Final Fantasy XV - Review Thread

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Lulcielid

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Oct 9, 2014
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Slaintimez

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Sep 9, 2016
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Storm

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Guitar (pseudo)God

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All over
From me: http://www.rpgsite.net/review/5107-final-fantasy-xv-review

8/10. Love the game part of it; combat great, four main characters excellent, etc. TLDR complaints: poor side quest design, frequently uneven polish, story is a mess (even though it concludes satisfyingly). You should see this pop on meta shortly. :)
Option A) How much did SE pay you???
Option B) Your(sic) a whiny Persona/Nomura fanboy
Option C) Pre-order cancelled.

Well written, sir. I agree with the larger points, though I weight it differently. To wit:
  • Side quest - no better or worse than the HD Fallout games and with the vast variety of things to do, I gave the tedious stuff a pass.
  • Polish - Another pass. I'm astounded BD2 delivered something this GOOD out of the gate, especially given the state of some of the other open world games in the HD era (looking at you, Fallout). In my playthrough, no crashes, few glitches, no framerate issues.
  • The story is batshit insane. I graded on a generous curve here: it's a Nojima Final Fantasy story, it largely works (despite every effort not to), and the ending is -- wow.
If I was scoring, I'd give it a 9 to 9.5. But I'm not on meta.
 

Rezon

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Feb 21, 2015
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Rogue-Tomato

ShinRa SOLDIER
Jan 17, 2016
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From me: http://www.rpgsite.net/review/5107-final-fantasy-xv-review

8/10. Love the game part of it; combat great, four main characters excellent, etc. TLDR complaints: poor side quest design, frequently uneven polish, story is a mess (even though it concludes satisfyingly). You should see this pop on meta shortly. :)
I would read that, but for some reason there is a random stupid video playing full background which is making it rather annoying to read. o_O
 

APZonerunner

Network Boss-man
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Option A) How much did SE pay you???
Option B) Your(sic) a whiny Persona/Nomura fanboy
Option C) Pre-order cancelled.

Well written, sir. I agree with the larger points, though I weight it differently. To wit:
  • Side quest - no better or worse than the HD Fallout games and with the vast variety of things to do, I gave the tedious stuff a pass.
  • Polish - Another pass. I'm astounded BD2 delivered something this GOOD out of the gate, especially given the state of some of the other open world games in the HD era (looking at you, Fallout). In my playthrough, no crashes, few glitches, no framerate issues.
  • The story is batshit insane. I graded on a generous curve here: it's a Nojima Final Fantasy story, it largely works (despite every effort not to), and the ending is -- wow.
If I was scoring, I'd give it a 9 to 9.5. But I'm not on meta.
I love a spirited debate, but I wanna address these things---

  • Fallout 4:
    • I gave Fallout 4 the same score, but I do think Fallout 4's quest design is more impressive, honestly. Fallout 4 often drops new gameplay wrinkles onto quests. One that comes to mind as an example, just one of many, is when you're defending a beached ship against bandit attacks for a crazy robot that still thinks it's before the bombs dropped. This is interesting for a few reasons. I mean, first off you have this unique beached ship location which is the type of thing that'd be reserved for a main story beat only in FF15. Second, you have multiple paths to very different completions. You can betray the robots and help the bandits or you can stay loyal.
    • There's multiple approaches to the combat that ensues; staying up on the ship and blasting down on the enemy, or heading down and getting stuck in. There's giant cannons on the ship you can use to your advantage, and this is a unique gameplay mechanic that doesn't show up anywhere else, really. If you stick with the robots, it permanently aggros a specific group of NPCs against you which then changes the world flow, locks out a few shops and means you'll have to avoid a slice of town or kill them all.
    • So: this is a quest that is 'kill the bad guys' much the same as many of FF15s, but it's nuanced in a number of ways that offer player agency and choice beyond how they do their killing and a set of consequences beyond who you cash in with for experience at the end. It's easy to boil the quest down to 'well, you just battle enemies' if you really strip it back, but there's actually quite a lot of nuance to most FO4 quests - whereas with most of the FF15 side quests what you see is what you get - that sort of subtlety isn't there. There's 80 side quests in FF15, but some of the quests that count towards that number are one-shot story cutscenes with no actual... which is cheeky. Things like this I have rough feelings on, thus the critique.
  • On polish, I'm astonished by how good the game runs now, but when I talk about polish I'm not talking about that. What I mean is...
    • There are different types of games, and Fallout is more free-form. If you think about it, there aren't many actual cutscenes in Fallout, are there? FF15 is not that type of game; it wrests control from you often, though, with directed cutscenes with a cinematic flair. Except... a lot of them, too many of them, feel weirdly unfinished. An example comes to mind, such as when one major character comes up to give a speech. There's a big crowd, and in the establishing shot you see people raising their arms and pumping their fists to cheer, but... it's silent? It feels like somebody forgot the foley, or like it'a work in progress.
    • There's other times when you're getting to know characters such as Iris and their animation is so rough it's mind-blowing. All this stands out all the more because then 5 minutes later in a completely different scene the game looks as polished and as slick as FF13 did in story sequences. Thus the criticism. Honestly... I just think they had to rush it.
  • On story, I want to be clear: I don't think the story is bad but it is anemically told and the supporting cast is paper-thin. It's an intriguing story not very well told, not a bad story, and there is a difference. (Whereas FF13 was a bad story exceptionally well told, which rescued it quite a bit).
My critiques of the game are large... these are things that I think are serious issues. But, obviously, given the score, I still think it's a damn fine game. :)
 

