There are dozens of attacks, skills, spells, and other abilities to unlock in Final Fantasy XVI, but you won’t have access to almost any of them off the bat. Your initial selection will be limited to main character Clive’s swordsmanship and the powers granted him by the Phoenix. You will not, however, have enough skill points to unlock everything in even this limited selection, so choosing what to get first and what to wait on matters. We’ll cover the best overall early ability unlocks in this guide.
Best Early Game Ability Unlocks in Final Fantasy XVI
By far, the most important abilities to unlock first are all of Clive’s additional basic combat skills. By default, Clive doesn’t have that many attack strings or combo potential, especially when the only Eikon you can draw power from is Phoenix.
Unlocking the bottom set of skills in his base tree open up tons of additional routes, providing options for parrying, closing distance, and adding variety to both your aerial and grounded combat.
Short of adding additional Eikonic abilities (which you’ll do naturally as part of the story), nothing you do in-game will provide as much gameplay variety as ensuring Clive’s base skills are unlocked and mastered.
As for Phoenix’s abilities, I don’t think you need to unlock the Heatwave ability, but it only costs 120 points to do so, and it gives you a strong anti-projectile option as well as additional range, both things Clive can use in the early parts of the game.
I think it’s more beneficial to upgrade both Rising Flames and Scarlet Cyclone, as any extra damage you can eke out in the early game will be incredibly useful. My screenshot does show these abilities upgraded because I prioritized Eikon abilities from later-game unlocks and because you can refund skills for free, if I ever want to put Phoenix back on the main bar, I can do it easily enough.
I also think you should feel free to experiment with your Eikons, as it won’t take long to add a second one to your selection, but a third and fourth will require many additional hours of playtime. See what combos are most effective and give you the most joy, and try to build your combat style around them. Then you can add some variety to spice things up as you unlock additional skill trees.
