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[DarkConfidant]

The story isn't any worse than normal FF stuff.

I'm 25 hours in, and almost at the end, without doing sidequests. I'm just doing sidequests now, which it lets you go back and do whenever you want.

Finished the game after 120 hours, these are my impressions:

• The combat is horrible, the lack of strategy whatsover or meaningful options is terrible.
• I loved using Elixirs and Hi-Elixirs, since I never waste them on any of the other games.
• I didn't find anything wrong with Chapter 13 as many people did, I actually have no idea why they complained about it, it was a great change of pace for the whole boredom that the game was.
• Shiva was the highlight of the game
• The story wasn't that bad, the combat was very bad.
• The characters during Chapter 14 were so much better than the rest of the game. If they would have been like that all the time I wouldn't have hated Prompto.

It's interest how different everyone's opinions are on this game.

I thought 13 was awful because it replaced regular combat with a worse thing, and the environment was bad. It also lasted way too long. The gimmick would have been cool for a little while, but it was too long for me.

I also didnt find the characters to be significantly different between chapter 14 and the earlier portions.

I agree that the combat needed more strategy to be better, though I didn't think it was bad at all, by any means.

The story I thought has similar tropes to previous FF games, and though a lot of background isn't given, it really isn't needed. A prince is simply trying to take back his homeland. The villain was ridiculous but not in anyway that Sephiroth or Kefka weren't.

 

[DC1]

The story is good but the presentation is bad. Make sure to listen to every NPC conversation, don't skip any dialogue and interact with every object possible in the overworld.

It has one of the best gameplay in the series and it has hours of content. The "find me this type of frog" quests can be annoying, but you can skip them.

But the....the legs on that red frog looks pretty tasty! I recommend doing this quest OP.

 

[brandonh83]

My GOTY. Story problems, but still a cool story with a great finish. Super fun combat. Amazing dungeons. Vast world with plenty to do. Looks great.

 

[Holundrian]

Again I'm only at chapter 4, but the story is fine. Story has NEVER been a strong point for this series outside of maybe Tactics.

There is no way the narrative here is even in the same terrible ballpark as IV, VII, VIII, X-2, XIII or XIII-3.

One of the most stupid revisionist history things that came out of the FFXV discussions.

 

[rapid32.5]

I didn't get the game because I don't like the characters, and lack of good story not what I want from a FF game.

 

[LordOcidax]

the combat is some of the worst I've ever played in an action RPG

Agree,i already sold my copy... I just hope that the serie go back to their roots.

 

[Quonny]

How varied is the open world environment. Be brutally honest. Is it just the desert and green field environments? Not talking about cities or towns.

Pockets of variation. As varied as any other open world game. I mean, Skyrim is just snowy mountains and tundras. Witcher was just woods, plains, and snowy woods and plains. It's not gonna be like a linear game where they can take you all these fantastic places.

FFXV has locales. What I mean is there are spots where there are some really cool things and sites to see, but it very much is an open world game. You're not gonna have a level with lava pits followed by a snowy mountain followed by a super fantastical city followed by ancient ruins. You'll come across some of that, but you need to set your expectations. The dungeons are where the variety and flavor are.

 

[vpance]

It's gameplay is really fun, sometimes it's grindy and the story is boring, but for $35 bucks you can't go wrong with FFXV.

Normally would at that price but the backlog comes first.

My main concern is that the game will feel like nothing but busywork if the world, gameplay and story are only passable.

 

[ethomaz]

As bad as, or worse than The Witcher 3? If so, I might just pass on this. I wasn't getting a Pro for this game anyway (Horizon/Nioh).

Both are bad in my view but TW3 has worst combat.

 

[KojiKnight]

Again I'm only at chapter 4, but the story is fine. Story has NEVER been a strong point for this series outside of maybe Tactics.

There is no way the narrative here is even in the same terrible ballpark as IV, VII, VIII, X-2, XIII or XIII-3.

You're an expert on the story without even being a quarter of the way through? Trust me... the story gets far worse.

 

[DC1]

One of the most stupid revisionist history things that came out of the FFXV discussions.

What a motherfuc&ing harsh thing to say!

So true though.

 

[silva1991]

Potion Drinking Simulator XV

The gameplay is alright but it's more style over substance. The DNA is there for something compelling but it usually turns into holding O.

A lot of encounters will just be whittling at something's HP as hugely inconsistent parry windows rob you of cool finishers and moves, as you get one-shot over and over, drink potions and never get a game over.

/dead.

This is pretty accurate. I must have bought over 1000 normal potions Let alone other consumables.

