Support NeoGAF

[McCarth]

I’m not finished the game as yet, currently at Chapter 9, but I feel compelled to post my thoughts so far:

To which I can only start with wow. Wow. Without question, Final Fantasy XV is the most dysfunctional and unfocused entry in the franchise.

Since release, the most positive component of this game I have read regards the main characters, the camaraderie between them and the ‘journey’ they go on together. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. I simply cannot understand the praise.

Aside from small glimpses from Gladiolus, they are completely unrelated, are designed as simplistic caricatures, and forced together in a feigned ‘scenario as friends’ filled with nonsensical dialogue snippets that betray the very setting of the entire game. (Prompto in particular is an offensively poorly written character that serves zero purpose to not only the game, but to Noctis himself).

Making matters worse, the first 15 hours of the story have been incomprehensible. Not only are details skipped, entire narrative plot points are skipped. I’ve read that outside movies help, but it won’t change that within the game the world building is non-existent, the characters themselves barely occupy it and the NPCs have no sense of realization or understanding… Plot details won’t fix that.

I’ll save my remaining impressions for when I finish (visuals and gameplay are at least mediocre so far, but not without major criticisms), but I have to say were it not for my desire to finish solely because I’ve finished all previous entries, I’d have given up by now.

So far this is trending to be the worst entry in the franchise, and not by a close margin at all… Any fans of the game that can give me hope going forward?

 

[SeraphJan]

Altissia is very beautiful, the most memorable element of FFXV

 

[RoboFu]

Really if you dont l ike running around fighting everything and exploring ... then there isn't much there for you.

 

[SpokkX]

I’m not finished the game as yet, currently at Chapter 9, but I feel compelled to post my thoughts so far:

To which I can only start with wow. Wow. Without question, Final Fantasy XV is the most dysfunctional and unfocused entry in the franchise.

Since release, the most positive component of this game I have read regards the main characters, the camaraderie between them and the ‘journey’ they go on together. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. I simply cannot understand the praise.

Aside from small glimpses from Gladiolus, they are completely unrelated, are designed as simplistic caricatures, and forced together in a feigned ‘scenario as friends’ filled with nonsensical dialogue snippets that betray the very setting of the entire game. (Prompto in particular is an offensively poorly written character that serves zero purpose to not only the game, but to Noctis himself).

Making matters worse, the first 15 hours of the story have been incomprehensible. Not only are details skipped, entire narrative plot points are skipped. I’ve read that outside movies help, but it won’t change that within the game the world building is non-existent, the characters themselves barely occupy it and the NPCs have no sense of realization or understanding… Plot details won’t fix that.

I’ll save my remaining impressions for when I finish (visuals and gameplay are at least mediocre so far, but not without major criticisms), but I have to say were it not for my desire to finish solely because I’ve finished all previous entries, I’d have given up by now.

So far this is trending to be the worst entry in the franchise, and not by a close margin at all… Any fans of the game that can give me hope going forward?

Well

Its better that FF13 i guess?

It felt like a mess in most ways yeah - still played through it and didnt give up at least

 

[Cornbread78]

Just wait until the post game credits if you're mad now....

 

[BennyBlanco]

Game is a total clusterfuck. FFXIII at least had interesting combat and a guy with a bird in his afro.

 

[Elios83]

Lol it's actually going downhill after chapter 9

Btw I liked it, yeah it's clear that the game was unfinished and they had to glue together the different pieces they had ready for the mandated release date but they still nailed many aspects, the combat was fun, the feeling of the road trip was nailed down pretty well and when it was released in 2016 graphics were impressive. OST is also fantastic.
Unfortunately the story had many cuts and honestly the last part of the game especially chapter 13 was bad.

 

[Dinkle]

If not for Cyberpunk, FFXV would be the most dissapointed i've ever been with a game. I remember being excited to finally get to Tenebrae only for... nothing to fucking happen.

 

[SafeOrAlone]

My feelings on the game went downhill in retrospect but I remember experiencing some kind of bliss, just riding around on a chocobo, early on in my experience. It made a good first impression on me.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Since release, the most positive component of this game I have read regards the main characters, the camaraderie between them and the ‘journey’ they go on together. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. I simply cannot understand the praise.

