I think that this story solves a really big problem for Final Fantasy as a whole, just from what I've already seen so far.
Although FF6 and 7 began to tackle more, let's say "Non-Kid-Friendly" material (and this being one of the main reasons Squaresoft decided to jump off the SS Nintendo and defect to Sony), FF7 put them in a rough spot, artistically, because it sold literally all the monies.
All of a sudden, the entire world's eyes were on the Final Fantasy Series. It didn't just bring JRPGs to the mainstream; it brought video games as a whole into the mainstream. And (of course I'm just wildly speculating) to me it seems like Square panicked at that point.
You'll notice that Sorceress Edea's neckline is basically the horniest thing in a game about very attractive and realistically-proportioned teenagers. Doesn't that strike you as a little bit strange? Also, in a game where open warfare between armies of thousands of people is depicted realistically for the first time in a long running series, that is also itself a direct sequel to a game where stabbing/disembowelment with swords figures heavily into a plot where you are at one point tasked with following a trail of human blood, ...nobody bleeds. (Note: Except for Squall, right at the beginning, for one second...wowee zowie). The boss Gerogero (aka Fake President Deling) even had its color changed from red to blue (in the international versions) to prevent it appearing too gory.
SE (newly merged with Enix) seems to have decided that they didn't want to stir the bucket too much. They seem to have sanitized FF8 quite heavily, out of the fear that now that the whole world was playing Final Fantasy, they might offend the parents of their target market (teenage kids).
Furthermore, this thinking seems to have become crystallized (sorry) into FF's DNA with time. FF9 tries to be a little horny with its womanizing (supposedly) main character Zidane, but it never amounts to more than a few puerile jokes. So we end up with a series where a) nobody has sex, and b) nobody bleeds.
That seems super weird, when in fact, the youngest people who might have played Final Fantasy 1 in 1987 (I'm guessing maybe 8 year olds?) were now nearing 20 years old.
Those same people are now almost 40, and that's the youngest section of the demographic.
FF16 then, is basically SE finally breaking down and admitting that yeah, the biggest fans of FF are probably old enough to not care about a bit of violence or realistic sexual situations in their games. The trend-chasing is over, and SE are ready to cater to the erstwhile longtime fans of the series again. In addition, it turns FF's big weakness (its age as a series) into a strength; yeah, Final Fantasy is over 30 years old, and guess what? That's cool.
