Game Over: Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy games have had open-ish worlds since the dawn of time, but Final Fantasy XV was the first one to give you a car that you could drive everywhere. And I hated it. The car, that is, because the problem with being able to drive everywhere is that the game makes you drive everywhere.

Okay, so for those who haven’t played it, Final Fantasy XV has you playing as Prince Noctis as he’s travelling with his entourage to get married. Rather than take an airship, they decide to drive for some reason, and have not long left before The Empire attacks the city. So, it’s up to Noctis, his friend Prompto, his vassal Ignis, and his royal guard Gladiolus to set things right (also their names suck, just saying). It’s an action RPG so you can see the enemies coming from a mile away, and leg it if you’re in trouble. Like, say, come across a level 71 monster when you’re only level 39…

The car aside, I honestly enjoyed my time with the game. I played about 23 hours, not including the DLCs which was about another four, and on the whole it was a positive experience. The story and character relationships were well executed, I had no issues with the gameplay, and it was light on bugs. Noctis did turn invisible for no reason about 20 hours in for 10 minutes, though.

One thing in particular that I enjoyed was how every character has an arc, they’re different people by the end of the game. While some of it is left to your imagination, the DLCs of Episode Gladiolus, Episode Ignis, and Episode Prompto help to fill in the blanks and flesh out the story. While I do still have some lingering questions having finished the game a couple of days ago, I’m sure that’s my fault for not watching the various anime and reading a handful of books. Also, I skipped like 90% of the side quests.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I finished the game in just over 23 hours because I was sick of driving everywhere and just pushed on through to the end of the main quest. Imagine playing Grand Theft Auto, but not being able to break the speed limit, and having to follow roads. You can have Ignis drive the car everywhere, but all that does is stop you at the right time. If you’re driving you can just hold down the acceleration button and usually the car will just follow the road…

But don’t worry, you can also choose to walk or run everywhere, or hire a chocobo which will happily leave you in the middle of nowhere if your rental expires… There’s also a boat, but I didn’t drive that (missing a Trophy) because after the car I had no intention of using any transportation I didn’t have to. Yes, there is fast travel, but that only allows you to go back to places you’ve already visited, and it has to be over a certain distance away if you want to skip the drive…

The chocobos are unlocked as part of a side quest, so obviously I did a few of those, but when it’s telling you that you have to drive seven minutes to apply a coat of polish to the car… Oh yay, I can drive 10 minutes for a round-trip — not including running around looking for a rock — for some guy? You can see where I’m coming from, right? The chocobo is faster than running, but not as fast as the car, and you have to ride it for absolute ages before it gains levels to speed up for it to be a decent alternative.

But anyway, enough complaining about Final Fantasy XV, a game which I did actually enjoy. The graphics were great, the soundtrack was decent, the voice acting would have been perfect if Ignis hadn’t kept pronouncing words weirdly, and the story was very enjoyable. It’s an all-around fun experience if you can ignore the loading times and repetitive combat…

Okay, clearly I had several issues with this game. I did enjoy Final Fantasy XV, it’s a decent action-RPG and I don’t regret playing it. The arc that each character goes on is well earned, especially with the DLC adding to it, and I can highly recommend playing it if it’s on one of your subscriptions. But I’m not paying extra for Episode Ardyn.