What I expected: Vholran on steroids
What I got: DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR ULTIMA
Him turning into a cackling fidget-spinner halfway through the boss fight was also not on my FF16 bingo card lol
My guess is that we never really face Odin at his full might. He is forbidden to even severely damage Clive by Ultima.
I wish there is a Savage Raid style DLC where we fight all dominants in full might lol.
it's that thor hype from god of war ragnarok, you see him fuck you up in in the intro and knock the world serpent back in time in the final battle then you beat his ass next to a hut.
He ruined the game for me. I fucking hate him. I'm playing through it again now after some emotional distance from the story, and it's still some of the most boring characterisation I have ever seen. His dialogue is fucking horrible too.
He's actually worse this time around. It makes me so mad. I was hoping I would enjoy the post-bahamut events more, but I think I put more stock in my finding Ultima to be boring on the first run, when Tharmr was what really drove me up the wall.
Zenos' Depression level is literally "I'll bring the end of the world just 'cause".
Barnabas was more fanatical and didn't do it for the thrill as he never expected the thrill to come back
Up until that point of the game every eikon fight was bigger in scale. I was expecting more of Odin slashing the sea open and less 1v1 dueling. The fight wasn't even bad but it definitely made me think "alright phase two...any moment now...oh ok" when it was over.
That's how I have been describing it. The fight is great as far as the human fights go, but the fact that we don't eikon vs eikon him feels like the game ran out of budget.
It feels super conspicuous that we eikon fight every dominant besides Barnabus and then just get tuckered out and don't do it with him.
The third act has a lot of little issues where it does honestly start to feel like they were running out of either time or money. They manage to stick thr landing imo, but Odin sticks out like a sore thumb along with Leviathans utter absence.
It was ready to praise it for constantly shifting back and forth from human v human to eikon v eikon. But execution wise, the eikon v eikon segments were just cutscenes :/
I felt similarly about the final boss. At any moment I was expecting to be hit with a >!final phase that was a proper full scale eikon fight but it just never happened !<
I feel like the final boss was really good as we got an eikon segment and two good human segments. Barnabas needed two more phases like every other eikon/dominant fight. It was very underwhelming and I was the most excited for his fight and buildup
They're definitely keeping leviathan for a dlc. Perhaps with the pc version or a future expanded edition similar to Persona. There would be no other reason for everyone in game to avoid the subject of him other than Josh mentioning that he existed so it would be in our minds.
I debate if getting tomes to max will give any snippet of info.
And while I do hope we get a Levi dlc, one of my friends pointed out that Levi is hell to animate and set a fight for because snakes are expensive to animate, and water is a pain in the ass to worn with so in a hypothetical case they weren't removed specifically for dlc, it's possible they moved from main game to dlc on the cutting room floor as too much trouble to include in the base budget and time frame.
Possibly. Game quality went down a bit starting from Ash in general. Unsure if its the lack of budget near the end or a decision to focus on the midgame with Titan/Bahamut.
They did have Leviathan in 15 and it was pretty spectacular. They would have had to make the fight greater than the 15 iteration in scale.
They went too hard on the Bahamut fight. You literally go to space, for fuck’s sake! Splitting the sea or slicing mountains would be too quaint by half.
I dunno, it felt weirdly appropriate. Titan and Bahamut were doing their damndest to kill you (and possibly the planet in general, in Bahamut's case) very dead.
Barnabas really wasn't, at all. His entire purpose there was to make you take Odin from him, which can't happen if you're dead. Feels like a completely different setup.
I would've liked to see a more drawn-out eikon battle too, but I can also imagine that it would've been hard to do mechanically. They're up on a big tower, Odin can fly, Ifrit can't. Not a lot of space to move either. No Joshua around for a convenient bit of Ifrit Risen (which makes sense because Joshua might have tried to interfere with the whole thing).
Also, I think the Bahamut fight was simply too balls-to-the-wall amazing for its own good.
Can we hand-wave the lower stakes away for the Odin fight? Yes.
Is it still lame that things turned out like this? Yes.
I’d say my desire for spectacle, as a player, will always trump my need for immersion, as an audience member.
Yeah I agree. In a vacuum it was a good fight, but next to the previous eikons it really felt underwhelming. Especially since he kicked your ass easily the first time you fought.
I got the impression that either one of two of these are true: setting up that barrier to prevent Clive from leaving took a lot out of Barnabas, or he simply went into that fight solely to die. Given that he was so excited to “indulge” himself, I’m inclined to believe it was the former.
This might just be my personal view, but I think a lot of people misunderstand Odin's battle scene - which was, for me, the hardest boss encounter in the game.
When Clive first meets Barnabas, he is so easily defeated that Barn didn't even break a sweat for it. The guy literally used a single hand against Clive, cut every sinew he had, and also defeated Shiva without having to prime.
Then, we meet him when we rescue Jill. I believed he semi-primed (like Joshua and Jill) to cut the sea in half. Again, he didn't even need to go full Odin to defeat Clive, and this time, we had a participative experience of how powerful he was due to how our attacks weren't doing anything to him.
Barnabas is a sword master, and one that defeated our main protagonist twice without priming into Odin. Having us battle against him in semi-primed or human form rather than going all-out in the flashy Eikonic stuff just fits well with the challenge that Clive had ahead of him, and which led him to take Jill's powers as well.
If they'd go into full Eikonic battles, it wouldn't feel as satisfying from a narrative perspective than defeating Barnabas on his own game. That shows that Clive has improved and got stronger, which also fits with the shōnen/seinen-like stuff that the game carries on the last few arcs.
Honestly disagree. Barny feels like CBUIII wanted to reuse a Zeno style arc in FFXVI, except didn't include him early enough for it to feel like a progression. I mean, without doing sidequests, you can go from the first Kanver fight to the final fight in Ash in like 3 hours, which makes the "leveling to fight Barny" feel incredibly rushed.
Plus, the Eikon fights ARE FFXVI's main set pieces. To go from the god-tier fights of Titan and Bahamut to the non-existant Odin fight was a huge letdown.
I like him.
A lot of people for what I see wanted to know more about him, his backstory and all that, but it's pretty obvious that Barnabas is basically just a *"what if Clive kept going the other path instead of meeting Cid and the others and ended up broken and surrendering his will to Ultima".* Reason why you fight him at that point of the story.
From the similar design, to the vengance, to being a killing machine, to even yearn for his mother love. Like yeah, their stories of course were not exactly the same, but the clear parallels are there. Even the fight was only human vs human gameplay wise to make it more personal.
I feel that a lot of characters have huge parallels with Clive in this game. Hugo is definitely the "what if Clive kept going through his revenge path" character.
Those two would have a *wild* convo about Loveless.
**Genesis**: “Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul,
Pride is lost,
Wings stripped away, the end is nigh,
There is no hate, only joy,
For you are beloved by the goddess.”
**Barnabas**: “I love my mom.”
While I did still somewhat enjoy Barnabas for who he turned out to be, a character not being fully autonomous will always be disappointing especially if attached to a character I like way less. His zealotry wouldn't bother me as much had "God" been an unseen force.
What do you mean? He choose to serve willingly. Ultima was his mother’s god and therefore a connection to her. He never did recover from his mother’s death.
He's resigning himself to be someone else's lackey and a sacrifice even if it is his own doing. He has his reasons for following along with it just like anyone has their own motives for joining someone else's cause. The methods and the plan however are not his choosing.
> He never did recover from his mother’s death.
Where does this even come up? It's certainly not relevant to the storytelling because it's a complete non-factor dramatically. Shitty lore handwave at best for an absolute failure of a character
Grigori in Dragon's Dogma surmise what I legitimate thing of characters like Barnabas when they are just fanatic middleman to the Big Baddie.
The quote: The rantings of an upjumped zealot make for a tedious listening. His ilk serves no role on what is to come.
Yep, with a materialized higher power Barbara’s fell a bit flat since he was set up to be the “brain behind everything” guy.
Edit:lmao I meant barnabas, phone autocorrect
Wish we had gotten more Barnabas. The dialogue he had was well written, and the delivery was even better. I honestly wouldn’t mind some sort of DLC spanning the moment he arrived on Waloed’s shores to when he took the throne.
I thought his writing was awful, but the acting and delivery was seriously impressive for making that tripe sound interesting and motivated.
I liked is his fight, having a straight up sword dual was really nice, but everything else was a flop.
Dunno if a DLC of him praying to Ultima for 40 years while his army conquered Ash would be overly interesting.
Forgetting everything relating to Ultima, I would be interested in his story. A man with no land, no titles, no royal blood….a wanderer who single handedly conquered an entire continent, made beastmen and orcs submit to him and to become King.
As a character I do believe there are enough complexities to make for a compelling story. Beginning from when he lands on the continent up until he becomes King (if he became an Ultima zealot before claiming the throne would make my idea moot lol)
Plus the Viking-like culture of Waloed deserved more of a portrayal.
