Final Fantasy XV SPOILER THREAD

Just cross-posting this over from the main XV thread:

I just beat the story last night, what are some awesome things I should do now that I'm in 'post-game'? I've stayed clear of pretty much any/all media on this game so unsure of what the coolest things are available.
 
Kawngi said:
Just cross-posting this over from the main XV thread:

I just beat the story last night, what are some awesome things I should do now that I'm in 'post-game'? I've stayed clear of pretty much any/all media on this game so unsure of what the coolest things are available.
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Do the base in Liede.

Do the secret dungeon located on the southwest of Cleign near the volcano. (you can only do this after the beating the above)

beat the side dungeons and then get a key from Meldasio hunter HQ located near the vesperpool. The vaults are raids.

Get hunts from Randolph in Lestallum to fight hard bosses and super bosses to get the best weapons in the game.

Some new hard hunts should be available.
 
Kawngi said:
Just cross-posting this over from the main XV thread:

I just beat the story last night, what are some awesome things I should do now that I'm in 'post-game'? I've stayed clear of pretty much any/all media on this game so unsure of what the coolest things are available.
Click to expand...


Get the Regalia type F, take it to the yellow strip you see north of the volcano on the map, go a bit north on foot and do the dungeon there ASAP. No level or gear required :D
 
Relaxed Muscle said:
Warning: totally unedited long review.

It started as a better structured review, but midway I said:"Fuck it! Put what you have in there and call it a day" totally Tabata style. Might format it properly on a future DLC, who knows


-----------------------------------------

Final Fantasy XV is the paradigm of unfulfilled potential: for every strong core ideas there's a myriad of little problems that brings down the whole experience, being the biggest one of these issues a disjointed mess of a plot, that left me with me scratching my head more than once.

The fundation of a great game is there, and the result is a good game, but incredibly disapointing, because of what could have been.

I think the more fun I had with the game were the first hours, the world is beautiful, the characters are fun, and the core combat mechanics are solid and makes the introduction to the battle system something quite fun. Yeah, the pacing of the plot and the intial introduction are a mess, a sign of things to come. But putting that aside, the concepts of Tabata and his team, shine stronger than ever in these hours.

Then after the first hours, that cracks start to appear: The plot never recovers from this poor start, the quests that you get with your party members dissapears totally, and with them any meaningful development between Noctis and his friends, the game starts throwing you more fetch quests that you can really handle and you start to abandon camping, in an effort to get more of your time, all this to give the player a reason to go to every part of the map, the battle system starts to show it's ugly side and the pacing totally goes down the drain.

Witcher 3 showed the way to create meaningful sidequests, with interesting narratives to keep the interest in the player on going after these sidequests, a reason to explore the vast map. Final Fantasy XV throws you quests about picking frogs being the only good sidequest is the one we already played on the Duscae demo.

There's hunts, but again there are too many, and you can't even pick more than one at the same time, which baffles me.

In terms of combat, I'll post my initial impressions, since I never changged my mind about it:



I'll add that the encounter design is at times infuriating and that the addition of enemies with OHK or incredibly high damaging AoE attacks with barely any tell, that your party dosn't ever care to avoid, is just poor enemy design (not visually, in terms of attack patterns).

The fact there's no proper micromanagement options for your party members, or even macromanagement options in XIII style, is very dissapointing, on a game that constantly requires you to watch your positioning and who you should attack. The skills, is a very wonky way to deal with all the requirements the game asks you.

In the end the battle system is good, but also very flawed to a way that the most time I spent with it the less I liked it.

If there's one aspect in with the game mostly nails is in the dungeons, they range from decent to very good, I feel that some of them are visually bland, but they are mostly well designed.

Also I found the world really beautiful, but most of the time is a pain to navigate, there's invisible walls everywhere, for fast travel you need you car, so sometimes you have to first warp to your car and then to the location you wish for, with the penalty of having to go through two lenghty load screens.

This leads me to another point: The world is a very beautiful but hollow. There are no buildings, a staple of JRPG (and RPG in general) of being able to enter random people houses is missing, this gives the impression of an incredible looking husk. There's the same-y looking restaurants and shops across the vast map, but they look the same.
Well, at least there's some very impressive vistas.
I can't state enough, how many times the game seams to chomp whole episodes of the game's plot:
- The Empire downfall, told through documents.
- Tenebrae being ridden by monsters, that you can only see far off, while random kids exposes you to Luna flashbacks.
- Ravus entire character development, contained in letters found around his body, because, who dosn't keep a copy of the letters he sends in his pockets?
- Luna and Noctis relationship, which is a trainwreck on his own.
And many more other moments, the fact that important aspects of the lore can only be found on the official guide, speaks volume of the mess you witness. And how we could forget about Jared?

