Board 8 > Finally beat Final Fantasy XV. Some thoughts.

(+) Yeah! (+)

tl;dr I didn't like this game very much at all. It had some legit great moments later in the game, but even those were flawed, and they were surrounded by mediocrity. Will try to split this up into the game's elements.

Combat was bad. Warp Striking was actually cool and fun when you could use it to one shot enemies and such, but regular attacking sucked hard. It was just like, some sort of auto-attack. Switching weapons to find weaknesses was alright, but I preferred pretty much every other FF battle system over this. It had a bit of a Kingdom Hearts feel to it, but without the elements that actually made KH fun. Using magic also sucks in this, which is a shame because I love magic in general. The spells were reasonably powerful, but so limited that I very rarely used them. The chapter 13 spells were more fun to use, I thought, especially Alterna. Using it was totally badass. Right up there with the best-looking spells from previous FFs, and it was really useful too! The best fights in the game were the ones against the Summons, particularly Leviathan. That was awesome, but it was also mostly scripted. Still, gave the feeling of playing an awesome cutscene, like one of the cool Eidolon FMVs from FFIX. Using the Summons was cool too.

The game design in general was kinda bewildering. The open world stuff sucked. Moving around is way too slow, no matter how you do it - sprinting is too slow, Chocobos are okay but should be faster (and the Chocobo renting system is a waste of time), and the Regalia is too slow and limited. Even the animation for getting in and out of the car felt like a waste of time after a while. Letting you go off road with the Regalia was a cool idea, but even that's somewhat limited, and having to get back to the road to fast travel with it is ridiculous. Fast travel is more limited than I would've liked too. Jumping sucks - there are way too many obstacles that you can't get over. Exploring the world in general just feels bad. There's way too much empty space, so exploration feels really unrewarding, and there aren't really good ways to discover the few interesting locations in the game. Other Japanese open world games I've played - X, BotW, Nier Automata - all have way better traversal and discovery.

The open world aspects don't really make sense as part of the cohesive whole either. Why are you going around doing these random sidequests the whole time? Usually open world games have some sort of reason you're just wandering around all the time, but I didn't really feel like that was there in XV. Obviously, this is exacerbated by the change from open world to scripted story in chapter 8. Having you leave the open world for a much more linear experience feels very off, and the mechanic to get back is one of the most game mechanic-y awkward things I've seen in a narrative-focused video game. I actually think the game does get better after that in most ways, but it feels really weird and kinda took me out of the experience. It feels like the game had multiple teams who did different parts of the game, and they just don’t mesh together properly.
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I don't think the side quests in this game are very good. They're often fetch questy, and it's just kind of annoying going back and forth for a lot of them. It would've been great if you could, say, complete quests without going back to the quest giver, or take on more quests at once. I did a lot of Hunts, but it was absurd that you could only take on one of them at a time. The quests in general had a nice addictive feel to them that kept me doing them, but I wish they’d had more of a story and more development for the characters involved. More of the quests should’ve had a neat payoff storywise. Finding out that Vyv is just giving you these quests as an excuse to give a bunch of money to you because he supports your fight against the Empire and doesn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities for donating the money was neat at least, though it took a long time to get there, and I think it would’ve been nice to have even more. Quest givers like the Lestallum Merchants and Dave are just total wastes. Why don’t we get stories about these Hunters who’ve died? Why does Prompto celebrate so much when we find a dead Hunter’s dog tag? Blah.

The cast in general is bad. Starting with the side characters: Cor is neat while he’s around but is barely there so he’s pretty shallow. Cindy is fanservice and a joke. Rayvus is barely on-screen and is barely developed considering how many twists he goes through off-screen that could’ve had actual impact if he interacted with the party more than once in the whole game. Aranea started out cool, but her appearance with the mercenary band later on was kinda meh, and they really needed to do more with her in Chapter 14 - really, they needed to do more with everyone in Chapter 14. They talk about all these cool changes characters have made, and then show none of it. Really disappointing. Iris was great while she was around, but again, she’s not around nearly enough. Cid’s parallel travelling around with the previous generation stuff felt really forced. Gentiana’s speaking style is annoying and her attempts to be mysterious fall flat since there’s no real depth to her (and, like everyone else, she doesn’t get nearly enough screentime). Lunafreya is totally one-dimensional. I didn’t really understand her role in the story until more than halfway through the game either, since everything goes unexplained so long.
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The main four are almost worse than the rest, because you actually do spend a lot of time with them, but they remain incredibly flat. Ignis is reasonably likable the whole time, but he’s also the least emotional of the lot, and his game mechanic conversations early on (telling you to go to bed at night and refusing to drive at night and such) turned me off to him. Gladiolus was the most likable of the lot for most of the game, until Chapter 10 where he became intensely annoying, because the developers wanted conflict between the characters I guess? Him getting on Noctis’s case so hard when Noctis was doing exactly what he needed to really made no sense. Prompto’s episode in Brotherhood was pretty cool, but I didn’t like him much in this. All the girl-chasing was a bit annoying - having him actually have a romance with a woman would’ve been much more interesting. He did have the distinction of basically being the only positive character in the group, for what it’s worth (not much). Noctis didn’t work very well for me either. His quiet personality would’ve worked better in a more introspective game. Squall worked so well partly because you got inside his head a lot - that just doesn’t happen with Noctis. Basically all of his development seems to happen in chapters 13 and 14. He’s solid by the end, but his development doesn’t feel earned. I’ve seen people say they don’t like the FFXV cast much, but love the chemistry between them. I didn’t see that much chemistry either. They have their canned lines to each other in fights and such, and those happen way too often and are too short. Some are cool (“The prince...of pain!” was my favorite thing to hear), I just didn’t like the responses to him. Noctis just says “Yup” way too often.

