The few times Noctis addresses how important his friends are to him were such surprising tender moments for me, it made the weird adventure it put me through so worth it.
It's always surprising how voices stick with us once we get use to them. I remember playing InFamous 1 and 2 in French, and then maybe a year or two ago, I felt like playing them again, and I was like "I should play these in English this time, to get the real vibe from the voice actors" and stuff like that. But I couldn't, because after some time in the game, even though I was telling myself "that's the original voices, stick with it", I just didn't know these guys, and the voices just felt off. Works the same the other way around, I played through The Last of Us countless times in English, but now even if people keep saying that the French dub is pretty damn solid, I just can't hear the French voices, they won't fit.
The whole game would have been supremely better off for just sticking with the road trip setup and proceeding to be a more outlandish take on the series. Ditching prophecy, the grandeur and a large scale story would have made for a much more closely-knit game in my view as the best parts of the game are simply the ones you experience as you are playing and spending time with your 3 friends and whoever else may tag along like Iris and Cor occasionally. The game is made by its characters and each facet that is bad in a vacuum (like the combat and the tedious driving or side quests) are made that much more tolerable and enjoyable as a result of the chemistry and personality they have on display. Great analysis as always Hamish!
Weighty I wholeheartedly agree with this. My favourite part of the game was the first half, with the whole road trip vibe that was going on. I wanted more of that, and oddly enough I wasn’t all that invested in the Evil Empire storyline. I just wanted more of the group interacting with each other.
Seriously, the story was weak and unfocused when they had a perfect story premise right there. It's baffling that they felt they had to do the tired, worn out grandiose nonsense. It's things like that and having giant holes in the story (that would've been in there by default in previous games) fixed by selling you DLC.
Ditch the Evil Empire storyline entirely, or reduce the focus on it severely. Instead, make the game much more about taking Noctis to Lunafreya, and flesh that out to be the main journey. Make it a simpler tale, about four pals just driving forward through the world and pushing past whatever challenges they find in their way. You could give Noct a bit more character by having him question whether or not he wants to marry Luna, who the player barely knows a damn thing about, and maybe even offer a choice of whether or not Noctis actually makes it to the wedding. Even better, give The Boys goals of their own, and more of a life outside of Noctis, instead of solely existing to carry Noctis forward to the finish line, and don't wait until the DLC to explain why they gave enough of a shit about him to come along.
Well all that really matters from a narrative perspective is Ardyn and his motivation. During the Altissia section the story could be changed to a 'find Ardyn' mystery where the chocobros have to drive around (probably a second map) searching for his whereabouts which ultimately leads back to something like the current ending. Basically removing the train bit and all of the extra locations they visit from there on and putting the boys back on the road in a new area, and bringing down Noctis' flip out over the death of a character we've spent about 15 minutes of total time with. Just a 5 minute idea.
The English dub had a sense of novelty to it, simply because I had heard these Japanese voices so many times before. It helped that I was wholly unaware of who the English dub VAs were. As for the story, it requires some connecting of the dots, and one definitely needs to have the movie and the webseries. But once it makes sense though, it's fantastic. It makes the ending hit that much harder. The two main pieces of the game's music, Somnus and Stand by Me, represent the two most important aspects of Noctis' life and the way they're used is just incredible.
Mostly agree, although I think the story is fine. Many people say it’s bad, but I think it’s just somewhat poorly told with a lot of stuff missing. What is there I thought was pretty good with some great moments. It’s an unfinished masterpiece for me, and I greatly welcome all of the new additions. Also, I think the English is great. Gladio can be a bit rough, but aside from that I think everyone brought their A game. I seem to be in the minority judging by the comments, but I don’t really care.
Also I find it super interesting how some people hate the driving and some people are fine with it. It makes sense to me that a lot of people hate that there's no fast travel but even after 60 hours and the boys don't even really talk anymore, I never skip the driving portions and just let Ignis drive us around, its so fun just being in that world and experiencing the sights and just listening to music. (Also the regalia type D is fucking awesome and feels so nice to drive every now and then tho I do prefer the standard regalia)
The story is pretty bad, yes, but the character arcs in the second half of the game are great. Ardyn has become one of my favorite villains, Ignis strugling with his blindness during episode 10 was heartbreaking and the final scene after the credits had me crying.
The DLC doesn't expand so much about Ardyin though. Episode 11 already cements him as a villain and he gets a lot of constant development all the way through to the end of the game. The dlc only expands on him at the last 5 minutes of episode Ignis.
I legitimately enjoy the larger story, if only because to me, it highlighted the idea that there were things going on beyond your control, and that you're just a small group of friends. The lack of understanding and care I felt for those scenes is how I imagined Noctis and friends feeling. Buuuut that all breaks down when it comes to him reacting to Luna
I have a genuine soft spot for this game. One of my favorites of all time and you put it perfectly now I realize it’s exactly how I’ve felt about it this whole time.
dude, the contrast of the light hearted roadtrip with friends, paired with the almost apocalypse now - like descent into hell of the main story is what i loved so much
There were two Final Fantasy Games which I enjoyed enough to play them through and finish them. Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Tactics. For me these are the best franchise installments.
Since so much of the game was all about "the journey" and not the "destination" they should've heavily emphasized this as their core message. The villain should've been a metaphor for living in the future and neglecting the present, thus not "enjoying the moment". Lunafreya, the oracle/love interest should've been Noctis's mentor of this message, they always knew they were gonna sacrifice themselves to fulfill their destinies, why not have them learn how to live to the fullest? Anyway, there were missed opportunities, but this was still a good game.
Honestly, I really like the story. I also like the story of mgsv and Breath of the wild, and all of those games are new installments to iconic franchises that became open world though the story of those games were poorly received.
The voice acting was pretty good... Only the Cup Noodle stuff... ufff the voice acting on that part was something else... Its like the VA made it seem like Gladio was dying inside while doing it
“Its not a story that needed more what it needed was focus.” this comment is a bit late but that quote sums up a lot of how i feel about the game, as does the rest of the video, both negative feelings and positive. I have a strong love/hate relationship with final fantasy 15, it managing to hold my interest and emotions for longer than any other singular game, and introducing me to the rest of the series that I am playing through currently and thoroughly enjoying. On the other hand, i have constant frustrations about what couldve been with this game, had it a more clearer vision and story/character focus (instead of trying to do too much and failing by stretching its resources thin, like you said “more doesnt mean better). But somehow, despite all the glaring flaws of the game i love it and have more of an emotional attachment to my 96+ hour game file than to many other games I’ve played that are objectively much better and focused. I quickly grew to love these characters and how human they seemed because of their flaws and goofy interactions, which is probably why this game ended up stealing my heart, and why I’ll be here for the long run until the dlcs wrap up in 2019 (Will say that Episode Prompto and Ignis were great additions tho, along with some parts of the royal edition. Those two character episodes give a lot of much needed context and help give more insight into those individual characters, and the Lucii boss fights are now my favorites in the game along with aranea’s, their designs are beautiful and the fights are truly exhilarating even when I was 30+ levels above the boss.)
I thought you would mention something about the DLC episodes that added so much to the story of the characters that you seem to love so much. Did you play them?
I agree completely. The game was the road trip, and about the four under taking it. It is the journey and relationships that hold up the game, not the story or the world's lore.
I really hope the upcoming DLCs expand the road-trip approach onto the Niflheim continent. So you can either drive to your next destination or get the train. Would improve the pacing and enjoyment of the game sooo much.
When I was a kid, I played uncharted 3, and I loved it because it was dubbed in Portuguese (I couldn’t understand English at that time) . When I played the other uncharted games, I had already learned how to speak English but I still missed the brazilian version.
One thing I'd like to add in regards of the English voices: the voice acting itself is horrendous, but the English banter is sooo much better than the Japanese. Whenever possible, I usually play all my Japanese games with the original audio and text, this time however some friends were watching me play, so I turned on the English subtitles. While the Japanese voices are superb (being provided by an all-star VA cast, that's not really surprising), the dialogue itself between the four boys is some of the most generic I've heard in a while. The localized dialogue has much more character and humor, and I can definitely understand why some people feel attached to it.
FFXV is fascinating because so many things can go into influencing your perspective on it. Anything from which patch you ran through Chapter 13 with, if you saw the tie in movies (and then found the small side-quests that tie in to them), if you played any of the DLC, etc. I personally loved the story, and felt that the back half of game played into the character's relationship in a meaningful way, with some small payoffs from the Brotherhood anime. Granted, that same anime made me view Ignis and Gladio not as Noctis' friends tagging along in a bachelor party gone horribly wrong, but chaperones who are there more out of a sense of loyalty to King Regis than any friendship with Noctis. Of course, my favorite thing about the game is how the characters grow together in friendship, this emo boyband is probably my all time favorite RPG party.
Punch Party The anime made you think Ignis and Gladio were sticking with Noctis in service to Regis over their friendship? Weird, that's the opposite of what I was getting, and what it seems like the writers were intending. Gladio, maybe, but Ignis is incredibly over-protective of Noctis and almost maternal. Did you keep feeling that way throughout the game or only at the outset?
It was only at the begging, over the course of the adventure I could feel their bond getting closer, and it really crystallized in the world of Darkness when Noctis' finally returns and learns about what the Gang had been up to in his absence.
I actually really liked this game and still do. It’s has plenty of flaws but it manages to endear itself to me regardless. I love the focus on the more human aspects of the characters and the bond they share as friends. I found it tragic that Noctis had to sacrifice himself at the end to save Eos from the Starscourge and he would never be able to see his friends again. It led to a wonderfully poignant ending. I also liked the battle system. It wasn’t ATB but it was a nice update for the series. It was exciting and fun. It was a vast improvement over whatever they did with 13’s system that was clunky and lackluster.
I’m not saying I’m a crazy purist like some FF fans, but a lot of this game just doesn’t feel final fantasy to me. I don’t necessarily miss the turn based combat but I do miss the complexity of it. When I’m fighting a boss I love the feeling that I have to throw everything that I have learned over an 80 hour game just to beat it when I could literally beat the 2 final bosses of this game with a single button. I also miss the “fantasy” aspect of it, I really like Altissia but besides that the rest of the world just feels normal to me. Like something I could find in the real world.
A Black Screen too bad Altissa area is underdeveloped. It's as small as a soccer field. A midtown village in Witcher 3 map is probably bigger & have more things to offers.
Its my first FF game got it last month royal edition for 25bucks loved it got my moneys worth flaws are to be expected for any game so its flaws didnt surprise me what matters is its the game enjoyable or not and yes it certainly is a game cant be bad if its fun to play thats the bottom line
My main issue with the game is that, aside from the bromance and road trip elements, it doesn’t have much going for it. Ardyn was a pretty interesting villain, but I wasn’t all that intrigued to the point where I wanted to know more about him. The relationship between Nocturnal and Luna wasn’t presented all that well either. When her dog came to bring you the notebook, they could’ve shown how she responded to what you wrote in a cutscene or something.
