Final Fantasy XV Review

It’s safe to say that few game franchises are as closely scrutinized as Final Fantasy. As Square Enix struggles to find the balance between an on-rails cutscene machine and a more traditional JRPG open-world experience, new fans, and the old guard are at odds about what is best for the future of the series. This would-be battle on the outside seemed to have worked its way into the development of what we now know as Final Fantasy XV. After a development cycle that could be described as nothing short of confusing and convoluted, we finally get to see what Square Enix can do with a decade of development. It’s difficult to review this thing. If you are curious as to whether that long development time was a good or a bad thing, it will be obvious to you within the first few hours. It’s a wholly disjointed thing that at no point feels like a cohesive experience. It’d almost be easier to list the game’s negatives and be done with it but I’m going to do my best to put it into some sort of digestible mass of English.

Each time you start up the game you’re greeted by one of the most awkward messages I’ve ever seen from a developer: “A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers.” It’s the biggest tell that they’re desperately hoping they’ve done something properly and it sets an awkward tone every time you boot the game up. You eventually kick things off with a typically beautiful cutscene, as you’d come to expect in a Final Fantasy game. You come to find out you’re a prince who is being married off to a lovely young lady to secure peace between your two nations. Dad pats you on the head as you head out with your group of hired protectors and you hit the road.

In a blissful fit of attempted genius, your first taste of gameplay in Final Fantasy XV is pushing your car down a highway to the sounds of an admittedly decent cover of “Stand By Me.” While it’s a great song, the act of pushing a car down the highway isn’t the tone-setting magic you’d hope for in any game, let alone a Final Fantasy title. Thankfully the subsequent opening of XV isn’t nearly as drawn out and boring as many previous titles in the franchise so it’s got that going for it. What follows that opening, however, is a bit of a mess in just about every aspect.

Final Fantasy XV is an awkward hybrid of an MMO and a single-player RPG. The world is indeed open, though it’s not filled with much. Questing that isn’t part of the main line is almost entirely go to X and kill Y, or go to X and collect Y possibly killing Z. This would be forgivable if the quests tied into the main story or the characters in any way shape or form but they don’t. As such they are a crutch for level progression before continuing the main quest line or grinding for better gear. There is no attempt to make even a handful of these quests unique, and, sadly, they didn’t provide more story or character development. What’s worse is the sheer amount of traveling you’ll do if you decide to complete much outside of the main quest.

You’ll be seeing a lot of your car, your Chocobo, and your shoes as you will almost certainly spend a quarter of your time traveling from one place to another be it for a quest or otherwise. If you’re like me and did a lot of side quests you could be spending upwards of 20 hours just getting around. Fast travel is mind-bogglingly restrictive and overly convoluted. You can only fast-travel during the day, only when in the car, and only to certain spots on the map. If your destination does not meet all of these requirements you’re stuck taking the long way – and believe me it’s a long way. Square Enix was desperately trying to make the car its own character and instill the feeling of a road trip in the player likely with the hopes it would draw them closer to their crew. This gets more frustrating when you discover traveling by night is a death wish much of the time.

You see night time is when all the real baddies come out. Eventually, you will achieve a high enough level and have good enough gear that you can at least get through the majority of your moonlight encounters, but even then, it’s a grating experience. Chocobos make it a bit less of a slog but not by much, however anything is better than traveling by car. When in your car if an enemy appears, you’re essentially forced to confront it. On foot? Just run around it, but you leave your car behind. Yeah, it’s dumb. The map is also a complete gongshow and requires far more input than needed to do just about anything. Honestly, almost every aspect of Final Fantasy XV is rife with redundancy – enough that I couldn’t possibly cover it all in this review.

When you do eventually have to get to work on the bad guys, the combat will either make you feel like a god or make you cry tears of frustration. When everything comes together the combat is quite satisfying, but that’s not particularly often. There’s a point at which the number of enemies in any given fight brings the combat mechanics to its knees. Dodging enemy attacks, counter-attacking, and other advanced techniques that have an opportunity to shine in smaller skirmishes and one-on-one scenarios all but go out the window when the numbers go too far north. Around that point is where you’ll likely lean on the teleport mechanic.