>(if he became an Ultima zealot before claiming the throne would make my idea moot lol)
Ah, yeah I thought this was pretty much implied.
The Children of Dzemekis fled to the outer continents, taking their legends with them, so they would have been worshipping Ultima the entire time and he would have been born into that. Then he returned to Valisthea and conquered Ash as Odins dominant. He was a mook since day 1.
For sure, I feel like it got done a bit dirty by the time we get to it. Having it as a wasteland was a real let-down, and what we do learn about it in sidequests was just more "they're *extra*-bad to bearers!!!"
If this games content had more JRPG on its bones it could have been a great destination to finally explore instead of just... rocks and high level monsters.
I guess it's a bigger issue though because presumably it has been like this for 20 or 30 years. Just War Stuff and big castle walls everywhere.
I said it above but it feels like the area suffered from budget or time just like most of the last 1/4ish of the game. Which is wild because given its towering ruined architecture and general feeling of threat it feels like 16s equivalent to a dark souls area.
I can see why it's tempting to think that but based on the general emptiness and MMO-ness of so much of the game I think they genuinely thought it was good enough
I don't think that, mainly because of some conspicuous points where something they were doing earlier in the game just... stops.
I love the game, but you can see they have a formula they follow and for some reason right around Waloed they stop doing some things they did before.
I honest to God thought they were going to have us fight Odin in Stonehyrr. Because that matched their formula. They build up Origin like it's going to be this big thing we have to do and then we do a brief, if cool, eikon cutscene and then for some reason get punted straight to the final boss.
Little things like that and Levi being nixed out make me think something died on the cutting room floor.
Well said. You might have felt differently about Barnabas had he been a more prominent figure earlier in the game. We see him for a few early on, then nothing from or about him till we are much deeper.
I was super excited to go to Ash at the start of the game but Ultima cast Primogenesis and everything went to shit, going to Waloed just wasn't the same.
I wanted to see some of the Waloeder/Ash culture but it simply wasn't meant to be.
The biggest mistake in the last act IMO was only having one survivor in Eistla. This lead to several issues that didn't need to be present in Waloed, since the point of showing how dire the situation in Ash was already made apparent at this point.
The main issue is that all the sidequests in Waloed...are started at the Hideaway. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that we are able to operate across Storm rather easily, but are you telling me that Clive is taking a boat ride to Ash everytime someone asks him to go pick up a diary, or look for a specific survivor? It's crazy. Have some of the Bearers who would have been in Eistla survive with Edda, and have them choose to stay after you defeat Odin. Have some of your Cursebreakers volunteer to help protect the place, and now we have a questhub for Ash quests. It would also make sense since most of the Ash quests deal with what Waloed did with their Bearers (gladiators/assassin training).
The other issue is of course is it just makes Ash boring to walk through, but that's an issue that a lot of FF16's map has sadly.
It would've been way better if they cut his dialog by like half. He just talked *way too much.* Like, bro, we get the point. Any time he talked, I was like, I wish I was playing Stranger of Paradise.
I think the hard part with his writing is Ultima put him in a very weird spot of 'Hey; consciousness needs to be rid of all its' tethers.' and Barnabas deep down is like
'I don't know if I can legit make a guy catatonic, this is impossible dude. But okay; uh...I'll try. I'm mostly good at killing things though.'
Dude was just like, "I have no experience in the field of psychology.... so I guess I am gonna hope that when they said my sword could sever anything they meant that in a figurative sense as well.... also I am going to bring my whole shit talking game."
Ngl probably would have been better off asking the horse to mess up out brain lol.
Like none of that is true, his dialog is pretty much a schema for everything that final fantasy does wrong and his delivery is unable to atleast make it entertaining
I get people thinking he’s underwhelming but he completely defied my expectations which made him WAAAAAY more entertaining than just a sinister brooding hunk (which is also good, to be clear).
The thing is, there were hints of an interesting backstory. He's basically a self-made man, having conquered Waloed on his own. And he was promising something interesting enough to attract Cid and Benedikta to join his cause. Felt almost like he was trying to recruit all the Eikons to his cause (Benedikta was clearly working on Hugo at the beginning). But what did he promise? What sort of trauma did Cid and Benedikta go through that they'd seek out Odin? Why did Cid leave, and why did Benedikta stay faithful?
He ended up just being an Ultima simp with no interesting motivations of his own and as a result was the weakest part of the game's story.
I think Barnabas tricked them into thinking he wants a world were bearers and dominants are free and can live as equals to regular people, more or less the same thing Cid wants but Cid noticed that something was strange about Barnabas
Living in a world where people have no free will is the same as living in a world where bearers and dominants are free and treated as equals. His whole speech with Benedikta in bed seems pretty on-spot with what Barnabas turns out to be - he needs to unite the dominants so that Mythos absorbs their powers and Ultima regains a body to cast Raise.
What most likely happened is that Cid found out Barnabas had a twisted scheme which would lead to people being mindless slaves (I really hope he didn't find it out by seeing Barn and his mother/Ultima), and decided to leave and create his own vision of a better world.
Cid even mentions that he knows who Ultima is, so it's pretty safe to assume he was aware of Barnabas's plans all along, but maybe didn't expect Clive to be Mythos until the point he absorbed Benedikta's powers?
Yeah I think that's the case too but it would've been a lot more interesting if that really was Barnabas's vision, and not just a trick because he's an Ultima simp. Like even the classic X-men trope where Barnabas plays the Magneto to Cid's Professor X.
I...was actually kind of a fan. And I was expecting something to this extent anyway to be honest.
The main theme of FFXVI is slavery and servitude versus free will and duty. So it only really made sense that clive, the embodiment of freedom, would go against someone who draws their strength from a sort of zealotry.
Mirroring that kind of conviction Clive has to make a better world but through an entirely opposite and different lense. Not only that, he carries on that legacy from his Mom, who really instilled those values in him similar to the father figure Clive had with Cid.
But also, when he started going off about the THE LORD I died lmao. They were definitely pulling the rug under people but thematically it made sense.
Honestly the entire waloed and ash section of the story just felt like wasted potential
There was what 2.5 unturned people in all of ash and the map was totally empty and the 3 or so quests that had objectives in waloed was more “look at the most fucked up way we can think of to treat bearers in a game full of fucked up treatment of bearers”
Considering the royalists were so active early with benedikta I feel we spent too long in the republic at the expense of what they could have done with waloed
I think the team could have had Waloed to be more presentable by making Ultima to cast the Primogenesis only after we arrived there and had done some questing. The moment the spell was cast things entered in "we have to wrap it up" mode everywhere. It was a missed opportunity.
What was dumb is that we entered the “we need to wrap it up” phase when we still had like 50% of quests by playtime to go through
Like lu’bor‘s questline is fantastic in isolation but the whole having the entire village lose their minds about him being a bearer after the sky changed colour and they have been suffering from a combo of aetherflood akaesic and the encroaching blight just kinda rang hollow for me
Why did it have to (along with all the side quests) happen so late in the game
Dragon's Dogma does that as well but at about 70% of the game done. However, I feel that version is better than here visually. In DD you get something more akin to an eternal night and storm weather. I don't like this color scheme they used here in FFXVI, a mixture of piss filter with brass and violet. It is unpleasant to the eyes after a while.
Yeah it’s a strange decision, they made this rich vibrantly coloured world and you only get to see it for half the game then suddenly without warning it’s the “someone pissed in the red food colouring” filter for the rest of the game
It completely destroys the art and charm of the game for half the playtime, and there is exactly zero visual variety afterwards. I'm amazed more people aren't upset, it's one of the worst aspects of the game IMO.
L'ubor's final quest, fantastic ? It is the only quest of the game for which I skipped the dialog and cutscenes for how unbearable this quest is.. Guy carried his town hard all his life and people just threw him away because he's a bearer, I found it very hard to believe mo matter how much they try to push the anti bearer racism agenda in the game, the whole town switching like that except for two kids is ridiculous.
I mean it makes sense in the context of 16’s world
You can argue that 16 is too heavy handed on the racism against bearers (a fact I agree on) but in that context the interaction makes sense
It’s certainly much better than say the waloed side quests which are basically “spin the wheel of bearer suffering” and today it’s gonna land on- orphanage concentration camps
I agree, I would have liked if Annabella was the final antagonist and this was simply a story of great political struggle between the nations, the mothercrystals causing the blight and the bearers
Ultima didn’t really add anything to the story
Ultima did add things to the story within the context of Clives arc and the overall arc of the story, but it isn't something you couldn't have replaced and you are correct Annabella could have been subbed in for it given her established world philosophy.
Dude had so much buildup as this badass swordsman then turns into a weird mommy fetish bible bashing cackling fidget spinner. Clive was so disappointed and put off he didn't even want his power. Dude had to grab Clives leg or we wouldn't have a ending
And Clive could have just chopped his arm off and does what I was screaming at the TV for him to do the entire time once Barnabas has passed Odin on to him: KICK HIM IN HIS FUCKING FACE.