Chapter 13 is trash. Period. I discussed this on the OT, not feeling like repeating it again, but TL;DR: Is a slog of a very unfun RE game, with poor map design, that strips you of the best part of the game, which is the combat system. Is funny how Ardyn constantly mocks you about how powerless you are without your friends, when basically you can forget about the very poorly implemented stealth system and evade attacks until you kill your enemies...by evading. 3/10 would not play again

Every character that is not the main four are very poorly developed to a point of joke. Luna's death loses any meaning when the game dosn't make you care about her. Women treatment in general is poor, even for the saga standards: Luna's fridging, Cindy, etc...
Yeah, main cast is fine, at least their banter is nice, the actual development of them left a lot to be desired. Why there isn't more moments like the ones you get in camping/hotels? Prompto's one shows a lot of promise and then...it ends, right fucking there. One of the reasons the ending never worked for me, even if it was well directed.

All these boss fights setpieces are bad. Titan is bad, Levi is bad and Ardyn 2nd phase is bad. Protip for Tabata: Watch how Bayonetta pulls off boss setpieces while retaining it's combat system.

Airship is totally worthless, why put something as halfassed as that?

Well, probably there's more, but this should be enough. Even if I might seem overly critical, XV is a solid game, just that a good game, but I feel I'm that critical, because there's so much wasted potential that is a real shame. In the end I enjoyed it enough, even thought It won't leave me a lasting impression like the great FF games did.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10

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Good review. I feel like this review was critical in a way that other reviews should have been.
 
Ruff said:
Get the Regalia type F, take it to the yellow strip you see north of the volcano on the map, go a bit north on foot and do the dungeon there ASAP. No level or gear required :D
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You should probably be above 50 though, since (while the base itself isn't hard) fighting the 2 MX bosses in the base you need to get the part for the type F from can one-shot you with that one fucking annoying aoe attack.
 
Mailbox said:
You should probably be above 50 though, since (while the base itself isn't hard) fighting the 2 MX bosses in the base you need to get the part for the type F from can one-shot you with that one fucking annoying aoe attack.
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True I forgot about having to fight the base to get the part. I had it all somehow before I even knew about the quest.
 
SolVanderlyn said:
I wish XV had a datalog.

I know that sounds like blasphemy, but I wanna read about Ifrit and the Starscourge and Izunia and all that.
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Not blasphemy at all, in fact this is probably one of the more consistently lamented features I've seen mentioned (me included). Here was a world and lore that I actually would've wanted to read droves of text about, but only got a pop-up menu and loading screen or two, lmao. >_<

I wonder if they could/would try to patch something like that in. Tabata and 'em should have the material. :o
 
TissueBox said:
Not blasphemy at all, in fact this is probably one of the more consistently lamented features I've seen mentioned (me included). Here was a world and lore that I actually would've wanted to read droves of text about, but only got a pop-up menu and loading screen or two, lmao. >_<

I wonder if they could/would try to patch something like that in. Tabata and 'em should have the material. :o
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god, ikr!

I love the lore and the world of this game.
Would have loved to have a full on cosmogony to read in that datalog >.<
 
Mailbox said:
Who they are is very clear.

Its from left to right: Aldercept, Regis, Luna, Nyx.
With the 2 most important to noct, Regis and Luna in front.
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It's not Aldercept - it's Ravus. Anyone that had a strong affiliation with the Ring Of The Lucii [or put it on] was hanging up there.

Ishida said:
Speaking of the OST.

You guys remember that amazingly charming "Starlit Waltz" tune from the Platinum Demo?

Is that even in the final game? Kind of sad if it was removed. One of the best music tracks I've heard in a video game for a while.
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If I'm thinking of the song you mean, it's heard at the Totomostro Colosseum.
 
Fans craving for datalog.

FFXIII ha influence.

giphy.gif
 
Relaxed Muscle said:
Warning: totally unedited long review.

It started as a better structured review, but midway I said:"Fuck it! Put what you have in there and call it a day" totally Tabata style. Might format it properly on a future DLC, who knows


-----------------------------------------

Final Fantasy XV is the paradigm of unfulfilled potential: for every strong core ideas there's a myriad of little problems that brings down the whole experience, being the biggest one of these issues a disjointed mess of a plot, that left me with me scratching my head more than once.

The fundation of a great game is there, and the result is a good game, but incredibly disapointing, because of what could have been.

I think the more fun I had with the game were the first hours, the world is beautiful, the characters are fun, and the core combat mechanics are solid and makes the introduction to the battle system something quite fun. Yeah, the pacing of the plot and the intial introduction are a mess, a sign of things to come. But putting that aside, the concepts of Tabata and his team, shine stronger than ever in these hours.

Then after the first hours, that cracks start to appear: The plot never recovers from this poor start, the quests that you get with your party members dissapears totally, and with them any meaningful development between Noctis and his friends, the game starts throwing you more fetch quests that you can really handle and you start to abandon camping, in an effort to get more of your time, all this to give the player a reason to go to every part of the map, the battle system starts to show it's ugly side and the pacing totally goes down the drain.

