SPOILERS permitted in this thread including the ending and endgame sections, be warned.

I am in chapter 13 now and I am seriously considering just quitting for good. I don't even care about the ending anymore - in 25-30 hours there has been no real story, only pure nonsense.

The world is really nice, but all the quests are fetch quests with little variety. The battle system is not really doing it for me, but I am willing to admit that is a question of taste - but even if you DO like it, the game takes away all the weapons at one point and forces you to do a really long stealth section, which is just terrible. And that is after an hour of running around a train back and forth with no good reason. Now I am at a point where I am doing some really stupid door opening "puzzles", looking for keycards and such. It's sub-par. And they even throw in a superpowerful monster who chases you in narrow hallways and one-shots you! Why not? Also, let's put in a cheap jump-scareish sections when an enemy on the ground comes alive and grabs you, yey! And let's do that like 7 times in a row! Also why not disble saving for this whole part, except for dedicated rooms? Fuck off!

How does this game rate so high is beyond me.

Did anyone here finish it and is satisfied with the game? I know this is a rant-y post but I am so frustrated with the game right now.

I don't even know where to begin. How did chapter 13 make it into the game in it's present state? The craziest part to me is that they take away your ability to run until you get your weapons back. Why? You have to do that slow ass walk the entire goddamn time. That chapter can easily last upwards of two hours. It blows my mind.

Honestly though, all that still pails in comparison to my other problems with this game: the story. This shit is all over the place.

• How is Cindy the the most prominent woman in this game? Luna is in the game for 10-15 minutes tops and you never really buy her and Notcis' relationship at all. Hell, you never really care about her by herself at all. Ardyn literally walks up and stabs her and peaces out. You have a dream about her, wake up, find out she's really dead, and her body is missing. Iris' entire purpose is to fawn over Noctis for a five minutes and then have you escort her to wherever the fuck you escorted her. Aranea is cool, but the game doesn't really do much with her aside from making her spout exposition. Gentiana is your typical "I'm gonna speak in riddles and poetry" mystery character. The only cool thing about her is she turns out to be Shiva which...sure? I guess? I don't understand the purpose in making her Shiva, but by then I had long since thrown in the towel.
• Gladio got another scar! Ignis is blind! How did it happen? Who the fuck cares? The game sure doesn't. Moving on!
• Prompto is an MT! What does that mean for the story? Nothing! Abso-fucking-lutely nothing at all. That entire thing is resolved within seconds.
• Speaking of the whole MT/daemon thing...what's the point? The game reveals that they used to be human. Sure, whatever. But just like the Prompto thing, what's the point of giving us that information? It's literally never relevant to the story before or after that point.
• The bit leading up to the ending should have been a nice reunion for everyone you met in your travels. Instead, whats-his-face picks you up along the road, throws some exposition at you, you arrive at Hammerhead, and you're off to fight the final boss. If that wasn't a clear indication that this story doesn't give a single fuck about anyone other than you and Ardyn, I don't know what is.
• Why am I supposed to care about Regis, Ravus, or even fucking Jared? Honestly, give me a reason other than the game telling me I should care. Combined, they're all in the game for maybe 10 minutes. Regis dies in a montage in the first hour of the game (might be less than that tbh). Ravus threatens you and seems to hate your guts and you just kinda discover him dead at one point. Jared, you see for one fucking 30 second cutscene, then you come back to discover he's dead and the game gets melodramatic about this guy you probably don't even remember as you're reading this.
• Gladio getting mad at Noctis is the most awkward, forced conflict I've experienced in a game in a while.
• The Emperor and that other commander who was with him and Ravus in that one cutscene and escapes during your raid on the base (I'm betting you also don't remember him by the way) are killed off-screen and you only learn about it through a handful of lines. If memory serves right, that dialogue happens once during a dungeon and again over the radio. Meaning that theoretically, if you had a bad cough, it's possible to completely miss out on that information. It may have been explained in a cutscene, but the point is the game brings them into the story in a big way, but then writes them out offhandedly.
• When Ardyn rescues you early on from whatever was happening, this fucking game has the audacity to throw up a "several days later" screen in you face. Then, you emerge from an inn or something with everyone in your party going "oh man, that was nuts. That Ardyn guys still seems shady though!" Fuck. You.
• The Ring and the Crystal are never properly explained until near the end of the game, yet the game throws the terms around as if you're well acquainted with both of them. Same thing with "The Six," except the game never explains that at all. You just have to infer what it means from everyone talking about it like you already know what it means.

And that's just the shit I remember. I'm sure I'll think of more later. This story is hot garbage.

Yeah I think people's take on this game will vary quite a bit. If you want interesting side quests and a cohesive story above all else, this is not the game for you. In the end though, I still enjoy fighting, exploring dungeons, and weirdly enough, being driven around.

