Final Fantasy XV — Royal Rumble

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV has received several upgrades at his point, after releasing in an unpolished state. To say the game had a rocky development would be one of the grandest understatements I’ve ever typed on this blog, as this is the only game so entrenched in development hell that I chronicled its production through announcement anniversary posts. It started as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but its director and overall vision shifted after it became FFXV, and the team had to turn this into a shippable project after it languished for so long. This was bound to be a mess upon release.

That’s why I feel lucky to have held off on playing the game until now, in mid-2018, instead of joining those who purchased it upon release in November 2016. Over the last several months, the team has been slowly patching several issues players (or “beta testers,” if you’re cynical) had problems with, and adding content in the form of DLC episodes and even modified chapters. They also added flashbacks and new cutscenes to fill in some narrative gaps the original contained. That’s not to say flawed aspects of the gameplay and story no longer exist.

The story concepts are good, however. The main character is Prince Noctis Lucius Caelum, who starts the game leaving the city of Insomnia on a road trip with his four buddies, Ignis, Prompto, and Gladiolus, who also happen to be his guardians. But it’s all a ruse so Noctis, and his friends to a lesser extent, could be gone from the city while Insomnia is attacked and brought to its knees by the empire. They spend most of the game’s duration plotting revenge for all those they’ve killed, encountering and fighting the empire along the way.

If that sounds like a threadbare plot outline, that’s because while several story-related events happen, the party isn’t there for most of them. The fall of Insomnia occurs in CG movie Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, a portion of which was added to the game through a post-release patch for further context. It’s remarkable to discover the number of major events that occur off-screen, which even include deaths for some named characters. Other characters aren’t given anywhere near the amount of time required to make players care about them, which even includes central female character Luna. Through its development, several scenes had to be adjusted or removed entirely under a new creative vision in a short time, and the storytelling suffers as a result.

In fairness, some issues have been rectified in currently-available DLC episodes, while others will be expounded upon in future episodes. But that doesn’t excuse the storytelling shortcomings in the main story. And that’s not getting into the plot holes that could take an entire post or two to compile.

Fortunately, the game does a good, though not quite great, job developing the relationship between the main four guys. It was started in anime series Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, which documented how long the four have known each other. (Relegating all this character development and several plot details to external media is a bad idea, by the way.) Noctis gets ample time for his development as the protagonist, who has to mature for his future role as king, but this also applies for Prompto and Ignis. It’s a pity Gladio receives less, but he still fares better than several other characters.

Similar to many, many games released these days, FFXV has an open world in which players can explore, and fulfill missions and partake in side quests. The size is initially mind-blowing, and it’s always nice to travel around in the Regalia car from one location to another with classic Final Fantasy music playing on the radio. But the initial wonder expires upon realizing how little there is to do in the world, and how underdeveloped it is overall. It’s mostly populated with identical-looking gas stations and rest stops, with occasional dungeons and spots to fish. The side quests are far too similar, being either hunts for enemies or fetch quests. The lack of locations hurts, because the environments outside the major cities represent a loving interpretation of the American Midwest — complete with some southern accents.

Final Fantasy games have a habit of reinventing the wheel for every installment (part of the reason why they take so damn long to make these days); while this applies to the aforementioned party of four male characters and the open world, the battle system is one of the biggest changes. Instead of being turn-based, or having turn-based elements, FFXV’s is an action RPG with real-time battles. Noctis has access to a dizzying array of weapons, but the other three are also playable in this updated version. It’s a lot of fun when it works well, though I’d rather press successive buttons to use physical attacks instead of holding down a button for auto attacks. It’s fun despite how many battles are easy to power through, thanks to the large amount of healing items Noctis can hold at a time.

Unfortunately, there are several unpolished moments. The camera can be immensely uncooperative, especially when the party is fighting a big horde of enemies or is within a narrow indoor location — or both. This gets even worse with some late-game enemies, which have little-to-no hit stun and can power through most hits, along with hitting hard. These battles could have used some adjustments.

You’ve probably gotten the impression that every element in this game is considered “good, but could have used some polish.” That holds true, despite the number of patches and updates it’s received since its release. The pacing is also strange, as the open world is only around for a little more than half of it, while it restricts players to a Final Fantasy XIII-style linear path later on. This has been improved a bit thanks to additional content in the Royal Edition, where chapter 14 no longer ends abruptly and features several side quests (sadly of the same variety mentioned above) and new bosses. At the very least, the team gets credit for fixing some of its flaws.

If there’s one aspect of FFXV that I can’t knock even the slightest bit, it’s the presentation. The game looks gorgeous, and though I wish there were more locations to explore in the open world, what’s there never stops looking fantastic. The voice acting is much better than some trailers and gameplay previews insinuated, outside some performances from NPCs. That’s not including Dino, by the way, who left me in awe at how an Italian stereotype made it into a Final Fantasy game. The music is also fantastic, which is full of atmospheric and melodic tracks, though some of lead composer Yoko Shimomura’s contributions were clearly created for a different game.

Even after all the updates, it’s still evident that this game spent an extended period in development hell. The merging of the road trip themes with the serious story later on represent a clashing vision from two different creative teams and don’t quite work well together, which leaves the last third of the game feeling tonally dissonant from earlier aspects. Many of its gameplay elements are also undercooked. The end result is an absolute mess of a game.

But it’s a fun mess, and I don’t regret playing through it. The game lays several potential foundations for future games (perhaps the new IP the team at Luminous Studio is working on now) or Final Fantasy sequels, if they want to adjust the trend of each mainline game reimagining the franchise’s core concepts.

It’s been said that video game reviews should be written in a way that doesn’t date them, but that’s impossible to do with a game like this. While I played an updated version of FFXV here, it’s still receiving updates, and more episodes are on the way in early 2019. It’s the nature of live service games these days, so hopefully everyone’s prepared for Final Fantasy XVI to at least inherit this content format. Well, that, or Final Fantasy VII Remake.