Witcher 3 showed the way to create meaningful sidequests, with interesting narratives to keep the interest in the player on going after these sidequests, a reason to explore the vast map. Final Fantasy XV throws you quests about picking frogs being the only good sidequest is the one we already played on the Duscae demo.

There's hunts, but again there are too many, and you can't even pick more than one at the same time, which baffles me.

In terms of combat, I'll post my initial impressions, since I never changged my mind about it:



I'll add that the encounter design is at times infuriating and that the addition of enemies with OHK or incredibly high damaging AoE attacks with barely any tell, that your party dosn't ever care to avoid, is just poor enemy design (not visually, in terms of attack patterns).

The fact there's no proper micromanagement options for your party members, or even macromanagement options in XIII style, is very dissapointing, on a game that constantly requires you to watch your positioning and who you should attack. The skills, is a very wonky way to deal with all the requirements the game asks you.

In the end the battle system is good, but also very flawed to a way that the most time I spent with it the less I liked it.

If there's one aspect in with the game mostly nails is in the dungeons, they range from decent to very good, I feel that some of them are visually bland, but they are mostly well designed.

Also I found the world really beautiful, but most of the time is a pain to navigate, there's invisible walls everywhere, for fast travel you need you car, so sometimes you have to first warp to your car and then to the location you wish for, with the penalty of having to go through two lenghty load screens.

This leads me to another point: The world is a very beautiful but hollow. There are no buildings, a staple of JRPG (and RPG in general) of being able to enter random people houses is missing, this gives the impression of an incredible looking husk. There's the same-y looking restaurants and shops across the vast map, but they look the same.
Well, at least there's some very impressive vistas.
I can't state enough, how many times the game seams to chomp whole episodes of the game's plot:
- The Empire downfall, told through documents.
- Tenebrae being ridden by monsters, that you can only see far off, while random kids exposes you to Luna flashbacks.
- Ravus entire character development, contained in letters found around his body, because, who dosn't keep a copy of the letters he sends in his pockets?
- Luna and Noctis relationship, which is a trainwreck on his own.
And many more other moments, the fact that important aspects of the lore can only be found on the official guide, speaks volume of the mess you witness. And how we could forget about Jared?

Chapter 13 is trash. Period. I discussed this on the OT, not feeling like repeating it again, but TL;DR: Is a slog of a very unfun RE game, with poor map design, that strips you of the best part of the game, which is the combat system. Is funny how Ardyn constantly mocks you about how powerless you are without your friends, when basically you can forget about the very poorly implemented stealth system and evade attacks until you kill your enemies...by evading. 3/10 would not play again

Every character that is not the main four are very poorly developed to a point of joke. Luna's death loses any meaning when the game dosn't make you care about her. Women treatment in general is poor, even for the saga standards: Luna's fridging, Cindy, etc...
Yeah, main cast is fine, at least their banter is nice, the actual development of them left a lot to be desired. Why there isn't more moments like the ones you get in camping/hotels? Prompto's one shows a lot of promise and then...it ends, right fucking there. One of the reasons the ending never worked for me, even if it was well directed.

All these boss fights setpieces are bad. Titan is bad, Levi is bad and Ardyn 2nd phase is bad. Protip for Tabata: Watch how Bayonetta pulls off boss setpieces while retaining it's combat system.

Airship is totally worthless, why put something as halfassed as that?

Well, probably there's more, but this should be enough. Even if I might seem overly critical, XV is a solid game, just that a good game, but I feel I'm that critical, because there's so much wasted potential that is a real shame. In the end I enjoyed it enough, even thought It won't leave me a lasting impression like the great FF games did.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10

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Probably like 50 pages back at this point with how fast this thread moves ;).

Just wanted to say that this is just about 100% my feelings about the game as well, actually I can't think of a point I disagree with.

I guess from reading other posts here much more of the story is explained in news paper clippings or the radio or some other crap. It's perfectly fine if devs want to add extra story elements there that give a deeper understanding of everything, but it shouldn't be required story elements. Also by the time they start coming up I was pretty much checked out and didn't care about the extra crap, just wanted to finish.

Edit: Oh also major plot points definitely shouldn't be revealed in freaking LOADING SCREENS! I find out that the Empire killed the remaining 3 astrals from a loading screen? Except of course they didn't...I guess?
 
brandonh83 said:
Not for me so far, adapted to platforming controls pretty quick. Using L1 to navigate more cautiously, being able to control jumps, etc.
Click to expand...

....

I didn't even think of using the dodge button to slow my character down...

fuck... that would have made repositioning SO much easier
 
I feel like I already did the base for the flying regalia during the main game. Am I supposed to do it again or am I shit out of luck for getting the flying regalia. I don't have a mission that allows me to take the parts to Cidney.
 
