Developer/publisher: Square Enix.
Platform: PS4/PC.
Official Site: https://finalfantasyxv.square-enix-games.com/
Release date: 2016-11-29.
With not much else to play I decided to look at games I once started but never finished...
which lead me to FF15! I did remember where I stopped it was after arriving in galdin quay
and met some suspicious guy. Knowing this I saw no reason to replay from scratch
and it was actually easy enough to get the hang of things again!
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| Casually adds even more screenshots... after making posts. |
My reasons for dropping the ball on this before was simple, my old ps4 had a bug
where it would try to eject discs sometimes even when there's no disc inside as well
as annoying beeping sounds when it tried to do exactly that (even when turned off).
It was not just me that had it but yea I couldn't really play disc based games cuz of this.
A shame really because this game was quite fun and I don't understand the hate it got.
I suppose I could have bought it digitally when royal came out but I didn't
and it just ended up being dropped till now.😅 (The old model was replaced by a slim)
Pro's
- Exploring and doing quests/hunts is fun.
- Cast has great chemistry and most of the time the vibes are chill...
- Story is straight-forward but this is not a character game.
- Scenery is beautiful and the OST is really good.
Con's
- Story can be pretty peak fiction but terrible execution and full of holes so if you want
to fill those gaps, you need the movie(sets the stage), dlc ep's and read the novel(epilogue).
- Magic system is a hassle.
More ramblings after the jump break.
I played on normal from start to finish, there was no reason to switch to easier difficulties
during the main story atleast I go into it later when I did switch.
I'm not gonna write much about the battle system but its decent and easy to get the hang of it
there's a lot of quest... so its easy to get overwhelmed and end up doing too many
which leads to overleveling. Quests give a lot of exp and sometimes money
but that's mostly from the hunts that aside there is no real grinding involved
and nothing felt like it too too much time which was great but if you want to do
the costlemark tower and the turtle hunt you might have to go out of your way for better gears.
Gotta be honest here... I don't really like open world games cuz they tend to have a whole
lot of nothing, if it wasn't for the overall vibes being chill and the world being nice to look at
I probably would have dropped it again. I didn't even mind doing sidequests! but come chapter 8
I was really done with the open world part so I didn't mind being cut off from it for story reasons.
Just want to say I didn't really understand how lock on warp striking worked till I was almost done.😅
which makes exploring even better than just going from point a to b via the car.
Some of the quest NPC are more memorable than others, there's a view generics but then there's
the likes of DINO or frog lady who always sends you off on the most annoying of errands.
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| TFW Dino sends you on yet another wild goose chase.... |
I swear its both him and DINO that're out to get us, maybe frog lady too but she's just a nerd, right?
There's plenty of content like Ignis recipe's or collecting music/little things from stores...
I think the recipe thing is the best though its always fun to see he has come up with a new recipe
either from picking it up, moster drop or buying stuff some are even from fishing.
I'd almost say there is too much optional content to distract the player with while not doing the story.
One of the best things in this game is the random shots Prompto does while traveling...
Most are pretty nice but there are a few wtf am I looking at shots tho it still fun to look at
what he took this time. Which is why there's also a lot of screenshots!
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| I can't believe some stupid imperial airship photobombed this..... |
You can take pictures yourself too and many times Prompto will prompt you if there is a nice
spot for a group pic too! the rest is all random but still really nice.
Also speaking of photobombs like that stupid imperial ship above there's this certain NPC...
hmm maybe I shouldn't say more anyway this definitely adds a lot of fun factor to the game.
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| Sometimes it do be like this... cuz Prompto can take some weird shots. |
The magic system is pretty weird, you have these flasks and you can use elemental
energy to turn them into grenades unfortunately you can only store a limited amount
of
elements and the grenades have limited usage so if you run out you
gotta recharge and make them again. Idk the whole thing was a hassle so I
didn't use magic unless I absolutely had to.
Its also funny how more often than not the magic ends up hurting me and my party too...
but maybe that's because I am a clown. Such a clown I deep fried my chocobo with a thunder spell!
it did be looking crisp though! one could almost mistake him for a black chocobo.😅😂😰😨😱
Still not sure if the ra version of the spells was better or not usually it hurt noct and the gang too.
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| At first I wasn't sure if this was mud but I did use a thundera spell... |
There's also the royal arms... which are special weapons noctis can wield half of them are story
while the other half are optional and hidden in various areas. The one in the mines in Leide
was funny because it was an easy dungeon and then there's this random lvl 50 mob laughing at you.
Jokes on him but he's actually beatable even if underleveled, all you need is a gun or poison magic.
Which led me to think magic is actually pretty OP... if you know what you're doing.
In short magic is OP but like I mentioned above the way you use it is a hassle in more ways than one.
