Final Fantasy XV
Now that Final Fantasy XV is finally out, I will be playing it and now writing about my experience with it. I will have the first part of this spoiler free, and will put the spoilers in the last part of this post. So I did see the first trailers for this game when it was called Final Fantasy XIII Versus. I remember thinking it looked rather cool, but I did forget about it since then. There have been occasions when I did remember and wondered what happened though I never bothered to look it up. When it was announced that it be called Final Fantasy XV, I was excited to see that the idea hasn't been scrapped. I assume the delay is due to the change in directors from Nomura to Tabata. Tabata is the director who did Crisis Core which I think it a decent game. I have been following it announcements since, and I am pleasantly surprised at how much they did reports and addressing to fan questions and concerns. They continued to surprise me even more with the release date announcement event when they had revealed a CGI movie, free anime series, and that the car can fly. I wasn't bummed when it later announced it had to delay the game since it was only two months. While I can understand why people are skeptical or disinterested in this game due to the widespread dislike for the previous Final Fantasy games. I personally was looking forward to this game, but I did kept my expectations low. I don't think I would dislike the game, but I was fearing other people disliking it and spreading that opinion around. I did end up finishing the game faster than I anticipated too. Highly recommend watching the movie Kingsglaive and the anime series Brotherhood before or while you go through the game.
While I know people like to make fun that the main four characters look like a boy band, and that the main playable character Noctis looks like Sasuke. The game for the most part is one big road trip. You go around in your car from outpost to outpost and doing quests. The main focus is on these four men and their companionship. There are a variety of quests to do and it does feel quite mmo like. The monsters you kill don't drop money for once. To get money you will have to do quests, sell items you get like fish and stuff, or do the monster hunter stuff. This game is quite different from the previous FF games which is refreshing but also feel unfamiliar as a FF fan myself. The story is also quite different. Noctis is a prince, and the game begins with him setting out with his 3 friends to a city where he'll wed the Oracle Lunafreya. The threat in this game is from a different kingdom called Niflheim. They have been taking over the world and Noctis' kingdom is the last remain land left. Similar to previous games like FF6 and FF7, the enemy uses machinery and research for unpleasant reasons. They actually use android like soldiers to fight you instead of actual people which is interesting. The open area part of the game is fun. The scenery is great to take in even though the quests do make me go back and forth like crazy. I do enjoy driving around the map more than I expected. I guess since there's never any traffic or traffic lights. I didn't do do any cosmetic changes to the car since I like the way it originally is. I do appreciate the variety of ways you can though. I do like that you can busy soundtracks of previous FF games to play in your car. You can even buy an mp3 player to play music when you walk which is fun thing to have. The chocobos are great too and you can easily get attached to them. They are customizable, and even level up. You can name them too, but I couldn't think of a name to use so I just left it as Chocobo. Oh, and they can swim. The guys can't swim but if you ride the chocobos, you can go through bodies of water. This game does having fishing. I'm not huge on fishing in games so I didn't do much, but I do enjoy the mechanic of it. The skill tree part of the game is also not something I did much either. I've only maxed the HP boosts, and everything else I did the first one or two nodes. It is interesting that all the exp you gain don't level you up until you rest. I've read people either go on for days with them resting, and other rest often as they can. There are certain camp spots that give extra hang out scenes with Noctis with one of guys. They're cute scenes so I highly suggest camping in as many different spots to get them as you can.
The game will ask if you to do a tutorial before starting the game which I do recommend doing. The combat does feel great, but at first it is a bit overwhelming. Its not perfect though. The camera can be unhelpful, and fighting around bushes is not pleasant. Locking on is also a little frustrating, but it didn't ruin my experience. This game can get pretty tough since you can sort of stumble upon a monster way higher level than you unexpectedly. Luckily it is easy to get out of when you get out of the red ring radar of the monster in the mini map. The combat seem to be a hit or miss with some people, but you can't please everyone. I like that its not that hard, but it can be hard if you wanted to. There's no gimmick to monsters either which is good. The dungeons are also interesting. Some parts of it are frustrating or annoying, but its not a big deal. There is one dungeon that people seem to hate, but I don't think its as terrible as people say. There is a big bank safe like metal door that are only can be entered post game completion so there are post game content to do. I feel I missed out quite a bit before I completed the game so its nice that I can go back. Some parts of the story had Niflheim bases infiltrations and optional bases to infiltrate. You drive them and look empty, but you can trigger an scene that will make that base filled with enemies. I have yet to do the side ones, but I did trigger one. The story ones were neat to do, but I did struggle with it. There was an option to get on a mech, but it had to be at night and I couldn't see nor find out which or to do that. I do like the game play. The story quests are the ones with the unique type of gameplay, especially with battling the summon gods even with the quicktime event time thing going on with them.
