Reviews Final Fantasy XV: Yellow Brick Road

ZaXo Ken'Ichi

Disciple of Vivi
Veteran
Joined
Jun 9, 2008
Messages
530
Location
Behind you...
Gil
1
Finally finished my review of FFXV. It's long, it's detailed, and it consists of the ugliest footage of XV you've ever seen. Enjoy!

 
Finally finished my review of FFXV. It's long, it's detailed, and it consists of the ugliest footage of XV you've ever seen. Enjoy!

R.I.P 1.5 hours of my life. You covered a lot of areas in detail as you typically do. The story aspects I won't comment on given how there are going to be some additions later on. The only reason I can assume that Tabata aimed to make FFXV easy was to reduce the alienating that would be done to the fandom. I am sure there are a good chunk of people that have never touched an ARPG in their life. You used a cure attack analogy toward FFXV if I recall correctly? While yes, it is possible to beat the game just mashing attack, progress isn't as good. I won't comment on the accessories that help boost AP for getting A+ in certain categories given how you explained the time frame you did the review. I aimed for backside links attacks, because I'd gain AP sometimes, and parries. Beyond that, both gave at least 2 of my characters some invincibility frames. Sometimes that would even cause the enemy to stop taking action for a few secs allowing the other Chocobros to deal freebie damage. I agree with the camera. While it typically hasn't been an issue on my end, tight corridors and super large enemies can generate problems. I like how summons operate in this game and I do feel they are balanced. Why Ramuh has so much summoning territory is beyond me, but it still is not a detriment to my experience. I like that they are overly powerful and that they operate on an RNG level. Imo, it keeps things more fresh instead of being able to call upon them at will which may kill the excitement of seeing a summon after a few times. Obviously, there is more room for different variants of ARPGs in the mainline series, so it will be interesting seeing that direction being taken for the next couple of installments if it ends up being taken. Overall good review. My only recommendation for later videos would be to have some type of index within the video itself, so there is a better sense of separating parts wise.
 
Thanks for watching :) Hope you didn't feel it was wasted time, lol.

I actually did have the previous videos separated into parts. I couldn't find clear places to separate this one; with FFXII it was based off of major story beats since I was explaining the plot as well. With FFIX it was separated by disc. Since neither of those applied here, I figured I probably should just make it one big thing. I thought about adding tags to skip to certain points with annotations... I just forgot, lol.

As far as the mechanical balance goes, my point was mostly that -even when an ability/mechanic/combat choice has uses in XV- it often isn't needed. I really don't think that mechanics should ever be optional on easier difficulties (or at all). Not saying of course that certain fights or areas should force players to use a mechanic necessarily (that can be fun, but it shouldn't be the basis of your game's design). But they should convince players that there's a unique and valuable reason to use each mechanic on a regular basis. Each ability/mechanic should aim to be a meaningful choice. Blindsides, link attacks, etc. aren't really meaningful, because there's no reason not to try and get them if you can. They provide 100% objectively better benefits in all situations, and as such are just a straight replacement for Attack.

It's similar to Sabin's Blitz in FFVI. Between using a Blitz command or just Attack, there is literally no reason to use Attack unless you can't use Blitz, making that a meaningless choice. Now, if some enemies could potentially counter certain Blitz commands, and these various enemies were placed in mob configurations that made the lack of risk Attack provides more enticing, you'd have more meaningful choice between the two.

With XV, I struggle to think of a single mechanic outside of Magic that offers any sort of unique risk VS reward. And the risk really only goes as deep as, using a spell now means you might not have the chance to use it later, when you really need it (granted you never will, but still). So even that is mostly just an upgrade to normal Attack; does AoE damage, is usually more powerful, and causes status effects. Things like the Royal Arms and other weapon types are kind of balanced a bit. Only a few small weapon types can do link attacks for example. And the Royal Arms cost health to use. But again it goes back to that first issue, in that basic Attack (and Blindsides, Link Attacks, etc.) is so powerful that you need not take that risk.

I can see the argument that they were trying to make it more suitable to a less skilled audience. But still my response would be that such design is a terrible way to balance for less skilled players. It makes things too easy for skilled people, and does nothing to help less skilled players grow. It instead allows them to wallow in their inability. And when/if they run across a challenge that requires a skill the game never really properly taught them to use...
 
Back
Top