruction of Olivier as a tool for herself--it’s because she also has to see him as the horrific, destructive reflection of herself, and that self is an abomination. She refused the role of a true parent while simultaneously holding nothing else of value within. She cannot be the monster of Ultima but nor can she comprehend or invest in her children, and now she can’t even pretend that she does. I don’t think it’s remorse for her, but sort of realizing she is something monstrous. She dies a monster, never acknowledging her children as people--but she might be aware of herself refusing to acknowledge them. This might have other angles to it too.

3) With as much feminine symbolism and iconography as Ultima has, why make his default form male here? It’s not just in-game feminine motifs (Ultima even refers to himself relative to the role of mother rather than father), but Ultima’s history within the franchise with femininity. See Final Fantasy Tactics in particular, all sorts of Final Fantasy XIV stuff, possibly Ultimecia though there’s some translation funkiness there. Regardless, that was an active creative choice there and I think it has to do with symbolic meaning. I don’t think it’s for secret shitty implications or anything like that. It could be that the developers wanted to indicate it’s not a woman-exclusive propensity but a parental one, and since Anabella especially helped drive home the devouring mother Ultima was used to broaden the lens? I think there’s more to it, and I don’t particularly figure Ultima has a fixed gender or even one as humans conceive at all--but he presents masculine when that didn’t have to be the case.

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bladeoftruths · 10 months

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ok so while im at it i guess i'll just share my thoughts on ff16's story overall since i have a fair share of yays, nays and other abt it. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

the yays:

- the prologue is still a banger no matter how many times u watch it. it was such a solid opening.

- cid's arc is a banger, even tho im sad that he died halfway thru the story but this is final fantasy. your cid can either live or die so that mid could run, or vice versa.

- jill's arc is my favourite. killing your abuser is ok but again, i have a bias with her.

- i like that they give each of the main cast a time to spend with clive in respective arcs.

- kaiju battles. yes i am a sucker for that. i grew up watching tokusatsu so this is nothing new to me. titan fight is my favourite among all, bahamut second.

- clive and jill's slowburn romance is just AUGHENSKSKDKS I FRICKIN LOVE IT. the mutual pining, the slowburn and the payoff just feels... AUGHHHHHH GRAAAAHHHHH SO EFFING GOOD I CANT DESCRIBE IT IN WORDS *eats a brick everytime i see them hold hands, hug or kiss*

- the worldbuilding is also good especially in the sidequests.

- i like how they portrayed dion and terence's relationship. its not everyday u get to see a well written gay relationship that didnt feel fetishized. we need more of this. also they are both childhood pals to lovers so it hits a soft spot on me.

- the side characters are also loveable in their own right!! enough to be in the top 10 even.

- i think im lowkey glad that they decided to go for an all white/white passing cast for the game bcos god some parts of the game is super fucked up esp wrt the bearers and how the ppl of valisthea treated them. i cannot imagine the sheer backlash yoshiP and his team will get if they have a brown/black/asian character in especially if they are bearers/dominants :')

nays:

- i didnt like how benedikta just comes and goes at the same arc. like i really wish we get to know her more or at least, after she went berserk she could at least be saved so that cid could take her in and we get to know her more. GIVE US A DLC, CBU3!!!

- waloed arc to me is my biggest downer. i want to know more abt waloed. i want to know more about barnabas and how did he get influenced by ultima. the part after jill gives away shiva's power to clive at the shadow coast just... drops and until they arrived at drake's spine it just feels... eh to me. kinda like the idyllshire/hinterlands arc in HW (given that ff16 story is written by the same guy who wrote HW in FFXIV, i am not even surprised).

- i understand that they want to make waloed and origin arc the time where clive and joshua finally gets to bond together but damn i wish they didnt just leave out jill like that in the last two arcs. poor girl, let her fight even tho she can no longer use her eikon power anymore.

- i know i have beef with waloed arc but god, odin fight is so underwhelming. no kaiju battle??? i sleep.

- i want to know more abt the rest of the dominants apart from the rosfield bros!! jill's life before she was sent to rosaria, dion in general, kupka's backstory and his relationship with benedikta, cid in general, benedikta again and again, barnabas. hell, i also wanna know more abt leviathan. GIVE US THE DLC OR FIT IN THEIR LORE IN THE ULTIMANIA!!!

