Worlds of Final Fantasy - this is hella slow to start. I was sort of on the fence. Then there was a Cactuar Train with a Cactuar Conductor.
You've got my attention.
Honestly, the opening is kind of a turn off and painful to playthrough on a first time. Lot's of tutorial and exposition nonsense for even the most basic of ideas, that either they could have let the player figure out, integrated actual gameplay into the mix, or some details they simply could have held off until later and just revealed them when appropriate rather than go "WE MUST SET EVERYTHING UP NOW!" The game's pace picks up dramatically once you get to Cornelia, which is thankfully early, but yeah, the Nine Wood Hills part and first "dungeon" are among the worst opening the series (spin off or mainline) has had, just because it's so boring
Speaking of games with wonky paces in that series...
Final Fantasy 15: Completed.
Short form: It's a decent game overall but flawed in many ways, and I can only hope Tabata's mega-patch he's planning to fix the game does in fact address the issues.
Long Form!!!
FF15 is a game that had troubled development and it shows, and it's kind of miraculous the product we got was the quality it is. It's got a lot of issues, make no mistake. As noted by others, plot feels like it's incomplete and we're only seeing the cliff's note version of it once Chapter 13 hits (Chapter 11/12 feel like it's a case of "nah, not enough actually happens here" for all that some stuff off-screen happens, which may be the point of the DLCs that focus on Non-Noctis events. Chapter 9/10 were generally alright in this regard, albeit definitely room for improvement but didn't feel comparatively rushed.) First off, let's make it clear that FF15 did not have 10 years of development time. The real situation was Kitase and Toriyama were all "FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS! We've barely showed off FF13, but we have other games planned with it!" and basically demanded Nomura come up with a proof-of-concept Trailer and Tech Demo of the engine, show that off, and then they did...nothing until about 2012 or so, where-in they finally went "oh, right, we should probably work on this" and renamed it FF15.
FF15's final product is nothing like FFv13 was going to be. In fact, that's what I feel is a large part of why Chapter 14 feels so distant compared to everything else. The imagery, the style, the off-the-rails plot...this all feels like relics of when the game was FFv13, and heavily invokes Kingdom Hearts-like aspects too. Heck, Noctis vs. the Final Boss strikes a heavy resemblance in style, imagery, etc. to Sora vs. Xemnas in KH2. It feels like "Well we already made all these assets when it was still FFv13, Tabata, make sure you put them to use!" You can tell the game has 3 aspects to it and what happened each:
-What parts Tabata worked on from scratch. This is basically everything Chapter 1 through 8. It's heavily gameplay oriented, plot is straight forward and simple ("Noctis, go find the various awesome macguffins so you can become a bad ass! Don't worry, we'll get to your fiance eventually!"), and feels very secondary to the actual game which is more a character dynamic study of the 4 dudes and gameplay elements. This is easily the best part of the game, and where a majority of the playtime takes place, even if you bee-line it.
-What parts of the game were basically "Nomura wrote this and demanded these be kept into the game!" This is Chapters 9 through 13. You can tell there were IDEAS here, but no one had any idea of how to connect them, so they just kind of winged it since the ideas are so distant. That honestly is Nomura plot in a nutshell, and it's known that v13 was going to be 3 separate stories, possibly games, but he didn't have any sort of idea of how to connect the events, just hoped they'd work again. Nomura does not know how to plot, this cannot be expressed enough; he's ok as a director and good as an artist, but as a writer, KEEP HIM AWAY!
Basically, from what i understand, FFv13's plot would be like if we took Lord of the Rings, ended Fellowship of the Rings at the end of Moria, and started Two Towers are the Battle of Helms Deep, with Frodo and Sam already well on their way to Mordor with Gollum, there'd be a lot of questions and "Wait how did we get there? Did we miss something?" Obviously, Lord of the Rings didn't do that and the transitions made sense because, you know, Tolkien knew what he was doing (and Jackson, by extension, recognized that and mostly kept that intact.)
-The parts of the game that are relics of v13 that for some reason they decided to keep. Chapter 14 really feels like that. Tabata clearly did his best to try and adapt this TO fit FF15, recognizing that it's so drastically different they had to shake up the game massively, but if that were the case, feels like Chapter 14 really should have been longer to let all that settle in rather than just be "11th hour Final chapter." From what I've read, Chapter 14 was intended to be much bigger and a lot more to it, like being able to explore Lestallum, and plot details were more fleshed out, but well, troubled development.
