Chapter 5 and bored out of my mind. Should I keep playing?

So I'm about 20+ hours in, and up to Chapter 5.

I spent a lot of time trying to finish a lot of the sidequests earlier on and found myself getting bored out of my mind. I have to honestly force myself against my will to boot up FFXV and play it. I dont feel drawn to it or compelled to really play it.

As a result, I've started to just focus on the main quest and skip the side quests where possible. After finishing Chapter 5, i'm still bored out of my mind, and still have to force myself to boot it up.

I WANT to like it and finish it, but am really struggling to find the motivation. So my question is - have i experienced enough of the game where if I'm really not enjoying it now, there's no point in continuing to play it? I want to give the game a fair chance before chalking it up to 'just not for me'. If i'm still in the early stages where it's 'supposed' to be boring in that everything's still just starting to pick up in the story etc. then i'll continue to play it as there's still hope that i'll end up engrossed in it.

Or if i'm already not liking it, is it pointless to continue to force myself to play it and waste my time?

I found the story decent enough personally, if you wanted to bypass the optional content (i.e. the vast majority of the game) for whatever reason.

Is it possible you're not in the mood for it right now? That's what happened to me when playing FFXV. Also, there is so much good stuff out. You could come back to it later?

@zevvion: I think you're right. I kind of feel myself in a rush to try and 'catch up', as I've still got Last Guardian ,Watch_Dogs 2, DOOM also unfinished/hardly touched.

I think I put pressure on myself to finish FFXV ASAP so that I can delete it off my HDD and make space to download more games.

My only concern in regards to coming back to it later is that I'm kind of OCD, and HATE coming back to games mid-way and not knowing wtf is going on, so I always end up just starting a new game, and can't see myself slogging through the first five chapters again.

I might try and push my way through to at least chapter 9/10, as I believe that's where things 'change' in the game, and if I'm still not liking it at that point, I'll probably just delete it and call it a day.

I got to chapter 6 and stopped, and this was back during the week it launched. It wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention, and as soon as they announced plans to add story significant stuff in future patches, I joined the many people who put it down. I'll play it all the way through once the game is "done", but looking at how they are treating the game, that's gonna be a long while.

Not that I'm upset or anything, lotta good games out right now so I don't want to spend my time in a game that I don't feel is providing me as much entertainment as other games available. And for what it's worth I really do like the main cast. All four of the bros seems pretty well written and like able, which is more then you can say about ANY of the cast from FF13.

I was in the exact same boat as you at that stage. By chapter 5/6 I had done a number of side quests, but the game was just not grabbing me at all. Like you I considered stopping, but decided I had to see the game through to satisfy my own morbid curiosity (as someone who's played all main numbered FFs). So I stopped doing any extra side quests, and powered my way through the story. Worth it? Not really. In some ways I'm glad I did it to satisfy my curiosity (also, if you drop all side quests the rest of the game goes relatively quickly). But I certainly did not enjoy the game any more as I kept playing it. In fact, some of the late-game story missions are, in my opinion, some of the worst parts of the game. So unless you just have that need to see it through like I did, I would say stop if you're not enjoying it so far. I think you've seen the "best" stuff that game has to offer already, and I don't think the story is worth the time investment by any stretch.

I haven't even gotten out of chapter 1 yet. Just don't feel very compelled to boot it up on any given day. It's weird, I know a bunch of people like it!

@majormitch: @takayamasama: Good to know you guys also are feeling the exact same way at around about the same point in the game. Judging by what you say about the end/rest of the game, I may just delete it and call it a day. I'm not really that big of a FF fan anyway, just thought I'd give it a try so ended up buying it. Guess it's just not for me. If for some reason I feel like coming back to it, I can always just re-download it I guess.

I appreciate everyone's responses - thank you!

@leviathan: No problem, glad I could help! I go through those kinds of internal debates all the time myself ;)

@leviathan: I deleted it to make room myself. I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point, but right now with Yakuza 0, and soon with Horizon, Mass Effect and Persona 5, my PS4 is gonna have some quality stuff I want to play.

If you don't like the beginning of that game, then you don't like that game. Delete it.

Due to a conundrum I found myself in I had to restart the game. I didn't get very far on a first try (chapter 2 maybe?), but I'm having a tougher time the second time through. There are just so many things that I feel like I nitpick about it. I think people have noticed similar quirks but for some reason they get under my skin in a way I just haven't had a game do in a long while. But there's also parts of the game that I enjoy. It's just all over the place, and I can't decide if I like it. I may find myself in your shoes sooner than later OP.

never played a FF game and that new one looks really bland and boring

i don't buy games with so many mixed reviews, and even people who enjoy it for mostly gameplay purposes say the story is a boring, sloppy story with an anti-climatic ending.

The story only gets worse.

IMO, the story isn't why you play that game. It's the open world, and primarily the hunting quests. To me, this game reminds me a LOT of MGSV, in that people going in wanting a great, story driven experience came away disappointed, whereas those who went in for gameplay alone were pretty satisfied. I personally went into this saying "If this is just the Episode Duscae demo for 60-80 hours, I'll be happy." And sure enough, I put 120 hours into this game and got the platinum. I have a lot of feelings about this game I've been trying to put into a big blog post for a month or so. Long story short, I wish they'd done more with developing the relationships between the bros, but this is my favorite Final Fantasy by far and one of my top 5 games of all time, faults and all.

That being said, if you're bored with it and actively dislike it 20 hours in, it isn't going to get better and you should probably move on to something else. Maybe come back to it later if you want. But honestly, with Persona 5 on the horizon, you won't be hurting for your JRPG fix for long if you put this down.

