J'ai passé un super moment !

Ce premier DLC m'a permis d'effectuer certaines secondaires que j'ai adoré et que je n'avais pas fait lors de mon aventure. Déjà pour ça je suis content d'avoir acheter les DLC.

Coté histoire, c'était sympa. Un plaisir de voir mes bebous Clive, Joshua et Jill ensemble !

Niveau gameplay, j'ai trouvé cela très complet, j'ai pu mettre en pratique toutes les particularités de gameplay que je n'avais pas exploité avant.. donc ce fus un plaisir !

Hâte d'aller zigouiller Leviathan

With the recent release of “The Rising Tide” at the time of writing, I figured it would be a good moment to finally tackle both DLCs back to back, and naturally I went by order of launch.

Originally I wasn't expecting much from this particular dlc as the one I was looking forward the most was its follow up, however I still appreciate what this one did for giving the mysterious Fallen a bit more of context as to what happened to them. Along with the new and very busted accessories you can equip that have way more interesting effects to apply in combat.

However the true crowning glory of this DLC is the final boss which once again goes to show that arguably the best part of FFXVI is still its phenomenal bosses.
Also as someone who criticized this game before for its difficulty, I decided to try something out I saw in Twitter in order to spice things up a bit more, which was playing without defensive gear equipped. Which means I was essentially extremely squishy and I could actually be scared of getting hit. While I could consider it a bandaid fix for how the game does difficulty, it was also probably the most fun I’ve had playing it since my first playthrough, being able to lose can also be very good sometimes!

I bought and started this DLC right when it dropped since I was so damn hungry for XVI content back then. Played it for about 2 hours, had a blast re-learning all the gameplay moves and stuff, and was generally very happy to be back with Clive and the gang, striking down fools with the power of friendship. I found out it was a pretty short DLC so I saved the last hour for whenever the next DLC drops. It's supposed to drop in the next 24 hours, so here I am.

Echoes is pretty much a meaty, sizeable dungeon run; the kind you would expect to be abundant in these sort of RPGs. And XVI certainly had a lot of them already, so Echoes doesn't necessarily break new ground on that department. In fact, it doesn't really break any ground. It pretty much keeps all the qualities of the main game: entertaining dialogue, fantastic looking environments, great soundtrack, fun minibosses, and an amazing final boss.

The plot of Echoes definitely feels like one of those filler anime episodes, except there's no drop in quality, it just feels filler because it doesn't directly relate to the main story. If you talk to Harpocrates and browse the Thousand Tomes, the game will mention that Clive's accounts of this DLC will not count towards his wisdom, and that's probably the most apt way to describe Echoes' event, haha. But we do get some more badass Clive lines, so it was certainly not for naught.

But Echoes truly excels in the enemies it introduces. Omicron is a speedy miniboss that feels particularly satisfying to perfect dodge against, and the Ancient Minotaur near the end absolutely wrecked me a couple times. The absolute peak is the final boss here; Omega in all their forms. Their attack patterns and moves are so fun to deal with, it's basically a good distillation of some of my favorite parts of XVI bosses: chaotic bullet hell and AoE attacks mixed with quick blows and lunges that you gotta dodge well. And of course Omega's soundtrack fucking owns.

Aside from that, I don't think Echoes will stick out to me whenever I think of FFXVI in the future. But as far as I'm concerned, it does its job of being this neat, little appetizer before The Rising Tide, and that's all I expected from this. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be crying to My Star on the Orchestrion.

P.S. it's insane that they let us transmog Clive's sword to the Buster Sword. I will NOT be switching back to any other sword model haha

+ More voice acting
+ New dungeon is fun
+ Great idea for a boss
+ Good visuals
+ Even better music
+ Fun worldbuilding
+ The enemy designs are SICK looking and so is the areas you fight them in

- Could use more story
- Setup is a little weak

Exactly what I expected.
It's a short but sweet expansion that adds a new cool area to explore, new music tracks, some additional weapons and tools which are pretty strong, and arguably one of the best and most challenging boss fights in the entire game.

I enjoyed the new story arc despite the slow start, it adds some important things to the overall lore. Also it's cheap so if you enjoyed the main game it's definitely worth buying.

Final Rating: "Good" ~ 7/10.

This is DLC is serviceable but I doesn't do anything interesting. All you'll find here is a meaty dungeon with a surprisingly difficult boss, even on normal mode. The dungeon was okay and there was an interesting enemy mechanic that was introduced here, but it hardly gets utilized outside of a couple of enemy encounters. There is some neat lore that foreshadows some stuff in the Rising Tide, but the new characters are frankly uninteresting and my investment in the Lore of this world has largely dwindled due to how the base game's story ended up, especially since this DLC doesn't do much with the main cast character-wise. Check out my review of the base game to see my thoughts as it relates to that and the combat.

The boss fight was pretty good though, and I appreciate being challenged on normal difficulty, since the base game is pretty easy most of the time. For that, I think this DLC is worth it, but I don't think this will change anyone's mind if you weren't already a fan of the game in the first place. We'll see how the Rising Tide turns out....

Review for FF16: coming soon

Review for Rising Tide: coming soon

Review for the DLC as a whole: coming soon

This DLC doesn’t really offer much. It’s less than 2 hours of content (in which the story isn’t very interesting) and nothing new is offered gameplay wise.

I didn’t mind playing it since I plan to jump into Rising Tide right after and it got me back into the flow, but if you returned to the game for this one alone it likely would’ve been very disappointing.

The final boss is pretty good but I can’t say that makes the DLC worth it unless it was much cheaper.

I'm left mixed on this one. It has some cool concepts and aesthetics, finally some interesting accessories, more much needed party banter, and is host to a couple of the better (maybe even best?) boss fights in the game, but everything inbetween is pretty tepid and forgettable. This DLC screams "bonus" rather than another proper paid chunk of FFXVI. The story is conceptually cool, but it feels so far removed from the rest of the game and bereft of any stakes I may as well have forgotten it immediately after playing.

A DRIFTING TENDEEEER
COME RIDE, HEROES, RIDE
HER GALLEON SEVERED
AWAY WITH THE TIIIIDE

ITS PEAAAAAK RAAAAGHR

The first half of a 2 part DLC bundle, EotF goes into some lore surrounding an ancient civilisation wanting to play god, and how their efforts would lead to their demise. We saw bits about them in the base game, but getting more detail is always welcomed.

The gameplay is essentially one large dungeon, there’s a tower that you must reach the top of, and there are hordes of enemies standing in your path. The main draw are the new boss fights, they are absolutely incredible and plenty challenging.

The final boss is actually a throwback to a super boss from FF5 so that’s pretty cool, and it’s an awesome fight here, a visual spectacle as well as a true test of reflexes and planning.

The game showers you in new equipment which is absurdly powerful, it’s great… for the like 2 hours this lasts.

This is a really short DLC, you arrive at the tower, climb it, fight the boss and that’s literally it. Yeah it’s fun to do, but it doesn’t really do anything that different from the base game, and I think could easily be confused as an overproduced side quest.

I was pretty surprised when I reached the top, and like I said the final boss was great, but after it all, I just felt like this was an obligatory inclusion to make the DLC bigger overall. I’m guessing part 2 will be much more content filled to justify the price tag, but as is, this is fun, but completely skipable - 5/10