Final Fantasy 16 (XVI) Buried Memories Walkthrough

Buried Memories is the 22nd main story quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Buried Memories main scenario chapter.

Starting Location: Phoenix Gate Ruins
Requirement: Complete Holding On
Reward: None
Quest Info: The ruins of Phoenix Gate are still and silent, much as they were on the day after the disaster thirteen years before. Yet amidst the shattered stonework and blackened beams that Clive recognizes only too well, he catches sight of something entirely unexpected – the hooded man he has long been chasing. Desperate to uncover the truth, Clive and Jill pursue the figure into the catacombs.

Objectives:

Explore the ruins of Phoenix Gate
Follow the hooded man deeper into the ruins
Explore the Apodytery
Discover the truth

Explore the ruins of Phoenix Gate

After entering Phoenix Gate, head forward and follow the path.

Follow the hooded man deeper into the ruins

After the first scene, keep following the path into the area below.

Explore the Apodytery

After another scene, you will be inside the Apodytery, a massive underground Fallen ruin. Continue ahead to reach your first of many elevators, where you will encounter your first Fallen enemy, called a Fallen Bug. These function effectively like spiders, with jumping melee attacks you can see by their claws glowing beforehand, and a ranged laser attack you can spot by a line that will appear in the direction they are shooting it.

After they’re defeated you’ll reach the bottom of the elevator, and deal with the next two main Fallen enemies, called Fallen Hunters and Defense Nodes. Fallen Hunters are like the typical soldier enemies you’ve encountered before, attacking with just their sword, and Defense Nodes typically shoot bolts at you from a distance but otherwise don’t have much for defense.

Once all the enemies are defeated, you can progress further. Inside the Apodytery you always progress through the large lit up doors, so look for those for the way forward.

Head through the next room and deal with the next group of enemies. On the way out note the chest to the right of the door. All the ones in the Apodytery will look like this and are typically on the side of the exit doors to rooms, so are somewhat hard to miss. Open this one on the way by for 50 Gil and 5 sharp fangs.

Head through to the next room to encounter the final new Fallen-type enemy you’ll encounter here, a Fallen Guardian. These are basically scaled-up versions of the Fallen Hunter, with most attacks being related to using the pair of extendable swords from their arms. This makes their attacks typically very obvious, as they’ll extend the swords before doing any attacks, either single swings to the side with one, or large swings forward or behind when extending both swords.

They will also sometimes perform an area attack around themselves, where you want to dodge backward to get out of the first bubble, then back towards them as a second wave of spheres will appear around the edge of the first bubble.

After it’s defeated, make sure to grab the chest before going through the next door, as it contains the accessory The Favor of Wind (Gouge), which is very useful now if you’re favoring Gouge for stagger. Keep heading along the path and you’ll encounter a new monster, a Bomb. These will be familiar if you’ve played other Final Fantasy games, with similar behavior here. Their main attack is shooting fire at you, or biting if you are nearby. Once you deal enough damage, they will normally project a large area around themselves, and explode after a short period damaging that area. You can either quickly get out of the way, or deal the rest of their health to stop the explosion.

Keep following through the next area, and up the next elevator. At the top before the next door there is another chest containing 1,200 Gil. Head into the next room and you will have another set of Fallen enemies to deal with, including a Fallen Guardian. When you get the Guardian to half health another set of enemies will appear from the sides of the room, so watch out when those appear. When they are dealt with, head through the next room which will be a bunch of Fallen Bugs, followed by some more with Bombs. This room has a chest containing the accessory The Will of Wind (Rook’s Gambit), make sure to grab it before going through the next door.

In the next open area you’ll have the first boss fight of this quest, against an Iron Giant. These large automatons attack with a big sword and their shield, typically with heavy slow attacks. Both sets are relatively easy to avoid in a similar way to the Minotaur you faced prior, with the main notable attack is when it charges up the shield and will throw a ranged attack towards you.

At about half health, it will jump to the middle of the arena and start charging up an attack, with its health bar being replaced with a purple bar. Some bosses perform attacks like this, and you need to put as much damage into them as possible before the attack time finishes. When damaging the Iron Giant use your Eikon abilities, and watch out for the beams that will appear on the ground. After you successfully stop the attack it will be stunned for a short period, then you can finish taking it out.

