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FINAL FANTASY XV
Posts
Skie Fortress
2394
Skie Fortress
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CloseFrom what I understand, all of that city footage was cut and put into Kingsglaive. Noctis and his buddies were shunted out onto a field trip to miss the whole thing, while Nomura's initial designs were to have them in the thick of the Niflheim invasion.
It's a bit more boring imo, and it cuts out a huge chunk of the backstory to a movie you'll have to pay to see. But heeeey.
It's a bit more boring imo, and it cuts out a huge chunk of the backstory to a movie you'll have to pay to see. But heeeey.
Blind
2262
author=Skie FortressYeah, I gotcha. I researched it a bit more and I think you nailed it on the head. XD
From what I understand, all of that city footage was cut and put into Kingsglaive. Noctis and his buddies were shunted out onto a field trip to miss the whole thing, while Nomura's initial designs were to have them in the thick of the Niflheim invasion.
It's a bit more boring imo, and it cuts out a huge chunk of the backstory to a movie you'll have to pay to see. But heeeey.
I'm about twelve hours in...it's a very different sort of Final Fantasy. Most of the main "storytelling" - if you could even call it that, feels very opaque or in the background. I knew the focus would be on Noctis and the party etc...but I didn't realize just how far they were going to take that concept.
Even the game itself, doesn't feel like it takes seriously the events and backstory, if that makes sense - those cutscenes are thrown in very rarely and sporadcally. (And when they do happen, it seems out of left field.) Most of the dialogue in this game is delivered through silly one-liners or side-quests. Perhaps that's the route they needed to go in order to "modernize" Final Fantasy and reinvigorate the franchise; but I also feel like it loses something, too.
On the other hand, I appreciate they at least *tried* to sculpt a larger plot...versus something like Skyrim. Taken solely as a gameplay experience, FFXV is very very enjoyable. You grow to love the combat the longer you play. The environments are gorgeous (if repetitive), and Yoko Shinomura even did a good job filling in for Uematsu.
I'm also not the typical player I guess XD I grew up with the older paradigm of jRPG and maybe I'll always be partial to it. If their goal was to attract a wider audience, and experiment with a new direction for the franchise, they definitely succeeded. I've heard the later half becomes more narrative-focused, so I'll hold off on giving any larger opinions.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I think that makes you an extremely typical player to be honest. If they weren't interested in attracting people who were long-time fans of the franchise they wouldn't have named the game Final Fantasy 15.
The Final Fantasy series has a long history of constantly experimenting with new directions for the franchise. Every game finds new and exciting ways to feel absolutely nothing like a Final Fantasy game. Except FF9 I guess.
The Final Fantasy series has a long history of constantly experimenting with new directions for the franchise. Every game finds new and exciting ways to feel absolutely nothing like a Final Fantasy game. Except FF9 I guess.
This is a really good boyband road trip simulator. Tabata you did good! (now go please save kh3 from itself and nomura)
square's head was so far up their round rectum with ff15 that you have to watch some anime and movie to get the plot of the game that (and which) is stupid
The world is not as large as I thought it would be. On the road to rhode island in this mediocre installment of a series who's quality has run inversely proportional to its pretentiousness. one would think limitations limit pretentiousness because you can only pretend so hard due to limitations preventing excessive pretentiousness. or wait isn't it the opposite? limitations increase pretentiousness which makes games more exciting and allows developers to spend more time and managers spending less of the budget not pretending to have good gameplay and instead making good gameplay
The world is not as large as I thought it would be. On the road to rhode island in this mediocre installment of a series who's quality has run inversely proportional to its pretentiousness. one would think limitations limit pretentiousness because you can only pretend so hard due to limitations preventing excessive pretentiousness. or wait isn't it the opposite? limitations increase pretentiousness which makes games more exciting and allows developers to spend more time and managers spending less of the budget not pretending to have good gameplay and instead making good gameplay
Punk_Kricket
565
Between working on a project or two, I managed to play through the entirety of the game (doing mostly everything, save for a few sealed dungeons and it's because I started playing other games) and I have to say this much about FF15:
Graphically: It's certainly nice to look at. Give it that. Some enemy designs call back to the original art we've seen for earlier Final Fantasy games. Playing a PS4 Slim, I noticed minimal frame-rate issues. Some graphical glitches here and there, but I've come to expect that of open-world titles.
