Let's Review: Final Fantasy XV

[rowe]

Let's give some well thought out reviews of the game.

Was the story great or lackluster? How were the characters? Was the battle system amazing, or confusing?

Go ahead, we want to hear (read?) your detailed thoughts.

 

[Dragon Warrior]

Well, I just beat the game that I have been waiting for 10 years. And I have to say... the game isn't not that good.

The story feels really really rushed, I mean I feel like it hasn't started till chapter 9, and it's even made very well tbh, there are good characters who

Spoiler

died way TOO QUICKLY such as Luna...

The story isn't that good at all, the only good thing about it is the ending or at least the last 4 chapters and chapter 9.
There are TOO MANY cutsenes that were in the trailers and they have not been added in the story. I wonder why is that?
I feel like if they just stick to their FF Versus 13 strory. It would have been 10 times better, even the Noctis we got in FF15 is not as cool as FF Versus 13...


The gameplay is ok but the magic? it's so awful. It's only have firs, freeze and thunder... No cure, no tornado, no dark stuff and etc... like the older FF games...

Well, this game is supposed to be a huge open world game, even tho, it does have a big map, but it's not as big as I thought it would be. Even the map itself doesn't have much different places in my opinion such as Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Xenoblade has a huge different maps, and each map is completly different from the other map which makes is very very VERY unique and enjoyable to walk around the open world maps.
Also, comparing this to Witcher 3's open world.... Witcher 3 has better open world map imo. It also has more freedom in the open world map too, I mean you can go whatever you want to go in Witcher 3, you can swim, you can enter houses and caves. There are many villages and cities to walk around, many shops, many side stuffs to do.
In FFXV, you can't swim, you can't go into random houses, there are not a lot of cities or villages, most of the map is a field and gas station instead. I feel like what ruined the map actually is the car way. The car has an important role in the story, but to me it just ruined the map...
I'm honestly a bit disappointed with the open world map of FFXV. It should have been far batter than that. I mean, it should have been having more freedom than how it is..


The side quests are boring, and they are very few compared to Witcher 3. Well, I thought FFXV will have such a big world and big quests to do after I played Witcher 3. But it turns out to be crap..


In the end, i feel a bit disappointed with Final Fantasy XV after all this long wait. It could have been 10 times... not 100 times better than the thing we got.
I give this game 7/10

 

[Lirael]

I am in chapter 6 and I feel like the game is a bit pointless so far. It's fun enough to play, but there's no substance to the story thus far and it hasn't hooked me in like the previous Final Fantasy games.

The main characters are my favourite part of the game. I like Noctis, Ignis, Gladios and Prompto - the rest of the characters don't really feature enough for me to form any sort of opinion on them. Some of them appear seemingly at random to move the paper-thin plot forwards. I have barely seen Luna so far, despite her being promoted as one of the main characters in the story. I felt more for the characters in Final Fantasy II, which didn't even have much of a story!

The battle system is better in Wait mode, but it doesn't feel very intuitive and there are times when I can't tell what's going on. I actually think it's LESS effective then the paradigm system (dare I say it?) in Final Fantasy XIII. It's not difficult (I have died once when I went up against Deadeye at level 6), but I can rarely tell when the characters are being attacked and Potions have become pointless as the characters lose their maximum health!! I use Ethers all the time instead because Prompto frequently ends up in situations where his health is capped at 200HP. I don't really understand the motivation behind this choice.

The gameplay itself is more akin to a bad MMORPG - lots of fetch quests, monster hunts and walking from to A to B...

The world map feels absolutely tiny, especially after playing The Witcher 3 (funny you should mention that too, Dragon Warrior). Everywhere looks the same and there's no magical, otherworldly feeling like in the other FF games. The world in FFI was more imaginative!

It wasn't worth getting a PS4 for... which I did. At least the PS4 has Uncharted 4 and Last of Us on it I guess!

I'm being incredibly critical I know. I have to say, I don't hate the game. It is just meh. I have very little opinion on it. It might as well not exist.

 

[Notorious]

Hype. Hype is a son of a bitch. Rushed work, an even bigger bitch.

That's what it comes down to it with Final Fantasy XV. It was simply over hyped and my theory is Square had been sitting on this project for so long that they simply needed to push it out and FAST. Does that make this game bad? Not at all. In fact I probably enjoyed it way more than most people on this forum and I'm proud to say I enjoyed nearly every hour of gameplay.

