Video Game Review: Final Fantasy XV
My husband told me people were saying how the Final Fantasy 7 Remake game play was very similar to the Final Fantasy XV gameplay. So, after finishing FF7 Remake, I had to play FFXV.
I must say it wasn't what I expected, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The game starts with the protagonist, Noctis, going on a road trip with his three friends to go get married to Lady Lunafreya in another kingdom. While on the road you run out of gas and you have to push the car to the nearest gas station. This is where your adventure begins.
I have played Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and now this one, and one of the first characters you meet it Cid. Cid, in this game, is an old mechanic who will eventually upgrade your weapons.
The game has some cool dynamics and some annoying ones. You play as Noctis, but your three friends are with you for most of the game. When you fight, the three extra characters play independently and you can only control their special attacks after you get enough power to activate them. Each character has a special skill, attack, and weapons.
GEAR:
The characters come with a few different set of clothes that you can change throughout the game, the can handle weapons and shields (depending on the character), and special items to help improve their stats. In my opinion, the game doesn't offer a lot of different weapons and Cid can only upgrade so much. There are a variety of weapons and each character specializes in one, but not a lot of weapons of each kind.
Noctis can handle any kind of weapon and you get four slots to assign them. Although if you want to use magic, then it'll take up one slot. The main menu is available during the fight and you can change whatever you want during battle.
MAGIC:
In this game, you access magic through the Elemancy menu. You find "magic" deposits (ice, fire, lightning) throughout the world and you fill up. You can then use that magic to create spells and assign them to the characters. Forget about Fire, Fira, and Firaga, all you get it two or three spells with different attack points when you create spells and they run out pretty quick. I personally learned only to use spells when facing big adversaries when it was clear what their weakness was (for example, I cast some ice spells on Ifrit).
There aren't any curative spells, so stock up with potions and elixirs
SKILLS:
Each character has a special skill. Those skills develop throughout the game, but I never saw a real use for them. The main character, Noctis, fishes. Then Ignis cooks, Gladio hikes, and Prompto takes pictures.
It took me a while to get the hang of fishing, but by the end of the game it got so hard I gave up on it. The fishing line kept breaking for me. I just wasn't good at fishing. Prompto takes pictures, which you can save. The only advantage about the pictures I could figure out was that you will be asked to choose a picture before the final battle. They will use that in the ending and in your completion certificate (below).
Walking gives you AP and Gladio learns how to find more items during battles. And Ignis learns new recipes (which up your stats whenever you go camping).
Noctis has another set of skills, too. He can warp to attack and he can find a place to warp and recharge. A lot of the battle is Noctis going from one place to another to recharge and attack. The farther away he is when he warps to attack, the more powerful the attack.
EXPERIENCE:
You have HP and MP, like every other Final Fantasy game. You gain experience points when you win a battle, but it does nothing to your HP or MP unless you go rest somewhere. There are several places where you can rest, and each place gives you an extra experience boost. Depending on how much it costs to sleep in that place, the more experience you'll get. If you sleep in the gas station you get 1.2x experience. If you sleep in a fancy hotel you can get up to 2x experience. If you camp out you don't get additional experience, but Ignis can cook for you and you can get a special boost. Also, sometimes there are special scenes if you camp out you'll miss if you don't.
MP isn't used for magic as much as for warping to attack.
MONEY:
Like in every Final Fantasy, there are shops where you can buy weapons and items. You can also buy soundtracks from the other games to play in the car while you drive. You also need money to sleep and get leveled up. Money usually comes from hunting monsters.
In each place where there is a restaurant, there cook will tell you about the are and the monster hunting contracts there are (apart from selling you food that increases your stats). When you kill this monsters, the cook will give you money and an item (you also get experience points when you kill the monsters).
I guess earning money for hunting monsters is a way for the game to force you to gain experience, too.
I never ran out of money, so I was happy by the arrangement.
THE CAR:
The car is an important part of this game and it needs gas to run. You don't want to run out of gas or else you'll have to push it to a gas station and that's very annoying (it never happen to me and I'm grateful). The car lets you travel faster from one point to another and to teleport to certain places. If you drive, you get AP which you can use to level up your stats (you get AP for other things, too).
You can also upgrade your car and make it more indestructible. In the beginning of the game, Ignis can drive the car for you during the day and you have to figure it out during the night (when monsters appear in the middle of the road randomly). Later Ignis can automatically drive the car for you at all times of the day. It's still faster to teleport to each post for 10gil.
THE STORY:
I enjoyed the story overall, although it doesn't really have a happy ending. I read online that there were supposed to be alternate endings coming out in DLCs, but that never happened. After chapter 9 begins, the story becomes pretty much straightforward and everything turns darker. The ending was very emotional and even thought it made sense, it still felt bittersweet. The characters grew on me with time, and the setting of the story was a world that was a mix of a fantasy world and the modern world.
The story behind the antagonist wasn't very clear to me during the game, but I read more about him online to understand better what his motivation was.
Overall, a solid story.
I finished the game in about 60 hours of gameplay and missed a few sidequests that I could return to if I wanted. In the end, I had a great time playing Final Fantasy XV.
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