Gameplay: The combat works well, for what it is. It's easy to pick up and you're not heavily punished for screwing up. Some mechanics are dialed back to simplicity (crafting magic) while others are outright pointless (the summons - oh, they come with conditions and get used to seeing only one of the six in the game)
On the topic of gameplay - let's not fool ourselves; this is "Final Sidequest XV", because the majority of what you'll be doing is sidequests. The main story will run you MAYBE 30 hours, with minimal grind. In fact, you can beat the game at around level 40-50, given that you're not a complete ponce at dodging.
Traveling around is enchanting, at first, until you realize that Square didn't live up to the promises they made about the world. You'll see entire sections you WANT to explore, but they won't let you. Never mind the fact you get the ability to fly AFTER you beat the game, and it's only needed to access one place. You get chocobos early on, and you'll want them, because traveling on foot takes forever. Luckily you can abuse quick travel by parking the car where you want to travel back to (for turning in those sweet, sweet sidequest) and they have an option for quick traveling back to a previous resting spot. So...traveling is what you make it, I guess, but know that there are invisible barriers and walls where there logically shouldn't be.
Music: I have to say, the music is beautiful, if at times a little forgettable, which is regrettable considering the prestige this series has held for it's musical presentation. This is more a subjective opinion, mind you, but very few tunes stick out to me - although having the option to buy cds and music from other games to listen to on foot and in the car was a nice, small touch.
Misc.: Don't expect much in way of armor; food and good weapons are the key to victory, and you'll be hunting for the best before long.
All in all? It's an entertaining entry, albeit disappointing here and there considering how long this had been in development. The story is a bit...disjointed, to be polite, and if you've watched the extended media, then you're better off than most. For people who haven't? Have fun putting the pieces together.
Graphically: It's certainly nice to look at. Give it that. Some enemy designs call back to the original art we've seen for earlier Final Fantasy games. Playing a PS4 Slim, I noticed minimal frame-rate issues. Some graphical glitches here and there, but I've come to expect that of open-world titles.
Gameplay: The combat works well, for what it is. It's easy to pick up and you're not heavily punished for screwing up. Some mechanics are dialed back to simplicity (crafting magic) while others are outright pointless (the summons - oh, they come with conditions and get used to seeing only one of the six in the game)
On the topic of gameplay - let's not fool ourselves; this is "Final Sidequest XV", because the majority of what you'll be doing is sidequests. The main story will run you MAYBE 30 hours, with minimal grind. In fact, you can beat the game at around level 40-50, given that you're not a complete ponce at dodging.
Traveling around is enchanting, at first, until you realize that Square didn't live up to the promises they made about the world. You'll see entire sections you WANT to explore, but they won't let you. Never mind the fact you get the ability to fly AFTER you beat the game, and it's only needed to access one place. You get chocobos early on, and you'll want them, because traveling on foot takes forever. Luckily you can abuse quick travel by parking the car where you want to travel back to (for turning in those sweet, sweet sidequest) and they have an option for quick traveling back to a previous resting spot. So...traveling is what you make it, I guess, but know that there are invisible barriers and walls where there logically shouldn't be.
Music: I have to say, the music is beautiful, if at times a little forgettable, which is regrettable considering the prestige this series has held for it's musical presentation. This is more a subjective opinion, mind you, but very few tunes stick out to me - although having the option to buy cds and music from other games to listen to on foot and in the car was a nice, small touch.
Misc.: Don't expect much in way of armor; food and good weapons are the key to victory, and you'll be hunting for the best before long.
All in all? It's an entertaining entry, albeit disappointing here and there considering how long this had been in development. The story is a bit...disjointed, to be polite, and if you've watched the extended media, then you're better off than most. For people who haven't? Have fun putting the pieces together.
I certainly didn't dislike the game: I've put 50 hours into it so far and am finishing up getting the platinum trophy. It's quite a shame that most of the game's best content happens at postgame, though. Because so many players have been too frustrated with the story to even get that far.
The building blocks for a fantastic game are certainly there; it's just that someone didn't read the instructions and put them together wrong.
