Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide DLC Review – The Best Single-Player DLC of the Franchise

The second and best piece of DLC content of Final Fantasy XVI adds a new zone with more story, secondary missions, epic boss fights, and Eikon abilities for Clive. It is way more extensive than the previous DLC, and it also feels more significant. With roughly 10 hours of content, this last piece of DLC for Clive’s adventure feels the correct way to give closure to it. Here, we’ll take a close look at the land of Mysidia, where the exciting journey of finding the long-lost Eikon of Leviathan will be waiting for us.

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide DLC is available exclusively on PS5 for $19.99.

Story – The Lost Eikon Is Here

The story is definitely one of the few things that make me believe this is one of the best pieces of DLC content any Final Fantasy game has ever received. It takes place shortly before the final mission of the main game, meaning this DLC does not add anything new to the final sequence of it. However, it does add a lot of value to the final moments of the game, bringing a little bit more depth to Clive’s character.

We will be brought to the hidden and particularly beautiful land of Mysidia, where the long-lost Eikon of Leviathan awaits us. I’ll hold back from talking about the details of this new Eikon because I believe they are worth experiencing on your own if you end up playing this DLC. There were a few twists and emotional moments in this adventure that caught me by surprise. I sincerely wasn’t expecting this DLC to have such a beautifully crafted narrative with interesting new characters and dilemmas that even almost made me cry near the end. Story-wise, it’s a really massive improvement compared to the previous DLC.

The crew (Clive, Jill, Joshua, and Torgal) is back again for this adventure. The story focuses once again on Clive, and a new character named Shula. A little bit of lore was added to both Jill and Joshua, but it wasn’t very significant. Even if it ultimately feels like a wasted opportunity to bring more depth to these two characters, the story felt right and it was surprisingly good for a DLC. Most of the interesting lore is found within the land of Mysidia itself, so pay close attention to the main and secondary missions to not miss the important details.

Shula, the new ally of this DLC.

Gameplay – More Amazing Content!

The gameplay, once again, does not add anything new to the formula presented in the main game. However, it expands on a few aspects and brings exciting new quests, fights, and most importantly, Eikon abilities. So if you enjoyed the gameplay of Final Fantasy XVI, you’ll definitely love this as well.

There are amazing boss fights, rewards, Eikon abilities, and a bunch of interesting things hiding in Mysidia. However, the best gameplay element of this DLC of Final Fantasy XVI is without a single doubt the final Eikon fight, the Ifrit vs. Leviathan fight. I cannot describe the epicness of this fight. It is so amazing, and the construction of the battle itself is just brilliant. It is by far the best Eikon battle of the entire game, including all the ones found within the main story.

I mentioned in my review of Final Fantasy XVI how I wasn’t a big fan of some Eikon fights because of their aerodynamic nature, which often represents a very recurring cliche in Japanese media nowadays. And this element was also present in this DLC. However, as I also stated in the aforementioned review, this wasn’t an awful threat to my experience while playing the game. Once the battle stuck to the ground (or in this case, the water), it started to feel like a genuine challenge. I think most of us who already played this DLC underestimated Leviathan at first. The flashy QTE sequences disguised as a flying fight didn’t prepare me for the absolute beating Leviathan was going to give me once we both touched the water’s surface. And I really loved that Leviathan turned out to be a tough challenge.

Amazing new boss fights.

Apart from the epic Eikon fight, there are several new regular boss fights that are also challenging and highly engaging. There is a particular boss fight that turned out to be my favorite one in the entire game, even better than the amazing final boss fight of the previous DLC.

And while there are a lot of new abilities and power combinations to explore in this DLC and some interesting endgame content, I believe we could have taken more advantage of these new mechanics with the addition of an NG++ difficulty with a higher level cap, higher level enemies, or something like that. I hope Square Enix brings us an update once the PC version comes out that adds a new difficulty for the players who already did everything possible in their Final Fantasy mode playthrough.

In any case, as I said before, if you’re a fan of Final Fantasy XVI and its amazing world, you should not skip this DLC at all. It will add a lot of value to what already was an astonishing experience and you won’t regret it.

An epic fight against Leviathan.

Graphics & Audio – Simply Breathtaking

I have always been in love with the aesthetics of Final Fantasy XVI, but I surely wasn’t expecting this DLC to have the best scenarios of the entire game. I swear, Mysidia has to be Top 3 of the most beautiful landscapes seen in modern Final Fantasy entries. The Rising Tide is easily the most visually appealing bit of the entire game, and that was a hard goal to aim at. They really nailed it. If it looks that good on PS5, I can’t wait to see how it’s going to look at it’s fullest once it comes out on PC or the hypothetical PS5 Pro (please Square, fix performance mode. I’m begging at this point).

The audio is essentially what you would have expected if you played the main game. An absolute masterpiece. There are several new tracks that live up to the main adventure, so everything was on point. The beautiful melodies once you reach Mysidia, the absolute epicness of the boss fights… It was perfect, down to the last-minute detail.