Final Fantasy XV: Day One Patch

It's no surprise that video games have been a major influence in my life. They may be my single greatest passion. And to me, very few things come close to popping in a new game into any system and beginning a new adventure.

One of my fondest memories was playing Final Fantasy VII back in 1999. My best friend had a Playstation at the time and brought it over to my house so that we could play his games. After beating a couple of games that summer, my older brother was generous enough to buy us a new game back when EB Games was still around (Gamestops have taken them over now). Being huge Megaman fans, we saw Megaman Legends and immediately purchased it. But after a few hours of playing we decided that the game wasn't our cup of tea and different controls made it hard to enjoy. Being young, all we really wanted was another game that played like Megaman X and Legends was drastically different than its cousins. So we returned it and after some deliberation returned home to start Final Fantasy VII.

As young teenagers, we thought we got a good value initially because the game was three discs long instead of the usual single disc games. Once we heard the whirling of the optical disc drive and the Squaresoft logo, we fell in love. The battle system, the cut scenes, the characters...all seem to combine to form this massive adventure that we couldn't stop playing. Each new level up came with new moves and flashy animations. Each character had really well written personalities (except Cait Sith, never liked 'em). Neither my friend nor I really experienced a game like this before. We burned through half of the game in the week or so my friend was over. I never got to see the rest of the game though.

Final Fantasy VII left a last impression on us. Ever new Final Fantasy was an event for us. We'd talk about them all the time. Questions like who was our favorite character, what was our favorite move, or what was our favorite game were talking points for years. It also helped that my friend was an obsessive completionist. He had to make sure that we got everything from start to finish. At the time it was annoying, but now I actually appreciated seeing the whole game through and through. It also made the games more memorable because we spent a lot of time grinding which allowed us to talk about the game more without worrying about missing the story.

It's been almost 17 years since that time. And lo and behold the newest Final Fantasy (they are up to fifteen at this point) is out and I can't help but think back to these times. But those times are now stuck in the past because of one main thing: Day One Patches.

It's almost impossible to enjoy a game right off the bat these days. Instead of popping in a game and being greeted with an artistic title screen, you get greeted with a request to download more data than what was already on the disc! For Final Fantasy XV, it was nine gigabytes. Even with good internet speeds, it'll take one to two hours to download. The night that I planned to sit back, relax, and enjoy some childhood fun was snatched by these patches. It put a damper on the whole experience, honestly.

I'm a big proponent (in games) of first impressions. Day One Patches never help first impressions. Not to mention for games that took ten years to make. Yes, I've waited patiently for Final Fantasy XV for ten years. And with all that anticipation, you'd think that two extra hours wouldn't be so bad, but for some reason it was. It sort of shattered the memories and wonder I had when opening up a new game. The initial excitement was gone, and the game suffered from that. Not to mention the beginning of the game requires the player to push a broken down car for about ten minutes (talk about a slow start).

For a company that spent so long developing a game, how could they still need to fix issues with it? There are games that spend half or a fifth of that time and don't require such huge downloads.

But aside from that, Final Fantasy XV is playing well. The production value is well worth the wait and while the battle system is a bit confusing for me, it still is fun to play. I just find that the fog of war makes it hard to strategize and see who is attack who.  The story is interesting and a bit refreshing. A bro trip in a jRPG is new and it sounds pretty exciting (though I'm only two hours into the game at this point). The story is also not as confusing and weird as Final Fantasy 13 which dealt too much with physical manifestation of emotions.

I'll hopefully be able to get a good review of the game when I finish, but the game is long and I probably won't be done for a few months.