Every time you feel like being a part of the Final Fantasy fanbase, just read any of these lovely UA-cam comments about the latest installment of the franchise telling everyone to have the same negative opinion of it before and after release. Your shame for sharing a fandom with these people will come back instantly.
Anime is Trash You misunderstand. I'm talking about within two years after release. You've gotta calm down, pal. You're proving me right about how insufferable FF's fanbase is.
I did the opposite in terms of language; played in Japanese first, and tried to play in English later before getting weirded out and changing it back. The difference was that the Japanese dialog never sounded unnatural to begin with. What's also interesting are the quirks in translation, such as how Japanese generally doesn't utilize sarcasm, while English does, and FF15's English writing sprinkles in sarcasm where there was none in the source material. My general experience with almost all game translations these days is that they are too liberal with the changes, resulting in characters with entirely different personalities depending on the language.
it really is a flawed masterpiece. it wasn't finished. there are characters that were handled poorly like luna and her brother. also the king. cor. i don't wanna play it a second time. but i liked it. i can really say that the time i spend playing this game was worth it. because i enjoyed it. i am glad i played this game.
This pretty much mirrors my feelings of the game. There's so much to criticise, and rightly so, but I still really enjoyed the game. I think the combat does get too much flack. Like you said, it may be simple, but it does have a nice rhythm and flow to it. I've never liked turn-based JRPG battle systems, and usually I hate the hybrid systems even more. This is the only one of those I've liked, perhaps because it's way closer a straight-up action system than anything else, even if it doesn't technically qualify as one 100%. But it was fun. I liked teleporting and floating around, dashing from enemy to enemy, and I feel like it had a pretty good feeling of impact, despite you just holding down the attack button to hit. I've yet to return to the game though, despite feeling the urge. I want the PC version, but my PC isn't really up to it. Not if I want to actually make the most of that version, which would be the whole point of picking it up in the first place. I need a new graphics card fist. But thanks to crypto miners, that doesn't seem like it's happening any time soon. So thanks, you greedy, selfish, wasteful fucks.
I think you may be giving the team a bit much credit. The focus didn’t need to be taken away from the guys to focus more on the plot it just had to connect the characters to it. People will say the DLC does that but it actually doesn’t. Everything that happens in the DLC is only what happens AFTER what was already established. It only takes place AFTER Gladio leaves, or AFTER Prompto is kidnapped, and AFTER the attack on Altissia. Now people will say that it makes sense because they’re explaining it with more events. It's actually adding extra events that require even more explanation. It still has to lead to these events. LEAD as in SET UP, progress towards, building up to be a etc. I’m not implying that you’re defending this game. I’m saying that while you explain the matter of this game, if you keep addressing what is ( quite honestly already obvious ) fine with the game, they won’t fix it because when you say it meant this ‘TO ME’, it implies to them that what they are doing is not broken, and that’s all they’ll focus on.
The traveling system in this game so far is the worst that I've ever experienced in recent memories. Loading screen would probably become half of you play time. The most annoying part is that it could be way way better with such a simple fixes & changes. Regalia Type-F as of now is pretty much the most useless end game upgrade. What they should do are double or triple the speed & make actual "freedom" driving, where you can drop down instantly easy anywhere on the map (like those magitek ship btw), no more crash insta-death. Most of the side quests are bad for a world building, basically a bunch of mmo type shenanigans (maybe I am just too spoiled by Witcher 3 LOL). The story clearly simplified way too much especially after the info that we got from recent leaks. Umbra & time travel system is underdeveloped, it would be such an amazing concept if you could have changing timeline quests or dream experiences into somebody's past life to fleshed out more about the lore. Instead is just a way to play end game experiences ... The combat ... oh man ... it's average for an action oriented & sometime totally clusterfuck, while for strategy/tactics rpg is just mediocre. At least armgier unleashed exist as of now, the very thing that has been promoted in almost every cool actions from FFXV "trailers," while changing characters is somewhat enjoyable but not enough for a precision in tactics.
Croz Raven what are you talking about? I hardly experience any load time. So that is very false on your part. I can keep on going, but that would be pointless
ExDEATH fast travelling from walk is unnecessary restricted to rest point & return to car. This makes backtracking tedious as hell. The loading time itself is mostly quite long even for open world game. Compare this to other open world game ACO or Witcher 3, you can fast travel in any FT points. Same thing with Watch Dogs 2 for modern world comparison while your car or vehicle could be simply delivered easily if you want to used it or left it the way it is. This is why I am talking about many loading screens. I've never felt this frustration in any open world game that I played.
I only just got around to playing and finishing FFXV this past month, in part due to your coverage of the game and reverence for what it does well. Thanks for that; it's because of your and others' praise for the game that I've been introduced to perhaps one of my new favorite games of all time. And while I disagree on certain thoughts from both your reviews- I didn't think the voice acting or performances bad at all, quite the contrary, and I thought the story as a whole was very good although definitely comparatively lacking in some respects- I can say the core takeaway from this vid in particular is one I can get behind and DO agree with. Namely, your sentiment more does not always equal better: despite all the bells and whistles we have now, the fact remains that FFXV both at launch and now is still a flawed experience whose gameplay and story beats are divisive and something many find varying enjoyment or disappointment in. The additions are equally divisive, with some thinking it "fixes" the game or "adds to the experience" whereas others consider it "not enough" and others still ~ such as myself~ don't care about them too much. The strength of the game remains as it ever was; the bonds between the characters and how those are gradually developed and displayed through story beats and gameplay alike. And while I liked the dramatic, apocalyptic story we got.... as you and others have said, it probably would have been perhaps a much better game if it had stuck to its guns and kept its focus on these characters and not on the "fate of the world'.
I just finished the core story a few days and I agree with you totally. I wish the story was overall a bit more interesting and coherent, though I did feel like there was a narrative throughout all the second half which was just the group getting through a lot of shit together. I felt like the first half which is entirely having fun, exploring, having your own adventure and seeing this group develop together really set up the second half which really affected me throughout. (Spoilers ahead) When Ignis loses his eyesight and everyone is upset at Noctis and you have to slowly walk your way around that dungeon and everytime you go too far ahead Gladio would yell at you and everyone was silent otherwise, that was so effective because of the first half. Then when everyone starts to get separated you really miss those characters. All the way up to the end with your final fight at the citadel I feel like there was such a massive pay off that is only as strong because of the adventure in the first half, when Noctis asks to go through all the photos and pick a single one to take with him, and then how the final shot is seeing that photo on the throne, I wanted to cry so much. xD So while the story was flawed as hell and I wish it was better, I'm glad that the relationship between the boys had a really effective and satisfying narrative to follow.
I understand your complaint abou the voice acting. I have something of a disdain for the practice of dubbing, so I always choose the original audio whenever I can. When FFX released on the PC the two years ago I found myself with the option to play it in the original Japanese, but I just couldn't. I wasn't used to the characters sounding that way and not even my inner weeb could make me appreciate the Japanese voices.
I like the looks of FFXV whenever I see it, but considering this was a title that took roughly a decade to release my expectations weren't high. Even for a modern game with high-end graphics, even for an RPG, there's no way the development cycle should be that long, and the fact that it was tells that there was a lot of writing and re-writing for the overall game. That said, Persona but with road trips instead of high school attendance sounds rad as fuck.
The game got tossed out or put on hiatus like two or three times. The XV that released started development in late 2013, so not too bad for about 3 years, but yeah there are significant problems due to the legacy. I think I heard that the main story was rewritten (in part) as late as the year the game came out?
RekiWylls yeah, that's pretty serious. It sucks because you should be able to associate long development cycles with a lot of polish, but generally the opposite seems to be true
It's really unfortunate that the games combat has such a low skill floor because the skill ceiling is vast and exciting! A quick search for FFXV combos showcases a level of combat so over the top and exciting that it puts many highly held anime fight scenes to shame! I believe that once master FFXV might have the greatest combat system in any videogame
Chris Duncan As someone who hasn't necessarily mastered the XV combat but is pretty deep into understanding how it works, XV combat is deeply and fundamentally flawed. I love it, as evidenced by the video guides I made for it, but it's not the greatest combat ever. With a handful of tweaks it could have been, though. The most basic problem is the lowest skill level that's effective is *very* effective, and there's not a ton of incentive to master the systems. I like doing combos and being stylish because it's fun, but it's not optimal--not by a long shot. Hard to incentivize mastery when mastery isn't as efficient. The second biggest problem is that for every system that was done right, there is another that was botched. Weapon swapping is awesome...the game tries to keep you on one/a couple weapons as much as possible with weapon weaknesses, swords/greatswords/spears being the only ones that can link strike, swords/spears being the only ones that can airstep, etc. Magic is OP...magic is boring to use. Etc.
Chris Duncan one the problem with this is making the royal arms drain your HP. It's one of the most unnecessary bad & flawed design. I am sure as hell would be much better if it just taking your max HP into certain percentage, depending from how many royal arms that you equipped. This isn't even including how armgier unleashed was released post-game launched a year after. The very thing that has been promoted in almost every cool action scenes from FFXV trailers.
Croz Raven RAs draining your health isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. Give Gladio the megaphone accessory and maybe put an HP regen accessory on Noctis and you'll be fine because HP drain and HP regen are both %-based. RAs get double the boost from strength and magic stat increases so you're not missing out there. AU is awesome, and I love how it references old trailers, but I don't think we've seen that kind of stuff since the E3 2013 trailer which would have been right before the last major reset on development.
RekiWylls it's not a big deal per se & quite manageable but still pretty annoying though when you're unnecessarily punished & it limit options in tactics.
This video makes me want a game about a road trip. Specifically about a road trip, I mean, not about typical JRPG fare with a road trip as a thematically dissonant framing device. I want a game that's all about a road trip, with all the stunning locations, thematic implications, and ridiculous shenanigans thereof. It could be really interesting to explore the typical road-trip themes of exploration, escaping responsibility, and finding yourself in video game format.
Okay, imagine this: the protagonist is the lead singer in one of those random bands that just kind of crop up when you're in high school. Their parents are okay with all this band crap, but they aren't really into it, and since protag is a pretty smart guy/gal (custom character?) they'd rather the protag go study something with more theoretically consistent income at university. The protagonist and their band are planning to hit the road the day after graduation, in mid-July, and spend the summer traveling in their band-van. Protag's parents offer something between a deal and an ultimatum: "You can travel around with your band for the summer, but we know you applied to university, we found the acceptance letter. Do whatever you want out on the road, we'll even give you access to your college fund to spend at your own risk, but if you don't show to orientation week in early September, we're cutting off your college fund and disowning you." Thus, the game is all about the protagonist and their band buddies hitting the road for two and a half months, getting into shenanigans and figuring themselves out, and eventually making the call on whether or not they're going home.
i agree that by the end of the day what you remameber about the game is the road trip and how much fun you add with your so called friends... but knowing what happened to these friends ( prompto origins, how ignis becomes blind,etc...) is a welcome addition i wich it had been in the game.. if these additions affect my relationship with the bros then yes i want to be a part of it. its not just about adding cinematics to the game. overall these addition don't really change the core experience you have with the game but it makes it more enjoyable, more complete, theres has been so much of them also. so can we really ignore them ? Ignis becomes blind and you have no idea how ? i'm not ok with that after all the time we've spent together no ! And what about ravus ?
