Final Fantasy XVI Spoiler Thread [Open Spoilers]

[PlanetSmasher]

But like you said, none of the actually present Eikons make any sense at all as prospective cuts. They're all integral.

Shiva's obviously the least relevant in the actual story, being almost entirely sidelined, so maybe they meant they almost cut Shiva (i.e. further committed to the arbitrary 'Jill can't transform' plotpoint, not actually cut Jill). But then again Shiva vs Titan is such an early setpiece that's difficult to imagine.

Only other one I could potentially see would be... Bahamut? Partially because it's easy for me to imagine a company like SE capitulating and not including a gay character. But Bahamut's also crucial to some of the most cinematic sequences in the story, so 🤷‍♂️.

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Yeah, Shiva appeared in the reveal teaser, so the chances of her being cut (considering she's already not a boss) are slim to none. And Bahamut is so central to the story's absolute peak crazy moment that it just feels like it would be impossible for him to be the one they'd cut.

I guess it's either just Odin (maybe they had another idea for how Barnabas got taken down and almost used it instead of the half-Eikon/half-human duel we got) or it IS just "we took all of our unfinished Leviathan ideas and pooled them together to make the DLC".

Guess we'll find out in a few months.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

Could be, yeah.

Or it's just Odin, considering how much...simpler that fight is than the previous two Eikon battles before it. It doesn't feel like quite as much went into Odin as Bahamut or Titan.

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Maybe, I can definitely see that as a possibility. However I also get the impression that the big fight with Barnabas was never really meant to focus on another Eikon showdown. Considering how much the game went out of its way to basically depict Barnabas as a Vergil expy mechanically, my suspicion is that that boss fight was always meant to act as a bit of a homage to DMC3 (a nighttime duel in the rain at the top of a gothic looking ancient tower of evil sure sounds familiar to me), and by extension, give players the chance to unlock Odin's moveset and get to "play as Vergil" as Clive for the endgame material and for New Game+.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Maybe, I can definitely see that as a possibility. However I also get the impression that the big fight with Barnabas was never really meant to focus on another Eikon showdown. Considering how much the game went out of its way to basically depict Barnabas as a Vergil expy mechanically, my suspicion is that that boss fight was always meant to act as a bit of a homage to DMC3 (a nighttime duel in the rain at the top of a gothic looking ancient tower of evil sure sounds familiar to me), and by extension, give players the chance to unlock Odin's moveset and get to "play as Vergil" as Clive for the endgame material and for New Game+.

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Especially considering the ENTIRE Waloed sequence after Reverie and all of Stonhyrr seem designed around wasting huge swarms of enemies with Zantetsuken, you're probably right.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

Especially considering the ENTIRE Waloed sequence after Reverie and all of Stonhyrr seem designed around wasting huge swarms of enemies with Zantetsuken, you're probably right.

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Not to mention, Barnabas' Semi-Primed form in that last boss fight looks a lot like Nelo Angelo... Which also fits with how the game characterizes Barnabas as a powerful man who's become (willfully) enslaved by a more powerful entity.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Not to mention, Barnabas' Semi-Primed form in that last boss fight looks a lot like Nelo Angelo... Which also fits with how the game characterizes Barnabas as a powerful man who's become (willfully) enslaved by a more powerful entity.

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NGL, that moment during the fight where Barnabas has a mental break and starts screaming and laughing like Lezard Valeth was the most interesting he was for the entire game. I wanted more of that and less "pushy youth pastor with a dimension cutting sword".

 

[Chained Prometheus]

NGL, that moment during the fight where Barnabas has a mental break and starts screaming and laughing like Lezard Valeth was the most interesting he was for the entire game. I wanted more of that and less "pushy youth pastor with a dimension cutting sword".

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On that front, I completely agree. I do think there's interesting material for Barnabas thematically as someone who's basically a Lovecraftian cultist in an FF game, but he was easily at his most enticing at the end there when he went full maniacal Blood Knight. Would've been great to see David Menkin go more ham like that earlier in the game.

