Today we take a look at one of the long awaited games from Square Enix, Final Fantasy XV. A game that spent a total of ten years in development, was it worth the wait? Well as always I’ll go through the characters, story and game play to give you the best review possible and ensure your time and money aren’t wasted.
STORY
The story of Final Fantasy XV takes place in the world of Eos a world of smartphones, internet, cars, roadside diners, arcade games, a lot like our world today except it has monsters and magic mixed in with that.
The main character Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum leaves his Kingdom to go and marry the princess of an enemy nation of an evil empire that’s dominating the world because evil empires always do. All for the sake of attaining peace. But of course it all turns out to be a ruse of the empire and they go and take over his kingdom so Noctis and his royal army (that consists of 3 people for some reason) go on an adventure to find a bunch of powerful weapons and final fantasy summons to destroy the evil empire with.
And along the way they meet many allies to help them get stronger (none of which you should get attached to because they all piss off and barely give you any help despite relying on you to save them) and numerous villains from the empire, all in preparation to battle the ultimate villain who is one of the best villains Square Enix has ever written.
CHARACTERS
Noctis Lucis Caelum
The main character is Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to the throne of the Lucian Kingdom and the only one in the game that has the ability to use magic, his friends borrow his abilities in order to fight.
He’s also the only one you have the ability to control in game which while that does suck a bit he does have the ability to use every single weapon available unlike his friends which helps balance that out a bit.
As a character he does well yet he is held back by having the responsibilities of being king thrust upon him when he isn’t ready to handle it due to the sudden death of his father in the empire invasion. Overcoming this is a major part of how he evolves as a character over the course of the game.
Gladiolus Amicitia
One of Prince Noctis’s friends who serves as his personal bodyguard. He makes his position known by being able to wield the biggest swords (do not interpret as a sex joke) and generally being the tank of the group.
As a character he is one of the most grown up who doesn’t have time for childish acting and tries to move Noctis along when he gets into a slump yet not always in the best way. He tends to use warrior therapy to help so for some he likely won’t be your favorite character, that combined with a certain dick move he does at some point in the game which I won’t spoil you’ll know when you see it does makes him a hard character to love.
Ignis Scientia
Ignis is Prince Noctis’s advisor and serves as the parental figure of the group as he is the primary cook. Whenever night comes if you rest at a campfire he will make food for everyone that will have certain benefits for the next day. And in combat he is the speedster of the group wielding twin daggers.
As a character he is the most grownup of the group and the one that helped raise Noctis the most as he was growing up. As a result of this he does the most mediating out of any other character when everyone else is at each other’s throats.
Prompto Argentum
Prince Noctis’s best friend who is by far the most childish of the group. His main thing is photography, during the day he’ll take pictures and at night when making camp he’ll show the pictures to everyone some will be taken at random parts of the day or some even in the middle of combat for a cool looking shot. Besides that he plays long range with guns in combat.
As a character there is depth to him. He arguably has the most depth revealed about him during the course of the story. While he may come off as an annoying character at first he’ll grow on many people.
And while there are other characters they either don’t show up enough or are characters that only show up after big events so I won’t spoil.
GAMEPLAY
The game itself is open world where you can travel around in a car and even to different continents which while nothing special in gaming in this day and age is something never seen before in a Final Fantasy game (shut up final fantasy VII). And the combat is completely free form with elements of Kingdom Hearts combat not surprising since the former director is the guy that directed those games. And while normally I would criticize a game for doing something like that it’s not a complete ripoff and the combat does work really well so I give it a pass.
The only thing I can truly complain about with this game is the side quests. And before anyone gets on my case I realize they’re necessary in an open world game and getting them right isn’t easy but Square Enix really dropped the ball with these side quests. So many of them are just “urrgh....chores are hard do them for me.” And they feel really out of place for a game like this. One of the side quests is no joke “get a tomato from a nearby town” and another is “catch a certain amount of frogs” and while some of the side quests are great too many of them come off as “chores are hard”.
And not to sound like I’m above everyone else but when I’m on a quest to save the world from an evil empire stopping to do someone’s grocery shopping for experience points isn’t what I’d call “time well spent.”
CONCLUSION
Final Fantasy XV is a game that breaks away from many conventions of the Final Fantasy franchise, having a linear path at some point in the game, summons not easily summon able, but not all these changes are bad. I’m interested in fact to see how they pull off Final Fantasy XVI assuming I’m not in my 40s when they finally get it out along with Kingdom Hearts 3.