Aside from small glimpses from Gladiolus, they are completely unrelated, are designed as simplistic caricatures, and forced together in a feigned ‘scenario as friends’ filled with nonsensical dialogue snippets that betray the very setting of the entire game. (Prompto in particular is an offensively poorly written character that serves zero purpose to not only the game, but to Noctis himself).

Two words: Japanese mannerisms. It's very clearly about a bunch of Asian men, maybe Western girls go kawai, but men are like WTF.

 

[Chukhopops]

I remember how hyped I was for it, even watching the movie that was supposed to help understanding the plot (and it did not, at all). I still have the steelbook Royal edition, probably the biggest letdown in video game history.

Literally nothing worked properly in this game at launch.

 

[Fbh]

Yeah the game was really underwhelming, was even worse at launch when it felt even more disjointed and unfinished.
The combat looks nice but is really shallow, the story and writing are horrendous, the open world is boring and the quests in it are basic and uninspired, and it has some of the worst bosses in the history of the franchise (at least in the mainline games).

About the only good things are the nice visuals (one of the best early uses of HDR too), great music, and that optional post game dungeon where it turns into an awesome puzzle game for a couple of hours (held back by annoying traversal and jumping physics that clearly weren't designed for what the dungeon wants you to do).

 

[Captain Toad]

FFXV isn't worthy of being a numbered Final Fantasy game.

That was clear within the first 30 seconds as N-sync is pushing a car down the street while Stand By Me plays.

 

[Teslerum]

Making matters worse, the first 15 hours of the story have been incomprehensible. Not only are details skipped, entire narrative plot points are skipped. I’ve read that outside movies help, but it won’t change that within the game the world building is non-existent, the characters themselves barely occupy it and the NPCs have no sense of realization or understanding… Plot details won’t fix that.

I mean that's par on course for a Tabata game. Crisis Core mostly avoided it, but it still had instances of certain shit happening outside of your experience and both 3rd Birthday and Type-0 were full of it.

I think its a terrible narrative device to use in a video game (You actually want to experience cool shit in a video game. Not like its a book or a movie where you can have stuff happen outside of the main characters journey and execute it decently well.) so I have no idea why he seems so obsessed with it.

Sad too, because there's several instances where it shines through that he does have the talent to execute these *epic* moments (Most popular example being Crisis Core's ending there)

 

[The_hunter]

I liked exploring the world, I liked the latin names of the characters. That's about it . I liked the combat system of 7 remake more than 15. The animations were good, and the ghostly ancestral weapons were a highlight of the game.

 

[BryceNobody]

I finally beat XV myself recently after putting it on the back burner for so long and gotta say: it is so far removed from any Final Fantasy I’ve ever played.

The story is nonsense. It’s hilariously fractured and unfocused that by the end I could not tell what the real conflict was between the protag/antag, other than there was some war or something by the evil magic military, I guess? I found out later there’s a supplemental material you’re supposed to take in before playing the game, but that only made me more irritated. Why can’t I just enjoy the main story by itself?

Thankfully I feel like things are back on track for the franchise a little, and FF7R was a good rebound but man… XV was such a low point for me. Never touching that shit again.

 

[recursive]

Overall I enjoyed it but there were issues that I didn't care for. First being the open world in the end felt tacked on. I did all the open world quests and when I went back to the story it just went on rails where the open world really didnt matter. Second being how the story and its ending progressed into the post game.

I did make sure to keep my car spotless.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I’m not finished the game as yet, currently at Chapter 9, but I feel compelled to post my thoughts so far:

To which I can only start with wow. Wow. Without question, Final Fantasy XV is the most dysfunctional and unfocused entry in the franchise.

Since release, the most positive component of this game I have read regards the main characters, the camaraderie between them and the ‘journey’ they go on together. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. I simply cannot understand the praise.

Aside from small glimpses from Gladiolus, they are completely unrelated, are designed as simplistic caricatures, and forced together in a feigned ‘scenario as friends’ filled with nonsensical dialogue snippets that betray the very setting of the entire game. (Prompto in particular is an offensively poorly written character that serves zero purpose to not only the game, but to Noctis himself).

