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[Dontero]

Let us sum up first FFXV story so everyone is just on same page:

- Game starts with Noctis going to see his fiance before political marriage
- His own home gets killed offscreen (buy shitty movie !)
- He has to unlock powah now
- For some reason enemy empire general who nuked his home helps him and MC sees no issue with that lol
- For no reason Summons attack him while he gets swords who are completely lucklustre and for some reason Empire decides to attack summons but not head of enemy state on quest to get those summons
- Luna ? Remember his fiance or something ? She dies for no fucking reason being killed by enemy general.
- Party decides to go to Empire to do ... something, while still being complete scrubs with no power.
- Party stops at Luna home and game probably knows it fuck up so here is FMV why you should care about that Luna NPC dying before.
- Party arrives in Empire while being herrased for no reason by enemy general.
- Hey evil empire is dead for some reason ! Hurray you did absolutely fucking nothing and you won the game.
- Enemy general shows up and turns out he is your great great great uncle who was angry about his brother being chosen for king or someother idiotic garbage so he planned all of this for 100s of years and now demons will take over world... for what reason exactly ?
- MC gets older and there is time skip. World is now dark and somehow everyone waited 20 years for you to come and was ready to fight your uncle
- Uncle dies. Then MC dies for no reason. Buy hey here is cutscene showing MC and random NPC named Luna somehow living and getting hitched.

What the actual fuk ?
I mean story has so much promise but is COMPLETELY wasted by whoever decided what is important.

Here is how FFXV should be:

- game starts with Noctis meeting Luna, they fuck around in city and with his buddies for 1/3 of tame similar to midgard in FF7
- invasion on city, party runs away
- they decided to power up and hunt summons not some faggy swords
- party has adventures and gathers more important summons
- Luna dies while getting Leviatan up until this point player had 50 hours of playtime together with her so he cares
- Party decided to get their revenge and goes to empire
- Party nukes empire WW2 style in revenge for both invasion and Luna
- Some of his buddies die along the way
- MC kills enemy emperor but he also dies in process.
- Cut-scene shows statue of Luna and Noctis, love that never was.

cut world in half, make insomniaparts of city playable as well as enemy empire city parts of city playable.
voila 10/10 ff game.

Story of love and revenge but mainly revenge. Lovengence ! Makes sense ! Many tearing moments and laughing moments. Doesn't consist of space ninjas and great great great great uncles making no sense.

But it doesn't have plotholes and doesn't require hour of movie to get that additional sales.

 

[IncognitoPanda]

I had an aneurysm reading this, but sure, the story was bad.

 

[Dontero]

I had an aneurysm reading this, but sure, the story was bad.

It was more than bad.
Prometheus movie has a bad story, this is something on whole other level.

 

[Neolombax]

Not sure I liked your version any better to be honest.

 

[Papa]

I had an aneurysm reading this, but sure, the story was bad.

What was so wrong with OP that it required this snark?

I thought it was a decent summary of a garbage story.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I thought the story was pretty good after SE patched everything (which shouldn´t even have to be a thing, but Square Enix is gonna Square Enix). It harkened back to the simple days of the early FFs, with crystals, evil Magitek empires and Eidolons saving the day. I also liked the bromance aspect with four lads going out on a road trip, bonding with each other and camping and doing all sorts of fun stuff together. It gave it a sort of unique style to the storytelling and added a lot to the characters depth and their development throughout the game.

The one thing I didn´t like is how SE ties the story up in different mediums so that you have watch a goddamn movie (and Brotherhood anime) just to get some sense of what´s going on in the game. That is complete bullshit. Why waste precious resources on a movie when you can´t even finish your game? Makes no sense at all, especially when the movie isn´t all that good to begin with. SE needs to drop their movie making ambitions and get on track with what they do best: games.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

A Final Fantasy game with a bad story?
I am shocked, dear sir! Shocked!