LordKasual said:
But in what way is it not? I think the events in that episode spoke alot about Prompto and Noctis. Prompto was lonely in his early life because of how deeply insecure he was. Noctis was a different type of lonely; he had nobody who could relate to him just as a person -- he doesn't share that relationship with Gladio or Ignis and clearly wasn't getting it in school. It was certainly awkward how Prompto just kind of pushes himself on Noctis as a friend in Highschool after shadowing him for so long. But Prompto was shown to always be a clumsy, awkward kid; he's clumsy and awkward in the actual game.

Noctis never cared what Prompto looked like, there was never even any indication that Prompto's classmates cared what he looked like. It wasn't really about Prompto being fat, he just had no confidence.
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It's pretty sound on the Noctis side of the story, but the episode absolutely tied all of Prompto's problems to his weight. Yeah, Prompro is definitely an insecure kid there, with part of it stemming from his weight, and that's normal for a lot of people, which is fine here. The problem is that the show basically communicates that barring Noctis, Prompto is basically unacceptable because of that, and he decides to lose the weight for the sole reason of being validated by someone else. This is already super unhealthy, but he spends years on his life for this. It all just feels really gross to me.
 
TheGeniusArcana said:
It's pretty sound on the Noctis side of the story, but the episode absolutely tied all of Prompto's problems to his weight. Yeah, Prompro is definitely an insecure kid there, with part of it stemming from his weight, and that's normal for a lot of people, which is fine here. The problem is that the show basically communicates that barring Noctis, Prompto is basically unacceptable because of that, and he decides to lose the weight for the sole reason of being validated by someone else. This is already super unhealthy, but he spends years on his life for this. It all just feels really gross to me.
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You seem to have missed something then. Prompto isn't unacceptable because of that, he just feels like he is. Considering royalty and how he sees himself, he feels unacceptable so he tries to be what he deems acceptable. But that doesn't really matter, since at the end, Noct even notes that they already know each other.

This is echoed in the game several times as well (and especially so in a missable scene). The whole thing was about Prompto's lack of self confidence and self worth, despite people around him not hating him, not disliking him, and even accepting him quirks and all. A lot of Prompto's character stems from how he is uncomfortable with himself around others and how he feels out of place, and tries to make a place for himself (even though he eventually realizes that wasn't really necessary)

WordsintheWater said:
I feel like I already did the base for the flying regalia during the main game. Am I supposed to do it again or am I shit out of luck for getting the flying regalia. I don't have a mission that allows me to take the parts to Cidney.
Click to expand...

There's a base in Leide that you can't actually access until post-game. You get a trigger when you see an imperial ship flying overhead to that base.
 
TheGeniusArcana said:
It's pretty sound on the Noctis side of the story, but the episode absolutely tied all of Prompto's problems to his weight. Yeah, Prompro is definitely an insecure kid there, with part of it stemming from his weight, and that's normal for a lot of people, which is fine here. The problem is that the show basically communicates that barring Noctis, Prompto is basically unacceptable because of that, and he decides to lose the weight for the sole reason of being validated by someone else. This is already super unhealthy, but he spends years on his life for this. It all just feels really gross to me.
Click to expand...

I always viewed it as he didn't feel fit to be a prince's friend if he didn't look the part, he was insecure but also didn't want noct to get a bad rep. Noct gave no fucks regardless and prompto was an idiot for worrying about superficial things

Mailbox said:
You seem to have missed something then. Prompto isn't unacceptable because of that, he just feels like he is. Considering royalty and how he sees himself, he feels unacceptable so he tries to be what he deems acceptable. But that doesn't really matter, since at the end, Noct even notes that they already know each other.

This is echoed in the game several times as well (and especially so in a missable scene). The whole thing was about Prompto's lack of self confidence and self worth, despite people around him not hating him, not disliking him, and even accepting him quirks and all. A lot of Prompto's character stems from how he is uncomfortable with himself around others and how he feels out of place, and tries to make a place for himself (even though he eventually realizes that wasn't really necessary)
Click to expand...

^
 
Prompto's story actually subverts a lot of cliches, it really surprised me. For starters, he's not a pariah. He's not bullied. There is no classic story of the abused fat kid who everyone makes fun of at school. In fact the other kids, while ignoring him most of the time, don't seem to be cruel to him.

It was easy for Square to take the easy way out with the story and have Noctis defending Prompto from bullies or stuff like that. But mostly Prompto is lonely because he feels he's not good enough. It's all on him, not some external source of criticism.

I really liked that.
 
PshycoNinja said:
They were like that for Nyx. They were not like that for Noctis as he was of their bloodline. They wanted him to finish the task that they were unable to. XIII's gods you didn't know what they were doing or what their motivations were. You had to read outside material and the datalogs to get a vague idea of what they were doing and what their motivations were and even then you were never sure that's what they were trying to do. Having played all three games all I know is that Bartandelus wanted to die and wanted to kill everyone on Cocoon to see the Maker. That's it. XV is much more straightforward with everyones' motivations.
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I never understood anyone's motives in XIII.