- i think most of us agree that the sidequests were better at telling the worldbuilding and character insight more than the msq itself. the msq focused a little too much on clive over how he and the comrades react to the world around them.

- i think we also agree that we need more characters bantering over each other especially the dominants. im sad that dion didnt get to interact with clive and jill more, nor even we get to see the rosaria trio bantering and reminiscing the good times together at the hideaway.

other thoughts:

- i'm very mixed abt the ending tbh. i like the ambiguity and open endedness a la FF tactics but at the same time WTF??? i was high on copium when i first see thru the ending but now that i looked back my brain is just on hopium. im just gonna cling to the subtle hints that were mentioned in the game where they point out clive, dion and joshua SOMEHOW survived.

- i dont get people saying that ff16 didnt feel like final fantasy... like all FFs are different in its own right?? ff15 is like contemporary modern meets fantasy, ff6 is steampunk fantasy, ff4 is fantasy with airship... the settings are different sure but as long as you have crystals being the core part of the story, as well as anime fights with giant monsters and summons plus its own unique FF-schtick its still a final fantasy.

- i also dont get the hate on 16 for being more game of thrones-ish... like this is not the first FF to have gone this route. you have effing FF tactics being the first one to do that. the only difference is how they present it. i personally feel that 16 deserves the M-rating so much bcos of how technological advances gives you more creative freedom on how u want to tell the story. back in the day you could only work with what u have so yasumi matsuno really had to restrict with how he want to write the story for tactics. also his writing inspired the ff16 writing team a lot if u notice. and while this is not the first final fantasy game to get an M-rating (FFO did it first) it is the first mainline to get one.

overall i think the game isnt bad nor is it perfect. it manages to hit the right spot but at the same time i have my fair share of nitpicks. i just hope that it makes enough sales on ps5 and wait for the announcement of a pc release bcos god i would still love to play this game even if i probably suck at action rpg games.

----

omake: my favourites among the cast overall:

boys (top 5):

- dion, clive, cid, joshua, gav (bonus: byron)

girls (top 5):

- jill, mid, tarja, martha, isabelle 'the dame' (im so sorry benedikta u deserved better :'))

all (top 5)

- jill, dion, clive, cid, joshua

i have a soft spot for jill bcos she is very much reminded me of ysayle and im weak to ice coded ladies, and dion is just aymeric but a dragoon and bahamut fucker. i know what u did there CBU3

and this comes to no surprise but i fucking love clive/jill. i am weak to childhood pals to lovers with a mix of mutual pining and angsty slowburn romance, and they just hit the right spot for me. im so glad they managed to pull off an adult slowburn romance for them so well auuughhhhhh

#ren rambles stuff #ff16 #ff16 spoilers #ffxvi #someone pls put me back to sleep #this is just one girl's thoughts pls be nice to me

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sapphylicious · 10 months

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Regarding Leviathan:

I see a lot of people clamoring for DLC about this but personally I’m content to let it be. I’d rather have DLC focused on existing characters and main story gaps. I do have thoughts about the lore around Leviathan, and the Eikons in general, and how they all fit into Ultima’s plan though.

Based on the lore entries, we can surmise that Leviathan’s bloodline simply died out. No more descendants from the Motes of Water tribe means no more Dominants of Leviathan, hence Leviathan being Lost.

Ultima doesn’t directly control who becomes a Dominant. From the lore entries, we know that the Eikons are all parts of his power and that the Dominants emerge from the descendants of ancient tribes that once worshipped Ultima, as Ultima was their creator. This was all in preparation for Mythos to become the perfect vessel. These tribes and bloodlines were created to pass the Eikon’s power along until Mythos appeared to claim it.

But Ultima didn’t account for humanity developing wills of their own. Instead of mindlessly worshipping him and preserving the power bestowed upon them, and being his loyal servants, most of humanity went off the rails and pursued their own interests. This resulted in fighting, warring, and persecuting, and along the way Leviathan’s bloodline was wiped out.

Leviathan ceased to exist in the world, and presumably, Ultima lost access to that power. He doesn’t re-create the bloodline probably because he can’t, because the Eikon of water, his own power that he put out there to be preserved in what are basically lesser human vessels, is gone. We never see Ultima use water magic when he’s throwing every element at his disposal at Clive and being matched blow by blow. The Eikonic power of water is gone.

