LTTP: Final Fantasy 15....what is happening in this story?

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

FFXV baffles me. It's, like, the best selling Final Fantasy game, it has ardent defenders here on Era, but it's one of the few games I've played where I'm like, "This is a bad game." There are a lot of AAA titles where it's like, you know, that's not my jam, but I can see why people like it, but I genuinely do not see the appeal of FFXV.

Ok, like, I guess they did a good job with the interactions between the Chocobros, but they fumble so hard when they try to give them narrative beats. The open world is horrible because there's nothing in it. There's no real sense of exploration, there's no thrill in reaching a ~~new town~~ new gas station, there's no sense of character progression. Maybe if the side quests had had good writing it would have helped, but you're stuck doing these menial tasks for NPC and even in side quest chains like the frog and Dino ones you don't really get any insight into the world or the quest givers.

It's just that outside of the four main characters, everything feels hollow and soulless.

nasirum · Jan 12, 2019

What's happening is a terribly told, incomplete story.

Crayon · Jan 12, 2019

Yes the combat is awful. :< I was very optimistic about it during the first hours. I thought it would make sense after a bit and i like new things. But no. It's shallow ans boring. Realtime combat for an rpg does not have to be great but this is below passable.

Spaltazar · Jan 12, 2019

its too bad they canned the aranea dlc. that could have been smthing

No42.05W70.2 · Jan 12, 2019

I never played the full game and I never will. Bought Ni No Kuni 2 and Dragon Quest XI though. Fun games.

Deleted member 4353 · Jan 12, 2019

Wait that kid died?? I finished this game 2 years ago and I didn't even know. lol.

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

jrush64 said:
Wait that kid died?? I finished this game 2 years ago and I didn't even know. lol.

No, the old guy dies and everyone acts like it's this huge tragedy even though the player had only seen him in 1.5 scenes. The kid lives.

Kyzer · Jan 12, 2019

THANK YOU

It was like a bad movie

Deleted member 4353 · Jan 12, 2019

Tfritz said:
No, the old guy dies and everyone acts like it's this huge tragedy even though the player had only seen him in 1.5 scenes. The kid lives.

I thought the kid was Jared.... wow.. wow. I remember the old guy and I thought he just went away.

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

Jacktuar said:
The story really suffers from it being open world. I know you can do open world stories well, if the story centres around meeting new people and new places; but FFXVs story is not about that. It's pure plot. The only important characters you meet are the playable characters. As a result any kind of build up in tension is killed by the open world structure.

It really can't be overstated how badly the open world works in the context of the narrative. Since it shifts from "bachelor party road trip" to "revenge for my dead father, dead fiance, and New York City" at the end of the first chapter, none of the open world questing really works. If they had kept the bachelor party road trip scenario it could have worked because it would be like, Noctis going out and adventuring and meeting the people before getting married and ascending to the throne. But instead they immediately add a bunch of gravity to the narrative and it makes Noct doing things like finding rare rocks for Dino or catching Toads for the Doctor seem weird and pointless.

And like, I know, I know, "Isn't it weird how the you can spend dozens of hours breeding chocobos and doing side quests while Meteor is hanging over the planet" style criticism has been around forever, especially once JRPGs started adding lots of endgame side quests, but in FFXV that stuff is there from the very beginning and the narrative takes itself so deathly serious that it just feels weird.

Also like it sucks that the only settlements you can visit on the continent are Glorified Gas Stations and Havana, which just raises the question of where all the cars on the road are actually going.

Normal · Jan 12, 2019

Crayon said:
Yes the combat is awful. :< I was very optimistic about it during the first hours. I thought it would make sense after a bit and i like new things. But no. It's shallow ans boring. Realtime combat for an rpg does not have to be great but this is below passable.

lol

Deleted member 426 · Jan 12, 2019

Tfritz said:
It really can't be overstated how badly the open world works in the context of the narrative. Since it shifts from "bachelor party road trip" to "revenge for my dead father, dead fiance, and New York City" at the end of the first chapter, none of the open world questing really works. If they had kept the bachelor party road trip scenario it could have worked because it would be like, Noctis going out and adventuring and meeting the people before getting married and ascending to the throne. But instead they immediately add a bunch of gravity to the narrative and it makes Noct doing things like finding rare rocks for Dino or catching Toads for the Doctor seem weird and pointless.

