Warning: Spoilers ahead for Final Fantasy 16’s Echoes of the Fallen DLC.Despite Final Fantasy 16’s strong reviews, beautiful music, and memorable story filled with standout characters like Clive Rosfield, it is a divisive game among the Final Fantasy fan base. While a large portion of the criticism boils down to some players simply not liking the series going in an action direction and missing turn-based combat, there are legitimate criticisms of the game as well. A lackluster gear system, fetch quest design for side content, and the lack of playable party characters are just some of the issues fans have. And though these problems are not addressed in Final Fantasy 16's Echoes of the Fallen DLC, two others are: difficulty and magic.
While Final Fantasy 16 offers visually stunning combat and spectacle-filled boss fights that makes players feel immensely powerful, that strength comes with the downside of the game feeling too easy. Not helped by Final Fantasy 16’s overly generous checkpoints, most players will hardly struggle with the game to the point of being disappointed, with many wishing that Final Fantasy difficulty was available from the start. Additionally, the game being so easy means that players do not need to use magic, though with it being weaker than Clive’s other abilities and elemental damage not existing, it would not be very useful if players did need to rely upon it. Fortunately, Echoes of the Fallen kept these complaints in mind, as both a reason to use magic and the hardest fight yet await players in the first of two DLC packs.
Final Fantasy 16 DLC Will Likely Be The End of the Road, But That's Okay
No further content is planned after Final Fantasy 16’s DLC, but that sounds more like the return of an old franchise strength than a problem.
How Final Fantasy 16 Addresses Difficulty and Magic in Its DLC
Final Fantasy 16’s New Enemy Status Makes Magic a Must
Echoes of the Fallen gives players a reason to use magic due to the Hearthflame spell. Enemies will cast this shield on each other that dissipates after several hits, but Clive will be damaged if he strikes it with a melee attack. While players can still obliterate Hearthflame enemies with ranged Eikon abilities, if they are cooling down, shooting some magic blasts at these foes is the ideal strategy. While the DLC could have arguably made more use of this mechanic, as not that many enemies make use of it and mini-bosses avoid the feature, its existence shows that Creative Business Unit 3 heard fans’ complaints. When Hearthflame is used by a foe, players will need to adjust their strategy slightly to deal with them, adding some extra depth to the gameplay.
Hearthflame could feature more prominently in the Leviathan DLC , a story-focused adventure that will supposedly be much longer, meaning that there will be more enemy encounters and additional chances for the spell to appear.
Final Fantasy 16’s DLC Boss Fights Can Be a Huge Challenge
While Hearthflame is an attempt to make magic more meaningful, Creative Business Unit 3 also doubled down on challenging combat with Echoes of the Fallen. Regardless of whether players are on regular difficulty or Final Fantasy mode, they are likely to struggle a bit with this piece of post-launch content, though not to the point where it is unfun or unbearable. Part of this is because all enemies will be at a high level, as this way they can provide more XP to help players reach the DLC’s slightly raised level cap. After all, if players have not grinded levels, they are likely to be somewhere around level 80 after finishing Final Fantasy mode, whereas the enemies are level 98. However, the boss fights are where the real challenges come into play.
While there is a small story in Echoes of the Fallen that reveals some interesting information about the titular race and gives fans more time with Clive, Jill, and Joshua, the main draw of the DLC is a neat setting filled with beautiful music and truly challenging boss fights. Mini-bosses like Sigma can push some players to their limits, but it is Omega Aionios - Final Fantasy 16’s version of the Omega Weapon - that is truly brutal. This boss not only has multiple phases, but lighting fast dodges and attacks. It will chain together melee strikes with ease and cover nearly the entire floor in energy attacks, requiring mastery of precision dodges. Stagger windows are very brief too, with an instant-kill countdown attack to prevent at the end of the encounter. While Final Fantasy 16’s mid-boss checkpoints do stop this boss from being as tough as it could be, an unforgettable encounter with Omega helps Echoes of the Fallen deliver the genuinely challenging combat that many felt was missing in the base game.
Final Fantasy 16
Final Fantasy 16 is an action RPG developed by Square Enix. Set in the land of Valisthea, six different factions are on the brink of war due to a spreading disease known as the Blight. Much of the plot revolves around summoned monsters called Eikons, who are controlled by unique humans called Dominants.
