Final Fantasy 16-A Culinary Pilgrimage
I can’t help but note that Clive’s outfit looks like Clive Barker designed Daedric Armor in Skyrim, but it’s also a reminder that I wish capes would make a comeback in men’s fashion. Walking up to the man holding the book by the Ale House he resembles a Faustian devil ready to barter with an poor unsuspecting inquisitive soul rather than the kind-hearted hero he is.
The man’s name is Yvan, he is one of the scores of Branded refugees living in The Hideaway. Branded, in case you haven’t played the game, are human beings capable of using magic without having to rely on magical crystals, and they also happen to be victims of endless prejudice and outright genocide by non-magic users. Final Fantasy 16 explores a reality where people who can use magic are treated as sub-human and often find themselves slaves. As I approached Yvan he looked like a Sim; he’s marked by a bright green addition sign above his head. This is the game’s way of noting that the man, and his story, are a side quest for the player who probably is more concerned with the full on Game-of-thrones-but-better-than-Game-Of-Thrones fantasy war epic they’ve been playing.
I like side quests, and I love Final Fantasy 16, so I talked to Yvan.
The story is that he loves to cook and has stumbled across an old tome full of long forgotten recipes that he would like to try. One of them involves a rare ingredient for a stew called an “Unwonted Violet.”
This, as it turns out, is a scorpion stinger.
I found this out by going to Martha’s Rest, a small village in one of the playable regions, and speaking to the town’s “flesher,” a rather unfortunate nickname for a butcher. He informed me that the the “Violet plumes” were an old name for scorpion stingers and were only used as options for meat in difficult times. This knowledge in hand, I went to kill some scorpions which was rather fun.
I really like the combat mechanics in FF16, partly because I get to fight alongside a dog that never seems to die even when I throw him magically at a fucking griffin, but also because they’re bright and emphasize physical movement which is what combat simulation should be anyway. The bright lights of the magic, the numbers and words detonated power-combos and strike precision, and the occasional burst of a random power move aren’t just fun, they’re slick as hell.
The job was done, and so I brought their stingers to Yvan who made the dish.
I was rewarded handsomely with a scene of Yvan retching and then celebrating the dish as spectacular and thanking Clive.
The Scorpions are blue by the way, residing in a swamp. I forgot to mention that, not that it’s really important. My dad’s an exterminator, ACE certified pest control technician, and so I had a LOT of exposure to arachnids and insects. Being an arthropod nerd I don’t mind telling you that made me chuckle and cringe simultaneously.
That’s it. That’s the end of the mission.
You can turn into a giant fire wolf, fight dragons and goblins, and watch giant rock titan fight goddesses of ice in Final Fantasy 16. The game lays out a complicated and nuanced political epic about warring houses, religious fanatics, a corrupt empire, refugees of magic users, genocide, and of course chocobos.
You can ride Chocobos by the way, that's a thing, and it’s incredible and I may have cried a little bit when I did that for the first time.
Grabbing scorpion tails seemed like the perfect thing to write about.
It was a small, charming story (despite the human sized scorpions that would likely devour my corpse had I lost) amidst the giant conflicts that surround the player. Much like the present in Mother 3 that shoots a firework into the sky when you open the box left on the bridge, this journey doesn’t further the plot, but it does afford the player to engage with the characters of Final Fantasy 16. I wasn’t worried about jumping into a beautiful and gorgeous 10-minute cutscene of Kupka once again destroying the Hideaway, or the emperor declaring war on yet another region.
Maybe it’s because I have a full-time job which limits the amount of time I can dedicate to each game. Going into a main mission becomes a solid time commitment because it is filled with long treks through beautifully constructed wildernesses, fights with random monsters, fights with enemy soldiers who spout racist nonsense about bearers before being slaughtered, and cut scenes that are beautiful and often tear-inducing. I don’t have the time to play Final Fantasy 16 in long stretches, and it kills me because I adore this game. It’s beautiful, visually and narratively, and I want to learn more about these characters and watch their journey.
Side quests sometimes get dismissed as filler content in games (see any person’s opinion but my own about the Koroks in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom), and sometimes they are. Good side quests, even great sidequests, provide a different goal for the player that should enrich the experience of the player rather than leave them with the perception that the game was only providing a momentary distraction or a half-hearted comic relief. Likewise they can be opportunities to open new mechanics to test the players skill, or else further refine the system that they have been employing.
“A Culinary Pilgrimage” is a wonderful example of a side-quest because it manages to accomplish both of these goals. By the end of it I was aware that, narratively, this small journey was to further demonstrate Clive's humanity and his general virtue. Even in the middle of a continental conflict involving his estranged and psychotic mother who’s committing endless genocides against bearers, he still finds the time to help one of the people in the Hideaway by helping him in his desire to make food which will enrich the lives of others. Likewise from a gameplay perspective this mission allows the player to return to regions previously explored, at a higher level and continue to play around with combat mechanics. The scorpions are not a great challenge, but they provide enough of a fight to make this short story more than just filler.
Final Fantasy 16 is rich with small moments, many of them tragic and soul crushing. It’s a game that wants to explore the valley of darkness and show how the smallest of choices can radically impact the world. Helping a cook in an ale-house find some ingredients for a stew is not the same as punching the Eikon Garuda in the face as Ifrit, but it does offer the player a chance to remember that between conflicts, life is composed of small choices that impact their world and their self in tremendous ways.
What are the choices that I will make today, and will they make the world a better place, and myself a better human being?
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
8.25.2023
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