Final Fantasy 16 (XVI) Capital Punishment Walkthrough

Capital Punishment is the 38th main story quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Capital Punishment main scenario chapter.

Starting Location: Rosalith
Requirement: Complete After the Storm
Reward: None
Quest Info: Hugo Kupka learns of Cid’s true identity, and marshals his loyal minions to march on Rosalith – the city in which Clive was born and raised. Though full aware that this is naught but another of Kupka’s traps, Clive jumps at the chance to put the hideaway’s longtime nemesis to the sword. With Jill and Gav in support, he infiltrates the former ducal capital, where battle between Kupka’s Men of the Rock and its imperial occupiers still rages, and together, they make their way to the castle, where Kupka awaits.

Objectives:

Make for Rosalith Castle
Slay the coeurl
Rescue Jill
Defeat the Men of the Rock
Make for the throne room
Defeat Hugo Kupka
Return to the hideaway

Make for Rosalith Castle

In Rosaltih, follow the path ahead through the first gate. Throughout this area will be your first time facing the Stone Scimitar enemies, who are mostly like all prior soldier enemies. You’ll be introduced to the Protect effect now though, where caster enemies will use it on others, and causes your physical attacks to bounce off. You need to use an Eikon ability on enemies who currently have Protect on them to break it and allow normal damage.

After the first group is dealt with, head up the nearby ladder to the next level.

Keep following the path until you drop down, and you will have another group of enemies to deal with. Walk underneath the fallen rocks to the next area with enemies, where there will be a few dogs. Note that the Caster enemies will also use Protect on the dogs, so it can be helpful to try and take out many of them in a group.

After they are dealt with you need to head up the stairs and squeeze through the rubble to the next area.

In the next area, you will encounter a Stone Headsman, the first of the two unique types of Stone enemies. These are somewhat like the Dragoons in that they do a number of jumping attacks and are relatively quick, so keep aware of when they disappear and jump at you. They have a couple of named attacks to watch out for, the first being Poison Mist. They will send a large cloud of poison in front of them which damages you if you are bit by it, so make sure to dodge to the side of it when they start casting.

The other frequent attack they perform is called Smokescreen, where they will cause a cloud of smoke to appear at your location that explodes after a short time. Make sure to move out of it quickly to avoid it.

Deal with the Headsma, then climb the ladder on the far wall to progress further.

There will be another group of minor enemies to deal with on the blocked street, then to progress climb the ledge on the left side of the area up the short set of stairs.

After heading up the two sets of stairs, stop before going up the ramp towards the open gate. On the left side you can find a chest that contains the accessory The Will of Lightning (Pile Drive). Then head through the gate and deal with the group of enemies in the courtyard.

Slay the coeurl

After the enemies are defeated, you’ll need to deal with a Coeurl as your first boss of the chapter. This boss is like the Imperial War Panther you fought earlier but with extra lightning-based attacks. Along with basic swipes which is will also do with its whiskers, it will do things like shoot bolts of lighting at you that you should make sure to dodge.

The named attack it will do pretty frequently is called Whipcrack, where it will hold its head back then swing both of the whiskers at you in sequence, ending with a lunge directly toward you wherever you’re standing. For the first half of the fight this is typically the only thing it will do.

Once you get it down to the halfway mark it will start casting Electrocharge, which is a purple bar charge attack like the Iron Giant used earlier in the game. This functions the same, where you need to put enough damage into it to drain the purple bar before it gets the attack off. While this is occurring there will constantly be spots on the ground where damaging lighting appears, so you need to keep moving around the Coeurl to avoid these.

During the second half of the fight, it will sometimes perform an attack where it sticks both whiskers into the ground, sending bolts of lightning between the points and in other directions. When this occurs stand in a spot away from the chaining bolts, and wait for them to go away before you resume attacking.

Near the end of the fight, it will use a move called Wild Charge. This is a typical series of attacks the bosses perform, where it will do a number of things in a row until the attack is done. Damage bolts will appear on the ground which you should avoid, while the boss jumps at you three times. After the third jump, it will shout a set of orbs at you, which have minor tracking.

