ffxv_review

Final Fantasy XV

Overall, this game is good, in a weird sort of average of highs and lows kind of way. The highs are high, and the lows aren't particularly terrible, but they're kinda just weird. But overall definitely positive on this title. I was drawn in by the prospect of "hanging out with your boys" and all that comes with it- it starts this way and never stops the whole game, and that's cool at the very least.

But the way this game starts off is honestly kinda baffling. You are placed in this new world, at first in a castle, then within 10 minutes you are wandering around the wasteland (not desert, a wasteland) with 4 new characters in full black outfits, running from pit stop to pit stop to do some errands you got from the local pit stop diner. It's some serious whiplash. You're led to believe there's some mystical and fantasy world things happening, but then you get sunk into a brown and yellow ecosystem for hours.

I think my main criticism for this game is how the story is told to the player. NOT what the story is- I think the story is super cool and very well thought out. This world is extremely well lived in. There are a lot of small details everywhere, where the average citizen has at least some understanding as to what's going on in the greater world. The lore about the greater universe, the world and the Star, the daemons and the plague, the summons, and everything about Lucis is really just good writing and fun to uncover as you play the game. I didn't do all the DLCs, but I read about the synopses for the extra episodes, and it definitely helps bolster the story but also wasn't critical for your first time, it just helps in the grand scheme of the story.

But the way that the events unfold to the player felt so odd and strange to me. I think that the writers, in wanting to not spoiler too many obvious plot points, decided to backload the game on lore and understanding of what's happening in the world. But it was way too much. Probably for the first 15 hours I straight up did not understand what Noctis' party's goals in the story were. You are told to go to meet Lunafreya to get married, then after the King is murdered (which you see coming a mile away at the start of the game), you sorta just.. wander around for awhile. You take some random black market jeweler's quest, then Cor shows up and tells you to get stronger by visiting some old tombs. Why are we getting stronger? To reclaim the throne and fight the Empire, I guess? You listen to a 10 year old's story about a waterfall cave, THEN after getting some intense headaches, Noctis decides to partner with an agent of the Empire to get close to Titan for seemingly no other reason than to cure his migraines. The whole early journey of finding tombs, forging a pact with Titan and becoming stronger felt so strange and aimless to me. Noctis is supposed to be reclaiming the throne, and you're sent on these random journeys to stumble upon doing that, I guess.

There's just a lot of strange story beats. You're driving down the road with Iris to grant her safe haven, but wait! Let's pit stop at an enemy base and blow it up. There, Aranea attacks you as an agent of the empire. But don't worry, within an hour, you'll be working with Ardyn (who is at the very least known to be allied with the enemy) and Aranea, who you just fought, now as a chummy ally. It feels like these plot points smooth over in these weird ways. Don't even get me started on how awkward the power plant section where Gladiolus randomly shows up in full hazmat suit to fight 4 mid level goblins in the reactor, under the pretense that Noctis doesn't know who it is. At first I thought the negotiation segment before Leviathan would be cool, but it definitely is weird, and what blows my mind is that part of the negotiation is to put Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto in charge for evacuating an entire city's population, especially when the city has its own armed force.

I think the game really does get better as it goes on though. The Leviathan fight is definitely just a glorified cutscene battle, but it's awesome in scale. I'd rather have a relatively easy fight that is unforgettable. You start to learn more about what the Six around this time, and Lunafreya's tragedy is excellently handled. The fact that they didn't just go lame anime story revival with her is A+, and it builds Noctis' character and his actions extraordinarily well. I like the time on the train in the later chapters, and especially the segment where Noctis warp strikes the aircrafts down. Strife within the party after the Leviathan events is also palpable and really good- everyone has their very understandable struggles, like Noctis in grief, and Gladiolus pushing Noctis, while Prompto plays peacekeeper and Ignis barely hangs on.

Chapter 13 is definitely a bit too long but I liked the premise a lot. And Chapter 14 is of course a monster of a chapter but I dig it a lot. So, a 10 year time gap happens - this sort of thing is what I'm conflicted about when I was writing above about weird story beats to me. This to me does NOT feel weird - yes, it's not explained at the time, and you get absorbed into the Crystal and 10 years pass. But there is a huge difference to me on something that is either 1- unexplained at the moment or 2- up to interpretation, as it happens at the beginning of Chapter 14, as opposed to some of the disjointed story beats early in the game when the player is trying to assess at all what's happening. I can just accept that something powerful happened when the Noctis entered the Crystal and move on.