Let's get hype out of the way first. Nothing that has been in development hell for over 10 years is going to survive the onslaught of people putting the game on a pedestal then criticizing it afterwards. It's been an entire decade since it was announced, most would assume it was being worked on the entire time but that is obviously not the case. If you followed the game since it was first announced so much background information was released that literally makes no appearance in the game. Characters have been altered drastically or removed entirely. Final Fantasy Versus XIII does not exist, period. There's a lot made for that game but that isn't the one you're playing. Accepting that makes XV a better game and if you were lucky enough (like me) to avoid the hype completely and pick up the game with no expectations then you'll have a great time with it regardless of its problems.

I think Square is definitely onto something with this combat system. It may not be like the older Final Fantasies but this is the type of action I wanted when I first played FF7 all those years ago. I wanted to control the action, actually feel like I'm making a difference instead of leaving it to chance when selecting attack, magic, item, whatever. I love turn based games, some of my favorites use that very same combat, but these days it feels dated and for a modern game it may seem misplaced. I could see Square producing two sets of Final Fantasy games at this point where one is turn based and one with XV-like combat and I think that would be the perfect middle ground for the series. The action in XV is phenomenal and while there are some camera issues and a lack of magic I could overlook it. This game isn't a traditional Final Fantasy so there isn't too many different spells but the warping magic made Noctis feel unique to other protagonists. It doesn't excuse the fact that there is a huge lack of it but it doesn't break the game by any means.

There's a decent variety of enemies to face in the open world and during missions but they seem a bit dumb being stuck to preset areas and not seeing you after a certain point. It feels like they took this from the MMO titles and it's a bit anti climatic and not as exciting as random battles but its forgivable for their first title like this. I think if enemies randomly appeared or crawled their way out of the ground (hell, they're called demons already, own it!) and chased you more relentlessly it would make the open world feel more action packed and less empty. The open world portions of the game I thought were great, the camaraderie while driving from place to place was refreshing and the whole road trip theme was great. Yeah, even the product placements. Having to fill up on gas and eat was an interesting touch and it made the world feel a bit more alive than it would without. I think they missed a big opportunity by not including an open world rendition of Insomnia or the Empire capital though. The open world and space is great but the only real city we have is Lestallum and it's a small one at that so a bit disappointing there. Comparing this to another open world game like The Witcher 3 and it shows how generous they are with the term open world... But not every game is the Witcher 3.

The side missions are a bit of a chore and could have been handled better. I much would have preferred side adventures and more story telling moments instead of "Go fetch me this part y'all, I sure would appreciate it! Y'all hurry back now." The main four characters are great and several of the side characters are nice too but there should have been more character development all around. A lot of the times the game assumes you've seen Kingsglaive or know about the background story and is unforgiving when it comes to the story. A lot of it is simply untold or just not there and that might be the most disappointing part of the whole thing. The story was filled with fantastic ideas and a great world was being made but unfortunately the whole thing seems rushed, a lot of vital things were cut and we were left with a husk of a story. Compared to most games that have come out recently it still beats those out but this is Final Fantasy were talking about here! I wanted something more meaty, more opportunities for Noctis and the others to grow, specifically more time for Ardyn to grow as well. If given more time and more material this would easily be one of the greatest games in the series and one of the best open world titles to date.

Before I end up getting carried away I'll leave it at this, Final Fantasy XV is a great start for a new beginning in the series. The game even starts off with "A game for Final Fantasy fans and first timers alike." They want a fresh start to the series and this is the way to do it. Some parts of the game are shallow sure, but a lot of it is fun and engaging. Try and not be too critical of it as it's no masterpiece, but it isn't the worst game out there either. Throw your hype aside and just enjoy it for what it is, a road trip with some bros that might end a little early with a few road bumps along the way.

TL;dr Good, flawed game. Quit bitching about it and enjoy it for what it is and not what it was going to be.

 

[JadeKarter]

Oh thank you for this! I honestly thought I was the only one who felt this way! Watched a ton of videos on youtube, especially the movie version of the game and like 90% of the comments said they loved it and was going down as a legend

Spoiler

The story is just weak and so little involved. The constant driving around felt so aimless and boring. The so called "togetherness" of the four main characters was lost to me. I didn't see enough to prove they were close. In fact the lead - Noctis - seemed uninterested in his companions, and at times irritated. Noctis didn't seem to care about his duty. There is such limited magic and that feels so anti-final fantasy!? What bothers me the worst is the look of the game. Some moments it looks and feels like a final fantasy game, but majority it looked so down to earth, which was boring and uninteresting. Almost like the gamers were working on two completely different games and accidently sowed them together

The graphics are very good and are an improvement in realism to Final Fantasy 13, but it doesn't same the game! Another positive is the music, I've been listening to it a lot since a few tracks got leaked last year. Again, this doesn't save it. I like to have some level of interested in story and characters otherwise I'm not having fun or enjoying it.

