After playing Persona 5, I decided to go back and start FFXV, having liked the demo enough to play the full game. I'm now in Chapter 6, gaining momentum in the story line, but I cannot say I'm enjoying it well enough. There's just such weird design decisions that were made that seem overlooked from many of the threads that I've seen and read here and on /r/ffxv.
Namely,
Interactions:
It's really weird to have such a beautiful game (and it is, without a doubt one of the most beautiful games I've had the pleasure of playing) have such wonky animations, or ill placed design decisions. Of that list is the 'pushing' of your friends when you do a sharp turn around. You essentially just knock them the fuck away and they react as if you just stepped on their dog. Then go back to talking about how great friends you are.
Also, riding chocobos with your friends, they will sometimes just keep running into a knee high wall until you jump. Weird. Why not keep them behind me?
Another is the driving, for a game that built itself around the roadtrip theme, you'd think that driving was something that was solid. But no, it's clunky and a chore. If it wasn't for the theme songs they put in I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel more often than not.
Finally, with interactions is the binding of 'X' (or A? for Xbone) to both jump and interact. The amount of times I have to sweet spot interactions to A, not jump in front of them like a mad man or B, focus on getting an item vs. repeating the same dialogue is kind of insane.
Combat:
Combat is pretty weird. I don't get a sense of accomplishment from it, and it can very likely be me. Either it's a cake walk or every hit just puts ignis/prompto into Danger where Gladios at full HP.
If I do get knocked down (mostly because I get impatient and just want to get in there), having to run around to pray the NPC stops whatever it is that they are doing to pat me on the back and then pray that the mobs don't insta-knock me down again is kind of a pain.
I get by now by mostly holding Square (or 'X' on Xbone) and baiting out to parry or just wait for a good opening. I often let my teammates die because I can solo them with good / smart play. Ignis does nothing but recoup to keep the other two alive.
Sometimes, however, if there are a lot of mobs in tight quarters there's a good chance I'm getting stun locked with no recourse/invincible frame moves to get me out. It's pretty bad design.
I also find myself tearing through elixirs because of the black life crap. Also dumb.
The game is fairly easy/simple and I already feel I'm out leveling despite not doing any sidequests (around 30 now).
Elemancy/putting a limit on spells, yuck. I didn't like it in FF8 (my favorite FF) and I definitely don't like it here.
Also, I found a bug where it keeps me in combat mode until I back track to the mob that started it (usually if I'm on a chocobo racing to another point) that's a pretty dumb bug.
EXP/Leveling:
This does not feel rewarding at all. It seems fairly simple to do and the points are arbitrary. Down a mob that's 5 levels higher than you? here's a measly 200xp. Get food for a cat? here''s 2.5k.
The lack of consistency/proportions to what you actually do makes the game feel less rewarding and more random. Again, I barely did any side missions and I'm overlevelled. How is that fun?
Lore:
I'm getting quite tired of the FF universe post FF12. I'm surprised that with the greater technology they have to tell their stories SQEnix still stays close to the magitek universe and try something else. Could be me just getting tired of FF in general. Thought they took more of a poetic license in FF7/FF8.
Anyway, likely going to give it a couple more hours before I put it away. it obviously boils down to personal preference, but I saw these as such poor design decisions I'd thought it'd get more notice.
Namely,
Interactions:
It's really weird to have such a beautiful game (and it is, without a doubt one of the most beautiful games I've had the pleasure of playing) have such wonky animations, or ill placed design decisions. Of that list is the 'pushing' of your friends when you do a sharp turn around. You essentially just knock them the fuck away and they react as if you just stepped on their dog. Then go back to talking about how great friends you are.
Also, riding chocobos with your friends, they will sometimes just keep running into a knee high wall until you jump. Weird. Why not keep them behind me?
Another is the driving, for a game that built itself around the roadtrip theme, you'd think that driving was something that was solid. But no, it's clunky and a chore. If it wasn't for the theme songs they put in I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel more often than not.
Finally, with interactions is the binding of 'X' (or A? for Xbone) to both jump and interact. The amount of times I have to sweet spot interactions to A, not jump in front of them like a mad man or B, focus on getting an item vs. repeating the same dialogue is kind of insane.
Combat:
Combat is pretty weird. I don't get a sense of accomplishment from it, and it can very likely be me. Either it's a cake walk or every hit just puts ignis/prompto into Danger where Gladios at full HP.
If I do get knocked down (mostly because I get impatient and just want to get in there), having to run around to pray the NPC stops whatever it is that they are doing to pat me on the back and then pray that the mobs don't insta-knock me down again is kind of a pain.
I get by now by mostly holding Square (or 'X' on Xbone) and baiting out to parry or just wait for a good opening. I often let my teammates die because I can solo them with good / smart play. Ignis does nothing but recoup to keep the other two alive.
Sometimes, however, if there are a lot of mobs in tight quarters there's a good chance I'm getting stun locked with no recourse/invincible frame moves to get me out. It's pretty bad design.
I also find myself tearing through elixirs because of the black life crap. Also dumb.
The game is fairly easy/simple and I already feel I'm out leveling despite not doing any sidequests (around 30 now).
Elemancy/putting a limit on spells, yuck. I didn't like it in FF8 (my favorite FF) and I definitely don't like it here.
Also, I found a bug where it keeps me in combat mode until I back track to the mob that started it (usually if I'm on a chocobo racing to another point) that's a pretty dumb bug.
EXP/Leveling:
This does not feel rewarding at all. It seems fairly simple to do and the points are arbitrary. Down a mob that's 5 levels higher than you? here's a measly 200xp. Get food for a cat? here''s 2.5k.
The lack of consistency/proportions to what you actually do makes the game feel less rewarding and more random. Again, I barely did any side missions and I'm overlevelled. How is that fun?
Lore:
I'm getting quite tired of the FF universe post FF12. I'm surprised that with the greater technology they have to tell their stories SQEnix still stays close to the magitek universe and try something else. Could be me just getting tired of FF in general. Thought they took more of a poetic license in FF7/FF8.
Anyway, likely going to give it a couple more hours before I put it away. it obviously boils down to personal preference, but I saw these as such poor design decisions I'd thought it'd get more notice.
