12-02-2016, 02:46 PM
FFXV, as all of us know, is a game we waited on for no less than a decade back in it's Versus XIII roots, but as it became it's own game, we really wanted to see what it could do, and I am happy to say, it can do a lot. It was utterly fantastic. The question is, was it worth the wait. I can't speak for everyone in that regard, but perhaps my review of the game, will help you decide if it was.
The game starts out simple enough, Ignis, Prompto, Galdiolus and Noctis, heading for another country when the Prince is to be wed to Lady Lunafreya, the oracle to six gods of the world, Titan, Levaithan, Ramuh, Shiva, Ifrit, and Bahamut. To make it clear that the game isn't going to be all smooth sailing throughout though, you start off, with a broken down car. This leads to start looking for parts to fix it, and the first glance at the open world is given to you, and my god, what a world it is. The game is beautiful and as long as you don't follow the road to closely where foes aren't likely to appear, full of things to do and to fight. The world itself is large, probably one of, if not the biggest on current gen consoles, and even if it's not, it's still great to go through the wilderness and find secret caves and dungeons that end with a good boss fight and a nice reward.
The combat, which is one of the bigger draws of the game, is fantastic. It's fast-paced, allows you to move pretty much however you want in it, and as long as you aren't stuck in a tight space where the camera suddenly loses you, it's pretty much without flaw. What's best about it, is that you can fight how you want to, although I suggest regardless you work on your dodging, because even on easy, you'll die a lot if you don't. That said, because death isn't the final curtain, and you have the chance to revive yourself or others when your HP hits 0, you can get back in the fight by either using items, or waiting to be revived by an ally. This of course works for your allies as well, as they can either be revived by you rescuing them or using an item on them to fully restore their HP. The HP gauge has a gray bar that goes lower and lower as you wait to be revived or as allies are down, so you can lose total HP during a fight making it harder as it lingers, but again, items like Elixir's and Hi-Elixirs can fully heal you. As for the being able to play your own way I mentioned a bit ago, there's a Sphere Grid like system called simply Ascension, which is accurate considering that it does in fact, ascend your characters. That means anything from making Noctis' teleport take less to nothing at all if you time a certain button press right, to making sure everyone has three equipment slots to allowing yourself to get AP for driving around in the Regalia, to getting EXP for Chocobo races. Granted, to get to these abilities will take a lot of AP, but the game gives you a lot of chances to get said AP by setting up certain things in the ascension grid or setting up certain conditions at the start of battle that if met lead to getting AP.
The game is sadly, not without flaw, as I felt at certain times like it skipped important details it should have shown and instead opted to tell you about them. The rule of show not tell applies to video games as well and it's fairly obvious that at some point in direction of the story, that optional rule was glossed over. Maybe in the DLC some of these things will be explained, but for them to interfere with the main story like that, is a bit of problem. As I mentioned before, the game's camera also had some issues, which would sometimes lead to me getting hit when I should have been able to see what was attacking me, but the camera didn't let me. There were also some glitches that got rather annoying such as one where I got an item for a quest and it somehow didn't click in the game's coding, so even though I had the item, I couldn't complete the quest and the entire questline was lost to me, which means if I want a platinum or all the achievements in this case as I played it on Xbox One, I'd have to start a new game and try again. Not fully a bad idea, as I probably will play it more than once, but the fact that a questline got glitched really bothers me. Other glitches were not as bad, but some included enemies falling out of the space where we were supposed to be fighting, and then suddenly, not being able to take damage or attack me, which meant that I lost EXP even if I fought them for a good amount and used items and got quite hurt first. This happened to me no less than five times and while that may or may not have been something that will happen to other players, it's still highly annoying and glitches at that level are not okay. It's also not okay that in an open world I'm allowed such little space to move in combat. Not having enough room forced me out of combat by accident a few times, but even the enemies I fought would sometimes fall out of it when I was still in it. My final complain about the game is it trying to use certain buttons the wrong way. Most importantly, the button to pick up items and the button to jump being the same. It's really annoying when you are trying to pick up an item and instead Noct keeps jumping endlessly, even though the screen shows me all I need to do to pick up an item is press the correct button, and Noct doesn't seem to agree. It's also a really huge overwight to have the run button and attack button be the same, because if you get into a conflict and are too close to the enemy, Noctis will stop running and instead start attacking, even if that's not what you want to do.
