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[DeathbyCheerios]

The thing that bugged me the most is I actually kind of enjoyed the world they were developing in Kingsglaive. The crystals power and the ring were awesome. The city was great. The empire was evil and powerful.

Hell I would of loved

Spoiler

A boss battle near the end that felt like that massive fight at the end of Kingsglaive. Hell that villain seemed stronger than the main guy.

They set up so much potential and dropped it. Had the chance to pick it back up in the second half but instead

Spoiler

oh yeah the whole empire is already dead and Ardyn is the big bad guy do to magic reasons and oh yeah btw random 10 year time skip where main character misses everything. Oh yeah your one bro is a robot but no one really cared or questions it

 

[encephalon]

Personally, i find

Spoiler

Ignis' blindness and how the characters handle it to be memorable. I found Ardyn's mindfuckery w/ noctis wrt making him attack prompto to be memorable. I found Punished Noctis and his final sacrifice to be memorable. Hell, i even found the Glacians Cadaver to be memorable if only b/c of how haunting the imagery is. I especially remember the "Hanging bodies" scene if only b/c it was one of the darker moments in a FF game to date Edit: oh and I also personally heavily enjoy the Ifrit Fight and think that (unless you are wildly overleveled) it is one of the better boss fights in FF

And yeah, I know that those are all post altissia scenes, and I know people felt like the game went "off" post altissia, but after Leviathan, the game offered more "final fantasy moments" and character moments than anything before it.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I found some aspects of FF15 memorable, while its likely that many others don't share my sentiment.

Spoiler

Ignis' blindness was definitely memorable in that was sudden, unexplained, and acted as a frequent reminder that the game had failed to tell its story.

I'll give you Ardyn, because later in the game they actually

I hope someone at Square realizes that in order for story moments to have any sort of impact, you have actually tell the story that surrounds them. You can't just skip to all the most important parts and tell a story without build up or framing. In FFXV's case it doesn't even seem to have all of the "important parts."

 

[birthbysleep]

The craziest thing regarding the opening was how Tabata claimed it was one of the best in the series.

He is so out of touch with what fans really want.

 

[RedAssedApe]

first section of the game should have taken place entirely in insomnia and been a playable kingslaive while fleshing out the kids (which ended up being the anime)

such a weird game and whimper of an opening compared to past titles which started off with a bang (ff7 reactor heist, ff8 invasion, ffx zanarkand, etc.).

 

[Mediking]

Yeah, FFXV had the potential to be ALOT more. :/

 

[Fbh]

Nothing about the opening is good when you need an entire CGI movie to set up the world and events leading up to the actual plot.



That stand by me cover was pretty nice though.

 

[theofficefan99]

The story isn't just badly presented/80% missing. I'm tired of people saying this. It's badly written too. Maybe the story before any rewrites happened in mid-late 2014 was good. But the one we have now could have 10 more hours of cutscenes and I don't see it fixing how the entire "journey" feels COMPLETELY arbitrary. Except maybe cutscenes explaining, well, anything involving the Astrals (how they work, their history, their relationships, etc.).

 

[HMD]

I mean they cut the opening out of the game to turn it into a movie that literally looks nothing like the game. The game's CGI budget was probably used up by the movie as well.
They should have scrapped Nomura's art and let Tabata do his own thing, we can see glimpses of Tabata's work in the final parts of the game and the movie and it wasn't bad at all.

 

[danm999]

The entire story is baffling. There seems to be no consistency between what we are expected to know and not know.

 

[Kumomeme]

Yea, remember like the first couple trailers for Versus where it literally had them escaping the city while it's under siege?

Meh, Super disappointed that they cut that all out and just did some separate movie and have the gang just set outside city instead. smh

During FF Versus XIII days and after get few input of storyline from nomura ,I actually hoping that the game start in city like in the trailers then when they finally go out of the city to the outside world,it will be like how FF VII cast first time going out to the outside world from city of midgar for first time...im hoping that there will be that similliar moment of feeling..second game i experienced that kind of feels is when first time come to Gaur Plains in Xenoblade Chronicles

But nah...didnt turn out like that

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

A total trainwreck of a game.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Yeah, the game if quite bad.