I got pretty frustrated with the Luna death and Ardyn 10 years passing scene. Luna's death scene, other than looking spectacular, did nothing for me. I only became slightly invested in her after she had already died. It's not good when the best female character in the game is Aranea Highwind, an inconsequential secondary character. I still don't understand why Ardyn stabbed Luna. That Ardyn scene when 10 years passed made no sense when it happened. I didn't know why I was in a prison or how I got there from being inside the crystal. I only began to understand the situation when I read the loading scene explanation a while after. That was kind of the case for a lot of this game. I needed extra detail to understand what I had just watched because the cut scene exposition was all over the place. They will spend 5 minutes on Prompto telling Noctis that he is insecure but no time at all explaining a vital story component. The troubled development of XV is apparent in the obtuse story. As for the train, stealth, and blind Ignis sections, you're right they are pretty annoying. I hated having to wait for blind Ignis more than anything else.

However, I think this game is greater than the sum of it parts. I had a lot of fun being driven around, monster hunting, clearing dungeons. I really enjoyed the boss fights and I like the combat quite a bit. You can do really incredible attack chains with a lot of the stuff you spend Ascension Points on. And for all my story and side quest complaints, I really enjoyed the ending and am still fighting monsters and exploring dungeons after I finished the game. I just think fighting and exploring this world is so much fun. I think you should stick it out and finish the game.

Edit: I agree with everything BabyChooChoo said

@babychoochoo: You done said everything that was on my mind, man. After playing something like the Witcher 3, it's really frustrating watching a game get all this basic stuff so wrong. A lot of those gripes, I would guess, are casualties of this game's simultaneously protracted and rushed dev cycle.

I would actually describe this game as the Japanese Dragon Age: inquisition -- a game from a story-heavy studio that is used to making a specific type of game, but in pursuit of current market trends tries to adapt their strengths to an "open world" format, with very limited success. To their credit, at least, Bioware still got their characters mostly right because Bioware games develop their characters in discrete home-base conversations, wholly independently of the main story.

I finished it today and immediately loaded my file back up again so I could go back to exploring dungeons and taking on hunts. I love the actual gameplay of this title, though the story has its problems for sure.

I loved the ending, the final boss fight, and even the Ifrit fight with the Bahamut and Shiva summons, both were very cool sequences. Everything leading up to that though was too sparse on actual onscreen story. Tons of things seemed to happen offscreen and the only way I'd find out was by listening to the radio (and having to skip past the Coernix oil, Hunters association, and Kenny the Crow commercials).

The parts of the game where some party members leave (Gladio getting his scar, Ignis getting blinded, Prompto after falling off the train) feel like really obvious hooks for the DLC character episodes, and that all kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Kind of reminds me of Assassin's Creed II with the DLC for missing chapters in the story. I hope I'm wrong and it's something different, even though I would like to have some of that stuff explained. Maybe then the 'Prompto is a magitek lab baby' revelation would have had more weight to it.

I also would have loved to find out why Ravus had a face-turn after getting his arm burned off in Kingsglaive (which I did end up watching despite not wanting to). The letters scattered around his body in chapter 13 did not explain much at all. Did Noctis somehow prove himself to Ravus after going through the trials for Titan and the others? Was that enough for him to get past over a decade of hatred and resentment towards the Lucis kingdom? They just skipped some vital character development there.

Speaking of chapter 13, I don't seem to have the hatred towards it that many other people do. I do feel it could have wrapped up quicker though. Honestly the most annoying part about it was having to listen to Ardyn's lame taunts. What I truly hated was the swamp chapter where Gladio kept passive-aggressively sniping at me the whole way through. Like hell I'm gonna stand around and wait for them to catch up while Ignis walks into walls.

Also, Aranea was cool. I would have loved to have seen more of her before she went back to being a mercenary captain or whatever. Hey, instead of DLC episodes with character development that should have been in the game in the first place, how about an episode centered around Aranea doing cool mercenary shit and taking on Daemon hunts. I would probably be way more into that.

I'll just re-iterate though that I truly loved the ending. It really hit me hard. The flashback scene after the final battle where it goes to their last campfire before heading to Insomnia was great, a real gutpunch. I feel like where this game failed in telling its overall story, it succeeded in making me care about the four guys and their journey together.

Yep. I've heard a few people say it FFXV is now their favorite FF game, which I can't really agree with. I mean, there are different ways to measure it I guess. FFXV ending hit me in the feels pretty well, but not as hard as FFX did. FFVI is way more fun game to play overall than either of those and I love Kefka, though I was definitely emotionally less attached to those characters. I guess it depends on what you're looking for.

