Such has been the strong current of quality games this year that I barely had time to breathe after finishing Final Fantasy XVI and pressed on to other titles. It’s remained at the back of my mind ever since, even if I haven’t had the chance to begin my New Game+ victory lap. Thus, the announcement of its first DLC, Echoes of the Fallen, offered a welcome reason to return to my personal game of the year.
Echoes of the Fallen is the first part of Final Fantasy XVI‘s two-part expansion pass and offers the sort of final dungeon-esque experience some players had wished for from the base game. It’s a standalone episode that takes place right before the story’s grand finale—you need to have the final quest available before you can even embark on this side story—and, as the title suggests, explores some of the background behind the Fallen, one of the more intriguing elements of Valisthea’s mythology.
(The expansion pass is $24.99 USD, while Echoes of the Fallen can be purchased for about $10 alone. The second half, The Rising Tide, will follow sometime in the spring and promises to be an even bigger experience involving the “Lost” Eikon, Leviathan, alluded to in the main story.)
The first thing that struck me before even touching the DLC was how nostalgic it felt to be back in the Hideaway, protagonist Clive Rosfield’s home base, after so long away. It’s only been six months since Final Fantasy XVI was released, and a little less than that since I finished its Chronolith challenges and set it aside until I could return for the New Game+. Yet, once the sombre piano melody of “Twilight,” the late-game Hideaway theme, began to play, I felt as though I’d been reunited with an old friend.
If you also haven’t played Final Fantasy XVI since near its launch, a couple of minor updates have been added in the interim, including a pseudo-glamour system which lets you customize the look of Clive’s weapon or even swap to alternate outfits for the endgame party (including Torgal and Ambrosia!). This way, you can carry your favourite weapon without nerfing Clive’s stats—including the new Buster Sword that comes with the Expansion Pass.
“Through the Sagespire, Echoes of the Fallen offers the sort of final dungeon gauntlet some fans wished for from the main game.”
Echoes of the Fallen starts like many other quests, with a new finding from one of the Hideaway’s agents. Charon has uncovered a new type of crystal which seems much more brittle than others, and Clive sets out to find their source. The quest’s early stages are fairly simple, going to certain locations to shake down the lead, but I was grateful for the chance to dust off the cobwebs, acclimate to the controls again, and relearn the finer points of the skillset, which had seen me through the final trials.
The road leads to the Sagespire, a Fallen tower that has lain dormant for the 1500 years since their civilization’s collapse. Final Fantasy XVI‘s story dances around the Fallen, using them as a cautionary tale for Clive’s group and to spice up the variety of encounters, but this excursion finally shows at least some of what their hubris entailed.
Through the Sagespire, Echoes of the Fallen offers the sort of final dungeon gauntlet some fans wished for from the main game. Clive and company climb to the tower’s upper floors, high above Rosaria below, fighting strong new enemies as they go with nary a save point in sight. The upper floors slowly reveal the unique bio-mechanical technology of the Fallen in haunting fashion, from the dangerous monster specimens suspended in blue energy field prisons to squirming biological masses overtaking parts of the structure (making the Legend of Legaia fan in me squirm at the parallels to its final dungeon).
At the pinnacle, Clive encounters the Echoes of the Fallen‘s boss, Omega. Final Fantasy fans will easily recognize this spider-bot as one of the series’ most infamous recurring superbosses—originally an optional challenge boss encountered in Final Fantasy V, Omega has gone on to appear in other mainline games, ports, and spin-offs. Final Fantasy XVI recements its place at the top of the Final Fantasy superboss canon, however.
If you’re among those who felt Final Fantasy XVI‘s S-rank hunts weren’t much to write home about or thought that the whole game was lacking a truly master-level challenge, Echoes of the Fallen has you covered. While I didn’t struggle with the base game, playing without any of the Timely accessories or other aids, Omega truly put my skills to the test.
Where the main storyline’s bosses playfully pulled inspiration from the development team’s “other” blockbuster, Final Fantasy XIV, to inform players of upcoming threats in boss fights with intuitive symbols on the battlefield, Echoes of the Fallen leans in harder. Omega will test everything you learned from every other boss and mark it as it fills the screen with incoming attacks, pressing you to find the few safe spaces to stand. (It may even test everything you learned from FFXIV; I nearly found myself calling “DPS check!” towards the fight’s finale.)
And, of course, composer Masayoshi Soken has provided a blistering new soundtrack to this brutal showdown: “Eikonoklasm,” a reworking of Omega’s battle theme in Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. It was the perfect complement to the fight’s unique aesthetics and kept the adrenaline up through a heated battle.
Echoes of the Fallen‘s quest took me about four hours, including the post-quest wrap-up and the quick trip to the smithy to forge a new ultimate weapon. As a $10 experience, that may sound a little short to some, but for me, it felt like a microcosm of (almost) everything I loved about the Final Fantasy XVI experience.
There’s no proper Eikon battle (a shame; I would’ve loved to bodyslam Omega as Ifrit), nor is there any substantial story for the cast and writing team to wear their hearts on their sleeves one more time. Yet, Echoes of the Fallen reminded me of how much I loved this battle system, as different as it is from other Final Fantasy games. Slipping back into my favourite loadout of Eikonic abilities and unloading on Omega felt as nostalgic as setting foot in the Hideaway again, and the PlayStation 5’s power was once again on full display.
It’s the best kind of DLC: one that enhances the core game without detracting from it. For contrast, consider the moment in Final Fantasy XV where Gladiolus ups and leaves the party for a chapter for some half-explained reason and returns with about as much fanfare. Sure enough, his solo exploits in that chapter were explored in the (flimsy) Episode Gladiolus DLC a few months after launch. It was a pretty transparent example of plucking story out of the main game and reselling it to players down the line—a practice that FFXV employed with extreme fervor.
Sure, the door in The Dim that leads to the Sagespire was present in Final Fantasy XVI at launch; an NPC mentions the tower, and you couldn’t actually access it. There was obviously intent to use this as the seed for an expansion down the line. Yet the story of a particular Fallen site and the horrors within was not required for the main narrative—and it works quite well as optional enrichment, as Clive and his allies muse on how the Fallen’s hubris applies to their endgame circumstances. I’m curious now to see how it all fits together in a natural playthrough, mixed in with the other side quests of the final act.
Likewise, the concept for The Rising Tide sounds like similar enrichment. Fans were dying to hear more about Leviathan, and while the entire core story is cohesive and whole without it, it will be fascinating to see how the lore expands to fit the lost Eikon.
Now that the dust of a packed year of games is settling, it’s a perfect time to return to Valisthea (or visit for the first time). Echoes of the Fallen was exactly the pull I needed to dust off Final Fantasy XVI—simultaneously a well-crafted dessert for the main game, and an amuse-bouche for the larger portion of the expansion pass to come.