And like, I know, I know, "Isn't it weird how the you can spend dozens of hours breeding chocobos and doing side quests while Meteor is hanging over the planet" style criticism has been around forever, especially once JRPGs started adding lots of endgame side quests, but in FFXV that stuff is there from the very beginning and the narrative takes itself so deathly serious that it just feels weird.

Also like it sucks that the only settlements you can visit on the continent are Glorified Gas Stations and Havana, which just raises the question of where all the cars on the road are actually going.

I really do not mind narrative ludo dissonance in games, and I think people overstate it's importance. But XVs structure gets in the way of the story massively, and it's not possible to avoid that, however you play.

RDreamer · Jan 12, 2019

The other weird thing about the car and road trip theme is that the game feels the least "road trip" of any final fantasy. A road trip should take you to different sights and places. This game feels like a drive around the local lake.

Crayon · Jan 12, 2019

Usyren said:
lol

You have got to be kidding. Nier Automata's combat is decent at the least. FF15 is a wreck.

Y2Kev · Jan 12, 2019

Nothing about the story beats or structure makes any sense. The first 10 chapters or so feel like they're building to something even if it is very confusing...but then clearly the lack of a clear cohesive development vision and the general poor writing just send the shit into overdrive mode.

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

RDreamer said:
The other weird thing about the car and road trip theme is that the game feels the least "road trip" of any final fantasy. A road trip should take you to different sights and places. This game feels like a drive around the local lake.

I was stoked to see that the Vesperpool region is literally just Florida.
(I guess a lot of the places might seem exotic if you're Japanese or like live in a really big city, but a lot of it just feels my commute to work...)

Mediking · Jan 12, 2019

Wagram said:
Just think of how bad XVI is going to sell and it'll probably be a good one. lol

I'm the director of FFXVI and I can say with pride that the story will be great AND it's gonna sell good.

Y2Kev · Jan 12, 2019

People insist the combat has some like pro angle that you just don't understand (like people doing air combos or something?) but I think everything about the game is poor. The worldbuilding is nonexistent. The story is confusing, happens off screen, with characters that act illogically. Everything is unearned. There is no consistency or rationality in the way the characters react to external events.

Also OMG @ the time Gladio leaves and comes back and the game makes you pretend it isn't him? And also why are you even in this powerplant? The game's scars are so visible.

And then you can go collect rocks for Dino. Like who the fuck did this?

People pretend that FFXII is some jumbled mess with a massive tonal shift. Like hello!

Vamphuntr · Jan 12, 2019

Awful game through and through. The only thing it excels at is that it's one of the most visually impressive game available so far. Especially if you can turn on all the pretty NVIDIA effects. The story is poorly told, badly executed and makes no sense like OP said. There is very little build up to anything as things happen out of the blue and the games try to force you to care about what just happened (like when the butler dies as said above on this very page). It doesn't help you need to watch a movie, read a novel, play some mobile games, a limited demo of the game and get all the DLC to understand what the hell is happening. OP is quite accurate in saying it's basically a mess all with all of its parts stitched together.

The combat is also pretty repetitive and boring. Magic is OP and let you kill enemies much higher level than you.The open world is a bunch of fetch quests and hunts to pad out the very little story content there is.

bulletyen · Jan 12, 2019

You can make sense of what the plot is, it's just so very terribly paced and whoever made the decisions regarding how to tell the story, how much of the story to tell, when and where to have cutscenes made all the wrong moves. Not to mention the imbalance of time you spend in each location and the seams showing how much they've cut. Or maybe they realized all this but couldn't fix it because the game's development was a mess and they had to get it out.

What sucks is the player can easily imagine the game it could have been because the bits and scraps are all still in the game.

Cutscenes are all in the wrong place and show the wrong moments, including the opening ones. Things that aren't important to the story get cut scenes and important story beats like that in Gralea are barely addressed on screen or just a blurb. And then they resort to anime and movie supplements when if planned better wouldn't have been necessary at all!

The game should have begun in Insomnia as originally planned, whether just the invasion or some slice of life thrown in, so you get a sense of Noctis and friends in their element and why the fuck you should care about their trip and later motivation to get back the kingdom. Why should the player care about a kingdom they've never even seen or enjoyed?

The time spent on developing the Lucian continent should have been divided evenly on the Accordian Continent and Imperial continent, as it was obviously meant to be. The open world segment on Lucian should have been way smaller and exploration saved for the other locations/ cities. But clearly they ran out of everything they needed to finish this vision.

