Final Fantasy XV SPOILER THREAD
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
Has anyone come across any instances of notable sidequests or hunts/dungeons that HAVE to be done at a particular point in the game?
I'm thinking of just blowing through the story as fast as possible so I can have the airship and mostly every location available and have a free dungeon crawling, monster hunting experience. I'm sure this might make some of the earlier stuff kind of easy but meh.
I wouldn't say I play them for the story, as for the most part I don't think they're necessarily really well-written or novel and there's plenty of more satisfying and unique stories than most FF games if that's what I'm looking for, but I like some of the story events they attempt (more so with the SNES and PS1 FFs than their output on the PS2 and beyond), and it's fun to watch a group of people get more and more involved in a high-stakes adventure that has them going all over the place and encountering all kinds of people and creatures. It is, or at least used to be, fun, pulpy fantasy stuff that does well enough at complementing the gameplay that ranges from serviceable-to-great depending on the game, making the overall package they're offering pretty good. Which is probably why FFV is my favorite as it perfectly captures that pulpy fantasy adventure vibe to me while also having really good game mechanics. The newer (single player) entries don't do as well at offering these things to me anymore so I guess I just buy and play them out of habit nowadays.
And that's why stuff like the Leviathan battle and end boss battle in this game where Noctis goes Super Saiyan and basically takes care of it alone aren't my cup of tea. I'm not going to say "it's not Final Fantasy", and it's unique in the sense that Japanese RPGs don't really implement set pieces and combat sequences in such a manner, but it's out of place with what I personally like to get out of this series and the boss battles they tend to implement. I like having a crew of adventurers/heroes working as a team to overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I'm hoping the FFVII remake doesn't get too caught up in similar indulgences, and if it does I guess I'm just getting out of touch with where this series is going unless FFXVI is shown to be dialing it back lol.
I'm thinking of just blowing through the story as fast as possible so I can have the airship and mostly every location available and have a free dungeon crawling, monster hunting experience. I'm sure this might make some of the earlier stuff kind of easy but meh.
I wouldn't say I play them for the story, as for the most part I don't think they're necessarily really well-written or novel and there's plenty of more satisfying and unique stories than most FF games if that's what I'm looking for, but I like some of the story events they attempt (more so with the SNES and PS1 FFs than their output on the PS2 and beyond), and it's fun to watch a group of people get more and more involved in a high-stakes adventure that has them going all over the place and encountering all kinds of people and creatures. It is, or at least used to be, fun, pulpy fantasy stuff that does well enough at complementing the gameplay that ranges from serviceable-to-great depending on the game, making the overall package they're offering pretty good. Which is probably why FFV is my favorite as it perfectly captures that pulpy fantasy adventure vibe to me while also having really good game mechanics. The newer (single player) entries don't do as well at offering these things to me anymore so I guess I just buy and play them out of habit nowadays.
And that's why stuff like the Leviathan battle and end boss battle in this game where Noctis goes Super Saiyan and basically takes care of it alone aren't my cup of tea. I'm not going to say "it's not Final Fantasy", and it's unique in the sense that Japanese RPGs don't really implement set pieces and combat sequences in such a manner, but it's out of place with what I personally like to get out of this series and the boss battles they tend to implement. I like having a crew of adventurers/heroes working as a team to overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I'm hoping the FFVII remake doesn't get too caught up in similar indulgences, and if it does I guess I'm just getting out of touch with where this series is going unless FFXVI is shown to be dialing it back lol.
It would be more correct to say "Final Fantasy was one of the best stories one could get in gaming at one time"
FF7R will have people being super humans and doing super impossible AC and Crisis core level stuff, i have no doubt about that. I think it would actually fit more in the story and world for these human beings to basically be super powered to be able to fight the kinds of enemies they fight, instead of them trying to ape realism somehow.
Vincent Grayson
Member
At one point, Tabata said something about locations that could only be reached by air. I wonder if that's no longer the case.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Dragon Quest? Shining Force? Phantasy Star? Chrono Trigger? Heck, Lunar and Lunar 2 both came out on Sega CD before FFVII and had FMV with voice and songs!
Throughout the SNES era I would say lots of Enix RPGs had pretty good stories, many with settings far more unique and interesting than FF4-6. Not to mention stuff on PC Engine and what not, like Tengai Makyou. There's also stuff like Langrisser.
Why are we pretending like FF is the only console RPG series with stories people care about? Or even the best by any metric? They're popular, but that doesn't mean they're the best.
I wasnt expecting to split hairs between the merits of different classic jRPGs. I think they're all of similar writing quality, differentiated mainly by personal taste, and FF is a main one of these.