Should I buy the dlc I love the base game, but disappointed in so much content as dlc instead of in the base game. I was wondering if it was worth the price
If you like the base game, you probably can't go wrong with the DLC. As far as bang for your buck goes, the multiplayer is probably the best (can be played single-player), but pick the Episode of your favourite bro and you should have a good time for $5. The Royal pack is a mini expansion for the base game so you might like that as well. Edit: I'm a big fan of XV as well and don't regret buying any of the DLC, for what it's worth. I know a lot of people don't feel the same though.
Just be aware you wont get much content out of them so if youre looking to spend 10 plus hours of new content in these dlcs dont bother the episodes are short but are they good and tie well to the main story? Yes. Yes they do so its up to you really i say if you can only buy one episode go with episode ardyn for sure its the best one and also holds the most content 3 to 4 hours
The problem with FFXIV for me was that the combat is piss easy. There was zero challenge you can (and I did) warp strike your way through every single encounter while you invincibly smash through the entire game without issue. Using the first weapon I found straight to the last boss. There was almost no character progression which made their journey and struggle feel pointless and wasted. Sure they put in a lot of time trying to build up these characters however without any difficulties and the lack of experience until you sleep which is only efficiently done in the best locations means I found myself being massively underleveled on purpose and still smashing my way through the game with zero challenge. There was no incentive to wander off or try a difficult side mission because well generally they weren't difficult and the rewards weren't helpful. Even monsters 30 levels above you who will 1 shot you can be beaten by using potions if you get caught in an animation and slowly warp striking your way to victory. They built a gorgeous world as always and wrote an unfortunately bad story which seems to be the trend since 12 came out. But they just removed what made the others enjoyable. The combat is a large portion of your time and removing the RPG combat system for a more Action oriented God of War style was dull, simple, and not what I'm after in a long journey. I want to use my brain and think and consider my options. I want to progress and improve and decide for a path for them to follow. Not one skill or ability felt even the slightest bit necessary or important and I was never enticed to care at all about character progression. Unfortunately many people rave about how great this is so similar to other series I have fond memories for it seems like open world exploration action style is most likely going to continue for the FF franchise. I hope we can hop back to a more RPG style system in the future but we'll see.
the latter parts are for character as well. you should get pissed off at noctis for being immature about his friends, you care about lunafreya not because she was a good character, but what she meant for noctis. the loneliness section hits home to noctis and the players how much the other boys were meaningful to the story and the game as a whole
I want to finally get into it as I only got as far as chapter 2 cause they kept adding stuff, but THEY STILL KEEP ADDING MORE THINGS LIKE CHAPTERS AND IT COSTS EXTRA TO GET EVERYTHING STILL. Someday I'll finally play and beat this game :'(
Same here buddy. I kinda wish they'd just move on lol. I figured I'd wait untill I could play the complete thing but this is is getting a bit ridiculous :p I wish I hadn't bought the game on release. I know theres always 'goty editions', 'complete editions' and whatever with added content but it usually isnt this substantial.
My problem is that I want to love the story. Through gameplay they nailed the 4 playable characters (yet for some reason they thought those were the ones that needed extra DLC screen time lol), but through the rest of the story, not one character felt fully developed; not even Ardyn. If there could just have been more time given to develop feelings for Luna (How about making her a party member early on?), then her story would have so much more impact. It's also criminal that King Regis played basically no role in the story outside setting up the basic situation. There was just so much potential for this story and these characters and it's really sad that they couldn't be fleshed out into a compelling narrative.
Yeah, I think you ARE willing to excuse a lot for these characters and the game. The fucking fact that you said that the combat serves as a vehicle to interpret a different side of the characters not explained through dialogue is mind-boggling, not only because there really isn't much to interpret (though I guess if you had the gall to say that the superficial "vignettes" of exploration border on a character study, this claim isn't THAT surprising) but because this also means you justify the abysmal combat; again, this is understandable, given that you enjoy XV's very passive atmosphere. The main four do feel like friends, but the lengths some are willing to go for Noctis are outright ridiculous since nothing either in the game, anime or movie justifies such loyalty; yes, they feel like friends, but not friends that would die for one another. Don't get me wrong, I think there was great potential for nearly everything in the game, from the characters and combat to the plot and lore. But I think the final product is lacking, and what's really telling about that is the fact that Nier Automata's weapon story on the Engine Blade evokes more pathos than anything in the XV compendium.
It would feel extremely underwhelming to have FFXV to be just a road trip with friends. I don't think the characters are strong enough to do hold it together and this Final Fantasy. Every villain has been grand, the enemies epic. The plot devices unreal. You kill gods, interdimensional beings. Worlds are threatened, worlds get destroyed, worlds merge, you go to space. A road trip just feels really scaled down. And I get that bigger is not better, but neither is smaller. The villains as last minute as they are And I don't think it's even the best character focus in the series. VI had a lot of that. It wasn't equal but the ones that were important we're great. And I think FFXV highlights how westernized the series has become. Not because of the action or the open world because melee action games have always been Japan's thing. The west has never put out any good melee action games let alone a good melee action RPG and no, Dark Souls is a JRPG. But because of the story. In any other Final Fantasy you would kill the King of Light. In this game you become the King of Light. And before anyone mentions Lightning Returns, Lightning did not become the Goddess of Death and the party takes down god. Final Fantasy should stick to what it does best. Villains becoming gods and eldrich beings and mortals killing said beings. But I do think that moments like down time and casual banter and party interaction are important. Square RPGs, except the SaGa games, have always followed the formula, relatively linear then open end game before the final dungeon. Some are more open than others and some have way more to do than others and some give you more to do between story events. But that's mostly it's formula. I really have very few good things to say about the combat. It came out a few months before Automata, who turned action game mechanics into an RPG and Nioh, which may be have the best ARPG combat in a while. And it came out after Lightning Returns. Watch a combo video of that game and it'll have you juggling dragons and giants and doing perfect parries and dodges into launches and air combos. Watch a combo video of this game and I don't even know if you can launch enemies. It's certainly bigger in scale and the atmosphere is definitely epic. I love the monsters in this game and some of them are the kind that I love from the series but hits feel terrible and the camera is more interested in saying look at how big our monsters are then fighting this big monster. Shadow of the Colossus showed us how to fight big monsters. This game feels like your're hitting feet and fighting the camera most of the time and I hate fighting the camera. I've never had to do that since DMC.
Final Fantasy XV and masterpiece don't belong in the same sentence. I can go on a huge rant on why I was robbed of my $80 CAD on a game that's not even complete, a mess of a story, undeveloped , uninteresting characters, they force you to watch an anime and a movie instead of actually playing the game to understand story, majority of the missions are boring fetch quests, a combat system that was catered to casuals, that takes no skill to win, all you have to do is press O and not to mention a mess of a development, but no it would be wasting my time. Tabata wanted to sell this game as a service and he's doing it. How anyone can defend this garbage, yet call this a masterpiece is ludicrous 😂
Chris Sukam well to be fair opinions are opinions and don't need justification although Hamish Black did give his reasoning. Personally I really like the game, probably one of my favourite JRPGs, it feels like a lot of things shouldn't work but it does and does really well. I can't remember the last group of characters I cared about more than those 4.
For me it's "gameplay first"! I can look past a unfinished/boring story if the gameplay is nice. Holding Attack/Dodge wasn't really that ... I mean... what's that supposed to be? It feels easy, but somehow those level47 enemies could two-shot me when I was on level 80. The balancing stats-wise and animation-wise was way off. I played all the Souls games, and this one felt way harder to me. Never before did I have to use my item menu more often in any game... Also the fact that the game had all those typical open-world-immersive-braking-behaviours just made it worse... Ignis "we have to rest and stock up on supplies" me "okay, let's park overe there" Ignis "there is no time for resting now!" (stuff like that happened constantly to me) I played it right after release for that super expenive Ultimate CE (which didn't inlcude the Season Pass!). Never touched it since. Yes, I'm butthurt.
I played from the start with Japanese audio, and imo it was a far better experience, I've switched over to English and while I will admit that the lip syncing on both languages is very impressive, there were so many moments in the English dub where, the audio would not match the body language or motions at all, leading it feeling completely disconnected from anything on screen, almost like I could see the voice actor in a booth. Not to mention how stilted and awkward the English dub was. I don't hate all English audio either, Kingsglaive had some of the best English voice acting I've ever heard and imo is the preferred way to watch the film, but it was originally conceptualized and created to be in English. It had superb voice acting, but unfortunately that didn't carry over to the localized english version of FFXV, but thats understandable and expected consindering it was a feature film and originally mocapd and voiced for English audiences. Imo the best way to experience FF15 is with the original Japanese audio, as the voices fit the body language a lot more and imo just for me at least, are the true and intended versions of each character, that have been planed for multiple years, and never lost sight of even through all the changes with this title, which in my opinion is impressive. But to each their own it's one of my favorite games none the less.
better for its flaws? like having to pay a hundred extra bucks after buying the physical game in order to play the whole story? the giant, empty world? the button mashing combat system?
I get triggered whenever I see someone even mention XV and the word "Flawless" together as I find the 2 have nothing in common. FFXV (imo) is one of the most hollow Jrpgs I ever played and the amount of love and defending this game gets will forever baffle me. Square was too busy pushing endorsement deals, advertisements, Mobile games, anime, movies a FUCKING CAR rather then just focusing on finishing the fucking game. XV is a bland jrpg with an empty open world souly there just to appeal to a specific target of gamers who don't even play Jrpgs anyway with the most uninteresting and bland cast, blatantly unfinished story, and biggest dlc scam on par with anything EA has done. I used to think that square simply ran out of time but then I got to the gladiolus dlc. I'm sorry but this shit was all planned to be a cash cow. I'll never understand why people were so hard on XIII but have practically nothing to say about XV. I'm not gonna act like XIII was a perfect cause it certainly wasn't but at the end of the day it was a Jrpg and not a game trying to appeal to a bunch of people who don't even care for Jrpgs. Say what you will about the hallways but EVERY hallway you run down through in XIII MATTERS to the story! Each complete with beautiful backgrounds and locales complete with an amazing score. XV you run on a highway for 30hrs in a mountin like setting "oooh so epic" every second crazy shit was happening in XIII that progressed the story by giving world building, character development ext. XV just has you running around for 30hrs doing the most mondane thing for no reward. XV fucking gets away with murder and fucking pains me whenever I see stuff like this. If you want an example of a GOOD Jrpg give a shout out to xenoblade chronicles 2 and loving developers behind it monolithsoft and how much they still actually CARE about the genre.