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

My favorite narrative beat is when you have to sneak around that Imperial base to eavesdrop on and kidnap a General, but then he escapes off screen after you subdue him and is never mentioned in the main plot again.

jiggle · Jan 12, 2019

It's great that they give you a good look at luna's wedding dress
Very important

Gaia Lanzer · Jan 12, 2019

Tfritz said:
It really can't be overstated how badly the open world works in the context of the narrative. Since it shifts from "bachelor party road trip" to "revenge for my dead father, dead fiance, and New York City" at the end of the first chapter, none of the open world questing really works. If they had kept the bachelor party road trip scenario it could have worked because it would be like, Noctis going out and adventuring and meeting the people before getting married and ascending to the throne. But instead they immediately add a bunch of gravity to the narrative and it makes Noct doing things like finding rare rocks for Dino or catching Toads for the Doctor seem weird and pointless.

See, I would've preferred a tense opening. My preferred way this should've went down is:

- Noctis isn't sent away. He and his friends ESCAPE Insomnia.
- No laid back road trip between bros. Bros could still bond, but give the adventure a more tense feel.

No showing the battle against Ifrit in the future, leave that shit for the end of the game.

IDontBeatGames · Jan 12, 2019

Kyzer said:
THANK YOU

It was like a bad movie

never seen FFXV: Kingsglaive huh..? lmao

Deleted member 46958 · Jan 12, 2019

theofficefan99 said:
OP please keep us posted on your thoughts. The main story itself is super short (and super easy).

Two things I dont look for in FF. Man to hell with XV.

Bjones · Jan 12, 2019

Nothing is really happening . The only story driven things are getting the king weapons and that it's all about Ardan playing with you.

Mekanos · Jan 12, 2019

Tfritz said:
FFXV baffles me. It's, like, the best selling Final Fantasy game

Not quite. It's comfortably below 7 and 10, and 14 if you count subscriptions. A bit below 8 too. It's sold more than 12 and 13 though, so... that's something.

GymWolf86 · Jan 12, 2019

what story?

Whompa · Jan 12, 2019

Art direction, animations, music, design work etc are all fucking gorgeous. Maybe even the best in the franchise.

The story was clearly, sadly, gutted to try and tell a more universal story instead of a complex narrative that Versus was going for...

It's still a pretty great addition to ff, but it got its faults.

Tfritz · Jan 12, 2019

Whompa said:
Art direction, animations, music, design work etc are all fucking gorgeous. Maybe even the best in the franchise.

The character art direction is very... lopsided. Noct and friends are dressed like they walked off the set of a music video, the Imperials look like they're from any vaguely fantasy JRPG, and generic NPCs tend to look like they're from the quote-unquote real world. I feel like they could have made this a bit more cohesive.

peppersky · Jan 12, 2019

Bjones said:
Nothing is really happening . The only story driven things are getting the king weapons

I seriously can't even imagine what led to them thinking that "grab these 12 mcguffins from some dungeons so you can become strong enough to defeat the bad guy" was a interesting premise in 2016. I mean sure, there was a whole mess of other stuff going on at the same time, but that was your main goal for the first half of the game until it goes completely off the rails (or the opposite of that i guess). As soon as you go into that first tomb 3 into the game I was seriously shocked: The obvious and half-way interesting plot would actually be you travelling the world to find allies so you could take back your home. Basically writes itself. I mean that kinda presupposes your development team is actually organized enough to create more than one tiny city in your grand JRPG though. The game is just such a giant mess. It's almost fascinating in a "cant look away from the train crash" kind of way. I'd seriously love to know what happened behind the scenes for the game to release as it did.

Jacktuar said:
I really do not mind narrative ludo dissonance in games, and I think people overstate it's importance. But XVs structure gets in the way of the story massively, and it's not possible to avoid that, however you play.

In FFXV it goes way beyond ludonarrative dissonance though. Like the most basic parts of the world make no sense, like how even though there are monsters everywhere there are literally no walls or guards defending any settlements and npcs wear no armor or weapons to protect themselves. It seems like basic stuff to make the world at all believable, but it seems like no one in the development team even thought it was important at all.

metalslimer · Jan 12, 2019

So just got to the time jump...so now that I know the backstory about everything and where this was going I do see how things could have worked better.

