Final Fantasy XVI’s Ben Starr Wants Clive To Return In An Animal Crossing Or Monorail Simulator Spin Off

Summary

Clive's actor Ben Starr loves that Final Fantasy 16 is now on PC, but he lacks a computer to play it on. Anyone wanna help a Dominant out?
Starr loves the idea of Clive returning in an Animal Crossing style or monorail simulator spin-off.
The role and voice of Clive came very naturally to Starr, and from a place of authenticity.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 16 has just launched for PC, but protagonist Clive Rosfield’s actor, Ben Starr, will not 🐻be amongst those watching the𓆉 closing credits on PC any time soon. Though he’s played through fully on PS5, he admits he doesn’t have a PC that could run it, “That's not to say that I wouldn't love the opportunity to play it again,” he tells me. “I don't have a good enough PC. I've never played on PC. I've been a PlayStation girly from day one.”

I joke that he could do the Henry Cavill thing of building a PC on livestream. “Does someone want to sponsor me? Does someone want to pay for a PC?” he laughs. Sitting in the Razer store for the FF16 PC launch even𓃲t, it feels like he’s in the perfect place to snag a sponsorship deal if he says it loud enough, yet no Razer employee busts down the door to make the offer. Pity.

Wind up Gentlemen battling Bahamut in Lord of Verminion in Final Fantasy 14.

Final Fantasy 14: I’ve Got 428 Minions, But The Verminions Ain’ﷺt One

I've started a missꦜion to get the remaining minions 💯I need in FFXIV, so why not start with my biggest regret... Lord of Verminion.

Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 𒈔 💟

Despite his lack of PC chops, Starr “loves” that FF16 has launched on PC as he feels that the game and Clive have already been “adopted by the Final Fantasy 14 fanbase”, which has the largest PC playerbase of any FF game. “I have so many people come up saying ‘I've only experienced Clive in the Final Fantasy 14 crossover [event] with Final Fantasy 16’. I know there are so many people who are excited to finally get their hands on it. It's great that all those Final Fantasy 14 players, and all the people who haven't experienced it beꦇfore and don't have access to a PlayStation 5 get to do that.”

Clive looking at a fire in Final Fantasy 16.

In the Final Fantasy series’ stellar history, we’ve seen a fair few protagonists make a comeback, so it’s not that far-fetched to think that Clive could return in some form, too. “I wa♛nt to see Clive in an Animal Crossing style [game], that's what I want to see,” Starr laughs. “I want to see Clive set up an island and just have to live his home life.”

He elaborates that he wants a 𓄧Dissidia x Animal Crossing mash up that features both “Final Fantasy protagonists and antagonists past”. It would work pretty well when you think about it. The antagonists could be the grumpy villagers, or maybe the brooding protagonists should be the grumpy characters… Either way, there are enough characters to fill ea🏅ch stereotype of villager. I’d buy that spin-off day one, especially because Starr agrees that FF16’s Cid should be on the island.

“I think it's very cool how much people have embraced [Clive] as a character, and I t🎶hink this is a franchise where there are so many opportunities to reinvestigate them in different ways. And wouldn't it be neat if that coul🅰d happen for Clive? But who's to say? If the fans will it, maybe it will happen. Stardew Valley, but with Clive. Why not?”

Final Fantasy 10’s Yuna got a sequel where she became a pop idol, Finalꦓ Fantasy 13’s Lightning had two direct sequels, including Lightning Returns where your time was limited, and of course, Final Fantasy 7’s Cloud never seems too far from a spin off, prequel, or cameo appearance elsewhere.ඣ When I ask Starr if he had to choose one of those fates for Clive, which would he pick, he answers swiftly with, “All of them.”

Clive as he approaches the Mothercrystal of Mysidia in Final Fantasy 16.

“He's a traveling bard in some way, but he's got to get somewhere on time. T🦩here's got to be a monorail. I don't care, but there's got to be a monorail,” Starr muses. “Do you kn♓ow what? Changing it up: It's like Monorail Simulator with Clive. It's just a time management thing with a monorail. You've got to make sure the passengers are satisfied. Clive's living that nice homebody life, but he's just trying to make it work as a monorail driver in a dying world.

“I feel like this is less of an interview and more just saying what crazy properties do I ♑want to put Clive in. I mean, Lightning got Prada. [Clive] doesn't want to do Prada, he just wants to be a lonely monorail driver. He's also tending to his island on his off days with a load of other Final Fantasy protagonists.”

As a long time fan of the Final Fantasy series himself, I can only imagine what it felt like for Starr to be welcomed into a fanbase he had grown up with. While I’🍰m sure he values all the acting roles he’s ever done in some way, I can’t help but wonder how it felt to be part of something he was invested in as a fan before he was involved.

