REVIEW: ‘Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide’ Builds On A Great Story (PS5)

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide is the second and final planned DLC pack for Square Enix’s hit role-playing game. The story takes Clive and his friends to a whole new location where new adventures and challenges await.

In Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide, Clive travels with Joshua and Jill to the land of Mysidia. Mysidia is a mysterious land in the northern part of the continent. Hidden from the rest of the world, the people of Mysidia have not been in contact with outsiders for generations.

What brings Clive and friends to Mysidia is a quest to help free Waljas, the dominant of the water Eikon Leviathan. Shula, a resident of Mysidia, travels to get Clive’s help and explains what happened to Waljas. It was believed that the dominance of Leviathan had not been reborn. In reality, Waljas was born with the ability, and when his connection showed for the first time, he was trapped in a frozen time spell for several decades.

Right off the bat, it is a pretty sad story. Waljas is just a poor baby who has spent over 80 years trapped in a frozen time bubble. It seems like he is at least somewhat aware of what is going on outside of the bubble, although his body has not aged at all. Clive’s mission is to free Waljas and return him to his people, but it isn’t easy.

The adventure takes Clive all over the beautiful land of Mysidia. Unlike the dark and dreary rest of the continent, Mysidia is covered by a magic glamour spell to make it appear lush and bountiful. Deep green forests and enormous waterfalls are making it seem like an entirely different world. There is also the imposing giant frozen wave behind Waljas that comes into play later. Oh, and finally some blue skies! It’s nice to not have to look at dark purplish Primogenesis skies that cover the rest of the continent.

Mysidia feels alive both visually and when it comes to the characters within it. Side quests help flesh out the world by introducing Clive to key players in this hidden land. Some of those quests are mainly used to unlock features like Clive’s Chocobo, but even those unlock quests are well-written and give life to the background characters.

The narrative of Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide seamlessly flows with the rest of the base game. Clive has already been out searching for Eikons, so this is a quest that makes perfect sense. The general path of finding the Eikon and absorbing some of its powers remains. The only real difference is that Clive gets to use some of Leviathan’s power before actually fighting it.

Read our Final Fantasy 16 interview with Naoki Yoshida here.

These new abilities fit smoothly into the rest of Clive’s repertoire. They are creative enough to add a whole new layer of fighting options. What I really appreciated, though, is that players do not have to use the new abilities if they don’t want to. I found myself tweaking my abilities loadout constantly and there was no penalty along the way for not having a Leviathan ability equipped. It is nice to have options and not be forced to play a certain way.

Speaking of fighting Leviathan, the climactic boss battle at the end is well worth the wait. The way the main story and side quests in Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide build up the final battle is very well done. There is emotional weight to taking on Leviathan, and the battle itself is exhilarating.

There is a bit of a difficulty spike though, with this fight being much harder than anything else the DLC throws out there. A particularly challenging DPS check leaves no room for error, but finally completing it was quite satisfying.

Alongside the new narrative, Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide brings the new Kairos Gate mode. Players taking on the Kairos Gate must fight through 20 challenging circles that through waves of difficult enemies at them. This is a really fun mode for players who want an extra challenge from their end-game content. There is also a global leaderboard, so it is a great way to see how players stack up against their friends and others from around the world.

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide also brings a few small quality-of-life changes. There is now the option to create five saved Skill Sets, making switching between loadouts significantly easier. New orchestration rolls make their way into the game as well as a handy feature to instantly travel back to a quest giver after completing their quest. That last one saves a huge chunk of time navigating the map and figuring out where to head back to.

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide is an excellent addition to an already great story that fits seamlessly into the world of Final Fantasy XVI. Clive’s latest quest is challenging but rewarding, and it allows him to grow more as a character as he continues serving the people around him.

Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide is available now on PlayStation 5.