 

[Xadjim]

Huh? The story was bad? I loved it

 

[Holundrian]

What a motherfuc&ing harsh thing to say!

So true though.

It hurts my head when I read something this stupid when in the FFXV ad campaign they had Ken Levine speak about how influential FF7's story to him was and what it meant for games and stories at the time.

 

[Jakartalado]

The story isn't bad... the problem is the way they actually tell the player.

There are a lot of things missing from the game.

Every FF had like hours of CGI explaning a lot of things, this time they made the stupid decision to sell the CGI like a movie that no one is going to buy.

If the game had every CGI from the Kingsglaive, this game would be perfect. They are not separate products. Not even Brotherhood should be separated from the game

 

[Manmademan]

One of the most stupid revisionist history things that came out of the FFXV discussions.

Yeah OK buddy. I've been on this board for ten years now. You want to mine my post history to find me saying anything to the contrary about this series, be my guest.

I play these games in spite of the story, not because of it. Any third rate fantasy novel or comic book blows the doors off of the story usually present in the FF games. At best it's passable (VI, IX) at worst it's hot buttered nonsense (XIII, X-2)

There are RPGs that buck this trend (vagrant story, persona 3) but FF isn't one of them.

 

[HeeHo]

From what I've played, there is some downright terrible story chapters(gameplay-wise), some of them are good. I'm at the end of Chap 13 though and have 80 hours on the game.

If you judge this game based solely on its story chapters in terms of gameplay, I would say you would most likely be disappointed.

I love the game as an open-world experience though. Learning the combat and being good at it is a really, really slow experience. It will seem like straight up chaos but it can be managed. I would recommend wait mode to scan your targets and see their weakness. Otherwise you will be doing a lot of guesswork and maybe never even know.

I would say the meat of the game is in the hunts and sidequests and getting hard to get stuff. At first you may play for hours and hours and then get burnt out. I was actually feeling this way until I took a 2 day break and I'm suddenly really enjoying the whole experience again.

The camera definitely needs to be fixed though.

 

[Agent_ShortBus]

From what I've read, the story isn't so great. However I'm itching for a JRPG, and if the consensus seems to be that the world/combat/things to do in the world are good enough, I'll probably bite on the Amazon deal currently running. Thanks!

Yeah it's fun and I'm pretty sure I'll finish it. I've spent about 8 hours just doing side missions and hunts. Only seen the 1st cutscene so I haven't even touched the story yet. Also this is my first Final Fantasy game I've played and I'm enjoying it so far.

 

[LordOcidax]

As bad as, or worse than The Witcher 3? If so, I might just pass on this. I wasn't getting a Pro for this game anyway (Horizon/Nioh).

A lot worse IMO.

 

[ViciousDS]

its not a bad story AT ALL


It's just badly presented and told.....seriously its a great story

They just fucked up hard trying to deliver it lol

 

[Socivol]

I haven't been following the game, are you able to skip story cutscenes in XV?

Honestly there are so few and they are so short you won't really need to.

 

[dragonzdogma]

Huh? The story was bad? I loved it

Same here, but that's just because we are probably not Shakespearian historians or something

 

[Holundrian]

Yeah OK buddy. I've been on this board for ten years now. You want to mine my post history to find me saying anything to the contrary about this series, be my guest.

I play these games in spite of the story, not because of it. Any third rate fantasy novel or comic book blows the doors off of the story usually present in the FF games.

There are RPGs that buck this trend (vagrant story, persona 3) but FF isn't one of them.

This isn't about what you've been saying. It's about the reality we live in.
I can call anything black, pink all my life. It doesn't make it right. I will be simply wrong.

 

[Adaren]

You're an expert on the story without even being a quarter of the way through? Trust me... the story gets far worse.

Honestly, the worst part of the story for me was the opening of Chapter 5.

Or maybe that moment just dropped my expectations to rock bottom, so everything afterwords seemed par for the course.

 

[Khrno]

The opinions in this thread regarding the combat are so diametrically opposed it's hilarious.

If you look at this game as some open-world action (RPG) game, then maybe the combat would be decent Warp Striking to hell and back. Using Magic is great until you have to wait until using it again, so trying to be a "BLM" is not even possible, nuke at start and then warp strike. At least there was positioning and targeting of body parts.

But the whole combat disregards everything FF is know for, and I'm not talking about turn-based, just look at FFXII or FFXIV for fast paced/action-like combat systems that use all the characteristics, abilities, spells, etc, FF is know for.

So yeah, I hated the combat system.

The story isn't any worse than normal FF stuff.

