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Final Fantasy 15 was a Mediocre Disappointment

Super Eyepatch Wolf・46 minutes read

Final Fantasy 15 faced a decade of development challenges, resulting in a disjointed narrative, lack of character development, and a troubled production history that manifested in its final release. The game's issues prompted Square Enix to promise patches for gameplay, performance, and story enhancements, leading many to wait for a more complete version before playing again.

Insights

  • Final Fantasy 15 faced significant development challenges, leading to a disjointed narrative, fragmented story elements, and a lack of character development, with critical pieces only available through paid DLC packs, impacting the overall coherence and emotional resonance of the game.
  • The combat system in Final Fantasy 15 simplifies decision-making for players, removing strategic elements seen in previous games, such as defensive options lacking clear indicators for effective use, mechanics like link strikes and summons removing player control, and healing lacking strategic implications, ultimately diminishing the challenge and depth of the gameplay experience.

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Recent questions

  • What is Final Fantasy 15 about?

    Final Fantasy 15 follows four friends on a journey.

  • How does combat work in Final Fantasy 15?

    Combat in FF15 simplifies decision-making for players.

  • What are the main criticisms of Final Fantasy 15?

    FF15 faces criticism for its fragmented story and lack of character development.

  • How did Final Fantasy 15's development process impact the game?

    FF15's troubled development led to a disjointed narrative and gameplay.

  • What are the key elements of Final Fantasy 15's gameplay?

    FF15 features open-world exploration and character-driven combat.

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Summary

00:00

"Final Fantasy 15: Beautiful but Disjointed"

  • Final Fantasy 15 opens with a beautiful scene of four friends pushing a broken-down car, capturing the essence of the game's potential journey.
  • The game, after a decade of development, faced initial excitement but later revealed cracks in its world, gameplay, and story.
  • Square Enix acknowledged the game's issues and promised patches to enhance gameplay, performance, and story.
  • The decision was made to wait for the game to be fully complete before playing it again.
  • Final Fantasy 15 introduces an open-world concept, allowing immediate exploration and a visually stunning environment.
  • The lack of fortified cities against monsters in the game's world raises questions about its logical consistency and world-building.
  • The game's vast open world lacks meaningful content, with certain design choices discouraging exploration and discovery.
  • Side quests and additional content in Final Fantasy 15 often lack depth and narrative coherence, leading to repetitive and underdeveloped experiences.
  • Asset reuse and copy-paste design elements in the game, such as repeated diners and duplicated NPCs, detract from the world's believability.
  • The game's overall construction lacks coherence and believability, resulting in a beautiful yet disjointed experience for players.

16:06

"Final Fantasy 15: Combat and Story Analysis"

  • Combat is a crucial aspect of RPGs, driving character development and exploration.
  • Previous Final Fantasy encounters, like Ultros in FF6 and the T-Rex in FF8, emphasized strategic elements beyond attacking and healing.
  • Final Fantasy 15's combat differs significantly from previous games, resembling a character action game.
  • Soren Johnson's formula highlights the importance of meaningful decisions in gameplay.
  • In FF15, combat simplifies decision-making for the player, allowing attacks with minimal input.
  • Mechanics like link strikes and summons in FF15 remove decision-making from the player's control.
  • Defensive options in FF15, like phasing and dodge rolling, lack clear indicators for effective use.
  • Healing in FF15 lacks an opportunity cost, allowing players to heal without strategic implications.
  • FF15's death system and healing mechanics enable players to indefinitely revive, removing challenge.
  • The game's story in FF15 lacks focus, with issues like a crystal dictating good and evil, and a lack of diverse character backgrounds.

30:38

Final Fantasy 15: Narrative Fragmentation and DLC

  • Three points in the story involve party members getting separated and rejoining later, with the resolution only available through paid DLC packs for Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis.
  • The DLC content, while requiring additional payment, offers some of the best character development in the game, focusing on unique gameplay mechanics and emotional arcs.
  • The main game lacks significant character development, with critical pieces condensed into scant dialogue, making the DLC crucial for understanding the characters.
  • The game's story is fragmented, with key events like the fall of Insomnia depicted in a separate movie, Kingsglaive, leading to a lack of emotional impact in the main game.
  • The Kingsglaive movie establishes the destruction of Insomnia and the depth of Noctis's loss, elements missing from the main game, affecting the narrative coherence.
  • The narrative could have been significantly improved if the events of Kingsglaive were integrated into the main game, providing context and emotional depth to the story.
  • Final Fantasy 15's troubled development history, starting as Versus 13, faced challenges like staff exhaustion, shifting storylines, and unchecked ambition, leading to a prolonged development cycle.
  • The game's transition to Final Fantasy 15 brought significant changes, including new staff, a shift to next-gen consoles, and a rebranding, indicating a tumultuous development process.
  • The game's narrative suffers from disjointed storytelling, with critical story elements segregated into different pieces of content, impacting the overall coherence and emotional resonance.
  • The critique of Final Fantasy 15's narrative fragmentation and lack of character development stems from a comparison to past Final Fantasy games that effectively established relationships and developed characters within the main game.

46:13

"Kingdom Hearts 3: Development Challenges and Delays"

  • Nomura, the driving force behind the project, was transferred, making Tabata the full director of Kingdom Hearts 3 with a clear objective to release the game by 2016 within budget, leading to significant cuts in narrative elements, battle systems, and character changes.
  • Development challenges arose with the shift to Xbox One and PS4 platforms, necessitating a change from Crystal Tools to Luminous engine, causing substantial work to be left behind and requiring active development of the engine by Square.
  • Final Fantasy 15 faced delays and outsourcing due to the unfinished Luminous engine, leading to a November 29, 2016 release, 10 years after its initial announcement, with the game reflecting the scars of its troubled production in its closing moments.
  • The game's development spanned seven years of ambitious pre-production and three years of game creation, resulting in unfinished concepts and a fragmented story, showcasing the clash between creative ambition and the realities of video game development, despite the earnest efforts of the team involved.
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