 

[crimilde]

Any theories on why Sleipnir has the same hair colour and haircut as Jill, besides Barnabas narratively being a foil to Clive?

I kept waiting for a reason why Barnabas would create an egi with that look but they never gave any.

 

[Wrexis]

I don't think Leviathan was cut for time, I think it was a clear planned decision not to have it.

Remember Leviathan had a huge set piece in FF15. I figured they didn't want to repeat it.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I don't think Leviathan was cut for time, I think it was a clear planned decision not to have it.

Remember Leviathan had a huge set piece in FF15. I figured they didn't want to repeat it.

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I mean they could've easily made Leviathan's Dominant a non-combat NPC who gives their powers to Clive willingly if that was the case. As it stands right now, it's very silly for them to be like EIGHT ELEMENTS EIGHT DOMINANTS EIGHT EIKONS and then have Ultima yammer on and on and on about the 'PERFECT VESSEL' when Clive is literally missing one of the elements and its associated Eikon.

 

[double_heist]

One thing that I haven't seen enough people talk about in the game is how the concept of Love pervades rather heavily throughout it. In fact, all of the core villains in the game tie back to that theme in one way or another.

• Benedikta threw away her genuine love for Cid to commit to serving Barnabas... ultimately leaving her embittered and lost in relationships of false love with both Barnabas and Hugo.
• Hugo's love for the idea of the woman he thought Benedikta was led to his downfall; the intellect and tactical strategy Hugo was shown to have crumbled and gave way to a reckless, revenge-driven bull of a man with a broken and manipulated heart.
• Anabella had no true loves in her life, in part because her very upbringing as a noblewoman, her classist views and her innate insecurities from the gossiping of the courts in Rosaria wound up poisoning her ability to ever really show compassion and genuine love for her family. Her scene with Clive and Jill at the Crystalline Dominion really shine a light on how being born a noblewoman was probably the single worst thing that could have ever happened to Anabella.
• Dion isn't a villain by any means, but Ultima exploited Dion's love for his father and the people of Sanbreque in order to break his mind and lead Bahamut into a feral rampage at Twinside as a means of testing Clive and Joshua's power.
• Barnabas is interesting to me, because his love is that of a religious sycophant or a fully committed cultist. The bits of information we get about his past and the sort of king he used to be indicate that he might well have been not unlike Clive once, at least back when Clive was on his revenge quest in the early parts of the game. But somewhere along the way, Barnabas' will gave way to a toxic love of what he perceived to be "God" in Ultima- to the point where Barnabas not only aided Ultima in manipulating the broader political landscapes of Valisthea to ensure other kingdoms fell at breakneck speed as Clive's journey progressed, but also that Barnabas betrayed his own subjects and essentially wiped out his entire kingdom off the face of the planet in an instant as part of his devotion to his so-called "faith."
• Ultima is, of course, someone who sees himself and his race as proper "Gods." And as is common with many myths and religions, Ultima is a rather selfish God who have no real love for his creations, but seemingly demands love be given to him by those same subjects all the same.

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I'm with you.

This is the main concept of the game from what I've seen aside from brotherly love (Joshua and Clive), romantic love (Jill and Clive), and companionship (Hideaway and Clive).

Each FF always had a central concept (FFX onwards), and it really depends if they actually delivered it:

- FFX: a summoner's journey and sacrifice
- FFXII: actually this one I'm not too sure
- FFXIII: escaping fate
- FFXV: brotherhood
- FFXVI: love

I reached the ending and I'm totally fine with it tbh, I think it's pretty obvious they all died. For me it's less ambiguous than what happened to FFXV's ending:

Spoiler

clearly we know Noctis dies but Prompto, Gladiolus, and Ignis, we do not know their fate at all

I never did have expectations this will be a purely GoT game because it's Final Fantasy: there would be a godlike being in the end always, although I do notice that there was much less gore in the last half 1/3 of the game and it drifted out from the war and focused on surviving the end of the world.

