So I have been sitting on this for a while and now that I’ve had some time to gather my thoughts I wanted to say some things about Final Fantasy XV.

I’ve been following this game since its announcement years ago and as the game became more and more real my expectations began to lessen. At one point I was going to completely ignore this game altogether as I had been completely turned off from the 2016 E3 gameplay demo and commercials. I’m glad I ignored it though as I do think there are a lot of things to like about this game.

As I like to always end on a positive note on things like this I’m going to start what I disliked about the game. I think one of the weakest points of this game is the main story quest. This becomes less so if you watch Kingsglaive and Brotherhood but by making those almost required a lot of the weight of the story and motivations of the characters is lost on the player. The story does a really poor job of saying why Noctis and crew are heading out of Insomina, why we should care about Luna and Noctis finding each other, or why the hell Niflheim is so bad. You just start at this gas station and are expected to infer a lot of information. I mean why are the Kings of Lucis such as a big deal and who the hell are they? I would have loved the Royal Tombs to expand upon that lore and for Noctis to gain some acceptance of his fate.

I think it’s around chapter 11 or 12 and Gladious takes this weird turn where he’s constantly annoyed with Noctis. I think it rubs me the wrong way as there is no lead up to it. Gladious is always pushing Noctis but I felt it was more of an overprotective brother place than someone annoyed by his post. There was no animosity between the party before this point and it was just such a jarring change for a character that I liked. It’s almost like he blames Noctis for what happens but at no point do any of the events leading up to it feel like Noctis failed someone because of a bad decsision.

My last piece that I disliked is the combat. While I can appreciate animation over input for the sake of making what you do look cool I found myself constantly at odds with the game. At times it wants you to be precise, such as with parry attacks, but sometimes the game contradicts itself and either doesn’t let you hit the counterattack button in time or just fails to register that you are holding the button due to being in a swing animation. By 60 hours into the game you’d think I’d be comfortable by it but I still find myself constantly swearing under my breath because of minor annoyances. The camera is also incredibly frustrating in some of the closed in dungeon areas as it can be very easy to get stuck at a weird angle that makes it hard to see what’s coming your way. This can be especially true if you got the camera glitch in Costelmark Tower. Nothing more frustrating than fighting 3x Red Giants and a Naragani without camera control. I’ve been gaming long enough to know how to deal with this but it can be frustrating nonetheless.

Overall I’m very positive on this game though and I’m very glad that I gave way to my doubts and experienced this game. As much as I disliked the main story quest I thought the world was really cool to explore. I thought the dungeons were really well designed and a lot of the bosses at the end were challenging but never frustrating. I liked how a lot of the “main NPC” quests took you to those dungeons at some point. I actually liked the Auto-driving and just seeing the world from the car and a lot of the interactions in the car were pretty decent and felt mostly natural.

I loved the scale of the six and most of the fights associated with them. The Titan felt like playing a God of War game with everything that happens as you run towards him. The fight isn’t a straight forward fight either as there is a lot of running from Titan himself while you wait for your companions to show up. Ifrit was one of my favorite fights in terms of the “flash” surrounding it. It’s also the only time you get to see Bahamut as summon and would have liked to see more of him but alas it was never to be. I liked that he wasn’t a dragon but a giant dressed as a dragon. Seeing the dead body of Shiva in the middle of the train tracks when you are on your way to Gralea is quite cool as well.

I did enjoy the comradery of the quite a bit especially when you get those one on one moments with the various members. Prompto’s is the one that sticks out the most as he is the most self-conscious of the group and hides behind his quips. Reassuring him that he was a vital member of the group gives you this heartwarming scene between him and Noctis. It really struck an emotional cord with me that I don’t feel from a lot of video games. Here’s this, what you think, happy go-lucky guy who just carries this enormous weight around with him because he doesn’t want to let his friends down. That’s a sentiment I can totally relate to and really one of the moments that made me really appreciate this game more than I normally would have.

