Final Fantasy XV

Thoughts

Based on playing/watching the following in order:

• Kingsglaive Final Fantasy XV (movie)
• Base game.
• Final Fantasy XV - Episode Prompto (DLC)
• Final Fantasy XV - Episode Ignis (DLC)
• Final Fantasy XV - Episode Ardyn (DLC)

What a mess. Originally a part of the Nova Crystalis sub-series, Final Fantasy Versus XIII eventually shred that sub-series' themes and ideas, in some ways subverting them, and became Final Fantasy XV, though it retained the science fiction and sophisticated aesthetics.

This game is at once:

1. A boy band road trip across a fictionalised United States, with pretty vistas and long drives.
2. An obfuscated recreation of Hamlet.
3. A thesis on duty; for oneself, one's friends, one's king, and one's country.
4. An anime JRPG about killing God and/or Satan.

This singular story is spread across an insane multimedia landscape:

1. A prequel movie
2. A prequel anime.
3. A prequel web-novel
4. The game itself
5. Four DLCs (of the apparently eight that should have been made?)
6. And a book that acts as a stand-in for the cancelled DLCs.
7. Several side-media, such as a prequel side-scrolling brawler, demo with a unique storyline, a different (very creative) demo with a unique storyline, a pinball minigame, and a now discontinued mobile game.
8. A freaking abbreviated version of the game with a chibi artstyle, because Square Enix clearly has too much money.

The movie establishes the basic plot, the anime establishes the main characters, the game tries to tell the story... but fails. The DLC attempt to fill in the story... but got cancelled. The book then attempts to finish it.

No game should demand this amount of attention to how to enjoy it.

The Base Premise

The technocratic fascist evil empire Niflheim, in standard technocratic fascist evil empire fashion, is using its technological power and lack of scruples to conquer the world. Their recent advancements in using daemons - monsters that murder indiscriminately and appear from thin air - on the front lines has finally brought the war to Insomnia, the capital of Lucis, the last non-occupied nation.

The empire propose a truce through the arranged marriage of childhood friends (and soulmates), Noctis the crown prince of Lucis, and Lunafreya the oracle (magic healer that can commune with the gods of this world.) The truce is obviously a disguise for a surprise attack, so Noctis and his retainers are sent (uninformed of the coming attack) to meet Lunafreya elsewhere. Lunafreya herself escapes the attack, but Insomnia is lost to imperial army, along with the most important Lucian artifact: The Crystal. Daddy "King King" Regis, King of Lucis also dies in the attack.

Noctis and his retainer boy band comprised of Gladious, Ignis and Prompto must now travel the country and later the world, to reunite with his betrothed, recover The Crystal and figure out what any of this word salad even means.

Sacrifice

Final Fantasy XV is fascinated with sacrifice, and the worth of sacrifice. We all make sacrifices in our lives, take choices that hurt us to help someone else. We can sacrifice convenience or money or relationship, organs or lives. A donation is a sacrifice, but longer term commitments also require sacrifice: Mortgages, marriages, children; you sacrifice your freedom and your time. Sacrifices are painful, they are always intentional, and they are not easy to accept.

The unspoken law of Final Fantasy XV is that everybody (all but the most trivial of side characters) must sacrifice to gain power. And the ultimate goals of destroying or saving the world, require ultimate sacrifices. Like in a slow motion car crash, everyone sees what must be done from far away...

This is somewhat in contradiction to the themes of Final Fantasy XIII, which focuses on defying destiny: It's main characters have been tasked with destroying the world on threat of annihilation, a terrible task they spend the entire game trying to defy. The characters of Final Fantasy XV do not deny their fates, but it takes them the entire game to reach acceptance.

Enough about the Story, this is a GAME

The game is janky, and extremely undercooked in portions, with many mechanics, systems and plot elements that are left entirely unexplained. Chapter 4 is one of the worst explained experiences I've had in a game: Drive to a place for no meaningful reason, fight a GOD for no discernible reason, befriend him for no discernible reason, he's then killed for no discernible reason. The reasoning for all of this is backported later on in the story, but I almost stopped playing there.

Gameplay is very fast-paced third person action RPG; the same kind that Square Enix produces a lot of lately, though generally of higher quality. Enemies' attacks are not well telegraphed, and it sometimes seems to be intentional that you burn through consumables because you were hit by unavoidable attacks. If you enjoy this style of action combat then there is plenty side content for you, with an absurd about of crossovers and post-game content.

The game really is at its best in the linear stretches of the game before the ending. The sense of adventure is heightened when seeing new locations, and the action set pieces are vastly improved. I was actually taken aback by some of the fantastical landscapes in the latter half of the game, as you are venturing into the apocalyptic interior of the empire.

The DLC expands upon the gameplay by allowing you to play as different characters with much different move sets. Prompto doesn't feel well-integrated into the core game, whereas Ignis and Ardyns move sets are fun brawler power fantasies. The DLC also improves the story by being the actual best parts of the story, even adjusted for their short lengths. Characters grow, learn and sacrifice during the spand of 2 hour episodes.

Conclusion

How does such a game come to be? With so much to say, but without the capabilities for saying them, from the same company that made Final Fantasy XIV's Heavenward expansion the year earlier, and would release NieR Automata three months later! It is clear that the story was planned from the start, but split into small bits for some misguided attempt at multi-media marketing.

Someone loved this game, this dumb over-complicated story about duty and love... **I** love it... Square Enix clearly loved it, or they wouldn't have spent bazillions on it (this was not a predictable cash grab by any means.)

But now it sits unfinished, DLCs cancelled, with a physical book in their place, and I'm left heartbroken, imagining the game it could have been, if it had coalesced into a more coherent package.

But we must all sacrifice something for Final Fantasy XV. For me, it was 30 hours of my life, a few meagre dollars... and my heart.

💔/💎