 

[Chumunga64]

NGL, that moment during the fight where Barnabas has a mental break and starts screaming and laughing like Lezard Valeth was the most interesting he was for the entire game. I wanted more of that and less "pushy youth pastor with a dimension cutting sword".

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cannot believe how lame the "vergil" of this game was. in fact, I cannot believe how lame every villain was. we got youth pastor vergil, biggest cuck in the world, woman who was probably written by a guy going through a divorce, and necron with more screentime

 

[PlanetSmasher]

cannot believe how lame the "vergil" of this game was. in fact, I cannot believe how lame every villain was. we got youth pastor vergil, biggest cuck in the world, woman who was probably written by a guy going through a divorce, and necron with more screentime

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It says a lot that the best boss fights in the entire game are the one against a guy who isn't even evil, and the one against Clive himself, lol.

 

[Quinton]

I think it's pretty obvious they all died.

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This is what makes it so interesting. Plenty of people think it's pretty obvious that Clive and/or Joshua (sometimes even Dion) survived.

That said, I don't like this kind of interesting, and I'm foolishly hoping we get something more that clarifies the situation. <_<

 

[Chumunga64]

It says a lot that the best boss fights in the entire game are the one against a guy who isn't even evil, and the one against Clive himself, lol.

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you don't know how many times I pogged out fighting Bahamut and then went "oh, wait. there's more?"

 

[Atom]

cannot believe how lame the "vergil" of this game was. in fact, I cannot believe how lame every villain was. we got youth pastor vergil, biggest cuck in the world, woman who was probably written by a guy going through a divorce, and necron with more screentime

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It's straight up the one part of the game I wish they went even more derivative with.

I would have loved Barnabas if they shoehorned in some shirtless wrestling in the rain and some "foolishness, clive" trash talk. They even have the perfect setup for it at the bottom of the ocean and they do nothing with it.

As he is he's just forgettable until the very end where he becomes slightly more interesting and then dies.

Also those villain descriptions are so depressing.

I would also add Benedikta as "woman who was probably written by a guy"

 

[double_heist]

Yeah I don't think Leviathan is there in the first place, he's just simply not there and it's more like a a cameo just like Cactuar needles thing.

 

[Chumunga64]

shoehorned in some shirtless wrestling

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Alright, Woolie/s

But seriously, Barnabas got one of the coolest summons, a sexy voice, a badass design and he's just some weirdo freak. If he was a lame dork on purpose, I'd give props to the writers but the game presents him as someone who is cool and I can't lmao

 

[Wrexis]

I think it's pretty obvious they all died.

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This is what makes it so interesting. Plenty of people think it's pretty obvious that Clive and/or Joshua (sometimes even Dion) survived.

That said, I don't like this kind of interesting, and I'm foolishly hoping we get something more that clarifies the situation. <_<

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it's fascinating to me, because I've never seen so much pushback to this FF ending in comparison to others.
When someone posts that they died you'll get a ton of follow up "WELL ACTUALLY" posts. And not just here, I've seen it on Reddit as well.

I think it says a lot about the characters. People really do love Clive and Jill (and Dion).

 

[PlanetSmasher]

This is what makes it so interesting. Plenty of people think it's pretty obvious that Clive and/or Joshua (sometimes even Dion) survived.

That said, I don't like this kind of interesting, and I'm foolishly hoping we get something more that clarifies the situation. <_<

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At least as far as subtext is concerned, the game is VERY clear that someone is going to make it through to the end. Vivian is so loud about "ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO COME BACK SO YOU CAN TELL ME THE WHOLE STORY" that she might as well look directly at the camera and wink.

They're just leaving it open as to who the someone is.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

I'm with you.

