Final Fantasy XVI New Patch Notes Revealed; Arcade Mode, Battle, Abilities, Training & Bug Fixes

Square Enix has updated Final Fantasy XVI to version 1.001000, with the patch notes currently available via the official website. Our team’s Ryuji has translated the Japanese patch notes, but we will update this article with the official English patch notes if they are provided.

UPDATE: The official English patch notes have been shared:

Our translations of the Japanese patch notes are viewable below:

Additional Content

A Costume Change function will be added to the Arete Stone in the Lair, allowing Clive and some other characters to change their appearance. You can also apply a different look to Clive’s weapon.

Note: This function will be opened as the story progresses and will be added to the Arete Stone. If the saved data has already passed the progression line, it will be added to the Arete Stone when it is loaded.

Battle

Balance adjustments will be made to parrying. The time until the ability can be used again after a successful parry will be temporarily shortened. Parameters of small enemies will be adjusted.

When a player’s attacks shift a small enemy into an aerial state, the time it takes for the enemy to regain its stance will be lengthened. This will make it easier to continue aerial combos against small enemies.

Abilities

In the “Learn More” section of the “Abilities” system, text will be added to explain the “cooldown” for the relevant ability. If an accessory is equipped that reduces said time, the text will reflect the effect of the accessory.

Training

Various adjustments have been made to the Training Options section of the Arete Stone in the Lair, such as a new setting related to Torgal and a reset button that resets Clive and enemies to the default state.

Arcade Mode

In Arcade Mode, each stage will now have a Battle Performance Acquisition Time Limit. If the time required to complete a stage exceeds a certain amount of time, the Battle Performance will be limited to that point. Furthermore, the following abilities will now reduce the amount of Battle Performance earned: Ramuh and Gouge.

System

Additions and adjustments will be made to various settings in the “System” section of the main menu, such as:

• A Trigger Effects item will be added to the Game Settings.
• The feedback and vibration that occurs when pressing [L2] and [R2] on the controller can be turned on or off.
• Target switching during the Lock-On option will be added to the Game Settings.
• You can select between four types of target-switching methods during lock-on.
• Adjustments will be made to the Track Camera During Attack option in the Camera Settings.
• When this is turned off, the camera reset process that used to occur during some attacks will be deactivated.
• A new adjustment bar to adjust the volume of sound effects from the Dualsense controller will be added to Sound Settings.
• The following adjustments will be made to the Sound Visual Representation option in the Sound Settings. Now, when the option is toggled ON, a confirmation dialog box will appear with a sample of the visual representation.
• In addition, various explanatory text expressions in the system settings will be adjusted for clarity.

Bug Fixes

Addresses the following bugs:

• In some bosses, enemy actions may not occur normally under certain conditions, and collision detection may be irregular. This has been fixed.
• In some cases, the actions of some allied characters may not occur correctly.
• Some risky mobs may not occur correctly under certain conditions, such as appearing in a place not said in the Hunt Board.
• When the Controller Control Switch is set to Type F, the Area Map is erroneously displayed when the pad button is pressed and held.
• Fixed a bug where, in several languages, some items would not appear correctly when using the Search by Name option in the Harpocrates menu.
• Fixed an issue with the progress percentage on PS5 that would not be tracked correctly if you transferred your saved data from the demo version to the full version.
• Fixed some minor text typos.

Final Fantasy XVI is a more action-heavy entry than its predecessors, with a Devil May Cry V designer even taking the helm. Throughout the title, players will control the protagonist, Clive, as he confronts various Dominants, humans who have been cursed with the power to become Eikons.

Clive is the “First Shield of Rosaria,” sworn to protect his younger brother Joshua, who’s the Dominant of Phoenix. However, following a certain tragedy, Clive swears revenge on the Dark Eikon Ifrit.

The producer, Naoki Yoshida, describes this game as akin to his experience with the first Final Fantasy, as “playing the lead in an epic motion picture.” The reasoning for this title’s action-oriented approach and more classical fantasy setting was to “appeal to as wide a range of gamers as possible.”

Check out our latest post-launch coverage and our review.

The game was confirmed to receive two paid DLCs and a PC port currently in development.

11 songs from Final Fantasy XVI are joining Theatrhythm Final Bar Line.