Noctis is not a bad character. He acts like his age which is a bit bratty, but he has some cute sides. He has soft spots for animals, and gets excited when its comes to fishing. He did grow on me over time. His three friends don't get much focus since the game is mainly just about the group as a whole. Since I played the game with Japanese voices, I will say they were probably my favorites voices. I really enjoyed how Tatsuhisa voiced Noctis. Also, the English translations aren't bad, but I feel the Japanese dialogue felt more impactful. The story I will explain in the spoiler part below. Overall, I do recommend this game though it may not be for everyone. The graphics and music is beautiful. I did see a number of funny graphical bugs and glitches, but I personally have never come across those kind of bugs in my game.
SPOILER STARTS
Now I want to talk about the story part of the game. At a certain point in the story quest line, it will get linear and you can't go back until much later in the story. I had no idea when that would happen so I did went into it and ended up finishing the game much faster than I had wanted. There was a point that I could go back, but that feature wasn't obvious to me so I kept going to the end. One thing I will say about the story is that its quite short. I advise doing as much extra stuff as you can tolerate before going forward. When you do finish the game, it will let you save and it will take you to your last save. There you can go back and do whatever. To go back, the dog Umbra will have the option to look at your memories at some point in the story. I didn't know what that meant exactly, but I never tried it out until I beaten the game. Anyways, the story. You learn rather quite soon that Niflheim attacked the city you just left and that the king has died. Noctis now is expected to fulfill the role of the king, and to take back the city. To do that, he has to go find the royal tombs and get the royal weapons as well as the 6 gods aka the summons. You don't actually have to find all the royal tombs either to finish the game. The gang does meet with Ardyn the chancellor of Niflheim a number of times. He is suspiciously helpful to you and getting you access to off limit areas. At a certain point, Noctis starts getting headaches, and to stop it you have to face Titan. This will be the first summon you will get. Afterwards you will get Ramuh which you just find the lightning runestone things which isn't as exciting.
When you leave the continent, then things get linear. You visit Altissa, the Venice like city. This city is like a maze, but you get around with the gondola which took me too long to figure out. I wasn't able to explore more since I just did the story quests which took me straight into the linear part of the story. I thought there was no turning back so I kept going, but I now learn that there was an option to be able to turn back. There will be a huge event since Lunafreya is also in the city. She awakens Leviathan which you fight against alone. Ardyn shows up and stabs Luna which surprised me a lot. Luna then helps Noctis by awakening his powers which helped him defeat Leviathan. Noctis wakes up and gets the news that Luna has passed away. This gave me such Aerith vibes. I did feel rather conflicted that she got killed off as if King Regis' death wasn't bad enough. Luna has been safe keeping the Lucii Ring and was able to give it to Noctis before she passed. As if that wasn't enough, the chaos awakening Leviathan made has caused one of Noctis' buddies, Ignis, a severe injury where he lost his eye sight. All this can be quite something for a young man like Noctis to take. But since he is the king, he can't still be a brat kid anymore. This causes some tension within the group, and now you feel kind of alienated since the others are accommodating Ignis. If you go too far ahead, they will call out on you. After Altissa, you go on a train to the last royal tomb. After finishing it, Ignis addresses the issue with the group which makes things all right again. You head for Tenebrae, the home place of Lunafreya. You do get attacked on the way there, and you learn that Ardyn is a much bigger asshole than before. Somehow he has some weird tricks that messes with Noctis. He made Noctis push Prompto off the train accidentally. Wow. Tenebrae was burning when the train finally reached there. You can't explore it sadly, and you're stuck on the train platform area. You learn more about Luna and her brother Ravus from the people there. If you seen Kingsglaive, you would know Ravus turned bad and wanted revenge. I thought he died in the movie, but he clearly didn't in the game. However, Ravus may seem evil as first, but he suddenly is not bad. There wasn't an explanation on his change of heart other than probably the threat of his sister's life. You also learn that the day is getting shorter meaning that the monsters will be out longer when night falls. Your last stop is Niflheim's capital to rescue Prompto. So yeah, the world is rather small compare to previous FF games which is disappointing. Ardyn does mess with you again, but Shiva helps you out. She has been disguising herself as the immortal messenger that's been alongside Luna all these years. I have to say, Shiva looks amazing in this game. Definitely something for men to oogle at for sure, haha. There will be a car scene when you arrive at the capital where it does end up getting beat up. I have to say, when Noctis says his goodbyes to it I felt rather sad. Its just a car, but it has been like part of the gang.