 

[nOoblet16]

In FFXII besides the Clan hunts , those given by Montblanc, all the regular hunts would appear on all the boards from all towns, no need to go from place to place looking for new hunts in that specific place.

FFXV was a regression on everything but graphics.

Well neither on music, but FF music is always great, sometimes more memorable than other, but always great.

Uh FFXIII does hunts far worse than XV.
Are you forgetting getting the hunt from the board isn't the only thing you need to start the hunt? how you still have to first go to the guy who advertises the hunts and then go to another place for the hunt and then come back? Sometimes it can even take you to far off locations in a different city altogether.

That's an extra step compared to XV where the place you get the hunt is the same as the guy that gives you the hunt.

 

[Tyaren]

The craziest thing regarding the opening was how Tabata claimed it was one of the best in the series.

He is so out of touch with what fans really want.

It's not really about what fans want, but what people (fans or not) expect of story telling in a professionally produced game or any media. Tabata seems unable to tell a cohesive story. It is poorly paced, poorly executed when it's occurring and completely omits vital stuff. To speak of plot holes is a huge understatement, there are gulfs and chasms in FFXV's story.

 

[Kumomeme]

I honestly wish FFXV wasn't open world. I wish it was structured like Xenoblade Chronicles.
That game was linear but it had huge areas to explore. If FFXV was like that it would have felt more like road trip because with linear structure u have to move on to new city or areas if u wan to continue the story, while u still had open areas to explore and do side quests.

I though xenoblade chronicles is open world? just with linear progress...well,either way the same formula actually that drives older FF especially from snes era until psone...
The world vast,kind like an open world but it progress structured as linear...this could fix lot of 'storyline issue' due to the nature of open world where the story could progress like linear design in an open world game and it could add sense of journey

Before i also hoping that FFXV also will had similliar structure which is fit perfectly with car road trip,camping and actually I believe FFXIII will be different if it adopt similliar way of design and world structure(need more area like archylte steppe+town)

 

[Orniletter]

Even the car shoving scene with Florence and the fucking Machine music and the busywork that followed was garbage, not sure why you liked it.

Genuinely the worst game I've played (almost) through in the last 10 years.

 

[UnNamed]

Hey Gladio, did you know that your father, Clarus Amicitia, Regis best friend, is also died in the attack hit by the sword of Glauca as we have seen in Kingsglaive?

My father? Who cares! And my sister doesn't seems to care too. Forget about it and never talk about him for the entire game.

 

[AgentLampshade]

They should have learned of Regis' fate via magic dog.


Actually, I'll defend the opening desert area too. It's a great way to slowly let the player get to grips with the gameplay systems. Nah, my gripe is with the first couple minutes. That cold opening with Ifrit is unneeded and seemingly randomly chosen. The only thing it does is spoil a confrontation with Ifrit. Right from the start you've been given hints of a timeskip and had the penultimate boss spoiled for you. This would be fine if they actually bothered to establish Ifrit as a villain early on in the game, but he isn't (unless you read missable optional books). He's just thrown in there at the end.

I guess you could argue the cold opening is supposed to show the bond of brotherhood they develop, but at this point of the game, I don't give a shit about any of them. All I got from that scene was some mild impressive thoughts at the animations and about the time I fought Titan, I said to myself "that was Ifrit at the opening wasn't it?" God this game pisses me off. They had everything down, they just needed to tell the story competantly.

 

[Mooreberg]

Game sucked ass.

I'd have not been able to forgive myself if I paid more than $14.99 I got it for through the audible promotion on Amazon. I don't even care if this franchise gets back on track anymore.

 

[toastyToast]

My post above yours explains why Noct ain't sexting Luna.

They pulled out the laziest ass pull of an explanation for a lack of information in a world with modern technology. Could have been a completely different game if Noctis had reception.

 

[xealo]

Is it so hard to believe that their society could have smartphone-like devices, but aren't glued to them 24/7 the way we are? That newspapers haven't all but died out the way ours have?

Game has a fair number of problems but being upset at fantasy aspects of a fantasy world is so nitpicky. I don't recall thinking this was outrageous at all.

