Those who are playing today: Was it worth the wait?

[Sephiroth]

Except this "plot" was made up by someone on the internet.

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

Most likely(now that I've read it again) but I still think that Nomura's original vision, whatever the case may be, would have made XV a lot more worth it. It's a good game but it's obvious many things were cut and Tabata had to rush the story out.

[Fynn]

It's weird to say, but I honestly can't help escaping the feeling that the main game could've done with a little more time in the oven, maybe just another 3-6 months or so. The post-end stuff is great, the side stuff is generally good. But the later stages of the main story really feel under-cooked compared to the earlier parts. If the later parts had reached the bar set by the earlier parts, this would've easily have hit legendary status and gone from an 8/10 to a 10/10.

Like when you get a pizza, a tad undercooked but it's still nice enough, but you know in the back of your mind that with just a few more minutes in the oven and it would've been perfect.

While I am nowhere near the end of XV (still Chapter 3) and thus I can't say anything on the matter regarding it, I feel this comment can honestly apply to most of the FF series. There are very few entries where I feel the endgame is as engaging as the beginning. Even FFs I adore like IX and XII, I often felt the final few hours are some of the worst parts of the game for me.

Yeah. As I'm playing all the FFs in order now, I can confirm that this is the case for pretty much all FFs except IV. VII especially is bad with this with a mind-bogglingly bad second disc that no one seems to remember.

EDIT: Also, honestly? That gamefaqs summary sounds really crappy

Also, why on earth would they waste the time and resources to completely rewrite a story that was done? It's clear this is all fake and Versus was nothing more than a concept

[Aulayna]

While I am skeptical of that GameFAQs post, and would take it with a pinch of salt, the story did actually get changed and re-written though. That's why Stella and some of the other supporting characters got dropped, along with the gala in Insomnia where Noctis and Stella discussed the Amano painting of Etro. Versus XIII was originally going to be multiple games and they had to condense the entire thing down into 1 game (and still ended up spinning out crucial plot points into other media). It was also originally part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, something which (SPOILER)isn't even referred too in FFXV, no Amano painting of Etro etc.

Although a lot of the GameFAQs post ties in quite well with this one from NeoGAF (spoiler heavy link) which was posted ahead of E3 this year and pretty much got the entire plot of XV accurate.

[Fynn]

I'd argue that all of those scenes were still pretty much just concepts of what they plan might happen in the game.

So basically, it's what the writers would start with and decide on the story from there, even scrapping many of those initial concepts. Except this time, they announced it before even workshopping it. That's the crucial difference. Hence my earlier comparison - had the same thing happened to VII, people would have been upset that we didn't get that original game where it was just Cloud, Aerith and Barret, and "who the hell is this lame childhood friend chick? She's sexist as hell! This story was way better until they went and changed it"

[Loony BoB]

While I agree that the last stages of the story clearly weren't up to scratch (particularly the parts highlighted by Aulayna in this thread or another or something - basically post Levi, pre-final boss), I have to say the postgame experience has been fantastic so far compared to other entries. I have spent a lot of time doing various things, am one trophy away from Platinum Trophy now and more notably still have buckets of content I have yet to even touch, which is allegedly notably tougher than anything I've yet done.

Pretty sure it's also the first game I've ever maxed out my characters at L99, MMOs and XIII excepted (since in XIII there aren't really levels).

[Aulayna]

I'd argue that all of those scenes were still pretty much just concepts of what they plan might happen in the game.

So basically, it's what the writers would start with and decide on the story from there, even scrapping many of those initial concepts. Except this time, they announced it before even workshopping it. That's the crucial difference. Hence my earlier comparison - had the same thing happened to VII, people would have been upset that we didn't get that original game where it was just Cloud, Aerith and Barret, and "who the hell is this lame childhood friend chick? She's sexist as hell! This story was way better until they went and changed it"

Sure, but they still dropped characters even after the game was rebranded to FFXV. From the background image of EoFF alone, which is a promotional image released as part of the E3 2013 press kit (so not even that long ago), 3 of the 4 characters aren't even in the game at all and the 1 of that is barely features for more than a few minutes screentime and a a few lines of dialogue. I can get behind the logic for stuff from 5+ years ago that was dropped, but stuff as recent as 3 years ago shows there was a pretty big shift, pretty recently, and it all coincides with when Tabata and the Type-0 team took over the project full time. We know from interviews with Nomura and Tabata that Versus XIII was around 25% done before it was rebranded to FFXV and targetted for PS4/Xone instead of PS3. 25% is pretty past the concept stage.

As dubious as the GameFAQs post is, it's pretty obvious that the game went through some big changes as a result of the change of director and outsourcing of some elements so there may be some truth (again especially taking the NeoGAF post into account too) in some of the rumours. After they already wasted time and resources on getting a project to 25% over 7 years, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that time and resources were spent cutting the scale down and re-writing/re-working to make the scope more manageable.

Either way, we'll probably never know so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Again, as I said in another thread, I don't necessarily think Nomura's version would've been any better, and I thoroughly enjoyed what we got.

While I agree that the last stages of the story clearly weren't up to scratch (particularly the parts highlighted by Aulayna in this thread or another or something - basically post Levi, pre-final boss), I have to say the postgame experience has been fantastic so far compared to other entries. I have spent a lot of time doing various things, am one trophy away from Platinum Trophy now and more notably still have buckets of content I have yet to even touch, which is allegedly notably tougher than anything I've yet done.

Pretty sure it's also the first game I've ever maxed out my characters at L99, MMOs and XIII excepted (since in XIII there aren't really levels).

Yeah, the post-game stuff is fantastic. Probably the best offering in a main-numbered title in quite some time. (SPOILER)I would've loved to have had optional fights with Cerberus, Ultros or Diamond Weapon from Kingsglaive though.

[Fynn]

Pretty sure they;re all in, even if not in-game, then in Kingsglaive at least. Of course, Stella was replaced than Luna, but other than that the hooded man was revealed to be Ravus at one point, and Regis and Clarus have had their designs severely altered before the movie.

[BreakfastGrilledCheese]

Question in the title! I haven't picked it up yet due to funds. But was it worth the wait?

This game could have come out 4 years ago or 4 years from now and I'd probably play it no matter what. Final Fantasy titles are always on my wishlist. At this point I don't know if I'm ever hyped for the game itself or the nostalgia factor.

Still, I think this game is amazing so far and is worth the money just as a good game on its own without the franchise behind it.

Edit: Besides, I need SOMETHING to do while I wait for Persona 5 to come out, right?

[Scruffington]

Was it worth the wait? Yes.

Was it worth the disappointment? No.

We never got the game we were promised. All of the promotional material from 2013 on (the Dawn trailer, the trailer with Noctis and his mates camping in front of the moon) never made it to the final release.