Making matters worse, the first 15 hours of the story have been incomprehensible. Not only are details skipped, entire narrative plot points are skipped. I’ve read that outside movies help, but it won’t change that within the game the world building is non-existent, the characters themselves barely occupy it and the NPCs have no sense of realization or understanding… Plot details won’t fix that.

I’ll save my remaining impressions for when I finish (visuals and gameplay are at least mediocre so far, but not without major criticisms), but I have to say were it not for my desire to finish solely because I’ve finished all previous entries, I’d have given up by now.

So far this is trending to be the worst entry in the franchise, and not by a close margin at all… Any fans of the game that can give me hope going forward?

Yep, agree with all that.

I still like it quite a bit as a chill out, run around and do side quests game though.

 

[PSX2007]

I started the Final Fantasy series with 7, and it was the first single-player entry since then I didn't bother to finish. I gave up an hour or two in when I realized the story was totally incomprehensible and it was full of pointless inane side quests.

 

[TheAmazingSpiderMan]

FF XV is the biggest piece of manure from a FF entry, they should have altogether cancelled It.

 

[Shifty1897]

15 sucks, but is still somehow better than 13, 8, and 2.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

This board has bad taste when it comes to FF games. I'll say that much. FF XV as a game is better than anything after IX.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

I liked FFXV well enough for what it was. It was *never* going to be well received with the changing of directors, the ten year dev time, and the baggage of Versus XIII weighing it down. It just simply wasn't the game a lot of people expected, wanted, or were getting hyped for. Because it literally wasn't. The best thing you can say about XV's dev cycle is it was a very rare entirely transparent look into the process of a title from inception to release. It got announced fucking BONKERS too early.

As for the game itself, it depends upon two factors: how much you like the main characters, and how much you like the combat. Every part of EVERYTHING is linked to and reacts to these two elements. If one of these falls apart, you most probably won't enjoy the title at all. Character wise, I agree that most of the main cast is pretty archetypal. The DLCs and anime do help, but I also understand the idea that supplemental material should NOT be a substitute for taking the time to flesh out world and character inside the work itself.

The gameplay, it totally clicked for me. You realize (and either vibe with or reject) early on that it's not an action RPG along the lines of VIIR, or KH, where timing, elemental weakness, gear, and memorizing combos is the key to victory. Play it with these expectations, and it will seem boring as fuck. It's more about battlefield control, positioning, utilizing techniques and either spreading out or focusing on a certain type of foe first. It's frenetic, but it's not as much of a cluster fuck as some say. I dunno. I recently completed it almost entirely save for one random spawning mech super boss (Angelus something or other) and the multi-player expansion, and I had a pretty decent time with it.

 

[Beechos]

Everything about this game was trash. Its sad to see what has become of final fantasy.

 

[IFireflyl]

15 sucks, but is still somehow better than 13, 8, and 2.

Laughably incorrect.

 

[ethomaz]

Welcome to Tabata’s misdirection.

 

[ethomaz]

15 sucks, but is still somehow better than 13, 8, and 2.

FFXV made me realize FFXIII was not that bad.

FFVIII is infinite superior to both.
FFIO is at least interesting in the way it handle battles.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

15 had a pretty good story, the only problem with it is that only half the story is in the actual base game. The rest of the plot is in the DLCs, the anime short series, the CG feature length movie, and perhaps the 16 bit prequel game (I didn't play it). This is a horrible way to tell a story, but it's actually quite poignant once you watch a retrospective that stitches the plot together in a linear fashion for you. I also think the primary villain is one of FF's best.

Edit - Banger of a soundtrack as well.

 

[Ezquimacore]

I remember when this was Versus XIII and the most expected game ever, good times.

