Welcome to my review! Today I'll be talking about the long awaited, Final Fantasy 15. Made by developer, Square Enix, this is an open world action role playing game with a ton of content in it that will keep you busy for a long time. Development for Final Fantasy 15 started way back in 2006 if you can believe it, originally intended to be a spin off of a previous entry in the series on PS3. But the game suffered many technical problems and unforeseen setbacks that led to the whole thing being scrapped and eventually remade again for the modern generation of consoles. What we finally got after all those years of development hell was a surprisingly fun and well made new entry in the series. It's not perfect by any means, but there's a lot to see and do in the world of Final Fantasy 15 that will keep you engaged for dozens of hours, as long as you're alright with some of the changes Square has made.
The main focus of Final Fantasy 15 is the protagonist Noctis, and his three friends Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto. The four of them form the group that you will get to know very well by the end of the game. There is a main story that's happening, Noctis is a prince and his Father a king. Noctis is to be married to a princess, that's where you're heading at the beginning of the game. But on your way there you hear on the car's radio, an attack has been made on the city and not only is your Father dead, but Noctis and the princess are proclaimed dead too. After that you need to find some ancient weapons to reclaim the sacred crystal and get back what is rightfully your's, exposing the villains behind the attack. There's a lot more too it than that but we'd be here all day if I went into detail. It really doesn't matter anyway because most of the game you wont even be thinking about the story. I went for huge chunks just exploring the land, fighting, and leveling up, completely forgetting what was happening in the story.
What you'll be concerned with the most throughout the game is your four member party. They're not some group of strangers brought together by fate, but instead four friends who have known each other for years. This is apparent by the way they all act over the course of your journey, and although the main story can be thin at times, the real heart of the game are these four friends. You only get to control Noctis, but the other three members are very useful, and their AI is fantastic. They will all hold their own in battle and you can perform combos with them as well as flanking moves once you get used to the combat system.
The combat in Final Fantasy 15 is probably one of the biggest departures from the rest of the series. Most Final Fantasy games have turned based combat where strategy is key in winning battles. In 15 all the fighting is in real time, you will see enemies roaming about the landscape and you can decide whether or not you want to engage them. To attack you just hold circle, this will perform a series of combo's to the nearest enemy, and holding square will block or dodge any incoming attack. Noctis does have a teleportation ability that lets you grab onto enemies from a distance, or get out of a tough fight for a minute to catch your breath. Once you get the hang of all these new mechanics, fighting becomes a faster more fluid experience, compared to the old turn based style.
There is magic you can use in battle as well, but compared to older games in the series it's very limited. You only get fire, ice, and lightning based magic and it's on a timer based system where you can only use it sparingly. The visual effects of magic are pretty awesome though, scorching or freezing the ground around you, but be careful, if a member of your party is in the way they will get hit too. It's definitely a big change from previous entries, but once I got a feel for how it all worked, it wasn't a big deal. There are Summons, but you don't get them until later in the game and you can't use them whenever you want. The option to use them comes up in battle only when you meet certain requirements. Visually they are impressive though, and so is most of the content in this game.
The first two thirds of Final Fantasy 15 are spent on a huge continent where you can go pretty much anywhere you want. The landscapes are varied and exploration is often rewarded with a special item of some kind. To traverse this massive chunk of land you get a car named, The Regalia. You can get in or out whenever you want, you can customize the paint job, change the radio stations, and near the end of the game it can even turn into a jet plane, allowing you to fly around at great speeds. I loved this aspect of the game, even though it didn't feel like Final Fantasy, it was a lot of fun cruising around listening to the group talking to each other and enjoying the scenery. An alternative way of getting around, once you unlock the ability to use them, are Chocobos. These can be rented at certain places and can be taken off road making quickly getting somewhere off the beaten path much easier.
There is a day and night cycle that is always happening around you, and at night you're encouraged to make camp. This will boost your stats and replenish all your vitals. Every time you camp you get to cook food using ingredients found on your journey, boosting certain stats. You also get to look through all the photos Prompto took for that day. He's the groups photographer and takes random snapshots that you can save or delete, until you have a scrapbook of memories from your entire playthrough.
The final stretch of this game is where it takes an unfortunate turn. You eventually leave your huge sandbox of fun and go to a series of smaller locations, some of which are completely linear. It felt like Square wanted to do a lot more with these areas, but maybe because of time constraints were only able to make them very narrow and story driven. This was a real shame because the game starts off so well and for the majority I was loving it, but then right at the end it changes into something totally different. Not all of the smaller areas are bad, one of them is a city on the water that you traverse by gondola, but some are just terrible. At one point you are stripped of your party members and all your powers, then led down a completely linear corridor for quite a long time. This was by far the worst part of the game and felt completely out of place. I think Square has gone back and patched some of these later levels to make them a little more forgiving, but I played this when it first came out so I'm not really sure.
Looking back on the time I spent playing Final Fantasy 15, what I really remember is all the fun I had exploring the massive open world. The final portions of the game are pretty short in comparison and not all bad, but they do contribute in lowering the overall score a little bit. This is a big game with an overwhelming amount of content, in fact I'm sure I probably left out a lot of it. I've been a huge fan of the series for as long as I can remember, only losing interest after Final Fantasy 13 and it's two sequels. Those games were not for me and I thought my time with this franchise was over. Then, like a breath of fresh air, Final Fantasy 15 comes along and pulls me right back in. I know a lot of the changes might turn off die hard fans of the originals, but you've got to respect Square Enix for trying something new. I wish the final segments were more cohesive and not so out of place feeling, but honestly it doesn't matter that much, I still had a great time. If you're a fan of the series and you haven't tried this one out yet, I suggest picking it up. It's probably half the price it was at launch now, and definitely worth it. I give Final Fantasy 15 an: