Final Fantasy XVI: Buh-Buh-Buh-Bounties!
I was worried that Clive would wind up saying some stupid pun at the end of every bounty kill, but fortunately he had much better writers than I gave him credit for. I also thought Torgul was going to offer a pithy, pity bark in response.
At the time of this writing I’m about 43 hours into Final Fantasy XVI(as of this essay being published I’ve finished it) and the game just keeps getting better and better and I’m not just saying that because Odin literally cleaved a scar into the ocean that remained open for several minutes. I probably would have, and should have, finished the game long ago(see previous note), but when I brought the game home and booted it up on my Playstation 5 I told myself that I was going to play all of the sidequests.
And I mean, ALL of the sidequests.
Part of this is because it’s a Final Fantasy videogame.
The other reason is because I’m burnt out on Open-World games that simply offer me too much material to ever completely consume.
Speaking of Skyrim, ever since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim dropped in 2011(mercy me if that don’t make me feel older than sin) the open world genre seems to have just increased in terms of the number of games, as well as the size of the worlds themselves. This essay was written the year of the release of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the long awaited sequel to Breath of the Wild. I hadn’t even “beaten” all of the latter game before this new game was released. To my mix of horror and glee Tears of the Kingdom contained even more regions to explore, more side quests to complete, and an extra 100 koroks to track down.
As of this writing I haven’t even beaten the main storyline.
Final Fantasy XVI has been a welcome relief because it isn’t an open world game in the traditional sense because it requires the player to follow the main storyline in order to access the full world. Several regions are locked until completing certain storylines or side-quests and this forces me to actually engage with the elements, characters, and stories I have encountered. There are whole regions of the twin continent of Valisthea that remains locked and I’m unable to access until Clive Rosfield the protagonist has reached particular milestones. This limitation is honestly refreshing and, like I said, it’s allowed me to prioritize the side-quests of this game rather than let them stack up like all the books in my house library in Skyrim that I want to read before I die.
I only have a few…dozen.
It’s in the double-digits, for sure, well, maybe triple-digits.
If nothing else, I at least want to read them.
While there are a number of side-quests in Final Fantasy XVI that are worth writing about, and I note in the interest of shameless self-promotion that the first essay on this website was about one of them, I thought it would be interesting to tackle the Bounty-Board. And not just because it’s hosted by a Moogle.
Moogle’s, fun fact, are pretty rad.
The bounty-board can be located in “The Hideaway,” a secluded base of operations for “Cid the Outlaw” who is trying to liberate Bearers. In-game, Bearers are human beings who are born with the ability to use magic without needing magical crystals. Within the Hideaway a Moogle named Nektar stands by a board where bounties for various monsters and outlaws are posted, and in between the main missions Clive can check the board and hunt everything from griffins, dragons, alien-robots, highway bandits, giant wasps, minotaurs, wolves, and a goblin who wears a Viking hat.
The initial appeal of the bounty board is, honestly, the creatures themselves. I mean it’s a Final Fantasy game for pete’s sake.
I’m here for the fantasy monsters.
One of the endless charms of the Final Fantasy universe is that, while the anime influence has largely dominated the human character designs, the various animals/monsters of its world are still beautiful as much as they are at times absurd. One of the best examples I have is the Hell House from Final Fantasy VII, and then again in Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s literally a monster that disguises itself as a house and then eats the poor souls who enter them looking for shelter. A little metal head and arms emerge from the body of the creature and while escorting Aerith home in the original game (who’s actually called Aeris but that’s a controversial topic) I’m likely to encounter several of the monsters while navigating the slums of Midgaur. Earlier episodes of the franchise would involve creatures typical to the genre: goblins, wolves, witches, possessed armor, and god-like entities threatening existence. While not always visually distinct, the Final Fantasy series helped build the RPG experience by using these monsters in such a way as to make them great narrative elements, as well as fun obstacles to overcome. This is all a long way of saying, when I play a Final Fantasy game I want, and expect, fantastical creatures alongside the human narratives.
Final Fantasy XVI delivers this beautifully.
The first bounty on the board was one that I didn’t even realize was available until I literally walked right up to it.
Arhiman surprised me, not just because it looked like a demented Mike Wizosci from Monsters Inc. with wings, but because the set-up for it was unlike any other monster encounter in the game. While I was walking around the marshes near the city of Martha’s Rest I spotted the creature, and since it was in my path anyway I headed towards it. The perspective immediately shifted to a wide shot of the field, and my various HP MP gages disappeared as the monster turned to face me. The background music faded and was replaced by a dramatic battle tune that oozed the pure energy of Final Fantasy to its core. The creature laughed, fluttered through the air in a circle, and the fight began.
I do need to specify one detail before going further however.
It’s important to note that my playthrough of Final Fantasy XVI was done in “story mode,” which is effectively the “easy mode” of the game. I mention this because this fight was not terribly difficult for me. At the beginning of Final Fantasy XVI the player can decide whether to play on “Story” or “Normal” mode and the game explains that the first one is designed for players who are more concerned with the narrative of the game rather than its gameplay mechanics. I have to be honest and admit, I wasn’t playing Final Fantasy XVI for the mechanics, so I chose the “Story” mode. I’m admitting this because I recognize some readers may be the sort of people who play videogames because they enjoy the mechanical components over narrative, and I want to make sure they understand I’m approaching these bounty fights largely from a narrative and rhetorical perspective.
Ahriman is probably going to be the first bounty a player will encounter in the game. I can’t say definitively that it’s designed to be the first bounty, but its location on the map, not to mention the low challenge it offers presents the creature as a kind of tutorial or preparation for later bounties which will range in difficulty and not to mention cinematic energy.
For example, my favorite bounty was Svarog the red dragon.
It’s important to note that Svarog was rated “S” on the bounty board and I learned the hard way that rating systems matter in each of these side-missions. Bounties are scaled according to the level of challenge they will offer the player and the system goes from the lowest level being “C” and the most difficult fights being rated “S.” “C” and “B” challenges, honestly speaking, were not terribly difficult for me, but again I as I noted before I was playing on “Story Mode” so that may have impacted that variable. I stumbled across one bounty mid-way through the game, specifically the human fighter named “The Nine of Knives.” He was standing at a crossroads surrounded by the bodies of various traders and civilians he had killed. I assumed that because he was a human he would be easy. The dramatic opening for the fight commenced and a letter “A” appeared under his title. It became clear, after just a few swings that this was not going easy at all, in fact it was going to be a challenge and I wound up using half of my healing potions.
My reader can imagine then that when I saw a dragon on the bounty board, and that dragon was marked with the letter “S” I became a tad concerned.
Actually I believe my knees began making some sort of xylophone cartoon melody because they were shaking so bad.
But, I reminded myself that I came to play videogames and chew bubblegum, and I was all out of bubblegum.
In fact I’d never had any bubblegum.
Bubblegum was never an option.
Svarog, also referred to as “Ruin Reawakened” is located in South of Mornebrume in Sanbreque and, simply put, is a fight. The dragon can spend a majority of the fight in the air which creates challenges in and of itself. Svarog can also send out massive orbs of energy which can collide with Clive and distract him from a powerful energy beam that can virtually end the fight in just two moves. Even in “Story Mode” this fight is a challenge because of the sheer power that Svarog brings to the fight, his sheer size can leave even the large open circle of his domain feel cramped, and his seemingly unending HP bar becomes a challenge of conviction. All of this aside, I flipping loved this fight.
Fighting Svarog, though nowhere near as fun as fighting Kupka, Bahamut, or Odin was a blast because it was everything I expected out of a Final Fantasy videogame.
