Final Fantasy 16 beginner’s guide: 9 things to know before you start

In Final Fantasy 16, you play as Clive Rosfield, the First Shield of Rosaria, responsible for protecting Joshua, your younger brother and the Dominant of the Phoenix. You will quickly discover that you were clearly not trained enough to perform this task, so let us help you! These tips will help you explore the world of Valisthea and easily defeat your enemies.

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Complete side quests

As you progress through the main story, you will unlock side quests marked with a green exclamation mark. These side quests will provide you with more knowledge of what is happening around Valisthea, and they will make your Final Fantasy 16 all the more immersive. Additionally, the rewards from these side quests often provide crafting materials for weapons and gear that you might be missing.

Photo illustration: Johnny Yu/Polygon | Source images: Square Enix Creative/Square Enix via Polygon

keep an eye on side quests marked with a plus sign as these quests reward you with upgrades such as increased inventory capacity, accessory slots, and chocobo riding.

Stock up on potions

You may think you won’t need to heal because you just won’t take any damage. I thought the same way and have gone through many battles without needing it, but you start to realize that more and more bosses are thrown at you without interruption. You’ll start using your potions thinking the fight is over, but you thought wrong! Reinforcements are on the way and another boss battle looms in the distance.

Use your ability points as you get them

In Final Fantasy 16you can repay your abilities to free of charge. If you upgrade an ability, but don’t like it, you can reclaim all of your spent ability points and use them to upgrade a different ability. Test all abilities to see which abilities match your playstyle and create your ultimate build.

Save as much as you want

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Final Fantasy 16 does a good job of automatically saving the game for you, but you’ll have up to 50 save slots to use! There aren’t many game-changing decisions, but you should save often to review any point in your game for at least one reason: it’s the only way to review Torgal as a puppy.

Use Active Time Lore to refresh your memory

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When I play story-rich games like Final Fantasy 16, I often forget who certain characters are and their relationship to the main protagonist. If you’re like me, Creative Business Unit III and Square Enix seem to have found a solution for our collective short-term memory.

Press and hold the trackpad on your PlayStation 5 controller to use the Active Time Lore feature, which contains over 2,800 different entries of information about characters, places and events happening around you. This is even usable during cutscenes when you see an unfamiliar face!

Do not reinforce immediately from the start

When you first arrive at the Hideaway, you will encounter the blacksmith, Blackthorne. At the blacksmith, you can craft new weapons and equipment or strengthen the equipment you already have. It can be tempting to beef up your gear for the next big thing, but hold off.

At first, you don’t have many side quests, so all the content you can complete is focused on the main story. Once you’ve completed a main story quest, you’ll return to the shelter to find that there’s a shiny new big toy you can craft at the blacksmith. This often happens at the start of Final Fantasy 16so save your reinforcement materials for now.

Sell ​​your valuables

As you browse the menus in the shop, you might be thinking, “Why is each orchestrion roll so expensive?” and “It will take me forever to get that much gil!”

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Boy, do I have the solution for you. During your game you will collect many gil bugs, black blood, amber and void shards. They are not crafting materials used to create your next weapon or gear, but rather valuable items that can be exchanged for gil. Go to your nearest store and sell all your valuables by pressing the touchpad to make lots of gil at once.

Don’t just spam the melee combo

The melee combo might be the first thing the tutorial teaches you, but don’t get into the habit of spamming again and again! Final Fantasy 16 has a lot to offer in combat, and if you’re stuck with just a square of mash, you might get bored very quickly. Introduce a magical blast between your melee attacks or take the battle to the air with your abilities. Combat can be a lot of fun as long as you get creative and avoid the impulse to spam melee attacks.

Play your way

If you are here for the rich history, choose the story driven mode. If you want to smash your way through enemies, go ahead and spam that melee button – I mean, uh, choose the action-oriented mode. You can always change the focus in the settings at any time during your game.

For those worried about combat, you can equip timely accessories that make combat a little less daunting. Opportunity attachments are available in both modes, but will be equipped from the start of the story-driven mode. These attachments will lower the difficulty level by making combos easier, giving more time to evade attacks, automatically dodging attacks, using a potion when your HP drops below a certain point, and auto-grabbing commands. ‘assistance.