This is the main concept of the game from what I've seen aside from brotherly love (Joshua and Clive), romantic love (Jill and Clive), and companionship (Hideaway and Clive).

Each FF always had a central concept (FFX onwards), and it really depends if they actually delivered it:

- FFX: a summoner's journey and sacrifice
- FFXII: actually this one I'm not too sure
- FFXIII: escaping fate
- FFXV: brotherhood
- FFXVI: love

I reached the ending and I'm totally fine with it tbh, I think it's pretty obvious they all died. For me it's less ambiguous than what happened to FFXV's ending:

Spoiler

clearly we know Noctis dies but Prompto, Gladiolus, and Ignis, we do not know their fate at all

I never did have expectations this will be a purely GoT game because it's Final Fantasy: there would be a godlike being in the end always, although I do notice that there was much less gore in the last half 1/3 of the game and it drifted out from the war and focused on surviving the end of the world.

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First off, I have to say that I appreciate your response and further elaborating on my point about Love being the central theme of the game!

Secondly, I do have to disagree with you on the bolded, at least a bit. I think there's ample evidence, especially from the late game side quests, that add a lot of new context to the ending that strongly suggests that at least Clive survived the final battle and made it back home to Jill and Torgal.

As for Joshua and Dion, I'd say it's harder to discern there. I do think it's more likely than not that Joshua remained dead at the end at least, despite Clive's best efforts to revive him.

it's fascinating to me, because I've never seen so much pushback to this FF ending in comparison to others.
When someone posts that they died you'll get a ton of follow up "WELL ACTUALLY" posts. And not just here, I've seen it on Reddit as well.

I think it says a lot about the characters. People really do love Clive and Jill (and Dion).

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Speaking for myself at least, I think that's because the final parts of the game all but screams that Clive at least survived, particularly if you bothered to do all the side quests. That all adds a very specific context that aligns with the closing moments of the game and completely flips the read of both the final scene with Jill and Torgal and the secret ending on its head entirely.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Gonna sound weird but after really looking at Barnabas, I couldn't help but feel his character model was "Clive" originally before making him a villain.

But I know that's not the actual case, but it's become my head cannon lol

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Gonna sound weird but after really looking at Barnabas, I couldn't help but feel his character model was "Clive" originally before making him a villain.

But I know that's not the actual case, but it's become my head cannon lol

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Even now, he looks so much like Clive that I still feel like there's a script draft where Barnabas was Clive's dad the whole time.

Elwin doesn't look like either of his sons. It's so weird.

 

[Wrexis]

Oh hey, remember Jote?

 

[TooBusyLookinGud]

Do we visit all of the mother crystals? I don't want to look it up for fear of huge spoilers, but a yes or no is cool. Thanks fam.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Do we visit all of the mother crystals? I don't want to look it up for fear of huge spoilers, but a yes or no is cool. Thanks fam.

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Yes.

 

[TooBusyLookinGud]

Yes.

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Thank you Smasher.

 

[Chumunga64]

maybe it's because I like Clive but I'll be really pissed if Clive is dead by the end

which is wierd since I loved Noctis' death at the end of XV

Clive dying to me is just a cherry on the top of all the shit he went through and it makes me go "well, that was pointless" while him living makes me go "fuck yeah dude. go on, you earned your happy ending"

as opposed to Noctis where I'm like "Rest well, sweet prince"

 

[double_heist]

Do we visit all of the mother crystals? I don't want to look it up for fear of huge spoilers, but a yes or no is cool. Thanks fam.

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Well you're in the open spoiler thread so…

And yes, you do.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

maybe it's because I like Clive but I'll be really pissed if Clive is dead by the end

which is wierd since I loved Noctis' death at the end of XV

Clive dying to me is just a cherry on the top of all the shit he went through and it makes me go "well, that was pointless" while him living makes me go "fuck yeah dude. go on, you earned your happy ending"

as opposed to Noctis where I'm like "Rest well, sweet prince"

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To be fair, Noctis was born to die, with absolutely no choice in the matter. He HAD to sacrifice himself to save the world, which is such a bummer the more you think about it. You could even argue that in some ways, Regis LET Insomnia fall because he knew it would be the only way for Noctis to become the True King and kill himself to end the Starscourge forever.