The music of the game though, is fantastic. It's nice to be able to hear songs from the past, but the modern songs made for this game, it's movie or anything related to FFXV directly are also really good, although I do wish the conditions to make the world music go off while you are running in the world was a little more clear, as I rarely heard it and would have liked to more, especially since sometimes it would start suddenly and end abruptly for no reason I could understand. Beyond that one issue with the music though, it's honestly a perfect soundtrack for the game. The music fits the action that's going on, but also the somber moments when they come up are handled really well. FFXV has one of the best soundtracks for an FF game, period. It's probably the best one I've heard since FFX.
The side quests of the game, meant to fill up the large space of the game are also enjoyable, even if they do get a bit repetitive from time to time. Go find this item here and bring it back to NPC there, or go fight this monster here and report to that NPC somewhere. That said, the hunts are actually pretty cool because the enemies in them tend to be stronger versions of other enemies, even if they are the same level sometimes as other, normal versions, This requires you to think a little more and be more on your toes when fighting them, making for some pretty good matches against things. There's other side quests like letting Prompto take pictures of certain areas and fishing for a certain kind of fish to give to someone or to have made for a cat to eat. These are overall not bad, and I don't really mind the fetch quests much because it gives me more time to explore the world, which I like doing. These quests may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed them when I did them, and that's what really matters.
I could spent a lot of time talking about the meals of the game boosting EXP or stats, or mention the summons of the game and a lot of other things that people seem to harp on just to give the game praise, but I have nothing to add to those compliments about these sorts of things, I tend to agree with all of them, and that's pretty much that. FFXV is not a perfect game, but I do think it's the best RPG this year, save for maybe Bravely Second, so with that in mind, I will happily give the game 4.8/5. Despite a few moments for frustration, FFXV is really, really good, even though the story isn't much longer than Pokemon Sun and Moon. It shouldn't take more than 25 hours if you just play to the story, so of course it took me nearly 38 to finish it, and there's still a lot I can do. There's also a post game which I've barely gotten into that I'm now able to enjoy, and yes, if you needed confirmation, there is a large part of the game that is linear, but I stick to my guns, as I said that as long as that linear part of the game served the narrative, I would be fine with it, and it does, so I am. If I had taken too may breaks to do side quests, I would felt differently about certain parts of the story than I do. Being linear for about 1/3 of the time I spent on the game was a good idea that really played out. If it's any indication, I think the game was worth the wait. It may or may not be my favorite game of the year, but I can say, it's probably my favorite 3D Final Fantasy game since FF9, and that's saying a lot. If you are a fan, you owe it to yourself to give it a go, it's well worth it.
The game starts out simple enough, Ignis, Prompto, Galdiolus and Noctis, heading for another country when the Prince is to be wed to Lady Lunafreya, the oracle to six gods of the world, Titan, Levaithan, Ramuh, Shiva, Ifrit, and Bahamut. To make it clear that the game isn't going to be all smooth sailing throughout though, you start off, with a broken down car. This leads to start looking for parts to fix it, and the first glance at the open world is given to you, and my god, what a world it is. The game is beautiful and as long as you don't follow the road to closely where foes aren't likely to appear, full of things to do and to fight. The world itself is large, probably one of, if not the biggest on current gen consoles, and even if it's not, it's still great to go through the wilderness and find secret caves and dungeons that end with a good boss fight and a nice reward.
The combat, which is one of the bigger draws of the game, is fantastic. It's fast-paced, allows you to move pretty much however you want in it, and as long as you aren't stuck in a tight space where the camera suddenly loses you, it's pretty much without flaw. What's best about it, is that you can fight how you want to, although I suggest regardless you work on your dodging, because even on easy, you'll die a lot if you don't. That said, because death isn't the final curtain, and you have the chance to revive yourself or others when your HP hits 0, you can get back in the fight by either using items, or waiting to be revived by an ally. This of course works for your allies as well, as they can either be revived by you rescuing them or using an item on them to fully restore their HP. The HP gauge has a gray bar that goes lower and lower as you wait to be revived or as allies are down, so you can lose total HP during a fight making it harder as it lingers, but again, items like Elixir's and Hi-Elixirs can fully heal you. As for the being able to play your own way I mentioned a bit ago, there's a Sphere Grid like system called simply Ascension, which is accurate considering that it does in fact, ascend your characters. That means anything from making Noctis' teleport take less to nothing at all if you time a certain button press right, to making sure everyone has three equipment slots to allowing yourself to get AP for driving around in the Regalia, to getting EXP for Chocobo races. Granted, to get to these abilities will take a lot of AP, but the game gives you a lot of chances to get said AP by setting up certain things in the ascension grid or setting up certain conditions at the start of battle that if met lead to getting AP.
