Glad this was a gift.

KoRny

Chocobo Breeder
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
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14
Age
36
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Minnesota
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*Spoilers Below*
I think I've played this game about as much as I'm going to, so I'll give my review of it now.
After about 60 hours of playtime, I've had about as much as I can stand. I finished the story, but my Characters are not level 99, and I only made it to hunter rank 6, so keep in mind that this review is coming from the perspective of someone who only made it this far.

I want to first talk about the message that shows up every time I turn the game on. "A Final Fantasy for fans and first timers." I have been a long time fan of the older Final Fantasy franchise. Even to this day I will sometimes go back and play through Final Fantasy 2-9. I think it was around chapter 8 or 9 when I became certain that this game would not offer me the things I was looking for as a fan of the series. It then became sort of annoying to keep seeing that message each time I turned on the game. It was like the game was lying to me.

The Characters
A classic Final Fantasy element is the option to choose a party from a larger selection of characters. This game made no attempt to meet this standard. Not only can you not choose your party, but your party does not change at all. You are stuck with the same 4 people the whole game. This blunder is made even worse by the fact that I was unable to like any of them. Instead of getting a team of unique looking fantasy world heroes, I got 4 members of the Japanese Backstreet Boys.

Combat
The most frustrating combat of any Final Fantasy I've played. The targeting is absolutely horrendous. Especially if you are in a fight with 5 or more enemies. It is also hard to perform any consecutive actions in a fight against many enemies (the bees for example) because it is not possible to dodge all of them at once. The use of spells is nearly non-existent. In classic Final Fantasy games, you have an ever increasing list of available spells that can be cast repeatedly as long as you have the MP. In this game, there are basically 3 spells, which can only be used 3 times, only when they are equipped, and only once every 20 seconds or so. The spells are also very situational, so if the opportune moment never comes, then it usually just feels like a waste to cast spells. You can equip spells on your team mates, but since you can't control the other members of the party, it is pretty random as to when they will be used. Not being able to play as anyone else besides Noctis is also a very serious mistake by the designers. The damage enemies deal was not worked out very well. Your maximum health often times feels arbitrary because many enemies do so much damage that you are either at full health, or in danger mode. The existence of danger mode also makes the battle incredibly hard to lose if you have items. It seems that difficulty is not actually a factor since any fight will eventually be won as long as you have enough healing items. Even in fights where you have to keep using potions every 2-3 seconds, you will eventually get the option to summon Ramah and basically auto-win the fight.

Story
Incredibly short, shallow, and yet confusing. If you play nothing but main story quests, the game probably would only last 20-30 hours. The dialog in the game constantly prompts you to answer questions with multiple choice answers that convey different attitudes. It gives the impression that these decisions might affect the story, but they don't. Every few times you rest in the game, the rest is interrupted by a cutscene or a quick side mission that attempts to develop the relationship between characters. I was annoyed every time one of these popped up. It is nothing more than an interruption to whatever you were planning on doing in game. The basis of the story is as simple as trying to stop an evil empire from ruling the world. As simple as the story is, it leaves so much unexplained. The final boss of the game, Ardyn, is left as a complete mystery. As the story progresses, you discover that Ardyn is immortal and has strange powers. It is not really explained how Ardyn became the High Chancellor of the Empire, or where is powers come from, or why exactly his ambition is to rule the world and unleash daemons. The final fight against Ardyn is also extremely disappointing. The game basically holds your hand through the encounter to make sure that you don't lose. There is no challenge at all. After Ardyn is killed (doesn't explain exactly what it is you did to him) it seems like the world reverts backward in time, but doesn't explain why or how. It goes back in time to before the darkness consumes everything, and before Luna-freya is killed, but not to before Insomnia is attacked because it seems like Noctis' father is still dead.

Side Quests
Square-Enix's lame attempt to please the players who complained about the game being too linear. They basically added a questing system similar to World of Warcraft in which you are told to travel somewhere, kill a monster, and return to the quest giver. 90% of the quests are inconsequential and offer minor rewards that give little benefit. Why would they think players would want to take a break from the main story to complete a quest that consists of catching a fish to feed to a stray cat? There are so many side-quests that you will quickly surpass their recommended level if you try to do them all. Most of the questing is done for things so far below your current level that you breeze right through the enemies with no effort. This only increases the monotony. There are literally 10 times as many hunt missions as their should be. The missions do not advance in difficulty at the same rate you advance in level, making them extremely easy most of the time.

Other Stuff
It seems like there are only about 20 different monsters in the whole game. Even the iconic giant legendary bird was used for two different bosses. The customization of your party's skills and equipment was pretty lack luster and void of creativity. It gets annoying that the jump button is also the same button for nearly ever other action, which causes you to accidentally jump over and over while trying to pick up an item or mount a chocobo. The soundtrack is almost non-existent. You mostly only hear music while driving, and it's mostly music from past games. Speaking of driving, what a snooze fest. The game even puts forced dialog into the drives so that you can't put the controller down and walk away. The load times are horrendous. It's claimed to be an open world yet there are invisible walls and rock/tree barriers EVERYWHERE. It's hard to even call it a "world" since it is only three different regions that each look pretty similar. In past games you actually travel the planet. This game doesn't even have different looking cultures from one region to the next. It's all the same wherever you go. The Water city is the only interesting location in the entire game. The car changing into an airplane after you beat the game is a pretty poor substitute for an airship. Often times while flying, it still feels as though you are on rails and can't go just anywhere you please. The repeated dialog by the characters gets old fast.
 
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