I’m close to getting a Platinum trophy on this game which says quite a bit about how much I liked playing it. Not since Final Fantasy XIII-2 have I got so involved in doing all of the content of a JRPG. I’m in the late stages now of grinding cooking, fishing, and survival and killing the Adamantoise. Might try to grind a few more levels before trying Adamantoise since I’m 68 right now and still have yet to enter Pitross Ruins. I’m getting there though and I’m definitely looking forward to the DLC.

Oh and GDI do I love Arenea. What a great fight in terms of flash and having her just randomly show up to hunt demons is a lot of fun. Hoping to see some more out of her but I know that is doubtful.

And the last of my random pictures.

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I think the combat isn't perfect and can be finicky sometimes but the animation priority adds to it. The heavier the sword, the longer it takes to swing and at some point, you're kinda suppose to know how many hits you can get in before you have to dodge. A lot of the times, depending on the enemy, you have to time it just to get in a swing. I'm glad it's not a hack-n-slack. The calculations you have to do in your head makes it feel true to an RPG.

Gladio getting mad at Noctis is so incredibly fucked for a myriad of reasons. On top of everything you said, it's like the story forgot he lost his dad, fiance, and kingdom in the span of what? A few weeks? and he essentially has the weight of the world on his shoulders. "SUCK IT UP, BRO!" No, fuck you Gladio.

Ignis going blind is sad, yes, but the whole thing is yet another example of how just how much of a clusterfuck this story is especially in terms of substance and pacing. We don't see how he goes blind and the story spends all of 60 seconds dwelling on it up to that point on the train. For all we know, he could have been cooking and some hot oil splashed in his eyes. Who can say? The story doesn't really care to go into detail about this life altering thing that happens to one of your 3 party members. Excuse me if I'm not feeling too affected about this thing that I guess happened, but no one wants to tell me about.

And don't even get me started on the whole Kingsglaive/Brotherhood thing.

Right there with you on Gladio's pissiness in that one chapter. On top of having to slow my pace considerably through that dungeon, his constant passive aggressive remarks got on my nerves like nothing else.

Anyway, I liked this game quite a bit despite that. The combat which I was skeptical about from the platinum demo had a little something to it that kept me looking forward to every encounter. Still hoping they do something more with Aranea in the future.

I wonder if Gladio's mood change might not be somewhat explained by his DLC chapter since whatever happened he got roughed up during it.

As far as the game "prioritizing" animation over input for the sake of flash, I think you're selling the game short. To me it's just that very Japanese style of action design akin to a Monster Hunter where you have to measure your attacks and play strategically, not just go full aggression. After all, this is an RPG, not Bayonetta or DMC. And if you really want to go ham the game still gives you lots of ways to keep yourself safe since most animations have large cancel windows for a roll or a warp strike, you just don't have the option to get a huge parry counter if you're on a full offensive. As a huge MonHun fan I adore the combat in XV.

Also airdancing kinda lets you just go nuts if the enemy is tall enough if you haven't tried that yet. It's one of the first upgrades I got and it literally made the game for me.

Hmm Gladio's attitude towards Noctis didn't strike me as too out of place, hell Gladio's dad died right before Noct's (although now that I think about it that was only shown in the movie and not mentioned in the game, maybe in one of the radio broadcasts?). I think they had all sacrificed a lot emotionally and physically and he felt Noctis needed a kick in the ass to keep moving forward. I mean if you think about it they are in the midst of a war, is there time to mope around for weeks on end in the middle of a conflict like that? No you fight through and grieve later. I don't know.

Overall I agree the story should have been better, more fleshed out, etc.. but I still loved the game. The long drives and casual conversations, the camping and comradary, the train ride it all just felt good to me. Let's not forget the quest for the ultimate cup noodle. Speaking of which I wish the side quests had been more interesting even if they were all fetch quests at least provide some interesting character interaction.

