Final Fantasy XV is the first game designed for the PS4 for the Final Fantasy series (And will be the only minus the first part for Final Fantasy VII's Remake and other remasters that other past games had) and it features a lot of different things than what games of past did. This was done in 2016 and it was met with much anticipation but much scrutiny from reviews and fans alike. What does this writer like? What do I not like about this game? All that and more below!
Positives
1. Combat system- It's active, it's fast paced so you have to think and attack on your feet so to speak. It's good because it shifted from a decade and a half of turn based attacking to more active based attacking starting in FFX-2. Overall, minus some deals with some attacks taking far too long to register, this is done really very well overall I thought.
2. Character arcs- I thought the development of the characters did well.. but with a catch. Yes you had to do the DLC for this (more on this below) but once you got the full deal of this the arcs of the characters were done really pretty well. I thought the best story overall though was..
3. Noctis' Character Arc- You have to feel for this young man in this story. Starts out with immense heartbreak, midway has more heartbreak, tries to do everything he can to save the world, only to have something bad happen but then has a major change and becomes the ultimate hero. All while having to carry the weight of a world on his shoulders and the weapons of past kings. It's a terrific comeback story.
4. Graphics/Music- The graphics are very, very great, and the music is good on its own. I like that they add past soundtracks with the car that you drive around. The duo of these makes it really good overall I felt.
Negatives
1. Storyline- It's a decent storyline, but it is far too short. If you don't do the sidequests (more on that also below) it can be 20-25 hours in game time to beat this game. That just is at least 10-15 hours too short. There was so much more ability to add more to the story but they didn't. I think they wanted to add more hence why..
2. DLC Content- I'm sorry but you could have just added this in the main story anyway. Make it flash back material, make it part of the actual story, just anything. Then you wouldn't have had to stick it on the DLC area. I get that games today will be littered with DLC and expansion but this game just seems to have had it needlessly. Speaking of needlessly though...
3. Over-reliance of Sidequests- Oh dear me the over-reliance of the sidequests were absolutely ridiculous of this game. Any town, any place, it's sidequests upon sidequests and it just is far too much. Some are good, some aren't and that is that. Overall it is just far too much reliance on these and it is honestly a shame.
4. Ardyn- I'm sorry, I get his back story after seeing the DLC, but they made him so horrendously unlikable in my eyes and they try so hard to make him a villain but he just ends up being a wannabe tool in my opinion. I just.. I didn't understand it. He wasn't brooding, he wasn't overtly villainous, he wasn't demonstrative. He just seemed to have a hatred for Noctis and wanted to get at him at every point that he just seems super petty the entire time. It's very unfortunate and in all honesty they would have done a lot better scrapping him as the villain or massively re-doing his arc.
Overall Rating/Rank All-Time of Final Fantasies
Given the ups and downs of this game, I would have to give this 7.5 out of 10. It has a lot of good things you could build on, but there are a lot of things that really needed to be refined. Specifically Ardyn's character and the over-reliance of sidequests. I felt that this really could have prompted it up to a 9 or so if it wasn't for some of these flaws. Then all I could say some nuances of the combat would be rough. In terms of the Final Fantasies that I have played to this point, here are those rankings, FFXV included.
1. FF 6
2. FF 9
3. FF 5
4. FF 7
5. FF 15
6. FF 4
7. FF 8
8. FF 1
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