Hynad

Yevonite
Sep 19, 2016
38
36
I love a spirited debate, but I wanna address these things---

  • (Whereas FF13 was a bad story exceptionally well told, which rescued it quite a bit).
Sorry... But I can't agree with you there. As far as I'm concerned, you got that in reverse. FF XIII has a really good story, but it's exceptionally badly told. Its reliance on the game's log should be enough argument to illustrate that. So much is lost if you don't read it. So much of that stuff should have ended up being cut-scenes or explained visually and organically but was left to boring logs.
 

Jubileus

Warrior of Light
Oct 7, 2016
1,651
1,369
Sorry... But I can't agree with you there. As far as I'm concerned, you got that in reverse. FF XIII has a really good story, but it's exceptionally badly told. Its reliance on the game's log should be enough argument to illustrate that. So much is lost if you don't read it. So much of that stuff should have ended up being cut-scenes or explained visually and organically but was left to boring logs.
Yeah replayed FFXIII before playing FFXV and I have to agree.

The content in the datalog is interesting and in depth.

Would've had more impact if they were told via cutscenes or somehow worked into the story instead of shoved behind a massive wall of text.

I love reading so I read the Datalogs. However I don't think most people would have that sort of patience.
 

Jubileus

Warrior of Light
Oct 7, 2016
1,651
1,369
By the end it'll almost certainly fall below 83, which is FFXIII's MC.
It's 84 metacritic currently. Think a new review graded it 6/10, which brought it down considerably.

As for user reviews there's lots of 0's. People saying it's a terrible game cuz it's not versus.

I swear the amount of hate this game gets is incredibly sad. I feel for the dev team who worked so hard to make this a reality, even if it has its flaws and all.

No game is perfect, but you gotta admit it's made a very large number of people (dare I say millions?) incredibly happy (myself included).

That's something we need more of in a troubled world such as ours.
 
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Hynad

Yevonite
Sep 19, 2016
38
36
It's 84 metacritic currently. Think a new review graded it 6/10, which brought it down considerably.

As for user reviews there's lots of 0's. People saying it's a terrible game cuz it's not versus.

I swear the amount of hate this game gets is incredibly sad. I feel for the dev team who worked so hard to make this a reality, even if it has its flaws and all.

No game is perfect, but you gotta admit it's made a very large number of people (dare I say millions?) incredibly happy (myself included).

That's something we need more of in a troubled world such as ours.
Most human beings, and let's be honest, quite a majority of the gamers masses, are self-entitled ignorant morons, so let's not get emotional over the morons "reviews". xD

As for your comment about the game: yes, it has proven itself to be quite addictive and fun so far. I'm 8 hours in. Still in chapter 1. :D
 
Likes: Jubileus