Awakening is the 14th main story quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Awakening main scenario chapter.
- Starting Location: The Eye of the Tempest
- Requirement: Complete Wings of Change
- Reward: None
- Quest Info: A familiar voice beckons Clive into the heart of a raging storm. Clive follows, hoping there he might find the source of his deep-seated anguish, and quell it once and for all.
Objectives:
- Follow the hooded man
- Defeat Garuda
Follow the hooded man
At the start of this quest, follow the linear path ahead after the hooded man. There’s nothing to pick up or do along the way, just proceed until the next section.
Defeat Garuda
After reaching the end of the path, there will be some scenes and you will be fighting Garuda. To initiate the fight there is a Cinematic Strike, before you land on a small platform.
In this fight it is recommended to actually not lock on, because you can only actually lock on to her head or torso, which makes attacking harder. If you don’t you can then more freely move around, allowing you to basically stand between her knees to attack. For this first bit, almost all of her attacks are just swipes or stops on either side of her or to the front. This means that when standing between her knees most of her attacks miss, not even needing to be dodged most times.
Keep attacking her legs, and just dodge when her attacks are about to hit the ground if you are worried. When you reach mid stagger you’ll be prompted about the Takedown move, where you use Deadly Embrace to extend the mid stagger. Here it is helpful to do it, then use Gouge to push a bunch of will damage quickly.
After the first stagger, she’ll start using Magic attacks similar to Benedikta’s fight. She’ll first trigger an attack named Aerial Blast, which initiates tornados on the ground while a damaging aura appears around Garuda. Don’t attempt to attack her during this, as going near her knocks you back. Just watch for the light spots on the floor where the tornados will appear and avoid them.
After the aura disappears you can continue attacking her. Resume standing between her knees, but watch for spots on the ground now as more tornados will continually appear. The kick attack will also send a wave attack toward you, which you need to avoid when it’s reaching you.
After the second stagger phase you’ll likely be at the end of the fight. Another set of Cinematic Strikes will trigger, followed by a Cinematic Clash, which end this portion of the fight when successful.
After a number of scenes, you will then be playing as Ifrit. This fight as Ifrit is a bit basic and slow, so you can’t do anything fancy. Garuda doesn’t have a huge moveset to deal with, so your main objective is just not walking into her attacks. Watch for when she is shooting ranged attacks and dodge them, then lunge towards her with 
to close the gap.
When you reach her you should keep mashing 
to do the full basic melee combo you currently have available, as this is the biggest damage dealer in this fight.
After the first bit of damage, Garuda will jump in the air and trigger a Cinematic Strike. After knocking her back down she will sometimes start casting Tornado, which you can avoid by Evading directly to the side. Continue repeating the combo for more damage.
She’ll jump in the air again and use Skyfall, triggering a Cinematic Clash action, after which she’ll be knocked down once more. She’ll now also start using Aerial Blast. When she does this you want to Evade backward a number of times to get away from her, as this causes damage in a large ring around her for a short period. While this is occurring you can hit her using Fireball for extra damage.
After this is finished you won’t see any new normal attacks from her, so continually damaging and watch out for her using Aerial Blast again. After dealing enough damage she will throw you in the air, where the rest of the fight occurs in Cinematic actions. There are three Cinematic Strikes, followed by a series of Cinematic Clashes to complete the fight.
This finishes Awakening Main Quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI).
Next Quest: The Wages of Guilt
For all other Quests refer to Final Fantasy 16 (XVI) Walkthrough.
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