Allegedly, the devs of FF15 are not entirely pleased with the product. They didn't rush the game because they wanted, they did it because apparently they were told "GET THIS OUT BY THE END OF 2016 OR ELSE!" Tabata's "Patchwork Plot" sounds like something he wants to do because he isn't fond of the story as it's presented, nor is the dev team, and they really want to finish things. Based off everything I've read pre-release, it sounds legit too; there was a definite sense of "we really want this game to be fantastic" and they just ran out of time. For example, Episode Duscae? Basically completely gutted based off fan-feedback and redid the battle system, because Episode Duscae's was troubling (Why should I equip weapons for specific features, when just a simple weapon swap mechanic accomplishes more for less work?) They show the game to Sakaguchi, because why not show the guy who started the franchise what it's coming, and he responds with constructive criticism, to which Tabata apparently went "you know, you're probably right, we'll take that into account!"
The only thing I feel they botched was how they handled females. The full male party I can deal with; they stated they wanted to work with a bromance thing, whatever, I'm fine, but the females in the game aren't exactly the best handled. Ok, Aranea is alright, just needs more screen time. They demonstrated she's a strong female who is capable of keeping up with the best fighters in the world, and she's not this "STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN!" stereotype, just a female soldier (which Prompto is constantly lusting over...look, Prompto is basically a frat boy, what do you expect?) with a military ranking. Iris isn't bad either, because yeah, a teenage civilian girl wouldn't be strong and powerful but they demonstrated she does want to do what she can to help, and they even gave her some fun little gameplay shenanigans (making her a temp was silly, but it worked. She was basically this game's Larsa.) unfortunately, those are the only females I can give the game credit for (...go figure, they're the two temps as well.)
Cindy is well known. I don't mind the idea of a Female-Cid stand-in (nevermind there is a Cid in the game...) but that outfit...come on guys. Ok, if they gave her actual pants or a full jumpsuit and just said she's opening her top because she's not working? I could buy the design, since "we can believe she zips up when does actual work" but she exposes so much skin she can't just cover up, and on top of that, the game treats her as nothing but eye-candy (Aranea and Iris clearly avoid this.) Clearly open outfit exposing cleavage of Tifa-sized breasts, a "babe car-wash" sequence anytime you fill up gas at Hammerhead, and the game loves to focus on angles that emphasize her chest...there's really no getting around it. Cindy is there for fanservice, plain and simple.
And then there's Luna. Now I wanted to believe Tabata when he said Luna was going to be this strong female lead despite not being a party member. That'd have been cool, and Kingsglaive even demonstrated some hope. Then the game comes out and Luna's role is...far smaller than you'd think. She's the female lead by default only, and she really is just a subversion of the Distressed Damsel trope, subverted because she's technically not in any sort of danger but the whole "exists as an object of desire for the Main Character" thing is completely there, and her role is "glorified delivery girl." I wouldn't mind this that much except that FF15 is one of the only games that can't get away with this stunt. Again, it's easily the most male-centric game in the series, so a character like Luna needs to make a strong impression. Her scene with Leviathan was good, I'll be fair, because here we have a non-combatant standing up to a god that's basically threatening and tossing her around, but she refuses to yield, and I even love how they're showing her receive battle damage with a bruised shoulder, ripped dress, and a gash on her face. It got the point across "yes, Leviathan is legitimately HURTING HER, but she's still standing her ground." That's great! More of that! The problem?
They literally kill her off shortly after that sequence. This is the ONE GAME where you shouldn't kill off your female lead! When that happened, any sort of defense I could muster about FF15's male-centric nature just went out the window. There was basically ONE THING you shouldn't do, and they went and did it. I have to wonder if this was entirely Nomura's idea and he refused to let them remove that, and Tabata wanted to respect the "original vision", thus kept it in, or if the team really didn't realize what they were doing.