The building blocks for a fantastic game are certainly there; it's just that someone didn't read the instructions and put them together wrong.
Punk_Kricket
565
author=SgtMettool
I certainly didn't dislike the game: I've put 50 hours into it so far and am finishing up getting the platinum trophy. It's quite a shame that most of the game's best content happens at postgame, though. Because so many players have been too frustrated with the story to even get that far.
The building blocks for a fantastic game are certainly there; it's just that someone didn't read the instructions and put them together wrong.
I'll admit to some minor frustration between chapters 11 to 14, but that's more of because of how the game suddenly revved up to throw combat structure it hadn't thrown at you the whole game.
Chapter 13 was especially broken, but I made it through...cheap jumpscares and all.
author=Punk_KricketOn the subject of chapter 13, if you think about it a certain way, it isn't all that bad:
Chapter 13 was especially broken, but I made it through...cheap jumpscares and all.
Being forced through an endless maze of gloomy hallways, flicking switches, cheap jumpscares and generic sarcastic baddie language for an entire hour and a half, all without being able to use my normal equipment REALLY made me hate Ardyn. If that's what the developers were going for, that was a really cool, almost postmodern idea.
I wanted to believe that but I seriously doubt that was the case.
The whole segment felt like the game confused itself for Arkham Asylum for two hours. I felt like I was playing a completely different game.
Ardyn was creating some illusion of endless, identical hallways
The whole segment felt like the game confused itself for Arkham Asylum for two hours. I felt like I was playing a completely different game.
Punk_Kricket
565
author=Yellow Magicauthor=Punk_KricketOn the subject of chapter 13, if you think about it a certain way, it isn't all that bad:
Chapter 13 was especially broken, but I made it through...cheap jumpscares and all.
Being forced through an endless maze of gloomy hallways, flicking switches, cheap jumpscares and generic sarcastic baddie language for an entire hour and a half, all without being able to use my normal equipment REALLY made me hate Ardyn. If that's what the developers were going for, that was a really cool, almost postmodern idea.
I think that might've been what they were aiming for - if anything, it succeeded. My wife and I were having a cheap laugh here and there from a few things in this chapter. Mainly banter related.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, I'm about eight hours in now. So far, aside from one boss battle where I had to dodge missiles and one fight against aerial enemies that I had to warp-strike to knock down, my button input still hasn't really had any effect on the outcome of the battles. It's a lot like Kingdom Hearts with 90% of the enemies removed and the remaining 10% given ten times as much HP to make up for it, which somehow ends up feeling like "Kingdom Hearts except it doesn't matter what enemy you target."
And yet somehow, combat is still the most enjoyable part of the game. Not because it's good. The combat is okayish. But the pacing and exploration and framing of the game are SO BAD. The sidequests, which I had encountered more than 40 of by the end of the second dungeon, are all like "walk for eight minutes and then fight one battle." And then the actual main quests with dungeons have more fighting (thank god) but still make you walk forever and listen to Vaan, Balthier and Zell talking the entire way. Can someone please remove these assholes from my party? I'd rather grind enough EXP to beat all the enemies myself than listen to them say one more word.
I just finished a ten minute segment where it made me go on a date with some girl I'd met ten seconds earlier. I wanted to kill myself the entire time. The game wouldn't even let me save and quit. The good news is it gave me the option to act like Squall every time she talked, and I did so. But what the fuck even was that? Is this a punishment for some task I failed at in the game? Am I going to be forced to go on an awkward date with a stranger every time I run out of HP? Plus, I'm in the middle of trying to find my fiancee who is missing and being hunted, so the whole thing was really weird.
A friend of mine suggested that the bizarrely out-of-place date scene is explained by Noctis coming down with a case of the Not Gays. Basically, four sweaty dudes with matching outfits playing grab-ass in a car all day and sleeping in the same tent is pretty gay. One of them doesn't even wear a shirt. So certain story elements need to be contrived to demonstrate that they are, in fact, not gay. This is why the game is about him chasing his fiancee, but apparently wasn't enough; he needed to interact with a girl in person too. Honestly this theory explains a lot about that scene to me, but so many other things in the game just exist for NO REASON that I almost feel like attributing the scene to lazy and vaguely homophobic writing tropes is giving the designers too much credit.
