Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide Review (Laserfrog)
Man, this one is weird.
A lot of people complained about the length of Echoes of the Fallen, but honestly Rising Tide is not much longer despite costing twice as much money. To be honest, the only thing that makes it longer are a suite of pointless padding sidequests that FF16 is kind of infamous for at this point. The new characters aren't bad, but aren't terribly memorable either; and the new zone is a welcome break aesthetically from the dreary grays and browns that permeate FF16 even before the halfway point of the story, but it is deceptively small and empty of any real meaningful content, honestly mirroring most of the design issues that plagued the main game.
The new Eikon is... well, no spoilers, but whatever you were expecting, this wasn't it. That isn't to say it's bad. Far from it, it's probably borderline broken to be honest, but it also doesn't really vibe with the rest of the gameplay up to that point. Fights, including boss battles, turn from tests of skill and swordplay to "Pop Levi until the boss staggers then blow all your cooldowns."
You've probably heard about the Leviathan fight at this point, and yeah, its incredibly frustrating. There are several arbitrary insta-kill sections that allow for almost no error in input rotation, and the fight itself is far too long. By the time it's done, you don't much feel a sense of accomplishment as much as relief that it is finally over.
Aside from Leviathan and, like, maybe one new weapon, the progression out of here is pretty much pointless. There are some new gear pieces that upgrade Eikon feats, but A) none of them are as good as the Fallen bits from Echoes, B) boosting Eikon feats is kind of pointless since you're probably only going to be using Leviathan at this point anyway, and C) outside of Arcade Mode and NG+, there's only one fight you can use these on anyway.
Honestly, Rising Tide doesn't really introduce anything meaningfully new to the core game, nor does it play to the game's strengths particularly well. Maybe pick up the bundle on sale just to have it if you've already beaten the main game, but otherwise I feel like this one is eminently skippable, especially considering its length and price.