I was over the moon about FF15 when it released at the end of 2016. You get to play as 4 unreasonably handsome guys who are off to some city for one of them to marry a childhood friend. Both of you are royalty, though you'd never know it from the way the world reacts to you. I've never cared too much about the story because the presentation was a nightmare.
FF15 expects you to watch a 2-hour film to get the game's premise, read some manga and pay for/play DLC that was so obviously cut out of the main story that I was left with an incomprehensible mess...that I still loved. The story is a big minus, but the main four bros are so incredibly well done that they kept me going through three 60-120hour playthroughs. In the heat of battle, they banter and give cues based on where they are in relation to your target. While exploring, the bros make random comments about their locations. Side missions pop up that expand on their backgrounds. Whenever an NPC joins you, they also have situational dialogue in and out of battle. Iris even has a pink chocobo!
One of my favorite features is that Prompto Argentum (the names are so cool!) is a photographer and takes photos throughout your day, whether it's on chocobos, in a car, or even in the midst of battle. Whenever you rest, you get to review those photos and save the ones you like. Between this, camping, cooking and (ugh) fishing, FF15 has enough non-battle, non-story elements that keep your experience relatable and human without being too bogged down with the mundane. By contrast, Breath of the Wild turned me off for all the maintenance required: gathering ingredients, cooking, crafting and then eating the right things or you die was just too much for me. FF15 automates a lot of that.
The PS Plus Collection comes with all 20+ DLC of the Royal Edition of Final Fantasy 15, so I got the full experience. In addition to content throughout the world, new story scenes and items, the infamous Zegnatus Fortress in the last super-linear chapters of the game was redone to let you play a less-boring choice of other characters. There are new boss fights that make the ending sequence a lot more impactful and flushed out. However, it is still a shame that the final villain's backstory is locked behind the DLC that I have yet to play. Apparently the PC version inserts the 4 main DLC that expand on your 3 bros and the main villain in their logical parts in the main story. On console, you have to back out to the main menu and fire up the completely separate DLC. If you want it all to make sense, you either have to have a great memory or look at a FAQ to tell you when to start the content. It's poorly executed, to say the least. However, the expanded trophies have you filling out most of a datalog, which is text-based tidbits of yet more FF15 lore. That means that I had to go through the previously-mentioned infamous portion at the end of the game to get the content for the trophy. It's loaded with terrible camera angles, as the game was NOT INTENDED for one-on-one combat, and a heap of jump scares. I absolutely hate this about the game, possibly more than the chopped up story. The other thing that really sucks about the game is the disjointed and frustrating user interface. I couldn't overlook it this time around, but Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku explained it better than I can.
Also, in terms of the writing, almost no other characters in the world of FF15 acknowledge that Noctis is royalty and are super casual about it. It might be because I'm watching The Crown and see all the deferment and respect, but even a red-blooded gun-toting American on Independence Day would take off their hat when meeting a prince, king or queen. In this game, you're fighting monsters for bounty so you can pay for a night in an RV or literally eat Cup Noodles when camping. It also irked me how (the gorgeous hunk) Gladio does a 180 and is a huge prick to Noctis after something traumatic happens to our main prince halfway through the story.
To return back to why I like this game so much is the combat. Lazy critics have said you're just holding on one button for Noctis to unleash a crazy combo and it's not at all involved. Truth be told, you can probably get through most of the game doing just that. However, there are link strikes, which are determined by your positioning, warp strikes, which are ranged attacks that allow you to zip into the fray and out of danger to recover, and magic. My first two times around, I didn't use magic because it can hurt your party, and wasn't all that strong. However, one of the DLC items makes it so that magic doesn't hurt your party and that changed the combat immensely for me. In addition to that, I fought enough hard battles that the tricky and rare summons made many appearances. Summons in Final Fantasy 15 are a big deal. However, to get them to show up, you have to be in a losing or overwhelming situation. But when they appear, the screen tints dark red and the music kicks up, and you get bailed out like JP Morgan Chase. Ramuh grabs Noctis out of the battle and strikes the area with lightning so badly that it scars the earth. Here's a battle with Ramuh at the 50-second mark. I never got tired of calling summons to help me out of tough situations.
You also can't play FF15 without thinking of Yoko Shimomura's incredible soundtrack. Stand Your Ground is probably the most pumped I've ever been from orchestra music--I used to be a dedicated synth and electronica person. The battle themes are my favorite pieces of music and keep me coming back to this particular title. Seeing Noctis blink and flash, stab and parry while the bros handle other monsters in the background while the various battle themes play is just unreal.
The last thing I want to call attention to is the PS5-specific benefits. The system runs HDR natively, and a better version than the PS4 Pro. When I first started FF15, the game has its own HDR setting and I was greeted by a very bright, washed out screen, so I turned it off. A few weeks later near the end of my game, I read about how great it was. I turned it back on and my jaw dropped to the floor, my teeth fell out, I shouted and farted at the same time. HDR, together with the PS5's graphical upscaling and stabilized (I chose 30fps over 60 and will die on that hill) framerate make this game look really good. The other awesome PS5 benefit is the severely reduced loading time. I'm running it off an external USB 3.0 drive and fast traveling happens in 10ish seconds, as opposed to more than 40 seconds on the base PS4.
I already loved the aesthetic of the game, which is set in a clean modern world with radios, cars, diners, rest-stops, guns, and glass-and-steel buildings. The Royal Edition of FF15's final chapter now has an explorable city of Insomnia, which has some great moden architecture.
So while the game has some awful executive decisions for storytelling and interface, it absolutely shines in character, art direction, soundtrack, battle system and technical improvements in the PS5 version. What I played 4 years ago has evolved into something better and is aboslutely worth revisiting or starting up for the first time. Final Fantasy 15 is still dope!
コメント