From the very beginning of the series, the aesthetic of exploring a world filled with monsters and fantastic creatures helped establish the Japanese Role Playing Game(JRPG) as a genre unto itself. And while it took a while for that genre to become commercially established in Western markets, players overtime warmed up to the sheer visual oddity and beauty these games could offer. See again fighting Arhiman who was basically a giant eyeball with wings. Often while playing Final Fantasy XVI I would stop and observe these wild animals that were simply existing in their world, oblivious to me or my fascination with them.
The sheer visual spectacle that went into the world and its creatures was enjoyable in and of itself, but after considering the bounties from a rhetorical perspective I found they were a wonderful addition to the main narrative, rather than a distraction.
Final Fantasy XVI is a story about power structures, specifically how a race of human beings called bearers are subjected in society. As I noted earlier, bearers are human beings who can perform magic without having to use magic crystals, and because of this power they’ve been turned by society into slaves and commodities. Through in-game cut-scenes, side quests, or even just passing by random npcs and overhearing conversation Clive is able to observe how bearers like himself are frequently the victims of xenophobia and outright instances of sadism. One side-quest even has Clive discovering a nobleman’s son has been torturing them and feeding bearers to wild dogs for his own amusement.
Clive’s actions through the main game are about defeating the otherworldly entity Ultima, and fighting the Eikons of the powerful kingdoms that wage war for the unspoiled regions of the world. It’s an epic narrative about the complex political realities of fantasy kingdoms, exploring sadism against an oppressed population, finding his own strength after spending a lifetime of guilt for believing he had failed to protect his brother Joshua, and fighting desperately to create a safe haven for the downtrodden.
And in the middle of it all there’s a Moogle with a board with bounties for killing monsters and a few humans.
The Bounty Board can be missed by the player because it isn’t necessary to complete the storyline; I could have played the entirety of Final Fantasy XVI and never fought any of the monsters or humans on the posters. Like any well executed side-quest the Bounty Board is about providing challenges to the player outside of the main storyline, while also building the world. Creatures like Svargo and Arhiman help show players the depth of the world that Clive occupies, while also building Clive's character.
Each of these bounties comes with the implication that the people of Valisthea are suffering, and not just from the wars and plague that’s infecting the land. Each of these monsters or humans is causing unnecessary suffering and by finding and killing these monsters Clive is demonstrating again his concern to try and make his world better. While the kingdoms of Valisthea fight over the few precious spaces of land that aren’t becoming infected by the Blight, Clive is making a home for bearers, destroying the mother crystals that are causing the blight, and also killing monsters like minotaurs, goblins, and dragons that are pose a threat to the common people who the monarchy are supposed to be protecting.
This is all to say the Bounty Board, from a rhetorical perspective, is about reminding the player that Clive is a good person.
I detest the word hero, and the implications it brings. Maybe it’s because when I was younger I used that word frequently on a number of figures in popular culture, and even my own personal life, and found myself frustrated again and again when I discovered their personal failings. A “Hero” as it exists in the culture is an ideal figure, someone who borders at a point beyond fault. This is one of the reasons why I find them an overrated concept, and instead look to a person’s actions as a measurement of their character.
Clive Rosfield is not a perfect man, and sometimes while playing Final Fantasy XVI he made a remark or decision that I didn’t agree with or found frustrating. But considering his actions as a whole, what I couldn’t take away was his conviction that he wanted to help others and try to increase the quality of life for everyone and not just a select few.
So, with all this said, what’s the final summation?
As a design the Bounty Board is just one more well executed component of an incredible videogame because it manages to build the visual and rhetorical aesthetic of Final Fantasy XVI. It succeeds in providing players with entertaining and rewarding side quests, while also providing the protagonist Clive further opportunity to right the injustices and hardships that plague the land of Valisthea. It gives players the chance to explore combat mechanics, while also receiving unique items for crafting better gear. Each fight is unique for its sheer visual spectacle, and the monster designs reflect a multi-decade long commitment by the Final Fantasy franchise to create a fantasy experience that is still unparalleled to this day.
Plus, it has a Moogle, and it’s worth repeating: Moogle’s are rad dude.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
3.31.2025
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