Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of The Fallen Review – Just five months ago, beloved producer Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida and his team released Final Fantasy XVI, bringing with it a full commitment to action in the Action RPG genre while still maintaining the elements that make it a Final Fantasy title.
To catch up on the gameplay, mechanics, and overall narrative, take a look at our Final Fantasy XVI Review.
Now, the team releases its first DLC, Echoes of The Fallen. This reunion with Clive doesn’t last long, but there seems to be something brewing in this additional content.
Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of The Fallen Review (PS5) – A Short But Sweet Taste of Things to Come
Reliable Charon, the best underground resource gatherer on-staff, shows you an oddity, even by her standards. She presents to you a darkened, purple crystal. While this mysterious crystal functions like the normal blue ones, these new crystals disintegrate after just one use. Charon asks you to look into the crystal in hopes its source can be found and destroyed.
The new setting channels much of the same style already found in the game’s Eikon dungeons. The most significant difference is how the game uses natural lighting in this setting. Instead of only shades of gray and blue, natural sunset lighting covers much of the area, reminding you just how gorgeous the game can be.
You also meet three excavators that come from a civilization disconnected from the world to the point that even educated Jill doesn’t recognize them. The quest introduces their circumstances around these crystals. However, by the time emotional connections start to form, the excavators leave for their homeland. It makes you wonder if they end up in The Rising Tide DLC early next year.
Building Up
While the story for this DLC only lasts two hours or so, it seems to prepare you for something coming in the second part of the FFXVI expansion pass. This comes down to a couple things: a slight shift in the understanding of crystals alongside a new set of powerful gear earned along the way.
What makes Echoes interesting is that, even though it seems to lead up to something more, it also stands alone as its own side quest. This content only opens up in the sequence before the final fight, which ties it into the overall narrative much like how the game does with all its side quests.
The other additions are an increased level cap, two new boss fights, and some extra character skins. Apart from that, Echoes servers as a chance to spend some more time with Clive, Jill, and Joshua.
A Familiar But New Foe
The final boss fight brings in a name found in practically all Final Fantasies before it. It is hands down the hardest fight in the game (hint hint, longtime fans). The accessibility rings don’t even guarantee victory in this one.
While the fight features bombastic attack sequences and enemy movement, it lacks the back-and-forth power scaling that comes with all the major fights in the game. Considering these events parallel others before it, you feel the difference by the end.
Warming Up For Something More
Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of The Fallen returns you to trials and tribulations of Clive and Co. with a new quest line, new gear, increased level cap, and a couple new bosses. There’s narrative and combat buildup on several levels in this paid side quest, but nothing quite meets the same intensity of the main game.
Still, every bit of this DLC feels like foreshadowing to what comes in the next DLC, The Rising Tide. With only a month or two until then, Echoes of The Fallen gets you back into the fray nicely.
Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of The Fallen is available now.