After being burned with Ifrit's flames by the lack of quality in the first part of this DLC, I am emphatically pleased to say that this one rules. Everything that works about Final Fantasy XVI is present here. Great music, grand boss fights, gorgeous environments, and some of the best combat in the business. These were the aspects of FFXVI that stuck with me, and the aspects most revered within this expansion. Now with the shackles that were binding them down in the base game entirely removed.

The pacing is the most improved among these now-gone restrictions. There is little content in the realm of dilly-dallying at all. Not a second spent collecting grains of sand at all, not one single second.

By taking the game to a luscious tropical environment, the visuals truly excel here. They clearly spent a lot of resources on making Final Fantasy XVI look nice, only to waste every second of that time by painting the world in life-sucked landscapes and beige-coloured clouds. This DLC is free of these blemishes, and makes you realise how opulently gorgeous this game is. It is almost enough to make one forgive the atrocious framerate. Almost.

Also now present is a shockingly good difficulty curve. It’s a true perfect incline. There is no longer a late game flatline whatsoever. Perhaps only because of the lack of a late game, but such monotony is not there nonetheless.

The story, however, is just as eye-gougingly miserable as ever. They even give you a depressed NPC companion to remind the characters they are not allowed to have fun, even if they really want to. Thankfully, the brevity of this episode means the cons of a dull and drawn out story don’t have enough time to sink their claws in. Another negative of the full game washed away on these new sun-kissed shores.

I am delighted I didn’t write this whole pass as drivel after the first half. If you liked the base game enough, you should play this one. It is fun.

The Rising Tide, where Clive has to fight an Eikon that is both a hydrogen bomb and a coughing baby. Where Echoes of the Fallen was mainly just combat with very little story, this feels more like what I'd expect from FFXVI, where Clive has to go to a village, get his millionth seal that lets him take on side quests (that are still terrible), and there's a decently open little zone to run around in, before going to the more linear dungeon to absorb some more Eikon juice, this time in the form of Leviathan.

I liked most of this! The story it tells about how the ancient Mysidians had to create a time bubble to stop Leviathan with the help of a former Shiva dominant, so there's just this part of the island you're on where time is frozen which I think is a really cool concept, but it's also visually so interesting when you walk around that part and there's water drops just stuck in the air, and a giant wave out in the ocean that's frozen in time (which is basically just a matte painting, but it looks very cool!) The new companion, Shula, I also enjoyed quite a bit. She's not some incredible character, and this is still very much The Clive Show, but it's nice to have a female character with a bit more agency and than Jill, who, by the way, does accompany Clive on this entire little adventure but even with her connection to Shiva gets about as little to do here as in the second half of the base game.

The boss fights for Rising Tide were surprisingly good. You get one as human Clive which really tests what you know about those mechanics, and then obviously also one against Leviathan as Ifrit, which is the same, but with what you know about the Eikon mechanics. It feels like a good conclusion to FFXVI as a whole, and as a fight, Leviathan is by far the best Eikon fight of all since he's actually pretty hard (at least on Final Fantasy Mode). Visually, though, it's probably the least interesting fight since it's set in a pretty boring arena and lacks those big moments that made the base game's Eikon fights so memorable, like the end of the Bahamut fight. If you do let him use Tidal Wave, however, be prepared to see probably the best looking tsunami that's ever been put in a video game before you inevitably die a horrible death.

And that's the DLC for FFXVI. Pretty fun, better pacing than the main story and it does avoid some of the more problematic aspects of the main story by not at all being about the magic slavery and actually having a good, female character that is more than just a very strong design to look at. But it's still XVI in a lot of ways with its bad side quests, the many invisible walls, the erratic frame rate outside of combat, said combat being pretty repetitive, and the complete focus on Clive and only Clive despite both Joshua and Jill being by his side. It's no must-play, but also nothing I regret buying or having played. Guess that applies to Final Fantasy XVI as a whole.

After finally completing both DLCs and gaining ultima's abilities I can happily say the overall execution of its story and additions in the DLC. This truly has been a wonderful ride into a well executed story that we will probably never get again.

The final fight with leviathan doesn't come close to the excitement that I got from the Omega DLC but the music and soken giving his hints to FF14 as per usual was a great trip. I found myself having more fun with the running up fight to Levithan and its reminiscent abilities close to noctis and his library of weapons.

I said before and ill say it again, they're truly not beating the FF14 allegations with this game and how much there's hints and melodies that quite literally soken takes upon and expands. This expansion is what i hoped Omega to be but im glad this one was alot more of an extra zone than just a simple boss fight.

When completely removing the horrible purple filter that you're stuck with for the last 6-8 hours of the game, you truly get reminded of how beautiful this game can look when that sun shines bright and you're able to see how well the engine works.

Kairos Gate was very enjoyable and i loved the throwback to original FF menu's and sprites and as said once receiving the final set of Ultima abilities, this game finally becomes what i believe it should of been from initial release but either way im glad that without DLCs this game still holds up perfectly and there are no story changes but expansions on things that may have been left thin during the initial story in the main game.

Un poco más de lo mismo que el juego base, en líneas generales. Con algunos enfrentamientos chulos y una trama decente que rellena huecos de lore pero que no afecta en nada a la historia principal. A mí me vale así.

De hecho creo que lo que mayor poso ha dejado en mí ha sido eso. Embarcarme en un viaje secundario con Clive, Jill, Joshua y Torgal es lo más cerca que el juego ha estado a darme la sensación de ir de aventuras con una party de JRPG, charlando entre ellos y resolviendo entuertos en un contexto argumental algo más relajado que en la trama principal.

Aunque el foco principal de la narración se lo sigue llevando Clive con diferencia y el resto se queda ya no en segundo, sino en tercer plano. Pero bueno, al menos esta vez Jill tiene cosas que decir. Hasta me atrevería a decir que más que Joshua. Algo es algo.

Cómo no, el gran reclamo de este DLC es Leviatán, y la pelea contra él está increíble. La música es tremenda (de hecho es el tema del primer trailer de FFXVI, que no estaba por ninguna parte en el juego base y resulta que era el tema de Leviatán, puto Soken), la espectacularidad visual típica de estas peleas sigue ahí, y la dificultad es notablemente más alta que en las del juego base, donde era casi nula.

Una pelea intensísima a la que, sin embargo, le falta algo muy importante que sí tenían las demás. Y es que lo mejor de aquellas peleas era lo personales que se sentían para Clive, de una forma u otra. El combate contra Titán no habría sido lo mismo si Clive y Hugo Kupka no fueran enemigos jurados, por ejemplo.

Con Leviatán, por razones derivadas de la nueva trama, no puede ser tan personal, y eso le hace perder mucho. A pesar de que en todo lo demás es la mejor pelea de eikons de todo el juego pero de calle.

Supongo que hasta aquí llega mi "cobertura" de FFXVI. Un juego que, para haberme causado tanto rechazo en tantas cosas, la verdad es que no he podido dejar de pensar en él durante estas últimas semanas. Me quedo con eso por ahora, que me parece bastante positivo. Imagino que en un futuro lo retomaré para pasármelo en difícil y así revisar mis sentimientos hacia el juego.

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".