Water magic in general is still available via crystals. I can’t recall if we see bearers using water magic that isn’t in the form of ice, but in any case, it still exists even when the Eikon of water doesn’t. Maybe that’s why the loss of Leviathan isn’t a significant blow to Ultima’s plans, because he still has the massive amounts of aether from the Mothercrystals.

So that’s where my head is at regarding Leviathan and why I don’t feel a need for DLC about it. More information would be great but I don’t really want Leviathan popping out of nowhere for a bs reason (a new Eikon fight would be cool as hell, but I’d resent it for being out of place).

I mainly want DLC focused on Joshua and Jill to fill in the time skips. Cid is also a prime option because of all his history; the story behind why he leaves Waloed would be especially good and would give us more Benedikta as well (and Barnabas, I guess). I’ll also take any and all Dion crumbs I can get.

#ffxvi #ff16 #ff16 spoilers #opinions? opinions!#I could be entirely wrong #and haven’t gotten to the big lore bombs yet in ng+ for a refresher #but this makes sense based on what I can remember #and what the lore entries say #ymmv

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tripleflames · 9 months

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Are there any AU’s you’d like to explore but haven’t had the chance to yet? ( munday meme <3 )

munday meme on sunday.

hmm, i'd very much like to do a sort of... corruption arc for dion i guess? where ultima got to him before joshua did or maybe even one where barnabas takes advantage of the unrest and dissent going on within the empire to make dion an offer he can't refuse so to speak. like imagine if bahamut were not on our side, or dion truly lost his mind ... i think that'd be an interesting arc to do.

alternatively, one where byron gets found out and he loses his control of port isolde. any interaction between byron and anabella tbh, doesn't even need to be au.

and for jill, maybe one where she gave her powers but like dion could still prime and she actually joined the guys in the fight against ultima. or like any story line where she gets to have more agency in her own arc. i already have a plan for an arc where she gets saved by waloed instead of clive and cid with @darksteelreign so looking forward to that one!!

#i can probably think of more #but those are off the top of my head #𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝. ooc #madrites #thank u <3

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foxingpeculiar · 10 months

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FF16 Blogging: I just got back from Kanver. Spoilers and whatnot.

I’ve only been playing a little bit for the last couple of days. And I don’t feel like I’ve hit any big “aha!” moments in the story.

Like first, after Twinside, was the “go around and see how shitty things are” quest where you have to help Martha’s Rest, Northreach, Dalimil. And basically, whatever Primogenesis does, exactly, it’s fuckin’ things up. The sky is all weird, there’s aether and akashic popping up everywhere, Ultima’s thralls are causing trouble, and governments basically aren’t a thing anymore on Storm, so there’s like anarchy and lots of bandits and other ne’er-do-wells are running rampant. Okay, got it.

Then you go Kanver to help Mid and Gav, except nothing really happens there. You’re too late to save the city, Harbard challenges you and then just kind of dies for no adequately explored reason. The most interesting part was Barnabas showing how powerful he actually is by giving you what-for. Annnnnd he’s kidnapped Jill. Great. I mean, I was gonna have to go to Waloed anyway. But I’m miffed she’s been fridged.

I guess it’s kinda cool that Joshua has had this whole secret service/CIA network at his disposal the whole time. But he hasnt yet explained how he came to find out about Ultima and its machinations. Also, and this is fandom-brain, but are he and Jote a thing? The way he kisses her forehead has a kind of intimacy, but it’s almost more fraternal. And there was something in the scene where he meets Mid and is all formal with her, which she doesn’t know how to take, that made me wonder.

I’m still trying to work out what Mythos and Ultima are, exactly. Like, in an ontological sense. Some of Harbard/Barnabas’s comments (“Mythos is everything”) have me really curious for them to nail that down, but I don’t know how much they’re really going to explain it. I guess we’ll see.

Most of what I have this time is stray thoughts, though:

I finally beat Atlas (at lvl 38), but damn if it didn’t take everything I had (including 2 Elixirs), plus Joshua and Jill’s help.

I dunno what’s going on with Oscar. But sure, send him to help rebuild Eastpool; there’s some poetry in that.

Lol @ Clive’s terrible acting in Dalimil. And also the clear LotR reference in the name Underhill. Doesn’t L’ubor even say something like “we don’t want to do the name Underhill a disservice?” Mmhm. I see you.

