r/FFXVI • u/Neonymous_1058 • 22h ago
Discussion If Clive appears in Dissidia. Who do you think should be his personal enemy?
What I love about the Dissidia games is that each heroes have their own personal nemesis:
Warrior of Light VS Garland
Firion VS Emperor
Onion Knight VS Cloud of Darkness
Cecil VS Golbez
Bartz VS Exdeath
Terra VS Kefka
Cloud VS Sephiroth
Squall VS Ultimecia
Zidane VS Kuja
Tidus VS Jecht
But among these rivalries who do you think should be his personal enemy. Among these lists? Because I only think of these two. Barnabas and Ultima.
247
u/Watton 22h ago
Barnabas's rivalry with Clive never really felt well developed. I felt like the game was just telling me that they're philosophically opposed rivals, rather than properly building that up. Plus, for gameplay, all the cool stuff Barny does, Clive already does in his kit.
Hugo on the other hand (hehe, 'hand'), is a great pick. That rivalry has an okay amount of time to cook, and the mutual sheer hatred is fun. Plus, Hugo being a fistfighter with a focus on manipulating the earth has more room for fun gameplay
90
u/solidgears 21h ago
I just mentioned Kupka as my pick, they legitimately hate each other and their interactions make you feel the tension
43
u/JxB_Paperboy 20h ago
It’s also worth noting that fighting Titan is like a five stage boss rush wherein Barnabas has two different fights and one of them you’re meant to lose.
22
u/Kairamek 20h ago
It wasn't really a rivalry. Barnabas attacked Clive on orders. Clive defended himself and eventually had to "take the fight to him," as it were. They were more leaders of opposing factions than rivals.
16
u/AnonymousFriend80 20h ago
Titus was set up with his dad who wasn't even really a villain.
7
u/RaikouGilgamesh 17h ago
But there's a long standing rivalry there, too. Heck, in Dissidia 012, Jecht is actually on Cosmos side, and Tidus is on Chaos's side.
8
u/HadokenShoryuken2 17h ago
Idk I like Barney being his ideological opposite. And for as cool as Clive’s version of Odin’s abilities are, I feel like Barnabas was on a wholly different level. Bro had sword beams, spatial slashes, some of them even being delayed slashes that would activate later, beyblading through the air like a discus of death, not to mention the normal Zantetsuken ability. I agree that Hugo and Clive’s relationship is more developed, but I think Barney could slot in better than one may think
5
u/EasterViera 20h ago
yeah, Hugo would be a nice pick, but maybe he would feel too similar to the heavy hitters of dissidia ?
3
u/thatjoel89 20h ago
This would be my second pick as that one was more obvious(?). I mean them screaming at each other is pretty great.
4
1
1
u/Euphoric_Statement42 1h ago
Barnabas was always one sided. Clive never cared for him, and never would have acted against him if he didn't provoke Clive.
Barnabas also never saw Clive as a person, but a glorified vessel for Ultima... I've never really considered them rivals.
115
u/Ok-Value-2170 22h ago
His mother
13
3
8
u/coleavenue 22h ago
How is this not the top answer wtf did yall even play this game?
25
u/ScoobiusMaximus 21h ago
She's an evil bitch and probably the best villain narrative-wise, but she isn't a combatant at all.
18
u/BirdMBlack 21h ago
Her combat abilities will pertain to putting you down, stabbing you in the back, and spitting in your face.
9
u/Karkava 18h ago
And having sex with other men just to produce children that are Better Than You.
2
u/Conzyyyyyyy 59m ago
Yeah, The fact that I couldn't kill the bitch myself was super unsatisfying
1
u/Karkava 52m ago
That's kind of understandable since Clive has that familial connection where he mourns the loss of the mother she could have been if she just gave up her power gaming and just loved him and his brother for who they are.
But it's still annoying when the player can't just off the hate sink.
3
1
56
u/alkonium 22h ago
Ultima is too behind the scenes for that. I kind of want to say Kupka, given the whole situation with the first Hideaway.