Then the game just splits Noctis from his friends so he ends up going through the last dungeon alone. Now, this last dungeon is a pain in the butt. Not only is it really long, Ardyn has taken away your powers meaning no weapons or magic. This is when Noctis finally puts on the ring. While the ring's power is cool, its not as easy to taken town enemies as a weapon can. This dungeon is not fun. I have seen that this part of the game has made people quite upset to the point they bash the game. While I understand the frustrations, I think that's rather unfair. I didn't mind only having the ring, and the dungeon itself wasn't that bad or boring to me ts just rather long. It is weird to go through it alone as I am accustom to going through last dungeons with all my friends and the best stuff I've got. I did see people say its rather Resident Evil like which I agree. Some may see it doesn't belong in a FF title, but I don't mind it at all.
The biggest complaint I see online is that the story seems like a mess or at least rushed. There are notes in the last dungeon that explains what happened to the city since there was nobody there but monsters and the robotic soldiers. From what I understand, The Emperor wanted to rule the world. Ardyn uses this empire like a tool and seem to give them the idea to do some research on monsters. This end up going bad as they take their own people and make them into monsters even the emperor himself got turned into one. I think this increases this plague thing they call Starscourge. When monsters die they release particles that darken the sky. This reveal that the enemies we saw in Kingsglaive and an earlier cutscene is done and over with off screen is rather anticlimatic. Some people will be disappointed that they won't be able to meet or even fight these characters. The developers may have wanted a different reactions to this than what players are feeling from it. You do eventually find Ravus who was reported to be killed for being a traitor and failure. He was holding onto King Regis' sword so he could return it to Noctis. Now Noctis finally has a weapon. You will go find your buddies and be reunited again. Prompto is the last one to be saved, and he confesses that he's from Niflheim and was a test subject with a arm barcode thing he has. The gang reassures Prompto that is doesn't matter where he's from because he's their friend and know he won't betray them. I have to say, that his confession did surprise me though it hardly really affect the story. I suppose its part of his story, since Gladio has his sister, Ignis doesn't have really have much other than his injury, and this is what Prompto has. It is announced that these three did have a certain amount of time away from the party during the game, and will have their own DLC. Many think the DLC will follow what happened to them during that time away which would be really nice. Anyways, things get stressful quickly when monsters start increasing in the last dungeon. The gang has to save the crystal that the Emperor took from Noctis' kingdom. The crystal is said to be able to get rid of the monsters. Ravus shows up but is half transformed into a monster. The poor guy pleads them to end his life. His boss fight is rather cool and kind of Dark Souls like, but boy did he beat the hell out of my boys. He's also like twice the size of my party members which was weird. Noctis ends up alone again as he heads towards the crystal where he ends up getting sucked into it. Ardyn is there to watch it happen and he tells Noctis that he too was a King of Lucis who saved the world from monsters by absorbing them. He didn't get praised for it, and he's been holding on to this grudge. I think he's the original Lucis king, and Noctis' ancestors took his name. The monsters he absorbed has given him immortality as well as madness.
