Dare I even open-up this possible can of worms?
So, what's so bad about FFXV?
I feel like chiming in too...
I remember the first reveal of Versus XIII. I remember being swept up by Shimomura's music. I remember the second trailer. Desperately wanting to immerse myself in it. I remember not caring about XIII, Versus XIII was what I needed in my life. I remember when they revealed it was rebranded as XV. I had spent my years waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I was still in high school when it was announced, and it came out after I had moved three states, went through three year + relationships, met my (at that time soon to be) wife... It was a completely new era.
I played the game. I platinum'd the game on the PS4. I spent about 95 hours in the game. The best way to describe it is that it is not my favorite Final Fantasy game, nor is it the game that I hoped for, but the time I spent with Noctis and friends came at the right time. After distancing myself from friends from the past, it reminded me of the power of friendship.
The world is not what it should have been. Two city "hubs", smaller towns dotted across the world, and a faux-open world design didn't do the game what it really needed to shine. A massive desert region didn't do the world justice. A lack of interaction with Insomnia was crippling. Shimomura's score has some amazing tracks, but also isn't consistently astounding. Having the ability to listen to past Final Fantasy tracks while in the Regalia (car) was a neat feature, though. Also, the in-game modeling of food is insane. Seriously, they professionally photographed the dishes, and then modeled them as accurately as possible. There is a team out there whose main purpose at Square Enix for a time was to digitally create meals that looked photo-realistic.
The story... I can't... I don't hate it. At all. There was a lack of structure and some portions were given too much breathing room and some portions felt rushed, incomplete, and lifeless. In the end, though, I found my time, my journey with these characters, made me feel like I was the fifth member of their group. I felt invested in seeing what would happen, what did happen, and what will eventually happen.
In the end, I am buying this on PC the day it comes out. This is not a game that everybody will enjoy, to a point that I think there is a venn diagram of people who WILL or HAVE enjoyed it... Anyway, I hope that game you an overarching idea on how the game made me react.
you, phone! I swear my phone's auto correct has gone to shot in an effort to get me to upgrade to a new phone.