 

[Umbasaborne]

I would love a remake of this game, one that puts back in all the cut area’s/content. There were supposed to be two full open worlds, and a fully explorable tenenbrae, the scale was going to be massive, the city of insomnia was even going to be fully explorable. Im dying for that game

 

[ethomaz]

The gameplay, it totally clicked for me. You realize (and either vibe with or reject) early on that it's not an action RPG along the lines of VIIR, or KH, where timing, elemental weakness, gear, and memorizing combos is the key to victory. Play it with these expectations, and it will seem boring as fuck. It's more about battlefield control, positioning, utilizing techniques and either spreading out or focusing on a certain type of foe first. It's frenetic, but it's not as much of a cluster fuck as some say. I dunno. I recently completed it almost entirely save for one random spawning mech super boss (Angelus something or other) and the multi-player expansion, and I had a pretty decent time with it.

Or…

Just hold circle.
I can praise how simple the battle system is… my near 3 years old boy probably has no issue with that.

 

[Umbasaborne]

I finally beat XV myself recently after putting it on the back burner for so long and gotta say: it is so far removed from any Final Fantasy I’ve ever played.

The story is nonsense. It’s hilariously fractured and unfocused that by the end I could not tell what the real conflict was between the protag/antag, other than there was some war or something by the evil magic military, I guess? I found out later there’s a supplemental material you’re supposed to take in before playing the game, but that only made me more irritated. Why can’t I just enjoy the main story by itself?

Thankfully I feel like things are back on track for the franchise a little, and FF7R was a good rebound but man… XV was such a low point for me. Never touching that shit again.

The story was basically stitched togeather with the remnants of versus xiii, then like three other iterations of the plot. Then they used other media and dlc to patch over the plot holes they created because they had to frankenstein a narrative together to ship it out the door.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Or…

Just hold circle.
I can praise how simple the battle system is… my near 3 years old boy probably has no issue with that.

Yes. Hold O. You'll have to constantly use healing items, granted. And I know, it's next to impossible to get a game over, but constantly rezzing party members would explain why the "hold O," crowd doesn't like the game so much. Phasing is pretty easy, too, to be fair, but if you're surrounded by more than 3-4 enemies, you're gonna take some hits, and XV has enemies that take off obnoxious chunks of HP at one time.

I'll never get the THE GAME BASICALLY PLAYS ITSELF crowd. It's cool not to like the game, you do you. But acting as if "pressing the attack button and winning," is a new concept to FF is funny. Every game past FFV it's essentially more than viable to beat trash mobs throughout the entire main story by just hitting attack over and over. FF has always been designed with a "easy to pick up, less easy to master, get out of it what you put into it," style. XV isn't my favorite, but it's definitely not my least favorite.

 

[Myths]

Everyone always rags in the previous entry. I will never let up, XVI will more than likely be superior. I’ve enjoyed most FFs with X being the least and then IV in the distance.

I can’t bring myself to even pick this game up. The cast puts me way off, surprisingly for the fact that naturally I would gravitate towards a (mostly) open world game.

 

[Neff]

Awful game.

Repetitive, bland, and goes out of its way to remove interactivity from the player at every available opportunity.

Oh, and by all means feel free to generate a series of multimedia projects around your highly-anticipated new game, but holy shit don't spread crucial components of the core experience exclusively between them.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

The game is a joke and its why I already know Forespoken will be a dud.

Same team behind it as 15 for the most part.

 

[Belthazar]

Well... The thing is you played the "good" part of the game up until now. It gets progressively worse from now on

 

[Larxia]

I have a very conflicted feeling with FF XV... I agree with mostly all the complaints about it, but at the same time, I can't hate it, I really have a love / hate relationship with it.
VS XIII was the video game project I was the most obsessed with, the thing I waited for the longest time, it's a 10 years story of dreaming, hope, theories etc, and because of all of this background and the VS XIII legacy in XV, there are still a lot of elements I'm very attached to.
I hate that the game was rushed and unfinished, but I really think it had a huge potential. I really liked the world and the characters.
The main problem in the gameplay for me is that there's no challenge at all, since you can have almost unlimited amount of healing items, it completely ruins the intensity, but at the same time... the combats are so confusing and chaotic, I'm not sure how well the game would play without these infinite heals, it's really not balanced correctly.

But the main missed opportunity for me is Insomnia. For 10 years we have all been dreaming about playing the Insomnia Invasion, only for it to only be in a movie instead...
The game should have started with a prologue chapter in Insomnia, with you getting used to the city, the characters, getting attached to all of this, and then losing it all later during the invasion, it would have been a lot more emotional, intense, and closer to the original promise.