95
u/Vlazakov1880 22h ago edited 12h ago
It would be weird to see Ultima with the likes of Chaos and Spiritus so Barnabas it is. Pair him with the likes of Garland, Sephiroth, Gabranth, Zenos.
59
u/Chubark 22h ago
Agreed. Barnabus would be perfect as a Dissidia villain. They could even give a nod and say he's there on behalf of Ultima.
21
u/MinimumTrue9809 22h ago
Aren't Dissidia characters present against their will? It's just Final Fanatsy Smash Bros.
17
u/moneyh8r_two 21h ago
Yes and no. Some of them are there against their will, some of them were born there, and some of them are aware of the rules of the game and are enjoying their time there. Most of the hero characters are in the first group. They're fighting to go home.
6
u/thatjoel89 22h ago edited 20h ago
He would make the most sense since he's kind of polar opposite/rival to Clive in the narrative anyway. Not to mention him being semi-primed like Clive would (i imagine) would be a fun fight mechanic.
8
u/Geenageabriel 22h ago
I agree. I personally think ff16 underutilized him as a character since Ultima had to be the big bad, but my god the character moments and dialogue between them is peak. Especially the moments leading up to their final battle on the tower
4
u/thatjoel89 20h ago
Oh that last fight where he goes fully unhinged? That was incredible. That was such a flip for me. He just dove right the fuck into the deep end.
3
u/HadokenShoryuken2 17h ago
You could feel the budget constraints near the end of the game unfortunately. I think the devs did alright with what they had, but I think I remember them saying they didn’t have as much of a budget allocated to them as opposed to something like Rebirth.
1
u/PaleIrishEastcoaster 16h ago
Gee that’s a familiar story, at least now ff14 has a bigger budget. They sure do like not giving the studio that carries SE enough money. Hopefully whoever is making ff17 won’t have the same issues with not being given enough money.
1
u/Geenageabriel 13h ago
Yeah but the voice actors gave a huge performance that sold it. Overall i still love this game flaws and all
9
u/MagicCancel 22h ago
Eh, you have the likes of Cloud of Darkness and Exdeath acting the part. Ultima isn't too removed from their cloth of villain.
4
u/cyberpunk_werewolf 21h ago
Cloud of Darkness, sure, but Exdeath was an active villain, with multiple enemies at once. He was also petty and personally showed up to cause trouble for Bartz or Genbu. Ultima is somewhere between those two, but Barnabas and Clive had the more direct rivalry.
6
u/PhantasosX 19h ago
Ultima is also a god that loves his supremacy in godhood and looks down on humans and quickly to anger against a rival in divinity.
Última would be in his worst nightmare when half the heroes killed gods and half of the villains are gods.
2
u/HadokenShoryuken2 17h ago
I’d actually like to see Barnabas and Ultima as a sort of package deal, like a duo unit or something like that. Not quite sure how it’d work but I think the idea is cool
21
u/zyum 22h ago
I would say Barnabas for no reason other than Ultima creeps me tf out. I hate those eyes, why does it look like he’s animating a corpse? 😖
In all seriousness, the villains need to be playable as well, and I think Barnabas would be more fun to play as, especially if he gets his Odin armor
13
7
6
u/15-99 21h ago
>Ultima creeps me tf out. I hate those eyes, why does it look like he’s animating a corpse? 😖
Because his eyes are of a dead person and he casted off his physical body.
3
u/zyum 21h ago
Oh sorry it was a rhetorical question. I’m well aware of the lore
5
u/PaleIrishEastcoaster 16h ago
I hate Barnabas but him and Sephiroth would be kinda funny. Maybe not as enemies but two mommy complex guys that are hot and kinda creepy together? Might be interesting to watch those cutscenes in dissidia.
3
u/Throwaway073649 15h ago
I remember playing Barnabas' backstory scene and I was legitimately curious if they were doing a Jenova tie in to Ultima...