They might be able to fix this with the patch though; they stated they wanted "more playable characters" and I can only imagine Aranea, if no one else, will be added in some manner. Given her role is so minimal when the plot actually starts, I could see them gutting her entirely from the one scene she's in and finding a way to go "she joins the boys!" In fact, with Iris' brief point and Aranea joining potential, it'd actually get the point across about why the "ALL MALE PARTY" they decided:
Males act differently among themselves than among females. You can kind of see this with Iris since the dynamic does change a bit in the group, and in a way that suggests "they're doing this subconsciously." With an actual female joining, it'd further get the point across, since if you could swap party members, you could even exchange the dialog among the guys to reflect that (namely Prompto and Gladio remark completely differently whether there's a female in the team or not TO EACH OTHER.)
I'm not really offended by this, but it does rub me the wrong way that they were parading around Luna as this excellent female NPC who is strong and is totally the Deuterogonist, but in the end, she's just the latest iteration of Princess Sarah...and this is right after they released an FF game that had a PARODY version of Princess Sarah herself.
ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE, the Villain is pretty fun. Oh sure, there's a lot left out in terms of writing, because FF15's plot is incomplete (something the team has basically admitted and said they want to fix...), but if nothing else? He has character and personality. I don't think we've had a villain of this style since...well...Kuja, basically. He's not deep or complex but he does ooze with personality...I guess you could argue Seymour too, if only because the voice actor added a lot there, but I digress, since then our villains have been...well...boring in terms of personality. In fact, when playing the game, I felt almost like the villain was an attempt at creating Kefka but adapting him to FF15's tone and style, such that he couldn't be quite as over the top ridiculous, which was a good thing here since it made him come off as his own thing rather than a Kefka-rip off if that makes sense. This isn't saying he's better than Kefka, more that Kefka wouldn't work as is in the story or tone of FF15. Also he single-handedly proves that Voice Acting can improve a character immensely, and anyone who says "VOICE ACTING IS WHY RPG PLOTS ARE BAD NOW!" are just wrong; this character loses a lot of his charm and fun value without the voice acting clearly being as hammy and over the top as it is.
It's nice that what we saw in Kingsglaive was in fact a nice snapshot of the character as a whole, and not just a one-off. He's over the top and hammy, yet not to a point where it compromises the game. Would like a better explanation on his plot, motivations, etc. since, as I said, there's a lot FF15 left out.
Gameplay, FF15 is generally fine, but has some hiccups. Camera Angles go berserk when fighting large enemies, the whole HOLD VS. PRESS mechanic is something I am generally not fond of outside of charging mechanics, so you're trying to do a Warp Point but it's not responding...you aren't sure if it's because "am I not targeting it properly?" or "did I not hold it down long enough?" They should have some sort of visual indicator to note "Yes, you are doing this right now, it just hasn't activated!" like, say, have Noctis glow blue when readying a Warp Point or something. At first the whole "You take so much damage and are dying a lot" pissed me off and dodging things can be a pain, but I slowly realized...they expect that of you, and expect you to use items a lot. That's why there's a lot of potions, Elixirs, etc. Heck, you get a lot more Megalixirs and Mega Phoenix's by casually walking than you'd think. I didn't use many of the odd-ball items, but it's clear the team built the game around how there's a lot of ways to take damage by being blind-sided, bad camera angles, your characters being stupid and not knowing how to dodge, etc. It can be frustrating, but the game at least knows the problem and gives you tools to work around it, rather than expecting you to simply "git gud." I'm not saying the "git gud" mindset is bad so much as FF15 is making it clear it's NOT trying to be a Dark Souls style game, so you don't have to learn via Trial and Error.
It's very hard to actually game-over in this game. It says you game over when "Noctis' MHP reaches 0", but even then, you seem to have a grace period window that lets you throw a Phoenix Down on yourself, and plenty of time to react.
Music...simply put, the stuff from FFv13 is :/. Omnis Lacrimas is about as generic and bland "BIG CHOIR ORCHESTRAL!" and feels like it was made during that era of AAA games where EVERYTHING had to be that. Somnus is also like the most bland melody ever, and if it's the main theme of the game...it really fails as one, because it barely plays until the Chapter 14 where they shove it a lot...again further emphasizing that Chapter 14 is just a result of stuff made for v13 they didn't want to ditch. In many ways, Valse De Fantastica felt like a more legitimate game theme, since you hear it a lot if only because it's one of the overworld themes (generally a trademark of FF Overworld themes I might add!), it's got a catchy and pleasing melody, plays in Justice Monsters V, and frankly feels built for the game. Also, the whole theme of Sleep, Dreams, Hallucinations, is NOT present in FF15 at all, like it was going to be in FFv13...it's just the capital city is Insomnia because "Why bother renaming it?" and the name of the song. If I had to guess the theme of FF15, it'd be "Birthright" or "Legacy" since it's all about Noctis living up to that and the game ends when...well...he does exactly that, and the villain comes off as a corrupted version of that as well. It sure as hell isn't anything relating to sleep.