(After I discovered what the game was all about, I keep seeing previous of it, even on news sites and my mom was like "it looks good and fun" and I replied "that's the point, to suck you in, rob your money and then as your playing and get to the end you get an F.U. from the developers")

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed with this game. I love Square Enix for all they've done, but this was pathetic - especially since they've been working on it for 10 years! I hate hype. Never paid much attention to it since the Star Wars Prequels...

 

[Thule Esperada]

The story is under developed and characters are underutilized. Remember when Regis was supposed to be a mafia-king, or Luna was supposed to be Stella? Remember all those Nifleheim characters featured prominently in trailers but had one cutscene each? None of the NPCs have any impact or presence in the story, you get to hear the big bad's motives in an exposition dump an hour before the final boss. A 10 YEAR timeskip right at the end?! Plus several events regarding Nifleheim and Tenebrae which would have been really awesome setpieces, happen offscreen.

Actually now that I think about it, the games story is a perfect recreation of the games development cycle. The first chapters are a solid base with some buildup and vague promises about what the rest of the game will be like, like when the game was still Versus XIII. Next up is a long long period where nothing really happens and we keep seeing similar stuff over and over again, like the long time the game was in development hell. Next up comes a more action packed sequence which gets you excited and hopefull that the story will pick up the pace, similar to the rebranding from VS-XIII to XV event. We are then provided a linear set of events that keep getting more and more disappointing, like how all the changes Tabata made to the original concept kept angering people. Then it all ends in a unsatisfying, rushed and anti-climactic boss and an ending which loses most of it's impact due to the underdeveloped plot, which is a metaphor for the game's release.

If you look at it like that, then this game is a story telling masterpiece. But that really wasn't their intention. The games narrative actually has the exact same shortcomings as Type-0, another game directed by Tabata. Underdeveloped characters and a story that's kind of a mess with a lot of cool events which would have made for excelent setpieces taking place offscreen. Plus Tabata directed 3rd birthday, and we all know what a train wreck that was. So this really wasn't a suprise for me.

As far as open world games go, I don't really like them. I prefer story driven games and open world design and a strong narrative don't go hand in hand. And as Final Fantasy tries hard to be a story driven game, it was unavoidable that the game would suffer from it's design. As for combat, I'm suprised how good it ended up being considering how bad it was in the original demo. The summons are still terrible though. But good combat alone doesn't carry an open world game if it lacks other substance, as Dragon's Dogma shows. And XV lacks it. Typical generic fetch quests and othe MMO lite style quests litter the game world. And I'm suprised how bad the hunt quests are considering they already had a great template in XII, where almost every hunt had varying amounts of unique story to them. Hunting a beast becomes much more interesting when you find out it was originally a persons pet before it grew too large and dangerous so it had to be released.

Finally the art design is severely lacking, as I have stated in a thread I made a few days back. The game world doesn't feature any fantastic vegetation or geometry, and dungeon design is abysmal. Mostly just boring caves or ruins consisting of square rooms. I have watched a few videos about the "bonus dungeons" in the game and it's still the same thing. There are only 5 summons (technicaly 6) and aside from Leviathan they are all human, even Bahamut.

To make it clear, I don't think that the game is bad exactly. It's haunted by it's own legacy and constantly feels like it could have been so much better. Right now it's just mediocre. And for someone who has followed this game since it's first announcement and waited 10 years, it's quite painful and sad that this was the end result.

It wasn't worth the wait.

 

[redbaron97]

After playing the Royal Edition and experiencing the whole story in chronological order (watching the movie, anime, reading the novellas and playing through the chapters and DLC as the events take place), I'd say that it was an alright experience. Granted the way the story was chopped up and presented could've been done A LOT better. The Summons could've been better utilized, although I do like the idea of them being portrayed as deities. The combat system was the only saving grace of the game since it was fast-paced and delved directly into the action with a variety of weapons such as swords, greatswords, axes, bows, daggers, polearms and firearms which can be switched between Noct and the others was a refreshing feeling in itself.
My only gripe from it is that the tory could've been wonderfully told and characters flushed given it's development hell time duration, but alas, beggars can't be choosers. I'm thankful that this game came into existence in the first place.