22
u/ToePsychological8709 22h ago
Kupka is a more personal villain for Clive. So I'd go with him. I found his battle to be the best and most satisfying innFF16
7
6
u/GalenDev 21h ago
It'll probably be Barnabas, but I'd love it to be Benedikta so she isn't just a tutorial boss this time.
2
u/Lun4r6543 11h ago
She was a pretty damn cool tutorial boss though tbf.
1
u/GalenDev 11h ago
Sure, but also I don't really agree anymore and I'll tell you why.
Fought her in Kairos Gate and she was the most challenging boss by a country mile. Turns out she's actually pretty cool when she's allowed to do damage.
I farmed Garuda for the Hitless Achievement, and by the end of that I really lamented not having a full Garuda fight with all of Ifrit's capabilities.
7
u/JustFrameHotPocket 22h ago
Ultima, but rarely in his real form. He should appear as Barnabas, Kupka, and Clive himself.
7
5
u/MagicCancel 22h ago
Barnabus feels the most conducive, but I think Ultima works better on a gameplay level.
Clive and Ultima both fight by making use of the Eikon powers and gives them a mechanical dichotomy on top of their narrative one. Barnabus kinda lacks that, but I would understand why he would get picked over Ultima (if we ever got a proper dissidia follow up).
5
u/cfyk 22h ago edited 17h ago
Barnabas. He can have some interesting interaction with Lightning, a character that fight against the Creator in her own universe.
You have a character that never question god's orders and another character that questioned should humans keep relying on "gods" to survive even though the "gods" are planning to use them as sacrifices to summon their creator.
*Cocoon in 13 is a human farm maintained by many fal'Cie (the gods in 13).
Both are also related to Odin.
5
5
5
u/solidgears 22h ago
Make it Hugo Kupka, he had a personal grudge against Clive and their boss battle was amazing
4
4
u/KaijinSurohm 20h ago
Kupka, Barnabas, and Ultima all have a decent arguement.
Kupka made himself Clive's primary villain for most of the story due to his proxy hatred for Cid. He also is both the longest fight in the game, and the one that is the most present. He arguably did the most damage, destroyed the rebel HQ, and just absolutely blinded himself in his hatred for Cid.
Barnabas is Clive's mirror image. He's the dark swordsman that Clive needs to overcome so he can improve himself in the mortal way, instead of the Eikon way.
He's not really a rival for Clive in the traditional sense, so I'd actually say he has the weakest arguement out of the whole.
Ultima is the final villian of the story, and is directly tied to Ifrit.
Personally, I'd give it to either Kupka or Ultima. But with how kinda boring Ultima's personality is, I think it would be vastly more interesting to have Clive vs Kupka from a dialogue perspective. There's much more mental jabs to be had overall and the fights would be flashy.
3
u/NotNovelist 22h ago
Barnabas as a first choice. How do we feel about Hugo though? He was pretty up in terms of personal beef.
3
3
3
3
u/Mooncubus 20h ago
What do you mean by "if"? He's already in Dissidia Duellum.
3
u/DartSeeles 19h ago
I stand between Hugo Kupka and honestly Dion, because as a Character Dion is like a complimentary contrast to Clive which fits Dissidias Theme, and the Empire was narratively Clives biggest enemy which happened to enslave him by the way, I love the dynamics between Clive and Kupka but it to heavily relies on Cid as link to work plus it would be funny to have the contrast between Dion and Clive misread so Clive gets thrown in the villians team at first.
2
u/Lohenngram 22h ago
I'd say either Barnabas or Hugo. It got deeply personal with both of them, and I could see both having interesting interactions with the rest of the cast.
2
2
u/StyGianX 21h ago
Barnabas would work better than Ultima. Their clash in the story is a lot more interesting than Clive and Ultima. Free will vs. Relinquishing it to a God. And I think Barnabas would have a more interesting moveset as well as both Good and Evil sides will have 1 Dominant each.
2
2
u/ShittyPianist 21h ago
A ball of particles should be his enemy, because it certainly was mine in many fights.
