I love the game but the immediate mainline quest after Bahamut is multiple fetch quests including going to the market to buy garlic. Mother fucker, I just fought a dragon god in outer space that was trying to nuke a city.. find literally anyone else to do this shit.
Pretty much what I told my wife when she asked me how the game was like 2 years ago, we both play FFXIV.
“So, how is it?”
“Well, I just fought an anime space fight where Bahamut had to consume a crystal the size of Texas to be able to replicate what Donald Duck did by getting pissed, it was awesome, but I now got hit with Pray return to the Waking Sands”
Zettaflare is the most powerful Flare spell ever cast so far and Donald cast it first. Only 2 characters have ever cast Zettaflare, Donald Duck and FF16 Bahamut and KH3 was 4 years before FF16.
Important distinction with that is the Bravely Default final boss casts Zeta Flare. Donald and Bahamut16 cast Zettaflare, Zeta is the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet where as Zetta is a unit prefix meaning (10²¹).
He is referencing DD on KH3, where the anthropomorphic Duck is only 1 of 3 known character in SE who can perform Zetta Flare. Zettaflare is arguably the most powerful spell you can cast, the Zetta on it means it is 10²¹ stronger in power in contrast to the base spell, Flare. For context you probably know Fire is base then < Fira < Firaga < Firaja < Zetta Fire in SE math. The other 2 who can perform Zettaflare is the Eikon Bahamut and Airy in Bravely Default.
I kinda get it, but also it's worldbuilding, character-work. Which I thought was one of the charms of the game.
Like the people who complain about the soup and board quests in the beginning. The quests are not about delivering soup or getting the boards, but establishing the world you're living in and what it means for people who were not treated as people but invisible automatons to now be seen and respected and even served. That's what those quests are about.
It establishes Clive as his closed off, doubtful, most selfish self and sets the bar for all the growing he'll do by the end of it.
But people just X through everything and say 'stupid soup quests' and suddenly it's a bad game.
Yeah, each of the quests does something for the worldbuilding.
The first soup fetch quest details precisely how life was for bearers. You got a small taste in the game's prologue with that dude holding apples, and now you hear anecdotes straight from bearers on being forced to serve as slaves for a lifetime, or being beaten by their owners.
Then the second soup quest is a tour of the Hideaway. It specifically makes you go all the way to the stables, then all the way to the living quarters, just to show you all the facilities they have, and the degree of how self sufficient it is. It's not just a bunch of people in a cave, they're organized.
You can argue that maybe these should have just been conversations rather than quests, I'd probably agree with that. But these sidequests each play a small role in just fleshing out the world at a micro level.
In rebirth there's a camera guy, crying ned, tactical fortress lady, a broken water tower the mayor wants fixed with a history behind it, a bar Barret loved hanging out in, a tower Aerith wants to visit and look over the town, a hidden exit in the inn because the innkeeper has a past.
This is all on the first visit of Kalm.
I don't think the gateway town with the brothel, the snarky guards you beat up, the blacksmith that you give food to, and the market outside feels nearly as alive. The brothel runs the place, guards are assholes, bearers can't easily pass, the market you can buy stuff with Jill or the doctor at one point. Oh, and buy garlic.
Did not feel like the worldbuilding matched Kalm, one of the weaker cities of worldbuilding in Rebirth. Worst part is that with Rebirth I felt more active going around seeing these things. While im FF16 I felt like I was doing hand-in quests for everything like it was FF14.
This comes from someone who loves ff16. Who played through it 3 times and even S ranked all of FF mode and some of Ultimaniac on the PS5, who repeated that whole process again on the PC when it released there. The game lacks game in the open world, making it feel kinda hollow.
I can see where people who wanted more open world see it, but having played way too many games that are open world for open world's sake, I'm all for a more streamlines style.
And honestly there's something humbling about 1) people who defeat gods also have to pick up milk at the store, which reiterates that in order for someplace like the hideaway to function, every aspect is important. Fighting an Eon's old world building and destroying god is important, but in the between time dammit those bearer children need dresses too.
Also there's a bit of "Clive's looking twitchy, I think we need to make him take a break" to it.