For me, FFXV was an alright experience, but it definitely had some glaring missteps. Systems-wise, I did not like the magic or the summons - both felt gimped in a way. I would've much preferred if I had to craft those magic grenades only for some super strong spells and had normal spells available all the time. And maybe some item that would take time to recharge, for the summons - rather than the super obscure trigger system which lead me to see most summons like once (aside from Ramuh) during the game.

Story-wise, it left much to be desired. The ending was ok, but from chapter 9 onward you could really tell that most of the story was left on the cutting room floor.

From what I understand about their DLC plans, that is exactly what those are. They purposefully left out bits of the story that they then intend to fill in with DLC. It's the same kind of weird decision that probably made them tell part of the story in Kingsglaive and Brotherhood. I have no idea why they did any of that.

Yuuup. Chapter 13 is the worst chapter in the game for sure. It feels like straight up padding - the other chapters were really short, so they felt they needed to have more gameplay before the end, or something. It wouldn't have been so bad if they had cut out like 50% of the dungeon - the early part. Once you get to the latter part, Ardyn actually has some interesting dialogue and you can find out more about the daemon experiments and etc. from the letters/books around the dungeon.

The way they ended up treating Luna is probably my biggest grievance. She seemed like such a promising character. I always assumed that she would die, but I thought it would be a self-sacrificing moment near the end of the game, where she would help power-up Noctis for the final fight or something. Instead they killed her before we even got to meet with her? I have no idea why they thought that was a good moment for them to kill off Luna. If we could've had her with the party for a few chapters and maybe a few more flashbacks of them as kids, she could've been established as a proper character and someone I cared about. As it was, I was mostly surprised by her death and I ended up spending the whole Leviathan fight a daze, trying to figure out the motivation of the devs.

Oh, god yes. It felt like it came from nowhere. It was super abrupt and made me hate Gladio. Just throwing out that it was "2 weeks later" or some shit, doesn't work - that kind of reaction needs a build-up.

So yeah. FFXV is deeply flawed in the way they handle the story - I don't actually know the stories behind the development, but it really does feel like they clipped out everything they could without completely making the story incomprehensible, and shipped it. Tons of scenes that would've fleshed out the plot and the characters, are now on the cutting room floor somewhere, never to be seen again, while some of it will be delivered to us in the form of DLCs.

When you start the game, there is a line where they dedicate the game to fans of FF or something like that. And you can see it, in the nods to previous games. I loved listening to old FF music in the car, for example. But some of the stuff...I might be crazy, but Ardyn definitely seemed like a pseudo-Kefka, except way worse somehow. They treated Luna like the poor man's Aerith. Even Noctis, in the end, gave me like Tidus vibes in so far as his role in the world. This seems like a horrible amalgamation of previous FF games, but rather than being more than sum of its parts, it's actually less. Then again, I might be projecting way too much.

I think FFXV could've become the best FF game ever, if only they hadn't seemingly "rushed" it out. Such a pity.

@dunchad: Actually, I'd say Luna is more a poor man's Yuna. They both fill the role of the pure maiden destined to sacrifice herself to save the world. Aerith eventually falls into that role, but it's not preordained by official state religion. There's also the fact of her foreknowledge: Yuna knows she's marching to her own destruction but she keeps on trucking anyway, which is one of the most ennobling aspects of her character. Given Luna's constant sickliness and Ravus not wanting her to form more pacts, it seems that the Oracle stuff puts a similar strain on her as the Final Summoning would on Yuna.

The part where Yuna mostly succeeds, though, is that she's an actual character -- they put in the work to develop her as a person with motivations independent of helping the hero power up. FFX is arguably her story. Fucking Luna gets killed off without having a single conversation with her supposed love interest.

Look man, have you SEEN the combat, its so flashy and looks awesome with amazing graphics in it and the rest of the game in general. I mean not being able to lock on to anything while holding circle, holding square, and the occasional circle press after square along with a warp strike or two, shits deeeeep. Did you see how cool looking armiger form is, you literally just hold circle and it looks so sick. And the summons, MAN OH MAN they look so cool, thank god they are scripted into the fights otherwise you would never see them ever in the entire playthrough, glad SE made sure we could see 5/6 for sure as they look so cool.

The above is why some people consider it the best ever, because it looks awesome and feels awesome (even though you aren't really doing anything). Visually its the best FF ever and its one of the best looking games ever made, but I mean it A) is the newest FF, B) had insane resources put into the visual aspect, and C) just game out. Visuals and flashiness can really hold up games using older brands as they can easily evoke the feels, which the game is riding the FF feels coattails. Without the FF brand the game being in the 6-8 range wouldn't be so heavily debated by the people loving it.

So I went back in and finished the damn thing, maybe it was me being sour on the whole thing, but I hated the ending as well, including the last two fights. I am not even gonna comment on the fact they stripped the party away for the final boss fight, even though the party battle system is the point of the whole thing.