GreySolidusSnake The thumbnail says "flawed" so...you alright there? I like XV but I don't have much to say about XIII even though I wasn't a fan. I'm *really* not a fan of XB2 (talk about paint by numbers and riding the coat-tails of a previous entry), but I let people who liked that game be. Do want to say that the people doing the PR/endorsements, the people doing the anime, the people doing the movie, and the people doing the game were all different. Don't know what that has to do with each other.
GreySolidusSnake Where have you been? FFXV gets shit on A LOT and even most fans of the game will acknowledge that the story and pacing was pretty bad. I mean just take a look at the comments on this video haha.
RekiWylls A bit of context for Xenoblade 2. Xenoblade was originally not going to be released outside of Japan, but due to fan demand with Operation Rainfall, they reluctantly allowed Nintendo of Europe to localize the game in English. Xenoblade was far more popular in the West than they expected, so they developed a spiritual successor, Xenoblade X, which is meant to appeal to a Western audience which also allowed Monolith Soft to experiment with online and open world designs. As a result, the story suffered for it and fans of the original were disappointed. Xenoblade 2 is a game developed on the same engine as X with the same design philosophy as the original game to please the fans that supported the series prior to X. The European localization and the ending of the game is evidence that points to that. In addition, the game was developed by 40 of their members, while the rest were working on other Nintendo projects like Breath of the Wild. They had to outsource character designs as a result. You could consider this game riding on the coat-tails of the original, but I disagree. The story and tone of the game is different than the original. The gameplay is also quite different and, in my opinion, superior to the original and X. Takahashi, the creator of the Xeno franchise, has stated that he likes creating new ways of battling for each of the entries, which is why every Xeno game has a different combat style, while using some elements from previous games. The story of Xenoblade 2 stands well on its own without any context from the original, but it is made better if you did play the original.
Anyway, this is a Final Fantasy video. I only played the first chapter of FFXV on my cousin's copy of the game. I am not a fan of the fact they cut out a huge portion of the game and made it a movie. It made me not want to be invested into the game if I am required to use outside materials to understand what's happening. I never had an interest to buy the game and continue the story. The combat was interesting but didn't quite hook me. After all the negative press the game has received, coupled by the fact I'm not all that invested in the Final Fantasy franchise, I decided to pass on the game. With the Royal Edition, I am more inclined to try it out with all the DLC and extra content to actually tell a complete story rather than how it was when it was released.
Honestly I kinda wish they dumped a lot of the weird political/story stuff, and just had a more simple tale of the boys going on a weird road trip to get noctis hitched
I wouldn't call a minimally told story incomplete. By the end the main antagonist died and the character arcs were over. Call it what you want, but "incomplete" just doesn't describe it.
aklilub gtfo with this bullshit. You can't say, for example, Devil May Cry 3 is bad objectively, you just can't, almost every aspect of it was done with care and talent, everything clicks and works as intended. It truly is a masterpiece, and is considered to be one of the greatest action games of all time. You know what's subjective? Your experience with it. FF15 has some awfully glaring issues: the combat is a fucking mess, the story leaves a giant plot hole so you have to watch the movie, side quests are nothing but collecting things or killing things, Yakuza games have better side quests than a game made by Square Enix. The second half of the game was so bad that they had to redo some chapters and PATCH CUTSCENES IN. Yeah, nowhere near a masterpiece.
I agree. 'Flawed Masterpiece' is a term I would use for Dark Souls 1, a game that is a masterpiece in many regards but has just enough minor and major flaws that they can't be overlooked. DMC3 only has a few small problems for what it is and they are so few and of minimal consequence your likely not to notice them unless you go looking and they're never enough to diminish your overall experience. FF15 however, has enormous potential but is constantly dragged down by serious problems. The game is stylish, has bucket loads of heart and a fantastic soundtrack but that's not nearly enough to make up for all of its shortcomings. I can certainly see how someone can forgive many of the issues they have with the game to enjoy their overall experience (I certainly enjoyed FF15 but it did require an attitude shift in order to do so), but if you have to consciously commit to forgiving those issues than it can't be a masterpiece.
Chance Kimber what? You've never seen garbage story and characters in your life. I'm not in the mood to argue, but I'll just say this: if the characters are garbage, then how come Vergil is one of the most iconic rival characters in videogames?
I feel like for every flaw in this game, Hammish is coming up with ways to explain away the mess. The repetitive boring gameplay and sidemissions were terrible. The story was a mess, but I still thought the game was a 7/10 because of things other than the gameplay, like the characters and music. The graphics were amazing but the game has little substance in the actual "game".
It was an reasonable ok open world game. it was a meh FF game. The moments that conveyed a real FF feel could be counted on a single hand. Environments were nice, but not fantastical enough nor did it invoke a sense of wonder. Combat and character customization was horribly simplistic even for FF standards. The comrades mode was indeed repetitive, shallow and dull. It wasn't as bad a FF13, but it sure isn't top tier FF game either. It is just...decent. There are too many blemishes and flaws and felt too mundane for an FF game.
I hope Square's next big games arent as terrible, incomplete, with terrible side quest, and more like this. Also the fact people would defend this game makes this is even more sad
I was bored of the game. Combat was too simplistic and world felt hollow, the side quests only seemed like kill and fetch quests, bad main story with so many plot-holes, etc so I uninstalled the game after playing 2 -3 hrs
Flawed masterpiece? No. Just... no. Remove all the fancy presentation, and FFXV is just nothing more than a grab-bag of flawed ideas, botched executions and unfinished thoughts.
Bodwaizer I liked it, the gameplay and progression system was good imo. Of course the game will have fancy presentation, it is a 2016 release, you cant argue hypotheticals when seeing if a game is bad. The game does have those features so it can rely on them to enhance the game.
Masterpiece? My goodness no. This game doesn't rise above middling for the series, and is nowhere near genuine masterpieces of the genre. That you liked an overpriced, unfinished game on release just means you have a higher tolerance of this scummy business practice than most.
XV> I,II,VII,VII,XIII, and all the MMO ones, I only played the re release and had an amazing time and really grew to love the entire edgy boy band, but the story was ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
BeThomsen Yes I mean general. I didnt like even one of the english cast voices, i am glad to be able to play in japanese, otherwhise i woulda stopped playing a long time ago.
See, I got it from the opposite. I hated Noctis and his party, and oh my god, can I please punch Gladious in the face? He's the worst of the bunch. Prompto is a annoying man-child, and Ignis is a pompous dullard who's sole character development revolves around... that thing that happens after the water area. I personally loved the games world, the story within it, and the main antagonist, it's just the characters I was playing was the fault. Give me another perspective, make a FF15-2, and I'd likely play it, give me the opportunity to kill/punch Gladious and I'll love it.
they weren't imperfections, they were part of the framing, the game portrayed a scenario and the failure to see the game through the lens it presented is a failure of the player, not an imperfection of the game
If you think the combat was simply holding down the attack button, then that's on you. The onus on finding out the mechanics should've ALSO been on you. You'd be surprised how there's actually more to it then simply holding down the 2 buttons (square and circle).
joethetimelord - And than FFXVI will become the worst possible FF ever made and can not even hold a candle to FFXV. And before you know it FFXV is all of the sudden an classic masterpiece and FFXVI should have been like that. It's completely predictable.... ;-).
I don't have to its my opinion. Bad gameplay with a good story is unplayable while the inverse is playable. Also no story with good gameplay is completely fine. Souls franchise for example. They have no story but plenty of lore should you choose to care. Another is nintendo games, most have no story. I think all of that everyone can agree on. On stories in games being bad i'll take it even a step further and say plot/story focused stuff is bad.
I know what I did. It's not that big a deal. All you are stating is that a good story with bad gameplay isn't playable, but what if the game has both? You aren't really providing a good example. You can't just make a bold statement like that and not expect people to want an explanation of your opinion, especially on a channel like this.
![[OLD] Final Fantasy XV Review: A Flawed but Criminally Underrated Experience](/img/n.gif)
The few times Noctis addresses how important his friends are to him were such surprising tender moments for me, it made the weird adventure it put me through so worth it.
You guys... are the best.
It's always surprising how voices stick with us once we get use to them. I remember playing InFamous 1 and 2 in French, and then maybe a year or two ago, I felt like playing them again, and I was like "I should play these in English this time, to get the real vibe from the voice actors" and stuff like that. But I couldn't, because after some time in the game, even though I was telling myself "that's the original voices, stick with it", I just didn't know these guys, and the voices just felt off.
Works the same the other way around, I played through The Last of Us countless times in English, but now even if people keep saying that the French dub is pretty damn solid, I just can't hear the French voices, they won't fit.
The whole game would have been supremely better off for just sticking with the road trip setup and proceeding to be a more outlandish take on the series. Ditching prophecy, the grandeur and a large scale story would have made for a much more closely-knit game in my view as the best parts of the game are simply the ones you experience as you are playing and spending time with your 3 friends and whoever else may tag along like Iris and Cor occasionally. The game is made by its characters and each facet that is bad in a vacuum (like the combat and the tedious driving or side quests) are made that much more tolerable and enjoyable as a result of the chemistry and personality they have on display. Great analysis as always Hamish!
Weighty
I wholeheartedly agree with this. My favourite part of the game was the first half, with the whole road trip vibe that was going on. I wanted more of that, and oddly enough I wasn’t all that invested in the Evil Empire storyline. I just wanted more of the group interacting with each other.
Seriously, the story was weak and unfocused when they had a perfect story premise right there. It's baffling that they felt they had to do the tired, worn out grandiose nonsense. It's things like that and having giant holes in the story (that would've been in there by default in previous games) fixed by selling you DLC.
I'm kinda curious but how would you guys carry out the rest of the game if it was just a road trip?
Ditch the Evil Empire storyline entirely, or reduce the focus on it severely. Instead, make the game much more about taking Noctis to Lunafreya, and flesh that out to be the main journey. Make it a simpler tale, about four pals just driving forward through the world and pushing past whatever challenges they find in their way. You could give Noct a bit more character by having him question whether or not he wants to marry Luna, who the player barely knows a damn thing about, and maybe even offer a choice of whether or not Noctis actually makes it to the wedding. Even better, give The Boys goals of their own, and more of a life outside of Noctis, instead of solely existing to carry Noctis forward to the finish line, and don't wait until the DLC to explain why they gave enough of a shit about him to come along.