And yet somehow, combat is still the most enjoyable part of the game. Not because it's good. The combat is okayish. But the pacing and exploration and framing of the game are SO BAD. The sidequests, which I had encountered more than 40 of by the end of the second dungeon, are all like "walk for eight minutes and then fight one battle." And then the actual main quests with dungeons have more fighting (thank god) but still make you walk forever and listen to Vaan, Balthier and Zell talking the entire way. Can someone please remove these assholes from my party? I'd rather grind enough EXP to beat all the enemies myself than listen to them say one more word.
I just finished a ten minute segment where it made me go on a date with some girl I'd met ten seconds earlier. I wanted to kill myself the entire time. The game wouldn't even let me save and quit. The good news is it gave me the option to act like Squall every time she talked, and I did so. But what the fuck even was that? Is this a punishment for some task I failed at in the game? Am I going to be forced to go on an awkward date with a stranger every time I run out of HP? Plus, I'm in the middle of trying to find my fiancee who is missing and being hunted, so the whole thing was really weird.
A friend of mine suggested that the bizarrely out-of-place date scene is explained by Noctis coming down with a case of the Not Gays. Basically, four sweaty dudes with matching outfits playing grab-ass in a car all day and sleeping in the same tent is pretty gay. One of them doesn't even wear a shirt. So certain story elements need to be contrived to demonstrate that they are, in fact, not gay. This is why the game is about him chasing his fiancee, but apparently wasn't enough; he needed to interact with a girl in person too. Honestly this theory explains a lot about that scene to me, but so many other things in the game just exist for NO REASON that I almost feel like attributing the scene to lazy and vaguely homophobic writing tropes is giving the designers too much credit.
I'm about 96 hours into it now and just managed to get the last of the Royal Arms. After hearing that it was going to be open world, I was very skeptical about it, but surprisingly, I completely changed my opinion on the game about halfway through. It is far and away the best in the series, excluding spinoffs, and I went ahead and bought the season pass, which is a first for me.
It certainly has flaws, but I think its flaws are pretty endemic to the series itself. Most of my complaints with it were even more true in the earlier entries.
I'm looking forward to seeing the additional story campaigns that are coming!
It certainly has flaws, but I think its flaws are pretty endemic to the series itself. Most of my complaints with it were even more true in the earlier entries.
I'm looking forward to seeing the additional story campaigns that are coming!
author=LockeZ
Well, I'm about eight hours in now. So far, aside from one boss battle where I had to dodge missiles and one fight against aerial enemies that I had to warp-strike to knock down, my button input still hasn't really had any effect on the outcome of the battles. It's a lot like Kingdom Hearts with 90% of the enemies removed and the remaining 10% given ten times as much HP to make up for it, which somehow ends up feeling like "Kingdom Hearts except it doesn't matter what enemy you target."
Combat does end up picking up later, but most of the game's best and most challenging content is locked away in postgame. The challenge really ramps up past Level 50, unless you're playing on Easy.
Except for
Adamantoise, the most repetitive superboss since Penance. Hope you like Warp-striking the same spot for 90 minutes.
(Please, forgive my bad English from here on out^^')
I'm about 25 hours in now.
'Till now, I always thought this game would've turn out to be yet another failure.
Mostly because I didn't like FFXIII (seriously, a corridor with a bad, convoluted story and reaaaally bad characters. The writing in there was so bad I can't believe someone got paid to make something like that) and also because this game required 10yrs to be finished. When a game takes so long to be released it's never a good sign.
One of SE's character designer, Roberto Ferrari, did said in an interview that Square Enix was badly organized during development, and the story and the whole concept was scrapped and redone more than once, year after year. A lot of things scrapped or re-writed completely.
Stella? Gone. Too bad, she looked like a really cool character.
Yet, I'm liking it. It has its flaws, but there are some pros as well.
I'm a fan of Open World games, way before they became mainstream. I don't particularly like the fact that every software house tries to make the "BIGGEST OPEN WORLD ON THE MARKET!1!!" everytime and use it as self-promotion. Mostly because when a massive Open World comes out, you can feel it's really huge, but it always lacks depth. A lot of emptiness around, small villages here and there, no seriously interesting things to explore.