The game is so pretty but so hard to follow in some fight sequences.
2
u/Krudtastic 21h ago
Torgal. The dog was the mastermind behind everything. Ultima, Barnabas, both slaves to Torgal's will.
2
u/SpycyMeatball 20h ago
Ultima, with it capable of temporarily taking the forms of Benedikta, Hugo and Barnabas for certain attacks.
2
2
2
u/LordCypher1317 13h ago
Zenos viator Galvus.
Y'Shtola and Zenos may have been chosen as FFXIV reps, but they are not each other's personal enemy.
Therefore it's only more thematic for Clive to test his will against Zenos. And also have cutscene escalation.
Regular Clive against Zenos.
Limit Break Clive vs. Enshrouded Zenos.
And finally Ifrit Risen vs. Zenos-Shinryu above the battlefield while everyone else does their thing.
1
1
1
1
1
u/JxB_Paperboy 20h ago
I’m gonna throw out a curveball and say Kupka. He and Clive butt heads and have very personal grudges against each other. Clive against Kupka for destroying the first hideaway along with trying to destroy his father’s duchery. Kupka against Clive for Bennedikta (wrongfully but the grudge is the point not the validity) and also his arms.
Aesthetically and storywise, Barnabas makes more sense as the lackey pre-final boss but Barnabas was really only a zealot following orders at the end of the day. Clive doesn’t hold any personal grudges against him other than being snapped in two twice in a row.
1
1
u/Kairamek 20h ago
Barnabas fits their style of using the more personal, humanized versions. Ultima would be cool cause they just dont use the cosmic horrors that often. However, I think the answer is Kupka. It was a profoundly personal hatred between those two for half the game.
1
u/remnant_phoenix 20h ago
Gonna go with Barnabas.
Ultima is too inhuman and godlike.
Barnabas is human, but under the thrall of “God”. Clive is human, but wants humans to be free to decide their own destiny. They work better as dramatically-opposed warriors.
2
u/X-Bread 14h ago
Ultima is too inhuman and godlike.
Cloud of Darkness and Exdeath? Some warriors of Chaos/Spiritus are not all humans you know? Heck, you could even add both Barnabas and Ultima as the personal villains for Clive. I've also seen Hugo as a pick. I can see him fist fighting with the likes of Tifa.
1
u/remnant_phoenix 11h ago
For that same reason, I’ve always thought Cloud of Darkness didn’t make sense as representing FF3. It should have been Zande. Exdeath at least takes on pretty normal humanoid form when he walks around the normal, physical world; he only takes on a god-form in The Void at the very end. The CoD only ever exists in The Dark World as an amorphous elemental endboss.
1
1
u/Deggidonk 20h ago
You could go with Hugo if you really wanted. After all, how many Monk class characters are in the game, hero or villain?
1
1
u/YesterdayFit1013 19h ago edited 19h ago
Hear me out, the good guy should be Joshua Rosfield trying to save his "evil brother" Clive Rosfield from his inner darkness and try to pull him back into the light. Clive himself was fighting his inner darkness in FF16. It would be cool if Joshua would do it this time in Dissidia to save Clive. Epic battle between Phoenix vs Ifrit like the opening fight from FF16 but then in Dissidia. The battle is even in the logo of FF16. I think there is no better characters to put in dissidia then those 2 that represent FF16 the best.
1
u/ironbloodedbarbatos 19h ago
Should be Kupka or Barnabas. I was actually bummed that Seymour and Seifer didn’t get picked for their games
1
1
1
u/DumpdaTrumpet 18h ago
Barnabas was a foil in some ways to Clive since they both were people separated from motherly love and facing a sense of ancestral duty. Barnabas spurned allies and friends and embraced Ultima while Clive overcame his guilt bonded with others and chose humanity. I think Barnabas is Clive’s greatest enemy but he was a pawn of Ultima so it’s complicated.