Well all that really matters from a narrative perspective is Ardyn and his motivation. During the Altissia section the story could be changed to a 'find Ardyn' mystery where the chocobros have to drive around (probably a second map) searching for his whereabouts which ultimately leads back to something like the current ending. Basically removing the train bit and all of the extra locations they visit from there on and putting the boys back on the road in a new area, and bringing down Noctis' flip out over the death of a character we've spent about 15 minutes of total time with.
Just a 5 minute idea.
The English dub had a sense of novelty to it, simply because I had heard these Japanese voices so many times before. It helped that I was wholly unaware of who the English dub VAs were.
As for the story, it requires some connecting of the dots, and one definitely needs to have the movie and the webseries. But once it makes sense though, it's fantastic. It makes the ending hit that much harder. The two main pieces of the game's music, Somnus and Stand by Me, represent the two most important aspects of Noctis' life and the way they're used is just incredible.
Mostly agree, although I think the story is fine. Many people say it’s bad, but I think it’s just somewhat poorly told with a lot of stuff missing. What is there I thought was pretty good with some great moments. It’s an unfinished masterpiece for me, and I greatly welcome all of the new additions. Also, I think the English is great. Gladio can be a bit rough, but aside from that I think everyone brought their A game. I seem to be in the minority judging by the comments, but I don’t really care.
Also I find it super interesting how some people hate the driving and some people are fine with it. It makes sense to me that a lot of people hate that there's no fast travel but even after 60 hours and the boys don't even really talk anymore, I never skip the driving portions and just let Ignis drive us around, its so fun just being in that world and experiencing the sights and just listening to music.
(Also the regalia type D is fucking awesome and feels so nice to drive every now and then tho I do prefer the standard regalia)
WHATEVER ELSE I AM WATCHING DOESNT MATTER WHEN I SEE THE "WRITING ON GAMES" NOTIFICATION
Fardeen Haider Agreed
The story is pretty bad, yes, but the character arcs in the second half of the game are great. Ardyn has become one of my favorite villains, Ignis strugling with his blindness during episode 10 was heartbreaking and the final scene after the credits had me crying.
Grim1952 did you play it with dlcs?
Yeah, i loved Prompto's and Ignis'
The base gsme without any Expensions did a very poor job with ardyn etc. :/
The DLC doesn't expand so much about Ardyin though. Episode 11 already cements him as a villain and he gets a lot of constant development all the way through to the end of the game.
The dlc only expands on him at the last 5 minutes of episode Ignis.
I wouldn't say bad. Just unfocused. I personally love the story but it is pretty slow the first few hours..
I legitimately enjoy the larger story, if only because to me, it highlighted the idea that there were things going on beyond your control, and that you're just a small group of friends.
The lack of understanding and care I felt for those scenes is how I imagined Noctis and friends feeling.
Buuuut that all breaks down when it comes to him reacting to Luna
I have a genuine soft spot for this game. One of my favorites of all time and you put it perfectly now I realize it’s exactly how I’ve felt about it this whole time.
This game is a masterpiece. Some pacing issues, but it's amazing.
Story was awful though. I gave no fucks about Lunafreyas "sad scene." I heard her like twice previous to that.
dude, the contrast of the light hearted roadtrip with friends, paired with the almost apocalypse now - like descent into hell of the main story is what i loved so much
There were two Final Fantasy Games which I enjoyed enough to play them through and finish them. Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Tactics. For me these are the best franchise installments.
I hated the jump discontinuity in the plot that happened _( what felt like halfway through but was actually)_ 2/3 the way through the game.
Since so much of the game was all about "the journey" and not the "destination" they should've heavily emphasized this as their core message. The villain should've been a metaphor for living in the future and neglecting the present, thus not "enjoying the moment". Lunafreya, the oracle/love interest should've been Noctis's mentor of this message, they always knew they were gonna sacrifice themselves to fulfill their destinies, why not have them learn how to live to the fullest? Anyway, there were missed opportunities, but this was still a good game.
Honestly, I really like the story. I also like the story of mgsv and Breath of the wild, and all of those games are new installments to iconic franchises that became open world though the story of those games were poorly received.
I’m loving games now I’m starting to understand the ins and outs of them with my course.
I love FF15.
I love the "new edition with all previous dlc included BUT more dlc to come" model...
The voice acting was pretty good...
Only the Cup Noodle stuff... ufff the voice acting on that part was something else... Its like the VA made it seem like Gladio was dying inside while doing it
“Its not a story that needed more what it needed was focus.” this comment is a bit late but that quote sums up a lot of how i feel about the game, as does the rest of the video, both negative feelings and positive. I have a strong love/hate relationship with final fantasy 15, it managing to hold my interest and emotions for longer than any other singular game, and introducing me to the rest of the series that I am playing through currently and thoroughly enjoying. On the other hand, i have constant frustrations about what couldve been with this game, had it a more clearer vision and story/character focus (instead of trying to do too much and failing by stretching its resources thin, like you said “more doesnt mean better).
But somehow, despite all the glaring flaws of the game i love it and have more of an emotional attachment to my 96+ hour game file than to many other games I’ve played that are objectively much better and focused. I quickly grew to love these characters and how human they seemed because of their flaws and goofy interactions, which is probably why this game ended up stealing my heart, and why I’ll be here for the long run until the dlcs wrap up in 2019
(Will say that Episode Prompto and Ignis were great additions tho, along with some parts of the royal edition. Those two character episodes give a lot of much needed context and help give more insight into those individual characters, and the Lucii boss fights are now my favorites in the game along with aranea’s, their designs are beautiful and the fights are truly exhilarating even when I was 30+ levels above the boss.)
I thought you would mention something about the DLC episodes that added so much to the story of the characters that you seem to love so much. Did you play them?
I miss Squaresoft.
60fps is a nice edition
I agree completely. The game was the road trip, and about the four under taking it. It is the journey and relationships that hold up the game, not the story or the world's lore.
I really hope the upcoming DLCs expand the road-trip approach onto the Niflheim continent. So you can either drive to your next destination or get the train. Would improve the pacing and enjoyment of the game sooo much.
When I was a kid, I played uncharted 3, and I loved it because it was dubbed in Portuguese (I couldn’t understand English at that time) . When I played the other uncharted games, I had already learned how to speak English but I still missed the brazilian version.
One thing I'd like to add in regards of the English voices: the voice acting itself is horrendous, but the English banter is sooo much better than the Japanese.
Whenever possible, I usually play all my Japanese games with the original audio and text, this time however some friends were watching me play, so I turned on the English subtitles. While the Japanese voices are superb (being provided by an all-star VA cast, that's not really surprising), the dialogue itself between the four boys is some of the most generic I've heard in a while. The localized dialogue has much more character and humor, and I can definitely understand why some people feel attached to it.
Final Fantasy XV and the word "masterpiece" can't walk on the same path, one is far away from each other.
FFXV is fascinating because so many things can go into influencing your perspective on it. Anything from which patch you ran through Chapter 13 with, if you saw the tie in movies (and then found the small side-quests that tie in to them), if you played any of the DLC, etc. I personally loved the story, and felt that the back half of game played into the character's relationship in a meaningful way, with some small payoffs from the Brotherhood anime. Granted, that same anime made me view Ignis and Gladio not as Noctis' friends tagging along in a bachelor party gone horribly wrong, but chaperones who are there more out of a sense of loyalty to King Regis than any friendship with Noctis. Of course, my favorite thing about the game is how the characters grow together in friendship, this emo boyband is probably my all time favorite RPG party.
Punch Party The anime made you think Ignis and Gladio were sticking with Noctis in service to Regis over their friendship? Weird, that's the opposite of what I was getting, and what it seems like the writers were intending. Gladio, maybe, but Ignis is incredibly over-protective of Noctis and almost maternal. Did you keep feeling that way throughout the game or only at the outset?
It was only at the begging, over the course of the adventure I could feel their bond getting closer, and it really crystallized in the world of Darkness when Noctis' finally returns and learns about what the Gang had been up to in his absence.
*its midnight* oh hey, a new writing on games!
I actually really liked this game and still do. It’s has plenty of flaws but it manages to endear itself to me regardless. I love the focus on the more human aspects of the characters and the bond they share as friends. I found it tragic that Noctis had to sacrifice himself at the end to save Eos from the Starscourge and he would never be able to see his friends again. It led to a wonderfully poignant ending. I also liked the battle system. It wasn’t ATB but it was a nice update for the series. It was exciting and fun. It was a vast improvement over whatever they did with 13’s system that was clunky and lackluster.
7:00 tfw you realize you shouldn’t be watching youtube videos at 3am but still do coz no self control
I’m not saying I’m a crazy purist like some FF fans, but a lot of this game just doesn’t feel final fantasy to me.
I don’t necessarily miss the turn based combat but I do miss the complexity of it. When I’m fighting a boss I love the feeling that I have to throw everything that I have learned over an 80 hour game just to beat it when I could literally beat the 2 final bosses of this game with a single button.
I also miss the “fantasy” aspect of it, I really like Altissia but besides that the rest of the world just feels normal to me. Like something I could find in the real world.
altissia looks 100% real thought. it's just the only european-looking city in an otherwise america-inspired world
random guy I know Altissa is just fancy Italy but it still looks the most like a final fantasy location than everything else
A Black Screen too bad Altissa area is underdeveloped. It's as small as a soccer field. A midtown village in Witcher 3 map is probably bigger & have more things to offers.
Its my first FF game got it last month royal edition for 25bucks loved it got my moneys worth flaws are to be expected for any game so its flaws didnt surprise me what matters is its the game enjoyable or not and yes it certainly is a game cant be bad if its fun to play thats the bottom line
My main issue with the game is that, aside from the bromance and road trip elements, it doesn’t have much going for it. Ardyn was a pretty interesting villain, but I wasn’t all that intrigued to the point where I wanted to know more about him. The relationship between Nocturnal and Luna wasn’t presented all that well either. When her dog came to bring you the notebook, they could’ve shown how she responded to what you wrote in a cutscene or something.
Every time you feel like being a part of the Final Fantasy fanbase, just read any of these lovely UA-cam comments about the latest installment of the franchise telling everyone to have the same negative opinion of it before and after release. Your shame for sharing a fandom with these people will come back instantly.
Anime is Trash Remember that 9 and 8 were considered bad on release by the fanbase. 15ll only be bad until 16 comes out.
Anime is Trash none of that disputes what I said. Plenty of fans hated 9 and 8 and now they're appreciated. Even 13's getting a fanbase.
Anime is Trash You misunderstand. I'm talking about within two years after release.
You've gotta calm down, pal. You're proving me right about how insufferable FF's fanbase is.
One more thing. Critics are gonna love anything with a budget. I'm talking about actual player reactions.
Now. Not on release.