 

[Quezacolt]

The relationship between the 4 bros was the best part of the game and Ardyn and Aranea were pretty cool. Everything else was a complete waste of potential. Luna and Noctis relationship, wich was supposed to be such an important part of the story was one of the worst, like, why should i care about it when we barely see them interact, besides some flashbacks from when they were kids ( they really want me to believe those kids were already madly in love? lol) and then they only meet for like 5 minutes during the game. What a joke! Everyone involved in this mess should be ashamed. Final Fantasy used to be one of the best rpg franchises, but ever since FFXIII it's been mess after mess, XIV was only saved because it had to be rebooted.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The story sucks but the world and characters don't and to me thats even more importat than the story. I love the chemistry within the group and the overall mood of the game, despite being contradictory to what is actually happening with the world (that basically is going to shit)

 

[ValiantTraveler]

What a shame. The world is original and interesting, there are so many good ideas and moments but the execution is all over the place. There's so much missing buildup and some scenes have no impact because of that, like when Noctis says goodbye to his father. The freaking invasion happens off-screen and is conveyed through newspaper. So many underdeveloped characters too. Cor, Luna's brother, etc. I like the additions that the DLCs made but the damage is already done. I guess telling the whole story in full detail was impossible due to it being way beyond what the budget could've ever allowed. The scope of the premise could have easily made this a 100-hour game. The "tell the story through different media because we can't do it in one game" approach is a mess and should never be attempted again.

SE should reduce the scale of the next mainline FF. Make a good-looking game that doesn't span an entire world. Leave that for lower-budget games like Octopath or Bravely. SE tried doing an open-world FF, now it's time to move on to something else (after FFVII Remake). Whoever is in charge of coming up with the premise should be asked if the full story can be told and make sense in around 50 hours of gameplay. They must focus on fixing the storytelling department. Sadly I don't think the folks there are aware of this problem.

 

[ethomaz]

It was not only bad but incomplete.

 

[Sebastian Suola]

You forgot to mention the most important character of all: Jared!

 

[PhilipDoesMatter]

FF XV is not a game worthy of the FF name. Simply put. Add to all you've said how bad the characters design is. Starting with Noctis being a crying baby, the party being formed by all-males and guess what, all dressed in black. Creativity screams!! Tabata tried his best, but he couldn't save the game from Nomura's bad influence.

 

[Orenji Neko]

I actually think a lot of the story concepts are quite good, but the handling and delivery was terrible. Plot holes, off screen events only alluded to, patched in elements, pieces separated to DLC, and portions relegated to a movie and a short anime series.

It had the elements, the ingredients for a good Final Fantasy story (even though the game play is mindless, easy, and simple), but they couldn't bring it together. FFXV, and all its related media is like this cobbled together, deformed mess of a thing. A lot of ambition with very, very little focus.

Yeah they greenlit it, and then this fucker with two missing wheels went right off the road and tumbling into parts unknown. What we got was a snapshot of the resulting wreck, with a few photoshop edits to try and make it look less terrible than it was.

 

[Teslerum]

I thought the story was pretty good after SE patched everything (which shouldn´t even have to be a thing, but Square Enix is gonna Square Enix). It harkened back to the simple days of the early FFs, with crystals, evil Magitek empires and Eidolons saving the day.

I don't see it. Also what?

In older FF's there weren't constantly things happening off-screen for one.
If anything XV's storytelling reminded of other Tabata games like Type-0.

 

[Verdanth]

FF XV is not a game worthy of the FF name. Simply put. Add to all you've said how bad the characters design is. Starting with Noctis being a crying baby, the party being formed by all-males and guess what, all dressed in black. Creativity screams!! Tabata tried his best, but he couldn't save the game from Nomura's bad influence.

This. I really liked FF XV, but it should had dropped the FF from the title. It would be better received if you ask me.

Same as The Phantom Pain. Amazing game, horribly Metal Gear.

 

[Traxtech]

The brotherhood and comradory made the game.

 

[Zephir]

I liked FFXV story, but the issues are obvious...mainly because, like FF13, they're more focused on creating a universe with unlimited story possibilities across different medias than just a single videogame story...that's why i belive FFXV feels incomplete, aside from development issues.