To rephrase what my statement really meant: there was a time when jRPGs were the best story you could get on a console, and FF is the popular example of this.
Whether Chrono or Phantasy is "better" is subjective... and in the context of modern times with a far higher bar of game writing, the differences between them are minute.
Lets replace my statement of FF having the "best" stories in gaming with "front of the pack". There are cohorts to FF in the running, but the main point of note is that it was near the top of an entire medium. So of course people played it for the story.
Big Green Anus
Member
Sounds like I need to try out the Kingdom Hearts series. I'll buy the HD collection next year
KZXcellent
Member
In that case, here's a post that outlines how to get into the series with the collections: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=222391711&postcount=275
I mean...there's the sky, so it's not technically wrong.
rackham
Banned
can you direct me to the post ITT that has the ffxv spoilers?
Buy the 1.5+2.5 collection(its a single disc), and Kingdom hearts 2.8. Play all the games on there and you should be ready for KH3.
At least I karaoke Melody of Life.
potatohead
Member
Can someone summarize the spoilers please I can't read through all this shiz
Luna dies, Noctis dies, the gang's fate is inconclusive(i think they are dead).
Ardyn is the final boss.
Also everything was offscreen.
YunFang1130
Member
I still don't like that they practically killed off everyone in this universe. Kingsglaive people besides Libertus died, and now almost everyone from the game :/ ......
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
jimmypython
Member
So I have started playing the game. Within first 2 hours, I have already seen many Type-0 influences.
Probably already too late to the party but here are my first impressions (only the things I liked):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=225414281&postcount=2099
it's probably for the best and the reason why Matsuda kicked Nomura out in the first place.
I personally would like to just move on to a fresh new FF16 with settings we have never seen before.
Probably already too late to the party but here are my first impressions (only the things I liked):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=225414281&postcount=2099
it's probably for the best and the reason why Matsuda kicked Nomura out in the first place.
I personally would like to just move on to a fresh new FF16 with settings we have never seen before.
Solid Sora
Member
The airship and the adamantoise requires you to finish the game first. I'm not sure if there's more that requires it since I didn't do much exploration before I finished it.
I did a few extra dungeons and I thought they were great. There was a mountain/volcano dungeon that you needed to climb, and managing your stamina was a part of the challenge. The LV70 Zu's nest was there, I think you can fight him if you went in the right time, or with the right hunt.
There's shitton of stuff to do. As I mentioned before, in every dungeon I went to there was a giant closed door that got markes on my map as an enterance to another dungeon, I still can't figure how to open them, and I'm dying to know.
He's a humanoid deamon. He's very difficult, the boss that gave me most trouble in the story. You fight it with your party and it's in chapter 13. What disappointed me that it didn't have in unique animations in his fight as far as I know. I even tried to parry him with his sister's weapon, but it didn't trigger anything. Maybe I've missed something.
I can't seem to find it but the official guide mentions its existence. Maybe in a patch? I don't know.
it never ends...
hmm, so does that make the Airship-car non-canon considering going back to finish quests seems like a gameplay mechanic only, going by the outcome of the story.
Solid Sora
Member
His model is unique. He still looks like Ravus, but corrupted.
Probably? If it was canon it would've solved tons of problems in the latter half.
Mister Megative
Banned
What did you think of the final.dungeon? I assume it's either post apocalyptic Lucis or Insomnia. How long/challenging?
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Given that the airship was added based on feedback it's probably best to assume it's not canon.
Unless there's really an alternate ending that one can get if specific sidequests gets completed. Then it means Umbra's time travel saves the world or something.
I guess the point that you travel back to is before Leviathan gets summoned?
It feels more like there was a big question mark whether it was technically feasible. Tabata said as much in an ATR.
Writing an airship into the game's story and then having to pull it out would have probably resulted in an FFX-style menu for fast travel and lots of blowback.
YunFang1130
Member
So.... wait. You don't fight him as a human? I think someone told me that once you defeated him, there's notes you can read. Did you see them? And does he barely have any screentime?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Airship being post-game bums me out. I feel a bit lied to. They should have been upfront about this.
Getting the airship is supposed to be a turning point in any FF story, imo.
Getting the airship is supposed to be a turning point in any FF story, imo.
Nope
Sadly nope, you find him randomly dead with notes scattered around him where you learn of his off screen reformation and his feelings about this whole thing. You later fight him as a monster because Ardyn is a dick and won't let him rest in peace.