I can see for some people the world itself is fun enouh to go back in and do stuff, but I deleted the game right after the end credits and put it up on (a local equivalent of) ebay.

Fuck this game. 2 stars at best for me.

That's actually a good point. I think it was the whole stabbing thing that made me associate her with Aerith, but her role is definitely closer to Yuna's.

Just spam Holy in Chapter 13. As more time as gone by I've realized it's not as bad as people say it is. It's more that it's just so damn long. If it was half the length it would be fine.

So you haven't played the game then. Got it.

Anyways the ending is the best in the series and one of my favorites in a game probably. The game has issues, but is so damn fun to play and explore that they were just never much of a thing for me. It's my easy GOTY and second favorite in the series behind VII. The fact that this game isn't a god damn train wreck and Tabata managed to salvage it into what it is is worthy of praise to me. By all accounts this SHOULD have been Duke Nukem Forever. It's not.

I don't think the story is bad at all. It's just missing pieces, which is unfortunate. It needed MORE of it, but what is there I don't dislike at all. Ardyn is a fantastic villain and the main foursome really grow on you and you care about them. Side characters definitely got off screened too much.

I really want to see Tabata direct the next game, from the ground up.

That's what kind of makes her death tragic to me. You go on this journey to meet with her and when you two are finally in the same place, at the same time she's a goner. It's kind of fucked. She definitely needed more screen time, for sure though. Like I sure as hell wouldn't put her death on the Aeris level, but no ones ever will be. In a perfect world it could've come close, but it was not meant to be.

When I was writing my review I really struggled over whether it was a three or a four star. Friends that read it told me it sounded like a three and looking back on it I agreed. Since yesterday I've been stewing over it and my mood on it has soured still.

All the points @babychoochoo made are in line with my thoughts and I found today, returning to the game to poke at side content, I've just lost my thrill with the whole thing.

As for defense of the final bosses and the ending I simply cannot stand with you on that. I barely remember the ending, to be honest. The Final Fantasy endings I remember are long affairs, taking you on an emotional journey through the events and the resolution. Final Fantasy XV ends with the bad guy dying and then a slideshow of your photos and then a scene of Noctis and Luna maybe being together in death? And then a scene of the boys together at some point? I don't even know. Those bosses too were just... I couldn't even see what was happening most of the time in that fight with Ardyn.

I'm still a little salty, I think.

@feralchemy: I honestly think one of the biggest faults with the game is that it had this story to tell, but didn't have any sort of idea on how to end it, so it was just like "hey remember this shit? cool right? no? fuck you then"

That's exactly what kills stories for me. Pieces can make or break the whole thing. Aeris' death is so poignant because of all the pieces in the story where you spend time with her. You remove those pieces and suddenly her death means nothing to the player. Yuna is such a wonderful character because of all the pieces where we see her grow. Without those pieces, it's like flipping a switch and suddenly Yuna morphs into a completely different character out of nowhere.

I think XV has a great framework for a story, but as a result of those missing pieces, the entire thing suffers. The lack of those connecting threads and small characters moments suck out any and all would-be emotion from events, minor to major, all throughout the story for me.

I hate to keep harping on Jared, but I'm almost tempted to say his death is the perfect example of everything I find wrong about this game. Almost a better example than Luna herself. You meet him once for about 30 seconds to a minute and he sends you off. You come back to find he was killed (off-screen no less), but then there is the 5 minute long cutscene of everyone mourning over his death as if you spent the entire game with him. The story is so proud of itself, but it's completely unearned.

But hey, don't take this as a "my opinion is right and your are wrong aaaaaaaargh" sorta thing. I'm honestly glad you enjoyed the story. I genuinely wish I could too. This was one of my most anticipated games this year and now I'm just salty as fuck lol.

@revolve: Totally. The first warning sign, as I mentioned in my write up, was the invasion being shown in a clip from a film followed by a news headline the next morning. I would have honestly been happy with it being revealed just in the paper to be honest, reflecting the distance they have from home. In a way I wish all the story telling was told from within their bubble to give it a limited perspective. To give it a cohesiveness.

The second shiver down my spine was with Jared and Talcott. They treated them like I was supposed to care who they were. Especially when Jared dies not that long after.

Don't even get me started with Talcott's optional exposition at the end... Or any number of important details left to radio broadcasts or documents that, too, were optional.

If the theory about the missing chapters being the DLC is true I think I might flip a table.

Why do you hurt me, FFXV? You were my brother! I loved you!

@feralchemy: God, Talcott's exposition just killed me... its like he was describing this awesome game that everyone else got to play while Noctis was sleeping. And they had the nerve to call back to FFVI's world of ruin! In terms of smart design, FFVI's post-apocalypse eats this one for breakfast.

