This here was the meat of the gameplay for the dlcs and it is also my personal favorite of the bunch. There is slightly more story here than the last but it's still not the focus, with the gameplay, spending most of its time on a roguelite mode, being its focus.
The meat of this dlc takes place within the Ancient Chaos Shrine, where Jack and his friends are spending time after the base game, and previous dlc, end. The main hall has been converted into a hub area of sorts where you can heal up, buy items, craft new equipment and talk to NPCs in-between missions to prepare for the next one. Also yes, you heard that right, you can actually buy items this time. Unlike the base game and first dlc where potions are refilled automatically when you rest at checkpoints, this time around, you need to buy them with gil, for the most part. And not just potions either, we have hi-potions, Ethers, Elixers and more available for purchase. Although, admittedly, the selection of items is still limited. More NPCs will arrive at the shrine as you progress, and completing the quests these npcs give you, as well as giving them items, will not only grant you passive buffs, regardless of your job, but also, assuming their storyline is complete, will grant you the option to summon them in battle with a monster bell accessory.
Now, to progress the dlc, you would need to enter portals to other dimensions that are appearing within the shrine, and complete the task asked of you. Different portals have different tasks and different levels of difficulty, and while within these variations of the existing levels, you will also get "chaos events", and "chaos monsters", which can range from beneficial to you, to horrible for you (Imagine trying to catch a fleeing cactuar, on a timer, and a bunch of tonberries randomly spawn in front of you). The stages are ultimately still just repeats of existing stages, but now that you have mission modifiers, an element of randomness and the risk of losing everything upon failure, it stops being grindy and turns into more of a true postgame experience.
As for job changes, we get the Blue Mage job, which might seem weird, given that you could always steal abilities from enemies, but trust me, blue mage makes it work, and we get Summon Affinities, to add to the existing build variety. These basically just say that the equipment takes of the affinity of a summon from a previous final fantasy game, and the higher the affinity with it, the better the effect. So having a high affinity with Phoenix will allow you to charge Phoenix's ability faster. Phoenix's ability being a free revive whenever you die.
As stated, this is a roguelite, so to move on to the next floor, you need to earn a certain amount of points. More difficult missions grant more points, and failing a level will lower your points. Progressing to the next floor will refill your health and allow you to progress further, whereas having your score hit 0 will cause you to "fail" the floor, and reset your progress. All of your items, npcs, sidequest progress, passive buffs etc. will be lost upon failure of a floor. From here, i'm pretty sure you could technically choose to start from the floor you left off on, but I would recommend going back to floor 1, if you haven't made it to far in.
You don't need to reach the end of the labyrinth to complete the dlc, there are plenty of floors behind that point, and there are some added missions to the normal level select screen as well. Overall a very enjoyable experience for anyone wanting to further push their time with this game, and doubly so if they like roguelites.
The meat of this dlc takes place within the Ancient Chaos Shrine, where Jack and his friends are spending time after the base game, and previous dlc, end. The main hall has been converted into a hub area of sorts where you can heal up, buy items, craft new equipment and talk to NPCs in-between missions to prepare for the next one. Also yes, you heard that right, you can actually buy items this time. Unlike the base game and first dlc where potions are refilled automatically when you rest at checkpoints, this time around, you need to buy them with gil, for the most part. And not just potions either, we have hi-potions, Ethers, Elixers and more available for purchase. Although, admittedly, the selection of items is still limited. More NPCs will arrive at the shrine as you progress, and completing the quests these npcs give you, as well as giving them items, will not only grant you passive buffs, regardless of your job, but also, assuming their storyline is complete, will grant you the option to summon them in battle with a monster bell accessory.
Now, to progress the dlc, you would need to enter portals to other dimensions that are appearing within the shrine, and complete the task asked of you. Different portals have different tasks and different levels of difficulty, and while within these variations of the existing levels, you will also get "chaos events", and "chaos monsters", which can range from beneficial to you, to horrible for you (Imagine trying to catch a fleeing cactuar, on a timer, and a bunch of tonberries randomly spawn in front of you). The stages are ultimately still just repeats of existing stages, but now that you have mission modifiers, an element of randomness and the risk of losing everything upon failure, it stops being grindy and turns into more of a true postgame experience.
As for job changes, we get the Blue Mage job, which might seem weird, given that you could always steal abilities from enemies, but trust me, blue mage makes it work, and we get Summon Affinities, to add to the existing build variety. These basically just say that the equipment takes of the affinity of a summon from a previous final fantasy game, and the higher the affinity with it, the better the effect. So having a high affinity with Phoenix will allow you to charge Phoenix's ability faster. Phoenix's ability being a free revive whenever you die.
As stated, this is a roguelite, so to move on to the next floor, you need to earn a certain amount of points. More difficult missions grant more points, and failing a level will lower your points. Progressing to the next floor will refill your health and allow you to progress further, whereas having your score hit 0 will cause you to "fail" the floor, and reset your progress. All of your items, npcs, sidequest progress, passive buffs etc. will be lost upon failure of a floor. From here, i'm pretty sure you could technically choose to start from the floor you left off on, but I would recommend going back to floor 1, if you haven't made it to far in.
You don't need to reach the end of the labyrinth to complete the dlc, there are plenty of floors behind that point, and there are some added missions to the normal level select screen as well. Overall a very enjoyable experience for anyone wanting to further push their time with this game, and doubly so if they like roguelites.
I again had a really bad time with this. It was a little more fun than the first DLC but I still hated how there wasn't any new content and I had to just go through the old levels multiple times. I also hated how it still increasingly got more ridiculous with the difficulty. Just not a lot of fun.
This DLC is practically a built-in DLC with an infinite dungeon crawler with real difficulty and it's own fleshed out item system, along with harder missions on the overworld. Insane value.
Better than the first DLC but not by much. At the very least it does introduce more new content but enemies are still cranked up to 700% with bosses having no problems one shotting you. Not much here story wise, just makes the game a rogue like.
Man, I know that the Diablo-like stuff has its own niche, but it's not for me. Cool bosses but I wish I could fight them at a pace closer to the main game, like in Nioh.
This made me retroactively hate the game.
Definitely much better than the first DLC by quite a bit, Gilgamesh is a cool character and a fun boss. Monster summons are cool but the rift mechanic of resetting everything after a loss makes it feel pointless to invest in. Final boss is absolute garbage played on extra mode for him alone.
Bad and annoying like the first dlc but in different ways. Once again introducing more meters and currencies to track but thats not all! Now you have a shitty rouge-like mode you have to playthrough on another highest difficulty only. I don't enjoy the obsessiveness you need to have with stats on gear starting with the dlcs. It takes forever to expereiment with a class because you need to make sure you have as much affinity as you can so you don't die in one hit and instead 2 or 3. Another dlc that feels like they had no budget to make anything so instead they are just repurposing old content in remixed ways with bigger numbers while you have only a handful of actual meaningful content and story. I miss the base game take me back please this shit sucks dick