Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen review — The Omega protocol

By David Flynn

Posted on December 13, 2023

Spoiler warning: this review will contain spoilers for the endgame of Final Fantasy XVI. The Echoes of the Fallen DLC takes place just before the final boss.

As the skies darken over the Twins, and Ultima’s reckoning draws near, a new type of crystal finds its way onto the black market. These Dusk Shards may be less effective than their brighter cousins, but are bringing in a fortune thanks to a lack of competition. Yet it still raises a question: with all the Mothercrystals destroyed, where are the Dusk Shards coming from? Clive, Jill, Joshua, and Torgal head back to Roseria to find the source inside a Fallen ruin called the Sagespire.

Echoes of the Fallen is a short DLC for Final Fantasy XVI designed to put your endgame combat skills to the test. It essentially adds one more dungeon to the game, which fully expects you to be at or around level 50, having mastered all of the game’s mechanics with a good grasp of your chosen Eikon powers. Once you’ve met the story and side quest requirements (you need to complete two chains of side quests, but it’s not too bad), you can speak to Lady Charon in the Hideaway to begin the DLC. After a few cutscenes, you’ll head off to Rosaria with your party, then into the Sagespire which is the real focus of the DLC.

Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of the Fallen DLC Gameplay (SPOILERS) - PS5 [GamingTrend]

Watch this video on YouTube

The Sagespire is longer than most base game dungeons, also featuring more bosses than usual. There’s a large variety of normal enemies to battle along the way, such as some chocobo-esque raptor. If you enjoy the game’s combat there’s a lot to like here, especially the spectacular final boss, but if you’re here for the story Echoes of Fallen is largely inconsequential and lacks any emotional impact. There’s a bit of lore about the Fallen but that’s about it. This is a combat focused expansion.

Playing in normal mode and hitting level 50 near the end of the dungeon, I found this to be some of the more difficult content in the game. I died once ascending the tower and used most of my potions, and then several more times against the boss while once again using all of my potions. There’s some FFXIV influence here with bosses creating danger zones on the floor you need to get out of ASAP. Bosses have a wide variety of moves that will expand as the fight progresses. It’s a lot of fun to figure out how to respond to each attack, especially if you have something like Heatwave equipped to parry projectiles. Frustration is mitigated thanks to a few checkpoints during the boss, keeping the difficulty intact while not feeling unfair. I’m excited to go back and run the dungeon again in Arcade and Final Fantasy modes.

Visually, the Sagespire reminds me a lot of another tower in Forspoken’s DLC largely because of the subtle twilight hews of sunset. It’s moody and beautiful, and the architecture of the tower itself is a lot more interesting than the typical stark white ruins you see around the game world. Thit tower is much more well preserved than the rest of the Fallen ruins, so perhaps this is what their civilization actually looked like. The music is, as always, incredible. If you’re familiar with FFXIV there’s several leitmotifs from that game here – listening to the new quest accepted jingle will clue you in on exactly what you’re in for here.

David Flynn

Editor | [email protected]

David is the kind of person to wear his heart on his sleeve. He can find positives in anything, like this is a person who loved Star Fox Zero to death. You’ll see him playing all kinds of games: AAAs, Indies, game jam games, games of all genres, and writing about them! Here. On this website. When not writing or playing games, you can find David making music, games, or enjoying a good book.
David’s favorite games include NieR: Automata, Mother 3, and Gravity Rush.

75

Good