Topic: General Final Fantasy Thread

@VoidofLight Ohohoho! Royal Edition! All the character episodes, all the content, all of it! For... literally nothing. Can't wait to get stuck in, it's gonna be a very fun game.

@TheJGG The only DLC it doesn’t have is Episode Ardyn, but other than that, I hope you enjoy honestly! It’s not a bad deal to get the game and loads of post-update content for free.

@VoidofLight For sure, that's fine. It's already a bloody big game to begin with so I'll document my experience over here! Thanks for the well wishes, I'm gonna have some good fun now!

This reminds me. I really should replay Final Fantasy 15. I never did all the episodes, and I’ve never gotten to the Royal content.

@VoidofLight definitely a highlight overall altough all episodes are fairly short

@TheJGG

Don't forget to play everything in the correct order with XV. It really does improve the experience, but the game unfortunately doesn't explain everything for you. I explained the order on page 58 of this thread if you want to go back and check!

@VoidofLight

If you played it before the DLC came out, you really should replay it now. Make sure to do everything in the correct order, so it all feels like a vaguely continuous story. They really did fix nearly all of the problems with the launch version of the game, in my opinion.

@Dezzy Duly noted! I've just gotten the Regalia, so I have a ways to go yet! But I really appreciate it!

Yeah, thanks for that, @Dezzy — I've had a vanilla copy of XV collecting dust on my shelf for a couple of years now, purely because its unfinished state and the amount of slapped-on content they kept dripfeeding us with put me right off starting the game (plus the idea of having to watch a movie AND an anime mini-series just felt like homework)

@TheJGG

Oh and don't forget to watch Kingsglaive first! That's missing from that list. Absolutely crucial to understand the story though.

@Andee

Kingsglaive is a genuinely great movie though, and not too long. The anime you can pretty much ignore though. That's just background character building. Nothing crucial to the main plot.

@Dezzy I saw Kingsglaive when it first came on Netflix, but I think I blinked or got distracted and by the second half I didn't have a clue what was going on — now the game is more or less "complete", I think a rewatch is definitely in order!

My three main viewers; @Tyranexx, @BruceCM and @Dezzy... Alright... alright so I've played through Final Fantasy XV for about an hour and a half, and I have some thoughts.

• The menus is... really good. Square tend to have relatively simplistic menus, so there's little in the way of distraction or purposeless showiness. If Crystalline Chill wasn't a good song, a) I wouldn't have covered it, and b), I wouldn't like spending time in the menu.
• The combat is really slick. It's real time, a full departure from the turn-based combat of entries like Final Fantasy X, or active battle systems like Final Fantasy VII. It's very fun to do, and I got like five trophies in the space of three battles because I learnt so quickly...
• Noctis... is a decent protagonist so far. He's not talkative but he's not a blank slate. He has a solid personality and I like his voice. You can choose his dialogue options and he'll... say the lines. He makes a fun remark and adds to the dynamic well.
• The group dynamic is something I have never seen in video games for a while. It's so cool to see these relationships so far. They all add something to the group and although it can be easy to pick apart the archetypes I doubt they're badly written or generic. Prompto is super fun, Gladiolus is tough as nails and Ignis is the smart one, but I ain't gonna consign them to these names just yet.
• The lore is difficult but not convoluted like Kingdom Hearts. I played KH3 today and expecting to get my head around that is like expecting to gain intelligence by bashing my head against a brick wall. I'll have to see Kingsglaive and I may have to play the game a few times, but it's nothing I can't take!
• I turned tutorials off, and I don't need them. While the game was installing I played around with the combat for five minutes and learned it by trial and error. Adapting to games is something I'm decent at so that's also why I beat games quickly.
• The world, Eos, is something I've never seen in a game before. Fantasy elements, like magical crystals, magic, massive monsters and such, are mixed with real world elements, like camping (Okay, the Coleman product placement!), modern cars, asphalt roads, and more. It's confusing as a guy who's played RPGs that are either fantasy (FF, Xenoblade), or set in a fictional version of the real world (Persona with Tokyo, Inaba). But now it's both and I love it.
• But man the car controls are bad. Of course it's a secondary criticism but it doesn't feel like a car, more like a tractor.

Heh, you've hardly started, @TheJGG .... You don't generally need to control the car at all, though! Be sure to update us when you've played some more

@TheJGG Yes, do continue with your impressions on Final Fantasy XV. Just remember to dump text into spoiler tags where appropriate. I've heard mixed things on XV; some seem to like it, while others rank it pretty low in the FF pile.

I couldn’t really get into the full game, though I did enjoy the story via the Switch version.

