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rainwatersparkI'm not a Final Fantasy series fan. I've kept tabs on some of the games, but watching Advent Children was the closest I got to the series. Partly because I don't own a PlayStation, partly because I'm a hard sell when it comes to long JRPGs. But the story of Final Fantasy XVI caught my eye—so much so that for the first time in a while, I ended up watching a playthrough of the game on YouTube. (Or at least parts of a playthrough, since the game is so long.)
And so, here are my thoughts on the story of FFXVI.
First off...the story got me with some of my favorite tropes. "Tragic brooding hero with a traumatic past" always gets me. And I really like many of the characters and their relationships with each other. Dion was a particular standout whom I was not expecting to like and then ended up loving.
(Also, explicit queer rep in a Final Fantasy game, with Cid and Dion—especially the latter—being shown to be queer on screen??? Yes, that was definitely a standout!)
The politics were interesting and very reminiscent of Game of Thrones. But to quote a Twitter thread I agree with—the game ultimately devolves into incoherence and much of the interesting character/worldbuilding foundations were abandoned.
** SPOILERS BELOW **
I adored Clive's relationship with Joshua. It made me so happy to see a sibling relationship as the core of a video game. But I'm also, honestly, quite baffled as to the pacing regarding Joshua in the game. His being alive is revealed to the player pretty early on—like 6 hours into a 50-hour game—and Clive also realizes Joshua is alive about 10 hours or so in? But they don't meet until maybe 2/3 of the way through the game. And that just...struck me as quite odd. The tension completely dissipates and their reunion feels less cathartic since they already knew of each other's existence, but hadn't been trying to reunite.
I didn't like how Ultima became the Big Bad of the story. The themes reminded me greatly of a combination of Persona 5 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (hell, the final area is even named Origin!!). And while, yes, fighting against God/fate is an interesting theme, and I suppose it's not FFXVI's fault there were games that had already explored those ideas, there just...wasn't much novelty to the story as a result. Especially when it set up so many threads that seemed to me to be much more interesting—like the idea of countries built on rich people exploiting resources and leaving the poor in the (literal) dust. I generally think "there was one villain behind everything all along" is much less interesting than exploring human greed and selfishness and how they lead to a decaying world.
But yeah. The pacing of the first 10 hours or so of the game was great. But then everything slowed down, especially after Clive took up Cid's mantle. The politics were fascinating, especially how they altered as the world changed and Mothercrystals were destroyed. But it kind of felt like Clive would be given a "villain of the week" to fight, so to speak. I guess the game was structured that way because Clive needed to acquire all of the Eikons' powers and the devs wanted the spectacular Eikon fight set pieces, which is why the dead Benedikta/Kupka swearing revenge plot exists (a plot that I thought extremely shallow). And Barnabas was especially incoherent as a villain to me (probably because he was tied so closely to Ultima). But, I don't know, I didn't think the narrative was written in a way to make those boss fights make sense.
I also hate how there ended up being several plot holes. For example:
- How come Anabella favored Joshua over Clive since Joshua inherited the power of the Phoenix, but by the time she has Olivier, she hates all Bearers and Dominants for being born with magic?
- HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT OLIVIER WAS ULTIMA???
- Why does Joshua never speak to Clive despite their close relationship? That took some of the emotion out of their reunion for me. (And did he always know Clive was enslaved in the Imperial army? If so, why did he never try to help him?)
- On the flip side, once Clive realizes Joshua is alive (which he shows practically no emotion about), why doesn't he try to seek him out?
- Why does Clive never try to figure out how a second Eikon of Fire emerged? It's a question that's brought up multiple times but it's basically forgotten after Clive accepts that he killed Joshua.
There were also many details that I felt like I had to come up with my own explanations for, rather than the story explaining them. (Unless they were explained in the Active Time Lore section, but I would argue that shunting critical story/world details into an in-game encyclopedia is not good storytelling.) For example, Anabella says Dion was the son of a sex worker—so does that mean he was accepted as the Crown Prince only because he became the Dominant of Bahamut? Did the Holy Emperor have multiple illegitimate children with sex workers and just ignores all of them who aren't Dominants? Would that affect Dion's relationship with his father? Is it unusual for the Holy Empire of Sanbreque's Dominant/champion to also be the Crown Prince? They're all fascinating character questions that are never explored.
I'm just so frustrated because the premise was so fantastic and gave rise to so many interesting questions that could have led the plot to much more interesting directions. For example:
*Edit 6/24/23: So I learned that FFXVI intentionally tried to copy Game of Thrones—as in, the development team was literally told to watch the TV show—and, to be honest, I lost a lot of my respect for the game. I did think it was similar to Game of Thrones in certain ways, but being inspired by another story is different from actually copying it.
(Or, in other words: Story elements like "nobleman tragically loses his family, title, and home" or "MC has a pet wolf" or "grimdark fantasy violence" or "queer prince" are tropes that are common to multiple stories. But it's different when a creator admits those tropes are in their story because they're copying something else.)
And it also, to be honest, explains why the story eventually unravels and fails so spectacularly. FFXVI falls into the trap of copying something you don't fully understand; it starts off nailing the aesthetics and tropes of Game of Thrones but switches gears and goes JRPG-weird, and the two do not mesh at all. (And it probably explains the plot holes—the devs probably *needed* some things to happen without thinking through how those things could happen logically.)
And so, here are my thoughts on the story of FFXVI.
First off...the story got me with some of my favorite tropes. "Tragic brooding hero with a traumatic past" always gets me. And I really like many of the characters and their relationships with each other. Dion was a particular standout whom I was not expecting to like and then ended up loving.
