When i first played XV, I enjoy it for a while but ultimately found it disappointing. Replaying it recently, I’ve softened up to it some more and had fun with all of the dlc and speeding through the story on new game +. I still notice a lot of potential that was never met though. All of the main characters besides the main four weren’t given enough screen time and development. All of their stuff felt rushed. The world was pretty but also felt a bit lifeless too. And the hunts felt pretty unmemorable compared to the way XII handled hunts.

I get burnt out on open worlds a lot, so that might be part of my problem. But I’m playing Zelda now, and it just seems to do the open world a lot better. Still a lot of empty space with the same mobs, but actually exploring was more fun to me in Zelda. I do kind of wish we could have had something like the MP3 player in XV implemented in Zelda though. Also, Zelda has more memorable npcs that have their own schedules and react to weather and such whereas XV sometimes could have the same 4 generic npcs all sitting around a table together.

In the end, XV isn’t terrible, but I find XIII-2 more enjoyable to play in the end. It had the potential to be one of the bests though since XV had a decent plot, good characters, and interesting design choices mixed into the unfinished and rushed feeling of a lot of the game.