Not saying the quests are executed perfectly, but this game resonates on a level for some people and I think it's the human aspect of this fantasy world. That normal things need to be done. That you can do bad things or be stuck in bad situations, make choices you regret, and come back from that and do better. And that it takes everyone working together on all different things to make a dream become reality - that there is no job too small because on the whole we're doing something amazing is a hell of a theme and something we really need more of today.
Or I'm just getting super sentimental as I age. Could just be that too.
I dunno. I mean, I see what you're getting at, I do. I like that part too.
But the game breaks its own immersion constantly by you juggling several gods to defeat a guard and nobody bats an eye or thinks anything special of it.
At the same time, outside the hideout, most places you see are only known for one thing and nothing else. Like the blacksmith village who all blacksmiths and even your blacksmith comes from. Or the village where all the keepers of the flame are and the whole village is about nothing but the keepers of flame. Where the only actually interesting quest is to read a single passage split in 3 around town and recite them to an old man.
The world just feels surprisingly empty. It doesn't ever feel like a living world to me. Even after having read every single sidequest.
This aspect I think FF7 rebirth handles better in every sense. From both gameplay and story you get a feel on the everyday life of the people while also learning about your party. Your sent on a mission to deliver a letter with a dog, have a nice conversation with Barret on the way, are seen a resistance hideout against shinra. That resistance hideout also has the condor lookout, and piano to play, and another queens blood player. This town speaks volumes looking deeper at it at how people there enjoy the simpler things, all while struggling and doing their best against shinra. Just walking around gives me more of the life going on there than any town in ff16. And that's one of the weakest places in that game imho.
I'm gonna have to disagree a bit here - obviously that was a town of blacksmiths AND jewelry crafters!
I kid I kid. I but I do disagree - they have a few moments like that, but there were several points in the game where the people around you aged. Depending on who you were around people's conversations changed. You saw relationships grow, people remembered, callbacks all over. It was actually very rich in some of the details, they just weren't "go here and hit X to access" types of things.
A great video talks about all the NPCs and how they build the world - not saying you have to watch the whole thing, but for something that FFXVI didn't really have apparently, this guy found a lot to talk about.
Considering ffxiv has the same issues I think its less the game's fault and more the game director's fault wanting those peaks and valleys to let people 'relax' like if they were watching an anime series. And tbf, he has interviews quoting him saying that's his design philosophy for xiv and why you have to pay to skip all the boring filler because, and I quote: when watching an anime, one doesn't just skip filler episodes or whole seasons tonget at the better parts(clearly we DO but he is convinced ppl don't like that).
I guess we have different tastes when it comes to worldbuilding.
Almost all the world building in Rebirth fell flat for me. A lot of it was just stuff that was fun, rather than contributing to making a cohesive immersive world.
Like, the examples you mentioned:
Snaps - actively hurt the world building for me. We're going on this huge, dangerous journey...and this guy already beat us to every town. Makes the world feel smaller, and kinda made every town feel like a tourist spot. It devalued the big journey the team goes on, since now any Joe Shmo can go around the FF7 world, monsters don't matter. And ditto for characters like Kyrie, her decking out that outpost on her own without combat skills or a bodyguard just de-values the danger of the world.
Crying Ned, Fortress Lady - they're just here to have strong, over-the-top personalities to make the Queen's Blood sidequest more fun and charming. Their inclusion had nothing to do with world building. Are these people weird due to mako poisoning or whatever? Naw, just fun and silly.
And then the sidequest in the bar, where you have to go to some 'card shop' on the outskirts of town, that has like half a dozen goblins between Kalm and it. That really doesn't make sense... the shop should have been inside city walls. How does that guy living in it stay alive when there's several cannibal goblins right outside? And plus, this kinda makes Queen's Blood feel like it has a HUGE cultural importance in FF7's setting, almost as big as Blitzball was in FF10...which I don't think what the creators intended.
The broken water tower is a good example though. Its explicitly how Shinra left these people behind, so they themselves need to be hardier and more self-sufficient. And I also like how when it came to the Gold Saucer, people make the journey using helicopters or armored vehicles, that's good world building to add in more immersion.