It's the case of MGSV, for instance. I liked the game a lot, but the Open World was sooooooo empty and... mostly full of useless areas, when not on a mission. I expected way more easter eggs and things to unravel on a Kojima game but whatever...
I grew up with games like Gothic. The first two chapter, Gothic I and II, had a fairly contained Open World. And yet it was full of mysteries, things to do, monsters and such. It felt so alive, every NPC had his daily routine and things around you changed according to your actions and story progression (in a really significant way). This days nooo, it's all about how huge the world is. Who cares if it's empty and static? It's HUUUUUUUUGE.
Meh.
Back to the topic. FFXV world is HUGE and yes, there are a lot of areas which serves no real purpose, but exploring it sometimes do feel somehow rewarding and seriously, the art direction is SUPERB. I never felt the urge to fast travel because the view was amazing and the world is so good-looking. It really helps with the "friends who embark on a journey" theme, and it feels very "Final Fantasy-ish" (also, loading screens are long enough so it doesn't make that much of a difference, fast travel or not, most of the time...)
Random encounters, drops and little thingies that help boost your crew's abilities (walking boostes Gladio's exploration skills, using your Chocobo often boostes his level, etc) really helps give purpose to the game's world.
Exploration is also rewarded with the unravel of secret dungeons (I assume they are mostly post-game kind of dungeons. They looked pretty damn difficult to complete so far :S). I don't know if it's gonna be this way until the end, though. I don't expect to see interesting drops, enemies and dungeons around every single corners of this massive open world. We'll see about that.
The world is full of side-quests. Really, there are a lot of them.
Most of them are fun to do, but the majority are repetitive, copy-paste missions.
Each of them will take hours to complete, but not because of the side-quests per se. Mostly because of the driving\walking\chocobing you have to do in order to reach your destination and then fight\take object\talk to that someone\capture that fish.
That seemed to me like an excuse to boost the game's total playtime. You're going to spend a LOOOOOOOT of your time inside that car. And the driving is... No, you don't drive that car. The game gives you the impression that you're driving it, but mostly is all about keep pressing that R2/RB button and then wait for it to reach your destination, occasionally tilting the left analog stick in order to change your route (and it's impossible to go off-road). Meh.
The world is cool to look at and, as I said, I enjoyed the trip because of the amazing visual. But seriously, how long is this gonna last before it starts getting annoying? I can't spend a good percentage of my playtime driving in semi-automatic mode. Good thing there are dungeons, and pretty intricate and long ones too (didn't expect that at first).
I wanted much more conversations between the party while driving, but those are much less frequent than I expected, mostly during important main quests and after certain events.
For now, the writing is still a biiig problem. The story is told in a very slow, random way. Like LockeZ says... what's with that scene with Iris? How come they knew her? What's the story there? Why am I raiding random Imperial outposts? Why didn't I get that boat to Altissia and I'm now hunting for random Ancestral Weapons and summonings?
I mean yes, of course, because I need to fight the Empire and that things will help, but... it sounds sooo much like an excuse to make the story last long enough to make it worthwhile.
The story is told in a really bad way, random villains appearing out of nowhere and disappearing all of a sudden (what's the deal with the first encounter with Aranea? What... why did she... when... how... huh?)
A lot of things happening in the background, no proper explanations at all. Why?
Ok, sure, I missed watching Kingsglaive, perhaps I should've gone through that one first, but still...
Why can't FFXV explain things to me properly? Why do I have to pay for a movie and watch it in order to understand the plot of this game?
So yet again, writing is still the series' weakest spot.
And yet I'm liking this game, why?
Mostly because of the gameplay, the visuals and the main characters.
The party of FFXV (a party of people who tries to save the kingdom although seeing the way they look it seems to me that they are going on a tour around the world in order to promote their new j-pop album) is composed of four main characters and they are the stereotyped-like-hell kind of guys.
The serious protagonist, the wise guy, the muscle one, the comic relief.
And yet, the game did a good job making them interact with each other.
Random dialogues, puns, the camping, Prompto's photos, the random events...
Very simple characters with... for now almost non-existent backstory, but it really feels like you're watching their long journey towards their final destination, seeing them interact with each other and trying their best to survive and overcome all sort of difficulties.
Good job there.
