RPG Diary

Final Fantasy XV

I completely ignored Final Fantasy XV when it came out. Square Enix's games in the previous 5-10 years had generally disappointed me and I wasn't playing many RPGs. I was gifted a copy of the game several years ago, but it's been left in its shrinkwrap collecting dust. Well, it's time for me to finally play this game!

Title	Final Fantasy XV
Year	2016
System	PS4 XB1 WIN
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix

The defining characteristic of Final Fantasy XV is its open world. Battles take place directly on the map without any separate battle screens, similar to Final Fantasy XII. However, this time the map is seamless instead of being divided into smaller zones. Unfortunately, points of interest are usually too far apart to walk which makes travel tedious without the car or a chocobo. Driving quickly becomes boring once the novelty wears off as there is little to do during the ride. Fast travel is an alternative, but it comes with long loading screens. While I enjoyed exploring the map, the pain of long travel was probably my biggest complaint about the game.

Combat in Final Fantasy XV is truly real-time as there are no charge times or ATB bars to slow down combat. Combined with the battles directly on the map, this made battles feel faster and less tedious than older games. Things can get pretty hectic with a lot of targets, warp-strikes, and phasing. I got frustrated that the lock-on feature seemed to frequently lose my desired target. Combat itself is very simple — there's really only one attack button and one dodge/guard button. I still enjoyed battles, but that may be due to the novelty since I do not frequently play action games.

The game can be roughly divided into two parts: the first half is light on plot and encourages open world exploration, while the second half focuses on the plot and puts the party on rails (complete with no backtracking, just like Final Fantasy XIII). I liked this because I got to explore and get the side quests out of the way early while the game still feels fresh, while the story towards the end kept my interest in finishing the game.

I thought the story was interesting, but there is a serious issue with how it is presented in game. There are a few glaring gaps in the story (party members leaving, time skips) that are barely explained in the base game. These gaps were eventually filled in with DLC, but they are not directly integrated into the main game. Instead, they are self-contained bonus games, complete with their own main menus and saves. It is very jarring to go back and forth between the main game and the DLC. Overall, I thought the DLC was a disappointment. Episode Gladiolus is filler. Episode Prompto suddenly ends just as it was getting interesting and without filling the entire story gap. Episode Ignis was the only DLC I enjoyed, but I wish it was integrated in the main story. Unforunately, it unnecessarily contains massive spoilers at the end, so I would not recommend playing it until beating the game. (Seriously?) Finally, Episode Ardyn is decent, but it's salvaged from a cancelled four-part DLC series. This series would have led to an alternate ending for the main game and seemed to retcon some characters, which makes it kind of pointless to play now.

The other issue I had with the story is that many of the NPCs felt underdeveloped. There are several characters that are introduced but are only met once or twice before they disappear from the game. It's also disappointing that most characters are not seen again in Chapter 14 after the big time skip. Despite those issues, I did enjoy the story overall. In particular, I found the main villain different and interesting. The party characters are also very distinct and memorable.

I went in to this game with low expectations for an open world Final Fantasy, but I ended up having a lot of fun. It's a little frustrating to think about how the game could've been more polished and cohesive, but I still enjoyed the final product.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I really enjoyed this game — much more than I expected to — despite its issues. I particularly enjoyed the focus on the story in the second half, which kept my interest in finishing the game. I'll put this above Final Fantasy VI which started amazingly strong but lost my interest in the second half.