@encephalon: Would you say it's the fast-moving fish, or the slow-moving fish?

@encephalon: Oh man. This hurts me even more. Imagine a twist where suddenly you're playing as Iris or something and playing through events in that ten year slumber.

Also... Why did Noctis wake up in a ruin on some strange island? I thought he was in the crystal. Did it spit him out or something?

I hate to sound like such a complainer you guys but I HAVE FEELINGS INSIDE ME.

@revolve: *cries*

Also, considering that combat is by far the game's high point, I hope they expand the Altissia colosseum in a patch or DLC. I'd like a rematch with Aranea, my air combat game was NOT on point the first time.

Here's my thoughts on the story: It had good ideas but collapsed under it's own ambition. I think they were going for something like Homer's Iliad where the conflict between the humans factions had to do with divine intervention where the gods (summons) are taking sides in supporting who they want. Shiva sided with Luna, Ifrit with Ardyn, Ramuh decided to help Luna in supporting Noctis off in some distant cutscene hence becoming the first summon, and then neutral positions like the Hydraen and the Titan, and Bahamut hiding inside a crystal.

But they couldn't ELABORATE on it. The themes are there, but the poor narrative presentation left a lot of elements poorly explained and others feel like a lack of continuity.

Chapter 13 was poorly made. They tried to force in a stealth sequence without the proper mechanics. The detection system was already bad enough, but using that to make you navigate using stealth is a bad idea. There were many times where the monster detected me when he was really far away, with its back turned towards me already.

Negatives aside though, I really liked the exploration and open world, and the ascension skills means something unlike the usual sphere grids you see in other games like passive +20 hp etc. The Ifrit boss fight was spectacular, Ardyn not so much.

I have played the entire game, did almost all sidequests (not fishing), all the dungeons, and beaten the story. The game has MANY MANY problems that firmly put it in the 7/10 category for me with the ONLY reason I continued to play being its a FF game or else I would of quit around Ch. 7. The ending is fineish with the entire last sequence of being in Insomnia with the music. The Ifrit battle was easily the best in the game (though much worse without the two summon animations which were thank god or else I would never of seen them) and I found the Ardyn battle completely acceptable with the ending being fine, not great as I just wasn't invested in Noctis at all, but fine.

The story though is missing more then just pieces, its like I gave you a book and I removed the first 5 chapters, then randomly took singular or groups of chapters out, namely many parts that are HUGE for just character moments, not even the numerous story implications. WHY did we not see Ignis blinded, WHY did we not see Galea get wrecked or Ravus die, WHY THE FUCK ARE NON-SOUND KINGSGLAIVE SCENES IN THE GAME, like shit makes no sense. I mean WHO is the guy who killed the king he looks super badass. This is stuff should of 100% been included.

Then we have the terrible story of the sidequests. Did you know Dave has like 10 quests and outside of the FIRST and LAST one he says the literal WORD FOR WORD same lines as he does in part of the first one. How can you even call this acceptable for any game?

I mean the characters have moments, but so much stuff really hampers them. Having Ignis complain about driving in the dark for over a dozen hours is brutal with this snobbish british accent and combined with him being randomly blind and constantly reminded hes "unable to keep up" it just makes me dislike the character in every way by the end of the game. Gladiolas hardly says anything, randomly goes off and gets mega scars making you wonder why did he leave? just to do bounties? makes no sense and why didn't we see him injured so horribly and the one time he really says stuff is his noodle questline was nonsensical with just terrible voice acting during it. Prompto was sort of okish, but then randomly we get told he was an Imperial experiment child that escaped and somehow got to Insomnia. Shit makes no sense, has 0 forewarning or explanation when they could of EASILY had a few barcode mentioned scenes earlier on or just not had this shit and had a key card sitting by his tied up body.

These are just some complaints, I mean the game has high points, but then it has terrible problems to where its not even close to the best FF, let alone GOTY material.

Reflecting back, I think they treated Ardyn really poorly as well. Based on Kingsglaive and the early parts of the game, I was really liking his character. He definitely seemed Kefka-esque (Noctis even calls him a jester in the end) in many ways and I thought he was really promising. But ultimately, I think chapter 13 and the ending ruined him. The early parts of that dungeon where he keeps shouting out lame taunts at Noctis which don't fit the action in any way was super annoying and then his final fight is kind of meh. It definitely looked cool, for a moment, but it was far from Kefka's multi-layered ending fight that he should've had.

Though now that I think about it, my biggest issue was the fact that it took Noctis 10 years to grow that beard. Oh, and that I didn't get to see mature Cindy at Hammerhead. :P

I saw one streamer pick Cindy's picture at the end, which made the post-post-credits scene hilarious - him showing a picture of Cindy to Luna in the afterlife was so absurd.

