The following contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 16's Rising Tide DLC.
After almost a year since its release, Final Fantasy 16's Rising Tide DLC has been added to the base game, expanding its story and adding additional content for players to enjoy. Among the content added is an original story, new abilities for Clive based on the Eikon Leviathan, and a host of side quests that reward valuable materials for crafting new weapons and equipment. The peak of The Rising Tide's gameplay is in its exciting and challenging boss fight with Leviathan, but this was expected, as Final Fantasy 16 has proven it is a masterclass in boss fights.
The Rising Tide is a pleasant change of pace for the dark, mature Final Fantasy 16, as the DLC takes players to the island of Mysidia in the Northern Territories — a lush land, rich with vegetation and home to a humble group of people known as the "Motes of Water" who reside in the village of Haven. However, despite bringing well-deserved freshness to the base game and plenty of reasons to jump back into it, it doesn't do everything right. One rather noticeable area where The Rising Tide falls short is in the characters that are involved in its story — specifically, Joshua and Jill.
Leviathan Finally Completes Clive’s Arsenal in Final Fantasy 16: Rising Tide
After almost a full year since the launch of Final Fantasy 16, its Rising Tide DLC completes Clive's arsenal of abilities with those of Leviathan.
Joshua and Jill Deserved More in The Rising Tide
Joshua and Jill Are Placed on the Back Burner in The Rising Tide
Joshua and Jill are Clive Rosfield's two closest companions. Joshua is Clive's brother and one of his main drives in the base game's narrative, and Jill is his love interest and the Dominant of the Eikon Shiva. Both characters are worthy of attention for their backstories and likable personalities, but Final Fantasy 16's Rising Tide DLC essentially shoves them aside to replace them with the new character Shula. Shula undeniably commands a certain amount of recognition, especially given her reasons for contacting Clive and ushering him to the island, but Jill and Joshua have been around longer and therefore arguably deserve more prominence.
For the most part, during The Rising Tide's story, Joshua contributes very little to the matter at hand and instead largely stays behind in the village of Haven for some odd reason, rather than traveling with Clive and Shula. It's an interesting decision, to say the least, especially since he traveled to Mysidia with Clive in the first place.
Joshua isn't absent for the DLC's entirety, but he is certainly not there for the majority of it.
Jill, on the other hand, plays more of a prominent role in The Rising Tide than Joshua does, but she still deserves better. As far as the base game goes, Jill is one of Final Fantasy 16's most underutilized characters whose potential was wasted rather than achieved. This is primarily because she's all but sidelined once Joshua and Clive are reunited in Final Fantasy 16's main story. The Rising Tide had a chance to redeem that mishap, but she was mostly asked to step aside for Shula to enter the picture. She was an afterthought before, and she remains an afterthought in The Rising Tide.
For all that The Rising Tide does right, it's unfortunate that it didn't give Jill and Joshua more time to shine. It could have at least shown Joshua and Clive together more and perhaps even given Jill more of a high-profile role throughout the DLC's story. Instead, they were both largely dismissed. Thankfully, this is only one of the very few areas where The Rising Tide falls short, as it proves to be an excellent addition to Final Fantasy 16 in many other ways.
Final Fantasy 16
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- June 22, 2023
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
- Square Enix
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
WHERE TO PLAY
An epic dark fantasy world where the fate of the land is decided by the mighty Eikons and the Dominants who wield them.
This is the tale of Clive Rosfield, a warrior granted the title “First Shield of Rosaria” and sworn to protect his younger brother Joshua, the dominant of the Phoenix. Before long, Clive will be caught up in a great tragedy and swear revenge on the Dark Eikon Ifrit, a mysterious entity that brings calamity in its wake.