-edit- there's quite a lot of radio usage going on in this world too. did that upset people in the same way?

Glued to them or not, it's pretty ridiculous someone wouldn't just give Noctis a call and let him know what's up before a newspaper gets word of it and manages to print and distribute it.

He's a prince, he's bound to have connections quite high up that would make giving him a heads up a priority, with how dangerous the situation has become.

 

[Yohane]

Story pacing and exposition was beyond bad.

 

[Redx508]

Game sucked ass.

100%

 

[texhnolyze]

"My father is dead and my kingdom is falling apart.. let's take some fetch quests!"

 

[Waji]

Not to mention the level of "acting" which feels like I'm watching a very bad drama.
They seem barely affected by anything.

I hate XV so much lol

#prayforff7r

If it gets the same usual recent Square Enix treatment, better be prepared : / .
The way they direct cutscenes is awful. They could easily ruin everything (story/characters).

 

[KZXcellent]

"My father is dead and my kingdom is falling apart.. let's take some fetch quests!"

"Yo Noct, I know your Dad's dead but we gotta go see the chocobos!"

 

[Orniletter]

Even tho it's the lowest rated main FF ( or the 2nd lowest if counting the original xiv ) i think it's a miracle that this game got 81% on metacritic.

The game has major isssues not only for a FF game but for any rpg game out there.

I said it before and I'll say it again:

If Final Fantasy XV came out after Zelda BoTW, Horizon and Nier: Automata, it would have gotten a ~ 60 metacritic reception.

The tripple whammy of great open world RPGs (yes, Zelda is not an RPG) did literally everything better than XV, be it combat, story, production values open world and quest design. Everything.

 

[Waji]

I though xenoblade chronicles is open world? just with linear progress...well,either way the same formula actually that drives older FF especially from snes era until psone...
The world vast,kind like an open world but it progress structured as linear...this could fix lot of 'storyline issue' due to the nature of open world where the story could progress like linear design in an open world game and it could add sense of journey

Before i also hoping that FFXV also will had similliar structure which is fit perfectly with car road trip,camping and actually I believe FFXIII will be different if it adopt similliar way of design and world structure(need more area like archylte steppe+town)

It's not. Xenoblade has big areas you unlock little by little going through the story.
XenobladeX is the Open World game.

 

[Kumomeme]

It's not. Xenoblade has big areas you unlock little by little going through the story.
XenobladeX is the Open World game.

I see...thanks for the clarification

 

[danm999]

Not to mention the level of "acting" which feels like I'm watching a very bad drama.
They seem barely affected by anything.

For large parts of the game Noctis is barely a character. As in we get no insight into how he thinks or feels or responds to situations.

In a story that's largely a coming of age tale, this is baffling execution.

 

[extralite]

Regis sent Noctis away because he knew Insomnia would fall. The point was to ensure his safety. You don't call him back if you want him to be away when they finally suffer their defeat.

So of course Noctis and the others learn about it from the newspaper.

You still have to deliver loot to clear quests. You cannot send those over the phone.

Lunafreiya doesn't have a smartphone. That's her choice. And it characterizes her as someone from a less tech savvy background.

 

[Auctopus]

Every narrative element of the FFXV world is kind of baffling. It makes a liiiittle more sense after watching Kingsglaive, the anime is complete nonsense though.

RIP Jared, we hardly knew ya.

 

[AzureFlame]

Every narrative element of the FFXV world is kind of baffling. It makes a liiiittle more sense after watching Kingsglaive, the anime is complete nonsense though.

RIP Jared, we hardly knew ya.

That scene had more sad reaction from the party than whole kingdom of Lucis being burned.

 

[zoukka]

This series is dead, resurrected, killed again and the corpse is on display in a fashion store window dressed in Nomura designed fetish outfit.

 

[Caronte]

I switched to JPN to save myself from the stilted English dub.

Agreed. Worst mainline FF in that regard IMO, as in many other things.

 

[McMoneyman]

They could have at least made some damn cut scenes

You would think a franchise famous for it's use of a lot of cutscenes would use them...