To me, they sacrificed telling a big epic narrative about empires colliding and high-fantasy intrigue, for a much more personal story about Noct. I'm a little torn over how I feel about it because I really liked the world they'd built through Kingsglaive, but on the other hand I did enjoy the story about companionship and Noct's journey.

Almost everything is seen entirely from his perspective, with only a couple of missteps. So we lose a lot of exposition or narrative around the empire's activities, around Ardyn and the emperor and what happened to Ravus and the big overall thrust of the arc with the daemons - things you'd probably expect to be part of a Final Fantasy game's epic fantasy narrative. We get hardly anything about Luna, her motivations or story either - just a few glimpses here and there. It's probably one of the reasons they pulled out the CG scenes about the empire and turned them into a film, and instead started the game with Noct as a sort of cold open.

So instead we learn about things only as Noct finds out about them, and outside events become a sort of incidental backdrop that he just sees the effects of and reacts to. It's why we never learn what happened to Ignis, don't know where Gladio went, why we don't get more info on Luna, why we don't know much about Ardyn or Ravus or the empire - because Noct doesn't know about those things and, essentially, isn't that interested in them - like how he waves away Prompto being an MT. Taken in those terms it becomes much more coherent and (potentially) less frustrating - since it's a story about Noct, his friends, his own personal journey, rather than a story about an empire and an oracle and an immortal king.

I'm fully aware it might not be fully intentional, although the interviews with the director make it pretty clear that they did mean to make a very personal story about companionship. Now, that is probably really disappointing to a lot of people. And also I don't think they fully pulled it off as well as they could have, partly because they didn't fully commit to it because it -is- still a Final Fantasy game and it -is- still about high fantasy kingdoms and empires and destiny and giant fights where the fate of the world rests hangs in the balance. And partly because they drop the ball with some characterisation and some moments. Also it's annoying to have those plot elements dangled in front of you and then not resolved (and if they try and resolve them in DLC, that's absurd).

But overall it worked for me as a story about Noct and his pals

Except it's pretty clear he has as everything he said is 100% spot on, so less of the dismissive denial, eh? The game has enormous problems and its garbage, style-over-substance combat is the largest of them.

No of course not. Believe me I'm right there with you on some of that stuff (praise be Jared). It does make you wonder what could've been if those pieces HAD been implemented. Like if you read around for lore or check the guidebook there's really cool stuff in there that sadly isn't in the game (Prompto stuff, Ifrit, Ardyn, etc.) The story will always be one of the biggest "what ifs?" if they had just pulled it all together. I'm just glad the game actually came out and wasn't a trainwreck like Duke Nukem Forever.

Except it's not? Cool you agree with him. I don't. That doesn't make him right. If you feel the combat is style over substance that's on you. Warp Strikes, Link Strikes, Link Attacks, Blindside attacks, Elemental weaknesses, Weapon weaknesses, crafted magic, dodging, parrying/countering, air combos, etc. But yeah style over substance am I right?

Just finished it today and I agree with a lot of points against the main story. Yet I still enjoyed the game as a whole immensely. The combat was really fun and I actually gave a shit about the main 4 cast and god damn I teared up a bit at the very end with the last campfire scene. Also people are sleeping on the photos because honestly that's a brilliant mechanic. Can't wait to play the end game which is pretty lengthy from what I hear. Wonder what the dlc will be like as well.

Can someone please explain to me what the deal was with Ardyn? I couldn't hear a damn word he was saying over Noctis' constant moaning while being sucked into the crystal. I think he was a failed king or something?

Brother of one of Noctis' Ancestors, that's why his last name is Caelum just like Noctis, but corrupted by demons and then took for one while thinking he was being betrayed by his brother the king for the sole claim to the throne. Thus he became an immortal that creates the demons and wants to destroy all life,light. and yknow evil stuff.

He did mumble but I think you were supposed to be hearing it from Noctis' perspective of being in a lot of pain while getting sucked into the crystal. Still annoying.

Honestly, everything after entering Imsomnia felt like a different team was writing it/designing it. Tons of stuff before then was really poorly executed, but I thought everything in Insomnia was so good. Entering the throne room and seeing the corpses (well, illusions of them, anyway) of Regis, Luna and Nyx was really dark and fucked up, and really took my by surprise, strung up decaying corpses on full display was not something I thought I was gonna see. That last QTE going to town with 15 weapons was preeeeetty cool.

The story has a myriad of problems, and is overall pretty poorly executed. The sad part is that it had so much potential. But despite all that, when all is said and done, it did not fail at creating a sense of brotherhood between the 4 amigos. That last goddamn camp fire scene got me reeeeal good, man. Fuck.

