Final Fantasy XV Review

If there is one thing you can count on when you start a jRPG, it's a long adventure. It doesn't matter how the story is structured, as long as there are sidequests and a leveling system, jRPGs can easily span 50 to 60 hours without even trying. At least this gives a good return on investment in term of content. The one big mystery, however, is if it's worth even delving into at all.

Final Fantasy XV (FFXV) has enough good things in it that make it worth the price of admission, if only slightly. SquareEnix did an incredible job on bringing the world of Final Fantasy to the next gen console systems. The graphics are great, there is quite a bit of enemy variety, and the ending is actually pretty epic despite being a bit obtuse. But there are just a few flaws on a fundamental level that make me really hesitant to recommend the game. Instead of doing a full on review, I'd like to discuss some key points of my time with the game (Ah, heck it's pretty much a review).

Movement

Get used to running, because you'll be on foot more than you'd like to.

Getting around the world of Final Fantasy XV is a chore. Moving around, whether you're walking, driving, or riding a chocobo, requires some patience and is not fluid. Noctis seems to run at a snails pace. Noctis also must have had a history of smoking because he gets tired very easily. Getting from point A to point B can be hassle while running or riding a chocobo because of the terrain. Sometimes you'll think you'll find a shortcut only to see mountains, ledges, shrubs, or knee high walls blocking your path. Even with a chocobo, that can jump ten feet high in the air you can't jump those knee high walls.

Chocobos: Cute, quick, but sometimes not worth the trouble. 

And you have a car, but the car can only go on mapped roads. Get into a head-on collison? Game over. Fast travel isn't available for everything, so sometimes you have to sit and wait for five to ten minutes watching your character drive.

The jump button seems like a weird choice in this game since it mainly hinders explanation rather than help. This is because jumping is deceptive. There will points where you think you could jump something and create a shortcut to your next destination only to find out that you cannot. This means more backtracking to the correct route choice. It's almost like the game teases you with such a large map but prevents you from exploring by putting roadblocks everywhere.

Only to make matters worse, interacting with anything in the world is also a chore because the interact button is the same as the jump button. I can't tell you the amount of times I've jumped repeatedly while trying to mount my chocobo or talk to a specific character.

Last to mention in movement are the small animations that break the fluidity in the game. Once you are done with a battle, you have to dust your hands off and stop for just a few seconds. Also, when you run out of stamina you have to stop to catch your breath. Both of these things really frustrate me to no end because I found myself running and battling a lot.

Combat

Combat against one enemy is easy to follow, but battles with multiple enemies can get hectic. 

In FFXV, you control one character despite having three to four other party members in battle. Noctis, the main character and the character you control, has access to a bunch of different weapons but can only equip four at a time. But in battle, Noctis can switch between those weapons on the fly. As combat goes on, a tech bar will fill up in which Noctis can command his friends to use skills that can stop the battle and allow for a chain of attacks to occur. If Noctis attacks a weak spot and is near one of his friends, he will initiate a link strike for increased damage. As the soon-to-be king of this fantasy realm, Noctis has the ability to find and summon the weapons of royalty called "Armigers." Armigers are unique weapons that can be collect from dungeons. The weapons grant a unique mode that allows Noctis to summons all the Armigers and execute a flurry of attacks for massive damage.

Magic looks cool, is fun to use, and kinda broken...

Combat, in my opinion, is the best thing and worst thing about the game. The game has a ton of variety and has a huge skill tree that can keep the game going for hours. But the game's magic system is broken and can allow you to level up a lot more quickly than I think the developers planned for. Magic crafting can also allow you to create really, really powerful spells relatively easily that can trivialized some battles. Once I was told how to use it properly, it made the game too simple and very repetitive. By chapter 3 of a fifteen chapter story, I was already level 44.

If I could only summon more...

The last part I'd like to mention is about the summons you acquire about half way through the game. I still don't understand how they are initiated (it seems like each summon has different conditions for activation) but summoning happens very rarely. This is disappointing to me because summons are a huge mainstay in Final Fantasy and having to wait for the right conditions to happen is frustrating. Most of the time, summons are available when the battle is almost over so the massive damage they cause is unnecessary. It's a shame though, since the cut-scenes for each summon are pretty epic and fun to watch.

All of my criticisms of the combat could be forgiven if I could have had better control of Noctis, but it seemed like every time I died was due to the game not doing what I wanted it to do. I'll leave this criticism open to me not being good at the game, but even sixty hours into the game, I'm still having trouble breaking combos to dodge and trying to get myself in position for back attacks.

Story

Trying to follow in your father's footsteps

I honestly don't think the story of FFXV is that bad. A lot of critics have said that the plot of the game is the low point of what is otherwise a good game. but I think it comes down to pacing. First of all, before you buy the game, you're supposed to watch an anime and a movie to get the backstory of the world. Secondly, the story starts off in a completely open world with very few sections walled off. This made guiding the player through the early stages harder since it gave the player freedom to go wherever they want way too early. I spent the majority of my play time in the beginning stages of the game and for some reason the story didn't really jive together. From chapters 1-7, I had no idea what Noctis's goal was. The story just followed Noctis and his friends wondering from point A to point B meeting people who later on would become important.  But around chapter 8, the story took off from there in true Final Fantasy fashion.

I got a watch a movie and what now? 

The whole marketing campaign of FFXV ruined the story, in my opinion. I think if Square just focused on the game itself, the story would have come together much more nicely. If they just allowed the exploration it little bit later in the story, it would have really helped get players situated to what is happening before launching them into sandbox like scenario.

However, I'm glad I stayed with the game instead of writing it off from the beginning. The story really gets into themes of royalty, friendship, and sacrifice. It gets pretty dark towards the end but still manages to keep its upbeat tone.

Conclusion

There's a lot to say about FFXV and while I beat the main story, there is still a lot to uncover. There are optional dungeons littered all over the map which provide a good challenge even at high levels.

Even though I was terribly frustrated by the controls, I did enjoy the amount of content this game has. The game is definitely a slow burn, the beginning is vast and empty but becomes more interesting the further you get in the story.

Despite the pacing issues of the story, I felt happy and satisfied with how the story (and what little is left of it) played out.

But as far as the combat goes, I still feel there was something missing. The controls and movement made the combat a chore rather than a joy. So instead of seeing a new enemy and being curious as to how to defeat it, I would try to figure out the best way to just nuke them with magic since I didn't want to fight another battle again.

If you can get a hang of the controls, and don't mind a weird and cut up story, then Final Fantasy XVprovides players with a  beautiful world full of a ton of stuff to do and see. As far as I can tell, FFXV still holds to that feeling of what makes all other Final Fantasies great: mixing magic, technology, wonder, and, of course, fantasy.

Gladiolus has his priorities set straight