“I think as a performer, there's a responsibility, whatever it is that you do,” he tells me. “Because Final Fantasy was one of the first major roles that I had the opportunity to be a part of, I didn't really know any better. I put pressure on myself because I wanted to be good at the job. And then there was the added pressure of it being Final Fantasy. Since then, I think there's now [a] precedent that's been set. So there's an equal amount of pressure. I've had such a wonderful experience with Clive and I was able to be given so many opportunities to showcase myself a🧜s a performer that I want to continue doing that.”

Clive, blessed with Ultima's power, after entering the Kairos Gate through the Arete Stone in Final Fantasy 16.

Starr feels he’s in a very fortunate position that so many fans tell him how excited they are about properties he’s involved in, and he doesn’t want to let people down. “I don't take myself very seriously, but I take my job very, very, very seriously. I'm always in pursuit of 🐽a level of authenticity that means that people can connect with whoever it is that I'm playing, s💫o hopefully I will achieve that.”

That pressure didn’t cloud Starr’s focus though. When it came to finding the right voice for Clive, he tells me, “It was very natural. The Clive voice found me. It’s just an extension of my own voice,” adding that he slip⛄s into the voice “all the time”. Starr originally auditioned for Tiamat and was invited to read for Clive while in that audition, so he tells me he had about 30 seconds to figure out the voice.

“It was just me rea🔯ding things for the first time, and so it was all coming from a very authentic place,” Starr says. “Everything else on top of that just came naturally. The whole thing was very organic. I can't really take credit for planning things in advance.”

Final Fantasy 16 sees Clive through three stages of his life, and Starr points to this and Clive’s emotional development to how the voice developed. “Yo🐼u know, he sounds very different when he's 15 to when he's in his 30s. Even then, it's about finding those degrees of when you can slip back into it. When Clive's reunited with his mother, he sounds like he's 15 again, because that's what happens if you've ever been home for the first time in ages. You regress in that way. The way that you speak to your parents is different from the way that you speak to other people. You go off to university and you reinvent yourself, you come back home and you're always going to be treated like the kid that you are.”

Final Fantasy 16 - Tiamat holding his sword at the camera

Even for Tiamat, the role Starr knew he was auditioning for, he couldn’t prepare as much as you might think, as the actors aren’t given the character’s backstory or anything like that. “You don't know any of them,” he explains. “You have to rea✨d what's on the page, and I think that's a testament to the quality of the writing. I'm reacting to what's on the page. I can ask [about] backstory, but you get very little.”

For Clive, Starr was asked to ꩵread the lines where he’s talking about his brother dying many years beforehand and how he wants to kill the man responsible. “There's all the character that you need. I don't need to know what he's been through. He's telling us what he's been through. Because the character was so clear on the page through what he said, I didn't need to know who he was because who he was was there.”

I can tell that Starr is thankful for being able to take on the role of Clive and for the ever growing community and fandom that adores him. “I think this opportunity has provided me with a platform to be quite fearless, really, and just go in and say, ‘I'm going to giv🧜e you what I'm going to give you’, because that's what I want to do [and] try and find any sort of level of humanity in it.”

Sta♒rr is so sincere and heartfelt, and yet I can’t help but bring up Date Everything. Starr plays Dorian the door, so I ask how he found humanity in said door.

“I will say Ray Chase's writing is sick in [Date Everything]” he laughs. “It's brilliant because it's so ludicrous and that it comes from such an honest place. Ray has done a good job with Date Everything, and Robbie [Daymond] and Max [Mittelman] and Amanda [Hufford], they know what they're making. Even though it's ludicrous, it's all coming from a place of realism. You have to take the idea of dating a door. How would that door feel? How does a door experience emotions? How do you make that door as real as you possibly can? That's such a crazy thing, but what a fun thought exerc🔴ise and then what a fun thing to actually have to really realise in the booth when you're doing it.”

Ben Starr as Dorian the Door in Date Everything!

Coming back to Final Fantasy, one of the core points Starr continues to reach for is how lucky he feels to be embraced by the series at this moment in time. “Clive is a part of the pantheon of great protagonists that start all the way back in Final Fantasy 1. What a cool thing to be a part of. He doesn't have to be the best one. He doesn't have to be your favourite. But the fact that he's even considered to be someone who is worthy of being a part of these great, great characters, that's a real honour. This is a guy that belongs shoulder to shoulder with Squall, Cl🀅oud, Terra, Lightning, and Yuna. I hope that he remains that way.

“I think that the writing is good e🦂nough, the story is good enough, and the characters he surrounds himself [with] are strong enough to reinforce that he's a real human being who, although has these insane powers, has illuminated a little bit about humanity in the way that all these other characters have done in the past.”

Final Fantasy 16 is now available for PC for fans who have long awaited catching up with the latest in the series. FF16 producer Naoki Yoshida has asked that fans refrain from creating inappropriat🐲e mods, but 🉐we all know it's only a matter of time before🙈 we see something wild.