Also, I'm really digging the combat system. It has its flaws, mostly bad camera and why on earth are the summonings random?! (For now, I only managed to summon Ramuh twice, and everytime during fights with level 10 Garulas that were about to die under the might of my level 35+ party. Well, thank you, Ramuh. You could help me with those "one-hit kill" daemons once in a while if it doesn't bother you so much...)
The new magic system is ok. I do miss the Fire, Firaga and all of the other classic magic skills, but it's fun to experiment with making new magic grenades through alchemy.
Also some fights are really epic and fun.
Although the game is reaaaaally easy. I saw the Game Over screen just once, and that's because I went suicidal against the daemons at the beginning of the game.
Dunno if it's because I do a lot of side-quests. Maybe that's the reason but right about now I don't feel over-leveled at all, and yet...
And damn that food looks good. 10yrs development, guys. All of that in order to give us proper #FoodPorn!
For now I'm liking the game. It still has heavy flaws in its writing. Very beautiful Open World, but some travels are really long and a pain to do just to complete one or two shitty sub-quests. I'm looking forward to the much more linear 2nd part of the game to see if the story kicks off.
It's a fun game, full of things to do and I like the interactions between Noctis and the other three dudes. It simply suffers from the "Open World at all costs" kind of mentality that results in repetitive missions, loooong travels and back-sitting story.
Not that I dislike the purposes of this game. The massive Open World really makes you feel like you're on a big journey with your friends.
I'm about 25 hours in now.
'Till now, I always thought this game would've turn out to be yet another failure.
Mostly because I didn't like FFXIII (seriously, a corridor with a bad, convoluted story and reaaaally bad characters. The writing in there was so bad I can't believe someone got paid to make something like that) and also because this game required 10yrs to be finished. When a game takes so long to be released it's never a good sign.
One of SE's character designer, Roberto Ferrari, did said in an interview that Square Enix was badly organized during development, and the story and the whole concept was scrapped and redone more than once, year after year. A lot of things scrapped or re-writed completely.
Stella? Gone. Too bad, she looked like a really cool character.
Yet, I'm liking it. It has its flaws, but there are some pros as well.
I'm a fan of Open World games, way before they became mainstream. I don't particularly like the fact that every software house tries to make the "BIGGEST OPEN WORLD ON THE MARKET!1!!" everytime and use it as self-promotion. Mostly because when a massive Open World comes out, you can feel it's really huge, but it always lacks depth. A lot of emptiness around, small villages here and there, no seriously interesting things to explore.
It's the case of MGSV, for instance. I liked the game a lot, but the Open World was sooooooo empty and... mostly full of useless areas, when not on a mission. I expected way more easter eggs and things to unravel on a Kojima game but whatever...
I grew up with games like Gothic. The first two chapter, Gothic I and II, had a fairly contained Open World. And yet it was full of mysteries, things to do, monsters and such. It felt so alive, every NPC had his daily routine and things around you changed according to your actions and story progression (in a really significant way). This days nooo, it's all about how huge the world is. Who cares if it's empty and static? It's HUUUUUUUUGE.
Meh.
Back to the topic. FFXV world is HUGE and yes, there are a lot of areas which serves no real purpose, but exploring it sometimes do feel somehow rewarding and seriously, the art direction is SUPERB. I never felt the urge to fast travel because the view was amazing and the world is so good-looking. It really helps with the "friends who embark on a journey" theme, and it feels very "Final Fantasy-ish" (also, loading screens are long enough so it doesn't make that much of a difference, fast travel or not, most of the time...)
Random encounters, drops and little thingies that help boost your crew's abilities (walking boostes Gladio's exploration skills, using your Chocobo often boostes his level, etc) really helps give purpose to the game's world.
Exploration is also rewarded with the unravel of secret dungeons (I assume they are mostly post-game kind of dungeons. They looked pretty damn difficult to complete so far :S). I don't know if it's gonna be this way until the end, though. I don't expect to see interesting drops, enemies and dungeons around every single corners of this massive open world. We'll see about that.
The world is full of side-quests. Really, there are a lot of them.
Most of them are fun to do, but the majority are repetitive, copy-paste missions.
Each of them will take hours to complete, but not because of the side-quests per se. Mostly because of the driving\walking\chocobing you have to do in order to reach your destination and then fight\take object\talk to that someone\capture that fish.
