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Final Fantasy XV (was Versus XIII)

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
That's the problem with a lot of modern franchises/long-runners, though - they expect you to read EU material in order to understand the full "scope" of the story.
But the full "scope" is not necesarily the story the product is telling (nor you need to know it).

I.e: the full "scope" story of Star Wars (1977) is the conflict between Jedi vs Sith and the balance of the force through many decades/centuries but, the actual story of Star Wars is about a young farmer from a dessert planet joining a rebellion againts an Evil Empire.
 
AKA
Alex
But the full "scope" is not necesarily the story the product is telling (nor you need to know it).

I.e: the full "scope" story of Star Wars (1977) is the conflict between Jedi vs Sith and the balance of the force through many decades/centuries but, the actual story of Star Wars is about a young farmer from a dessert planet joining a rebellion againts an Evil Empire.

I'd say it's more of an inversion of "show, don't tell". The information/scenes are there, just utilized in another format. It's more and more common these days with "cinematic universes" and long-running franchises that have "scope creep", where the nature of the franchise changes as more and more works are released for it.

It's funny that you say that the "actual story" of Star Wars is just about Luke Skywalker. It's not. Not anymore. By Lucasfilm's own admission and their most recent handful of DVD releases, the "Star Wars/Skywalker Saga" is largely about the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

The context of A New Hope (later renamed Episode IV: A New Hope) in 1977 was that of a young farmboy who joins the rebellion against the Empire. In the context of 30-plus years of changing authorial intent on the part of George Lucas, along with the existence of the prequels and rest of the OT films, the film franchise is now largely characterized by both the production studio that created it and the fanbase as one six-film long saga about a character who fell from grace and was redeemed. He's become the series mascot, had extra scenes shot for Rogue One to give him a few extra moments of screentime, occupies the front cover of the "Skywalker Saga" boxset and has been reframed as the lead character. Fans of the franchise are generally steered towards boxsets that reframe Luke's story as part of a larger narrative that is dwelling on another character, with A New Hope itself being reframed as only a small part of this story of Anakin.

And that's not counting the myriad number of EU works that have nothing to do with either the Jedi or Sith (i.e. Rogue Squadron, the Ewok films, Droids, the Star Wars Marvel comic run, et al.) that focus on lesser-known aspects of the universe.

This is a long-winded way of saying that SW has scope creep that's caused it to run far beyond its original intended goal, and in many cases, requires you to view additional media to better understand the overarching story.

XV doesn't really go that far in terms of scope drift (as Wol mentioned above), but it still gets plenty of this -- they planned an entire multimedia experience around the game. Don't believe me?

The only way to fully understand the events in Final Fantasy XV is to view some of the tie-in media, which was noticed and pointed out in many reviews published during the game's launch.
  • The Platinum Demo of the game is actually a standalone tale that is being recounted by Noctis to his friends, and details an experience years before where he has to travel through a fragmented dreamscape with the help of his guide, Carbuncle. This demo was officially canonized in the Brotherhood anime (see below).
  • A King's Tale is a standalone game that was originally released as a Pre-Order Bonus for ordering through Gamestop or EB Games, and recounts a tale that takes place 30 years prior to the start of the main game.
  • Prologue: Parting Ways follows Noctis and his friends' activities just prior to the start of the main game. It was previously released as an audio drama in Japan, but was later converted into an e-book and released as a free download.
  • The short film Omen was originally released during the 2016 Paris Games Week, and follows King Regis as he has a premonition about his son and asks the Crystal of Insomnia which course of action he should take.
  • Kingsglaive is an anime prequel that takes place during the events of the game's first chapter. Not only does this anime explain and show events that are only referenced during the game (notably, the death of King Regis himself), but it also utilizes footage and ideas that were originally planned for its early Versus XIII incarnation.
  • Brotherhood is a six-part anime series which was released on Square-Enix's Youtube channel, and chronicles the backstory of Noctis and his companions.
 

Wol

None Shall Remember Those Who Do Not Fight
AKA
Rosarian Shield
XVs crucial information for the main story is there, and its ending is definitive. You really don't need to know what Gladio was doing in a random cave or why the glaives were struggling in World of Ruin. They just give an expanded view of the plot, basically.
 

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
I'd say it's more of an inversion of "show, don't tell". The information/scenes are there, just utilized in another format. It's more and more common these days with "cinematic universes" and long-running franchises that have "scope creep", where the nature of the franchise changes as more and more works are released for it.

It's funny that you say that the "actual story" of Star Wars is just about Luke Skywalker. It's not. Not anymore. By Lucasfilm's own admission and their most recent handful of DVD releases, the "Star Wars/Skywalker Saga" is largely about the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.
That's an idea only supported by out-of text content, what's writen on the text (1977 movie in this case) is that this is the story of Luke plain and simple. Same reason for the story of XV.
 

Torrie

astray ay-ay-ay
I was super late to the party called FFXV and in the end I never played it. But honestly, I don't even think I will. I know the story more or less and who the characters are; I've tried watching some let's plays earlier this year, but everything about this game seems super boring to me. The realistic approach with day/night change, camping, cooking, and stuff may be fun hypothetically, buuuut I just don't want to spend so much time doing it in the game.