 

[Chumunga64]

To be fair, Noctis was born to die, with absolutely no choice in the matter. He HAD to sacrifice himself to save the world, which is such a bummer the more you think about it. You could even argue that in some ways, Regis LET Insomnia fall because he knew it would be the only way for Noctis to become the True King and kill himself to end the Starscourge forever.

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that's the weird part for me, I know that and I still like his death and I really don't like the cut alternate ending (the ignis alt ending is a good compromise though) maybe it's because we see Noctis having fun with his pals. the lack of permanent party really hurts the game since I ended up having more emotional connection with Torgal more than Jill

 

[MayorSquirtle]

So much of the game in retrospect feels deliberately written to support evidence for Clive being both alive and dead at the end, that it's tempting to believe that the bit about how "Once enough people believe something, that becomes the truth" means they're waiting to see which ends up the more popular fan interpretation lol

 

[double_heist]

Yeah I think this is the first time there's a positive pushback on the important characters' fate in the FF series, I mean did we have positive pushback about the Noctis bros and Fang and Vanille (and Serah in XIII-2, and everyone else in LR:FFXIII)?

 

[Chained Prometheus]

maybe it's because I like Clive but I'll be really pissed if Clive is dead by the end

which is wierd since I loved Noctis' death at the end of XV

Clive dying to me is just a cherry on the top of all the shit he went through and it makes me go "well, that was pointless" while him living makes me go "fuck yeah dude. go on, you earned your happy ending"

as opposed to Noctis where I'm like "Rest well, sweet prince"

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Admittedly this is also really accurate. While I am normally all for the heroic sacrifice endings when done well, it just feels like the wrong capstone for Clive's story. Especially when compared to Noctis. Even beyond his personal goals to upend the political landscape by destroying the Mothercrystals to both save the planet from the Blight and to force systemic change to free the Bearers of Valisthea, Clive very clearly had a life he intended to go out and live post-Ultima.

Clive gets career advice from Harpocrates to trade in his sword for a pen, he finally progresses his relationship with Jill firmly into a romantic partnership and vows to ensure that whatever Jill wants to do next with their lives (to which, Jill responds that she wants the both of them to migrate out of Valisthea and find a new home elsewhere in the world), they will go out and do it together.

Yeah I think this is the first time there's a positive pushback on the important characters' fate in the FF series, I mean did we have positive pushback about the Noctis bros and Fang and Vanille (and Serah in XIII-2, and everyone else in LR:FFXIII)?

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Yeah, it's definitely a funny change of pace for the series. I'm firmly in the camp of "Clive survived the ending" for XVI, but I personally prefer to ignore X-2 and stick with the original ending of X when it comes to Tidus.

 

[twothreesix]

I don't think there's enough evidence to support alive or dead for any of the characters, so debating it is kind'a odd to me. And it doesn't play with any of the game's themes that were setup before the ending, so I'm not even sure why they went that route. The whole alive or dead thing comes off as this false deepness that I find more annoying than interesting.

 

[Chumunga64]

Yeah I think this is the first time there's a positive pushback on the important characters' fate in the FF series, I mean did we have positive pushback about the Noctis bros and Fang and Vanille (and Serah in XIII-2, and everyone else in LR:FFXIII)?