The game is sadly, not without flaw, as I felt at certain times like it skipped important details it should have shown and instead opted to tell you about them. The rule of show not tell applies to video games as well and it's fairly obvious that at some point in direction of the story, that optional rule was glossed over. Maybe in the DLC some of these things will be explained, but for them to interfere with the main story like that, is a bit of problem. As I mentioned before, the game's camera also had some issues, which would sometimes lead to me getting hit when I should have been able to see what was attacking me, but the camera didn't let me. There were also some glitches that got rather annoying such as one where I got an item for a quest and it somehow didn't click in the game's coding, so even though I had the item, I couldn't complete the quest and the entire questline was lost to me, which means if I want a platinum or all the achievements in this case as I played it on Xbox One, I'd have to start a new game and try again. Not fully a bad idea, as I probably will play it more than once, but the fact that a questline got glitched really bothers me. Other glitches were not as bad, but some included enemies falling out of the space where we were supposed to be fighting, and then suddenly, not being able to take damage or attack me, which meant that I lost EXP even if I fought them for a good amount and used items and got quite hurt first. This happened to me no less than five times and while that may or may not have been something that will happen to other players, it's still highly annoying and glitches at that level are not okay. It's also not okay that in an open world I'm allowed such little space to move in combat. Not having enough room forced me out of combat by accident a few times, but even the enemies I fought would sometimes fall out of it when I was still in it. My final complain about the game is it trying to use certain buttons the wrong way. Most importantly, the button to pick up items and the button to jump being the same. It's really annoying when you are trying to pick up an item and instead Noct keeps jumping endlessly, even though the screen shows me all I need to do to pick up an item is press the correct button, and Noct doesn't seem to agree. It's also a really huge overwight to have the run button and attack button be the same, because if you get into a conflict and are too close to the enemy, Noctis will stop running and instead start attacking, even if that's not what you want to do.
The music of the game though, is fantastic. It's nice to be able to hear songs from the past, but the modern songs made for this game, it's movie or anything related to FFXV directly are also really good, although I do wish the conditions to make the world music go off while you are running in the world was a little more clear, as I rarely heard it and would have liked to more, especially since sometimes it would start suddenly and end abruptly for no reason I could understand. Beyond that one issue with the music though, it's honestly a perfect soundtrack for the game. The music fits the action that's going on, but also the somber moments when they come up are handled really well. FFXV has one of the best soundtracks for an FF game, period. It's probably the best one I've heard since FFX.
The side quests of the game, meant to fill up the large space of the game are also enjoyable, even if they do get a bit repetitive from time to time. Go find this item here and bring it back to NPC there, or go fight this monster here and report to that NPC somewhere. That said, the hunts are actually pretty cool because the enemies in them tend to be stronger versions of other enemies, even if they are the same level sometimes as other, normal versions, This requires you to think a little more and be more on your toes when fighting them, making for some pretty good matches against things. There's other side quests like letting Prompto take pictures of certain areas and fishing for a certain kind of fish to give to someone or to have made for a cat to eat. These are overall not bad, and I don't really mind the fetch quests much because it gives me more time to explore the world, which I like doing. These quests may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed them when I did them, and that's what really matters.
I could spent a lot of time talking about the meals of the game boosting EXP or stats, or mention the summons of the game and a lot of other things that people seem to harp on just to give the game praise, but I have nothing to add to those compliments about these sorts of things, I tend to agree with all of them, and that's pretty much that. FFXV is not a perfect game, but I do think it's the best RPG this year, save for maybe Bravely Second, so with that in mind, I will happily give the game 4.8/5. Despite a few moments for frustration, FFXV is really, really good, even though the story isn't much longer than Pokemon Sun and Moon. It shouldn't take more than 25 hours if you just play to the story, so of course it took me nearly 38 to finish it, and there's still a lot I can do. There's also a post game which I've barely gotten into that I'm now able to enjoy, and yes, if you needed confirmation, there is a large part of the game that is linear, but I stick to my guns, as I said that as long as that linear part of the game served the narrative, I would be fine with it, and it does, so I am. If I had taken too may breaks to do side quests, I would felt differently about certain parts of the story than I do. Being linear for about 1/3 of the time I spent on the game was a good idea that really played out. If it's any indication, I think the game was worth the wait. It may or may not be my favorite game of the year, but I can say, it's probably my favorite 3D Final Fantasy game since FF9, and that's saying a lot. If you are a fan, you owe it to yourself to give it a go, it's well worth it.