I would describe the story as... A tragedy.

For full on spoilers: The entire game after a certain point is nothing but a series of unfortunate events, and while the good guys win in the end and you get a cute and heartwarming final scene, it’s pretty clear that not everyone survived the final battle.

@Tyranexx

It's certainly not universally liked, that's true. But it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of people who hated it only played it at launch.
They did add like 6 story-based DLC over the course of the next 3 years, which fixed most of the problems with it, and pretty much doubled the total run time of the game (if you include the main story part of Comrades).
If you play it for the first time today, I don't think many people would hate it. The only thing you'd hate is the fact that the story is broken up between all these different DLC, a movie and 2 animes. And the game does nothing to tell you when you should play it all. You literally have to follow a guide from someone online, like the one I posed in this thread. That's the only major remaining issue with it.

Kingsglaive is necessary to understand the basic world lore. It's also crucial to understand certain character motivations and one of the magical powers that a certain character uses later on. Definitely watch it!

Well the good news is you can get the offroad version of the car later on. Or better yet, you can just use Chocobos, which become available about 5 hours in. They start off quite slow but you level them up to improve their speed. By the time they're at max level, they're nearly as fast as the car, but way more fun to ride.

@Tyranexx @BruceCM @Dezzy

I’ve finished Chapter 4 already and I’ll list some more bullet style thoughts straight from cranium to keyboard.

• The game has become much, much harder so far. There was a boss at the end of Chapter 2 that was literally at 22nd level, and my party was all around level 7 or 8, and whilst there was a guest party member that was much more powerful it was still a very difficult fight. By the time I began Chapter 5 I switched to Easy difficulty as I usually do.
• The story is getting very good. Of course by the end of Chapter 2 or 3, I don’t remember which, Regis Lucis Caelum had been killed, and Insomnia had been attacked by the Nifelheim Empire. I also encountered Ardyn and found him to be a relatively charismatic guy. While I did spoil the fact that he was a main villain, I myself hadn’t fully trusted him either so it was not a surprise at all.
• I’m learning the battle system more but it’s turned into a baptism of fire, because I’ve ‘died’ several times in making it work. I’ve gotten a number of trophies for trivial things, like casting magic and performing blindside damage and such; so it’s a good learning curve. I admit though, I don’t like the battle music all that much. It gets repetitive after some time.
• @BruceCM specifically, having ridden Chocobos I actually prefer the car! The chocobo theme screams Yoko Shimomura yes but they’re a bit boring to pilot over long stretches. I’m about to get my car back from the Imperial fortress so I hope that means I actually get it back.
• I do hope I get to meet Lunafreya soon, from the key art I’ve seen and the flashbacks she seems like a very cool character. I like her younger accent, it’s refined, youthful and wise all at once. The character designs have been just a bit bland so far, but that’s a side effect of having character models get closer and closer to photorealistic proportions. I kinda thought FFXVI had some pretty boring designs so far so hopefully we’ll see more of it soon.
• I can certainly see where some criticism comes from but I don’t agree at all. It’s far from the best RPG I’ve played but it’s not a bad game at all. It’s done such a great job of evoking that road trip vibe that I’m starting to get into that groove as well. Driving down a long motorway is quite fun, when you’re driving both manually and automatically, because I like taking in the scenery.
• I like Noctis. Not the best JRPG protagonist of all time but he’s not bad. I’d like to think that’s what Cloud would have been like if FF7 had released in 2016 instead of 1997. His voice actor choice, Ray Chase, is perfect for the role, he has the snarkiness, reservedness, dry humour, and expressiveness needed for a character like Noctis. I like that he isn’t just a blank slate, an agency for the player, but a living breathing man of his own. All the dialogue choices you could choose are all sides of him, and none of them feel like space fillers.
• @Snaplocket I can see where your critiques are coming from, absolutely. For now I don’t agree too much but you have a point about the open world design. It’s not the best example for open world games but it was Square’s first so I can let that by. I’m confident FFXVI’ll have better world design! The characters have moments of one-note behaviour, but the fact that their voices are worth listening to means for me their personalities are a product of the actors too!

Glad you're enjoying it, anyway, @TheJGG .... Still a lot left, though!

@TheJGG

Don't forget Kingsglaive! Things are gonna start getting really nonsensical soon if you haven't watched it.

@TheJGG wow you're moving fast! I bet it took me like 20h just to get to chapter 4 as I was doing all sidequests available lol.

@Balta666 I only just got the trophy for doing five side quests. I’ve spent about six hours in the game total. Suffice it to say, I’m an unusually fast gamer, I learn very quickly.