As a result, Somnus feels like a very out-of-date melody for the game and one they just couldn't drop because they promoted the **** out of it when v13 was still a thing. Heck,
they even replace it as the title theme in the game with Noctis' theme, a far more fitting melody, when you beat the game.Non-FFv13 songs range from OK to Great. Apocalyptic Noctis/Aquarius is Omnis Lacrimas done right. It's got the choir chanting but the melody actually sounds epic and stand out, not just "WE'RE OVER ORCHESTRATED WITH A LATIN CHOIR!"and actually fits the points of the game it plays beautifully (Omnis Lacrimas just plays whenever a big monster appears, which isn't quite as dramatic as you'd hope.) The standard battle themes are generally fine, and as I said, Valse de Fantastic is great.
Oh and yes, I totally appreciate them putting OSTs of various FF games in there, just to make traveling a bit more diverse. Seeing as the music when traveling even on foot sometimes is just non-existent, having an alternative to play music from various parts of the series is a nice supplement. Also FF15 shows actual respect for the series as a whole despite being so different. Little name nods ("Junon Motor Oil"), putting in mainstays and wearing them proudly like enemy designs, Biggs/Wedge, etc., usage of the classic FF mainstay themes (I was even thinking "Say, Final Fantasy is suppose to be in this game, where the hell is it?" ...only for it to literally kick in 3 seconds later...no I'm serious), etc. So it somehow retains that FF feel despite not being really FF like at all...it's bizarre!
One last thing to mention: Chapter 13.
What were they thinking? No it's not THE WORST THING THE SERIES HAS EVER DONE, but it still sucks. The item you get is overhyped throughout the game then you finally get it and it's awkward and wonky, and very limited? And you're stuck using only it for a large part of the chapter, it's only once you get another weapon that something resembling fun can happen again. It also long overstays it's welcome. The game felt like it went from "Kingdom Hearts meets Skyrim" to "Resident Evil meets Metal Gear Solid" and it's jarring. Apparently the devs thought it'd be a neat change of pace in the game, but it didn't turn out to be popular among fans because...well...we played 12 chapters of the game getting it ingrained to play in this specific way, and you're telling us "nope can't do it!"
For a parallel, imagine playing FF13, and when you reach Eden, Lightning is separated from the team, and you're expected to solo the next part, except all her Roles are banned but a unique Role in "Savior" that activates only there, which allows only 3 actions:
-A 5 bar action that takes a long time to activate but will instantly kill the enemy
-A counter move that does crappy damage
-A move that drains all her CP and Action, but does massive damage, and can only be used under specific circumstances.
Now add in how she has to deal with a bunch of enemies she's expecting to avoid in TIGHT CORRIDORS (before someone makes a joke about FF13, it didn't have TIGHT Corridors akin to stealth games), and if an enemy aggros her, she has to engage it before she can continue. You're expected to avoid the enemies, but avoiding them is anything but trivial...
Does that sound like fun? Of course not; you're stripping FF13 of everything it was outside of a very core system, and expecting people to forget everything they learned in favor of relying on a whole new set of player-skills, knowledge, etc. right at the end of the game. At least when you get an actual weapon, it doesn't become TOO bad, just a bit exhausting and monotonous (using the FF13 parallels, it'd be like if Lightning got Commando back mid-way, and she can now aggro enemies on raw damage. Fun? Not really, but at least the game is starting to resemble itself again.)
I'm glad that the FF15 devs actually listened and said they're going to attempt to restructure Chapter 13 because that was just not a fun part, and it's the longest chapter in the game based on forced plot content.
I think I give the game a 7/10. If the improvements from the (free) patch are as notable as Tabata is making them out to be, that value could easily go up. As it stands, the game being good as it is is kind of miraculous considering the clusterfuck of a development it had based on what I've read.
