Final Fantasy XV | 4 Friends Doing Repetive Side Quests

Hi guys and welcome to my place!

I’m going to continue my Final Fantasy series. Probably, if you have been following this series you may be thinking “Wait? How the hell did you came from Final Fantasy X-2, to Final Fantasy XV”. Let me explain you then! First I already reviewed Final Fantasy XII, you can read it here. Then I didn’t play any of the MMORPGS (Because ain’t nobody got money for monthly subscriptions) so XI and XIV are also off the table, but then you have Final Fantasy XIII…

Yeah, not really that impressed with that one!

Well… Final Fantasy XIII was the only Final Fantasy installment that I dropped… Which for a Final Fantasy lover is something that well… Way too difficult to accomplish as a game developer. However, I’m going to give it a go again and try to play it, just so I can have a better view of the story and do a review of the game with 100% sure of what I’m talking about, so this review will come out later.

And there you have it! From Final Fantasy X-2 we are now in Final Fantasy XV, a game which was nominated for best RPG of the year and I can’t understand why sincerely… Let’s start it shall we?

The story:

Let me just start with: this is one of the shortest stories in a RPG I ever played. It’s easy to see the main reason though… Money! Why give you all the story in a game when people will gladly buy movies and then DLC’s?

Even Noctis know about it!

First, do you want to know the story background? Then you need to buy and watch the movie that Square Enix made. Don’t take me wrong the movie is not bad, but let me see if I understand… I bought a game for 70€ and I don’t even receive the background story? I need pay more 20€ to watch a movie that is a prelude to the game itself? Are you kidding me right? I mean, I play RPG’s mainly because it’s the genre that normally gives you more lore and have stronger stories and then Square Enix goes and just does this…

Very well, from the beginning I’m not happy, but hey, the game story can be awesome non the less, so I entered the game completely excited to play a new installment of my favourite series… Just to find myself feeling disappointed again.

The story is too short… Period. The thing is, there is no beating around the bush in Final Fantasy XV plot, everything is too direct, making the parts of the main story pass to quickly. (And let me not start with the part where you have main quests where the quest is to get to a certain level! Like a MMORPG… Pff… But I’ll talk more about that in the gameplay).

The story is about Noctis, the prince of a kingdom that is attacked when he is in his journey to marry Lunafreya, a princess of the royal family of Tenebrae and the youngest oracle in history. He is in journey with his 3 guardians and best friends Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto.

The game has 4 arcs (in my eyes), the beginning where they discover about the attack and try to go meet Lunafreya non the less and reclaim Nocti’s kingdom from the empire of Niflheim. Of course, while doing this they are being chased by the Niflheim troops. It is during this arc that you will discover about the King Weapons, which are weapons used by Nocti’s ancestors. If I’m not mistaken I think from the main story you will only receive one or two at max, all of the rest is side story and you are not obliged to try to find them. The thing is… If you don’t, where is the fun? This arc is in the main map where you will be doing the most of the exploration and side quests.

After you do all the arrangements, the second arc starts, the journey, here you will get a your first summon and what is Niflheim doing to your citizens.

Afterwards you have the third arc, the meeting, where you finally are able to meet Lunafreya and see the antagonist in action for the first time.

Coolest character in the game right here!

After that part (which is not really that extensive), you start the final arc. Yes, that’s it! I remember while playing commenting to my boyfriend… No, this can’t be already the final part is it? This doesn’t make sense! Guess what! It was!

Don’t take me wrong, the story is good! But it is so direct that you don’t really have the time to build interest about the characters besides the ones that you play with because they do have random conversations and events, Lunafreya, because she is adorable like that and well.. You can say the antagonist because it is a good character. But everything seems a little to soon. One moment you discover who is the antagonist in the next you are making the final battle with him.

I don’t know… Remember when Final Fantasy sent you in a journey? Where you had to go through a lot of landscapes, cities and so on. Each one with its own lore and secondary characters. Where they used the opportunity to let you know more about the characters and, well just make you fall in love for the story itself nothing more? Yeah… Final Fantasy XV doesn’t have that.

But of course, why would they do it? It’s better to launch 3 DLC’s each one for the background of your main characters and make more money exploiting Final Fantasy XV! It’s like they don’t already do millions with the game itself -.-”

So yeah, really good characters, good story, terrible pace.

The Gameplay:

Final Fantasy XV is Square Enix telling us all that the Final Fantasy series are a full-fledged action RPG now. And they did a pretty good job with it. The mechanics are really responsive and the battles are fun to play… Until you get tired of it, because let’s face it, when you find your favorite skills and mastered the when to attack and when to dodge you will not need much strategy afterwards. Remember when people discussed the best strategy to kill the super powerful side bosses? Well, here you don’t really have to think about it because you only need to have the skills of dodging and attacking at the correct time. If the battle is a little more difficult you just use a little of magic that you crafted and normally are over-powered.

