Trials of the Dragon King is the first DLC drop for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, which we reviewed back in March. Trials of the Dragon King offers players the new difficulty level, Bahamut, in which they can challenge their skills. With the introduction of the new difficulty, the long-serving game character with the same name, Bahamut, has also been brought into the fold, as the Dragon King meets with Jack and his team, telling them of new challenges that await them.

Trials of the Dragon King also brings in a new reward system called Bahamut’s Trial. These are extra optional debuffs the player can place on themselves, like fewer potions you start with and increased damage taken. The reward for playing with the handicap increases the chance of dragon treasure dropping, which is needed to advance the trials.

To help the players progress with the Bahamut difficulty there are new classes and skill points that can be earned on maxed-out classes. Players can put more points into an extra skill tree with master points to increase things like health and strength, critical hit damage, and speed.

Each job now has a sub-section variant with a small skill tree attached, the main change with these sub-classes is a unique skill, there are also three new jobs to learn; the Evoker, The Pilgrim, and finally, the Summoner, which has been a fan favourite job for a long time and is a great addition.

Sadly the new content comes with some downsides. Firstly, the one that the majority of the community is upset about, is the content being locked behind a difficulty barrier. Many players just want to experience the story without needing to hardcore grind for ages to progress, and the other, which is what I felt the most letdown about, was the lack of new things to fight. Out of all of the DLC, there are only two new fights that were not in the core version of the game; the Warrior of Light and Bahamut boss fights.

While they were great fights, it felt draining refighting the same bosses in other locations. The new difficulty did change and add to the older bosses fighting styles, with new moves and seeming to be stronger and faster, but it was still just the core boss fights with one or two new things to watch out for. I was hoping for new regions and brand new enemies to fight, and as a long-time Final Fantasy fan, I know there is a large creature pool they have that could’ve been used for this DLC.

Trials of the Dragon King gave a great boost in difficulty that will challenge the end game players, but as a whole, it felt empty and seeing how the DLC can not be bought separately, it did feel like a bit of a letdown for the story driver players as they would’ve bought the season pass to find that the new content is locked behind a massive grind before they can even start it. I personally don’t mind a grind in games but the lack of new bosses and areas is a big letdown in my opinion, but hey, at least we got a summoner job, so there has been some hope from this for all players to enjoy.

Written by: Shane Walsh