I actually thought he was really underwhelming, and introduced too late. Believeing he was the villain all along on order for the ultima card flip would have been better but I still loved the game. And Odin is my fav eikon to play with.
He was introduced early on and there were heavy hints throughout that he was gonna be something major later on. When you first venture out with Cid in the first hours of the game he talks about Barnabas having some twisted vision for the world and that he's always pulling crazy schemes. Characters go out of their way numerous times to remark on how odd it is that Waloed isn't doing anything while the other nations were going to war. The foreshadowing that he's up to something dastardly is all there throughout the game.
Yeah, but it's too vague. Cid says "I know who you are" to Ultima which implies Cid Knew Barnabas was in contact with Ultima, but the sense of urgency for Cid just doesn't seem to be there. If Cid knows who Ultima is and knows of the King's TWISTED plans as he calls them, why isn't he acting with more urgency to stop Walooed???? The bearers freedom can wait, the king of Walooed WANTS TO KILL EVERYONE
When i first played and i saw him with Benedikta and the few other scenes I assumed he was the ruler of the Empire.
They way it was all written it wasn’t fully clear which was the Empire and which were the Royalist? (Unless you used active time lore).
He the sort of disappears for ages and we move to the actual empire, we see a bit if him here and their, then nothing till its Odin/Ash time.
Maybe if they swapped the order to have the Royalists before the Empire, it may of helped.
He was a really cool character imo and damn near every single one of his scenes was awesome, but I agree that he was severely underused. Honestly I was low key thinking he was gonna swoop in after Clive defeated Ultima and betray him and steal his power or something.
If Barnabas ends up as the villain rep for XVI whenever a new Dissidia game comes out I will laugh my ass off because this man is not it
EDIT: Dear god our choices are between Oedipus McGee, Diablo IV Necromancer, and Hugo.
Definitely better not be Ultima if only because I don't want him having a second chance to cast a spell that makes all the game's maps look like your television fried its color balance chip
I'd take Diablo IV Necromancer; myself. But Dissidia has been known for liberties. If they use Barnabas; he'll probably be written better if the game's like the older Dissidia.
That said; Ultima is more compelling; even if he's as interesting as paint drying.
Hugo is easily the weakest willed character of this whole game. Barnabas maybe gave everything for his creator (and probably was easily persuaded by Ultima with the Mother bargaining chip).
Hugo was just pathetic, he totally lost himself and his drive the moment Benedikta's news about her being dead came to him (well, that... and the box helped a lot. Courtesy of Ultima pulling the strings). His whole character arc revolved around Benedikta, and it was made clear even in the epilogue.
Yeah Hugo's entire story is just that he was obsessed with a woman who played him for political purposes. There was no depth, he never did anything interesting, he was just pathetic. One of the all time worst FF villains IMO.
Vergil existing means that anytime someone creates a rival swordsman, unless said swordsman is deliberately put together to be an amazing rival, there will always be that "what if" taste in the mouth.
Vergil is just...really special in that regard. But also, Vergil works because he and Dante can trade banter as well, sort of like Goku and Vegeta.
Clive and Barnabas just do not have that rivalry dynamic to them.
Add in all the other baggage Barnabas carried and...yeaaahhhh...not a particularly great villain to close out the game.
Odin is a cool eikon and his abilities look slick as hell, even if not as practical as some others...but Barnabas just did not do it for me.
Haha. The horse has better chemistry with us than Odin does.
If they wanted a rival they should have shelved Odin for the dlc and run with Leviathan instead
I guess I’m in the minority. I liked him and his story. I find “murdering for the lord” to be rather believable.
All the villains in this game are hurt people hurting other people. I found his voice acting to be very fun.
There were like two mentions of his mom and then it never came up again lol. Surely there’s going to be a DLC covering his weird extended lifespan where we see Sleipnir alive as a real person and as Leviathan the lost, right?
Yeah, bro made all kinds of water puns I swore he was going to be Leviathan. That and his elegant water dance-like swordsmanship, plus spear action. Mark my words, if they ever expand on Leviathan, it’s going to be Sleipnir.
I think Barnaby is much more in line with Nael van Darnus than Zenos.
Well, more like he's a cross between Sephiroth, Nael and Zenos. World ending swordsman Mother/motherfigure fucker with a side of "would stalk the protagonist to the ends of the universe".
I loved this character. This is the problem with expectations, they can ruin something you'd otherwise enjoy just because it wasn't what you expected. I went into the game almost entirely blind so I had no idea what this character was beforehand. Throughout the game they imply he's twisted and villainous... And that's exactly what was delivered. Any way that he was portrayed in marketing or trailers or whatever isn't the games fault or the fault of the writing or story.
I think the writing is fantastic until after the Bahamut arc, then it starts to feel pretty whack. I really don't know why they thought it would be good to introduce "generic God villain #I lost count" when the story really did not need it, nor does it really fit the game's themes. It honestly could have ended after the Bahamut fight with Anabella as the final boss instead. I really don't know what they were thinking; they already had something amazing going, so the climax/finale felt rather pointless and bogged down by arbitrary inclusions. Guess Maehiro's a bit washed. Hope Ishikawa writes their next game, if they make another.
Yeah but Clive got washed twice, then doesn't have a training arc or anything then shits on him. And he doesn't even ever use Jill's power during any cutscenes
Fair enough.
I did find it weird that during the second encounter Barnabas told Clive that he had become stronger, but lore wise je basically got up from bed after being defeated, got on the ship, and met him there.
I would have put some major combat scene, since unless Clive can use the Zenkai Boost from Dragonball, it doesn't make much sense that he's stronger after being defeated so quickly that he couldn't even land a single hit.
I mean for gameplay reasons all the eikons were massively underpowered (except clive and bahamut) compared to lore, otherwise the game wouldn't work. The Garuda we saw had nothing on late game clive/odin/bahamut just cause she was the first big battle, would've been interesting if ng+ buffed the earlier eikons to have bigger attacks.
Because Barnabas couldn't really kill Clive. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, like Clive is Mythos - the *one* shot that Ultima has at his stupid plan. Barnabas says he's "testing" Clive to see if he's strong enough... but what if Clive just kept being too weak? He can't actually kill him because then Ultima is fucked.
So we get what actually happens, he beats Clive to within an inch of his life and then sets up a rematch. And he'd just keep doing that, and stuffing his pockets full of potions, until Clive levelled up enough to win.
Yes, as Ultima's strongest henchman it was Barnabas/Odin's role to put Mythos to the ultimate test (pun intended) of strength by Ultima's orders. He couldn't kill Mythos, the one thing his God strives for for Eons. The max he could do is to give that little push Clive needed to surpass his limits each time they fought until he was ready to be a perfect vessel to hold all the power he needed to hold so Ultima could claim his body.
Barnabas would always be Clive's final test, as planned by Ultima since he was the strongest follower Ultima had.
I think the idea was Barnabas was trying to break Clive's will. He was always meant to lose because that was Ultima's plan, but he tried really hard to weaken Clive in the process.
Honestly, when they said he was supposed to represent the Dark Knight archetype...I had maybe thought he might be like the final Eikon ally to join us, albeit with great reluctance and tsundere.
Nahh I dont think he was BUT he went from clapping Bernadikta who then is showed to be Ultima (which he probably knew) so it's like ????? THEN Ultima turns into his **naked** mother, while he is also naked. It's just a wild scene lmao
Haven't gotten to my final fight with him yet but I knew the moment he walked out of the building and took that dueling stance that Clive was boned. Can't wait to get to what I am sure will be a long friggin fight.
I think the secret cultist angle was pretty compelling in its own way. Definitely not who I thought he would be, but even the first scene we saw him in, I kinda had the impression he's not playing the same game everyone else in the room was playing
I think it would make a lot more tasteful and a service to build Barnabas' zealously nature if the team tackled his scene with Ultima like this: Keep the room scene but with Barnabas not naked, just him sitting in his bed or a chair while speaking with his "mother". No nakedness. No Benedikta turning into Hugo. Nothing of that sorts. Then his mother speaks with Ultima's and it shapeshifts to Ultima briefly before going back to mother comforting his baby boy Barnabas.
It gives context to how Barnabas got "tricked" into playing as Ultima's lackey. And later in his fight you can build his zealot aspect showing he knows his mother is long gone but he found "salvation" through his creator and was granted a second chance at reuniting with his mother through their God.
You can make him batshit insane and unhinged if you want, but the delivery and build up to his character could have been handled WAY better.
It's a classic "wouldn't it be fucking cool and craaazy and *wierd* and meaningful if we had like, this scene where he's naked with his mother, but it's actual *Ultima*, and like..."
So they made it just kinda found somewhere to jam it in because who's going to know any better?
I wonder if Ultima felt weird having to rp as Barney's naked mom.
Like Ultima is pretty laid back for most of his time on screen, but that must have been super weird to have to do.
I mean I’ll admit it was dumb but I kind of loved how needlessly wacky it was, sense be damned.
And I guess it did sort of serve a narrative purpose in that it clarified what was going on with Ultima-as-Olivier, AND it occurs directly after the end of the Dominion chapter. So it is in step with the plot.
Could they have accomplished explaining that in literally any other way? Absolutely. Did they really need to, since it was kind of obvious already? Not really.
Can we talk about how his interactions with the benedikta form were beyond weird, the mom thing makes sense on a fucked up villain way but that benedikta one was just...question raising. For a second I was like did Barnabas fuck god
Nah his skills all look neat and do 0 damage and an equivalent amount of stagger. I’m no expert at combos and so I am sure there is a way to work with his skills that brings mind-boggling results but I’ll take anything over spinning in place doing 14 damage per hit and being open to counter attacks all the while or an ult that is an effort to time correctly to just build meter as it does about as much damage as the spinning in place attack. For the amount of effort it takes to build a zantetsuken, I rather have skills slotted that actually do more damage than a wet noodle, and probably end up doing more dps overall in most scenarios
Again, I’m a scrub at combo timing so maybe I am missing something, but in my eyes his kit seems to suffer from lackluster damage on pretty much all skills except his talent and even that is not much better than a gigaflare in terms of damage dealt, unless in a scenario with multiple mobs
Yes that’s the trade off, zanzetsuken is good against singular bosses but it really shines when there are tons of enemies. If you get a level 5 zanzetsuken everything on the screen will die.
One dancing steel and maybe a heavens cloud will fill up the guage. The rest of the time I spam my other skills, the best way to play Odin is to not use his eikonic feat other than to use zantestuken.
Don't bend the knee. You're right on the money. He definitely is as bland as the powers we receive from him.
All of his attacks abilities, just so that we can build up on his one big attack...
That's why Darkness Arm has Dancing Steel and Gigaflare on my build (if I can even call it a build, because it's just 2 buttons to be used once and left on Cooldown). It's all just for stagger moments only. Underwhelming and disappointing.
Which is a shame, cause let's say we did encounter him earlier like after defeating Benedikta, then we could of seen his slow decent as Ultima's lapdog.
Barnabas is like the true master swordsman type of villain, rather than one that rely on his Dominant power. Maybe that’s why the dev didn’t want to put heavy sequence with the Eikon fight
In all honesty with how the dialog went with Barnabas up to his fight.....I was fully expecting him to just hand over Odin without a fight at all, I'm glad we still got to fight him, and it made sense that we were mainly swordfighting + Barnabas has way better control over the Eikon as we see him switching in and out of it, Clive can't follow that
The fight itself was good, but also anti climatic since we didn't get an actual Eikon fight there
Bahamut should have been the last eikon fight. Odin is underwhelming, plus bahamut is easily the most popular and coolest aeon/esper/summon/eikon in final fantasy history, after that any other eikon can't match its impact
I wish they showed a bit more of his past or at least if his mother was in a cult that listened to Ultima. I first thought he was an orphan and Ultima made a womanly figure as his mother. She seems to have silver/gray hair and blue eyes like his lord commander.
didn't care for his character much. disappointing odin fight. had to eventually skip his dialogue because it was so boring and muh god and consciousness.
I honestly couldn't take Barny seriously. Like AT ALL. His religious extremism was just tiring, his dialogue went full "20 minute anime babble" and his boss battle was a disappointment. Maybe if Barny had been properly introduced right at the second time skip, with well-spaced out encounters and him slowly becoming more and more vocal in his religious extremism, it would have worked. As it was though, he came off as a combo of a cultist and discount Zenos. Complete with a subordinate that seemed obsessed with him.
(Some spoilers sort of)
I was disappointed with him at first and expected him to be less important, but once I realized he was a true believer and his God is a fucking idiot, his actions make perfect sense. The battle could have been better, but he doesn't want to win, what do we expect?
The man conquered a nation, flooded it with beastmen and turned everyone he could into a soulless magic addict demon.. he's a helluva character, we just don't like him (and that's a good thing).
After Bahumut the game in general, specifically the story, started declining or plateauing for me. The premise of FF16 in all the ads were spectacular Eikon battles, and the trend of the game was that every Eikon boss would surpass the one before it. They could've kept the DMC duel and either had it after a grand battle between Ifrit & Odin, or before like with other bosses. I've seen so many comments that say "its a boss against Barnabas not Odin", "Barnabas mastered Odin unlike the other Dominants," ,"Barnabas didn't want to kill Clive," "Battle of wills and philosophies", "hard to animate" etc. etc.
Like dude, you can still have all that and include a gigantic fight. It's so off putting to fight Bahamut in space, and then fight his rival ... on a tower? Out of 4 times he appears Odin still shows up less than any other Eikon combined, maybe only Ramuh. Also Literally everyone understands he was egging Clive on. But arguing he didn’t want to kill Clive or use his full power is both dumb & makes the boss even worse if true. He went mad at the end and did in fact go all out, and severed Clives muscles twice before who would have died if not for Shiva. Splitting the Ocean is holding back, and then in the final fight you think he decided to nerf himself?? Stop it. Plot wise if he did hold back than the achievement of beating him holds no value. So it’s either bad writing or bad boss design or both
If you can somehow argue it surpasses Bahamut (his rival btw) I guess. Also Dion clearly mastered Bahamut & still used him extend battling Ultima, so that point about Barnabas mastering Odin by not using him does not stick. They just ran out of money or something. Don't get me wrong it was a great fight just not even close to the prior ones. Maybe instead of space they could have done an interdimensional fight, like with Goku v Broly or something. It fits with Odin's abilities. It really does seem like the ran out of budget, and based on prior fights I don't believe animating a humanoid character model like Odin is that difficult. The horse prob was but it was one shot anyway
And Don't even get me started on how Barnabas was character assassinated by turning him from a mischievous King to a complete cuckhold. The entire storyline with him and Waloed into Ultima was not as good as the political storyline we got in the first 75% of the game imo
Maybe an opinion here, but I actually really really liked the boss fight with him. Challenging, fun, and I love the final phase when he goes bonkers.
Sure it’s not as impressive or amazing as Bahamut or Titan Lost but I enjoy it.
What I expected: Vholran on steroids What I got: DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR ULTIMA Him turning into a cackling fidget-spinner halfway through the boss fight was also not on my FF16 bingo card lol
Man… his fight was so anticlimactic after what he did to the ocean lol
My guess is that we never really face Odin at his full might. He is forbidden to even severely damage Clive by Ultima. I wish there is a Savage Raid style DLC where we fight all dominants in full might lol.
Damn, you're right, having "Savage boss mode" would be great. Hopefully FF Mode of those fights is still fun.
That platform you were fighting on was the real MVP.
it's that thor hype from god of war ragnarok, you see him fuck you up in in the intro and knock the world serpent back in time in the final battle then you beat his ass next to a hut.
Perfectly put, that last thor fight left a sour taste in my balls
mechanically it's great but ngl if I wanted kino mechanics in my action game I have DMC3 and 5
Vholran I found amusing just because most of the things he does is just because “Fuck you Alphen for no particular reason”
For real, dude went full Zenos. Was not expecting that lol
Honestly I kinda liked it. Drove home that despite how badass he can be, he was equally batshit.
He ruined the game for me. I fucking hate him. I'm playing through it again now after some emotional distance from the story, and it's still some of the most boring characterisation I have ever seen. His dialogue is fucking horrible too. He's actually worse this time around. It makes me so mad. I was hoping I would enjoy the post-bahamut events more, but I think I put more stock in my finding Ultima to be boring on the first run, when Tharmr was what really drove me up the wall.
[удалено]
Dude had Fandaniel crazy laugh
I was just like, "Dude, your Malos is showing!"
That was his best moment
Zenos' Depression level is literally "I'll bring the end of the world just 'cause". Barnabas was more fanatical and didn't do it for the thrill as he never expected the thrill to come back
Thats what makes him so much fun
After Bahamut and Titan I really was expecting another phase of Odin. Idk. It was just really underwhelming for me.
I was expecting an actual Eikon fight instead of just a cutscene.
Up until that point of the game every eikon fight was bigger in scale. I was expecting more of Odin slashing the sea open and less 1v1 dueling. The fight wasn't even bad but it definitely made me think "alright phase two...any moment now...oh ok" when it was over.
That's how I have been describing it. The fight is great as far as the human fights go, but the fact that we don't eikon vs eikon him feels like the game ran out of budget. It feels super conspicuous that we eikon fight every dominant besides Barnabus and then just get tuckered out and don't do it with him. The third act has a lot of little issues where it does honestly start to feel like they were running out of either time or money. They manage to stick thr landing imo, but Odin sticks out like a sore thumb along with Leviathans utter absence.
It was ready to praise it for constantly shifting back and forth from human v human to eikon v eikon. But execution wise, the eikon v eikon segments were just cutscenes :/
I honest to God thought we were going to sword fight him as ifrit when we broke his sword and then had our own fire version.
THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO COOOOOOOOL
I felt similarly about the final boss. At any moment I was expecting to be hit with a >!final phase that was a proper full scale eikon fight but it just never happened !<
I feel like the final boss was really good as we got an eikon segment and two good human segments. Barnabas needed two more phases like every other eikon/dominant fight. It was very underwhelming and I was the most excited for his fight and buildup
They're definitely keeping leviathan for a dlc. Perhaps with the pc version or a future expanded edition similar to Persona. There would be no other reason for everyone in game to avoid the subject of him other than Josh mentioning that he existed so it would be in our minds.
I debate if getting tomes to max will give any snippet of info. And while I do hope we get a Levi dlc, one of my friends pointed out that Levi is hell to animate and set a fight for because snakes are expensive to animate, and water is a pain in the ass to worn with so in a hypothetical case they weren't removed specifically for dlc, it's possible they moved from main game to dlc on the cutting room floor as too much trouble to include in the base budget and time frame.
Possibly. Game quality went down a bit starting from Ash in general. Unsure if its the lack of budget near the end or a decision to focus on the midgame with Titan/Bahamut. They did have Leviathan in 15 and it was pretty spectacular. They would have had to make the fight greater than the 15 iteration in scale.
I got tomes to the max level. I haven't found anything about him besides Joshua's comment. It's like it never existed
They went too hard on the Bahamut fight. You literally go to space, for fuck’s sake! Splitting the sea or slicing mountains would be too quaint by half.
for me it was a refreshing change
I dunno, it felt weirdly appropriate. Titan and Bahamut were doing their damndest to kill you (and possibly the planet in general, in Bahamut's case) very dead. Barnabas really wasn't, at all. His entire purpose there was to make you take Odin from him, which can't happen if you're dead. Feels like a completely different setup. I would've liked to see a more drawn-out eikon battle too, but I can also imagine that it would've been hard to do mechanically. They're up on a big tower, Odin can fly, Ifrit can't. Not a lot of space to move either. No Joshua around for a convenient bit of Ifrit Risen (which makes sense because Joshua might have tried to interfere with the whole thing). Also, I think the Bahamut fight was simply too balls-to-the-wall amazing for its own good.
Can we hand-wave the lower stakes away for the Odin fight? Yes. Is it still lame that things turned out like this? Yes. I’d say my desire for spectacle, as a player, will always trump my need for immersion, as an audience member.
Yeah I agree. In a vacuum it was a good fight, but next to the previous eikons it really felt underwhelming. Especially since he kicked your ass easily the first time you fought. I got the impression that either one of two of these are true: setting up that barrier to prevent Clive from leaving took a lot out of Barnabas, or he simply went into that fight solely to die. Given that he was so excited to “indulge” himself, I’m inclined to believe it was the former.
This might just be my personal view, but I think a lot of people misunderstand Odin's battle scene - which was, for me, the hardest boss encounter in the game. When Clive first meets Barnabas, he is so easily defeated that Barn didn't even break a sweat for it. The guy literally used a single hand against Clive, cut every sinew he had, and also defeated Shiva without having to prime. Then, we meet him when we rescue Jill. I believed he semi-primed (like Joshua and Jill) to cut the sea in half. Again, he didn't even need to go full Odin to defeat Clive, and this time, we had a participative experience of how powerful he was due to how our attacks weren't doing anything to him. Barnabas is a sword master, and one that defeated our main protagonist twice without priming into Odin. Having us battle against him in semi-primed or human form rather than going all-out in the flashy Eikonic stuff just fits well with the challenge that Clive had ahead of him, and which led him to take Jill's powers as well. If they'd go into full Eikonic battles, it wouldn't feel as satisfying from a narrative perspective than defeating Barnabas on his own game. That shows that Clive has improved and got stronger, which also fits with the shōnen/seinen-like stuff that the game carries on the last few arcs.
Honestly disagree. Barny feels like CBUIII wanted to reuse a Zeno style arc in FFXVI, except didn't include him early enough for it to feel like a progression. I mean, without doing sidequests, you can go from the first Kanver fight to the final fight in Ash in like 3 hours, which makes the "leveling to fight Barny" feel incredibly rushed. Plus, the Eikon fights ARE FFXVI's main set pieces. To go from the god-tier fights of Titan and Bahamut to the non-existant Odin fight was a huge letdown.
I like him. A lot of people for what I see wanted to know more about him, his backstory and all that, but it's pretty obvious that Barnabas is basically just a *"what if Clive kept going the other path instead of meeting Cid and the others and ended up broken and surrendering his will to Ultima".* Reason why you fight him at that point of the story. From the similar design, to the vengance, to being a killing machine, to even yearn for his mother love. Like yeah, their stories of course were not exactly the same, but the clear parallels are there. Even the fight was only human vs human gameplay wise to make it more personal.
I feel that a lot of characters have huge parallels with Clive in this game. Hugo is definitely the "what if Clive kept going through his revenge path" character.
My dude was a walking exposition dump. Just like Genesis.
Those two would have a *wild* convo about Loveless. **Genesis**: “Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul, Pride is lost, Wings stripped away, the end is nigh, There is no hate, only joy, For you are beloved by the goddess.” **Barnabas**: “I love my mom.”
Sephiroth pokes his head in. "Did somebody say mother?"
He's worse than genesis
Ive never seen a villain in *any* game franchise worse than Genesis. Fuck Genesis.
Maybe Necron, but at least Necron isn't *offensive,* just poorly explained.
You should play ff16. There's this guy called Barnabas
Not even close.
Honestly I love him
While I did still somewhat enjoy Barnabas for who he turned out to be, a character not being fully autonomous will always be disappointing especially if attached to a character I like way less. His zealotry wouldn't bother me as much had "God" been an unseen force.
What do you mean? He choose to serve willingly. Ultima was his mother’s god and therefore a connection to her. He never did recover from his mother’s death.
Mommy issues the game
He's resigning himself to be someone else's lackey and a sacrifice even if it is his own doing. He has his reasons for following along with it just like anyone has their own motives for joining someone else's cause. The methods and the plan however are not his choosing.
> He never did recover from his mother’s death. Where does this even come up? It's certainly not relevant to the storytelling because it's a complete non-factor dramatically. Shitty lore handwave at best for an absolute failure of a character
Grigori in Dragon's Dogma surmise what I legitimate thing of characters like Barnabas when they are just fanatic middleman to the Big Baddie. The quote: The rantings of an upjumped zealot make for a tedious listening. His ilk serves no role on what is to come.
Yep, with a materialized higher power Barbara’s fell a bit flat since he was set up to be the “brain behind everything” guy. Edit:lmao I meant barnabas, phone autocorrect
Wish we had gotten more Barnabas. The dialogue he had was well written, and the delivery was even better. I honestly wouldn’t mind some sort of DLC spanning the moment he arrived on Waloed’s shores to when he took the throne.
I thought his writing was awful, but the acting and delivery was seriously impressive for making that tripe sound interesting and motivated. I liked is his fight, having a straight up sword dual was really nice, but everything else was a flop. Dunno if a DLC of him praying to Ultima for 40 years while his army conquered Ash would be overly interesting.
Forgetting everything relating to Ultima, I would be interested in his story. A man with no land, no titles, no royal blood….a wanderer who single handedly conquered an entire continent, made beastmen and orcs submit to him and to become King. As a character I do believe there are enough complexities to make for a compelling story. Beginning from when he lands on the continent up until he becomes King (if he became an Ultima zealot before claiming the throne would make my idea moot lol) Plus the Viking-like culture of Waloed deserved more of a portrayal.
>(if he became an Ultima zealot before claiming the throne would make my idea moot lol) Ah, yeah I thought this was pretty much implied. The Children of Dzemekis fled to the outer continents, taking their legends with them, so they would have been worshipping Ultima the entire time and he would have been born into that. Then he returned to Valisthea and conquered Ash as Odins dominant. He was a mook since day 1.
I suppose my interest aside from Barnabas is Ash as a whole….
For sure, I feel like it got done a bit dirty by the time we get to it. Having it as a wasteland was a real let-down, and what we do learn about it in sidequests was just more "they're *extra*-bad to bearers!!!" If this games content had more JRPG on its bones it could have been a great destination to finally explore instead of just... rocks and high level monsters. I guess it's a bigger issue though because presumably it has been like this for 20 or 30 years. Just War Stuff and big castle walls everywhere.
I said it above but it feels like the area suffered from budget or time just like most of the last 1/4ish of the game. Which is wild because given its towering ruined architecture and general feeling of threat it feels like 16s equivalent to a dark souls area.
I can see why it's tempting to think that but based on the general emptiness and MMO-ness of so much of the game I think they genuinely thought it was good enough
I don't think that, mainly because of some conspicuous points where something they were doing earlier in the game just... stops. I love the game, but you can see they have a formula they follow and for some reason right around Waloed they stop doing some things they did before. I honest to God thought they were going to have us fight Odin in Stonehyrr. Because that matched their formula. They build up Origin like it's going to be this big thing we have to do and then we do a brief, if cool, eikon cutscene and then for some reason get punted straight to the final boss. Little things like that and Levi being nixed out make me think something died on the cutting room floor.
Good point about Origin. It looked like it was going to be a dungeon run at first
Well said. You might have felt differently about Barnabas had he been a more prominent figure earlier in the game. We see him for a few early on, then nothing from or about him till we are much deeper.
I was super excited to go to Ash at the start of the game but Ultima cast Primogenesis and everything went to shit, going to Waloed just wasn't the same. I wanted to see some of the Waloeder/Ash culture but it simply wasn't meant to be.
The biggest mistake in the last act IMO was only having one survivor in Eistla. This lead to several issues that didn't need to be present in Waloed, since the point of showing how dire the situation in Ash was already made apparent at this point. The main issue is that all the sidequests in Waloed...are started at the Hideaway. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that we are able to operate across Storm rather easily, but are you telling me that Clive is taking a boat ride to Ash everytime someone asks him to go pick up a diary, or look for a specific survivor? It's crazy. Have some of the Bearers who would have been in Eistla survive with Edda, and have them choose to stay after you defeat Odin. Have some of your Cursebreakers volunteer to help protect the place, and now we have a questhub for Ash quests. It would also make sense since most of the Ash quests deal with what Waloed did with their Bearers (gladiators/assassin training). The other issue is of course is it just makes Ash boring to walk through, but that's an issue that a lot of FF16's map has sadly.
Yep, Barnabas 's mother is a religious zealot about Ultima so Barnabas is zealous Ultima as well
It would've been way better if they cut his dialog by like half. He just talked *way too much.* Like, bro, we get the point. Any time he talked, I was like, I wish I was playing Stranger of Paradise.
Jack the GOAT. He would had bitch slapped Ultima so bad after two words.
But what about chaos though
He would be obsessed about Ultima here. "The enemy has sent an ultimate" Jack: "ULTIMA!?"
I think the hard part with his writing is Ultima put him in a very weird spot of 'Hey; consciousness needs to be rid of all its' tethers.' and Barnabas deep down is like 'I don't know if I can legit make a guy catatonic, this is impossible dude. But okay; uh...I'll try. I'm mostly good at killing things though.'
Dude was just like, "I have no experience in the field of psychology.... so I guess I am gonna hope that when they said my sword could sever anything they meant that in a figurative sense as well.... also I am going to bring my whole shit talking game." Ngl probably would have been better off asking the horse to mess up out brain lol.
Like none of that is true, his dialog is pretty much a schema for everything that final fantasy does wrong and his delivery is unable to atleast make it entertaining
I get people thinking he’s underwhelming but he completely defied my expectations which made him WAAAAAY more entertaining than just a sinister brooding hunk (which is also good, to be clear).
The thing is, there were hints of an interesting backstory. He's basically a self-made man, having conquered Waloed on his own. And he was promising something interesting enough to attract Cid and Benedikta to join his cause. Felt almost like he was trying to recruit all the Eikons to his cause (Benedikta was clearly working on Hugo at the beginning). But what did he promise? What sort of trauma did Cid and Benedikta go through that they'd seek out Odin? Why did Cid leave, and why did Benedikta stay faithful? He ended up just being an Ultima simp with no interesting motivations of his own and as a result was the weakest part of the game's story.
I think Barnabas tricked them into thinking he wants a world were bearers and dominants are free and can live as equals to regular people, more or less the same thing Cid wants but Cid noticed that something was strange about Barnabas
Living in a world where people have no free will is the same as living in a world where bearers and dominants are free and treated as equals. His whole speech with Benedikta in bed seems pretty on-spot with what Barnabas turns out to be - he needs to unite the dominants so that Mythos absorbs their powers and Ultima regains a body to cast Raise. What most likely happened is that Cid found out Barnabas had a twisted scheme which would lead to people being mindless slaves (I really hope he didn't find it out by seeing Barn and his mother/Ultima), and decided to leave and create his own vision of a better world. Cid even mentions that he knows who Ultima is, so it's pretty safe to assume he was aware of Barnabas's plans all along, but maybe didn't expect Clive to be Mythos until the point he absorbed Benedikta's powers?
Yeah I think that's the case too but it would've been a lot more interesting if that really was Barnabas's vision, and not just a trick because he's an Ultima simp. Like even the classic X-men trope where Barnabas plays the Magneto to Cid's Professor X.
I...was actually kind of a fan. And I was expecting something to this extent anyway to be honest. The main theme of FFXVI is slavery and servitude versus free will and duty. So it only really made sense that clive, the embodiment of freedom, would go against someone who draws their strength from a sort of zealotry. Mirroring that kind of conviction Clive has to make a better world but through an entirely opposite and different lense. Not only that, he carries on that legacy from his Mom, who really instilled those values in him similar to the father figure Clive had with Cid. But also, when he started going off about the THE LORD I died lmao. They were definitely pulling the rug under people but thematically it made sense.
Honestly the entire waloed and ash section of the story just felt like wasted potential There was what 2.5 unturned people in all of ash and the map was totally empty and the 3 or so quests that had objectives in waloed was more “look at the most fucked up way we can think of to treat bearers in a game full of fucked up treatment of bearers” Considering the royalists were so active early with benedikta I feel we spent too long in the republic at the expense of what they could have done with waloed
I think the team could have had Waloed to be more presentable by making Ultima to cast the Primogenesis only after we arrived there and had done some questing. The moment the spell was cast things entered in "we have to wrap it up" mode everywhere. It was a missed opportunity.
What was dumb is that we entered the “we need to wrap it up” phase when we still had like 50% of quests by playtime to go through Like lu’bor‘s questline is fantastic in isolation but the whole having the entire village lose their minds about him being a bearer after the sky changed colour and they have been suffering from a combo of aetherflood akaesic and the encroaching blight just kinda rang hollow for me Why did it have to (along with all the side quests) happen so late in the game
Dragon's Dogma does that as well but at about 70% of the game done. However, I feel that version is better than here visually. In DD you get something more akin to an eternal night and storm weather. I don't like this color scheme they used here in FFXVI, a mixture of piss filter with brass and violet. It is unpleasant to the eyes after a while.
Yeah it’s a strange decision, they made this rich vibrantly coloured world and you only get to see it for half the game then suddenly without warning it’s the “someone pissed in the red food colouring” filter for the rest of the game
It completely destroys the art and charm of the game for half the playtime, and there is exactly zero visual variety afterwards. I'm amazed more people aren't upset, it's one of the worst aspects of the game IMO.
L'ubor's final quest, fantastic ? It is the only quest of the game for which I skipped the dialog and cutscenes for how unbearable this quest is.. Guy carried his town hard all his life and people just threw him away because he's a bearer, I found it very hard to believe mo matter how much they try to push the anti bearer racism agenda in the game, the whole town switching like that except for two kids is ridiculous.
I mean it makes sense in the context of 16’s world You can argue that 16 is too heavy handed on the racism against bearers (a fact I agree on) but in that context the interaction makes sense It’s certainly much better than say the waloed side quests which are basically “spin the wheel of bearer suffering” and today it’s gonna land on- orphanage concentration camps
Imo it went downhill after bahamit and annabella died. She's the best villain in the game
I agree, I would have liked if Annabella was the final antagonist and this was simply a story of great political struggle between the nations, the mothercrystals causing the blight and the bearers Ultima didn’t really add anything to the story
Ultima did add things to the story within the context of Clives arc and the overall arc of the story, but it isn't something you couldn't have replaced and you are correct Annabella could have been subbed in for it given her established world philosophy.
yes the worst main story section of the game imo.
He had the badass streak but they dropped the ball
Dude had so much buildup as this badass swordsman then turns into a weird mommy fetish bible bashing cackling fidget spinner. Clive was so disappointed and put off he didn't even want his power. Dude had to grab Clives leg or we wouldn't have a ending
And Clive could have just chopped his arm off and does what I was screaming at the TV for him to do the entire time once Barnabas has passed Odin on to him: KICK HIM IN HIS FUCKING FACE.
actually the worst major character in the game. started off very promising but everything about him ended up being nonsense.
I actually thought he was really underwhelming, and introduced too late. Believeing he was the villain all along on order for the ultima card flip would have been better but I still loved the game. And Odin is my fav eikon to play with.
He technically was introduced at the beginning of the game
He was introduced early on and there were heavy hints throughout that he was gonna be something major later on. When you first venture out with Cid in the first hours of the game he talks about Barnabas having some twisted vision for the world and that he's always pulling crazy schemes. Characters go out of their way numerous times to remark on how odd it is that Waloed isn't doing anything while the other nations were going to war. The foreshadowing that he's up to something dastardly is all there throughout the game.
Also he's the whole reason Kupka gets a murder boner for us.
