Hi guys.

I've been pretty much obsessed over this since the first week of December. If you want a point of reference, you might go back to my posts on FFX and FFVIII, but that is what this game has done to me. I FEEL LIKE A TEENAGER AGAIN JESUS CHRIST. anyway.

The plot of FFXV is nothing special. It's the same general fantasy plot, except even more generic somehow. Teen who isn't really anything special on his own gets magically selected to be The Chosen One, and everyone pitches in to help him save the world.

What is special about FFXV is how it conveys that plot.

1) It's incredibly understated. You, the player, can put as much or as little effort as you like into understanding the motives of the characters, what people are doing in the background etc. You tune into the radio each time you roll up to Kenny's or a pit stop, and you'll be a couple of cutscenes ahead of the person who waits to be shown what's going on. You watch Kingsglaive or read the Prologue novel, and suddenly, you can see how those guys who get a couple of minutes of screen time in Chapter 2 are responding to their own conflicts and drama, wholly unrelated to you.

Some people don't enjoy this, but me? I'm the kind of person that starts looking up Vascaroon because I talked to the right person on the white SeeD ship. I dig it.

2) The overarching framing device is remembering back to a roadtrip you took with your friends. FFXV is a journal that has the days listed out, red ink on the holidays to frame your experience, but you are the one who is scribbling in the details of the hunts you took on, the NPCs you talked to, the crazy number of photos Prompto took of Noct's butt while he's getting on a chocobo. Thousands and millions of people can buy the same journal from the same retailer, but no 2 will look alike after they've been used.

Each game will be unique to the person playing it. This is true in general, but.. they use that device for all it's worth in the final chapter. Really drive it home. (SPOILER)You start off in media res fighting Ifrit (btw, did you notice him in the painting in Carbuncle's Lore Training room? He's awfully hugged up with a mermaid--I'm thinking Leviathan), and at the end of the game, you return to that scene. Everything takes place just as it did before, putting the bulk of the game as Noct's recollection in that scene, his life flashing before his eyes. And then, quite predictably, but no less of a tear-jerker for seeing it coming from a distance, you have to choose one photo to represent the sum total of the experiences you shared, the bonds you developed, and the path you took along the way. I don't know how anyone playing the game on a serious/first run can't pick the farewell photo from Cape Caem, but that's you. If your chocobro experience is better summed up by the time Noct's model clipped through Gladio's chest, that's you.

3) The game uses the dark as a motif. From the title screen, which (SPOILER)presages the ending of the game by slowly transitioning to daylight if you let it sit for an hour or so, and changes straight up after you've finished the game, to the implications of what a city named "Insomnia" means, especially in comparison to the rest of daemon-ravaged Lucis (there you're free to stay up all night without risking your life), to the black crownsguard garb and skull patterns, to how the days (SPOILER)grow shorter and shorter, until it seems like it was hardly light at all, and then it isn't light at all. , and Noct's inexorable sleepyheadedness, to the point that (SPOILER)he learns to live in his dreams, revisiting Past Lucis and Past Altissia with Umbra's help; who's to say that the final scene with him and Luna isn't his dream of life after death? It recalls the fayth of FFX, and god please don't let them ruin the beautiful sadness if a FFXV-2 comes about... >:[.

The consistent application of the motif sticks in your mind and adds its own suggestions on how events should be interpreted when there's no firm plot to say for sure one way or another. "What would the reaction to this scene be of a member of a society who once worshipped Death back in the day when this game was called FFXIII-Versus, and now seem to hold Sleep in the same regard."

In short, the game's plot is nebulous and best enjoyed by filling in the blanks yourself to the extent you wish to.