The last royal arm is from a really long optional dungeon... not sure what is the best way to do it
I was so tempted to switch to easy mode cuz after I looked into it to prepare I saw it was 2 hours long and the boss at the end isn't even that hard compared to the red giants in there but it wasn't necessary.
The only tips i'm gonna give is have at the very least a ribbon and safety bit on noctis with ultima.
Lot's of magic; 1x fira and thundera and lots of blizzara preferable as dualcast or quad.
Use elixers and megalixers as necessary, and always try to go east when you can in the labyrinth!
edit: idk if I was just lucky or if it did work that way, please do be prepared.
As for hunts... most are nothing special but then there is this necromancer
who came up to laugh at you with its petrification and insta-kill moves.
Well thank god for Ignis's Overwhelm and bow of the wise!
I did read somewhere they nerved it but it still is an option if you're like me and ran into
these guys blind and desperately trying to salvage the mess I got myself into.
I never used so many phoenix downs though... damn.
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| Some things should stay in the past... |
of the weapon quests so I didn't have to worry about being one shotted by some sir tonberries.
As for the magitek suit I used it for Nagifar which was on normal again, easy mode
is really just free revives from a mysterious carbuncle thingy there's no other differences.
Since everyone and their mother recommended to get the zwill crossblades for the turtle fight
and this guy is a bitch, so if you're up for final dark souls fantasy xv free feel to try and do it
without the suites but I just made some quintcast fira and put suites on to go overwhelm it.
For the final hunt, I contemplated doing it legit but why? the ring could kill it instantly...
and most other strats want you to be 99 with the crossblades + power ex items which I barely had
lvling up with the turtle is also the best way without messing around with magic. So it had to be.
My final word on this is before i'll leave this post alone... if you're going to add ways to cheese
your game people will use it! which is not bad but most people look for the easiest methods.
Cuz why suffer if I can just 1shot it with a ring? and warp to get mp back till it works.
Yeah that aside I LOVED the chemistry between the main characters and I loved their banter when
traveling unfortunately they don't really get much development or chance to go into who they are except Luna and Noctis himself. As protagonist he is okay but it is easy to see he is still a teenager
on the edge of becoming an adult. Still it is understandable how he behaves when almost no one
barely tells you anything of this shit involving in your country or you personally and get send off
to go marry a childhood friend yea go figure! how someone could act a bit non-interested
cuz shit just keeps happening and at times it seems Noct was barely processing it
or had a hard time doing so, cuz he does have a sense of duty as royalty.
Even if the tone shifted in the latter half they're all still in it together. I really liked that.
Honestly if it wasn't for the guys and Prompto's weird ass shots this game wouldn't be that great.
Prompto's the easiest and fun one to max... next to Ignis's cooking but survival is probably
the only really useful one cuz Gladiolus will start picking up more items. Noct's Fishing...
might take some more effort but its not too bad, it takes a bit to get the hang of it
but atleast you're not button mashing your fingers off like in the falcom games.Sometimes at camp they'd invite you on a quick quest... most were simple but then
there's Gladio who wants you to go fish up some old legent coot in vesperpool
while I was just trying to lvl up my fisher. The guys also love to roast/backseat Noct when
Also
this game has a stellar japanese voice cast, Tatsuhisa(Noct),
Kakki(Prompto) and MiyaMamo(Ignis).... so it was definitely a treat to
me to hear them bring the guys to life.
There's also Kenta Miyaka as Gladiolus but I am not very familiar with him... he did a good job tho!
Though if you want a true character game this isn't really the place to look, but if you're
still up for it there are some DLC episodes that give more individual focus and fill in someholes in the overall story! so getting the royal version with the season pass is a must.
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| Too bad for you Prompto but she's married to her work... but I think this was supposed to be a selfie. |
Storywise... I won't really post any real spoilers but it was interesting to see where
it is going. They tried to make the world come alive and the side quests really help with it!
I think I do recommend to watch the movie, the best time would probably be when
this game is installing cuz it does act as a prequel as it sets stuff up while adding some lore as well.
The story is pretty straight-forward though so if you didn't do any quests its actually pretty short!
though if you didn't get your chobobo's in ch3 I could see how ch5 could be a bit of a problem?!
so I am actually glad I did most of the quests as they appeared but there were times I said
well I have done enough its story time! by the time I ended ch4 I had done already 40.... yes I was
one of those that made a certain NPC wait at a gas station just so I could finish a few more.😂
Though I am glad that at certain times before ch8 they told me when they'd lock me on the story
for a bit so I could choose to do more quests/hunts first which more often than not I did.
There was really no rush to do anything in ff15 and maybe that is why I like it so much though
all the sidequests may kill the sense of urgency of whatever the story wanted you to do.