P.S. I did watch the anime and movie before playing the game and enjoyed them

P.P.S. On a final note I love Gladio's sister Iris, the end.

Yeah, but also, Noctis's dad, fiance, and kingdom were shoved to the back of the narrative at all times, so they barely had any screentime. I didn't care about any of those things because the game never spent any time fleshing them out or actually giving me a reason to care about them instead of just forcefully trying to tell me I should care for some reason (like that whole thing with Jared, only the things you mentioned were slightly better handled than that).

Long story short, when Noctis was moping about that stuff, my thoughts totally lined up with Gladio's. I agree with pretty much everything else you wrote though, especially the spoiler block stuff. It makes me angry mostly because you can see the potential for a good story and good (or better) characters, if they hadn't cut everything that wasn't a major plot point (including all build up, context, and payoff to those plot points).

There was so much potential with this story. It really let me down, because it almost blew me away. Sadly, so much was missing, and things went by so fast that it was occasionally tough to follow, and often lacked any punch. We didn't get enough time or reason to fall in love with the characters, and coupled with the pacing, we missed out on what I thought would have been INCREDIBLY epic moments. Still enjoyed my time with the game though.

@starvinggamer: @citizencoffeecake: I can handle animation priority when it's done properly but I just feel it's done poorly in this. If I get hit because I'm in the middle of a sword swing that's on me. I think the thing I failed to articulate on was the techniques and how they completely interrupt combat. Lets say you use a technique with Gladios. He then has to run over to your target do his technique, which can freaking miss if he gets caught on an environment or another enemy, and then the game returns back to Noctis. I don't need to see a cutscene of the guys every freaking time they use a technique and while they are winding up to the do techniques while I could continue doing damage to a mob. If you notice that during the animations Noctis just stands in one place. Now granted I still don't know if you can turn this off like you can with the party using items as I couldn't find anything in the menus and if so that's the fault of the designers failing to let the player that is an option. I don't need the combat to feel likey Bayonetta or DMC but I do want to have a bit more control of my Noctis during events where he's just standing around.

Also part of my issue with the combat is that I leveled up poorly in the beginning. I prioritized stats over combat and techniques which made some fights more difficult because I couldn't air dodge or apply poison to enemies. I have since corrected this and it has trivialized a lot of fights that I found difficult. That part is on me though!

I'm glad to see that I'm not alone on the Gladios experience though. In thinking about it some more it feels like a game where they had a bigger story to tell but could never figure out how to get it all to work together. Or they really needed to just ship this game and left a lot on the table.

I never watched the Brotherhood thing, I kinda thought Kingsglaive was a poorly written, paced and the voice acting was incredibly erratic quality wise. I really wanted to like and get behind everything XV was spitting out but maaaaan that movie.

@zirilius: I actually prefer the way Techs work. I often banked on that breathing room to help keep party members alive or just to regain some MP. Which isn't to say they couldn't work the way you said, but I saw the locked-in animations as a feature, not a bug. As far as leveling goes, I mean, I learned practically every AP booster and a fair amount of XP boosters before I even touched any of the attack stuff outside of learning new Techs when a character mastered their current one. Even without fancy skills for that first 15 hours or whatever, I found the combat to be very tactically satisfying.

I finished this last night, and I have such mixed feelings/opinions about the game. Lots of it makes me want to rage and be angry about what a mess it is. But I also really liked lots of it. The story is the weakest part of the game, and the combat/open world stuff is the best, in my opinion. I think this could have been a great game if the story had been done better. If I had played this last year, there is no way it would have made my top 10.

Beat the game about a week ago and as a FF fan, there is just so much here, it's hard not to come out at least slightly on the plus side. I mean, it doesn't do anything perfect but almost everything is pointing at the right direction at least. The story though...it's as flimsy as 12 and badly told as 13.

Did this immediately come to your mind when you saw these characters? older Noctis/post-Konami Kojima and Ardyn/Johnny Depp (can't whiteout an image so it's a link.)