Game Thoughts: Final Fantasy XV [INC]
I don't know how big of a Final Fantasy fan I technically am. On one hand, Final Fantasy 7-10 (and tactics) were a huge part of defining my childhood, and what set me on the course for being a lifelong videogame enjoyer. On the other hand, I haven't really enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since 10 with the exception of FF7R.
With Final Fantasy 16 on the horizon (far on the horizon as I don't think I want to buy a PS5), I thought it would be fun to take another stab at Final Fantasy 15, which I had previously played and quit around the point where you meet Dino-the-shitty-gem-quest-giver. (I hate Dino btw).
This time, I went in by first watching the movie as well as the Brotherhood anime -- both of which weren't great, but definitely added some nuance and backstory to the characters and setting. This had me more attached to our band of boys, but definitely could have just been stuff that was included in-game. I honestly would have loved some more story and character building in the game.
I tried really hard to like this title, and genuinely enjoyed the interactions and dynamics between the boys in the main party. They nailed that. The combat was also fairly fun and I generally liked playing in the presented world despite it being populated by only 16 non-generic characters, the rest being random faceless npcs or store clerks.
Unfortunately, the holes in the story were unacceptably bad. Now, I expect some unhinged incomprehensible shit to go down -- this is a Final Fantasy game -- but this was a pathetic showing that frequently threw me out of immersion so hard I got whiplash.
-The first time this happened was after King Regis' death. The game up until that point was going great, but after we get the news the characters are... not nearly affected enough?
This would have been a good time for some linear storytelling, but instead we just keep kicking it. Doing some shitty frog-finding mindless nonsense, digging out ancient weapons in random places if we want to.
I want to take a second to talk about the stupid Armiger weapons. How did they not add a little wisdom-giving moment in there? How did we not have each king tell us a little story or lesson to help Noctis grow into being a good King?
Instead we get some OP weapons that hurt us and, frankly, weren't needed at all in normal mode for as far as I played.
As for where I stopped: right after the lady who helped us get mithril, the one who we'd been fighting like 20 minutes earlier (gameplay time, not in-game), dropped us off in the city after the power had inexplicably been cut...
- Why was the power out?
- Why was Gladio there instead of just joining back up with us?
- Why did they send Noctis, the king they're protecting, into a melting down power plant?
Again, I don't expect novel-level storytelling here, just coherent storytelling. It can't be that hard to give us some excuses -- ohh this is an attack by the empire, ohh they wanted something from inside the powerplant. something.
Anyway, after the power plant I picked up a quest which involved pressing A on a handful of steaming ducts around town, then uninstalled the game and watched the rest of it on youtube.
From a story perspective things didn't get much better. One wildly cool battle with Leviathan in Altissia, then the story literally gets railroaded until the end of the game. You just ride a train and stuff happens until you get to the big bad city!
Eventually we find out about Ardyn's past and Noctis gets trapped in The Crystal for 10 years to absorb some goodness and contemplate his life (presumably how much time he spent doing frog sidequests) before emerging to a world of darkness... an then you just team up with the old gang and go kill Ardyn the end. Just the 4 of you, by the way, even though Hammerhead is now an outpost for demon slayers and like 10 minutes from insomnia, they're totally too busy to help save the world.
There was so much here that was primed to be interesting. Ardyn's past was interesting, the past kings would have been interesting, understanding more about the prophecy and how the gods worked would be interesting. With the chemistry between the main party working so well, it's wild how poorly everything else works and how weak the thread was that they tried to tie everything together.
They tried to make up for this later with some DLCs that added side stories, the most interesting of which being Ardyn's. The fact that this wasn't content in the main game is frankly criminal. Hover ven with the extra content to bolster his story, Ardyn is frankly a pretty boring villain when stood up next to the likes of Kefka or Sephiroth.
Ultimately this game had everything I could want from a Final Fantasy title -- except the compelling story to make it worth playing all the way through. I'm still mildly hyped for FF16, but have been reminded that a lot has changed since the golden days of single-player Final Fantasy games -- not least my own expectations for what passes as quality media.