With that said, i'm ok with the end results because, again, i liked the game despite everything

 

[Ma-Yuan]

Can't agree more with OP. . . When the end credits roled I was like wtf did I play and why did I waste my time with this. I admit the graphics are nice and the gameplay is fun. But the story was just garbage out of this world . . . Since I like playing JRPGs also for their story most of the time. The story of most JRPGs is crazy but this time it was way beyond crazy just a total and complete mess . . . FF is dead to me in this state . . . And I never understood how they managed to sell so many copies of such an incomplete game :-/

 

[HarryKS]

Even after the incomprehensible mess that was FF 13?

 

[Whitesnake]

At least it was better than Lightning Returns.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

I actually think a lot of the story concepts are quite good, but the handling and delivery was terrible. Plot holes, off screen events only alluded to, patched in elements, pieces separated to DLC, and portions relegated to a movie and a short anime series.

It had the elements, the ingredients for a good Final Fantasy story (even though the game play is mindless, easy, and simple), but they couldn't bring it together. FFXV, and all its related media is like this cobbled together, deformed mess of a thing. A lot of ambition with very, very little focus.

Yeah they greenlit it, and then this fucker with two missing wheels went right off the road and tumbling into parts unknown. What we got was a snapshot of the resulting wreck, with a few photoshop edits to try and make it look less terrible than it was.

Yeah I agree, the game feels like you are playing a Cliffs Notes version of the story, except instead of hitting all the major plot points so that you can fully understand the story and themes and write your paper, they just randomly picked pages out of the book and summarized those instead. What remains in the book is potentially quite good, but we will never know because for some reason they neglected to tell us most of it. They honestly would have been better off doing some Xenogears text dumps, just so that we could at least know the damn story. Maybe make it a VN hybrid or something. The only thing that salvaged the game is the fact that the character chemistry and feeling of a road trip was spot on.

It really needed another year or two of dev time, which Square understandably didnt want to give considering how lot it took in the first place.

 

[Silent Duck]

Hey! Spoilers.... oh who am I kidding? I’m never going to bother finishing this game. Too many other games in backlog.

But I’m not surprised by the story. Final Fantasy games all seem like they’re written by lobotimized three year olds, IMO.

And don’t get me started on the Kingdom Farts series. But then again, that’s like expecting fantastic storytelling from the Dead or Alive games... not going to happen.

 

[Bkdk]

They had to release the game, can’t afford to put in more cost for the game as it’s been delaying far too long and SE just want to get it over with, it did sell pretty well but the subsequent dlc make them broke. Should’ve just move on to FF16 right away.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

No mention of the party member being a clone and that being a 10 minute thing
Then everyone is just like "Stop being a wuss, let's go get some crystals," and he's back to snappin' selfies

Story to me felt like a bunch of dudes hanging out as the world goes to shit and they're making the best of it; enjoyed it other than the complete disjointed nature of it.

P.S. I did like 80-90% completion on this game; it was a return to form with FF, but tried to do too much. With the rumors they may do a few fantasy/something punk-ish (Magic punk...? I dunno) instead of something punk-ish/fantasy, I'm excited for how SE reels FF back in from being all across the board to understand a game.

 

[Fbh]

Completely agree. It's not like JRPG's are overflowing with amazing storytelling and even so FFXV managed to stand out as being extremely bad and incomplete.

Between the utterly incomplete story, the DLC's, the updates and the extremely important story elements relegated to a movie this is the one game this gen where I felt I was sold an early access game for $60

And I also agree with what others have said regarding Square trying to make FF this multi media thing when they should really just focus on the game itself.

No mention of the party member being a clone and that being a 10 minute thing
Then everyone is just like "Stop being a wuss, let's go get some crystals," and he's back to snappin' selfies
.

Lol yeah.
10 minutes might even be a stretch.
It's like " hey guys I was actually born here but neither me nor the game will provide any more detail or context"
Rest of the party: "Ok".

