Final Fantasy 16: Beginner’s Guide | 10 Early Game Tips

Although Final Fantasy 16 is the sixteenth mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series, newcomers to the series conveniently need to know virtually nothing about the franchise in order to enjoy its story. That said, while the game generally does a good job at teaching newcomers and Final Fantasy veterans alike how its systems work, there are still some things that need more emphasis or explanation.

Final Fantasy 16 is a massive game so there’s no shame in feeling a little overwhelmed when it first gets going and starts adding mechanics on top of previously existing ones. If you’re feeling like you might be a little in over your head with the game, don’t worry, we’ll help you understand a handful of basic things that will make the game far less daunting and a lot more approachable. Here are 10 tips for players making their way through the early hours of Final Fantasy 16.

---

More Final Fantasy XVI guides:

All Guides & Walkthroughs | Best Weapon Unlock Guide | All Consumable Upgrades | Chocobo Mount Unlock | All Curiosity Collectibles | All Notorious Marks |

---

Tip #1: Use Active Time Lore to Better Understand the Story

Final Fantasy 16 tells an engaging character story that’s set in an extremely deep and complicated world full of changing social politics, multiple cultures, and a truckload of characters each with their own complicated and storied histories. While the story is relatively easy to follow in the moment-to-moment cutscenes, it can be a little confusing if you feel like you’re missing context for what’s happening. Luckily, the Active Time Lore system is able to help.

Accessible from the start of the game, Active Time Lore is an option that’s available during cutscenes that helps players understand who’s who, where everyone is from, the context surrounding certain terms, and why everyone might be doing what they’re doing. To access Active Time Lore, hit the start button during a cutscene and then press the touchpad. This will pull up small cards for each of the key players in the cutscene that give some background about them. When you select each card, you’ll be given a brief, one-to-two-sentence explanation about who the person is, where the place is, or what a concept that’s crucial to the scene is.

Having to stop every few minutes to read paragraphs and paragraphs of lore dumps can be irritating in other games, but luckily, Active Time Lore only gives players a brief look into what’s going on behind everything listed. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a look at characters this way to get a bit more insight into what’s happening and why.

---

Tip #2: Master Perfect Dodging

Dodging is an important and relatively new mechanic for the Final Fantasy series. In Final Fantasy 16, the dodge button is mapped to R2 and can be used to get out of the way of an incoming attack from a hostile enemy. A perfect dodge happens when you dodge an attack the moment before it hits Clive which then opens the enemy up for a counterattack.

By pulling off perfect dodges, you will not only be able to deal plenty of extra damage to foes while they’re vulnerable, but you’ll also be able to quickly lower an enemy’s Will Guage, Staggering them and opening them up to even more damage. On top of that, pulling off a perfect dodge means that Clive won’t be hit by an enemy’s attack, keeping his HP up and requiring fewer healing items.

To practice dodging, visit the Arete Stone in Cid’s Hideaway and play in training mode.

---

Tip #3: Understand How Healing Works

While healing might seem like a completely straightforward mechanic, in Final Fantasy 16, it requires a little bit of explanation. When you get hit by an enemy, you’ll lose health–simple, right?–but you’ll only be able to regain a portion of that health back when healing with magical methods.

After taking a hit, look at your health bar and you’ll see that it’s been lowered, but a portion of the bar will remain higher than where the main part of the bar has been lowered to. Represented by a lighter green color, that bar represents the maximum amount of health that can be recovered when using magic. If you want to heal yourself past that amount, you’ll need to use a potion.

For a full breakdown of how Final Fantasy 16‘s healing mechanic works, check out our guide on it right here.

---

Tip #4: Remember to Use Tonics and Other Consumable Items

Keeping an eye on your health bar is important in an action-packed game like Final Fantasy 16, but there are other resources to rely on if you’re struggling with certain fights in the game. If you make sure to use consumable items other than potions, you might just be able to turn the tide of any fight.

There’s a wide range of consumable items that players have access to, so make sure to read their item descriptions as you pick them up. To use consumable items, you can either select them in the menu under the “Items” tab or assign them to the directional pad for quick use in combat.

