Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI and its extensions follow.
Rarely has a game confused me as much as it did Final Fantasy XVI. Although I spent the most time with it, it was an undeniable failure thanks to its thrilling action, heartfelt performances, lush visuals and impeccable score. Final Fantasy 16 most abandoned controversial and consistent action – the focus a poorly handled slave rebellion– and leaves aside some of the most intriguing, resulting in a confused and disappointing story. As much as I love it CliveJoshua, Jill, Cid and many other members of the cast, many of whom also feel crushed after fulfilling their roles in the story, reduced to little more than a means to an end. Final Fantasy 16 is also morose, which at first glance doesn’t look much different from the rest of the series, but it transforms that misery into its entirety, leaving little room for other emotional expressions in the game.
Final Fantasy 16‘So the country’s expansions felt like an opportunity to right some of those wrongs. At the very least, they could serve as an exploration of underdeveloped storylines and characters that the base game sidelined. They would never fully break away from the trappings of FF16of course, but the Echoes of the Fallen And flood DLCs could make up for the sins of the larger game.
While I can’t sit here and tell you these are all home runs, the all-too-brief extensions are a window into what could have been, and I can appreciate them on that level.
Echoes of the Fallen didn’t entirely impress me at first, but it was a decent step forward. It delves deeper into the Fallen, an advanced civilization that predates the events of FF16 and it is mentioned again and again, but rarely discussed in detail. You spend a significant portion of the game restoring Trap technology and fighting Trap ‘Mechs in the ruins of Trap structures, and yet FF16 treats her with indifference. They’re mostly just fodder to cut through, and while that remains the case in this DLC, the massive dungeon at its heart at least begins to flesh out some of the traps’ machinations, plans that ultimately led to them deserved this name which made them famous in Clive’s era.
Echoes of the Fallen also culminates in most things ridiculous fight against Omega, something of a recurring enemy in the series that rounds out the super-dungeon in a delightfully brash way. The DLC’s ever-escalating boss fight is its greatest asset, reminding me of the infamous eleventh-hour challenges of old-school RPGs. In a game that is packed with some incredibly stylish Encounters, both big and smallOmega is a wonderful piece of controlled chaos that serves to highlight How much fun it is to deal with it FF16‘s fight can be, and how gratifying it can be when it eases up a bit. Echoes of the FallenIts precarious positioning as DLC, only unlocking right before the game’s final battle, drains any narrative tension it might have had, but that makes it more of a joyful detour than one of consequence.
If there’s one serious criticism against the DLC, it’s that it is like this visually dry. The Fallen’s aesthetic is boring, and dedicating a few more hours to a dungeon in the same color palette as we’ve already seen isn’t exactly a selling point. For this reason, I am grateful for it The coming floodIt’s a completely new environment and changed tone.
The recently published flood extension concludes the book FF16 with one last adventure and one last(?) Eikon against which Clive and Co. have to compete. The DLC takes players to Mysidia, a hidden land north of Valisthea – where the main action of FF16 takes place – which is threatened by Leviathan, a snake-like deity, I’m sure Final Fantasy Fans are more than familiar with this. Importantly, this change in locale means the grim purple sky of FF16The final game for a greener and even more magical land that recalls the beauty of the game’s early areas and enhances its fairytale quality Final Fantasy games Tend to have.
In the heart of The coming flood is a child trapped in time by a curse, and your heroic journey to free him. Clive’s primary thrust throughout FF16 is the destruction of “mother crystals” that threaten to destroy Valisthea, causing him to repeatedly clash with Dominants, people who have the ability to summon classics FF Subpoenas as weapons of mass destruction called Eikons. It’s a heavy and political story that takes more than a few elements from it game of Thrones, which means it’s also pretty dark and harrowing. Many actors don’t make it to the end FF16what does The coming floodThe departure from this otherwise dark story is so refreshing.
As an example of this FF16Despite the game’s desolation, countless side quests required you to find people who were often dead. The most harrowing of these quests required players to find a missing “pet” named Chloe. After making the rounds looking for her, I eventually found the body of a child behind a building, revealing that Chloe was actually the quest giver’s deceased child slave. After completing the quest, I stood up and took a much-needed breather FF16The often suffocating darkness. It’s not that it never served a larger point the game was trying to get across, but I just couldn’t always handle the incredibly horrific locations FF16 went to make them.
In comparison The coming flood I went on a quest to kill some Tonberries who had put a curse on a man in the city. On another quest, I collected flowers and gave them to a man because his wife didn’t know how to introduce us any other way. Another let me bring mine Chocobo from the mainland and introduces it to a young girl who is completely fascinated by chocobos. These tasks and goals are nothing special or new, and some are actually emblematic of them FF16are the worst design sins of side quests, but they are at least framed by things other than bloodshed and the loss of innocent lives. At the end of The coming floodTake on Leviathan and save Mysidia as well as Leviathan’s dominant Waljas, a baby who was turned into a weapon and then robbed of his life when the weapon backfired. The coming flood feels like a dream of something better in the game’s otherwise tragic setting.
And that, I think, is the key to why both DLCs work for me. They may be disjointed parts of the narrative, but I still applaud them because they simply stand out from what’s already in the game. FF16 More focus could have been placed on these brighter, more challenging and chaotic episodes – which should have been better incorporated into the game rather than delivered in bits and pieces – earlier. They could be fuller FF16These are existing choices, but they also show what the game could have been if it had chosen its influences a little more carefully, implemented its ideas more clearly, or simply developed better. You feel like Elements of a more classic style Design by FF16 buried under its new facade.
That’s probably a clue FF16is the biggest problem. It wants to be something different so badly that it somehow forgets itself and the strengths of the series it’s a part of. Too often, FF16 stumbles over himself in search of a reputation or status apart from his famous lineage. If it remembers these principles and adheres to them, FF16 is at its best, and some of these moments can only be found in Echoes of the Fallen And The coming flood, which feel like a celebratory, if brief, summary of what made the series so enduring. I think my hope now is that they are portraits of the joyful potential of Final FantasyFuture and not relics of the past left to be forgotten.
