View Profile: Wolf Kanno

I actually really like the gameplay so far. The open world is fun to explore and I wouldn’t say it really pales in comparison to Xenoblade X, Witcher 3 or BotW. I love each of those worlds fir different reasons and while XV’s quest design leaves something to be desired, it’s got plenty of character both in the form of party banter as well as the various side characters with their own little storylines. I also really like the battle system. It’s not super complex, but I really enjoy the button holding. It feels like an old man’s action RPG battle mode and somehow that’s just perfect for me when I just want to unwind in the evening after a hard day’s work

But honestly, I feel XV’s overall story is good not only because of the characters, but the themes seem to be really nice and mature too. There’s a certain level of tragedy to the Lucis family line that I don’t think we’ve seen in FF before. Regis is basically Job, except this time there’s no angel that comes to stop him from fulfilling a tyrannical God’s cruel request. I find it funny how this is pretty much a similar set-up to FFX, but it actually feels tragic this time because the characters feel so human and there’s no “screw this let’s just take down the gods” moment. (At least until Dawn of the Future...)

One last thought I have on FNC is that I feel XV and Type-0 embody the theme much better that XIII ever did, and the reason for that is painfully simple. XIII tried to distance itself from previous FFs way too hard, while the other two wear their legacy on their sleeves. It’s hard to do a story deconstructing Classic FF setups when you don’t actually reference the thing being deconstructed. In XIII, the l’Cie are chosen by fal’Cie - they may be stand-ins for the crystals, but they’re so far removed from the crystals both in concept and design that you really have to squint to see the connection between the two. Whereas FFXV literally starts with a line about four heroes of light chosen by the crystal and Type-0 has four crystals keeping the world in balance. I feel like both of those games show what FNC was really designed to be. But then of course Toriyama did his thing and smurfed it up.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Yeah, I’m stoked. It has all the DLCs too so I’m really looking forward to trying it

So my brother just gifted me FFXV. I didn’t think I’d be this excited

HEY KANNO I THINK I LIKE WITH YOUR ONLINE PERSONA WANT TO ONLINE DATE ME THEN AFTER 3 ONLINE MONTHS OF ONLINE DATING I WILL ONLINE PROPOSE TO YOU AND WE CAN GET ONLINE MARRIED AND HAVE 3 ONLINE CHILDREN AND AFTER 8 YEARS OF ONLINE HELL WE CAN GET ONLINE DIVORCED AND HAVE ONLINE COURT SETTLEMENTS FOR OUR ONLINE POSSESSIONS AND THEN WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING IN YOUR ONLINE BED WITH YOUR NEW ONLINE PARTNER I WILL COME INTO YOUR ONLINE HOUSE AND ONLINE MURDER YOU IN BLIND ONLINE RAGE AND I WILL HAVE TO GO TO THE ONLINE ASYLUM FOR ONLINE PSYCHOPATHS WHAT DO YOU SAY MY ONLINE CHUM?

Looks like my brother is suddenly interested in getting into MegaTen. Needless to say, I am overjoyed