To learn how to get more consumable item slots in your inventory, make sure to check out our guide right here.

---

Tip #5: Make Sure to Equip Eikon Skills

As you play Final Fantasy 16, you’ll gain experience points and level up, increasing all of your stats. While that’s a solid place to start when it comes to winning fights, learning new Eikon skills can be just as useful. You can buy new combat skills, both Eikon and non, in the “Abilities” menu, however, by simply buying them, they won’t automatically be equipped.

In order to equip the Eikon skills you’ve unlocked, you’ll need to head to the “Gear & Eikons” tab in the menu. Make sure to equip your Eikon skills in the available slots as they won’t do you any good if you can’t access them in combat.

---

Tip #6: Craft Items and Buy Gear

There are a lot of games that give you plenty of excellent gear simply for playing through the main quest. While you’ll certainly get some equipment as you play Final Fantasy 16, you’ll likely start getting hit harder and feel a lot weaker when fighting enemies if you don’t upgrade your gear until new items are handed to you.

That’s where crafting comes in. When you first make it to Cid’s Hideaway, you’ll be given a tour of the place and be shown how to craft gear with the blacksmith. While it might seem like a mechanic that doesn’t actively need to be engaged in, if you don’t make new weapons and armor, you’ll likely have a tough time with some of the harder bosses and encounters that start showing up after that point.

Similarly, you’ll want to visit the Hideaway shopkeeper Charon to restock on potions, tonics, and other items. While you can find a lot of consumable items as you roam the world, it’s always best to make sure that you’ve got everything you need before stepping out into the unknown.

---

Tip #7: Rely on Torgal in Combat

After meeting up with Cid for the first time, Clive will be reunited with Torgal, a dog that’s able to cast magic and be a big help in combat. Torgal has three abilities that are all only accessible when in fights: Sic, Heal, and Ravage. At its most basic, Sic amounts to commanding Torgal to do a basic damaging attack, Heal casts an AoE healing spell that heals Clive for 5HP per second, and Ravage throws small and medium-sized enemies into the air making them vulnerable to follow-up attacks from Clive.

Torgal isn’t exactly going to be taking down hoards of enemies on his own, but his abilities are still extremely useful in combat for setting yourself up to be able to take out a large number of enemies in quick succession.

---

Tip #8: Complete the Sidequests (Even Though They Can Be a Chore)

A lot of the side quests in Final Fantasy 16 are lacking in narrative depth and substance. It can be argued that they help add to the game’s world, however, in the early game they don’t offer much other than exist as something to do to break up the main story. While they aren’t exactly thrilling, completing them usually takes very little time and can offer you a lot in terms of solid rewards.

Most side quests will give you a little bit of Gil but more importantly, they’ll usually give you a good number of materials for crafting and reinforcing which, depending on what the material is, can be tough to come by. A lot of the quests can be tedious, but the rewards are usually much better than the quests themselves. Keep an eye out for the plus signs that litter the map as you progress to start getting rewards for your service.

---

Tip #9: Don’t Be Afraid to Respec

As you play the game, you’ll be given experience points to spend on learning new combat and Eikon abilities. As Final Fantasy 16 is quick to point out during the tutorial, there is no cost for respecing your points and starting over again if you don’t like your current build. While many of the combat abilities are pretty cheap to learn and master (and I’d argue that many of them are essential for getting the flow of regular combat down,) the Eikon abilities are far more costly.

Because they cost so much, players can feel disincentivized to experiment, but the game makes it easy to experiment with a new ability by taking your points back if you don’t like it.

---

Tip #10: Use a Variety of Combat Techniques

If you’re playing on the “Story” difficulty mode, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with the big fights that Final Fantasy 16 throws your way by just mashing the attack button. If you’re playing on the other difficulty, however, you’ll need to make sure that you’re using a variety of combat techniques in order to get through the game.

Using a wide range of combat techniques will not only deal more damage, Stagger enemies quicker, and make fights easier, but you’ll also be awarded more experience points when finishing a fight, making leveling up a quicker process.

The combat in Final Fantasy 16 is pretty new for the series, but engaging with all of its elements is crucial if you want to make it out of the toughest moments in the game alive.