Right after beating Echoes of the Fallen, I went straight for the follow up with The Rising Tide. At long last, the DLC featuring Leviathan the Lost is finally here, just like its predecessor it takes place before the finale of the base game and leads the party towards the hidden region of Mysidia, where its clear skies are a sight for sore eyes after having to deal with a gloomy purple filter for the later bits of the main story, specially when you first see how visually stunning the sights in this new zone are.

TRT takes its more self contained story as an advantage as it serves to do some very well received complementary worldbuilding through a story that is quite easy to follow and stays true to the themes of the base main quest and doesn't overstay its welcome. As usual, Sidequests can be very hit or miss but they are still as brief as ever.

But enough of that yapping, lets talk about what everyone was looking forward to about this particular DLC: Leviathan himself. It turns out you actually get his powers quite early into the new story, with his playstyle focusing on projectiles that pack way more of a punch than the standard ones, while giving Clive much more improved mobility when it comes to dodging.

Leviathan himself is a phenomenal fight with phenomenal music that reaches the same peaks of Hype that both Titan and Bahamut do, with the extra bonus that not only he hits hard, but he can fuck you up if you let your guard down for a moment, the hype really paid off with this one.

Oh and if you have already beat both the game and the dlc, pay the Arete Stone at the hideaway a visit. You won’t regret it

With this DLC, my time with FFXVI has officially come to an end, until I feel the need of revisiting it once again. However I am glad to have been part of this journey from the moment of its announcement to the point where I got to meet the amazing cast of characters and fall in love with the world, story and music, however flawed they might be.

By the way CBU3 you bastards you still owe Jill (my beloved) more screentime, like, give her a solo game at this point now 😤

A particular moment that stuck out to me from this DLC is when Clive and the gang experience Mysidia firsthand, seeing blue skies and lush green life once again, after being deprived of it by Ultima. Their awe was not unlike mine. This new location is indeed a sight for eyes sore of gloomy skies. In that way, the DLC has already filled a hole that XVI had for a good amount of its runtime. And I think that is a pretty good summation of The Rising Tide; it is what XVI needed to become truly whole.

You can see that theme in Tide's story as well. For the most part, you will be assisting Shula, a leader of a tribe of people who used to live in the South before the fall of Drake's Horn, in rescuing Leviathan's dominant from a cruel fate concocted by her ancestors. In many ways, her journey runs parallel to Clive's, as she has to be the one to step up to the plate, decide what is best for her people, and bear the consequences of their actions. Both Shula and Clive learn from each other, and in turn, they become closer to what their people need them to be. It is a very solid foundation that helps Tide's story arc to be one of the stronger ones in XVI overall.

Then you have Leviathan's powers, which, in gameplay, fill a new role that the other Eikons haven't truly served. With their long-range attacks and high evasion capabilities, it's basically a great zoning tool to have while you are rapidly crunching down on the enemies' stagger gauge. It plays almost like some of those lock-on-based shooters, from back when the gaming industry hadn't truly figured out aiming and shooting mechanics yet. And it's a blast to use. For me, one of the most satisfying parts of XVI's combat is killing mobs as fast as possible, and Leviathan's high stagger damage is very helpful indeed.

And of course, we have to talk about XVI's special sauce: the Eikon boss fights. Leviathan is easily my 2nd favourite Eikon fight, and fellow XVI enjoyers will probably know how high of a praise that is. It's not the most epic in terms of pure spectacle and presentation, but it's definitely the most challenging one. Died a couple times trying to pass the DPS check, and was also too eager to use all my health items in the last stage, haha. Gotta shout out the Timekeeper boss too, probably my favorite non-Eikon boss fight in XVI.

I do have some slight disappointments, the biggest one being the lack of Jill's involvement considering the Southern setting. But overall, I am very satisfied with this DLC. If CBU3 really decides to move on from XVI after this, then it is indeed a wonderful note to end on. XVI has been living rent-free on my mind for almost a full year now, and The Rising Tide has only strengthened its place, like rain seeping into the soil and nourishing life.

it's kinda appropriate that the motif for most of the music in this expansion is the unused song from the reveal trailer because it somewhat represents the potential the game had before it released. something really appealing to me was the idea that in Valisthea various civilisations had their own approach to treating the dominants, some as tools, some as sinners, some as royalty but in the final game the phoenix is in line to the ducal throne of rosaria, bahamut to the imperial throne of sanbreque, odin the king of waloed and titan wielding total executive power in dhalmekia so that idea is not really present?? dominants have so much political power in virtually every society in Valisthea where that idea is totally absent, with the only exception being the iron kingdom which the writers are completely uninterested in painting as a civilization at all, just a one note roaming barbarian horde that is like a star wars phantom menace glup shitto kind of rorschach test for racism. so i really appreciated what they do with leviathan and the motes of water here. if the game was conceived of with such an idea to explore many different societies who have deeply unique connections and histories to their dominants it would have made for a tighter and more interesting jrpg narrative that would lend itself well to what the last arc with ultima ties together rather than the slave liberation thing they try and fail at in the main game imo

incredibly funny to have an NPC point out how white clive/jill/joshua are, as if to say "look guys we added brown people to the game as DLC".