When you think that all of this was made for nothing... :


I also wish Altissia was fully explorable, I also made a video about that


Final Fantasy XV is a... complicated game. I totally understand people for whom the problems are too much, but there is also that feeling of... I don't know, playing FF XV is like playing a prototype of what could have been an amazing game, it's a really special feeling. I hate that the game got such a terrible management. They even cancelled all the modding tools that were planned for PC, which was a huge shame.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

The game is like a literal joke.

You’re on the way to Altissia but then your car breaks down. So you go stay at a hotel and then learn about the fall of your homeland by reading about it in the newspaper the next morning (the actual story is in the Kingsglaive movie).

Almost the entire game takes place in a region that’s like the size of a state park. There’s a whole network of little truck stop towns that are like 3 miles apart from each other.

One of the first quests is to drive a couple miles and go buy some tomatoes because the diner ran out.

There are some zany quest giver NPCs (lazy assholes) just standing around asking you to do their chores.

Spoiler

Lunafreya is barely in it and gets killed before you even get to interact with her.

There are parts where your party members conspicuously leave your party and have some mystery adventure that I guess happens in the DLC (haven’t played it)

And I took a picture of Cup Noodle with me into the afterlife.

 

[night13x]

When they took out Stella...I knew it was only going downhill from there. In the end, SE cut development of story DLC and told you to read their book instead to understand the story. That's how bad it got.

FFXVI is in good hands. I am looking forward to that.

 

[Bernardougf]

I’m not finished the game as yet, currently at Chapter 9, but I feel compelled to post my thoughts so far:

To which I can only start with wow. Wow. Without question, Final Fantasy XV is the most dysfunctional and unfocused entry in the franchise.

Since release, the most positive component of this game I have read regards the main characters, the camaraderie between them and the ‘journey’ they go on together. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. I simply cannot understand the praise.

Aside from small glimpses from Gladiolus, they are completely unrelated, are designed as simplistic caricatures, and forced together in a feigned ‘scenario as friends’ filled with nonsensical dialogue snippets that betray the very setting of the entire game. (Prompto in particular is an offensively poorly written character that serves zero purpose to not only the game, but to Noctis himself).

Making matters worse, the first 15 hours of the story have been incomprehensible. Not only are details skipped, entire narrative plot points are skipped. I’ve read that outside movies help, but it won’t change that within the game the world building is non-existent, the characters themselves barely occupy it and the NPCs have no sense of realization or understanding… Plot details won’t fix that.

I’ll save my remaining impressions for when I finish (visuals and gameplay are at least mediocre so far, but not without major criticisms), but I have to say were it not for my desire to finish solely because I’ve finished all previous entries, I’d have given up by now.

So far this is trending to be the worst entry in the franchise, and not by a close margin at all… Any fans of the game that can give me hope going forward?

It is the worse... its the worse AAA game I've played on my ps4 by far .... I also have no hope for FFXVI

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I wish D.Final were still here. These threads just aren’t the same without his insane ranting in giant text about how great and complete FF XV is.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

The best episode of Conan’s Clueless Gamer bit is the FFXV review.

 

[Azurro]

It's one of the most disappointing FF games out there, alongside FFXIII. I'd focus on the fighting system and exploration and not think about the world too much, you'll go mad attempting to make sense of it.

 

[lh032]

Worst FF ever, anyone that likes it, please stop gaming.

 

[Icymanipulator]

It’s a horrible game and a bad final fantasy. Disjointed broken story, terrible battle system that requires zero skill, character background stories are DLC.

 

[PaddyOCanager]

Probably the most disappointing game for me personally........like, ever. I couldn't even finish it.

 

[ethomaz]

I wish D.Final were still here. These threads just aren’t the same without his insane ranting in giant text about how great and complete FF XV is.

I though the same.

 

[cireza]

Final Fantasy XV has one of the simplest story in the entire the franchise. How can people not understand it is beyond me.

Best JRPG of his gen, as far as I am concerned.

 

[nikos]

It's the third best Final Fantasy game in the main series.