I did the opposite in terms of language; played in Japanese first, and tried to play in English later before getting weirded out and changing it back. The difference was that the Japanese dialog never sounded unnatural to begin with. What's also interesting are the quirks in translation, such as how Japanese generally doesn't utilize sarcasm, while English does, and FF15's English writing sprinkles in sarcasm where there was none in the source material. My general experience with almost all game translations these days is that they are too liberal with the changes, resulting in characters with entirely different personalities depending on the language.
Have you done the dungeon Pitioss? It is the best reason to use the flying regalia
So like bad but you liked it
it really is a flawed masterpiece. it wasn't finished. there are characters that were handled poorly like luna and her brother. also the king. cor. i don't wanna play it a second time. but i liked it. i can really say that the time i spend playing this game was worth it. because i enjoyed it. i am glad i played this game.
This pretty much mirrors my feelings of the game. There's so much to criticise, and rightly so, but I still really enjoyed the game. I think the combat does get too much flack. Like you said, it may be simple, but it does have a nice rhythm and flow to it. I've never liked turn-based JRPG battle systems, and usually I hate the hybrid systems even more. This is the only one of those I've liked, perhaps because it's way closer a straight-up action system than anything else, even if it doesn't technically qualify as one 100%. But it was fun. I liked teleporting and floating around, dashing from enemy to enemy, and I feel like it had a pretty good feeling of impact, despite you just holding down the attack button to hit.
I've yet to return to the game though, despite feeling the urge. I want the PC version, but my PC isn't really up to it. Not if I want to actually make the most of that version, which would be the whole point of picking it up in the first place. I need a new graphics card fist. But thanks to crypto miners, that doesn't seem like it's happening any time soon. So thanks, you greedy, selfish, wasteful fucks.
I think you may be giving the team a bit much credit. The focus didn’t need to be taken away from the guys to focus more on the plot it just had to connect the characters to it. People will say the DLC does that but it actually doesn’t. Everything that happens in the DLC is only what happens AFTER what was already established. It only takes place AFTER Gladio leaves, or AFTER Prompto is kidnapped, and AFTER the attack on Altissia. Now people will say that it makes sense because they’re explaining it with more events. It's actually adding extra events that require even more explanation. It still has to lead to these events. LEAD as in SET UP, progress towards, building up to be a etc.
I’m not implying that you’re defending this game. I’m saying that while you explain the matter of this game, if you keep addressing what is ( quite honestly already obvious ) fine with the game, they won’t fix it because when you say it meant this ‘TO ME’, it implies to them that what they are doing is not broken, and that’s all they’ll focus on.
The traveling system in this game so far is the worst that I've ever experienced in recent memories. Loading screen would probably become half of you play time. The most annoying part is that it could be way way better with such a simple fixes & changes. Regalia Type-F as of now is pretty much the most useless end game upgrade. What they should do are double or triple the speed & make actual "freedom" driving, where you can drop down instantly easy anywhere on the map (like those magitek ship btw), no more crash insta-death. Most of the side quests are bad for a world building, basically a bunch of mmo type shenanigans (maybe I am just too spoiled by Witcher 3 LOL). The story clearly simplified way too much especially after the info that we got from recent leaks. Umbra & time travel system is underdeveloped, it would be such an amazing concept if you could have changing timeline quests or dream experiences into somebody's past life to fleshed out more about the lore. Instead is just a way to play end game experiences ...
The combat ... oh man ... it's average for an action oriented & sometime totally clusterfuck, while for strategy/tactics rpg is just mediocre. At least armgier unleashed exist as of now, the very thing that has been promoted in almost every cool actions from FFXV "trailers," while changing characters is somewhat enjoyable but not enough for a precision in tactics.
Croz Raven what are you talking about? I hardly experience any load time. So that is very false on your part. I can keep on going, but that would be pointless
ExDEATH fast travelling from walk is unnecessary restricted to rest point & return to car. This makes backtracking tedious as hell. The loading time itself is mostly quite long even for open world game. Compare this to other open world game ACO or Witcher 3, you can fast travel in any FT points. Same thing with Watch Dogs 2 for modern world comparison while your car or vehicle could be simply delivered easily if you want to used it or left it the way it is. This is why I am talking about many loading screens. I've never felt this frustration in any open world game that I played.
I only just got around to playing and finishing FFXV this past month, in part due to your coverage of the game and reverence for what it does well. Thanks for that; it's because of your and others' praise for the game that I've been introduced to perhaps one of my new favorite games of all time.
And while I disagree on certain thoughts from both your reviews- I didn't think the voice acting or performances bad at all, quite the contrary, and I thought the story as a whole was very good although definitely comparatively lacking in some respects- I can say the core takeaway from this vid in particular is one I can get behind and DO agree with.
Namely, your sentiment more does not always equal better: despite all the bells and whistles we have now, the fact remains that FFXV both at launch and now is still a flawed experience whose gameplay and story beats are divisive and something many find varying enjoyment or disappointment in. The additions are equally divisive, with some thinking it "fixes" the game or "adds to the experience" whereas others consider it "not enough" and others still ~ such as myself~ don't care about them too much.
The strength of the game remains as it ever was; the bonds between the characters and how those are gradually developed and displayed through story beats and gameplay alike. And while I liked the dramatic, apocalyptic story we got.... as you and others have said, it probably would have been perhaps a much better game if it had stuck to its guns and kept its focus on these characters and not on the "fate of the world'.
I just finished the core story a few days and I agree with you totally. I wish the story was overall a bit more interesting and coherent, though I did feel like there was a narrative throughout all the second half which was just the group getting through a lot of shit together. I felt like the first half which is entirely having fun, exploring, having your own adventure and seeing this group develop together really set up the second half which really affected me throughout. (Spoilers ahead)
When Ignis loses his eyesight and everyone is upset at Noctis and you have to slowly walk your way around that dungeon and everytime you go too far ahead Gladio would yell at you and everyone was silent otherwise, that was so effective because of the first half. Then when everyone starts to get separated you really miss those characters.
All the way up to the end with your final fight at the citadel I feel like there was such a massive pay off that is only as strong because of the adventure in the first half, when Noctis asks to go through all the photos and pick a single one to take with him, and then how the final shot is seeing that photo on the throne, I wanted to cry so much. xD
So while the story was flawed as hell and I wish it was better, I'm glad that the relationship between the boys had a really effective and satisfying narrative to follow.
I understand your complaint abou the voice acting. I have something of a disdain for the practice of dubbing, so I always choose the original audio whenever I can. When FFX released on the PC the two years ago I found myself with the option to play it in the original Japanese, but I just couldn't. I wasn't used to the characters sounding that way and not even my inner weeb could make me appreciate the Japanese voices.
I like the looks of FFXV whenever I see it, but considering this was a title that took roughly a decade to release my expectations weren't high. Even for a modern game with high-end graphics, even for an RPG, there's no way the development cycle should be that long, and the fact that it was tells that there was a lot of writing and re-writing for the overall game.
That said, Persona but with road trips instead of high school attendance sounds rad as fuck.
The game got tossed out or put on hiatus like two or three times. The XV that released started development in late 2013, so not too bad for about 3 years, but yeah there are significant problems due to the legacy. I think I heard that the main story was rewritten (in part) as late as the year the game came out?
RekiWylls yeah, that's pretty serious. It sucks because you should be able to associate long development cycles with a lot of polish, but generally the opposite seems to be true
What do you think of the kings of yore boss battle Hemish?
It's really unfortunate that the games combat has such a low skill floor because the skill ceiling is vast and exciting! A quick search for FFXV combos showcases a level of combat so over the top and exciting that it puts many highly held anime fight scenes to shame! I believe that once master FFXV might have the greatest combat system in any videogame
Chris Duncan As someone who hasn't necessarily mastered the XV combat but is pretty deep into understanding how it works, XV combat is deeply and fundamentally flawed. I love it, as evidenced by the video guides I made for it, but it's not the greatest combat ever. With a handful of tweaks it could have been, though.
The most basic problem is the lowest skill level that's effective is *very* effective, and there's not a ton of incentive to master the systems. I like doing combos and being stylish because it's fun, but it's not optimal--not by a long shot. Hard to incentivize mastery when mastery isn't as efficient.
The second biggest problem is that for every system that was done right, there is another that was botched. Weapon swapping is awesome...the game tries to keep you on one/a couple weapons as much as possible with weapon weaknesses, swords/greatswords/spears being the only ones that can link strike, swords/spears being the only ones that can airstep, etc. Magic is OP...magic is boring to use. Etc.
Chris Duncan one the problem with this is making the royal arms drain your HP. It's one of the most unnecessary bad & flawed design. I am sure as hell would be much better if it just taking your max HP into certain percentage, depending from how many royal arms that you equipped. This isn't even including how armgier unleashed was released post-game launched a year after. The very thing that has been promoted in almost every cool action scenes from FFXV trailers.
Croz Raven RAs draining your health isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. Give Gladio the megaphone accessory and maybe put an HP regen accessory on Noctis and you'll be fine because HP drain and HP regen are both %-based. RAs get double the boost from strength and magic stat increases so you're not missing out there.
AU is awesome, and I love how it references old trailers, but I don't think we've seen that kind of stuff since the E3 2013 trailer which would have been right before the last major reset on development.
RekiWylls it's not a big deal per se & quite manageable but still pretty annoying though when you're unnecessarily punished & it limit options in tactics.
This video makes me want a game about a road trip. Specifically about a road trip, I mean, not about typical JRPG fare with a road trip as a thematically dissonant framing device.
I want a game that's all about a road trip, with all the stunning locations, thematic implications, and ridiculous shenanigans thereof. It could be really interesting to explore the typical road-trip themes of exploration, escaping responsibility, and finding yourself in video game format.
Okay, imagine this: the protagonist is the lead singer in one of those random bands that just kind of crop up when you're in high school. Their parents are okay with all this band crap, but they aren't really into it, and since protag is a pretty smart guy/gal (custom character?) they'd rather the protag go study something with more theoretically consistent income at university.
The protagonist and their band are planning to hit the road the day after graduation, in mid-July, and spend the summer traveling in their band-van. Protag's parents offer something between a deal and an ultimatum: "You can travel around with your band for the summer, but we know you applied to university, we found the acceptance letter. Do whatever you want out on the road, we'll even give you access to your college fund to spend at your own risk, but if you don't show to orientation week in early September, we're cutting off your college fund and disowning you."
Thus, the game is all about the protagonist and their band buddies hitting the road for two and a half months, getting into shenanigans and figuring themselves out, and eventually making the call on whether or not they're going home.
i agree that by the end of the day what you remameber about the game is the road trip and how much fun you add with your so called friends... but knowing what happened to these friends ( prompto origins, how ignis becomes blind,etc...) is a welcome addition i wich it had been in the game.. if these additions affect my relationship with the bros then yes i want to be a part of it. its not just about adding cinematics to the game. overall these addition don't really change the core experience you have with the game but it makes it more enjoyable, more complete, theres has been so much of them also. so can we really ignore them ?