The Rising Tide brings more Final Fantasy XVI, with both the positives and negatives.

I really found myself enjoying the opening hours, and found the new areas to explore breathtaking. The new story is engaging, and the new combat abilities are fun to play around with.

Unfortunately, I found the soundtrack okay, the new primal fight underwhelming, and the new "arcade" mode a rehash of existing systems. Sidequests return in their all their FF14 glory, that is more mundane MMO fetch quests.

Overall it's more FFXVI, a game I enjoyed. The price ¥2420, (about $15USD) fits for the amount of content, but I felt like there was lots of content I didn't ask for. I wish they had taken some feedback on board and played more to the games strengths.

great music great setup overall but so much for it being the "Jill DLC" when she literally does nothing in this whole damn DLC it was marketed so wrong. made up a premise to setup the leviathan fight all just to butcher jills spotlight
honestly disappointed with how this came out seeing as this most likely the last thing that's going to get added to XVI which is a very very special game to me. and even the leviathan fight wasn't all that and annoying in some parts
i loved this but it just doesn't match the usual quality and i really really fucking love the base game to death it means the world to me but this just sends me off with a sour taste in my mouth and a hint of sadness over wasted potential. THIS COULD'VE BEEN JILLS TIME TO SHINE

Me costó mucho pillarle el punto al primer DLC, que bien podría haber salido gratis, pero menos entiendo The Rising Tide.

El escenario es increíble, la música es top, pero más allá de eso... es decepcionante. Había un halo de misticismo sobre Leviatán en la historia principal que viendo cómo ha acabado hubiese preferido omitir esa invocación y ya.

Tampoco entiendo cuál es el papel de Jill en todo esto, cuando pudiendo haberla aprovechado se queda una vez más como un florero.

Pienso que después de los DLC de Final Fantasy XV o Intermission esto daba para muchísimo más y al final nos hemos quedado un poco... a medias.

A solid addition to a pretty great game, though it suffers from many of the same issues that frustrated me in the base game, and it's kinda short, honestly. There's some actual new gameplay here, and there's some cool bosses, but the overall story is just okay, and the side content is not very interesting. There isn't much weight to the story, or at least not for the characters we know for the main story. Better than the first DLC, but still would've liked more from this DLC as the seemingly final chapter of this story and also at a $20 price tag.

This DLC is cool and all but it really feels like what it is: something that should have been in the main game but wasn't. There's even a scene at the end where Clive and Joshua debate over why this wasn't part of the plot and had to be saved for optional side content. The story isn't even anything particularly great, they even point out how one of the central plot points is basically something that already happened in the last DLC. Besides I kind of checked out of Final Fantasy 16's story after Twinside anyways and this was just a reminder of why.

That being said, I still had fun with this and that final Leviathan fight was glorious. Might try my hand at trying to complete a full run of that fancy new gauntlet mode in the future, but for now, I think I'm kind of checked out for this game. This would have been fine if it were just somewhere in the middle of the main campaign, but as this final swan song for Final Fantasy 16, it's kind of a disappointment.

Before I start this review, I want to say that I'm going to use this to not only review The Rising Tide but also Echoes of the Fallen as I wasn't active on this site when the latter released and I feel like I have a lot of the same things to say. I also never review Final Fantasy XVI on here so I have to outline some of my thoughts there. So this will be a long one... Sorry...

Final Fantasy XVI was my GOTY for 2023, and while I found that there were several flaws, it hit on a lot of the elements that I personally love in games, and delivered a story that made me care a lot about the world and cast. The only major thing that I felt let down by after finishing my first playthrough was a feeling that I wanted a few more unique encounters. Both DLCs set out to address just that issue providing 2 full "stages", a new world area, several new bosses, a new Eikon fight and a new suite of abilities to play with. However, several other issues the main game had are not resolved, and the implementation of the DLC leaves something to be desired.