(Also, explicit queer rep in a Final Fantasy game, with Cid and Dion—especially the latter—being shown to be queer on screen??? Yes, that was definitely a standout!)
The politics were interesting and very reminiscent of Game of Thrones. But to quote a Twitter thread I agree with—the game ultimately devolves into incoherence and much of the interesting character/worldbuilding foundations were abandoned.
** SPOILERS BELOW **
I adored Clive's relationship with Joshua. It made me so happy to see a sibling relationship as the core of a video game. But I'm also, honestly, quite baffled as to the pacing regarding Joshua in the game. His being alive is revealed to the player pretty early on—like 6 hours into a 50-hour game—and Clive also realizes Joshua is alive about 10 hours or so in? But they don't meet until maybe 2/3 of the way through the game. And that just...struck me as quite odd. The tension completely dissipates and their reunion feels less cathartic since they already knew of each other's existence, but hadn't been trying to reunite.
I didn't like how Ultima became the Big Bad of the story. The themes reminded me greatly of a combination of Persona 5 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (hell, the final area is even named Origin!!). And while, yes, fighting against God/fate is an interesting theme, and I suppose it's not FFXVI's fault there were games that had already explored those ideas, there just...wasn't much novelty to the story as a result. Especially when it set up so many threads that seemed to me to be much more interesting—like the idea of countries built on rich people exploiting resources and leaving the poor in the (literal) dust. I generally think "there was one villain behind everything all along" is much less interesting than exploring human greed and selfishness and how they lead to a decaying world.
But yeah. The pacing of the first 10 hours or so of the game was great. But then everything slowed down, especially after Clive took up Cid's mantle. The politics were fascinating, especially how they altered as the world changed and Mothercrystals were destroyed. But it kind of felt like Clive would be given a "villain of the week" to fight, so to speak. I guess the game was structured that way because Clive needed to acquire all of the Eikons' powers and the devs wanted the spectacular Eikon fight set pieces, which is why the dead Benedikta/Kupka swearing revenge plot exists (a plot that I thought extremely shallow). And Barnabas was especially incoherent as a villain to me (probably because he was tied so closely to Ultima). But, I don't know, I didn't think the narrative was written in a way to make those boss fights make sense.
I also hate how there ended up being several plot holes. For example:
- How come Anabella favored Joshua over Clive since Joshua inherited the power of the Phoenix, but by the time she has Olivier, she hates all Bearers and Dominants for being born with magic?
- HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT OLIVIER WAS ULTIMA???
- Why does Joshua never speak to Clive despite their close relationship? That took some of the emotion out of their reunion for me. (And did he always know Clive was enslaved in the Imperial army? If so, why did he never try to help him?)
- On the flip side, once Clive realizes Joshua is alive (which he shows practically no emotion about), why doesn't he try to seek him out?
- Why does Clive never try to figure out how a second Eikon of Fire emerged? It's a question that's brought up multiple times but it's basically forgotten after Clive accepts that he killed Joshua.
There were also many details that I felt like I had to come up with my own explanations for, rather than the story explaining them. (Unless they were explained in the Active Time Lore section, but I would argue that shunting critical story/world details into an in-game encyclopedia is not good storytelling.) For example, Anabella says Dion was the son of a sex worker—so does that mean he was accepted as the Crown Prince only because he became the Dominant of Bahamut? Did the Holy Emperor have multiple illegitimate children with sex workers and just ignores all of them who aren't Dominants? Would that affect Dion's relationship with his father? Is it unusual for the Holy Empire of Sanbreque's Dominant/champion to also be the Crown Prince? They're all fascinating character questions that are never explored.
I'm just so frustrated because the premise was so fantastic and gave rise to so many interesting questions that could have led the plot to much more interesting directions. For example:
- If Eikons function like nuclear deterrents due to their sheer destructive power, why would there be any nations that don't have an Eikon/Dominant? Wouldn't that just lead to that nation getting conquered by a nation that does have a Dominant?
- If people know there is a new Eikon/Dominant, why wouldn't that itself shift the political balance of power and cause a race for the nations to find this new Eikon/Dominant and recruit them to their side?
- If Barnabas (at one point) has three Eikons under his control, why couldn't he just wage war against everyone else to declare himself emperor?
- It's mentioned that when a Dominant dies, it can be years for a new Dominant with that Eikon to emerge. So what happens to that nation in the meantime if they've lost a major source of their power?
- How is it that the Rosfields can inherit the power of the Phoenix while no other nation has a hereditary Eikon?
*Edit 6/24/23: So I learned that FFXVI intentionally tried to copy Game of Thrones—as in, the development team was literally told to watch the TV show—and, to be honest, I lost a lot of my respect for the game. I did think it was similar to Game of Thrones in certain ways, but being inspired by another story is different from actually copying it.
(Or, in other words: Story elements like "nobleman tragically loses his family, title, and home" or "MC has a pet wolf" or "grimdark fantasy violence" or "queer prince" are tropes that are common to multiple stories. But it's different when a creator admits those tropes are in their story because they're copying something else.)
And it also, to be honest, explains why the story eventually unravels and fails so spectacularly. FFXVI falls into the trap of copying something you don't fully understand; it starts off nailing the aesthetics and tropes of Game of Thrones but switches gears and goes JRPG-weird, and the two do not mesh at all. (And it probably explains the plot holes—the devs probably *needed* some things to happen without thinking through how those things could happen logically.)