Thankfully, the game did have one good character. Ardyn shone basically every time he appeared. Hanging out with the party and constantly trolling them was so good. I kinda wish the main party had had a character like this, just so that their dynamic would have a more interesting element. His role in the story at the end was a bit silly, but his dialogue stayed consistently great. His relationship with Noctis was the best relationship of any two characters in the game. Maybe could’ve been even better if he’d had more scenes with the rest of the cast too? More Ardyn would’ve made everything better, honestly.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s much to say about the story after all this, though I’ll try. The presentation of it makes no sense. We jump all over the place with no real logical flow. Why are Noctis and co. just driving around while all these major events are happening? Why is Luna sometimes imprisoned and sometimes free to do as she pleases? Why do some of the Six seemingly hate humans and try to kill the party, some of them are friendly, some of them test you, and some work for the bad guys? What the hell happened to Noct between chapters 13 and 14? Before I played the game I’d heard people say it was important to watch Kingsglaive first and that I’d be lost without it. However, most of the leftover plot threads from Kingslaive are just completely dropped for this, or connected in ways such that you don’t really need to have seen it (of course, I enjoyed Kingsglaive more than FFXV overall, so it wasn’t a complete waste…). There are a few cool ideas in the story. We just see bits and pieces of them overall though.
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Finally, the music and visuals. Personally, I think Shimomura peaked with SMRPG and haven’t been a fan of any of her orchestral soundtracks, though XV does have one or two neat tracks. Sad that Hamauzu didn’t come back, since X, XIII, and XIII-2 had such great OSTs. For the graphics, after the first half of the game, I was ready to deride it as surprisingly ugly. The character design is almost uniformly terrible. Noctis’s hair is the worst, all four of the MCs have bad outfits that look way too similar, and Prompto is possibly the ugliest video game character of all time. I really, really hate how is face looks. You see it in photos all the time too, so you never get to forget how disgusting his mug is. Old Noctis actually looks cool at least! I wish he’d had that design the whole game. It’s so much better! None of the side characters in the game really stand out. It’s like they tried to make everyone look hyper-realistic, but forgot to give them interesting designs. Aranea’s is solid, other than her dumb helmet. Ardyn’s at least pretty good, though even he looks more generic than I’d like.

The visuals’ failure is found mostly in the world, though. Everything is rendered well enough, there’s just no variety to it. You see the same landscapes everywhere. This makes exploring even less fun than it should be. You never seen anything interesting off towards the horizon, and if you run off road you just see more of the same shit. This is even more apparent with all the outposts. You’d think there’d be some differences between them, but no, they all look exactly the same. The open world has a couple cool things - the meteor thingy, the rings nearby (I just wish you could interact with them, like how you can climb the similar rings in X…), and the cities at night. Just not enough. After that the game gets much better looking. I just wish you could actually explore the environments you get to. Altissia, for example, is a pretty neat looking city. The elevated gondola ride is one of the nicest scenes in the game. Actually traversing it is a huge pain in the ass though, and most of what you can see is inaccessible. It seems like such a waste. The only real graphical triumphs are, again, the Six. Everything about them looks incredible.

All in all, this game was a massive disappointment. My expectations for it weren’t very high before it came out, and then the reviews started coming in, and I was surprised by how good they were. There was a bit of a split in reactions from the fanbase, but that always happens. I figured, I’m a big FF fan! I liked FFXIII quite a bit and definitely enjoyed my time with it! I was originally not much of a fan of open world games, but the ones I’ve played over the last year or two have been a lot more fun, so I felt like I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. It just didn’t deliver. The few great moments saved it from being completely worthless, but that’s all they were. Moments. Most of the game is a chore to play. It’s by far the worst of the Final Fantasy games I’ve played (FFIV onward), and I very much hope that FFXVI is nothing like it.
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pretty much
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Actually I kinda disagree completely about the heroes and Ardyn. The heroes were great. Not particularly deep but they played off each other well. And since we do spend so much time with them, their chemistry is fully fleshed out. As individuals there's not much but as a group it is really well-developed. And thus all the themes that involve them as a group really do a fine job.