So I guess they're patching the story sometime in the future? Having already beaten the game, I'm not sure this will be of much use to me, and the other stuff they spliced into the game -- Kingsglaive clips, that weird trailer -- already feels super sloppy and out of place.

But they're also working on more gameplay-related stuff that sounds interesting. Maybe my Colisseum dream will become reality?

Yeah the audio was completely fucked up in that part!

This was SO annoying. I swear I almost went to re-balance the treble on my TV to hear it. But perhaps it was intentional like @fugoy says - it fits with the idea that you experience everything pretty much as Noctis would, including not really being able to get a good grip on what's happening. Or perhaps it was just amateurish sound mixing.

Anyway I see now that their DLC plan is to do the "lost time" episodes for each of the boys as DLC. So, a little mini story explaining what happens when Gladio disappears, what happens to Ignis eyes, what happened to Prompto after the train. Assassins Creed 2 style. tbh I hate that as a type of DLC, it will lose so much of its meaning and context being yanked out months after the fact. The best DLC is almost always standalone, self contained mini stories - Left Behind, Artorias of the Abyss, etc.

@gerrid: I couldn't agree with you more. It would be a shame if those stories were DLC because they should of been in the main game. There is no reason not to address Gladio's injury/why he left the group and Ignis' injury/blindness within the main game. I get we are supposed to experience events from Noctis' perspective but there was nothing stopping him in any event from asking Glaido and Ignis about what happened to them. Maybe we'll get those stories and more with the DLC, who knows?

@fugoy:Thank you for clarifying that duder! I normally don't need/use subtitles but man I wish I had them one for that scene.

From what I hear the post game stuff is pretty cool. There are 5 legendary weapons to collect and from what I read there 2 super bosses to fight. One is level 99 and one is level 120. There are more stuff to do that unlocks after beating the game but those are the two highlights for me.

120!? Oh jesus I already spent 45 hours beating the main quest and doing a ton of side quests and it looks like I still got another 45 left. Not even counting dlc and any other updates.

The fact that the ending got to me and I shed a tear on two occasions just makes me even sadder for this game. If the shitty way that story ended up being presented got to me in the end, if this was actually done correctly we could have had something great on our hands. As it stands, I place 13's overall story over 15's and I fucking hated 13.

The best thing they had going was the theme of mateship which I think they pulled off almost 100% if it wasn't for that final scene with Noctis and Luna. The game was never about her Squeenix. Jesus fucking christ.

You have got to be kidding me.

They're patching in additional story content. The wording of the quote strongly implies the content is already produced but not voiced for international release.

I suppose the jokes on me for buying any game on launch day these days.

http://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-xv-patch-will-add-more-story-improve-cha-1789773804

@babychoochoo: You literally listed everything I had problems with! I love this game a lot but holy shit the story is trash. I watched the anime, Kingsglave and played the game and the story is still incredibly thin.

Words cannot describe how much I hated Noctus' and Gladios cringe worthy spat. Also the overuse of the "several days later" thing drove me nuts. It's like they couldn't think of a reason why something happened so they just used it as an out.

Yeah that's fucked up. They delayed the game so there would be no big patch on release day, then we who bought it on day one had to download a 9GB patch anyway and now they are finishing the game after we played it to completion! They fucked this one up ALL THE WAY :-)

EDIT: I just got an notification that my copy has been bid on on ebay, so that's settled for me. The auction ends tonight and three people are watching it, so one of those poor suckers will at least play more completed version I guess, if they have internet that is.

Well you know I have to play the new content. I just have to know.

DON'T BELIEVE ONDORE'S LIES

Well, I just finished the game and the Certificate of Completion helped me not think about the terrible ending and how awful the rest of the story was. I got a real big laugh from seeing that stupid certificate take up the whole screen. And that's kind of indicative of my whole experience with the game: a complete mess with a handful of good ideas buried throughout. I guess I find some consolation in my primary feeling being that of disappointment than the boredom or anger I felt playing FFXII and FFXIII-2, respectively.

Haven't quite gotten to the proper ending yet, but I got through the worst parts of FFXIII. Very similar to the feeling I had at the end of KOTOR 2 when I realized that someone had run out of time... and yet they had forever to make this one. It's indicative of a problem in the culture of the studio that made it, I would say. I don't think any degree of disappointment with the story will make me sorry I played the game... I took an Umbra trip as soon as I could after reuniting with my party and started enjoying it again almost immediately. But yeah, a real shame they couldn't figure out a way to tell the story they had in mind properly. It seemed like it should have been a good one.

Oh my god yes. That certificate made me laugh out loud too. My husband happened to come out of the bedroom just as I was wrapping it up and he groggily asked "So... How was the ending?" and I replied, my voice still cracked with sad laughter, "It was terrible!"

