Honestly, I never felt the base game was as much of a disaster as fans whined that it was. I feel the issue is that XV really was designed with a "the journey is more important than the destination" and the real character moments come from just dicking around the open world as opposed to the plot points. My only grief with the plot was simply how the game made it too obvious they cut content to sell as DLC. Whether said content was worth it or was important to the overall narrative is unknown to me, but it did feel like a cheap ploy at the time. Still, I enjoyed the game overall and most of my real complaints comes from the core gameplay just not being something I care for, which is hardly unique to this one. The main difference between XV and XIII is that I can be talked into replaying XV, whereas XIII's gameplay is just so badly handled that it's a real struggle to maintain interest. I feel the FNC could have been interesting, and to be fair to SE, I will agree that a large part of it's problem was more on the technical side of things than the idea just being bad to begin with. The FNC is only interesting to me because it serves as a bit of a time capsule for SE's troubled production side and lessons on bad development practices. So I find this period in the company's history to be interesting. With that said, I'm happy to be over it as it has been a albatross around the company's neck for over ten years. I'm happy we can move on from it, even if the company has already exchanged it with a new one that is the VII Remake.
Oh yeah, definitely. Honestly reading on the novel, I’m disappointed since it seems to be completely undoing the themes the original game set up, and yet at the same time I wish we’d gotten the DLC instead because I’ve got this thing that I feel that the game will now forever be not really complete. But I shouldn’t complain - I have the luxury of coming into the game when it’s in its most complete form anyway. And I am honestly loving it so far. Far more than I expected to tbh SJ dd j was pretty meh about getting it. I’m so glad my brother got it for me. Also played a bit with the Conrades character creation and it was pretty damn nice. And yeah it’s just a crying shame this happened with FNC. I think part of it was that the project was too ambitious since it clearly set out to be something bigger than it ended up being with the various games announced at the start being steadily reduced and later pushed out so that we got *sonething*. And now that whole project is just over and we never got at least one game that truly tied it all up in a nice package with a pretty ribbon. Oh well. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the games we got out of it would be half as unique without FNC being handled the way it was. This period of being an FF fan was really weird but I’m also kind of sad we’re past that era. I may not have liked XIII and it’s sequels, but there are still things I like about them, and I do genuinely feel Type-0 and XV have something special going on. So from a personal level, I feel FNC succeeded in a way
Well I agree that Noctis' sacrifice was probably always planned for the ending, but I also feel like the circumstances changed when it became XV. One major change being the fact that vXIII tells us that the other nations once possessed crystals of their own and lost them, borrowing an idea not too dissimilar from Type-0, whereas XV retcons that into Insomnia's crystal being the only one in Eos. I also don't really believe the novel ending was the original ending Tabata and his team wanted. I really feel like it was a last minute fic-it-fic due to the reaction the original ending had on fans. Too much of it seems to exist to try and counter XV's original bittersweet, downer ending. Unfortunately for XV, due to the service model nature of the game and the fact it's life started as a different IP, there will always be uncertainty about what was intended for the story and characters. I agree the idea behind FNC is intriguing, but alas it never really stuck the landing with any of the games associated with it.
I personally think some general major story beats werE preserved - I’m pretty sure for example that the time skip and Noctis’ sacrifice was going to be there just going by the cryptic quotes in the early trailers - and the opposite interpretation of FNC I mentioned. And FNC may not be super original, but in concept it’s something I think could have been great because it returned to the roots of FF and deconstructed it. The concept of fighting fate in general is done often, but rethinking how heroes chosen by the crystal work is something that only really works in FF, and I’m honestly just sad it ended up being wrapped up like it did. XIII was very disjointed and it’s sequels only muddled the mythos. Type-0 was cool but Tabata quit and we’re not getting it’s sequels. And now XV is distancing itself from it and it’s true ending is getting relegated to a novel, which I have a feeling isn’t very good because these guys make video games. I just wish this concept was done justice because Type-0 and XV both show it has a lot of promise, especially from the perspective of someone who’s been with the series from the start. But what can you do. Incidentally, I’ve found that once you become a parent, you get this strong primal reaction to anything related to kids in media. Knowing what I know about XV and being a father now, I just learned that I cannot watch the Dawn trailer and not start sobbing uncontrollably
I mean to be fair, it's not like the FNC itself is terribly original. It's core concept was just playing up a more pessimistic version of the Warriors of Light mythos from the early entries. I think Tabata and SE simply tried to remove itself from the FNC mythos because it didn't pan out so well for XIII and all of the delays. So they likely downplayed it for Western audiences to try and distance itself from that, whereas they likely kept it in for the fans who liked the XIII trilogy. XV does add in it's own unique elements. I'm not really sure if the Star Scourge and Daemon story lines were really in Versus XIII. Of anything, XV really downplays all of the elements of Versus XIII's plot fans knew about, and likely Tabata begrudgingly kept them in, since that's what fans knew. I mean the trailers for vXIII made Regis out ot be a major figure in the plot, but he's kind of minor character in XV when it comes down to it.
Yeah, I’m vaguely aware of that. But you see what I mean, right? And then how it all ends in the base game makes sense considering how Nomura said Versus is kind of an opposite to XIII, which was all about defying fate, while XV seems to be about accepting it. And now the Dawn of the Future novel that adapts the cancelled DLCs gives this thing a true ending that is more in line with the base FNC message and like... I really can’t help but wonder what the point of insisting this is no longer FNC was when it’s still an FNC story just without the terminology
The other central theme is that the crystals are played as being less virtuous in these entries. Often fickle and not really giving a damn about the humans they choose to do things for them. You'll be seeing more of that later.
One thing that bugs me about FFXV is that despite all the stuff they tried to change to distance themselves from it, it’s still very much an FNC game on a thematic level. And I feel this is bad because disconnecting it from the mythos terminology just makes the mythology seem more shallow than it actually is. Now that I’ve also played Type-0 I can see that the themes of fate in the face of forces far beyond your control and understanding is a thing that all of these games do. XV just pretends it doesn’t and that’s disappointing.
Ardyn is definitely one of the best FF villains to come out for awhile.
So other than watching Kingsglaive, I’ve been looking at some of the interviews around XV and Darin De Paul, Ardyn’s VA, is honestly making me smile so much. In every interview he’s basically geeking out over his character and honestly, as far as I’ve seen him, his performance really does stand out. It’s so fun to see someone bring so much authentic passion to a character.