Orphan: "DESTROY ME!!!!!......WHILE I FIGHT BACK!"

Party: "He wants us to destroy him. That's his ultimate goal.

Ok sure. Why not?"
 
I think one of my main issues with the plot of FFXIII is how the Focus is given to the l'Cie in such a cryptic manner. It's just a lazy and convenient way to keep the main characters in the dark for such a long time.

The Fal'Cie had absolutely no reason to give the Focus in such a blurry, incoherent way.
 
Mister Megative said:
I never understood anyone's motives in XIII.

Orphan: "DESTROY ME!!!!!......WHILE I FIGHT BACK!"

Party: "He wants us to destroy him. That's his ultimate goal.

Ok sure. Why not?"
Click to expand...

The Spoony Experiment perfectly encapsulates my problems with FFXIII's story. (although he go a little ridiculous when he talks about the gameplay, which I also had problems with but he goes a bit too far) But I don't want to pile on XIII as that is not what I am really about these days. Would rather talk about XV and how much fun I am having on my own personal playthrough.
 
Another thing I was thinking about while combing the game for remnants of FNC. Was Etro mentioned at all, or even a picture of her somewhere?
 
so what was up with that shitty titan fight they debuted at the xbox press conference at e3? it totally wasn't like that in the game. did they change it because everyone mocked it?
 
Mailbox said:
You seem to have missed something then. Prompto isn't unacceptable because of that, he just feels like he is. Considering royalty and how he sees himself, he feels unacceptable so he tries to be what he deems acceptable. But that doesn't really matter, since at the end, Noct even notes that they already know each other.

This is echoed in the game several times as well (and especially so in a missable scene). The whole thing was about Prompto's lack of self confidence and self worth, despite people around him not hating him, not disliking him, and even accepting him quirks and all. A lot of Prompto's character stems from how he is uncomfortable with himself around others and how he feels out of place, and tries to make a place for himself (even though he eventually realizes that wasn't really necessary)



There's a base in Leide that you can't actually access until post-game. You get a trigger when you see an imperial ship flying overhead to that base.
Click to expand...

I thought I got that trigger, I fought a bunch of soldiers and then a bunch of airships started dropping in more enemies by the end. Is that the one or was that another one I was doing?
 
I did the base before post-game, but I reloaded because the 2 mechs were eating all my items. I was underleveled still.

Alucrid said:
so what was up with that shitty titan fight they debuted at the xbox press conference at e3? it totally wasn't like that in the game. did they change it because everyone mocked it?
Click to expand...

I thought it was the same, but they did a bad job on stage. I wasn't hit once, because hold square isn't a hard task.
 
Kamek said:
Another thing I was thinking about while combing the game for remnants of FNC. Was Etro mentioned at all, or even a picture of her somewhere?
Click to expand...

I think the FNC big gods were never meant to have clear,defined forms ?

Obviously LR ruins that by giving form to Bhunivelze ,but I could be wrong about that.
 
Kamek said:
Another thing I was thinking about while combing the game for remnants of FNC. Was Etro mentioned at all, or even a picture of her somewhere?
Click to expand...

FNC is not in XV. Even back when Nomura was in charge, he stated that they would not be using terms like L'Cie and Fal'Cie in the game.
 
I'm sure most of my points have been discussed to death, but I just beat the game yesterday and I feel like dumping my thoughts out. Only after finishing writing this did I realize what a megapost this turned into. I apologize to anyone who attempts to read this.

GAMEPLAY:

When fights flow smoothly they feel fantastic, and look brilliant. I get the sense they want you to feel like you're controlling a scripted anime battle in real time and in my opinion they succeeded at that. Getting a handle on enemy attack patterns can be difficult, but the more I play the better my timing and flow get. I phase through attacks, dodge roll into a link strike blindside attack then retreat via point warp, finally warp striking to break a targets appendage leaving them vulnerable for me to trigger Ignis' Overwhelm technique for a flashy kill. Man, sometimes it just comes together perfectly.

I think in general more telegraphed attacks may have made it easier to grasp when you should be phasing. And I'm never sure when a parry prompt will appear or why. Also in cramped quarters things can become downright incomprehensible (although it still looks cool). In general fighting human enemies with projectiles is never as fun as fighting giant monsters.

Overall the game is quite easy. Recovery items are extremely plentiful, and you can level way beyond the current engagement thanks to the open world. The only time I've seen the Game Over screen is when I crashed the Type-F into a mountain which needless to say was hilarious. Defeating your enemies handily feels great though, and maybe that's why I have less concerns about the lack of difficulty. (I still have not tried the endgame dungeons which I hear have a few tricks.)

