Close to two months from launch, one of Final Fantasy 16’s most impactful moments on the wider series still has fans arguing – So what if Dion uses Final Fantasy’s canonically most-powerful spell, surely Donald Duck remains the stronger mage?
You can't have this debate without spoilers for both Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 16, so consider yourself warned. The argument made in jest has surfaced on Twitter and Reddit several times over the past few months, though those on Team Donald typically rally around one argument; Dion uses Zettaflare when transformed into Bahamut and high on the power of crystals, whereas Donald remains but a lil’ guy when he casts the spell.
Dion stans typically retort that, while the above may be true, Donald Duck’s use of the spell made him immediately go to sleep, whereas Dion was strong enough to carry on – even if that did lead him to get flattened by some Gundam-style hybrid of Clive and Joshua, but that’s another debate for another time. Also, Dion’s use of Zettaflare threatened to destroy the entire world, whereas the power of Donald’s isn’t as clear.
im never going to get tired of the dion vs donald duck casting zettaflare discourse pic.twitter.com/UQWg074nCYAugust 17, 2023
Without a clear winner in sight, it might well fall to someone at Square Enix to crown a winner so those locked in this debate might find peace. Until then, though, the good fight remains to be fought. Heck, maybe the real victor is Breavly Default’s Airy, who used the spell before Dion or Donald but is currently getting no respect at all.
If you need a wee bit of catching up, Final Fantasy fans believe Zettaflate to be the series’ most powerful spell. The flare spell is reserved for the game’s stronger characters, like Bahamut, with Megaflare, Gigaflare, Teraflare, and Exaflare being used by the hulking dragon. If you use binary prefixes to determine power level, though, then the Zettaflare Donald Duck casts is 1,000 times more powerful than Exaflare. Final Fantasy 16 levels the playing field by having Bahamut’s dominant Dion use the spell, but that hasn’t stopped Kingdom Hearts fans from clapping back with an ‘uh, well, actually’.
Final Fantasy 16 drew high praise from the father of the series, Hironobu Sakaguchi.
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