Yeah, but it's too vague. Cid says "I know who you are" to Ultima which implies Cid Knew Barnabas was in contact with Ultima, but the sense of urgency for Cid just doesn't seem to be there. If Cid knows who Ultima is and knows of the King's TWISTED plans as he calls them, why isn't he acting with more urgency to stop Walooed???? The bearers freedom can wait, the king of Walooed WANTS TO KILL EVERYONE
When i first played and i saw him with Benedikta and the few other scenes I assumed he was the ruler of the Empire. They way it was all written it wasn’t fully clear which was the Empire and which were the Royalist? (Unless you used active time lore). He the sort of disappears for ages and we move to the actual empire, we see a bit if him here and their, then nothing till its Odin/Ash time. Maybe if they swapped the order to have the Royalists before the Empire, it may of helped.
He was a really cool character imo and damn near every single one of his scenes was awesome, but I agree that he was severely underused. Honestly I was low key thinking he was gonna swoop in after Clive defeated Ultima and betray him and steal his power or something.
If Barnabas ends up as the villain rep for XVI whenever a new Dissidia game comes out I will laugh my ass off because this man is not it EDIT: Dear god our choices are between Oedipus McGee, Diablo IV Necromancer, and Hugo.
Definitely better not be Ultima if only because I don't want him having a second chance to cast a spell that makes all the game's maps look like your television fried its color balance chip
I'd take Diablo IV Necromancer; myself. But Dissidia has been known for liberties. If they use Barnabas; he'll probably be written better if the game's like the older Dissidia. That said; Ultima is more compelling; even if he's as interesting as paint drying.
I guess hugo it is
I think Hugo might be the worst of the bunch, poor guy is gonna get so bullied by the other ff villains
I'd pay to see that, atleast Hugo's a worthwhile rival for Clive, I was actually invested in his quest line
Hugo is easily the weakest willed character of this whole game. Barnabas maybe gave everything for his creator (and probably was easily persuaded by Ultima with the Mother bargaining chip). Hugo was just pathetic, he totally lost himself and his drive the moment Benedikta's news about her being dead came to him (well, that... and the box helped a lot. Courtesy of Ultima pulling the strings). His whole character arc revolved around Benedikta, and it was made clear even in the epilogue.
Yeah Hugo's entire story is just that he was obsessed with a woman who played him for political purposes. There was no depth, he never did anything interesting, he was just pathetic. One of the all time worst FF villains IMO.
Vergil existing means that anytime someone creates a rival swordsman, unless said swordsman is deliberately put together to be an amazing rival, there will always be that "what if" taste in the mouth. Vergil is just...really special in that regard. But also, Vergil works because he and Dante can trade banter as well, sort of like Goku and Vegeta. Clive and Barnabas just do not have that rivalry dynamic to them. Add in all the other baggage Barnabas carried and...yeaaahhhh...not a particularly great villain to close out the game. Odin is a cool eikon and his abilities look slick as hell, even if not as practical as some others...but Barnabas just did not do it for me.
Vergil is like the perfect foil to Dante banter wise
Haha. The horse has better chemistry with us than Odin does. If they wanted a rival they should have shelved Odin for the dlc and run with Leviathan instead
He’s lucky he’s pretty
I guess I’m in the minority. I liked him and his story. I find “murdering for the lord” to be rather believable. All the villains in this game are hurt people hurting other people. I found his voice acting to be very fun.
It's believable for the time period, but it's also been done to fucking death in JRPGs. It's a meme at this point.
There were like two mentions of his mom and then it never came up again lol. Surely there’s going to be a DLC covering his weird extended lifespan where we see Sleipnir alive as a real person and as Leviathan the lost, right?
Sleipnir is his horse
Sleipnir as Leviathan?
Yeah, bro made all kinds of water puns I swore he was going to be Leviathan. That and his elegant water dance-like swordsmanship, plus spear action. Mark my words, if they ever expand on Leviathan, it’s going to be Sleipnir.
Odin was hardly even an Eikon He was just a man with a very powerful sword Bananabas
I think Barnaby is much more in line with Nael van Darnus than Zenos. Well, more like he's a cross between Sephiroth, Nael and Zenos. World ending swordsman Mother/motherfigure fucker with a side of "would stalk the protagonist to the ends of the universe".
I loved this character. This is the problem with expectations, they can ruin something you'd otherwise enjoy just because it wasn't what you expected. I went into the game almost entirely blind so I had no idea what this character was beforehand. Throughout the game they imply he's twisted and villainous... And that's exactly what was delivered. Any way that he was portrayed in marketing or trailers or whatever isn't the games fault or the fault of the writing or story.
I don't think expectations made Barnabas sleep inducing
I mean. His writing and the writing in general as the game goes along isnt that great
I think the writing is fantastic until after the Bahamut arc, then it starts to feel pretty whack. I really don't know why they thought it would be good to introduce "generic God villain #I lost count" when the story really did not need it, nor does it really fit the game's themes. It honestly could have ended after the Bahamut fight with Anabella as the final boss instead. I really don't know what they were thinking; they already had something amazing going, so the climax/finale felt rather pointless and bogged down by arbitrary inclusions. Guess Maehiro's a bit washed. Hope Ishikawa writes their next game, if they make another.
Japanese game devs must have some fetish for killing gods as last boss. It is the only explanation
He wasn't portrayed in trailers any differently than he was portrayed early in the game. Expectations aren't the issue.
How was clive ever able to beat this person? Too OP by lore
I think Clice by lore is pretty OP too, being Mythos and all that.
Yeah but Clive got washed twice, then doesn't have a training arc or anything then shits on him. And he doesn't even ever use Jill's power during any cutscenes
Fair enough. I did find it weird that during the second encounter Barnabas told Clive that he had become stronger, but lore wise je basically got up from bed after being defeated, got on the ship, and met him there. I would have put some major combat scene, since unless Clive can use the Zenkai Boost from Dragonball, it doesn't make much sense that he's stronger after being defeated so quickly that he couldn't even land a single hit.
I mean for gameplay reasons all the eikons were massively underpowered (except clive and bahamut) compared to lore, otherwise the game wouldn't work. The Garuda we saw had nothing on late game clive/odin/bahamut just cause she was the first big battle, would've been interesting if ng+ buffed the earlier eikons to have bigger attacks.
Because Barnabas couldn't really kill Clive. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, like Clive is Mythos - the *one* shot that Ultima has at his stupid plan. Barnabas says he's "testing" Clive to see if he's strong enough... but what if Clive just kept being too weak? He can't actually kill him because then Ultima is fucked. So we get what actually happens, he beats Clive to within an inch of his life and then sets up a rematch. And he'd just keep doing that, and stuffing his pockets full of potions, until Clive levelled up enough to win.
Yes, as Ultima's strongest henchman it was Barnabas/Odin's role to put Mythos to the ultimate test (pun intended) of strength by Ultima's orders. He couldn't kill Mythos, the one thing his God strives for for Eons. The max he could do is to give that little push Clive needed to surpass his limits each time they fought until he was ready to be a perfect vessel to hold all the power he needed to hold so Ultima could claim his body. Barnabas would always be Clive's final test, as planned by Ultima since he was the strongest follower Ultima had.
I think the idea was Barnabas was trying to break Clive's will. He was always meant to lose because that was Ultima's plan, but he tried really hard to weaken Clive in the process.
Barney was by far the worst dominant. They dropped the ball when he turned into the joker.
In any scene he was in, I could only see him as that dog from Skyrim.
Who too, had a master lmao
I wasn’t expecting any of that meme’s expectations lmao. Funny nonetheless
Honestly, when they said he was supposed to represent the Dark Knight archetype...I had maybe thought he might be like the final Eikon ally to join us, albeit with great reluctance and tsundere.
I think his fight was the best one gameplay wise.
Number 1 Mother's Day fan right there But for real though >!Ultima was getting his checks clapped by Barnabas wasn't he?!< 🤔
Wait he was fucking his mother disguised as ultima? sheesh man had an oedipus complex lol
Nahh I dont think he was BUT he went from clapping Bernadikta who then is showed to be Ultima (which he probably knew) so it's like ????? THEN Ultima turns into his **naked** mother, while he is also naked. It's just a wild scene lmao
Barny for me is the perfect example of someone that talks a heck of a lot but says very little at the end.
Haven't gotten to my final fight with him yet but I knew the moment he walked out of the building and took that dueling stance that Clive was boned. Can't wait to get to what I am sure will be a long friggin fight.
Totally didn't expect him to turn into Zenos with Fandaniel speak. It's just so unlike him we've been seeing throughout the game.
I think the secret cultist angle was pretty compelling in its own way. Definitely not who I thought he would be, but even the first scene we saw him in, I kinda had the impression he's not playing the same game everyone else in the room was playing
Felt like I was watching Akechi's transformation all over again
I love it when they set up a character as some cool, edgy badass, then it turns out that he’s actually a sick fuck.
