I still haven't had the chance to play this.

The lack of FFXV in my life always eats at me.

When I used to write articles here, I hyped this game up all the time. I shared new trailers and game information, wrote an Episode Duscae review, and even had the chance to interview Noctis voice actor, Ray Chase. Life circumstances took my PS4. I'll leave it at that.

Fortunately, I've remained spoiler free. And I'm now slowly on track to getting a PS4 again.

So for the people who have had the chance to play, was the hype worth it? What are the things you liked more than you thought you would? What are the things you like less than you thought you would? Did watching Kingsglaive or the anime enhance your experience at all?

Spoiler free, please.

I feel Kingsglaive and the anime were things that should have been kept in the game. I'm less annoyed with the anime, but Kingsglaive was a so-so film and I feel the fall of Insomnia would have made a better opening act for the title that what we got.

I think the banter and little things while traveling was the best part of the game in terms of the characters. While the supporting cast are hit or miss, the core four man band actually came across as real people with well defined relationships with each other. They are flawed but likable.

My main love is just a lot of little things in the game. If you go to the "First Impressions thread" I catalogued a lot of it, and it was these elements I enjoyed the most out of the game. Also fishing and chocobos. The world is also very interesting with some nice world building elements I feel a lot of fans overlook like the diner chain and the feel of traveling from one small town to another before finally reaching a major city. I know others have gripes with the car, but the game actually hit that nostalgic vibe of a road trip for me which really set the game apart for me.

What I didn't end up liking was probably the samey fetch quests that involved serious travel time across the game's painfully large map. When I was just free range exploring for my own sake, I liked the large map, but when I was stuck in sidequest hell, it became the bane of my existence. Especially since the fast travel mechanic was crippled by the game's odd loading times, and there are more benefits to actually travel by car or chocobo due to some gameplay features. I don't dislike the battle system, but it wasn't exactly special for me either, but I'm kind of picky and old school concerning such things.

The plot kind of starts really slow, like almost painfully so, but it gets really good in the middle with some interesting twists, before it kind of crashes and burns towards the end, but unlike some people, I almost feel like that's an FF tradition by this point because I feel VI was probably the last FF title that had an actually good third act, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.

I still haven't finished it. I discovered fishing and it's kinda all I do when I load up the game. That and play with chocobos.

For me, that's more exciting than I thought. I love the banter with the characters. It's a fun game. I just personally have a hard time sitting down to play through the story.

Decent and entertaining enough game, likeable main characters, story itself not very good.

I really love the characters and the story. I love tragic story so I found it amazing, even if the last part could have been a little longer. And like other say, the banters, the photos, the cooking, etc. really add something to it.

Worth playing, fun and entertaining enough gameplay. But that's about as high of praise as I can give it.

I really enjoyed the first half of the game. Even if the story was sparse, there was enough to do in the world to keep things interesting, and the characters had great dialogue. The second half of the game streamlines the experience massively, to the point where I actually felt very deflated upon realizing that the rest of the game was going to feel rushed. It also feels like there were a lot of cut scenes from the game (some of them are in the supposedly "supplemental" material, but some feel missing altogether). That being said, they've since patched in more cutscenes since I stopped playing, so idk if that criticism holds weight.

I guess what I'll say is that despite the ten years of hype, keep in mind that Final Fantasy XV as we know it today is a different type of beast with a different team, different mythos, and a heavily modified cast (see Stella vs Lunafreya)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edge7

I really enjoyed the first half of the game. Even if the story was sparse, there was enough to do in the world to keep things interesting, and the characters had great dialogue. The second half of the game streamlines the experience massively

---

Is it fair to compare it to criticisms of being a reverse Final Fantasy XIII? Where you start out with the open world map but then it's taken away overtime, or is it just that the places you have to go keep being less of a distance to travel?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lone Wolf Leonhart

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edge7

I really enjoyed the first half of the game. Even if the story was sparse, there was enough to do in the world to keep things interesting, and the characters had great dialogue. The second half of the game streamlines the experience massively

---

Is it fair to compare it to criticisms of being a reverse Final Fantasy XIII? Where you start out with the open world map but then it's taken away overtime, or is it just that the places you have to go keep being less of a distance to travel?

---

It's a reverse actually.

Is there a "point of no return" where you can't go back and get old items? I was hoping when it got more linear you could still exit out of wherever you were.

You can still exit back to the open world all the way until the final area of the game. It's kind of weird how they do it as it's more like "reliving memories" if I remember right since it doesn't really make sense to be going back to the open world once the game gets more linear. So you are basically traveling back to before the game gets linear to finish quests and explore more if you want.