Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide

It’s hard to say no to a sunny adventure with Clive and friends, especially with a neat new combat style. But, slight on things to do, this isn’t a must-play addition. [Issue#41, p.82]

An excellent slice of DLC that genuinely feels like a missing part of the main story and features some of the best moments from the whole adventure.

The Rising Tide is ultimately a mixed bag. Mysidia is beautiful, but you can feel the DLC’s budgetary constraints sometimes when some of the more important cutscenes are undercut by less involved animations than they’d have gotten in the main game. The boss fights are absurdly good, Shula’s a hoot, and there’s plenty else in there that’s worth your time. But the side quests are (mostly) still kind of whatever, and you’ll have seen everything there is to see in the setting’s village in, like, four minutes. Jill’s chance to shine is a partly-cloudy endeavor. That epilogue quest is merely serviceable. But the worldbuilding is rich, some of the new powers in Clive’s flashy array of murder tools are sublime, and Kairos Gate is a blast.

Knowing the ending of FFXVI, The Rising Tide doesn’t change Clive’s outcome or add a meaningful impact to the world to warrant an emotional introspection like the main game’s story. Instead, it adds additional power to Clive’s Eikonic skillset, making him appropriately powerful for postgame content that will assuredly punish players and test their might in Final Fantasy Mode. It might be a weirdly timed expansion, but it adds enough meat to the core gameplay to encourage replaying.

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide is settled with a story too short in a new area of great beauty, new characters and a leviathan that is the best of the expansion. The combat shines again in an expansion that again makes the same mistakes and successes as the base game and its first DLC.

Final Fantasy XVI says goodbye with The Rising Tide, a new dose of spectacle that will surely please those who loved the sixteenth entry, but which falls short of the expectations.

Even more than for Echoes of the Fallen, The Rising Tide is aimed at those who enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI and who want more. In the context of a magnificent region, this DLC puts the challenge at the heart of its experience through battles that are as spectacular as they are formidable. The gameplay also evolves with the introduction of two new powers which finally bring more variety to basic moves. However, in addition to the flaws of the original game still present, this expansion only offers a fleeting scenario and above all a really short main quest which puts its price into perspective. It is therefore on a rather positive note that Final Fantasy XVI bids us farewell, after having been so divisive... like all episodes of Final Fantasy ultimately.