Ignis becomes blind and you have no idea how ? i'm not ok with that after all the time we've spent together no ! And what about ravus ?
Should I buy the dlc I love the base game, but disappointed in so much content as dlc instead of in the base game. I was wondering if it was worth the price
Episode Gladiolus is kinda meh, but Promto's and Ignis' are great.
Grim1952
What about the multiplayer, even though I'll still probably play single player the most
No idea about multiplayer
If you like the base game, you probably can't go wrong with the DLC. As far as bang for your buck goes, the multiplayer is probably the best (can be played single-player), but pick the Episode of your favourite bro and you should have a good time for $5. The Royal pack is a mini expansion for the base game so you might like that as well.
Edit: I'm a big fan of XV as well and don't regret buying any of the DLC, for what it's worth. I know a lot of people don't feel the same though.
Just be aware you wont get much content out of them so if youre looking to spend 10 plus hours of new content in these dlcs dont bother the episodes are short but are they good and tie well to the main story? Yes. Yes they do so its up to you really i say if you can only buy one episode go with episode ardyn for sure its the best one and also holds the most content 3 to 4 hours
Perfect !
The problem with FFXIV for me was that the combat is piss easy. There was zero challenge you can (and I did) warp strike your way through every single encounter while you invincibly smash through the entire game without issue. Using the first weapon I found straight to the last boss. There was almost no character progression which made their journey and struggle feel pointless and wasted. Sure they put in a lot of time trying to build up these characters however without any difficulties and the lack of experience until you sleep which is only efficiently done in the best locations means I found myself being massively underleveled on purpose and still smashing my way through the game with zero challenge.
There was no incentive to wander off or try a difficult side mission because well generally they weren't difficult and the rewards weren't helpful. Even monsters 30 levels above you who will 1 shot you can be beaten by using potions if you get caught in an animation and slowly warp striking your way to victory.
They built a gorgeous world as always and wrote an unfortunately bad story which seems to be the trend since 12 came out. But they just removed what made the others enjoyable. The combat is a large portion of your time and removing the RPG combat system for a more Action oriented God of War style was dull, simple, and not what I'm after in a long journey. I want to use my brain and think and consider my options. I want to progress and improve and decide for a path for them to follow. Not one skill or ability felt even the slightest bit necessary or important and I was never enticed to care at all about character progression. Unfortunately many people rave about how great this is so similar to other series I have fond memories for it seems like open world exploration action style is most likely going to continue for the FF franchise. I hope we can hop back to a more RPG style system in the future but we'll see.
the latter parts are for character as well. you should get pissed off at noctis for being immature about his friends, you care about lunafreya not because she was a good character, but what she meant for noctis. the loneliness section hits home to noctis and the players how much the other boys were meaningful to the story and the game as a whole
I want to finally get into it as I only got as far as chapter 2 cause they kept adding stuff, but THEY STILL KEEP ADDING MORE THINGS LIKE CHAPTERS AND IT COSTS EXTRA TO GET EVERYTHING STILL. Someday I'll finally play and beat this game :'(
Same here buddy. I kinda wish they'd just move on lol. I figured I'd wait untill I could play the complete thing but this is is getting a bit ridiculous :p I wish I hadn't bought the game on release. I know theres always 'goty editions', 'complete editions' and whatever with added content but it usually isnt this substantial.
RIP in Prompto, FF Versus XIII.
My problem is that I want to love the story. Through gameplay they nailed the 4 playable characters (yet for some reason they thought those were the ones that needed extra DLC screen time lol), but through the rest of the story, not one character felt fully developed; not even Ardyn. If there could just have been more time given to develop feelings for Luna (How about making her a party member early on?), then her story would have so much more impact. It's also criminal that King Regis played basically no role in the story outside setting up the basic situation. There was just so much potential for this story and these characters and it's really sad that they couldn't be fleshed out into a compelling narrative.
Yeah, I think you ARE willing to excuse a lot for these characters and the game. The fucking fact that you said that the combat serves as a vehicle to interpret a different side of the characters not explained through dialogue is mind-boggling, not only because there really isn't much to interpret (though I guess if you had the gall to say that the superficial "vignettes" of exploration border on a character study, this claim isn't THAT surprising) but because this also means you justify the abysmal combat; again, this is understandable, given that you enjoy XV's very passive atmosphere. The main four do feel like friends, but the lengths some are willing to go for Noctis are outright ridiculous since nothing either in the game, anime or movie justifies such loyalty; yes, they feel like friends, but not friends that would die for one another. Don't get me wrong, I think there was great potential for nearly everything in the game, from the characters and combat to the plot and lore. But I think the final product is lacking, and what's really telling about that is the fact that Nier Automata's weapon story on the Engine Blade evokes more pathos than anything in the XV compendium.
Loved the story but okay
Also, the voice acting is the best part of the game. Ni no kuni 2 isn't fun for me, because there's hardly ANY of it.
How the hell you get cactuar sword
It would feel extremely underwhelming to have FFXV to be just a road trip with friends. I don't think the characters are strong enough to do hold it together and this Final Fantasy. Every villain has been grand, the enemies epic. The plot devices unreal. You kill gods, interdimensional beings. Worlds are threatened, worlds get destroyed, worlds merge, you go to space. A road trip just feels really scaled down. And I get that bigger is not better, but neither is smaller. The villains as last minute as they are And I don't think it's even the best character focus in the series. VI had a lot of that. It wasn't equal but the ones that were important we're great. And I think FFXV highlights how westernized the series has become. Not because of the action or the open world because melee action games have always been Japan's thing. The west has never put out any good melee action games let alone a good melee action RPG and no, Dark Souls is a JRPG. But because of the story. In any other Final Fantasy you would kill the King of Light. In this game you become the King of Light. And before anyone mentions Lightning Returns, Lightning did not become the Goddess of Death and the party takes down god. Final Fantasy should stick to what it does best. Villains becoming gods and eldrich beings and mortals killing said beings. But I do think that moments like down time and casual banter and party interaction are important. Square RPGs, except the SaGa games, have always followed the formula, relatively linear then open end game before the final dungeon. Some are more open than others and some have way more to do than others and some give you more to do between story events. But that's mostly it's formula.
I really have very few good things to say about the combat. It came out a few months before Automata, who turned action game mechanics into an RPG and Nioh, which may be have the best ARPG combat in a while. And it came out after Lightning Returns. Watch a combo video of that game and it'll have you juggling dragons and giants and doing perfect parries and dodges into launches and air combos. Watch a combo video of this game and I don't even know if you can launch enemies. It's certainly bigger in scale and the atmosphere is definitely epic. I love the monsters in this game and some of them are the kind that I love from the series but hits feel terrible and the camera is more interested in saying look at how big our monsters are then fighting this big monster. Shadow of the Colossus showed us how to fight big monsters. This game feels like your're hitting feet and fighting the camera most of the time and I hate fighting the camera. I've never had to do that since DMC.
Final Fantasy XV and masterpiece don't belong in the same sentence. I can go on a huge rant on why I was robbed of my $80 CAD on a game that's not even complete, a mess of a story, undeveloped , uninteresting characters, they force you to watch an anime and a movie instead of actually playing the game to understand story, majority of the missions are boring fetch quests, a combat system that was catered to casuals, that takes no skill to win, all you have to do is press O and not to mention a mess of a development, but no it would be wasting my time. Tabata wanted to sell this game as a service and he's doing it. How anyone can defend this garbage, yet call this a masterpiece is ludicrous 😂
Chris Sukam well to be fair opinions are opinions and don't need justification although Hamish Black did give his reasoning. Personally I really like the game, probably one of my favourite JRPGs, it feels like a lot of things shouldn't work but it does and does really well. I can't remember the last group of characters I cared about more than those 4.
Right. One of Biggest Game Disappointments EVER. GREAT GRAPHICS but everything else. straight Puh...as Dashie would say
Chris Sukam in Canada you get robbed no matter what the fuck you buy so...
For me it's "gameplay first"! I can look past a unfinished/boring story if the gameplay is nice. Holding Attack/Dodge wasn't really that ... I mean... what's that supposed to be? It feels easy, but somehow those level47 enemies could two-shot me when I was on level 80. The balancing stats-wise and animation-wise was way off. I played all the Souls games, and this one felt way harder to me. Never before did I have to use my item menu more often in any game...
Also the fact that the game had all those typical open-world-immersive-braking-behaviours just made it worse...
Ignis "we have to rest and stock up on supplies"
me "okay, let's park overe there"
Ignis "there is no time for resting now!" (stuff like that happened constantly to me)
I played it right after release for that super expenive Ultimate CE (which didn't inlcude the Season Pass!). Never touched it since.
Yes, I'm butthurt.
I played from the start with Japanese audio, and imo it was a far better experience, I've switched over to English and while I will admit that the lip syncing on both languages is very impressive, there were so many moments in the English dub where, the audio would not match the body language or motions at all, leading it feeling completely disconnected from anything on screen, almost like I could see the voice actor in a booth. Not to mention how stilted and awkward the English dub was. I don't hate all English audio either, Kingsglaive had some of the best English voice acting I've ever heard and imo is the preferred way to watch the film, but it was originally conceptualized and created to be in English. It had superb voice acting, but unfortunately that didn't carry over to the localized english version of FFXV, but thats understandable and expected consindering it was a feature film and originally mocapd and voiced for English audiences. Imo the best way to experience FF15 is with the original Japanese audio, as the voices fit the body language a lot more and imo just for me at least, are the true and intended versions of each character, that have been planed for multiple years, and never lost sight of even through all the changes with this title, which in my opinion is impressive. But to each their own it's one of my favorite games none the less.
better for its flaws? like having to pay a hundred extra bucks after buying the physical game in order to play the whole story? the giant, empty world? the button mashing combat system?
I get triggered whenever I see someone even mention XV and the word "Flawless" together as I find the 2 have nothing in common.
FFXV (imo) is one of the most hollow Jrpgs I ever played and the amount of love and defending this game gets will forever baffle me. Square was too busy pushing endorsement deals, advertisements, Mobile games, anime, movies a FUCKING CAR rather then just focusing on finishing the fucking game.
XV is a bland jrpg with an empty open world souly there just to appeal to a specific target of gamers who don't even play Jrpgs anyway with the most uninteresting and bland cast, blatantly unfinished story, and biggest dlc scam on par with anything EA has done.
I used to think that square simply ran out of time but then I got to the gladiolus dlc. I'm sorry but this shit was all planned to be a cash cow.
