It's taken me ages and I already spoiled myself on the ending beforehand anyway, but I finally beat XV yesterday and I just can't get it out of my head, so that's a sign of a special one right there.
Mind you I've got a ton of story complaints and questions that I should probably get off my chest somewhere else, and these are problems that are way too similar to Type-0's to my liking which is making me think I probably don't want Tabata to direct a mainline FF again if I'm gonna be real here for one sec, the way he handles stories isn't what I want out of Final Fantasy. Though don't get me wrong, I'll gladly check out Tabata's next game.
And I'm not entirely over Versus. Which I'm sure no one wants to hear about in this thread at this point but you'll have to excuse me and let me ramble about this some but like I said, I can't get Final Fantasy XV out of my head.
But it's okay!
Because that stuff aside I had a blast. Story-wise if there's one thing they really pulled off here, and thank god for that, it's making me care about the bros. A lot. Noctis might be my favourite Final Fantasy protagonist and I got pretty damn emotional with the ending.
And the overall story is still pretty great on paper, with some really great concepts and characters. And I certainly enjoyed the tone of the latter chapters. Wonky execution, but there's plenty to love there. It i
s a weird kind of love for me but I suppose that's okay too. (Though I have to admit I can't help but think I'm enjoying Versus holdovers here, while disliking the way they executed them. Whoops.)
Digging through the Wiki and reading guide book info has been a great time for similar reasons, even if it's a somewhat annoying "why isn't this made clear in the game" kind of one. I guess I should get myself one of those guidebooks.
But most importantly the game is just absolute blast to play. Well maybe not most importantly, that's probably how I love the party, but it's a close second. There's something really special here that's hard for me to put into words because there are plenty of issues and it doesn't always work, but when it does it's like nothing else out there. Something about that flow of driving around, going out to explore, ideally solving some quests along the way in a convenient matter, until it's night out and I gotta camp is just very satisfactory. As is the combat. Which doesn't always work either but when it does it feels better than anything else out there. And warping is always fun.
Some stray thoughts:
- I hate how inconsistent this and Kingsglaive are. The different designs, voice talent and yeah uh, Ravus' personality? I really hope those future patch scenes work out for ya, buddy.
- This is silly to mention at this point, but they should have just called the heroine Stella, I really would've preferred it that way.
That name change made me think there was some proper relevance to it but it seemingly only happened to avoid pissing people off, pissing people off in the process. As in the moon doesn't fucking matter in this game and it's annoying me more than it should? And thematically being named after stars makes much more sense? This wouldn't be a problem to me if the names were all nonsense, but the others ended up working fairly well so I was expecting some significance, idk.
- There's plenty of stuff you could say this for too, but out of all the off-screen stuff Pryna's bothered me the most. Dog DLC when?
- Why the fuck do I need to get off my chocobo to pick the shinies up? Don't map that stuff to the same button, come on.
- I don't know how this happened but I'm addicted to the fishing. It's not even my favourite video game fishing!
- It's been said plenty but the dungeons in this game really are a highlight. Looking forward to exploring the ones I missed later.
- Chapter 13 wasn't that bad. It dragged on too long for its own good, sure, but I really like the concept and I wouldn't want it gone or anything. I might have been overlevelled though, I don't know if it's supposed to be easier than the game makes it out to be.
And in general I definitely enjoy the game getting linear later on.
- I really wish I could replay chapters, because I want to replay some chapters. Have they talked about adding this in a future update?
- And finally, I don't really mind all the updates. I know I'm gonna crave more XV in the future. Definitely looking forward to the DLC too. The avatar thing still sounds dumb though.
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I realize no one wants to read this so I do apologize for dumping this post in here, but this felt good to write. Still, sorry.