@afabs515: I do come at it from the other angle, in that I came to FF15 for the gameplay/combat, and that ended up being the main thing I didn't like about the game. Still, it's interesting to me that a lot of people do seem to really like the combat and side quests/hunts. I think how someone feels about those things is going to be the primary determining factor for how much they like the game overall. And you'll almost certainly know how you feel about those things 20 hours in.

I beat it a week ago. Personally I thought it was pretty great with some notable exceptions. It suffers a bit from Dragon Age: Inquisition's problem of having a ton of optional side content which isn't obvious about the fact that it's completely optional. The story has a momentum that really suffers if you focus too much on the side quest stuff IMO. With that said I'm down for a second playthrough eventually where I goof around with more of the side content now (strangely addicted to fishing).

As for the story itself I think overall the plot and themes of friendship are good but it sucks they carved some bits out and saved them for outside content like Kingsglaive. If I hadn't seen Kingsglaive I don't think I would have enjoyed the game quite as much.

Also I believe it's chapter 13 that has a reputation as being really bad. I hate to say it but it's true. There's an interesting change in mechanics idea that kicks in at that chapter and it's REALLY poorly done IMO. I think there are some changes they could make to that chapter that could fix it but right now it's rough.

I like the combat in that game a lot and it's a beautiful world. The main characters resonated with me and the dynamics of their friendship reminded me of my time back at the tail end of high school and college and experiences I had with my friends.

If it's not resonating with you now that's cool. Come back to it later.

The side quests aren't that great. I'd ignore the ones that don't spark your curiosity. Follow the story, get out of chapter 5. There's great stuff ahead.

I just wrote a blog post myself about how I hated the main story of this game but loved the game overall. To the original OP if you are 20 hours in and bored it isn't going to magically get better instantly. Also I don't know if you know but Chapter 13 is pretty divisive and while I can say it was probably my least favorite part of the game I enjoyed playing this game enough to want to finish the Platinum on it.

You should probably just stop. If you were only up to Chapter 2 or so, then maybe it could still hook you, but 20 hours and Chapter 5 are enough to know what that game is about. The only thing that changes is that the game gets a lot more linear and they take away the open world for a while. The story doesn't get much better and the combat (outside of a few boss fights) doesn't change.

I kind of had the same problem. My primary gripe with this game is that it is not linear enough (and the sidequests are atrocious). After chapter 9 or 10 the game gets much more linear which actually works in it's favor. Earlier Final Fantasy games have great pacing (except XIII, haven't played the sequels so I don't know about them), which this game struggles with. In my opinion this shouldn't even be a numbered FF game, as it feels much more as a spinoff with all the risks they are taking campared to earlier games.

TL; DR: Yeah, it's boring and the story isn't as well told as in earlier games. Even if you've seen Kingsglaive and the anime.

@majormitch:Yeah, it's a really interesting game in how divisive it is. I loved the combat personally, though I thought it was criminal that you had to wait until the very end of the postgame to get to the dungeon that took away the ability to use items. Prior to that, towards the start of the game, a lot of the fights I got into devolved into "spam items when you get into trouble and just hold attack", but in that dungeon I got a lot better at dodging/positioning (and also learned to hate the bros' AI), and the combat really clicked for me in a different way than it already had in the past 100 hours. They do a really bad job of conveying to you that combat is more about positioning than attacking. I found the combat extremely satisfying and fun to watch, and the hunts let me go to town on some (mostly innocent) wildlife. The fight against Zu at the top of the volcano is probably the coolest I've ever felt in a game, warping from point to point taking potshots at the bird, warping to the top of the volcano to recover, parrying this huge ass bird swooping down from above - it was amazing. And I got that feeling to a lesser extent just warping between spiracorns and stuff, so that's probably what kept me going.

@zirilius: I saw your blog post this morning, and that's what made me think, "Yeah, I still have this Word document sitting around... I should probably get back to that..." haha.

The early part of the game is honestly the best part. If you're not having fun with it at this point, the chances are pretty good you never will. For my part, I enjoyed just putzing about in the open world, but if it's not for you, it isn't for you. The game gets way worse once it get linear.

I can't see how anyone can like this game. I played for 3 hours or so and was bored out of my mind. The combat is all kinds of awkward. The driving isn't really driving. The open world isn't that open. The one woman is dressed so skimpy (as a mechanic!) I'd be embarrassed if my wife walked in the room. The menu system is awkward. The sounds are fanboy nostalgic. I don't understand the leveling system. What is all this camping about. The game looks slapped together. Why does the food look like photographs of food? What's with the photograph stuff anyway? The quests seem to be from find food for this cat to go break into a city?

I finally quit after there was an awesome cut scene of knights fighting aliens and everything looking awesome and bad ass. (I wanna play that game!) I figured the game was about to finally get started, but instead it dumped me back in this bland dessert. I was about to go on a quest, but as I was about to start out the dude with glasses told me it's too dark and I needed to camp and go have more bro moments. I gassed up my car, saw that insulting clip of the chick cleaning the windows, turned the game off and haven't been back. This game is so bad it makes me angry.

As someone who considered this game the game i enjoyed the most last year, if you're not enjoying it by chapter 5 AND 20 hours, you're probably not going to. It's probably just not for you, so you should probably go enjoy some of the awesome games that just came out/coming out this year.

If you want to finish it eventually, maybe it'll be better to do so after a bunch of patches, but they're not going to change the base game so don't expect to suddenly magically love it or anything.