I don't know if I dislike Ardyn so much as don't really understand him at all and feel like his motivations are nowhere near as cool as he seemed.
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it's been strange to see the FF series try to evolve into the modern era after some of their core team members left

starting with 12, something just hasn't been right. it's like critical organs are missing. i didn't get very far in 15. however, while it felt better than 13 it felt similarly cardboard
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For the group thing, another thing that felt off to me - the game focuses on the importance of the group, but then the biggest moments of the game mostly have Noctis fighting alone. Doesn't really gel very well.

pjbasis posted...

I don't know if I dislike Ardyn so much as don't really understand him at all and feel like his motivations are nowhere near as cool as he seemed.

I wouldn't disagree with this. Ardyn's dialogue is why I liked him, not his backstory.
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The game needed more Ardyn, they should have gone into his past more then again maybe they could have toned him down a bit during that segment at the empire home base where he just wouldn't shut up for a moment.

Surprised on group thoughts. I thought they were pretty great together and the moments they have camping were pretty comfy also that final campfire scene was great but they really should have had it before the finale instead of as an extra scene. What the fuck was up with that?

Luna is bottom tier and I'd rather Glad's sister had more time with em
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Yeah I need a more complete character to really like it.

Kuja is my favorite villain not just because I love his old school ham-fisted villainry but also the turns his character takes as the story progresses.
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Yeah I do disagree because I liked the game, but you gave the game a strong shake and provided good reasons as to why it didn't work for you.

Kinda cool that, you just pointed out which elements you didn't like and why.

I came across a bunch of threads on gaf about this game and they just said the game was trash and were very aggressive about it.


Would you like to see another FF game use this game engine though?

You weren't a fan of the world design but thought the stuff was rendered well enough. Looking at the DLC episodes the gameplay can drastically change.
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pjbasis posted...

Yeah I need a more complete character to really like it.

Kuja is my favorite villain not just because I love his old school ham-fisted villainry but also the turns his character takes as the story progresses.

Same here. (Well, to the spirit of what you've said. I like Sephiroth more than Kuja, but Kuja's still great.)

Great write-up, Mac. From what I played, I agree with a lot of the things you've said. There are aspects to the game which I certainly like more than you, but the terrible lack of cohesion really hurts things.

voltch posted...

I came across a bunch of threads on gaf about this game and they just said the game was trash and were very aggressive about it.

haha. They're especially vitriolic tonight. Some rough FF15 threads over there. I posted in one of them, complimenting Tabata for being a nice dude. He is -- he's a charming bloke. But I'm not sure about his games.
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Oh yeah gaf threads have an alarming number of posts where they like to post specific names of people working on games who appear to have offended them.

You'd think an FF person came to their house and spat on their face.
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Game is epic if you fill in a lot of the holes for yourself. Lots of story bits that could've been awesome but were horribly underused and under-explained. If you manage to read up on them and learn about them on your own, then the story gets better. The story is really really good. But really poorly told and presented. Could've been way better.

Pacing is absolute shit. Give me an open world for most of the game then funnel me into this linear and under-developed area for the last half of the story? Yeah that just doesn't work. I spent well over 50-60 hours doing everything in the main open world, then after that I spent only 15-20 on the rest (if that). Came back to the open world after beating the game and spent even more time there. That's way too lopsided.

I think the combat is good so no issue there (other than that it really shines in open areas and not so much in cramped spaces).

Ardyn and the main 4 are excellent characters, save for Gladio's ass-hat spree in that one section.

Game ends super strong after being pretty much awful for a good while. Campfire scene should've been the final cutscene before heading off to Insomnia though, not the last scene of the whole game. It didn't make sense to have it placed after everything like that. Everything from waking up on the island to the end was great IMO.

Sadly, overall, seems like this game has the Soul Calibur V issue. All these really awesome spots of potential ruined by what seems like an unfinished product. I didn't get enough of certain areas, certain plotlines, certain really important backstories (like the astrals), and I didn't get enough time to have a connection to some of the characters that the game wants you to be emotional over. But the difference between FFXV and SCV is that I also got too much extra stuff - too many meaningless side quests and too much time wasted on loading screens and traveling between places on empty roads.

By measure of potential, this game is a 10/10 easily because it could've been one of the best games of all time. Probably should've been with how much time it took from announcement to release. The story is all THERE and the relationships are THERE and the lore is THERE. But after giving it a couple months and thinking about the game, I also ended up disappointed. Probably like a 6.5/10 if I'm being totally honest with myself, and a 7 or 7.5/10 if I'm being optimistic.
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Kuja's actually my favorite FF villain too! He was the whole package. Development, backstory, cool cutscenes, good dialogue, lots of player interactions.

voltch posted...

Would you like to see another FF game use this game engine though?

You weren't a fan of the world design but thought the stuff was rendered well enough. Looking at the DLC episodes the gameplay can drastically change.

Didn't Square already confirm that they weren't using this engine in any other games?
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I liked it enough for it be my favorite game from last year but I can respect your opinions

seems like instead of doing a sequel we're just going to get DLC content forever
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I disagree that the game and cast are bad (in particular I think the main 4 were well done), but I do agree that Ardyn is great.
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ninkendo posted...

seems like instead of doing a sequel we're just going to get DLC content forever

does that mean no FFXV-2 starring Iris/Aranea/Cindy
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