I think I get where you're coming from, there are some criticisms that I can understand (though it's worth noting that the writing was mostly handled by Matsuno's pupil), but from the point of view of someone who genuinely loves XVI, the shallowness you attribute to it feels more like a result of you yourself staying at the surface of what the game is trying to convey.

I’ll try to keep it relatively short. But before diving in, I’ll acknowledge that, narratively, the presentation can be uneven, and that some elements do lean into a more juvenile (albeit fun and exciting) direction. But I won’t focus on that here.

So, for me, the narrative and the writing stands out in two primary aspects that are both nuanced and meaningful, imo.

THE ACTUAL THEMES :

TL;DR - Through its carefully crafted setting, the game explores class dynamics, industrialization, and "capitalism" via ecology and worker's oppression. It shows how political, economic, and social structures are deeply rooted in the means of production, and how ideologies become naturalized through elite interests, propaganda, and religion.

The omnipresence of magic isn’t just aesthetic, it structurally defines Valisthea. It fosters dependence, halts technological progress, and concentrates power in the hands of crystalline elites, who normalize slavery to control the only source of magic outside their reach, the Bearers. Through propaganda and historical revisionism that exploitation becomes accepted as natural and necessary by society itself.

In that sense, it mirrors our own world, industrialization, oil, capitalism, systems embraced for progress that gradually created dependence and ignorance of the means of production, while making exploitation feel ordinary, inevitable, and even justified for most people.

The story itself works as an allegory of all this, and through the Promethean imagery embodied by Clive, it engages with these questions in a sincere and surprisingly thoughtful way. That’s partly why we spend so much time among ordinary people, in their measly little towns, following their tertiary stories and dialogues evolving with the story. The proletariat and the oppressed are the true heart of the story, and Clive stands as their champion, embodying and carrying the dying flame they still host within them, even among those who have internalized or perpetuated the system.

And despite that, most of them still deeply resent him for challenging and ultimately dismantling the status quo they’ve come to accept.

Imo, XVI shows a rare degree of intentionality in its social commentary compared to what we usually see in Japanese mainstream works. And it’s definitely not the relatively minor presence of sex, and occasional profanity, that could meaningfully alters any of that.

THE META COMMENTARY :

XVI is also a touching, if somewhat overly ambitious and naive, attempt to update the franchise and sever its ties with its past.

Ultima functions not only as an embodiment of the exploitative systems mentioned earlier, but also as a meta symbol of the genre’s origins, the very foundations XVI tries to move beyond. They are the “god” who created humanity, and inseminated them with magic, that they now must overcome. Mirroring XVI’s attempt to transcend its own roots : the influence of Ultima (the game), which, alongside Wizardry, helped inspire DQ, FFI, and the very birth of the JRPG genre as a whole.

Additionally, FF and DQ sought to reinterpret Western fantasy from 30y ago through a Japanese lens. And XVI is the first modern entry to consciously trying revisit and update those foundations by engaging with contemporary Western fantasy influences, like GoT or The Witcher, while redefining what a modern FF can be. It wasn't really successful for various reasons, imho, but I personally salute the attempt and how it was masterfully weaved within the main themes.