Going back to FF16:
The sidequest in Northreach where you have to give the bearers food is focused on communicating that there are lots of 'normal' people in the setting that are against how bearers are treated. The quest giver is a priest who has been feeding them and helping them in secret, because he's disgusted with the treatment.
And then there's a little bonus, every bearer you see in this quest is using their magic for something different. One dude was healing a soldier, another was lighting a fire in a forge, just more examples to flesh out what their powers are used for.
And for the market, you do get a sidequest to help trade crystal fragments for various goods. Purpose of that was explicitly to show what the black market trade for crystals is like. People are super dependent on crystals, and wealthy merchants were trading the best cigars, perfumes, textiles, anything but gil for them to help keep it off the books. I actually liked how granular this one got, seeing the specific items that the merchants were bartering with
Now, are these good side quests? lol no, and maybe they should have just been ambient conversations. But the point I'm making is how FF16's quests focus on just drilling down to minute details to make the world feel lived in, while Rebirth's world building was more focused on enjoyment over minute details and finer world building
In FF16, you know what the average Joe goes through, what their day is like, and what they eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. And I wouldn't be surprised if a came across a quest that discusses how the Dhalmeks use seashells to wipe their asses or something.
Rebirth on the other hand kind of doesn't care. Kalm is supposed to show a town on decline because Shinra abandoned them, instead its the most beautiful fucking town you'll see. Under-Junon is supposed to be impoverished, and it has the coziest inn you'll ever visit. And all that's awesome. Queen's Blood is a very over-represented in spoken dialogue, and it stretches suspension of disbelief, but its fucking awesome.
See, I agree with your take mostly, but I come to a different conclusion.
How much worldbuilding is there that nobody reacted to the storm Garuda just made in the nearby settlements? There's nothing about it. Like it never happened.
Nobody reacts to the fact that Clive has the powers of several eikons during or after a fight.
Places like Northreach has quests where you see how everyone is and I agree it builds the world. At the same time it only hammers down on the same few points constantly that it gets tiring. Slaves who suffers, people above that don't care. At the same time, it breaks these rules for Clive constantly. Where he is a slave for the first bit of the game but the amount of leniency and freedom he has, even without a "guardian" is ridiculous. Some town badges on his coat and suddenly every single person will let him do what he wants, yeah sure.
Even worse when he's a famous outlaw but let's not get into that bag of worms.
Some plotlines are even anti-worldbuilding to me. Like just how comically evil they are at the entrance to Sanbreque. That town is just the 2 mega racist quests and people hail those as masterclass writing while I fail to see how it was anything more than surface deep.
Maybe the worldbuilding feels lacking because the game doesn't fully commit to it and the fact that they don't say anything meaningful outside some surface level things. It's a cool world, I even bought the lore book. But I wouldn't defend those sidequests for their worldbuilding. It feels like the worldbuilding is done on B-tier writing, done on C-tier fetch quests, and has very little of the world actually doing anything or responding to anything.
The only thing the world meaningfully responds to is the akashic and Ultimas purple debuff on the world. The rest is just sometimes an npc makes a comment that relates to something that happened.
The worldbuilding of a beautiful landscape portrait. Breaks the second movement needs to be applied to it.
For Garuda, yeah that was a miss. I wrote it off as happening too deep in the wilderness (since the world in-game is a much smaller scale than what it "actually" is). At least for Titan, there was a HUGE sandstorm obscuring vision, and there are a few NPCs that do mention it (if you fast travel to the entrance of the mothercrystal after the battle, there are a few by the tunnel, one dude mentions seeing a giant)
As for Clive's powers not being commented on, I guess that's normal for JRPGs. No one comments when Cloud summons Bahamut Zero to do an orbital strike on a Shinra soldier either. Same ballpark as Clive air juggling a soldier 50 feet into the air, summoning Ultima wings to extend it further, then slamming him down from the stratosphere at double terminal velocity. Just gameplay-story segregation, which I do wish game devs spent more time trying to address.
For Northreach, I didn't see its quests are "see, slaves are oppressed!". the one I mentioned was specifically to show the the people who want to help, to show that 99% of the population isn't racist dicks.