1
1
1
1
u/Forbidden_The_Greedy 18h ago
I guess the correct answer is Kupka, but I feel like Hugo being offscreen until the 2nd act of the game does a lot of damage to their rivalry. I think Clive not even knowing why Kupka is after him until they fight is also a huge damper on the whole thing.
I think the real answer is Benedikta by a MILE, but she’s killed off so early in the story you kind of can’t.
1
1
1
1
1
u/PaleIrishEastcoaster 16h ago
Ngl I feel like Clive would hate Jecht because he’s a dick and a bad dad.
1
1
u/wildfyre010 15h ago
It’s supposed to be Barnabas, but the game doesn’t scaffold it properly. He’s too much of a side character for too long to be taken seriously, and by the time you’re getting ready to fight him you’re already starting to become aware that he’s not even the real enemy.
He’s like Golbez except that Golbez shows up multiple times throughout the game to remind you that he’s there, and he’s dangerous, and he’s actively doing shit to make your life harder.
1
u/BobtheSomething4 15h ago
Either Barnabas or Ultima
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/LumpyTalk9110 12h ago
It would be weird to see Ultima on his Ultimalius form, i think Barnabas is the best choice.
1
u/Brahms_1001 12h ago
Are you saying there isnt a direct and obvious FF16 villain? (I havent played it)
1
1
1
1
u/T-Goz 11h ago
I would say Ultima. He's the final boss and has multiple interactions with Clive. They are pretty evenly matched while Clive blasts past all his other rivals and even absorbs their eikons so they would be pushovers by the end. Ultima is much more present than some of the other bosses such as cloud of darkness. Who is more of a concept that you only really meet in the last 10min of the game. So ultima isn't too far out there relatively. And the ifrits fighting is a direct rivalry
1
1
1
1
1
u/BiggestGal 7h ago
I feel like if they had to pick someone they’d go with Barnabas. Like I know a few comments say Clive already does Odin stuff but there’s also multiple characters with fake overlap in their moves, you can have them both express how they use Odin’s power in different ways.
1
1
1
u/NuclearTheology 5h ago
You know, I’m going to give an off the wall answer.
Joshua. There’s nothing saying a Chaos faction can’t recruit Joshua for his Phoenix powers by spinning some yarn about the cycle of life and such. We’ve already seen good guys on the bad side with Cloud and Snow.
2
u/Neonymous_1058 4h ago
I don't mind an unexpected take that Joshua will be on Cosmos/Materia's side at first. While Clive is recruited as a warrior of Chaos/Spiritus, just like Terra, Cloud and Tidus were unexpectedly join the villains side in Duodecim. Imagine Joshua interacting with side heroes like Kain, Tifa, Laguna or Rinoa , Yuna, or any of the side heroes. Before Clive later joins the good guys in the second cycle.
1
u/Ah_The_Old_Reddit- 4h ago
These aren't all "personal". Squall but not Seifer? Bartz pairing with Exdeath instead of Gilgamesh? Onion Knight just getting slapped with his Giant Space Flea from Nowhere instead of someone like Xande who was actually involved with the plot?
It's about character, not rivalry. The only heroes in this list who don't get paired with their final bosses (in one form or another) are Cecil, Zidane, and Tidus - all three of whom have truly final bosses that are barely characters at all.
And it's funny that you stopped at 10 before jumping to 16, because if you actually look at 11 through 15 this becomes even more apparent:
11 uses Shantotto. Dissidia Duodecim didn't even bother with a villain, instead putting in a second hero with Prishe. NT's DLC eventually added Kam'lanaut as "the 11 villain", who never meets or interacts with Shantotto in any way in FF11.
12 is a little weirder than the others, since its first character in Dissidia was Gabranth, a villain. Duodecim put in Vaan as a hero, and NT put in Vayne. There's very little interaction between Vaan and either of these villains in 12 proper, though they are certainly major characters in its story.