I'm 25 hours in, and almost at the end, without doing sidequests. I'm just doing sidequests now, which it lets you go back and do whenever you want.

I also didnt find the characters to be significantly different between chapter 14 and the earlier portions.

Maybe because I spent nearly 5 times more time with Prompto shouting annoying crap and Noctis being emo, that I got to hate them, Ignis was ok, Gladio was ok too I guess.
But for me that Ch14 in character presentation was like night and day.

 

[Quonny]

I thought the story got better the farther you went.

The opening 6 chapters, story wise, were pretty awful.

 

[icespide]

Again I'm only at chapter 4, but the story is fine. Story has NEVER been a strong point for this series outside of maybe Tactics.

There is no way the narrative here is even in the same terrible ballpark as IV, VII, VIII, X-2, XIII or XIII-3.

from chapter 8 on the story takes an extreme nose dive and the game becomes an MGSV chapter 2 level incoherent shit show

 

[ethomaz]

I haven't been following the game, are you able to skip story cutscenes in XV?

What story cutscenes? The ending? Yes you can skip it.

 

[Socivol]

Finished the game after 120 hours, these are my impressions:

• The combat is horrible, the lack of strategy whatsover or meaningful options is terrible.
• I loved using Elixirs and Hi-Elixirs, since I never waste them on any of the other games.
• I didn't find anything wrong with Chapter 13 as many people did, I actually have no idea why they complained about it, it was a great change of pace for the whole boredom that the game was.
• Shiva was the highlight of the game
• The story wasn't that bad, the combat was very bad.
• The characters during Chapter 14 were so much better than the rest of the game. If they would have been like that all the time I wouldn't have hated Prompto.

Why would you spend 120 hours on a game that you thought had horrible combat when the story is relatively short and at 120 hours you would be doing a lot of combat. I'm not saying your opinion is wrong because it's yours but I'm legitimately confused as to why you would invest so much time in a game that you thought the combat was shit.

 

[Edzi]

The story is actually good, it's just told very poorly. The key points are there though if you're willing to do some digging (and watch the movie/anime), and the ending is very strong. Ending + the awesome bond between the main party members makes it worth experiencing imo.

 

[DC1]

As bad as, or worse than The Witcher 3? If so, I might just pass on this. I wasn't getting a Pro for this game anyway (Horizon/Nioh).

WAT!
The Witcher 3 did not have bad story...Unless you're grading on super strict Steven Spielberg bar.

 

[Manmademan]

This isn't about what you've been saying. It's about the reality we live in.
I can say can call anything black, pink all my life. It doesn't make it right. I will be simply wrong.

You called my comment "revisionist in the wake of FFXV".

It's not. That's been my consistent opinion of this series since I started playing it back in 1990-whatever.

Not because I'm making excuses for FFXV, but because the FF series having weak nonsensical story lines "is the reality we live in".

And some things buddy are a matter of taste and opinion. Good story, bad story may come down to the player based on taste and experience.

My comment being "revisionist" on the other hand is not, and you were wrong here.

 

[The Last One]

What story cutscenes? The ending? Yes you can skip it.

So you're just lying now? Nice thread.

 

[DarkKyo]

Wha?? The story is great!!! I loved everything about the game, truly.

 

[ethomaz]

WAT!
The Witcher 3 did not have bad story...Unless you're grading on super strict Steven Spielberg bar.

He is taking about combat...

So you're just lying now? Nice thread.

No I'm making a joke about how few and short cutscenes has in the game...

 

[King_Moc]

I've played 75 hours and platinumed it. Still got plenty to do though. It's an excellent game.

 

[Trojita]

Someone in the OT once said "There's not a single side-quest in the game that's worth doing."

Having completed a fair number of side-quests, I'm inclined to agree with them.

Copy+paste quest design at its worst.

Hyperbole?

Doing the Behemoth quest at night was pretty great and you get Chocobos for it.

 

[Fbh]

I hated and loved the story.

The actual plot isn't as much bad as it is incomplete and badly told. It's not really bad until the final quarter when everything should come together but it really doesn't . Big plot points are rushed through, unexplained things happen and big story arcs are taking place off camera.

BUT I really like the road trip vibe and the bromance between the characters. In that sense I enjoyed the story in the same way I enjoy the stories in Uncharted, what's going on might not be great but the characters and their interactions are.


As for combat, I liked it. It's not Souls or Dragons Dogma but I found it enjoyable and a lot better than, say, Skyrim or The Witcher 3. Also for me it really wasn't pressing circle to win...At all.

 

[MrChocolate]

So just hold square then ?

