Final Fantasy XV (2016)

I’ve watched a lot of analysis of this game over the years but after just an hour of playing it feels completely different from what I imagined. The combat is interesting, the story and setting feel much more fantastical than I saw from the marketing, and it kinda feels like Final Fantasy VIII (my favorite).

With the visual option set to favor framerate it’s running pretty smoothly on the PS5. Graphically, I see everything Digital Foundry mentioned but I do tend to forget about the bad anti-aliasing when I’m teleporting around slicing up baddies.

I think I’ll keep playing and see where the story goes.

Was pretty close to the end so I decided to finish this today. Very flashy, very cinematic... I had no idea what the fuck was going on in the end. Will probably go back to mop up some achievements then throw the towel in. I did enjoy my time with this and even most of the story, I just feel its delivery was a bit of a mess. A lot of this game felt messy actually, in particularly the fast travel system, like why God (Square Enix) would you make it so convoluted?

Still, I enjoyed playing this game and while it had its moments of frustration, it wasn't a completely horrible experience.

Started this last friday. I'm quite enjoying it though it can be a little tedious at times but aren't all JRPGs? Combat is slick and flows well, I have it set to Wait Mode too so I can plan my next moves. Pretty neat system, could have had a little more depth added to it however.

Story-wise I think it's competent, suffers like a lot of JRPGs where they throw a stack of characters at you, try to make them look cool and end with something flashy. Cliche and tiresome but not unexpected by any means.

I'm about 19 hours in and I've been working on side quests here and there which are mostly of the fetch-quest and kill-quest variety. Nothing new there.

Despite what might sound negative, the game is enjoyable for me. I think I do need a break though, I can only take so much.

Wanted to share a some thoughts I had in a chat with someone who's currently playing through the game:

ff15 is in the same class of game as deadly premonition, where you have the most fun when nothing at all is going on

deadly premonition and ff15 manage to take the feel and rote action from the dailiness of real life and gamify it enough to where it becomes engaging and enjoyable, familiar enough to evoke tinges of nostalgia within you but different enough that you remain curious

as opposed to something like animal crossing, where the approach to gamifying daily life just highlights the emptiness and pointlessness of it all and makes you want to kill yourself

O man I can't believe I finally have a good enough PC to run this game. Even after I've already watched all of the main story plus DLC-s and read dozens of reviews pointing out all of its undeniable flaws and I basically know everything by this point, I'm still excited to play it myself. And I'm having the time of my life! I love everything about the main cast and how realistic and sweet the interactions between the bros are. Though I really wish they would have developed the characters more in the main game, that would have been neat. Still, it's fine by me. I'm not letting missed opportunities to stop me from enjoying the adventure. I guess I just really have a thing for games with bros on a road trip.

PS: I remember the first thing I did before getting into the game was to watch the short anime Brotherhood. Definitely worth checking it out if you want to get to know the characters on a deeper level, the backstories are very important for the relationships between the four best-buds and also for your emotional connection to them (which I definitely feel). The DLC-s also do great jobs for character development on a later level in the game, so can't go without them, especially for a person like me who cares about the characters and their fates in this world so much.