I was surprised we weren't able to set any general tactics, or "gambits" as other people have mentioned. Also I wanted to be able to activate any of the techniques I've unlocked at anytime as opposed to being forced to equip one. I found myself going in to the pause menu during a few battles to switch to the technique that was relevant at that moment. I shouldn't have to do that. I was also expecting to be able to exceed 3 bars for more choices in terms of tactics, which also did not happen.

Still haven't seen Leviathan or Bahamhut (or Ifrit?) summon out in the wild. I get Ramuh mostly, Shiva some and Titan once. Different from most FF rather than being a tool in your arsenal, summons basically just end fights. You also seemingly have no control over when they trigger which does make them feel like divine intervention, but removes another tactical angel to approach the combat. Needless to say though they are astonishingly beautiful.

Altissia is aesthetically gorgeous and I was so excited to arrive there, but I was quickly let down when realized that it was an small location simply constructed for the story set piece. At times you can almost see how it was trimmed down to its current playable area. It also begins your journey down the linear story path with Umbra as an escape. The lack of a vibrant city or town to explore really detracts from the game overall I think. Exploring a new town and meeting its denizens is one of the most exciting things to do in an RPG.

Lestallum does not fill this void, and for being the hub for most of the hunts it becomes a tremendous annoyance. You have to park the Regalia, run up two flights of stairs and down the street just to get to the informant, and then teleport back to your car, rinse and & repeat. The lack of an explorable Tenebrae is unfortunate as well.

Since outfits are essentially your "gear" and affect stats I'm amazed that there was no location in the game to purchase new clothing. Perhaps it was in a now locked off part of Altissia.

The Type-F being introduced after the main quest was complete makes me feel like it was added to check the box of "airship" off the Final Fantasy checklist.

Fighting Ardyn with your Crystal Powers reminded me of the end of Sonic Adventure where you have have absorbed all the Chaos Emeralds (Royal Arms) and can now take down the big bad guy. Similar to the fight with Leviathan they wanted the encounter to feel unique and special. It was a bit clunky, but I enjoyed the finale.

STORY:

I think Noctis is a great character and I really enjoyed his journey. I really like that he is unsure of himself, and is afraid of being able to live up to responsibilities he's been entrusted with. It's a very relatable human struggle and one he never had a choice about. His situation is reflected in his temperament and character perfectly, and watching him rise to the occasion was awesome.

I wish we got to spend more time with Luna. Maybe it's because I've been following the game for so long and she's been in my mind for quite some time that I found her death devastating, but I imagine that impact would not be there for someone who just picked the game up on whim and felt like she was an unimportant side character. Something about going to see her dress in anticipation of the wedding, and how excited the normally sullen Noctis is at the prospect of seeing her, all coupled with the wonderful cinematic as she makes her farewell to him made me very emotional. It felt like star crossed lovers who are the star of a play, and are just beginning to realize they are in a tragedy.

I'm quite fond of all the bros. Prompto being my favorite because he feels the most complete. He uses humor as a mask to cover up his deep seated insecurities which I understand very well. Ignis's earnestness to continue to serve his King in spite of his blindness was stirring. He even apologizes that wasn't able to stop Ardyn at the ceremony, unconcerned about the fate that befell him. Gladio comes off a bit one note at times, and I would often get annoyed at him and his impatience with Noctis who has to bear a burden much greater than his. In spite of my personal reservations he adds necessary balance to the group dynamic which I can respect.

Ignis's blindness quickly becomes a minor inconvenience which feels strange after they excellently make you feel like an asshole for not being mindful of his condition when looking for the Royal Arm in Nifelheim. Also at the end he seems to be able to "sense" enemy presences. I wish they would elaborate more on how he can function so well.

Ravus, the Emperor, Weskham and to some extent Aranea seem criminally underutilized. It feels like they had some ideas at a grander more elaborate story but did not have the time to bring it to fruition. Focusing on Ardyn though to compensate was a good choice.

The idea of telling the game primarily from Noctis' perspective is an interesting one, but something tells me lack of elaborating on the main parties' periods of absence, and Ravus's death is less an artistic choice and more of a hook for DLC.

Cor is mysteriously absent after you leave for Alitissia. I know it was supposed to be Noctis's journey but why wouldn't he show up to help at the final battle? I believe this is one of the reasons most mentor characters die in stories, because otherwise we are left wondering where the hell they are, and why are they not helping.

Future Talcott was so awesome to see (he even has the cacutar figurines you gave him on the dash of his truck) that I was amazed we did not get to see future version of all the characters. Talcott will tell you about Cid, Cidney and Aranea, and even say how Iris became a badass demon slayer. Why don't we get to see them even for a second? (Is it just me or does future Noctis' face look to big for his body?)

Going back to the past with Umbra feels sort of like a co-op out to allow them to have an open world but still continue to tell a linear story without consequences. I almost feel like you were supposed to be able roam around in the World of Ruin, and the past was supposed to be linked with it something like the Hero of Time in Link to the Past. Something you did in the past would reverberate in the future. Maybe this idea was abandoned to bring the project to a conclusion.