Just another one of those early access moments in the game where you could tell there was the intention to turn that into a major plot point but the whole area and scene wasn't done yet

 

[Shifty]

But but FFXV is Complete on the DayOne though

I've said it before and I'll say it again- SE needs a present-day Capcom redemption arc. They need to figure out their tech, budget and timescales, and focus on producing singular, complete games that are well designed, polished to a mirror sheen, and genuinely worthy of the Final Fantasy name.

Easy, right?

 

[Shifty1897]

I don't think you can fix FF at this point. It's become a different thing to too many people and they haven't made a great single player one since 2006. It'd be better to create a new franchise with new design goals and a focused scope. None of this "rent the CG movie to understand the plot" cross media crap.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I don't see it. Also what?

You gather allies to assist you in your fight against the empire, the Mark of the Archaens, which bears resemblance to Final Fantasy VI and the Espers, for example. In order to gain the Marcheans trust (or Espers) you have to defeat them. Crystals have been a part of Final Fantasy since the beginning, and that is also a big theme in XV. Things happening off screen is a story telling device Tabata used to enhance the feeling of ambiguity for what´s happening around Noctis, and the fact that he (and we as audience) are left in the dark with much of the events unfolding in the game. But as far as the overarching story goes in XV, it resembles a lot of themes running throughout the franchise, mainly the six first games.

 

[Virex]

Who hurt you?

 

[ToughestSoul]

You forgot to mention the most important character of all: Jared!

Who? :V

Seriously though, I liked FFXV and I thought the ending was touching, title logo change and all. The story makes even somewhat sense to me, it was just rushed, especially 2nd half.

 

[Quezacolt]

I don't think you can fix FF at this point. It's become a different thing to too many people and they haven't made a great single player one since 2006. It'd be better to create a new franchise with new design goals and a focused scope. None of this "rent the CG movie to understand the plot" cross media crap.

I think they should start by not trying to please the western public. Not sure about you guys, but when i buy a japanese game, i want it to feel like it was made with passion, something that the devs wanted to do, not something that was made with the intention of getting the attention of the western crown. Ever since skyrim came out, many japanese devs have this mentality of wanting to make the next skyrim, wich is wrong imo.
If i was the CEO of square-enix, i would let the tam that made bravely default/octopath make the next main FF. their games feel more like FF than the last FF games we had.

 

[DForce]

Ignis losing his eyesight, guiding him as he walks through a mission and going 10 years (?) in to the future is when the story just started going down hill for me.

 

[nowhat]

Ignis losing his eyesight

Admittedly I played the game on release and haven't touched it since, so perhaps my memory is clouded, but... was this explained in any rational way or did I just miss it? I didn't care much for the story, but once we got to "Ignis is blind" I was really confused - like, why? What happened?

 

[Nymphae]

I agree that it was terrible. Then again, my favourite, 8, tries to sell you on the plot point that your entire party literally magically forgets that they were all close personal friends and lived in the same orphanage together. Final Fantasy stories are generally pretty weak I think.

 

[DForce]

Admittedly I played the game on release and haven't touched it since, so perhaps my memory is clouded, but... was this explained in any rational way or did I just miss it? I didn't care much for the story, but once we got to "Ignis is blind" I was really confused - like, why? What happened?

i played it on release date, too. This is how it happened.
I just hated the fact that he was suddenly blind and we had to walk him through a mission.

 

[DS_Joost]

But but FFXV is Complete on the DayOne though

I've said it before and I'll say it again- SE needs a present-day Capcom redemption arc. They need to figure out their tech, budget and timescales, and focus on producing singular, complete games that are well designed, polished to a mirror sheen, and genuinely worthy of the Final Fantasy name.

Easy, right?

You HAD to summon the man, didn't you?

 

[Torquill]

Ardyn’s Story is way more interesting than Noctis’.

Also, why do people keep talking about how the story was patched? As far as I know the storytelling has never been fixed. They’ve hacked in standalone episodes, but without being properly woven into the narrative it doesn’t “fix” the story.

 

[Shifty]

You HAD to summon the man, didn't you?

I have no idea who you're talking about

(And let's face it, the presence of 'FFXV' in the topic title is probably lure enough to begin with!)