First I want to cover the new encounters, which are all absolutely incredible. Final Fantasy XVI truly thrives on the battlefield, fights are well paced and exciting, Clive's abilities make him incredibly satisfying to control, and both DLCs do a great job of expanding on this. Both stages contain several new enemies, but they truly shine in their boss fights. While the stages all use the same formula (pulled straight from FFXIV) of trash enemies, mini-boss, trash, mini-boss, trash, stage boss, it is fortunately a good formula which is enhanced by the variety and quality of encounters. Omega stands at the end of Echoes of the Fallen, and proves to be one of the most harrowing fights with a wildly unique moveset, and an intense DPS check. The Timekeeper is at the end of The Rising Tide's normal stage and proves to be the most interesting humanoid boss in the game, utilizing a some abilities of a specific Eikon against you. Afterwards you face off against Leviathan in the most difficult Eikon fight in the game. It has strict movement, and a tight DPS check on Final Fantasy mode. All of these encounters seem to be directly focused on addressing concerns of the base game being too easy even on Final Fantasy mode, and they thoroughly succeeded. The new abilities added to Clive, along with some balancing made to his kit have made combat even more engaging and varied. Making Clive a ranged powerhouse is now a viable way to play, and he has several new methods of crowd control. It takes some time getting used to Leviathan's playstyle, but once you do it feels incredibly satisfying. In regards to combat there is one more thing which is the rogue-lite mode "Kairos Gate". While this was a fun challenge to work through, my only real disappointment was the lack of any unique boss in there as all were reused, though they were much more interesting and difficult than their normal incarnations, and the reward for finishing these challenges is nice, though you have nothing to use it on unless you want to chase high-scores.

I've been praising this set of DLCs quite a bit but I do need to bring some more heavy criticism in. Both The Rising Tide and Echoes of the Fallen repeat the base game's issue of having unengaging questing structure. Most of these quests boil down to walking and talking, while this can be a great opportunity to unearth lore, develop characters, and immerse you into the world, it unfortunately tends to drag the pace down to a crawl. This game is fully voice acted, which means that I am just staring at very stiff models with terrible lip syncing as they talk about something that could be interesting but is taking too long to explain. I hoped that in the DLC they would find a way to break up the monotony through either some better exploration, or shortening these interactions. Unfortunately, it is largely the same outside of a universal change they made to being able to immediately return to a quest giver after finishing their objectives. While this is nice, they could have learned more from the criticism to create a more engaging set of expansions, the way it currently is makes them feel like more of the same.

A much smaller problem I wish the DLC fit more naturally into the main narrative. I get the issue the devs were having though, they wanted to make new content that felt like endgame content, but also were wanting to have it be with the main game’s characters before the ending. Echoes of the Fallen mostly works before the very end since it is shorter and feels like good background context before the final fight, but The Rising Tide would do good to be somewhere between Bahamut and Odin’s encounters as that is where the base game could use a stage and Eikon fight to spice things up.

Oh also, both DLCs continue the trend of blowing my mind at the impressive real-time graphics, and the OST absolutely was nailed by Soken and his team. Overall, I really enjoyed my return to FFXVI with this DLC. I still absolutely love the combat and characters, and spending more time with them is great. I really hope that we get to see CBU3 do another single-player FF game as I think they could absolutely make a game which is perfect in my eyes if they take the best of this game and refine it with things like what CBU1 is doing with the FFVII ReTrilogy.

This was... really not good.

A short form review for a short form experience, with a runtime of maybe four or five hours at best, Final Fantasy XVI's final DLC is a complete departure from what made the main title so good. Ultimately (heh) the issue with Rising Tide is that it's both not interesting and infuriating. The new locale Clive and the gang find themselves in is isolated much like the Echoes of the Fallen DLC. There's not much to do in the realm of exploring, and what you can poke around and interact with wasn't worth the price tag. The village and its populous are kinda just there with no real varied culture or intrigue to make me wish to interact with them further, and the setting chugs the Playstation 5 somehow to Bloodborne levels of framerate. The unfortunate thing for XVI here is that it is not Bloodborne and won't get a pass. I don't know, if I'm engaging with a civilization and its dominant unbeknownst to the greater world and largely lost to time, I'd like them to stand out just a little bit past their appearance?