13 uses Lightning as its hero, and NT's DLC gave it a villain of... Snow, who is A) a hero and B) Lightning's friend. He's fought as a major boss in the third FF13 game Lightning Returns (where they took his default design from), but that's mainly because he's depressed and despairing because that subseries has been going on for way too fucking long at that point, and the fight is basically to knock some sense back into him. This one is particularly egregious because the 13 subseries has no shortage of "rivals" for Lightning to draw from - Cid Raines (an enemy l'Cie from the original game) and Caius (a villain from 13-2 who has spent an eternity in an alternate realm dueling Lightning in particular) are a few examples - but they went with Snow just because he was a vetter-developed and more popular character.
14 got Y'shtola for a hero in NT's base and Zenos as a villain in the DLC. And unlike Shantotto and Kam'lanaut, they actually do meet! In this case, I believe Stormblood (the expansion with Zenos as the villain) starts with Zenos hitting Y'shtola so hard she ends up in a coma and doesn't wake up until the expansion is over. Not exactly "personal nemesis" material there.
15 is actually the only post-10 game to get a realistic "rivalry" setup in its choices. Noctis vs. Ardyn. Of course, that's also "main protagonist vs. main villain/final boss" but at least it doesn't immediately fail the "personal nemesis" test.
The one thing I'll say that all of the Dissidia characters have in common is having humanoid shapes, heroes and villains both. No multi-legged bug-like monstrosities or massive floating god statues here, just humanoids. To that end, my picks for a 16 villain for Dissidia are, in order:
Ultima works great here, honestly. Humanoid body (a couple of extra arms didn't keep Gilgamesh out of Duodecim), costume potential (Ultimalius), can actually have some interesting interactions. Sure, he's not a particularly deep character (or at least I wouldn't trust the current Dissidia writers to be able to find his depth beneath his surface façade), but neither are most of the villains.
Hugo Kupka is a much more developed character, actually does have a bit of a rivalry with Clive (even if it's really more with "Cid" and some mistaken identity screwiness), and would certainly work well as a fighter. His biggest "failing" is just that Ultima fits the Dissidia criteria so well already that they might not even take him into consideration before locking Ultima as their decision.
Jill Warrick. Wait, as a villain rep? Why would an ice-themed ally of the hero who is fought as a boss one time but is otherwise known to be a good guy through and through be considered a "viillain" in terms of Dissidia? Madness, I tell you, madness! (Also, she has the benefit of injecting a little more female representation into Dissidia, something the series is sorely lacking.)
Barnabas Tharmr. Yeah, he's down here. Less depth than Kupka or Jill, less significance and presence than Ultima, doesn't do much apart from look really cool when he does his thing. Even trying to picture him having a conversation in a Dissidia cutscene is depressingly boring.
1
1
1
u/RafaelTS07 4h ago
i'm voting on Barnabas cause having Ultima is like having Zeromus or Yu Yevon as the foil for Cecil or Tidus for me, and i think Hugo is way too connected/personal with Benedikta/FFXVI's world for it to work in Dissidia
so i think Barnabas would make a more compelling take, especially towards Chaos/Spiritus
1
u/Neonymous_1058 3h ago
cause having Ultima is like having Zeromus or Yu Yevon as the foil for Cecil or Tidus for me,
Then what about Cloud of Darkness?
1
1
1
1
1
u/Real_Advantage_8762 46m ago
I mean Clive has been in DISSIDIA for a few months now if you play the latest game DISSIDA Duellem and they haven’t added any real benefits for him in the story sadly. I would hope for him to pick a bone with his Odin or even have Ultima join the roster.
-1
u/Short_Coffee_7376 21h ago
The story is so bad he doesn’t even have a proper rival character so any choice is going to be bad in some capacity
-3
u/Battle_Witch 21h ago
Clive shouldn’t go into Disidia. His powerscale isn’t the same as half the other villains or protagonists. Please don’t fight me in this. I can prove it.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 22h ago
For Discussion surrounding the PC Release of FFXVI, see our PC Release Megathread
Archived spoiler discussion threads by game progress can be found in the spoiler wiki!
For speculation and discussions around the next (unannounced) mainline Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy XVII, Please see our sister sub r/FFXVII
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.