Also, why do people keep talking about how the story was patched? As far as I know the storytelling has never been fixed. They’ve hacked in standalone episodes, but without being properly woven into the narrative it doesn’t “fix” the story.

Some content from Kingsglaive and the Omen trailer was patched into the game day one in cutscene form to better contextualize the story.

 

[Revolutionary]

The best part of XV's story is Ardyn - he's up there with the best villains in the entire series IMO. It's just a shame that the entire thing is presented so poorly.

Edit: Ok I'll admit I didn't actually read OP before I made this post, but I read it now and honestly it seems like OP didn't understand a lot of story beats ("for some reason" "for no reason" etc.), but I don't care enough to waste my time explaining them lol. The tumultuous development of XV is well documented, and at this point, complaining about the story and offering fan fiction alternatives is just beating a dead horse.

 

[Clear]

Here is how FFXV should be:

- game starts with Noctis meeting Luna, they fuck around in city and with his buddies for 1/3 of tame similar to midgard in FF7
- invasion on city, party runs away
- they decided to power up and hunt summons not some faggy swords
- party has adventures and gathers more important summons
- Luna dies while getting Leviatan up until this point player had 50 hours of playtime together with her so he cares
- Party decided to get their revenge and goes to empire
- Party nukes empire WW2 style in revenge for both invasion and Luna
- Some of his buddies die along the way
- MS kills enemy emperor but he also dies in process.
- Cut-scene shows statue of Luna and Noctis, love that never was..

Yeesh.
Hackneyed, paint by number storytelling 101.

Basically you've described a brain-dead version of FF7 with a bummer ending. Congrats.

 

[The Snake]

Real question:

I actually have been considering giving FFXV another play through-- does the DLC or "Royal Edition" or whatever content add substantially to the game? Does it fill in a lot of the gaps?

I know it won't add in that one city we should have been able to explore, but does it make it a more substantially filling experience?

 

[cireza]

It was a simple story and it is totally fine like this. By the way you can write a satiric version of any story.

 

[Dontero]

but I don't care enough to waste my time explaining them lol. The tumultuous development of XV is well documented, and at this point, complaining about the story and offering fan fiction alternatives is just beating a dead horse.

But explain this to me. How can he best villain where everything he does is completely illogical.
Don't forget that he is almost omnipotent dreg who lived for god knows how many centuries and his puppet empire won the freaking war from start.

If he needed MC for anything he could just walk in and get him at any point he wanted and do anything he wanted to him. Why play this whole sharade with ant ?

People say he is like Kafka in FFVI. IT is plainly false.
Kafka was just insanely evil which is why he was so compelling. He was one of the few villains that was pure evil.
On other hand FFXV dreg is completely illogical in stupid way.

Yeesh.
Hackneyed, paint by number storytelling 101.
Basically you've described a brain-dead version of FF7 with a bummer ending. Congrats.

At least it would make sense and had proper exposition leading to moments like Luna dying having apropriate impact on player instead of being joke.

And it is not like you would have to remove FFXV only good aspect about 4 dudes being friends. Adding Luna to team would not change anything same way that girl didn't and it is not like you couldn't remove Luna from party for example when invasion ended and they were running away to be meet one last time in that city.

It was a simple story and it is totally fine like this. By the way you can write a satiric version of any story.

What is simple about it ? MC literally does nothing and empire dies on itself.
Main villain has absolutely no reason to even chat with MC and still yet he does that.
Main event of the game is completely without any context with main heroine given max 15 minutes of some random retrospection.

Simple is go get the evil man and rescue the princess. XV story isn't simple. It does not make even sense to begin with.

 

[Alfen Dave]

Imagine if the budget that went into XV Brotherhood and XV kingsglaive had went into the game as actual gameplay sequences (Insomnia's invasion), we could have actually gotten a decent story/experience out of the whole thing...

Only thing we have now is a disjointed mess that doesn't even stick together as a franchise.

Square Enix died a long time ago for me. Their glory days are over. The end started at FF 13 which was known as their first massive disappointment, then following with the first version XIV pre-ARR, and then they of course ruined FF XV/Versus...