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noctis' bros were always supposed to live in the end and they even added an extra credits sequence to confirm that. them being "support" for spirit world noctis was always intended to be a metaphorical thing but I can understand how people thought they really died too

 

[PlanetSmasher]

noctis' bros were always supposed to live in the end and they even added an extra credits sequence to confirm that. them being "support" for spirit world noctis was always intended to be a metaphorical thing but I can understand how people thought they really died too

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The Royal Edition version of Chapter 14 also has them go into the Citadel with Noctis and make it all the way to the throne room before being knocked out, unlike in the original version.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Even now, he looks so much like Clive that I still feel like there's a script draft where Barnabas was Clive's dad the whole time.

Elwin doesn't look like either of his sons. It's so weird.

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Yea he looks A LOT like Clive, so much so that when I first saw him in the story I started predicting he was Clive from like an alternate timeline.

 

[Nahbac]

The Royal Edition version of Chapter 14 also has them go into the Citadel with Noctis and make it all the way to the throne room before being knocked out, unlike in the original version.

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This is the same in both versions of the game

 

[Quinton]

it's fascinating to me, because I've never seen so much pushback to this FF ending in comparison to others.
When someone posts that they died you'll get a ton of follow up "WELL ACTUALLY" posts. And not just here, I've seen it on Reddit as well.

I think it says a lot about the characters. People really do love Clive and Jill (and Dion).

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Yeah! I love them all so much. v_v

They're just leaving it open as to who the someone is.

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Which sucks imho!

 

[double_heist]

Not sure but from what I've seen I'm thinking the positive pushback is earned and wanted because we actually care about the cast?

What I really like about this FF is that even if the Odin sequence isn't as epic as the previous Eikon fights and Ultima being a generic FF last boss kind of character, the entire story and theme is complete, understandable, and clear, which I can't say for the previous FFs post X. I mentioned this before but:

- FFXII had a big change in the direction which was obvious and the end felt rushed.
- FFXIII's story while complete was not as clear and you really had to read the codex to know what was happening.
- FFXV's story was seriously cut up and a lot of things were happening in the background. You had to watch the movie, anime series, buy the DLC, maybe even read the novellas to appreciate the entire world of Eos.

 

[JackOfSomeTrades]

Not sure but from what I've seen I'm thinking the positive pushback is earned and wanted because we actually care about the cast?

What I really like about this FF is that even if the Odin sequence isn't as epic as the previous Eikon fights and Ultima being a generic FF last boss kind of character, the entire story and theme is complete, understandable, and clear, which I can't say for the previous FFs post X. I mentioned this before but:

- FFXII had a big change in the direction which was obvious and the end felt rushed.
- FFXIII's story while complete was not as clear and you really had to read the codex to know what was happening.
- FFXV's story was seriously cut up and a lot of things were happening in the background. You had to watch the movie, anime series, buy the DLC, maybe even read the novellas to appreciate the entire world of Eos.

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100%, they really did right by the legacy of the series in terms of story and characters. I'd love to see this team get another go at it, Sakaguchi and co got plenty of attempts, they didn't knock out classics on their first go either

 

[PlanetSmasher]

100%, they really did right by the legacy of the series in terms of story and characters. I'd love to see this team get another go at it, Sakaguchi and co got plenty of attempts, they didn't knock out classics on their first go either

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I don't think there's any chance they WON'T make another one. With how long games take to make, though, I just don't think that it'll be FF17. That game needs to already be well into development now if they want it out in a reasonable amount of time. If it's the same team going on to FF17, we won't see it until 2030.

 

[crimilde]

Narratively, there is a lot of foreshadowing happening that supports the idea of Clive having written the book at the end, and they employ pretty much every story-telling trick in the book to show that to the player, bar outright stating it.

You have to ignore a lot of things to be able to claim that Clive definitely died.

 

[Adreyan]

The ambiguity of the ending seems to be a negative aspect of the game for quite a lot of people, myself included. Though I think Clive survived (someone has to write the book, and in one of the sidequests, I think Dion's, Clive gets a quill from Tomes, implying he will come back to tell the story), some people could argue he did not make it in the end by the sheer irony of fate, and it would also make sense IMO.

