So you’ve done it. You beat Final Fantasy XVI! You’ve taken down all the notorious marks. You’ve finished all the sidequests, chronoliths, and you’re maxed out at level 50. You’ve even gotten the strongest sword in the game, the Gotterdammerung. Everything feels fine and dandy now, doesn’t it?

You go for another round, this time starting a New Game Plus on Final Fantasy Mode. The next thing you know, that sinking feeling sets in. Your hard-earned Gotterdammerung isn’t the strongest sword in Final Fantasy XVI anymore. All that hard work and it doesn’t even match the Reinforced Bastard Sword, which you get just a few hours into Final Fantasy Mode!

This time around, the search for the strongest sword will lead you to the all-powerful Ultima Weapon. Do you need to fight a ridiculously insane super boss (preferably with the same name) to earn it? Carry over all your equipment to Final Fantasy Mode and let’s walk you through how to nab this ultimate prize!

Related – Read our Final Fantasy XVI Review

New Game, New Build, New Playstyle

Final Fantasy mode is Final Fantasy XVI‘s answer to hard mode. Enemies hit harder, their HP is way bigger, and they all start at around levels 43-45. As you progress, they will slowly scale to your level and before you know it, they are about 3-5 levels higher than you. They also have a tendency to one-shot you if you’re not careful.

The playstyle I recommended earlier needs to be improved and updated to address this challenge, and you’ll now need a synergized combination of offense and defense to actually do substantial damage. More importantly, stagger is key!

You need to stagger the enemy a lot quicker. I had to revise my skill loadout for this build (bye Megaflare+Gigaflare) to update my playstyle. If you don’t know by now, mastering an ability allows you to equip them with a different Eikon, which doesn’t shackle you to a particular build. This means it’s time to respec.

Around halfway through Act One of Final Fantasy XVI, I changed my Eikon loadout to have Shiva as my primary Eikon. Depending on your playstyle, you can either splash Phoenix, Titan, or Odin to add that extra touch of combo, defense, or damage to turn the tide.

Garuda remains unchanged as her deadly embrace ability is versatile, plus all her abilities have the amazing ability to stagger. I added Shiva’s Diamond Dust to give me the final edge to quickly stagger opponents around halfway to 75% of their stagger bar to end things quickly with Titan’s Windup and Bahamut’s Gigaflare.

As for my playstyle, I completely embraced the hack-and-slash action paradigm of Final Fantasy XVI. Shiva’s Cold Snap ability is excellent, allowing you to inflict frostbite or permafrost effectively stunning enemies and then dealing either Limit Break or combo damage with those precious seconds.

To suitably round off the offensive and defensive capabilities of this build, there are a few final touches to add. The Will-O’-The-Wykes skill adds both defensive and combo capabilities to your carefully crafted build and synergizes perfectly with Shiva’s Cold Snap ability. They soak up extra damage and add that extra stagger when necessary.

Equipment-wise, the Adamantite Gauntlets and Genji Gloves are still your go-to accessories. For your final piece, it’s really up to you. I added in the Badge of Mettle + 3 just to increase my defense as it would deter instant death when getting caught in a bad combo.

Potions-wise, I hardly changed up my Potions and High Potions loadout. I did however opt for Stoneskin Tonics versus the Lionheart Tonics. I’ve learned how to manage my Limit Break and end it effectively for efficient use. Even on a full stagger, it only uses up 1.5 Limit Break bars before your enemy recovers.

The Hunt Begins

It turns out that in Final Fantasy XVI‘s Final Fantasy mode, there’s really no new equipment but reforged versions of your previous items. What this means is you won’t get to see other swords such as Save The Queen, Apocalypse, or a Gunblade (would that be a musket blade at this point?). Too bad.

There will be a reforged version of the Gotterdammerung, but instead of having you fight a series of crazy boss fights, you just basically redo the same components of the previous Gotterdammerung but this time, in Final Fantasy Mode.

Related – Gotterdammerung Crafting Guide

The earliest you can craft the blade is actually close to the final battle because the notorious mark to get the final Flawless Darksteel will not materialize until you’ve completed the side mission “Under New Management II”. It would’ve been nice to have it when facing off against some annoying enemies in main missions prior to the final battle, but here we are.

As for the other components, you can acquire all three Orichalcums before the penultimate final battle. If you followed our build guide and playstyle, you can easily take down three of these marks: Atlas, Gorgimera, and even Svarog. Yes, it is possible to take down enemies almost 20 levels higher than you.

If you’ve taken down all the marks from the previous Final Fantasy XVI run, you will have an extra Orichalcum as it is possible to get a maximum of 6. So, you only have to fight two of the three S-class marks to acquire it. Or you can save it until the end and acquire it the safe way, but where’s the fun in that?

Ultima Weapon Unbound

To actually craft the Ultima Weapon, you need three components. The Utterance of Creation is given to you at the start of the New Game Plus, so don’t sell it even if you really need the money. Gotterdammerung Reforged will be the second component. The final component, if you’ve been gear grinding to get this far is not a difficult one to acquire.

The Everdark Reforged is the final sword crafted once you’ve gone through crafting every single elemental sword in Final Fantasy XVI. The components are unmissable as you acquire them as you progress through the story, so unless you sell the key components, they’re easily craftable.

Everdark Reforged Components:

• Stormcry Reforged (Flawless Wind Shard)
• Flametongue Reforged (Flawless Fire Shard)
• Levinbolt Reforged (Flawless Lightning Shard)
• Grindstone Reforged (Flawless Earth Shard)
• Brightburn Reforged (Flawless Light Shard)
• Icebrand Reforged (Flawless Ice Shard)
• Everdark Reforged (Flawless Dark Shard)

Once you’ve completed the penultimate dungeon and have also acquired these swords, then Everdark is within reach. You will also need Flawless Meteorites, which can be bought for 2,000 gil or you can just do side quests to get them for free.

Once you’re ready, you now have access to Final Fantasy XVI’s strongest sword of the game! At Level 95, your damage rating will be at 945. How much damage can that do? It’s really difficult to gauge as the strongest of the regular enemies are capped at level 83. The strongest enemies you can face are either the Behemoth King (Level 90), Svarog (Level 93), and obviously the final boss.

It’s quite disappointing because, unlike the previous games, Final Fantasy XVI doesn’t have a super boss or anything of the type to test your sword with. Otherwise, among other things, your build and playstyle in the end is what wins battles and not your toys. Personally, I wished there were more enemies with erratic patterns as the following the same attack pattern gets tedious.

The new game plus journey in Final Fantasy XVI was an experience because I was able to learn how to really play Final Fantasy XVI. Just like Final Fantasy VII Remake before it, the hard mode really tests you…until it doesn’t. Unfortunately, there was little new content not seen in the regular playthrough. Besides not having button prompts during QTEs, I expected more from the Final Fantasy mode.

And thus, my journey has ended. See you again in the Final Fantasy XVI DLC and hopefully, I can test this new toy on something that actually fights back.

Final Fantasy XVI is now available exclusively on the PS5.