 

[silva1991]

Every narrative element of the FFXV world is kind of baffling. It makes a liiiittle more sense after watching Kingsglaive, the anime is complete nonsense though.

RIP Jared, we hardly knew ya.

 

[zoukka]

You would think a franchise famous for it's use of a lot of cutscenes would use them...

First it was HD towns, now it's HD cut-scenes. SE too broke to produce anything beyond random generated terrain now.

 

[Mendrox]

as i've said already (like 3 times now), its not a plothole.
The areas outside of insomnia are 30+ years behind in tech b/c Regis abandoned most of the continent. It is the game's fault that we don't know this sooner though, since this info only really comes to light if you do the Cindy Sidequests.

They actually likely don't have the internet nor any data, and the "cell network" is likely paltry and primitive (since the first cellphone networks came around late 1970's/early 80's)

The REAL problem the game has is not showing us the real justaposition of the characters and their world. For all intents and purposes, they are time-travelers who came from 30-40 years in the future. We see some of this juxtaposition from how our car looks compared to others, and how our cloths look compared to others, but not much else. There isn't any attitude disparity, or alt-feel we see. If they showed us insomnia prior in the game's opening (or at least more of it, and explained how Regis abandoned the places outside) this would become more apparent, and would make the newspaper "finding out" much more understandable.

Hell, most of us found out about 9/11 from TV news, but imagine if 9/11 happened in the 1970's or the 1980's? It wouldn't matter if you had a cellphone or not, you'd likely find out about it via newspaper.

Man that defense. They have normal smartphones in the game with normal reception. No. Just no.

The newspaper part was just disgusting. No impact. No nothing. There were better lazy ways to show what happened.

 

[birthbysleep]

They should have learned of Regis' fate via magic dog.


Actually, I'll defend the opening desert area too. It's a great way to slowly let the player get to grips with the gameplay systems. Nah, my gripe is with the first couple minutes. That cold opening with Ifrit is unneeded and seemingly randomly chosen. The only thing it does is spoil a confrontation with Ifrit. Right from the start you've been given hints of a timeskip and had the penultimate boss spoiled for you. This would be fine if they actually bothered to establish Ifrit as a villain early on in the game, but he isn't (unless you read missable optional books). He's just thrown in there at the end.

I guess you could argue the cold opening is supposed to show the bond of brotherhood they develop, but at this point of the game, I don't give a shit about any of them. All I got from that scene was some mild impressive thoughts at the animations and about the time I fought Titan, I said to myself "that was Ifrit at the opening wasn't it?" God this game pisses me off. They had everything down, they just needed to tell the story competantly.

I'm willing to bet considerable amounts of money the cold opening was an after thought based on focus testing that stated they lacked an exciting opening so they scrambled to rework an existing cutscene.

 

[duckroll]

I'm willing to bet considerable amounts of money the cold opening was an after thought based on focus testing that stated they lacked an exciting opening so they scrambled to rework an existing cutscene.

You might lose that money because I've heard it was a part of the game for a very long time and they in fact cut down the opening battle from an even more elaborate one. It wasn't added at the last minute at all.

 

[theofficefan99]

For large parts of the game Noctis is barely a character. As in we get no insight into how he thinks or feels or responds to situations.

In a story that's largely a coming of age tale, this is baffling execution.

Noctis doesn't question ANYTHING.

 

[digdug2k]

They should have learned of Regis' fate via magic dog.

Actually, I'll defend the opening desert area too. It's a great way to slowly let the player get to grips with the gameplay systems. Nah, my gripe is with the first couple minutes. That cold opening with Ifrit is unneeded and seemingly randomly chosen. The only thing it does is spoil a confrontation with Ifrit. Right from the start you've been given hints of a timeskip and had the penultimate boss spoiled for you. This would be fine if they actually bothered to establish Ifrit as a villain early on in the game, but he isn't (unless you read missable optional books). He's just thrown in there at the end.

I guess you could argue the cold opening is supposed to show the bond of brotherhood they develop, but at this point of the game, I don't give a shit about any of them. All I got from that scene was some mild impressive thoughts at the animations and about the time I fought Titan, I said to myself "that was Ifrit at the opening wasn't it?" God this game pisses me off. They had everything down, they just needed to tell the story competently.