Some of the sidequests from the Hideaway in this bit were kind of fun. Clive’s a good teacher—the way he responds to the kids who are rebuilding Mid’s scales by indulging their questions while gently pointing them back on track—that was a really well-written bit that did a lot for him as a character in my mind. Also, I love the way he’s kind of afraid of Charon during that quest with “Wetlegs” and stuff. He’s a likeable guy—gruff, but with a soft, creamy interior.

So there’s that quest when you’re on the way to Kanver where you help the dying Republican soldiers deal with some akashic and, at the end, instead of being grateful, the guy you save is super pissed off cos he knows who you are and hates you. I let him live instead of fighting him, which I feel was the morally correct choice, but is that gonna bite me in the ass later? Cos he did swear revenge and all.

I forget exactly how it happened, but I have a note appreciating that they worked in the Phoenix Down. It’s such an iconic item.

Oh, and I finished the Quinten/Lostwing quest. There’s a lot in this game about like, finding purpose. I’d wanna play through it again with this in mind, but it’s interesting to see how it’s functioning as a piece of art created in the current socio-political environment.

I dunno. Again, I feel like I haven’t accomplished much in the past few hours of play. But I also feel like it’s the calm before the storm of the final push. Presumably I’m gonna cross over to Ash next, and whatever’s going on there is gonna be (had better be) crazy.

#personal #video games #ff16 #ff16 spoilers #final fantasy xvi

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foxingpeculiar · 10 months

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FF16 blogging: heavy spoilers for up through the events at Caer Norvent. (The beginning of the chapter “Wings of Change”).

Okay, some larger scale observations first.

A larger plot begins to emerge. In Benedikta’s flashback (and what a set of cartwheels to avoid showing nipple that was), Barnabas (I think was his name—the king of Waloed) said he wanted to unite the Eikons to fight the blight. And hey, like right after that, Clive absorbs the power of a second Eikon. So… that seems like where this is headed, generally. Collect ‘em all, go fight BBEG. Am curious to see how that plays out.

Even more curious about… erm… I don’t remember his name (it started with M), but The Dominant of Fire and his Attendant (“not his missus, but his pet coeurl, waitin’ to strike” per that lady in Lostwing, which was delightful). First we learn that he shouldn’t exist, then we learn he’s playing some kind of long game… shit is shady, but I’m not 100% convinced he’s a villain, despite the whole Joshua thing. Something weird be going on there, says I.

Lol at Clive basically stumbling into the world’s worst (and most magically-charged) love triangle (quadrangle? I dunno, get it girl). I will say for the game’s overall presentation, the absolute second Cid and Benedikta were in the same place, even before they really started alluding to it, the whole “these guys used to bone and it went badly” vibe was absolutely palpable.

Speaking of Benedikta, her boss fight threw me. Cos I got through the first phase like “huh, that was a little too easy” and then died and had to redo the second one (I ran out of potions). So she’s killed me and I think one other previous boss did as well, but so far that’s it. I’m getting the hang of the combat, to the point that I’m dealing with the ganking better (including the 2-on-2 fight with Garuda’s sisters and that one room in the Caer that’s just kiting like 9 guys around a table), and I’m excited to see what having a second Eikon opens up.

Okay, so Eikons. I think somebody said at some point there were eight? Which means nine, cos the second fire one. So, so far I know about: 1) Phoenix (Fire, formerly Joshua), 2) Ifrit (Fire, that mysterious guy), 3) Shiva (Ice, Jill), 4) Titan (Earth, that guy B’s apparently two-timing the King with), 5) Garuda (Wind, B), 6) Ramuh (Lightning, Cid), 7) Bahamut (element and dominant unknown). That leaves two more. I’m guessing Leviathan (Water) is one. Bahamut might be Holy, but I can’t think of what the other element would be at the moment.

A couple stray thoughts:

Enjoying the mini-boss enemies—the ones that don’t get a boss health bar but are a lot spicier than the randos you’ve been dealing with.

Lostwing is cool, but confusing, both in its layout and why everyone defers to that dude. Even the footnotes call him “inscrutable.” So like, pin in that for now.

Can we get some daytime scenes? This whole last bit was all very visually dark and IRL sunlight is a thing.

I still feel like the game hasn’t opened up yet. I know it’s not open world, but I mean like—access to the hunting board, more side quests, that kind of thing.

I’ll probably play more later, I just need a break for a bit.

#personal #video ganes #ff16 #ff16 spoilers #final fantasy xvi

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