All of Chapter 14 was fun to me. I stumbled upon Omega and thought it was the frickin coolest thing I've seen in awhile. It is interesting that they did not do the very standard Final Fantasy final boss, as Ardyn super doesn't count, and I didn't think The Mystic was nearly hard enough. But I also didn't really care that much - I was happy to reach the ending, and it was very obvious that if you wanted to have more challenge, there were things still left to be done in the postgame. The ending itself, I very much enjoyed. The throne room bodies hanging is very unsettling, and I recognized all but one of them (which apparently is from the prequel movie I didn't watch). It's cool seeing Ardyn being somewhat smug in one of the final cutscenes, then Noctis overwhelms him and drives him to defeat with the support of the Lucii and Lunafreya. The final FF15 logo revealing Noctis and Lunafreya was excellent.

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I thoroughly enjoyed the combat system. I was worried it was going to be a step down from FF7 Remake but it's really just not the same thing at all. I've come to the opinion that I think stagger mechanics in games are lame. This game has some stagger/knockdown stuff but it is not at all like FF7R, and you just do more damage at opportune times in this game. You definitely get a lot of cool customization tools - I mostly had Noctis as a mage for most of the game, then when I got enough AP I got Blink (wish I got it way earlier in the game) then Impervious and it crushed.

This battle system seems extraordinarily breakable (Disclaimer, I haven't looked up any other gameplay footage yet). Once I realized how strangely broken some of the mechanics were, they get super easy to abuse. I used the Tech Bar a ton, and put on the accessory to boost Tech Bar at the expense of Armiger (I never used this mechanic, have no idea if it was good or not). The fact that all party members associated with a Tech get full invincibility during the Tech is just crazy man. For example when I fought Quetzalcoatl, my strategy devolved into Ignis using Overwhelm, being full party invulnerable for like 15 seconds, then heal dead characters with Potions (where you get Tech bar during all animations), then repeat. Lots of strangely degenerative things you can do. But it was still fun to experiment. I have no doubt there are some extremely good setups to clear enemies in this game.

Hardest fight in the game was Ravus to me, and it wasn't even close. Everything else was fine. In classic me fashion I was about 8 levels under, and his attacks did an ungodly amount of damage. I resorted to using Death with the ring to slow down time and react dodge to everything, ended up working out. Most other bosses just melted to blindside attacks, Tech spam and the ocassional magic cast

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I really liked all the characters. They're just good. I really like Noctis a lot. I think they wrote him like a powerful teenager/early 20s man should have been written. He's not annoying, and he's not overly gloomy as you might think he'd be. He's clearly figuring out the world around him and relies upon his boys. Lunafreya's tragedy hits him hard and I think he handles it in a very real and understandable way. The credits cutscene where Noctis is talking at the camp to the party about how he's accepted his pending death but can't handle it, incredible character writing.

Lunafreya's role as the Oracle and her mannerisms just feel like they belong. Honestly modern media is often so eye-rolly or at worst complete trash when it comes to writing female supporting characters, and I really gotta say they did a super good job with Lunafreya and making her a pivotal and realistic part of the story

The other 3 party members are awesome. They chose to write a cast that are very distinct and support each other. Ignis and Gladiolus clearly have a role, and Prompto is sorta a question mark for a long time as to why he's around, but much later it comes together, as I hoped it would. I read about their DLC episodes' stories and they are all awesome, especially Ignis'.

There's a ton of FF multimedia references. Some of them were kind of strange to me and felt forced, like "the Meteor" just kinda being part of this world. Prompto is obviously given the Cloud Strife trope with his tattoo and hidden past. As always I went into this game totally blind so I really had no idea just how strong the Final Fantasy VI pendulum was swinging. When Magitek showed up as a word the first time I was like, oh cool, but then you get some cutscenes with the Empire, the "Emperor and his Generals" and all the Magitek armor, and I was like damn, it really is laying it on thick. Ardyn is clearly a Kefka-like character, aligned with the Empire but very much up to his own goals.

This game doesn't really get into the inner workings of the Empire all that much - you see it in its post-collapse state in Chapter 13, and they tell you that everyone has fled, and the old Emperor is killed by the time you get to the throne room. I like it the storytelling approach a lot, you can put it together and they didn't feel the need to harp on it too much.

The Summons (the Six) are real good. Ifrit being a very late game boss is an awesome change of pace in its own right. Bahamut is such an over-the-top design and it rules. The developers made it very clear just how big and powerful they are in this world, and it's cool because the average citizen either fears or reveres them, as they should be feared or revered.

The game just looks good too, and everything from combat to cutscenes render really well and it's just nice to look at. You'd think this would be common in modern games but not really. They put a ton of detail everywhere.

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Definitely glad I played this one, and it sounds like waiting for the Royal/Windows edition was the way to go. It's a very solid title and it was fun to play through it