When Noctis is inside the crystal, he meets Bahamut who tells him he is destined to be the True King. A king of kings who will save the world by sacrificing his life. This took me a minute to process because I couldn't believe what I was reading. As if the game hasn't already killed enough characters already. Noctis wakes up in some dark room looking much older. He ends up at the seaside resort and the world is permanently dark and strong monsters are everywhere. This was the only time I came across Tonberries. I never ran into cactaur sadly. Umbra for some reason is there with you. Noctis heads to Hammerhead, the mechanic shop outside the city is. Its a long walk and I had to run away from every monster or else its game over for me. You do get picked up from Talcott who is an adult now. You learn 10 years has passed. Don't know why that happened. You reunite with your buddies at Hammerhead. Neither Cindy nor Cid are there. You can't meet any other characters in this FF6 like end of the world part of the story. So you have to head to the city. The monsters in the city are strong so I mostly ran away from them. You do have to beat the Behemoth King that's in front of the citadel gates. Ardyn greets you and leaves you to fight Ifrit who is so much different from the previous Ifrit in the FF games. He isn't a beast, he's a half naked man and I love it. I think he has some dislike for people or something, I forget. This boss fight is quite interesting and neat. It is the fight you see at the beginning of the game. After defeating him, you head for the throne room where Ardyn taunts you with the corpses of the characters that have been killed off. He also makes your friends go unconscious so you have to fight him alone. His fight isn't as neat as Ifrits or Ravus, but that's ok. He uses the same abilities as Noctis so it makes sense that its like this being a former king and all. After beating him, Noctis says goodbye to his buddies. A bit earlier, Noctis did ask Prompto if he could take one of his photos. I thought it was kind of obvious the photo feature in this game would have some significance and here it is. You have to choose one photo for Noctis to take with him so you end up going through all the photos and the adventures you've had in the game. It is kind of emotional thing to look back at honestly. This whole story has been a huge roller coaster ride of emotions. Noctis goes into the throne room alone where he will sacrifice himself. In like the afterlife or something he finishes off Ardyn.
The credits starts with the beginning scene of the gang pushing the car and it will do a slideshow thing of all your photos. There is a cutscene in the middle of the gang camping. Its an emotional scene of Noctis confessing his feelings to his friends. There will be another cutscene at the end of the credits of the throne room all decorated for a wedding and its Noctis and Luna together looking at the photo you choose to keep. This may look like a happy ending, but they're in the afterlife. I didn't expect this game to be this heavy ins martyrs. It did leave me feeling conflicted, but I am in no way unsatisfied. I do get that people may have issues with the story, but I personally don't really have much issues with it other than it was too short. I was expecting to have over 100s hours like Persona 5, but I think I was at 50 hours when I beat it. But I suppose this is what open world games are usually end up like. A number of stuff happened off screen, and you would only know about it from the radio, newpapers, listening to people, or notes. I can understand that its like this because we're following Noctis's point of view, and he isn't there to experience these off screen things. Though it be nice if he was around when things took a turn. Read some people didn't like or at least feel unattached to Luna from the lack of interaction. She had a relatively decent amount of cutscenes and did speak on the radio a couple times to me. I didn't find her to be as flat as people find her to be. Ravus on the other hand I can agree with people feeling he was poorly treated. I wish the ending was happier and I can happily overlook the story flaws. Yes, I know having everything be miraculously fine and happy at the end is silly, but they made me feel good that everything was all right. So I did feel a little upset that it wasn't like that here. I guess it just makes the road trip part that much more meaningful. I did enjoy that part, that bond between your friends and the journey you go through together. This bond between them does feel a lot stronger than the previous FF games I've played. While the story has flaws, I am ok with it. I do find it decent and moving so I can't say it was bad just wish it was longer and fleshed out better. I suppose it might be the issues of it not fitting in one disc. I mean the other story stuff is in other forms of media. Even the demo with Noctis as a child has a bit of story too. We will have to wait and see what the DLC will bring to the story. I have read that Nomura had this planned to be a trilogy but only had it 25% completed before it was handed to Tabata in 2013. Tabata only have about 4 years to turn it into a one game experience. I think he did the best he could and I can't ever blame him or any one person for the way they handled this game. They did use some expensive engine that's I've heard is time consuming. If they allowed it, I wouldn't mind giving money for them to work on this game some more. Buying the DLC is probably the most we fans can do right now. I do hope they will continue making FF games, and I look forward to FF7 Remake now that its using Unreal Engine which hopefully gives them more time to polish thing up.
SPOILER END
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