The combat in Rising Tide frustrated me at similar levels as EotF did just before it, in that you're playing through a dungeon with raised difficulty levels (Which is okay!) however you're throttled by an inability to return to Outer Heaven and restock at any point. Now when you game over you can refresh potions... but this felt like a pretty annoying workaround. Bosses, namely the ultimate one, are genuine sponges taking a frustrating amount of time to defeat even if you're well equipped and geared for the task at hand. This was an issue I had with Rebirth and it rears its ugly head again here in the last bit of XVI we'll get. If I'm doing stagger damage of over two million... you'd hope to get a sense of vindication in healthbar removal moreso than you'll get in Rising Tide. Poorly tuned DPS checks, overwhelming mechanics that lack visual clarity, an enemy that is constantly flying away from you all in addition to the aforementioned sponge issue make for a resoundingly aggrivating experience.

For someone who was a massive fan of the main game in FFXVI and even had it as their Game of the Year for 2023, Rising Tide unfortunately tarnishes the legacy of an otherwise stellar title. It doesn't add much to the excellently crafted personas of Clive, Joshua, or Jill, as you get little in the way of conversation or captivating quotables, instead thrusting the player into a lukewarm time. I do not recommend Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide.

If you love FF16 like me, get this dlc, it's more of what you love. The battle against Leviathan, his powers as well as Ultima's, the music, graphics, exploring the new region, all of that is awesome. One thing I didn't expect to love was Shula. She is so hot, to me at least.

I like how a "balance" patch came with this dlc where they buffed all the shit abilities nobody used. They are certainly stronger, but no one is going to use them considering we have two new eikon abilities to play with. And boy are they strong, overpowered even. Additionally, the meta to destroying bosses is still the same: cycle through your ultimate abilities because they deal the most damage/stagger and slow time so you'll be able to recharge them in no time. Again, no real point in using the newly buffed abilities.

Included in the patch are quality of life changes such as having 5 sets of eikon abilities as well as being able to instantly teleport when you are about to complete a quest. These are certainly nice but why weren't in the game on day one? Weird oversight, I guess.

What sucks? Some of the side quests. To unlock the store, blacksmith and chocobo riding, you need to do a side quest respectively. How do you complete the side quests? Talk to NPCs. That's it. Not even a single enemy to fight. Talk about boring and unnecessary. This was so stupid I have to dock off a point.

Overall, The Rising Tide is a very epic dlc though it sucks that it isn't free. Square Enix has to scramble as much money as they can from this game and FF7 Rebirth's poor sales.

A side story set at the end of the original game, just like the previous DLC, this time introducing two new Eikons into the game with their own abilities.

I don't usually review DLC separately but I just wanted to say, the DLC is much better value if you have yet to do your Final Fantasy mode playthrough since you'll have these new powers with you from the start of the game.

As I had already finished Final Fantasy mode, this DLC was all I had left. Thankfully they seem to have thought of this and so you do get given the Leviathan powers near the start to play through it with. It was fine, I guess. I wasn't particularly hyped by the new boss, definitely the hardest in my opinion though. The story was fine too but the new characters are basically just nothing. Same old boring side quest structure returns from the main game, but there are a couple of new hunt marks to do which I don't mind.

Then there's Kairos Gate, which had a lot of potential, but didn't really live up to it in my opinion. It does give you the freedom to try different ability combinations once you've unlocked everything though.

A bit of a letdown really. It feels like they just extended 16 by a few hours with its own similar sidequests, an okay eikon battle, and just generally easy even in FF mode. I had hopes they would fix some issues and was looking forward to their endgame dungeon, whatever you want to call it. It's just 20 waves, with 15 of them feeling way too similar and the rest just repeating one phase of past bosses. Even the secret boss is just a repeat with a couple of new moves. I genuinely think this hurts my perception of the game. I didn't really think all the new Eikon abilities were great, but a couple were fun to use.

everything i feel about the base game pretty much applies here, i found the same amount of enjoyment in this as i did in the base game. it pretty much just feels like another portion of the main game added on. also, im not really one to care much about additional challenge mode stuff in games like this but i would highly recommend at least just checking out the tutorial battle to the new challenge mode added in this dlc. i may come back and play the new challenge mode just for what they added because it seems really neat

Se em Echoes Of The Fallen enfrentamos o passado de Valisthea, em The Rising Tide enfrentamos o futuro, cristalizado na imagem de uma criança a qual é símbolo máximo da dor e sofrimento que os cristais trouxeram à humanidade e que, acima de tudo, merece ser salva para viver o futuro que Clive luta para conquistar: um futuro onde cada pessoa possa viver da forma que quiser. Ao mesmo tempo que é difícil dizer adeus ao que se tornou uma das minhas obras favoritas, não poderia estar mais satisfeito com essa despedida. Obrigado por tudo.