Even KH3 which was supposed to put closure to the KH series turned out to be just an ''OK'' game, nothing transcending about that title.

KH2 and FF 12 was their last masterpieces imo.

Although, they do great now at publishing games from other companies (Deus Ex, Nier Automata, Hitman,etc) but when it comes to internal development, they`re gone..,.

 

[Dontero]

I think they should start by not trying to please the western public.

I don't think that is the reason for their problems.
I think the reason is that they don't think about making good game first.
They think first about money, merchandize and DLC first rather than game itself being compelling.

All people speculate that FFXV problems come from developement issues but i trully wonder if this is actually the case.

For example:
- they made anime and movie to tie in into game. That cost a lot of money which could be used to hire more people or extend developement time for game that obviously needs more work. Same with food in game. Shitload of work on that when game itself lacks content in important parts.
- from start they were focusing on DLC, Movie, clothes and other random crap. Whole DLC chain was announced well before release as well as movie.

Here is the unpopular opinion: XV is exactly what SE wanted. They wanted do dig fans for money giving them scrapes in game so they will go and buy DLC, movie and anime and possibly more.

Imagine if the budget that went into XV Brotherhood and XV kingsglaive had went into the game as actual gameplay sequences, we could have actually goteen a decent story out of the whole thing...

This is the most damning part. Instead of making movie and anime they could make CGI cutscenes for most important parts of exposition that game missed.

 

[cireza]

Simple is go get the evil man and rescue the princess. XV story isn't simple. It does not make even sense to begin with.

Obviously I disagree with you. Two main characters go on a journey to defeat evil. Noctis needs to gather the weapons and Luna the summons, in order to complete the artifact that will be able to overcome the enemy. They are bound to die during these journeys. Everything that happens elsewhere feels like it is happening without them being really involved, which is normal. They have their own objectives to accomplish.

It is common behaviour to shit on FF XV but I find that it is actually a great story that goes back to the roots of RPGs and gives place to your own imagination.

 

[Dontero]

Obviously I disagree with you. Two main characters go on a journey to defeat evil. Noctis needs to gather the weapons and Luna the summons, in order to complete the artifact that will be able to overcome the enemy. They are bound to die during these journeys. Everything that happens elsewhere feels like it is happening without them being really involved, which is normal. They have their own objectives to accomplish.

It is common behaviour to shit on FF XV but I find that it is actually a great story that goes back to the roots of RPGs and gives place to your own imagination.

Yeah i would love to play that game you speak of.
But that game isn't XV.

I don't remember Luna doing anything other than dying in game.

 

[Pejo]

I agree that Luna should have been in the party and died @ Leviathan. Would have given Noct a good reason to go berserk. Despite most opinions, I loved the Levi fight. It would have been so much better with the proper lead-up though.

Anyways, I agree OP, the story could have been a lot more. That said, with how bad the development went with the game, I'm surprised we got as good of a game as we actually got. I hope they had some major takeaways for FFXVI to streamline the process and not go into years of dev hell.

 

[Dontero]

I agree that Luna should have been in the party and died @ Leviathan. Would have given Noct a good reason to go berserk. Despite most opinions, I loved the Levi fight. It would have been so much better with the proper lead-up though.

Anyways, I agree OP, the story could have been a lot more. That said, with how bad the development went with the game, I'm surprised we got as good of a game as we actually got. I hope they had some major takeaways for FFXVI to streamline the process and not go into years of dev hell.

Like i said initial premise is great but everything about execution of it is complete trainwreck + Aerdyn being main villan which doesn't make sense logically. Literally any other villain would be good fit for game, even some crude butcher.

I game ended up with King of evil empire death and have 0 doubts no one would complain.

The worst thing you talk about is when you stop at Luna home and then game SUDDENLY remembers long hours after sie died that you are supposed to get context and maybe even care about her and feds you this long retrospection cinematics about how Luna loved MC, how she was destined to die (which again doesn't make sense) and bunch of other crap

Which at this point is completely tone deaf.