And even if with magic you are having a difficult, don’t worry… After some time you can summon an esper (after you get them of course) and well, if you don’t kill the boss right away his HP should be almost at 0.

Final Fantasy XV makes me remember a lot of Syrim, you have a huge map and a ton of side quests to do… There is only a problem, these sidequests are not as fun or interesting has you have in Skyrim. In Skyrim you have a story behind many of the side quests and normally you will grow inside a guild or something like that while doing it. Here you have quests that you would find in a MMORPG where the objective is just to level. Or you need to find something in a certain spot, or you have to kill monsters, or take photographs (this one is cool, because the graphics are amazing).

You also have hunt marks, more or less the same as Final Fantasy 12. The difference is, there are way too many, some of them even make you to kill monsters you already killed. Moreover, while in Final Fantasy 12 you have a story attached to each hunt (even if it’s not that deep or complex, there is A STORY), in Final Fantasy XV the hunts are only targets for you to kill… Again, it’s like playing a MMORPG.

Most annoying side quest AND quest giver of the game no doubt!

And this brings me to having main quests where you just need to get to a certain level. Are you freaking kidding me? Instead of making me go through a story, making me stronger without even realizing and just feeling that the story line is really smooth, they decided that the way to go would be: “Let’s make this chapter! With the quests they probably will end up in lvl 25, but for the next quest they should be lvl30… So let’s just put a quest that is Get to Level 30″… Are you kidding me? Let me explain you something, if I wanted to play a MMORPG I would go and play a freaking MMORPG. It’s way more entertaining to grind with a lot of people than solo!

As you may already understand to this point, the most time you will spend in this game will be in the main map. The map is huge and takes time for you to get one place to another. You have 2 kind of ways to transport yourself, using your car, which at a certain point will give you ability points, but you will need to have the patience to see the car moving by itself (or driving it yourself) for about 5-10 minutes, or you just instant travel… The thing is, since your side quests are always go there, do this and come back (and the “do this” is not really that time-consuming) there will be a point that your playthrough will feel like 99% of the time is past in driving a car or watching loading screens (which are not really that fast to be honest).

The Graphics:

Completely out of this world! This is the game with better graphics I ever played period. Everything is top-notch and well made to the detail. In a different note, the animation of the movie is so great that in the beginning I was not understanding if it was real action or animation lolol.

They are good to the point where the changes from the gameplay to cutscenes have so similar graphics and are so fluid that, from time to time, after a cutscene I would be there waiting for something to happen and only some seconds afterwards I would realize that the cutscene has ended and it’s in gameplay mode again. If you are not conviced yet, I think that the picture below rests my case!

Ah and the bosses! The bosses are so well designed and are gigantic!!! Love them! 😀

I hate snakes and the game was able to make me feel unconfortable while fighting them – that’s the amount of details put to it

The only thing not that positive I have to add is… Since they decided to make the game around the same map, you really don’t have different environments as one would expect from a Final Fantasy. I would prefer smaller maps with different environments (like you have in Final Fantasy XII or Tales of Berseria), but well… It’s excellent non the less.

The Trophies:

Since I have played the game for PS4 I need to talk about the trophies… Well, they could be better. Although the trophies can range most of the part the game it’s not like that you have to do EVERYTHING in the game so you can have 100%.

Here are some examples: You don’t need to catch every fish in the game, you don’t need to cook every meal, and the one that I think it should be in the trophies and it’s not is a quest that you get at the end of the game where it opens some new dungeons where you have the most difficult monsters, being the last quest lvl 99 (the one I was not able to pass yet). I think the conclusion of this side quest is the ultimate proof that you mastered Final Fantasy XV, so it is a pity that it’s not part of the trophies.

The Music:

The music is, of course, awesome. First you can buy CD’s (in-game) to listen in the car. These CD’s have the soundtracks of all the Final Fantasies launched until today, so that nostalgia really kicks in when you are just driving the car listening to the music.

The music from Final Fantasy XV itself is also superb, however, there is a small problem. Since the game is passed almost in the same map while you are doing side quests, it gets to a point that, if you don’t really love the music you will grow tired of it. It happened to me (and to my boyfriend) with the diners’ OST where you get and complete hunt quests.

My favorite music is without a doubt this one: (Mobile readers can hear it here!)

 

And that’s it folks, sorry for the long post, but I really needed to get out a lot of my chest. The game is not bad and to be honest it is pretty fun and entertaining to play. However, it can get pretty repetitive and if you are not like me (that doesn’t really mind to the same task over and over again) you probably will get tired of it… Unless you just go for the main story and finish the game like in 20 hours (or less).

I give Final Fantasy 15: 3,8 out of 5

(Being direct like Final Fantasy XV main plot)

That’s all everyone! Have you played Final Fantasy XV? What do you think about it? Tell me in the comments! If you did not, tell me if you are thinking on giving it a go! 😀

See You Soon! 😀