Final Fantasy 16 made a surprise appearance this week during The Game Awards with Square Enix announcing not just one but two new DLCs, and an even bigger surprise was that one of those DLCs released Thursday night, too. Both of them are paid DLCs, but those who don’t want to pay anything at least got something in the form of a free update that’s been released now with a full set of patch notes to look over.
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The update in question consists largely of fixes or changes for existing features like the game’s Arcade Mode, but it does at least add one new feature: the Inner Voice. Final Fantasy 16 features a web of characters and events which requires at times timelines and other resources to understand, and this new feature is meant to help with that by allowing players to hear different characters’ feelings towards allies, enemies, and other situations so that the player can evaluate how people feel about different things.
The patch notes for the Version 1.21 update can be found in full below:
Final Fantasy 16 Version 1.21 Patch Notes
Additional Features
- Adds a new Inner Voice option to the Grand Cast menu, which can be viewed upon inquiring with Vivian about the State of the Realm.
- Hover the cursor over a character and press the touchpad to view their inner feelings toward their allies and enemies. See how each character’s feelings change as the story progresses.
- Adds several new orchestrion rolls.
- These can be obtained from in-game vendors after progressing a certain way through the story.
Changes to Arcade Mode
- Adds a technical bonus feature that increases battle performance scores.
- Attacking enemies and performing a variety of battle techniques fills the technical bonus gauge, which increases your score multiplier each time it crosses a certain threshold. The gauge depletes over time or upon taking damage.
- Adds new accolades.
- These can be earned by clearing stages within a certain time limit or with a final battle performance score above a certain threshold.
- Adjusts ranking thresholds over individual legs and stages.
- The changes described above allow players to earn higher battle performance scores than they could previously. The ranking thresholds are adjusted to account for this.
- Introduces a new leaderboard.
- All scores earned after the update is installed will be recorded to this new leaderboard.
- Allows you to view leaderboards and rankings from previous versions.
- Adjusts the difficulty level of Ultimaniac stages.
- Adds and adjusts explanations of various features.
Changes to Training Mode
- Adds an Immediate Takedown option.
- With this option turned on, attacks will reduce an enemy’s will gauge by 50%, allowing you to partially stagger enemies with a single attack, then fully stagger them with a second attack.
- Adds a Megaflare Level option.
- This option allows you to fix your Megaflare level to any value.
- Adds a Zantetsuken Level option.
- This option allows you to fix your Zantetsuken level to any value.
System-related Changes
- Adds a Photo Mode shortcut option.
- This option, accessible from the Game Settings tab of the System menu, allows you to launch Photo Mode by pressing the touchpad with two fingers.
- Adds the ability to enter Photo Mode from the pause screen.
- This allows photos to be taken during cutscenes, with certain exceptions.
- Adds the option to retry from the Game Over screen when Clive is defeated by a notorious mark.
- Retrying will return Clive to the point immediately before the battle with the notorious mark began.
- Allows you to examine the details of the rewards available from the Patron’s Whisper in the hideaway.
- Adds the option to filter save data in the Load Game tab of the System menu.
- Press □ to cycle between the following filtering options: Show All Saves, Show Auto-saves, and Show Manual Saves.
- Adds a Credits option to the title menu.
- This option, which allows you to view the credits sequence, becomes available after completing the game.
- Adds and adjusts various UI elements.
Bug Fixes
Corrects the following issues:
- Several issues wherein graphical elements did not display correctly during cutscenes.
- Several issues wherein certain NPC animations were incorrect during certain quests.
- Several issues wherein certain NPCs became positioned incorrectly under specific conditions during certain quests.
- Several issues wherein progress became impossible in certain quests under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein quest objectives and destination markers did not display correctly in certain quests.
- Several issues wherein NPC dialogue was incorrect in certain quests.
- Several issues wherein the reward of ability points was incorrect in certain quests.
- An issue wherein the demontamer’s armguards were impossible to obtain.
- Several issues wherein enemies did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
- Several issues wherein collision detection did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
- Several issues wherein the camera did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
- Several issues wherein the frame rate dropped significantly during battle.
- Several issues wherein abilities or limit breaks did not trigger correctly under specific conditions during battle.
- Several issues wherein accessory effects did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein the menu did not display or update correctly in Chronolith trials.
- An issue wherein the conditions to achieve the Mark of the Jongleur accolades were incorrect in Chronolith trials.
- Several issues wherein the menu did not display or update correctly in Arcade Mode.
- An issue wherein Clive’s clothing did not display correctly under specific conditions in Training Mode.
- Several issues wherein menu navigation did not behave correctly under specific conditions in Training Mode.
- Several issues wherein the AI of companion NPCs did not behave correctly.
- Several issues wherein parkour animations did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein graphical elements and collision surfaces were set incorrectly in explorable areas and replayable stages.
- Several issues wherein location names displayed at incorrect points in explorable areas and replayable stages.
- An issue wherein certain menu screens flickered when the Graphics Settings option was set to Frame Rate.
- Several issues wherein character animations did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein Active Time Lore elements did not update at the correct timing.
- Several issues wherein menu elements did not display or update correctly in Vivian’s State of the Realm.
- Several issues wherein menu elements did not display or update correctly in Harpocrates’s Thousand Tomes.
- Several issues wherein entries in the Thousand Tomes did not update at the correct timing.
- Several issues wherein Torgal’s Animal Instinct did not function correctly under specific conditions.
- An issue wherein graphical elements did not display correctly in Photo Mode under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein areas failed to unlock on the world map under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein text and icons did not display correctly on the world map under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein the camera did not behave correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein the wireless controller vibration and adaptive triggers did not function correctly under specific conditions.
- An issue wherein progress towards the trophy Here Be Rosfields did not display correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein incorrect images and videos appeared in tutorial slides.
- Several issues wherein important notifications did not display correctly under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein audio elements did not trigger under specific conditions.
- Several issues wherein the game would freeze under specific conditions.
- Several minor text issues.