Essentially you can dash to attack an enemy or to a point on a cliff, building, etc. Running low on stamina? Magic? Health? Money? Food? Self-confidence? Milk? Dash to a marked point around you while in combat and you’ll get it all back and more! It becomes a get-out-of-jail-free card when the regular combat mechanics falter (which will be more often than you’d hope). It’s as overpowered as it sounds and you can unlock an ability that reduces the game to holding the triangle button. I know this because I did it. I was able to beat the entire last section of the game, bosses included, just by holding triangle. Amazing. I will mention, however, that all of this goes out the window when in confined spaces or worse yet – in the middle of some foliage. God save your soul if you’re fighting amongst some shrubbery.

Most folks are interested in the characters and story when it comes to Final Fantasy, and things don’t get a lot better here either. I will be honest, the trio of Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis were far more likable than I thought they’d be. Noctis is on the short list of characters that I found less than likable, but he’s still better than Lightning as far as main protagonists go. In fact, one of my biggest gripes with Final Fantasy XV is the glaring lack of character development for anyone but Noctis, and even his is thin at best. The bad guy is great and so are much of the supporting cast though I could have gone without the completely ridiculous Daisy Duke wannabe in Cindy. Unfortunately, you don’t even get much of a story out of the antagonist, and one of the biggest bouts of story-driven blue balls is dealt out by him and another character during a cutscene that almost saved the game for me as far as the narrative goes.

You get almost nothing from anyone or anything the whole game. You get random dumps of exposition that barely provide a thread long enough to tie the cutscenes together. At one point a random child runs up to you and throws a bunch of character development your way in such a way that makes it look like Square Enix had no idea how to make it happen normally. Almost everything of value happens off-camera and doesn’t get filled in by anyone or anything ever. It’s infuriating because there is some great promise in both the story and more so the characters. It’s so egregious in its omissions that a cynical person might think we’re going to get some expensive DLC to fill in the vast gaps. Unfortunately, nothing short of a complete rewrite can save Final Fantasy XV from its numerous, painful plot holes.

As you’d expect from a mainline Final Fantasy game, it is easy on the eyes and the ears. I’m not about to say that it’s the best-looking game of the year, but it’s not an ugly game either. I do wish combat allowed you some better opportunities to see your enemies up close though oddly you can upgrade an ability to allow Prompto to take pictures during combat. Things generally look better from a distance as textures are questionable, and the odd effect Square Enix uses to attempt to make hair look soft is more than a little touch and go. When you do get at that right place and the right time and everything is just so, it can be a very pretty game indeed. Frame drops are everywhere, however, and as of this writing a PS4 Pro patch does not exist. Loading times are also soul-crushingly long and frequent when fast traveling. The cut scenes are all spectacular and showcase the team’s mastery despite the cutscenes only sparsely carrying any real weight. The music is in my opinion a rare miss for a Final Fantasy game. It’s not particularly horrible but it’s surprisingly generic sounding and in many cases over used in an attempt to induce hype. You can buy CDs for the car that have soundtracks from previous Final Fantasy titles which is nice, but it ironically shows how weak the score of XV is in comparison.

I’m not joking when I say the list of notable nagging things in Final Fantasy XV could amount to its own article. The easiest way to summarize them all is to say the game is overflowing with redundancies and awkward design choices. It’s the kind of stuff that will seem passible at first, then build into a raging crescendo come the end of the ride. There are hints of greatness in this game, which makes these things infinitely more of a sore spot. It reeks of a troubled development by a disjointed and uncoordinated team. If there is something positive to be gleaned from Final Fantasy XV it’s that it shows there’s a hope that Square Enix has an inkling, no matter how small, as to how a modern Final Fantasy game should be. I don’t agree that this is “A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers,” but I don’t think it’s completely without merit. I’m not sure who this game is for, but I know some people will still find some enjoyment in it. Is it for you? I honestly can’t say, but maybe a warm bowl of Cup Noodles will bring you the clarity only a premium instant ramen can provide. Now with no added MSG!