Yabberwocky
Member
Damn, that's really, really frustrating. Ravus dying off screen was already really clunky, and finding out Ravus' motivations via notes makes it seem even worse. It's a shame, too, as I feel like one of the good selling points for FFXV was a larger supporting cast, which FFXIII had very, very little of. I thought it was going to be a solid chance to rectify one of XIII's bigger issues. Considering the lead in from Kingsglaive, I thought Ravus would have been utilized a lot more, especially because he had a good story relevant set-up - related to Luna, working for the enemy out of vengeance, lotsa robo arm ring angst. One of the reasons that FFVII is one of my favorites is that it had a large supporting cast, both villainous and non-villanous. The Turks, Rufus, President Shinra, Hojo, Jenova, Sephiroth, Heidegger, Scarlet, Reeve, etc. No one is really a one scene wonder, either, and they all have reoccurring roles throughout the story. That's not even mentioning the characters that were involved in party member's backstories, like Lucrecia for Vincent, Godo for Yuffie, Shera for Cid, Dyne for Barret, etc. It made the world of VII feel more lived in, and created narrative links that were outside of the party.
...good luck juggling all of them in HD, Nomura, I don't envy you. The remake is going to be fascinating.
I'm also still quite disappointed that the guest party members in XV disappear from the story, as does the supporting cast. In retrospect, XII did a really solid job of keeping the guest party members with you for a good length of time - and letting you run off with them from the critical path, too, I feel like I used Reddas for quite a few hunts! They were all relevant to the plot, and all three non-party members had their individual stories resolved. XII was pretty light on in regards to its supporting cast, but at least most of them stay quite relevant to the end. Al-Cid, Ondore, The Judges, Cid, etc. I just feel like XV had all this great supporting cast potential that - I'm assuming - had to get reigned in for dev time.
Solid Sora
Member
I found a NPC in Lestallum that gives you an interesting chain of side-quests. He sends you to hunt some super powerful monsters to make weapons out of their loot. I did his first quest and he sent me to hunt a LV53 huge bird that's a bit smaller recolored version of the Zu. Crazy fight it was. He made a greatsword out of it which was stronger than the strongest greatsword available to purchase in the game, although I found one stronger than it in the wild later. His next quest is LV65 so it will be a while before I can do it, but he gives you Dragoon Lance as a reward for it.
Wonder if his final quest will give you the ultimate weapon.
Wonder if his final quest will give you the ultimate weapon.
Judging how SE handled XV by rushing it to the point where the story is butchered, I don't have much faith for VIIR to be honest. I am sure Tabata and Nomura had the best of intentions when it comes to these projects, but SE not learning anything from XIII doesn't instill much confidence in me to be honest. I just want Tabata out of the FF drama and into a project he can totally let himself go with it, I personally enjoy his work and direction so I hope his next project is anything but a Final Fantasy project because this franchise is battered as hell and there is no way to save it anymore.
I personally prefer they start a new project and let this franchise die in peace.
This.
XIV has an amazing story/world building. XIV is also the game that shows SE learned plenty from the XIII series.
"But it's a MMO!" Let me stop you right there. Yoshida has stressed several key components for the game since he took over. In order they're "high level gameplay, a strong Final Fantasy-like narrative that works alongside the gameplay, and high quality visuals that support the high quality story-line." As I said, the story in particular is really well done, especially in Heavensward.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
People are mostly high on the gameplay currently. Story criticism even from people that loved the game. Can't figure out yet what the verdict on the characters will be.
archvile7
Member
Both.
Some have said game is most amazing FF in a while, others have said it is a letdown compared to what was promised.
The parallels between this game and MGSV are crazy, in the sense of what was promised/what people thought they were getting, and what was delivered.
MagnaderAlpha
Member
I'm guessing the DLC take place between the time jump gap.
IMO, i don't think FF7R will suffer the same mistreatment
I think a big part of what happened to FFXV was that SE didn't want to spend a huge amount of time on XV after what they had already spent and wanted something out quickly because it would quickly drain their resources. They were working on luminous at the same time after all. And of course with the staff change and the rough editing process, it shows a lot in the final product.
FF7R has a lot of those shackles lifted. Its heavily outsourced, using third party technology for the most part, made into multiple volumes and generally speaking is not a mainline game, and hopefully does not have any major staff shakeups.
Of course i could be 100% wrong, but i think that FF7R can avoid many of the pitfalls FF15 had.
And Bioshock Infinite for that matter. All of them indicate an extremely messy development cycle filled with turmoil
u shud get ffxii hd after you get bored of mmorpg combat
hosannainexcelsis
Member
XII has an amazing combat system tbh
paolo11
Member
That would make sense. I wonder if there is another alternate true ending. We shall see.
SkylineRKR
Member
The game was on the back burner when FFXIII was being worked on, and later when they prioritized those lame sequels. But even then, they worked on the PS4 version for like 4 years. That should be enough to create a cohesive product. But even each demo changed the battle system almost completely, it seems there was never a clear vision.