Ultimately the game is just far too short and spent far too much time on worthless stuff to tell what could have been a decent story

I have to say what in the absolute fuck at how the ring works. The ring is how magic should have worked in this game from the beginning. I'm still pissed at how much they fucked the magic system in this game

FusionNY · Jan 12, 2019

The writing on the whole is a complete mess but there are a couple of moments that worked for me. Specifically when Prompto reveals his insecurities to Noctis, doing that little dungeon with Iris or the ending which was way better than it had any right to be. It felt like a writer with some real vision pushed these moments through in an otherwise poorly written game. Unfortunately I found the open world and gameplay to be just as unsatisfying as the story. Though I will say I was weirdly amused at how bizarrely constructed the game feels.

Edit: I also recall FFXV convincing me that I was playing a nightmarish Dragon's Dogma sequel.

pleaseinsertdisctwo · Jan 12, 2019

Electricb7 said:
Guess what

it gets worse

Can we finally acknowledge that this game deserves none of the fucking passes that people give it. Everything about it is bad.

Thank you. FFXV is a disgrace

Y2Kev said:
People insist the combat has some like pro angle that you just don't understand (like people doing air combos or something?) but I think everything about the game is poor. The worldbuilding is nonexistent. The story is confusing, happens off screen, with characters that act illogically. Everything is unearned. There is no consistency or rationality in the way the characters react to external events.

Also OMG @ the time Gladio leaves and comes back and the game makes you pretend it isn't him? And also why are you even in this powerplant? The game's scars are so visible.

And then you can go collect rocks for Dino. Like who the fuck did this?

People pretend that FFXII is some jumbled mess with a massive tonal shift. Like hello!

lmfao Pelosi giving people a reality check even on Era

Mathieran · Jan 12, 2019

I gave up after probably about 5 mediocre hours. Maybe I should have put it on super easy and powered through the main quest line because the art in the game is fantastic, but I just couldn't. I didn't care about anything the game wanted me to.

And I just tried it a couple months ago after they had supposedly fixed a lot of the problems.

No Depth · Jan 12, 2019

I made it to chapter 14 and deleted. I think I was right at the end but I didn't care anymore and I was forcing myself through loooong before that point. I had enough and it is by far the absolute worst FF I have ever touched.

I would argue that the boys and their friendship were handled well. Noctis sucked, but the other three were personable and great. Music was strong too.

Writing, combat, world design, encounters, set pieces, quests... all terrible.

pleaseinsertdisctwo · Jan 12, 2019

Tfritz said:
My favorite narrative beat is when you have to sneak around that Imperial base to eavesdrop on and kidnap a General, but then he escapes off screen after you subdue him and is never mentioned in the main plot again.

What about when the bros purposely don't use a temporary car and instead traverse on foot when apparently the whole world is in danger, and then your mechanic miraculously finds out the location of your missing car in a random nearby army base?

THE GUY · Jan 12, 2019

Mekanos said:
Not quite. It's comfortably below 7 and 10, and 14 if you count subscriptions. A bit below 8 too. It's sold more than 12 and 13 though, so... that's something.

It's ahead of VIII and is also ahead of X if you exclude the remasters which bumped up X's (and X-2's) total a good amount. It'll end up the second best selling title regardless however, behind only VII, by the time it's done.

Normal · Jan 12, 2019

FFXIV is free to play until you reach level 30.

peppersky · Jan 12, 2019

Man, this thread made me look at concept art and shit for this game and it's just depressing. Of course the game that you imagine with your mind when you see bits and pieces of it and cut content is always greater than any game that had to actually go through development, but it seems more and more that game development has just gotten too expensive to realize these grand projects.

SantaC · Jan 12, 2019

Gotta love how noctis

gets to know that his father was killed in a newspaper and not through his smartphone.

THE GUY said:
It's ahead of VIII and is also ahead of X if you exclude the remasters which bumped up X's (and X-2's) total a good amount. It'll end up the second best selling title regardless however, behind only VII, by the time it's done.

To be fair, FF was exclusive to playstation the longest time until FF13.

No wonder it sells more at multiplatform

AnansiThePersona · Jan 12, 2019

theofficefan99 said:
What about when the bros purposely don't use a temporary car and instead traverse on foot when apparently the whole world is in danger, and then your mechanic miraculously finds out the location of your missing car in a random nearby army base?