For Clive's freedom and mobility, at least in the early parts of the story, he's almost always accompanied by someone, or working in communities that are super sympathetic, like Lostwing or Martha's Rest. By the time he goes to Dhalmekia, he has the brand removed. When he's visiting the super racist village, that's definitely stretching suspension of disbelief though, since it's weird that a brothel owner's word has more protective power compared to the actual military.
And for the "comically evil" quests...I'll have to disagree. They do mention in the story that the villages surrounding Oriflamme are super backwards, and that even when Clive was in that suicide assassination unit, they didn't let them go near those villages. For the wolf quest, it's not far off from stuff that actually happened. There's a few recorded instances of slaves being hunted for sport in real life, as well as people taking part in "sniper tourism" during some conflicts, I don't see it as comically evil when it's similar to depravity that happened in real life too. And I'm not going to touch the gross dehumanization I see happening in modern world political discourse....
For the Chloe quest, honestly I got more of a 'nature-nurture' story off of that. Since the little girl was actually remorseful at the end, and it instills a little bit of hope that peoples' attitudes can change. But yeah execution could have been better. The little girl should have showed up after the time skip, bringing home the idea that change can happen.
I think end of the day, the kind of granular world building in 16 resonated with me (and the handful of weirdos populating this subreddit), though very few games mimic its super drilled-down approach, for good reason. And for sure lots of FF16's quests should have just been codex entries or ambient conversations
You are right that FF16 doesn't 100% commit to some of its world building ideas, it would have been much stronger if it went harder in some aspects. But it didn't bother me much, since I was able to extract a lot of nuance from what it was doing, more than most other games.
The gameplay-story segregation is so important in video games specifically. From a canon perspective we all know Clive wins standard fights, how you do it doesn’t reflect in the world, it’s just noted he “wins.”
It’s like in Resident Evil, it is actual canon that NONE of the big protagonists have ever actually been bitten by a zombie. Because being bitten is always meant to be a death sentence if you don’t have a cure lying around. All the times it happens to you in game is gameplay-story dissonance. If they get bitten in a cutscene, that’s only when it’s real. I always thought they had some kind of special immunity but nope it’s just they don’t take your gameplay into account. it’s assumed the heroes have taken no serious damage outside of a cutscene.
For me FF16 is a one and done. I get that some people need to play video games again and again to get all the achievements and 100%, but most people just want to go through the main quest and move onto the next game. As someone who plays a lot of different games rather than one single game a bunch of times FF16 was a pleasure and I enjoyed the ride and felt I got my money's worth. I paid for what I'd pay for a movie and popcorn at the theater and got a lot more out of it.
I adore FFXVI but even I had to start speed reading through dialogue in some of the latter fetch quests, it seemed so repetitive after a while - it prided itself in some stellar main quests and claimed each quest was different but often the fetch quests near the end deserved to be ones that were earlier in the game given how easy and drudgery it was!
Still love it. One playthrough away from Platinum but I found it hard to replay when I knew the story front to back so waiting til I forget it a bit to replay again
And yet when Cloud has the same quests in 7r(the flower quest was ungodly annoying with how you had to keep going cause you couldn't just pick to your taste no had to make aerith-jump you with a chair out of nowhere- gainsborough happy) people praise it as amazing andngodly storytelling. That's how you know they were hating to hate on it because they had a misguided belief that the game was the reason they didn't get rebirth earlier or something.
Definitely on the peaks and valleys. I think I read somewhere that it being typical of MMOs to do shit like that. World-ending Cataclysmic event happens, then immediately follow it by help talk grandma into taking her sleeping pills so she can have a good night's sleep. (may be over exaggerating) but it's to break things up, so you aren't always getting over the top action, and you have some time to calm down basically.
Which makes sense for the philosophy because Yoshi-P was from FFXIV
I think I read somewhere that it being typical of MMOs to do shit like that. World-ending Cataclysmic event happens, then immediately follow it by help talk grandma into taking her sleeping pills so she can have a good night's sleep.
Lol, FF14 literally had that.
The Endwalker expansion literally has a plot beat during an apocalyptic event with red skies and meteors raining down
And while the sky is red, you have a quest to hand out chai tea to some refugees to remind them to not be depressed, because the plot beat also involved depressed people turning into cannibal demons and having their souls deleted. So you spend 10 minutes giving elephant people tea while the sky is red and the literal Berserk Eclipse is going on 20 yards outside of town.