I think those and Prompto falling from the train were setting up for the DLC chapters tbh

@scientificpizza: Yeah, that seems to be general consensus. I can't decide if that's better or worse though. The Gladio one in particular seems the most jarring because it's clearly less relevant to the overall story, yet they draw all this attention to it then just sorta go "HEY HEY, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT."

At least with the Ignis and Prompto bits, you can sorta write them off as a casualty of war and Ardyn kidnapping Prompto when he tricks you into knocking him off the train respectively. But again, that Gladio one is just...weird. It doesn't make a lick of sense.

All that said, I still take issue that this game, that is very obviously missing story, is gonna sell bits of that story back to the players. People rant and rave about other developers and publishers (the Ubisofts and EAs of the world) doing that same exact thing all the time, but this game seems to be getting a free pass for reason. But I suppose that's an argument for another time.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. It had more impact on me as a "four best friends having an adventure" than "Noctis is going to fulfill his destiny and be with Luna at the end". The talk at the last campout had more of an emotional impact on me at the end because the adventure was coming to a close and the four of them are coming to terms with one of their best friends having to leave permanently. The rest of the ending sequence with Ardyn being destroyed forever and Noctis being with Luna in the afterlife doesn't come close to the campfire scene. Granted, I used a picture of some random woman eating her soup in Lestallum instead of the recommended "hey you should use a picture that shows all of us!" but I don't think my perception of the ending would have changed if I did. I think the main problem lies in characterization and screen time. You see Ignis, Prompto, Gladio, and Noctis together for the entirety of the game start to finish so I cared about them the most. On the other hand Luna is essential to the story arc but you barely see her at all. It's great that Noctis gets to be with the one he loves at the end, but felt far more impactful to me that the adventure closes and a strong bond between four friends, essentially brothers for how long they've known each other, is weakened by the permanent loss of one of them.

But hey, me and Noctis will cherish the adventure forever with a picture of a random lady eating her soup in Lestallum.

@babychoochoo: Yeah the Gladio this was really weird. Like barely even addressing what happened when he returned just made it feel shoehorned in. Hopefully that stuff all works out, but as it stands it's a pretty big hole in a hole-ridden story

The story was a god damned mess throughout but I loved the ending to bits. The final mid-credits camping scene, had they been dilligent about character building, would have destroyed me. It hit damned hard even without.

I really liked the game, a lot. Chapter 13 though.... smh, I hated that. It goes against the way the whole game had played before that, ugh. I did enjoy the last two battles though, the summons are fun. But I get everybody's problems with the story, it just didn't bother me much, I kind of expected it not to make sense, and it delivered that. But I came to love the crew and our story together.

Except it is. It's not a matter of mere opinion in a lot of these cases. The combat IS style over substance. That's an objective fact, whether or not you agree. Link Strikes actually encompass both Blindside and Parry attacks -- they aren't all separate things, so let's not pretend they are just to make the combat seem more expansive. Here's an honest breakdown of combat: 1) Hold one button to do all autoattacks, 2) Hold same button while behind enemy to trigger Blindside and Link attacks (notice, Blindside AND Link attacks can happen just by standing behind and enemy and holding the same button you hold down for all combat... not that complicated or "substantive"), 3) Warp attacks, where you can press one more button along with THAT ONE BUTTON YOU HOLD DOWN 100% OF THE TIME to teleport for extra damage sometimes. And that's basically it. So substance much wow.

And as far as the whole Elemental weaknesses thing goes, man, if your mind is blown when you try to match up Ice damage to Ice Weak enemies, then logic is not going to seep into your brain lol. That's as basic as it gets.

Oh and I forgot dodging. Yes. Like virtually all your attacks, hold down one button. Hold it down, all the time, and you'll never get hit.

That's some coddling bullshit right there, for real.

Bottom line here is if you think the combat in this game isn't style over substance, then you have never played Dark Souls. Go get yourself an education and rent a copy.

I was pretty disappointed when I finally realized you don't have to actually re-press the dodge button to do a block. Just keep holding it. I was all going for timing for the first 4 hours. That said style over substance is what Final Fantasy games have been about since around 6 or 7, and that's fine. Limit breaks are the best part of Final Fantasy 7 and 8, and I remember being super disappointed that Zidane in 9 didn't have some multi slash badass attack as his last trance move.

The problems in 15 start when the stylish shit falls flat, like the Leviathan boss fight. Didn't look cool at all, I could barely tell what was even going on the camera was so godamn awful. Also in groups of fast enemies that knock you down as soon as you let go of the dodge everything button. Irritating. But then the stylish way around that is to throw some Nutmeg and elements together and make quadcast magic to explode those big groups of enemies.