I'll never understand why people were so hard on XIII but have practically nothing to say about XV. I'm not gonna act like XIII was a perfect cause it certainly wasn't but at the end of the day it was a Jrpg and not a game trying to appeal to a bunch of people who don't even care for Jrpgs. Say what you will about the hallways but EVERY hallway you run down through in XIII MATTERS to the story! Each complete with beautiful backgrounds and locales complete with an amazing score. XV you run on a highway for 30hrs in a mountin like setting "oooh so epic" every second crazy shit was happening in XIII that progressed the story by giving world building, character development ext. XV just has you running around for 30hrs doing the most mondane thing for no reward.
XV fucking gets away with murder and fucking pains me whenever I see stuff like this.
If you want an example of a GOOD Jrpg give a shout out to xenoblade chronicles 2 and loving developers behind it monolithsoft and how much they still actually CARE about the genre.
GreySolidusSnake The thumbnail says "flawed" so...you alright there?
I like XV but I don't have much to say about XIII even though I wasn't a fan. I'm *really* not a fan of XB2 (talk about paint by numbers and riding the coat-tails of a previous entry), but I let people who liked that game be.
Do want to say that the people doing the PR/endorsements, the people doing the anime, the people doing the movie, and the people doing the game were all different. Don't know what that has to do with each other.
GreySolidusSnake Where have you been? FFXV gets shit on A LOT and even most fans of the game will acknowledge that the story and pacing was pretty bad. I mean just take a look at the comments on this video haha.
GreySolidusSnake dude, it's just opinions. You can think life of black tiger is the best game ever made and it wouldn't make your opinion less valid.
RekiWylls A bit of context for Xenoblade 2. Xenoblade was originally not going to be released outside of Japan, but due to fan demand with Operation Rainfall, they reluctantly allowed Nintendo of Europe to localize the game in English. Xenoblade was far more popular in the West than they expected, so they developed a spiritual successor, Xenoblade X, which is meant to appeal to a Western audience which also allowed Monolith Soft to experiment with online and open world designs. As a result, the story suffered for it and fans of the original were disappointed.
Xenoblade 2 is a game developed on the same engine as X with the same design philosophy as the original game to please the fans that supported the series prior to X. The European localization and the ending of the game is evidence that points to that. In addition, the game was developed by 40 of their members, while the rest were working on other Nintendo projects like Breath of the Wild. They had to outsource character designs as a result.
You could consider this game riding on the coat-tails of the original, but I disagree. The story and tone of the game is different than the original. The gameplay is also quite different and, in my opinion, superior to the original and X. Takahashi, the creator of the Xeno franchise, has stated that he likes creating new ways of battling for each of the entries, which is why every Xeno game has a different combat style, while using some elements from previous games. The story of Xenoblade 2 stands well on its own without any context from the original, but it is made better if you did play the original.
Anyway, this is a Final Fantasy video. I only played the first chapter of FFXV on my cousin's copy of the game. I am not a fan of the fact they cut out a huge portion of the game and made it a movie. It made me not want to be invested into the game if I am required to use outside materials to understand what's happening. I never had an interest to buy the game and continue the story. The combat was interesting but didn't quite hook me. After all the negative press the game has received, coupled by the fact I'm not all that invested in the Final Fantasy franchise, I decided to pass on the game. With the Royal Edition, I am more inclined to try it out with all the DLC and extra content to actually tell a complete story rather than how it was when it was released.
Honestly I kinda wish they dumped a lot of the weird political/story stuff, and just had a more simple tale of the boys going on a weird road trip to get noctis hitched
Kingdom Hearts combat was better
FF15’s story was better.
15 was flawed but it was flawed just like the best of the rest of the other ffs.
Wu Wei they both have different people who makes them. Not only that, they both have different combat to a certain extent
ExDEATH yes
I wouldn't call a minimally told story incomplete. By the end the main antagonist died and the character arcs were over. Call it what you want, but "incomplete" just doesn't describe it.
Japanese is cool but it sounds the same in every game where it's included...
Masterpiece? Lmfao
Shelby I know that shit erks me to my core
GreySolidusSnake why? Opinions are opinions. No games are objectively good or bad, only subjectively.
aklilub gtfo with this bullshit. You can't say, for example, Devil May Cry 3 is bad objectively, you just can't, almost every aspect of it was done with care and talent, everything clicks and works as intended. It truly is a masterpiece, and is considered to be one of the greatest action games of all time. You know what's subjective? Your experience with it.
FF15 has some awfully glaring issues: the combat is a fucking mess, the story leaves a giant plot hole so you have to watch the movie, side quests are nothing but collecting things or killing things, Yakuza games have better side quests than a game made by Square Enix. The second half of the game was so bad that they had to redo some chapters and PATCH CUTSCENES IN. Yeah, nowhere near a masterpiece.
I agree. 'Flawed Masterpiece' is a term I would use for Dark Souls 1, a game that is a masterpiece in many regards but has just enough minor and major flaws that they can't be overlooked.
DMC3 only has a few small problems for what it is and they are so few and of minimal consequence your likely not to notice them unless you go looking and they're never enough to diminish your overall experience.
FF15 however, has enormous potential but is constantly dragged down by serious problems. The game is stylish, has bucket loads of heart and a fantastic soundtrack but that's not nearly enough to make up for all of its shortcomings.
I can certainly see how someone can forgive many of the issues they have with the game to enjoy their overall experience (I certainly enjoyed FF15 but it did require an attitude shift in order to do so), but if you have to consciously commit to forgiving those issues than it can't be a masterpiece.
Chance Kimber what? You've never seen garbage story and characters in your life. I'm not in the mood to argue, but I'll just say this: if the characters are garbage, then how come Vergil is one of the most iconic rival characters in videogames?
The shots with the cactuar costume mod are absolutely incredible
I feel like for every flaw in this game, Hammish is coming up with ways to explain away the mess. The repetitive boring gameplay and sidemissions were terrible. The story was a mess, but I still thought the game was a 7/10 because of things other than the gameplay, like the characters and music. The graphics were amazing but the game has little substance in the actual "game".
#JusticeForP155D1NG0
I still don’t understand why people prefer XV to XIII, XIII is too underrated, and aside for linearity is way better than XV
I love your videos but Faenel Fantasy?
I thought the story was really good.
What the fuck is going on? Why are there cactuars everywhere???
English version is SO BAD though. The game is meant to be play in JP.
0/10 Needs more road trips
It was an reasonable ok open world game. it was a meh FF game. The moments that conveyed a real FF feel could be counted on a single hand. Environments were nice, but not fantastical enough nor did it invoke a sense of wonder. Combat and character customization was horribly simplistic even for FF standards. The comrades mode was indeed repetitive, shallow and dull. It wasn't as bad a FF13, but it sure isn't top tier FF game either. It is just...decent. There are too many blemishes and flaws and felt too mundane for an FF game.
"but the main story is bad so it's fine"
You are imagining things, it was and is hot trash.
And i actually liked first two demos on PS4 A LOT.
Final Fantasy XV more like Final Fantasy Shit-teen
Nope, nope and nope. Only good thing was the music and visuals
The enviroments were actually pretty bland
I hope Square's next big games arent as terrible, incomplete, with terrible side quest, and more like this. Also the fact people would defend this game makes this is even more sad
I was bored of the game. Combat was too simplistic and world felt hollow, the side quests only seemed like kill and fetch quests, bad main story with so many plot-holes, etc so I uninstalled the game after playing 2 -3 hrs
Flawed masterpiece? No. Just... no. Remove all the fancy presentation, and FFXV is just nothing more than a grab-bag of flawed ideas, botched executions and unfinished thoughts.
i.e. trash
Bodwaizer I liked it, the gameplay and progression system was good imo. Of course the game will have fancy presentation, it is a 2016 release, you cant argue hypotheticals when seeing if a game is bad. The game does have those features so it can rely on them to enhance the game.
Masterpiece? My goodness no. This game doesn't rise above middling for the series, and is nowhere near genuine masterpieces of the genre. That you liked an overpriced, unfinished game on release just means you have a higher tolerance of this scummy business practice than most.
Do you like XIII?
RicochetForce Or maybe you just didn't like XV.
XV> I,II,VII,VII,XIII, and all the MMO ones, I only played the re release and had an amazing time and really grew to love the entire edgy boy band, but the story was ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Fardeen Haider 6 better not be on that list
Beelzebub nah 6 is my favorite final fantasy
I hate english voices with a passion. I couldn't stand those for 5 mins lol.
Æ maeth you mean in general?
BeThomsen Yes I mean general. I didnt like even one of the english cast voices, i am glad to be able to play in japanese, otherwhise i woulda stopped playing a long time ago.
Wow just...sad to hear. Well, i Never ever even heard about someone who hates english voices
Æ maeth ok...
See, I got it from the opposite. I hated Noctis and his party, and oh my god, can I please punch Gladious in the face? He's the worst of the bunch. Prompto is a annoying man-child, and Ignis is a pompous dullard who's sole character development revolves around... that thing that happens after the water area. I personally loved the games world, the story within it, and the main antagonist, it's just the characters I was playing was the fault. Give me another perspective, make a FF15-2, and I'd likely play it, give me the opportunity to kill/punch Gladious and I'll love it.
You should've played it first in Japanese to begin with smh
they weren't imperfections, they were part of the framing, the game portrayed a scenario and the failure to see the game through the lens it presented is a failure of the player, not an imperfection of the game
I stopped enjoying the game the moment I entred Altissa. Also chapter 13 was the worst part of a otherwise good videogame I have ever seen.
Japanese dub is much better!
Only the battle system is good. The story was trash. The summons, trash.
If you think the combat was simply holding down the attack button, then that's on you. The onus on finding out the mechanics should've ALSO been on you. You'd be surprised how there's actually more to it then simply holding down the 2 buttons (square and circle).
aimannorzahariwod Nobody's gonna admit that until 16 comes out.
joethetimelord - And than FFXVI will become the worst possible FF ever made and can not even hold a candle to FFXV. And before you know it FFXV is all of the sudden an classic masterpiece and FFXVI should have been like that. It's completely predictable.... ;-).
Jclosed Same with 17, 18, 18-2, 20 since 19 is online, etc etc for the rest of Square Enix's life.
Story in video games suck
Says the guy who is on a channel about writing in games.
Don't make that generalization without being able to justify it. Please. I'd be happy to debate you, but I'd ask that you back yourself up.
I don't have to its my opinion. Bad gameplay with a good story is unplayable while the inverse is playable. Also no story with good gameplay is completely fine. Souls franchise for example. They have no story but plenty of lore should you choose to care. Another is nintendo games, most have no story. I think all of that everyone can agree on.
On stories in games being bad i'll take it even a step further and say plot/story focused stuff is bad.
TheBlueLink3 is Writing ON Games not in games.
I know what I did. It's not that big a deal. All you are stating is that a good story with bad gameplay isn't playable, but what if the game has both? You aren't really providing a good example. You can't just make a bold statement like that and not expect people to want an explanation of your opinion, especially on a channel like this.