Due to that I don't recommend dragging it out for too long, cuz memories fade
and you could have no idea what is going on unless you managed stay invested in it
I say this because the story is already minimal and most of the time playing this game
was spent exploring and hunting while chilling at camps or caravans/motels.
Once the story did start rolling it became very on the rails with little to no detours
and like I already said by then I was pretty much done sidequesting and didn't mind.
At times I think it is a little wonky and hard to see what it is really about...
I can see that there was a really good story in this game but it has terrible execution
and that ultimately you have to buy DLC to fill some of the holes.
There supposedly was more DLC planned including some epilogue/true end but it got canned
and the directort/producer left the company too but they released a novel version. Which made it
obvious to me that this could've been so much more but there was project mismanagement...
well considering this game used to be nomura's pet project versus XIII I am more inclined to think
that FF15 was salvaged from it, using as much of it as they could while havint to axe some things.
If you really end up liking the cast and enjoyed playing the game I definitely
recommend buying the novel Dawn of the Future.Most of the trophies are pretty easy though and the plat might not require that much effort
I noticed that even if you plat it there might be plenty of content left to do...
such as catching all fish, doing all hunts or collecting every recipe. None of which
are bound by any trophies, true completionist might suffer with this game.When this first launched I knew there were so many bugs! most of them got fixed.
I only had one bug but it could be solved by loading the autosave! noct went flying over the map
and then fall endlessly, this happened cuz I exited the regalia too quickly after setting a destination.😅
Final thoughts!
If you're in the mood for a roadtrip like rpg with handsome guys & Final Fantasy themes
then this game is a good bet and will recommend it for that since I mostly had a good time with it. Some things I didn't like did not stop me from enjoying the game as a whole.
Considering I don't really like open world games that much I think its safe to add FF15
to the list of those that I did enjoy like the Xenoblade games but they don't compare at all though.
I can't find much things to complain about maybe that's a good thing! but its weird
the story is portrayed as their being some pretty serious shit going on but ends up
being more or less ''me and the boys'' while camping around while hunting to get by.
Which leads me to think its pretty much canon the gang is stuck in duscae for a whole month
doing nothing but questing and camping. Iris? oh yea we had to go to Lestallum right?😂😂😂
I didn't like the magic system that much tho its such a hassle to keep remaking the same spells
or stack up on energy but in turn you could get ways the game gets even easier... oh well.
Another annoyance was that the game sometimes couldn't decide if it want to fast travel or not
but I think that is because you tried to go somewhere for a quest so it will probably
not fast travel, or that Ignis has never driven there before so you can't fast travel YET.
The only work around is to go to the closest possible parking spot and from then on drive.
I didn't understand the wait time for Cid's weapons upgrades some say it 3 quests and rest
but its pretty much just go do whatever till he calls you, maybe its even longer if there is multiple
I wish there wasn't a hidden timer for that cuz it made no sense, I guess
they just want you to do other things which always worked.
have its problems, a lot of things just aren't really explained it just screams terrible
execution to me. For example Aranea is an interesting character but I wish we could have
seen more of her they probably planned a dlc for her too but it was unfortunately canned.
Its sad that you're forced to buy dlc episodes to know more of your mates and a novel to fill in gaps
and complete the main story. With this I can safely say this game could've been so much more...
but they couldn't do much more with it because like I already said it was salvaged from versus XIII.
I suppose they were hoping FF15 would be a hit and cash in hard but it didn't so they had to can it.
I know there is some multiplayer dlc called comrades but i'd wish they never
had made that and instead focus on the other dlc episodes. I am not sure why there is
a pocket edition version either... they could've used that time and money into the main game.
Maybe the pocket edition is nice if you want a cartoony/chibi version? idk...
Without enjoying the world through sidequests/hunts you can easily see how short
and linear it is so I really recommend to go out explore and do quest and enjoy the banter
between the guys cuz it really is the best part of this game. Anyway It is sad that it never really reached its full potential. Oh well for what its worth I had fun... even if I haven't done
all of the DLC's yet I am probably gonna miss adventuring with the bro's.
So if you end up getting this game some day, it might be best to get the royal edition, the season
pass+ardyn and the novel for the epilogue. I actually don't really like how content is scattered
all over but if you really ended up liking the guys+some of the plot you may at the very least
want to do that. Edit: After finishing both Glad and Prompto i've decided a new post is not necessary
and will just say the following! The DLC are nice if you want to fill in some of the gaps
of the mainstory and want some additional time with them. It might be even better if you like
collecting stuff and such but for 5$ most of DLC's have decent volume that's worth its price.
There's a few more games I have that I never really played so who knows what I'll end up with next.
I do think about FF8 cuz out of the ones I have played its the odd one out...
i'll probably won't play anything below 6 as they tend to be more grindy
and I don't like grinding too much. Anyway xenoblade 3 in less than a month!
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