In general the ending chapter's seem more rushed. Like they were running out of time, and need to wrap the project up.

Someone just mentioned a few pages back but it felt weird that after all that build-up of Noctis being nervous to put on the ring of Lucis, he just slips it on with little difficulty and goes on his way. After watching Kingsglaive and seeing how Nyx and Ravus fared with the ring I was expecting a scene where he meets the King's old and has to prove that he is worthy to wear it. The old King's do appear at the end though which I enjoyed.

I love how the Gods are not necessarily cooperative except good guy Ramuh. Leviathan is downright hostile, and Ifrit shows that they could even be willing to actively work for the detriment of mankind.

I wish we learned more about Noctis's 10 years in the crystal. Also no one seems surprised to see him, did they know for sure he was coming back? What was that prison anyway, and why did he wake up there? Was Talcott driving nearby by chance or was he expecting Noctis? So many questions.

How does the Omen trailer relate to the story at all? I guess you could see Umbra as the shepard of the their fate in which Noctis is "responsible" for Luna's death since she must give her life to summon the six. But what about Cerberus? Why is here there?

RANDOM:

Prompto did not age well.

I love how the title screen changes to the the breaking dawn, and Amano's art with Noctis at Luna's side.

I found Ardyn to be a really enjoyable villain and one of the most interesting antagonists I've seen in a long time.

I thank any brave souls who somehow read to this point.

TLDR:

Overall I really enjoyed it. For my most highly anticipated game (ever?) in some ways it really delivered on the promise, and has some truly breathtaking moments. It lives up to the Final Fantasy name much more than XIII and any of its spin offs. That being said though, the game still has some significant flaws in the execution of ideas that have already been done in other games, and done better.

I hope it was enough for Final Fantasy to continue to endure into the future. Tabata and the team did a great job and they should be proud of what they accomplished, but still be ready to learn from criticism.
 
Relaxed Muscle said:
Warning: totally unedited long review.

It started as a better structured review, but midway I said:"Fuck it! Put what you have in there and call it a day" totally Tabata style. Might format it properly on a future DLC, who knows


-----------------------------------------

Final Fantasy XV is the paradigm of unfulfilled potential: for every strong core ideas there's a myriad of little problems that brings down the whole experience, being the biggest one of these issues a disjointed mess of a plot, that left me with me scratching my head more than once.

The fundation of a great game is there, and the result is a good game, but incredibly disapointing, because of what could have been.

I think the more fun I had with the game were the first hours, the world is beautiful, the characters are fun, and the core combat mechanics are solid and makes the introduction to the battle system something quite fun. Yeah, the pacing of the plot and the intial introduction are a mess, a sign of things to come. But putting that aside, the concepts of Tabata and his team, shine stronger than ever in these hours.

Then after the first hours, that cracks start to appear: The plot never recovers from this poor start, the quests that you get with your party members dissapears totally, and with them any meaningful development between Noctis and his friends, the game starts throwing you more fetch quests that you can really handle and you start to abandon camping, in an effort to get more of your time, all this to give the player a reason to go to every part of the map, the battle system starts to show it's ugly side and the pacing totally goes down the drain.

Witcher 3 showed the way to create meaningful sidequests, with interesting narratives to keep the interest in the player on going after these sidequests, a reason to explore the vast map. Final Fantasy XV throws you quests about picking frogs being the only good sidequest is the one we already played on the Duscae demo.

There's hunts, but again there are too many, and you can't even pick more than one at the same time, which baffles me.

In terms of combat, I'll post my initial impressions, since I never changged my mind about it:



I'll add that the encounter design is at times infuriating and that the addition of enemies with OHK or incredibly high damaging AoE attacks with barely any tell, that your party dosn't ever care to avoid, is just poor enemy design (not visually, in terms of attack patterns).

The fact there's no proper micromanagement options for your party members, or even macromanagement options in XIII style, is very dissapointing, on a game that constantly requires you to watch your positioning and who you should attack. The skills, is a very wonky way to deal with all the requirements the game asks you.

In the end the battle system is good, but also very flawed to a way that the most time I spent with it the less I liked it.

If there's one aspect in with the game mostly nails is in the dungeons, they range from decent to very good, I feel that some of them are visually bland, but they are mostly well designed.

Also I found the world really beautiful, but most of the time is a pain to navigate, there's invisible walls everywhere, for fast travel you need you car, so sometimes you have to first warp to your car and then to the location you wish for, with the penalty of having to go through two lenghty load screens.