No >=°|

If you are speedrunning, maybe. But you can go for a better performance in battle if you don't just hold circle or square.

 

[DarkConfidant]

Maybe because I spent nearly 5 times more time with Prompto shouting annoying crap and Noctis being emo, that I got to hate them, Ignis was ok, Gladio was ok too I guess.
But for me that Ch14 in character presentation was like night and day.

Lol yeah, that I might do it. XD




On another note, I've seen so much criticism of the sidequests, when the sidequests are mostly the same type of crap you'd do in FFXII, XIV, or some Elder Scrolls games: kill X number of species Y, or go fetch X number of item Y.
That's not my cup of tea, usually, but I don't see FFXV's sidequests as any better or worse than previous FF games or Western RPGs.

At least the hunts were available early on, and wasn't very cumbersome to get started, accept, or turn in for money.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Combat sucks at first

Very rough BUT!

It has a lot of variety and gets better as you open up more accension grid slots

The worst part at first for me was the controls. It plays a bit like Witcher 3 at first with your character attacking wildly giving you very little control.

Unlock Blink

And mess with the different control options (also dont forget custom buttons if you are on PS4)

Getting a comfortable control setup was KEY to me finding a way to enjoy the game and honestly... the open world stuff is pretty great. Also this might have THE best RPG fishing minigame ever

 

[Quonny]

Hyperbole?

Doing the Behemoth quest at night was pretty great and you get Chocobos for it.

I thought the Cindy side quests were worth doing because they actually fleshed out the character herself. Cindy is, sadly, the most developed and interesting character outside of the four boyz.

 

[JayEH]

Yes. It's easy to lose a few hours just driving around doing side quests. It's rough but plenty of fun.

Story is fine. Characters are great. But I don't care about story in video games honestly.

 

[Kintaro]

Get it as cheaply as possible OP. Amazon has a good sale atm.

As you can see, it's very divisive. I found it to be a 6/10 type of game. Its strength is in the friendship of the main characters. It's either serviceable to awful in almost every other aspect. The "open world" is pretty with plenty of "stuff to do" that sucks you in, but it doesn't excel at either the combat, its world or its story (which is pretty bad and poorly told...making it worse).

It feels like entire chunks of the game was ripped out storywise.

Best thing I can say about is that it is fun in spite of itself.

 

[Wink]

I wouldn't recommend it. I think the writing's lazy, the mechanics of sidequests and hunts are really simple and very very same-y. It's overall pretty tedious. The story is basically unfinished and none of the moments worked for me for not being set up very much at all, it's terrible if you have any interest in good storytelling.

That said it has a hypnotic quality and there are many people overcoming its many shortcomings on the basis of that alone. I am not even trying to be mean when I say the game is pretty braindead. If you're just looking for something where you can completely switch off and are not looking for a very engaging story or challenging experience, just a relaxed loop of mindlessness, you might like it.

 

[Grisby]

It's fun enough, for a lower price too. I enjoyed it because of the combat and world (although I hesitate to say world since it's just the middle section of the map that i really find compelling).

 

[Audible Phonetics]

For what it was I liked it. At first side quests, finding hidden dungeons, and fishing kept me busy, but after a while they got too grindy and repetitive. I also became such a high level that by time I got back to the part of the game that becomes linear I was able to easily plow through it which kind of sucked.

If you are going to play my only tip to you is, do not camp or sleep in every hotel you come across. Stock up your exp and save your gil. Then cash it in at an inn to double your experience.

 

[Adaren]

Hyperbole?

Doing the Behemoth quest at night was pretty great and you get Chocobos for it.

I suppose it was hyperbole. As I was writing it, the behemoth quest crossed my mind as the sole example of a side quest that wasn't a copy+paste fetch/kill devoid of any meaningful backstory.

So yeah. Credit where credit's due: that was the one unique side quests out of the dozens I did.

I thought the Cindy side quests were worth doing because they actually fleshed out the character herself. Cindy is, sadly, the most developed and interesting character outside of the four boyz.

If only those travelers had had these

Spoiler

headlights

, they might still be alive!

 

[Manmademan]

Hyperbole?

Doing the Behemoth quest at night was pretty great and you get Chocobos for it.

Yeah that was a fun one, and chocobos are kinda critical unless you want to head everywhere on foot.

 

[Ninjimbo]

The combat is cool. The world is cool. The story isn't even bad. But I don't play RPGs for their stories so if a bad story can trigger your bad, you might want to read up some more on the details of the story and the beats it tries to hit you. If it sounds like something you're going to get annoyed by, don't get it. You're just going to complain about it on GAF later and that's not really worth anyone's time.