Lol. I just started this last night and wondered about that. This was one of those opening game acts that made me think in the middle of it "God this is awful". I mean, the first thing that popped up was a "would you like to do a tutorial first" prompt when I started the game though.

I'd also always kinda wondered why they didn't add a girl to the main group too. Make it diverse. Extend the game's appeal to some other demographics. Add a love interest. Then I got to the gas station and met Boobs McGee and remembered, "Oh yeah. Most gamers/game devs are still sexist pigs."

 

[LotusHD]

I said it before and I'll say it again:

If Final Fantasy XV came out after Zelda BoTW, Horizon and Nier: Automata, it would have gotten a ~ 60 metacritic reception.

The tripple whammy of great open world RPGs (yes, Zelda is not an RPG) did literally everything better than XV, be it combat, story, production values open world and quest design. Everything.

No lies detected. NieR alone would've done the job tbh

 

[Setsu00]

I thought I was over FFXV, but reading this thread makes me realize that I am not.

 

[TheXbox]

Why does FFXV have such a grand and elaborate finale when the rest of the game is such half-baked nonsense? It's usually the other way around.

 

[zoukka]

Why does FFXV have such a grand and elaborate finale when the rest of the game is such half-baked nonsense? It's usually the other way around.

I quit the game after the time skip... no regrets.

 

[rackham]

Square is incapable of crafting a coherent story and good characters. I'm shocked.

 

[shark sandwich]

Everything about this game only makes sense when you realize it was an attempt to salvage bits and pieces of a different game.

 

[theofficefan99]

No lies detected. NieR alone would've done the job tbh

The only reason XV managed an 81% is because it was a game hyped up for 10 years and it's a mainline Final Fantasy game.

When you look at it objectively?

First off, exploration is a chore. Car isn't fun. World is empty. Non-dungeon locales aren't interesting in the slightest. Load times are abysmal. Game tries to waste your time with how fast travel, hunts, and how exploration until you hit Lvl 40 works.

Secondly, battle system is pretty horrendous. When you get over the flashiness, you'll realize that there's little depth to combat. Unlike XII and XIII you cannot control how automated the combat is. There's ZERO balance to the entire thing, too. Extremely little AI control outside of spamming the same ally techniques for literally the whole game. Worst camera and lock-on I have ever encountered in a game. Magic, summon, and upgrade systems are not even half-baked.

In terms of content, you have a main story that's like a dozen hours long, some optional dungeons, and then loads and loads of horrible fetch quests. Not much in terms of non-filler garbage content.

The visuals are honestly not even great IMO. Sure they're, uh, technically impressive... I guess? Not really? The hair is jaggy as fuck, and a vast majority of your time is spent in artistically dull areas. Animations for a vast majority of cutscenes are incredibly stilted. The game is completely missing the cinematic flair and the great amount of polish FF is known for. CGI cinematics are pretty much absent (literally 3 for the entire game and all 3 are dull), too.

And I've already stated the issues with the writing.

Music's great tho!

So overall, Final Fantasy XV is literally just a game that takes place in some empty open world with mostly same-y, dull environments, with a shallow, stapled-together story, and a battle system that needs a shitload of work. It tries to convince you that it's a lengthy game with tons of content but all of that content is shallow. Much like the main story.

And if you ask me, the only boss fight Final Fantasy XV has is the camera.

Yeah, if FFXV came out in April it would have been completely destroyed. Mid-60's MC average.

Why does FFXV have such a grand and elaborate finale when the rest of the game is such half-baked nonsense? It's usually the other way around.

I don't agree with this. There was nothing "grand" or "elaborate" about XV's finale especially in comparison to pretty much all other Final Fantasy titles. It didn't feel intense at all. In comparison to the rest of the main story that felt like it had a $5 budget total? Sure. But it still wasn't anything remotely impressive. The two summoning animations during the boss fight against the So-You-Think-You-Can-Dance contestant were cool, I guess, but that's about it. Final boss was a joke. Ending was a joke.

Seriously tho XV's main story feels like it was made on a shoestring budget.