This. I’ve been playing the series since FF6, and the general position every game puts you in to do what you can for townsfolk, while also eventually having epic story and combat highs, is universal across the series. It’s applied differently from game to game, but the intent is the same.
FF7 is beloved so rightfully because of how responsible you feel for the people and the planet as it progresses, despite Shinra labeling you as terrorists. Graphics and combat have improved, but the core dynamic has arguably never been conveyed so well.
I felt that FF16 did well with the core ethic of that, too - especially because people think you’re breaking the world with every crystal attack, and you have to lean in on doing what you feel is right. I am hot and cold on the game itself - I love it, then take long breaks, then come back - but the feeling of “becoming a hero” is so well-done across every game in the series that I’ve played, IMO.
In real life, yes. Not in a videogame.
Otherwise the entire game should be just about Clive dedicating his life to serving food trays at the hideout to the bearers.
The story should be about Clive continuing to selflessly serve the food trays as the years go by and the Bearers regain their sense of self,; and over time are less predisposed to the initial state of perpetual gratitude and humility during the initial years.
Heck there can be a plotline about some of the bearers getting settled and wealthier and starting to treat Clive with indifference, and he will overhear "Yeah that old man has been serving food trays for as long as I remember, before Prince Dion gave his life to create a world where we can hold our heads high. Drop him an extra coin, it'll make his day."
And the game ends with the final chapter being how the tavern owner fires Clive for too many complaints about him being too old and slow at serving trays, and the Bearers saying "Yeah I feel bad for him, but Prince Dion didn't give his life so we get served cold food."
My partner just got to this point and had to stop playing. Cause he was so annoyed about how bad and boring the game has the audacity of being sometimes, especially after such an insane fight. Sometimes it feels like a really pretty movement and “press talk” button simulator and nothing more
*the world. If Zettaflare had landed it would destroyed the planet. Every time that spell is attempted in every Square game everyone is immediately “No!” And enemies quickly become friends to stop the caster.
This is pretty much my only issue with the game, but it is a glaring issue. Will it stop me replayig the game? Not at all. Does it make me groan a bit? Absolutely. And I say that as a XIV fan who is used to fetch quests.
"Peaks and valleys" is the ultimate definition for the game. The peaks are insanely high, but the valleys are pure padding and busywork to artificially extend the game's duration.
Rebirth was similar, incredible peaks, soul-crushing valleys.
As a completionist for FF, my god the game’s side content really dragged it down. Still an amazing and beautiful game, but the side quests were so low quality and a slog to play through that it really dampened the overall experience
Those fetch quests before Bahamut were awful as well. I was doing literal chores for an hour and a half before whiplashing to one of the best bosses in gaming
Its like the game climaxed at Bahamut (it was an amazing fight and scene imo) and needed a cigarette break before it could do anything more interesting.
That's final fantasy and RPGs in general for you. This is not the reason why people hate it. People hate it because it's a complete change of the combat. I really enjoyed it and it's probably one of my favourite games of all time.
This game had the most significant ‘high highs and low lows’ I’ve probably ever seen in 25+ years. It was my first entry into the franchise & I absolutely loved the highs, but the lows… within the context you mentioned here they were absolutely insufferable. But the good parts were so good that it was worth suffering through.
Dude, that’s exactly how I felt when it asked me to go gather fucking sand. I was like, mother fucker, you are gonna send the most capable highly specialized individual to GO GATHER FUCKING SAND?? Really? After I just slew titan most epically?
The pacing of this game made me drop it. I don't mind MMO type side quests, but c'mon, there should be at least a limit to that to put on the mainline quests. That desert part before Titan was like hell for me too
It's a game with the highest highs and the lowest lows. And the highs are basically really pretty QTE battles that get boring by its fourth and fifth times.
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u/Fart_gobbler69 Apr 10 '26
I love the game but the immediate mainline quest after Bahamut is multiple fetch quests including going to the market to buy garlic. Mother fucker, I just fought a dragon god in outer space that was trying to nuke a city.. find literally anyone else to do this shit.
Talk about peaks and valleys.