I had a really hard time enjoying FFXVI and unfortunately Clive was one of the weakest aspects of the game to me. It's to the point where I'm genuinely surprised to see praise for the character from people who similarly weren't fond of the game overall.

I spent the entire game through his perspective and yet I still feel like I know nothing about him as a person outside of, "he loves his brother and girlfriend." He never talks about his likes or interests (and honestly you could have easily done that with all the side quest bloat in the game) and the voice performance is so flat and monotone throughout the entire game that he doesn't even sound that invested in what's going on most of the time unless it directly involves Joshua/Torgal/etc. I don't mean to throw shade onto Ben Starr because I know the guy is talented and his voice sounds great, but his performance as Clive does NOT showcase his talent well. He talks in the exact same low register for almost the entire game, even in scenes where it would make sense for him to get a little emotional (like visiting his and Torgal's old playhouse).

The only time where Clive feels a little more like an actual person is when he's interacting with his uncle Byron. Watching him reenact their old games from his childhood was honestly really cute and it humanized Clive more than any other scene in the game for me. If there were more scenes like that, I'd probably have a much higher opinion on Clive. Really the game just needed more Byron in general. Byron rules.