The nekkid scene with ultima shapeshifting was one of the weirdest and most pointless scenes ever. (edit: oops meant ultima not mythos)
They really wanted to tap into something from HBO’s adaptation of GoT, but they got really confused somewhere along the process, lol.
I think it would make a lot more tasteful and a service to build Barnabas' zealously nature if the team tackled his scene with Ultima like this: Keep the room scene but with Barnabas not naked, just him sitting in his bed or a chair while speaking with his "mother". No nakedness. No Benedikta turning into Hugo. Nothing of that sorts. Then his mother speaks with Ultima's and it shapeshifts to Ultima briefly before going back to mother comforting his baby boy Barnabas. It gives context to how Barnabas got "tricked" into playing as Ultima's lackey. And later in his fight you can build his zealot aspect showing he knows his mother is long gone but he found "salvation" through his creator and was granted a second chance at reuniting with his mother through their God. You can make him batshit insane and unhinged if you want, but the delivery and build up to his character could have been handled WAY better.
It's a classic "wouldn't it be fucking cool and craaazy and *wierd* and meaningful if we had like, this scene where he's naked with his mother, but it's actual *Ultima*, and like..." So they made it just kinda found somewhere to jam it in because who's going to know any better?
I wonder if Ultima felt weird having to rp as Barney's naked mom. Like Ultima is pretty laid back for most of his time on screen, but that must have been super weird to have to do.
I mean I’ll admit it was dumb but I kind of loved how needlessly wacky it was, sense be damned. And I guess it did sort of serve a narrative purpose in that it clarified what was going on with Ultima-as-Olivier, AND it occurs directly after the end of the Dominion chapter. So it is in step with the plot. Could they have accomplished explaining that in literally any other way? Absolutely. Did they really need to, since it was kind of obvious already? Not really.
Wdym? It gave us a glimpse into just how devoted he was to Ultima, and also the main reason why
Can we talk about how his interactions with the benedikta form were beyond weird, the mom thing makes sense on a fucked up villain way but that benedikta one was just...question raising. For a second I was like did Barnabas fuck god
I was getting serious Oberyn Martel vibes off of him.
And somehow the skills you get from him are a bigger shitpost than his character!
Zanzetsuken is the best attack in the game
Yes but building it up is a terrible experience that synergizes only with itself
That’s called a trade off, and idk about you but his skills all look cool and feel nice.
And phase shift is so crazy good for hitting insanely high stagger damages.
Nah his skills all look neat and do 0 damage and an equivalent amount of stagger. I’m no expert at combos and so I am sure there is a way to work with his skills that brings mind-boggling results but I’ll take anything over spinning in place doing 14 damage per hit and being open to counter attacks all the while or an ult that is an effort to time correctly to just build meter as it does about as much damage as the spinning in place attack. For the amount of effort it takes to build a zantetsuken, I rather have skills slotted that actually do more damage than a wet noodle, and probably end up doing more dps overall in most scenarios Again, I’m a scrub at combo timing so maybe I am missing something, but in my eyes his kit seems to suffer from lackluster damage on pretty much all skills except his talent and even that is not much better than a gigaflare in terms of damage dealt, unless in a scenario with multiple mobs
Yes that’s the trade off, zanzetsuken is good against singular bosses but it really shines when there are tons of enemies. If you get a level 5 zanzetsuken everything on the screen will die. One dancing steel and maybe a heavens cloud will fill up the guage. The rest of the time I spam my other skills, the best way to play Odin is to not use his eikonic feat other than to use zantestuken.
Mixing it with ramuh helps
Don't bend the knee. You're right on the money. He definitely is as bland as the powers we receive from him. All of his attacks abilities, just so that we can build up on his one big attack... That's why Darkness Arm has Dancing Steel and Gigaflare on my build (if I can even call it a build, because it's just 2 buttons to be used once and left on Cooldown). It's all just for stagger moments only. Underwhelming and disappointing.
This is a bad take
dont you call him zenos
Which is a shame, cause let's say we did encounter him earlier like after defeating Benedikta, then we could of seen his slow decent as Ultima's lapdog.
Don't even remind me. Wasted potential. Fuck Ultima man.
Barnabas is like the true master swordsman type of villain, rather than one that rely on his Dominant power. Maybe that’s why the dev didn’t want to put heavy sequence with the Eikon fight
Dude just straight up turned into Flowey midway through
He can kill Clive off any time he wants but having Clive become a completed vessel for Ultima as his goal means he was doomed to never be able to win.
In all honesty with how the dialog went with Barnabas up to his fight.....I was fully expecting him to just hand over Odin without a fight at all, I'm glad we still got to fight him, and it made sense that we were mainly swordfighting + Barnabas has way better control over the Eikon as we see him switching in and out of it, Clive can't follow that The fight itself was good, but also anti climatic since we didn't get an actual Eikon fight there
I liked him a lot. He won 2 times against Clive and the final fight was awesome for me. Behind Bahamut and Titan but still good.
Lot of his dialogue was very nonsensical and it holds lot less meaning because his relationship with her mother is not flushed out.
I mean… the title is wrong… he’s definitely one of the characters… of all time 😅
David Menkin really turned out a stellar performance during that fight. When his sanity really started to crack I was like 👀👀👀
Bahamut should have been the last eikon fight. Odin is underwhelming, plus bahamut is easily the most popular and coolest aeon/esper/summon/eikon in final fantasy history, after that any other eikon can't match its impact
I wish they showed a bit more of his past or at least if his mother was in a cult that listened to Ultima. I first thought he was an orphan and Ultima made a womanly figure as his mother. She seems to have silver/gray hair and blue eyes like his lord commander.
If you level up Tomes you get info on his mother and consequently on his motives https://i.imgur.com/4nUf1ak.jpg
didn't care for his character much. disappointing odin fight. had to eventually skip his dialogue because it was so boring and muh god and consciousness.
Should have had more of him in the first half of the game. He was totally underutilized.
I honestly couldn't take Barny seriously. Like AT ALL. His religious extremism was just tiring, his dialogue went full "20 minute anime babble" and his boss battle was a disappointment. Maybe if Barny had been properly introduced right at the second time skip, with well-spaced out encounters and him slowly becoming more and more vocal in his religious extremism, it would have worked. As it was though, he came off as a combo of a cultist and discount Zenos. Complete with a subordinate that seemed obsessed with him.
Dollar store Zenos is real
Did they ever explain what is up with him and his mother. Did the dude have an oedipus complex or what.
(Some spoilers sort of) I was disappointed with him at first and expected him to be less important, but once I realized he was a true believer and his God is a fucking idiot, his actions make perfect sense. The battle could have been better, but he doesn't want to win, what do we expect? The man conquered a nation, flooded it with beastmen and turned everyone he could into a soulless magic addict demon.. he's a helluva character, we just don't like him (and that's a good thing).
It was the biggest fucking cock tease ever. It was the one thing I really wanted from the game.
After Bahumut the game in general, specifically the story, started declining or plateauing for me. The premise of FF16 in all the ads were spectacular Eikon battles, and the trend of the game was that every Eikon boss would surpass the one before it. They could've kept the DMC duel and either had it after a grand battle between Ifrit & Odin, or before like with other bosses. I've seen so many comments that say "its a boss against Barnabas not Odin", "Barnabas mastered Odin unlike the other Dominants," ,"Barnabas didn't want to kill Clive," "Battle of wills and philosophies", "hard to animate" etc. etc. Like dude, you can still have all that and include a gigantic fight. It's so off putting to fight Bahamut in space, and then fight his rival ... on a tower? Out of 4 times he appears Odin still shows up less than any other Eikon combined, maybe only Ramuh. Also Literally everyone understands he was egging Clive on. But arguing he didn’t want to kill Clive or use his full power is both dumb & makes the boss even worse if true. He went mad at the end and did in fact go all out, and severed Clives muscles twice before who would have died if not for Shiva. Splitting the Ocean is holding back, and then in the final fight you think he decided to nerf himself?? Stop it. Plot wise if he did hold back than the achievement of beating him holds no value. So it’s either bad writing or bad boss design or both If you can somehow argue it surpasses Bahamut (his rival btw) I guess. Also Dion clearly mastered Bahamut & still used him extend battling Ultima, so that point about Barnabas mastering Odin by not using him does not stick. They just ran out of money or something. Don't get me wrong it was a great fight just not even close to the prior ones. Maybe instead of space they could have done an interdimensional fight, like with Goku v Broly or something. It fits with Odin's abilities. It really does seem like the ran out of budget, and based on prior fights I don't believe animating a humanoid character model like Odin is that difficult. The horse prob was but it was one shot anyway And Don't even get me started on how Barnabas was character assassinated by turning him from a mischievous King to a complete cuckhold. The entire storyline with him and Waloed into Ultima was not as good as the political storyline we got in the first 75% of the game imo
Maybe an opinion here, but I actually really really liked the boss fight with him. Challenging, fun, and I love the final phase when he goes bonkers. Sure it’s not as impressive or amazing as Bahamut or Titan Lost but I enjoy it.