I love how they find the car and it's in the exact same condition they left it in. Like...why didn't Nifleheim blow up the car? Or, like, not put it on display in the middle of their army base? Lmao

AnansiThePersona · Jan 12, 2019

peppersky said:
I seriously can't even imagine what led to them thinking that "grab these 12 mcguffins from some dungeons so you can become strong enough to defeat the bad guy" was a interesting premise in 2016. I mean sure, there was a whole mess of other stuff going on at the same time, but that was your main goal for the first half of the game until it goes completely off the rails (or the opposite of that i guess). As soon as you go into that first tomb 3 into the game I was seriously shocked: The obvious and half-way interesting plot would actually be you travelling the world to find allies so you could take back your home. Basically writes itself. I mean that kinda presupposes your development team is actually organized enough to create more than one tiny city in your grand JRPG though. The game is just such a giant mess. It's almost fascinating in a "cant look away from the train crash" kind of way. I'd seriously love to know what happened behind the scenes for the game to release as it did.

In FFXV it goes way beyond ludonarrative dissonance though. Like the most basic parts of the world make no sense, like how even though there are monsters everywhere there are literally no walls or guards defending any settlements and npcs wear no armor or weapons to protect themselves. It seems like basic stuff to make the world at all believable, but it seems like no one in the development team even thought it was important at all.

They put a stupid amount of effort into a city you are only in for an hour and a half. Insomnia should've been a playable city in the beginning so we give a rat's ass about it exploding and not having to watch a shitty movie to care. Get rid of the whole train segment from the game. How about they come back from Altissia and have to get back to Insomnia then you can do the Chapter 14 stuff.

Normal · Jan 12, 2019

SantaC said:
To be fair, FF was exclusive to playstation the longest time until FF13.

No wonder it sells more at multiplatform

To be fair PS2 had an install base of 155+ million. :]

Viceratops · Jan 12, 2019

I think it's a great game. It could have been amazing if the game had been entirely about the development of the friendships and deeper characterization of the surrounding cast. It should never have been about saving a kingdom from darkness or some such nonsense about a king fulfilling his duties. I liked the story they made but it does feel like a missed opportunity. Couple that with a few things like easier open world traversal and less linearity in the storyline and I think it would be more fondly remembered.

Surakian · Jan 12, 2019

Remember when Ardyn picks the boys up and drops them off in Lestallum for no reason with that weird time gap that suddenly leads to the power plant stuff. Truly a villain that rivals Sephiroth.

The Emperor · Jan 12, 2019

The worst Final Fantasy of all time.

And honestly one of the worst stories ever told in a JRPG.

I mean there is barely even a story.

Incoherent, patchy, incomplete.

But kind of simple. And the bros work. But they only work as they are fun to watch.

None of these characters, not one, is developed. Any arc they have is relegated to a DLC which is unacceptable. And the arcs themselves are meh

Plot topics that would be GIGANTIC plot twists in previous FF's are mentioned as off hand comments and no one cares

i.e.

'Prompto being a robot'

Just mind boggling how the games story was so bad and this is a FF. Not even gonna mentioned the worst ARPG battle system ever.

The open world I actually liked a lot barring towns.

The towns are terrible apart from the venice type city. The ones on the main continent are so lifeless and a whole loads of nothing. Lestallum is a complete joke.

Lightning returns had a better open world with a more lived in feel for the locales and the regions.

pleaseinsertdisctwo · Jan 14, 2019

AnansiThePersona said:
I love how they find the car and it's in the exact same condition they left it in. Like...why didn't Nifleheim blow up the car? Or, like, not put it on display in the middle of their army base? Lmao

Part of Ardyn's "genius" plan that heavily relies on all inhabitants of Eos being complete morons

metalslimer · Jan 14, 2019

theofficefan99 said:
Part of Ardyn's "genius" plan that heavily relies on all inhabitants of Eos being complete morons

Ardyn had a plan?

pleaseinsertdisctwo · Jan 14, 2019

metalslimer said:
Ardyn had a plan?

lol did you beat the game?

LTTP: Final Fantasy 15....what is happening in this story?

User-requested account closure

User-requested account closure

User requested account closure

Final Fantasy Best Boy (Grip)

ThreadMarksman

User requested account closure

▲ Legend ▲

Started a revolution but the mic was unplugged

Started a revolution but the mic was unplugged