Now, as for Dion and Joshua... I'm more pessimistic about their fate, and that's driving me mad, even thought there's still some tiny room for plausible deniability (it's copium). I hope they are alive, they are my favorite characters in the game, so losing both of them SUCKS. I like Clive too (and I quite like the game, even though it has glaring flaws that are pissing me off), but Dion is the GOAT in my book, and I just want more 😭. The money I would spend for a Dion DLC where the dude finally catches a break from all the shit around him...

I know Yoshi-P said they left the door open for DLCs (maybe even another game in the FF16's universe?). I think Clive, Joshua, Dion and Jill will be really popular, but would the dev team really take into consideration fans' feedback about the story and characters' popularity to expand on that and bring back supposedly dead characters?

 

[MegaSackman]

I don't think there's any chance they WON'T make another one. With how long games take to make, though, I just don't think that it'll be FF17. That game needs to already be well into development now if they want it out in a reasonable amount of time. If it's the same team going on to FF17, we won't see it until 2030.

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I have a hunch they'll try to replicate what they did with XIV. Turn XVI into the new VII in a way, create a universe around it or continue it like each expansion of XIV. I believe Squate would like to see if that could work the same way for the single player games.

 

[crimilde]

Now, as for Dion and Joshua... I'm more pessimistic about their fate, and that's driving me mad, even thought there's still some tiny room for plausible deniability (it's copium). I hope they are alive, they are my favorite characters in the game, so losing both of them SUCKS. I like Clive too (and I quite like the game, even though it has glaring flaws that are pissing me off), but Dion is the GOAT in my book, and I just want more 😭. The money I would spend for a Dion DLC where the dude finally catches a break from all the shit around him...

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Personally I don't think Dion's story is over until he forgives himself and accepts the purple wyvern's tail from Harpocrates. Easy additional content with him and Kihel (my theory is she's Leviathan's Dominant).

They could fit Joshua in there too if they want to, but idk. His sacrifice to Clive, last words and death would be cheapened imo if he was indeed revived at the end somehow. Then again, he is very Jesus-coded so who knows.

 

[double_heist]

I just realized… Imagine if they put Clive and Ultima in Dissidia. Will look kinda awkward: a 33 year old man beating up a bunch of teenagers, possibly with blood too.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I have a hunch they'll try to replicate what they did with XIV. Turn XVI into the new VII in a way, create a universe around it or continue it like each expansion of XIV. I believe Squate would like to see if that could work the same way for the single player games.

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They tried that with XIII and it was a disaster.

 

[Adreyan]

Personally I don't think Dion's story is over until he forgives himself and accepts the purple wyvern's tail from Harpocrates. Easy additional content with him and Kihel (my theory is she's Leviathan's Dominant).

They could fit Joshua in there too if they want to, but idk. His sacrifice to Clive, last words and death would be cheapened imo if he was indeed revived at the end somehow. Then again, he is very Jesus-coded so who knows.

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But didn't he already forgive himself by dying to help the bros to get to the crystal? I'm afraid that death = redemption here (which sucks IMO. I don't like that trope). Harpocrates could also simply put the purple wyvern's tail on Dion's grave. This is my biggest fear. It's giving me anxiety lmao. Joshua dodged death once, but so did Dion. Will they really use a fake death situation thrice? I hope you are right, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check (especially when it comes to SE 🫠).

I'm still with you about Kihel. I'm not sure if she's Leviathan's dominant, though it would be really cool, but I think her role may be bigger than what we initially thought. I just need some confirmation she did not get wiped out with Terence when Ultima blew up the city.

 

[JEH]

so Dion says his dad used to be a good emperor…but he conspired with Annabella to take over Rosaria. They make a big deal about him conquering Crystalline Dominion but what he did in Rosaria was worse. Was he/Annabella already under Ultima's influence then?

Empire subplot was really undercooked.