Rescue Jill

After a number of scenes, you will be in the dungeon. Follow the path back out making sure to pick up all the potions as you go if you need them, then head through up the stairs toward the gate.

Defeat the Men of the Rock

You now need to defeat a large number of the soldier enemies, along with the second type of unique enemy, called a Stone Gaoler. These are largely similar to the other heavy weapon enemies like the Imperial Champion, but their named attack, Execution, is similar to Thresh that the Lich enemies perform. Keep backing away to avoid it easily while the Gaoler performs 4 heavy swings.

After the entire first set of enemies is dealt with you will need to deal with a pair of Stone Headsman, though these two are actually much weaker than the one you fought prior. Just be mindful of where the one you aren’t targeting is and watch for the named attacks and they should go down fairly quickly.

Make for the throne room

After all the enemies are dealt with, head through the two sets of doors into the throne room. Before going through the second set of doors there is an extra potion pickup up the stairs to the right if you need them.

Defeat Hugo Kupka

In the throne room, you are now fighting against Hugo, the first fight against a dominant in quite a while. Hugo has a lot of moves during the two parts of this fight, but a number are shared so keep in mind what you see during this first section. He starts out with basic melee swings and lunges. His basic punches in this first segment will only occur once or twice in a row, he doesn’t do really extended combos.

The main attack to watch for in this first section is Sledgehammer, which will always occur after Hugo blocks your attacks. He’ll charge toward you, performing a grab attack if you are hit, so be ready to dodge out of the way after the block occurs.

During this fight if you are good at Precision Dodge timing you can get counterattacks in between every one of his attacks, leaving enough time for another dodge after. If you can get this timing down you can avoid almost all of his normal attacks and get good damage in between.

After you’ve dealt a little over a quarter of his health, there will be a scene and you will have a Cinematic Evasion before progressing to the second part of the fight.

Now underground, Hugo has many more named attacks he performs, a large number based on area damage on the ground. Immediately when this phase starts he jumps into the ground, then performs Geocrush, where a circle area will appear under you. Get out from underneath it to avoid damage.

Now in the second phase, you want to pay slightly more attention to his normal attacks, as he’ll typically do three swing combos every time, instead of one or two like before. You also want to watch for if he starts blocking with both arms because this functions like normal enemies blocking. Stop attacking with your normal attacks and use magic to break his block and stun him temporarily.

The next named attack you’ll likely encounter is Landslide, where he will send a wave of rock directly in front of himself where the line appears on the ground.

He’ll also use Stripmine which is a similar ability, with the area being a cone in front of him, but the time before it occurs is much longer. The easiest way to avoid it is to move towards and beside him, where you can also get in a bit of damage because of how long the attack takes.

Tumult is another he will start using frequently, where he will jump into the air and stomp three times, sending out waves of damage along the ground. You can avoid this easily by just jumping over them. You can dodge in the air with if you aren’t sure of your timing as this holds you in the air longer.

The final new named one he’ll do for a bit is Weight of the Land, where he will move away from you and a number of damage areas will appear on the ground, which you just need to move out of to avoid.

When you have him at about one-third health after the second stagger, he’ll use an attack called Torment. This is an extended attack that you should just focus on avoiding. He’ll start by lunging toward you, then send a wave of damaging areas like Landslide which you can avoid by moving to the side. This is then followed by a series of punches, and him shooting his fists at you three times. Finally, he’ll do another set of punches, then will dodge near you. He’ll then immediately use a move called Earthen Fury, where he generates a large damage area around himself, which you need to back out of to avoid.

After this he has a couple of new named attacks he’ll likely do. The first is called Force of the Land. This is another ground damage move, but has a bit of weird timing to it. As soon as you see the attack start and the area appears on the ground you want to jump then dodge to hold yourself in the air. The attack occurs very quickly so you don’t have time to get out of the damage area.

The final new attack is called Upheaval, which is a combination of Upheaval and Weight of the Land, where a number of damaging areas will appear while he stomps three times.

After this you’ll have seen everything he can do, so complete the fight. After the fight and proceeding scenes, you’ll earn the story trophy Twilight Rose.