After it is defeated, you’ll be at the top of the elevator in a new area. There are some potions around the landing you can pick up, along with a chest beside the left door that contains the accessory The Favor of Wind (Wicked Wheel). You can then head down either path to the next open area.

You’ll be introduced to another new enemy now, called a Lich. These annoying enemies start appearing more as you progress through the game, being annoying whenever they appear. They typically attack either with single swings of their scythe or by throwing area explosions at you, all while constantly warping around and away from you so you have to chase them around.

Keep chasing them around and damaging them, then after the first stagger phase, they will very likely use a named attack called Thresh. In this attack, they perform a series of swings while chasing after you. It’s easiest to avoid this by just continually dodging backward away from the swings, don’t try and attack them until the attack name goes away.

After they’re dealt with the two doors on either side of the area will open, and you will need to go through both. Through each, you will reach an open room with a couple of new sets of enemies. On one side you’ll encounter Spectres, which are basically a gooey equivalent of the Defense Node from earlier, and on the other the Wraith, which are like the goblin equivalent of these enemies and don’t do much. Defeat the enemy wave on either side and then interact with the button in the room.

After activating both side buttons a third one will appear in this room. Interact with this and cross the bridge into the next area.

Discover the truth

After some scenes, you’ll be in a new location fighting the Infernal Eikon (this guy looks familiar). This fight is largely similar to the Garuda fight from earlier, just against an enemy with a bit more mobility in a larger arena. Your strategy should be mostly the same though, try to stand between the Eikon’s feet and constantly hit them. Most of the Eikon’s attacks are obvious stomps or swipes, which you can avoid by dodging to the opposite side from where they are aiming. Sometimes it will lob a group of fireballs at you, which you can dodge by moving towards it quickly.

It has a few named attacks to watch out for from the start of the fight. Crimson Rush, it will perform immediately, where it charges toward you from across the arena, easily avoided by just moving towards one side.

Vulcan Blast is an area blast around the Eikon, which you can avoid by just dodging outside of the lit up spot on the ground.

Scorched Earth is a ranged attack, where a wave of flame will rush along the ground toward you, also avoided by dodging to the side.

After this you’ve seen all of its attacks, so start putting in damage. Make sure to use Deadly Embrace to grab it at mid-stagger, then put all abilities in it during the main stagger phase. If you’re quick you can do its entire health bar by the end of the first stagger phase.

After the Eikon is defeated, you get to have effectively a mirror match against the Infernal Shadow boss. This boss uses a moveset very similar to Clive’s own, so if you’ve been paying attention to how his base attacks work you’ll understand the majority of this fight already. The Shadow will use a similar set of basic sword swings and thrust attacks like your own, along with basic magic attacks. The named attacks it does at the start are basically just charged-up versions of the normal attacks, Molten Thrust and Fira both being easily dodged to the side.

After the first stagger it will charge up, and start doing a number of unique attacks. Instead of a normal sword swing attack it will do a series of swipes towards you, which you should avoid by dodging around it. It will get a set of new named attacks too, like Incinerate which is a wave attack in front of it, which you can avoid by getting out of the lit up area on the ground.

Hammer and Anvil is a downward attack, where it will instantly jump above you and slam into the ground in a pillar of flame. Avoid this by moving quickly in one direction.

After the next stagger it will like perform Hellfire, which is an attack similar to what Garuda did prior where a wall of energy will appear around it, and pillars of fire will shoot out of the ground. Keep dodging the fire on the ground and wait for this attack to finish. You can shoot it with magic during this animation if you are confident charging magic and dodging.

Likely once you get another set of staggers in, there will be a scene where you need to press + at the same time, unlocking Clive’s limit ability. For the rest of this fight Clive is powered up in a similar manner to the shadow, with his normal attacks being replaced by a series of powerful swings. Clive also constantly heals while limit is active, so use this to your advantage to take out the Shadow.

After its health bar is all the way down, you will have a series of Cinematic Clash sequences to finish the fight and this main chapter, earning the trophy Acceptance after the next scenes.