This leads me to another point: The world is a very beautiful but hollow. There are no buildings, a staple of JRPG (and RPG in general) of being able to enter random people houses is missing, this gives the impression of an incredible looking husk. There's the same-y looking restaurants and shops across the vast map, but they look the same.
Well, at least there's some very impressive vistas.
I can't state enough, how many times the game seams to chomp whole episodes of the game's plot:
- The Empire downfall, told through documents.
- Tenebrae being ridden by monsters, that you can only see far off, while random kids exposes you to Luna flashbacks.
- Ravus entire character development, contained in letters found around his body, because, who dosn't keep a copy of the letters he sends in his pockets?
- Luna and Noctis relationship, which is a trainwreck on his own.
And many more other moments, the fact that important aspects of the lore can only be found on the official guide, speaks volume of the mess you witness. And how we could forget about Jared?

Chapter 13 is trash. Period. I discussed this on the OT, not feeling like repeating it again, but TL;DR: Is a slog of a very unfun RE game, with poor map design, that strips you of the best part of the game, which is the combat system. Is funny how Ardyn constantly mocks you about how powerless you are without your friends, when basically you can forget about the very poorly implemented stealth system and evade attacks until you kill your enemies...by evading. 3/10 would not play again

Every character that is not the main four are very poorly developed to a point of joke. Luna's death loses any meaning when the game dosn't make you care about her. Women treatment in general is poor, even for the saga standards: Luna's fridging, Cindy, etc...
Yeah, main cast is fine, at least their banter is nice, the actual development of them left a lot to be desired. Why there isn't more moments like the ones you get in camping/hotels? Prompto's one shows a lot of promise and then...it ends, right fucking there. One of the reasons the ending never worked for me, even if it was well directed.

All these boss fights setpieces are bad. Titan is bad, Levi is bad and Ardyn 2nd phase is bad. Protip for Tabata: Watch how Bayonetta pulls off boss setpieces while retaining it's combat system.

Airship is totally worthless, why put something as halfassed as that?

Well, probably there's more, but this should be enough. Even if I might seem overly critical, XV is a solid game, just that a good game, but I feel I'm that critical, because there's so much wasted potential that is a real shame. In the end I enjoyed it enough, even thought It won't leave me a lasting impression like the great FF games did.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10

-----------------------------------------------------
Click to expand...
best review I have seen for this game.
 
So was Ardyn controlling/summoning Ifrit, and if so how? Or was Ifrit independent? Or were they kind of working together?
 
TheGeniusArcana said:
It's pretty sound on the Noctis side of the story, but the episode absolutely tied all of Prompto's problems to his weight. Yeah, Prompro is definitely an insecure kid there, with part of it stemming from his weight, and that's normal for a lot of people, which is fine here. The problem is that the show basically communicates that barring Noctis, Prompto is basically unacceptable because of that, and he decides to lose the weight for the sole reason of being validated by someone else. This is already super unhealthy, but he spends years on his life for this. It all just feels really gross to me.
Click to expand...

A few things here.

First off...Prompto didn't really have any "problems" in that brotherhood episode. He wasn't being bullied, and it's not exactly as if his classmates were ignoring him. If anything, Prompto was the rude one, to his classmates.

Second, nobody in the episode rejected Prompto. Noctis clearly didn't, there's no reason to assume Luna would retract her comments when she saw he was fat, and every side character he came across was actually quite nice to him. Prompto lost the weight because he was afraid of being rejected. He didn't feel like could mingle with royalty when his body was less than ideal.

And honestly speaking, there isn't anything unrealistic about that at all. Ignis and Noctis aren't exactly "skinny". Gladio is built like a model. Noctis was a celebrity monarch destined for greatness that everyone knows and admires. Ignis and Gladio are from royal lines who've served the line for generations. Prompto was a fat kid with a camera. Anyone would feel the pressure of inferiority in a relationship like that. I also don't see how the message is particularly unhealthy, either; Prompto didn't change who he was. He just changed what he looked like. He ate better, he started working out, and he built enough confidence to go after what he wanted.

He became convinced that he could be more than he currently was, and went 100% towards making it happen. And it's not as if Prompto stopped trying to be validated by the guys by the time the game starts. He still is, it's a constant thing with him. He's just harder on himself than the boys are on him. It may feel gross, I mean you're right, it's a complicated thing. But that's why i think that episode resonated so well with people, because it's not at all inaccurate.


I think if you replace Noctis with a hot girl/guy or something similar, then most people can really connect with Prompto's desire to "look the part". Where most people in real life fail, however, is actually following through with working at changing their habits to better themselves. And I think that's where Prompto's episode message can either veer off into "depressing and unhealthy" or "motivating and uplifting". Thats why I really loved Prompto and Ignis' episodes. They felt really grounded and human-like.
 
Edzi said:
So was Ardyn controlling/summoning Ifrit, and if so how? Or was Ifrit independent? Or were they kind of working together?
Click to expand...

Ardyn is not controlling Ifrit, but since Ardyn is spreading chaos and Daemons all over, he's basically doing Ifrit's will.

Of course, Ardyn is not under Ifrit's control either, he's doing his own thing, with his own plan.

You can say both of them coexist besides each other, but no one is controlling the other.
 
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