That seemed to me like an excuse to boost the game's total playtime. You're going to spend a LOOOOOOOT of your time inside that car. And the driving is... No, you don't drive that car. The game gives you the impression that you're driving it, but mostly is all about keep pressing that R2/RB button and then wait for it to reach your destination, occasionally tilting the left analog stick in order to change your route (and it's impossible to go off-road). Meh.
The world is cool to look at and, as I said, I enjoyed the trip because of the amazing visual. But seriously, how long is this gonna last before it starts getting annoying? I can't spend a good percentage of my playtime driving in semi-automatic mode. Good thing there are dungeons, and pretty intricate and long ones too (didn't expect that at first).
I wanted much more conversations between the party while driving, but those are much less frequent than I expected, mostly during important main quests and after certain events.
For now, the writing is still a biiig problem. The story is told in a very slow, random way. Like LockeZ says... what's with that scene with Iris? How come they knew her? What's the story there? Why am I raiding random Imperial outposts? Why didn't I get that boat to Altissia and I'm now hunting for random Ancestral Weapons and summonings?
I mean yes, of course, because I need to fight the Empire and that things will help, but... it sounds sooo much like an excuse to make the story last long enough to make it worthwhile.
The story is told in a really bad way, random villains appearing out of nowhere and disappearing all of a sudden (what's the deal with the first encounter with Aranea? What... why did she... when... how... huh?)
A lot of things happening in the background, no proper explanations at all. Why?
Ok, sure, I missed watching Kingsglaive, perhaps I should've gone through that one first, but still...
Why can't FFXV explain things to me properly? Why do I have to pay for a movie and watch it in order to understand the plot of this game?
So yet again, writing is still the series' weakest spot.
And yet I'm liking this game, why?
Mostly because of the gameplay, the visuals and the main characters.
The party of FFXV (a party of people who tries to save the kingdom although seeing the way they look it seems to me that they are going on a tour around the world in order to promote their new j-pop album) is composed of four main characters and they are the stereotyped-like-hell kind of guys.
The serious protagonist, the wise guy, the muscle one, the comic relief.
And yet, the game did a good job making them interact with each other.
Random dialogues, puns, the camping, Prompto's photos, the random events...
Very simple characters with... for now almost non-existent backstory, but it really feels like you're watching their long journey towards their final destination, seeing them interact with each other and trying their best to survive and overcome all sort of difficulties.
Good job there.
Also, I'm really digging the combat system. It has its flaws, mostly bad camera and why on earth are the summonings random?! (For now, I only managed to summon Ramuh twice, and everytime during fights with level 10 Garulas that were about to die under the might of my level 35+ party. Well, thank you, Ramuh. You could help me with those "one-hit kill" daemons once in a while if it doesn't bother you so much...)
The new magic system is ok. I do miss the Fire, Firaga and all of the other classic magic skills, but it's fun to experiment with making new magic grenades through alchemy.
Also some fights are really epic and fun.
Although the game is reaaaaally easy. I saw the Game Over screen just once, and that's because I went suicidal against the daemons at the beginning of the game.
Dunno if it's because I do a lot of side-quests. Maybe that's the reason but right about now I don't feel over-leveled at all, and yet...
And damn that food looks good. 10yrs development, guys. All of that in order to give us proper #FoodPorn!
For now I'm liking the game. It still has heavy flaws in its writing. Very beautiful Open World, but some travels are really long and a pain to do just to complete one or two shitty sub-quests. I'm looking forward to the much more linear 2nd part of the game to see if the story kicks off.
It's a fun game, full of things to do and I like the interactions between Noctis and the other three dudes. It simply suffers from the "Open World at all costs" kind of mentality that results in repetitive missions, loooong travels and back-sitting story.
Not that I dislike the purposes of this game. The massive Open World really makes you feel like you're on a big journey with your friends.
RedMask
1139
Probably going to be a while before I get to try this game, money is kinda tight right now and I don't own a PS4. Oh well a waited over a decade to play FF 9 so I'm sure I'll play it eventually. I'm still not sold on the characters and its reported lack of story is lame but oh well. Now that square has experience making an open world title perhaps FF XVI will have a better story.