What I find interesting is the main characters though. Mr Prince, Mr Cupboard, Mr Gentleman, and Mr Chocobo - just the four of them, all wearing black and just being human instead of a multi-coloured crowd of fantasy entities. I mean, it's quite refreshing. I feel kinda sorry that I haven't grown attached to any of them in particular.

I remember someone's YouTube video on the game's poor storytelling and even poorer love story. In the world where there are mobile phones and modern technologies, two supposed-to-be-in-love people communicate via a magic dog and a notebook? Maybe there's something romantic about it, but it's hella irrational and err... time-consuming, I guess. Sorry, I just don't buy it.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
It's because the cellular network is all but destroyed for everyone but Lucians in Eos, thanks to the war waged against the Nifelheim Empire. Furthermore because Lunafreya is from Tenabrae, an Imperial occupied territory, all correspondence from her is under Nifelheim's surveillance and only that notebook that's shared by the two Guaridans are able to not be intercepted. Any other correspondence could give away Noct's location and/or not be delivered at all.
 

Torrie

astray ay-ay-ay
It's because the cellular network is all but destroyed for everyone but Lucians in Eos, thanks to the war waged against the Nifelheim Empire. Furthermore because Lunafreya is from Tenabrae, an Imperial occupied territory, all correspondence from her is under Nifelheim's surveillance
Ohhh okay, that explains a lot. But still leaves me wondering why everything has to be so complicated :doh:
 

Glaurung

Forgot the cutesy in my other pants. Sorry.
AKA
Mama Dragon
That's the problem with a lot of modern franchises/long-runners, though - they expect you to read EU material in order to understand the full "scope" of the story. Doubly so if it's a series that starts contradicting canon as it drags on. It's not just FF that does this. The nadir is still the Rise of Skywalker marketing - want to hear the full message Palpatine was broadcasting (that isn't heard on-screen)? You had to have played Fortnite to hear it, as it was promoted as such.

One of my favourite franchises, Deus Ex, is nigh-impossible to follow unless you're a diehard fan of the game and know all of the source material (i.e. books, tie-in games, comics). Did you want to know what happened to Adam Jensen between missions four and five of Human Revolution? There's a four-part comic series that deals with that. His actions during the otherwise-unmentioned "Mexicantown Massacre"? Same comic. There's an entire novel/tie-in game series that runs parallel to the prequel games and involves three characters, only one of whom makes an appearance in Mankind Divided, in which she only obliquely refers to the events of the one tie-in game (The Fall). It got to such a point that you have to refer to an artbook to find out the identities of the double-agents within Task Force 29 and Janus' identity!

When I can set aside time, I intend to get into XV with mods, though I've got so many prospective titles on the plate that it's hard for me to get into a game that requires me to view multiple pieces of tie-in media just to understand chunks of the story.

About Star Wars and Deus Ex, I have enough with the movies, in the first case, and the games, in the second. Maybe because I no longer care about SW :monster: and because with just hints of info in the Deus Ex saga is more than enough for me. But yeah, I get that people want to know more about stuff (heh, don't I know it? Only this franchises haven't scratched that point for me) and it's a dick move to include interesting info in other pieces of media.

FFXV? Let's see: the movie is an hour and a half, plus another hour (give or take) of the five episode anime (Brotherhood), and then a prologue novella that you can read in half an hour. The game is what might take a lot of time, but you can finish it in 50~60 hours. Then you have Episode Ardyn, with its anime (less than 10 min) and then the DLC proper which it's, roughly, two hours. For me, the additional media helped me, not with chunks of the story, but with character development. Plus, the movie gave us one of the most badass duels in the entire franchise. But yeah, it can be time consuming, especially if you have more titles you are interested in. (I sometimes forget not everyone is a picky as me, with one single game to squeeze for years until the next gem arrives, lol. Yes, I'm still playing Skyrim.)

You could try and commit to this game or... you could read my novel :monster: (please, excuse the blatant shilling, I'm shutting my trap now, promise...)
 
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Glaurung

Forgot the cutesy in my other pants. Sorry.
AKA
Mama Dragon
My sides hurt! :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:


EDIT: But, really, circunventing or finding any logic to the plot bunnies and inconsistencies so you can get a coherent writen story is sometimes a pain in the ass. Most of the time I'm creating inner thoughts for the characters that you deduce from the plot, the background and the character's personality, or adding details that are only in official websites or mentioned in passing in the additional novels. Nevertheless, knowing the chaos during development, it's a miracle we had a working game.
 
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Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
I miss you, Noct. Happy birthday and know you were killed before your time.

Oh well...

....

At least we have Yozora! :awesome: LOL no I'm so fucking kidding
 
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Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Pfft, like it matters. He's too busy warp-stepping in the Great Beyond to care :monster:

Honestly I only remembered when I looked at the post before mine lol. But better belated than never, right?
 
Does anyone know where I can buy this and download it online to my PS4?
I used to have a copy but somehow I lost it. Also, I think it might be region-locked to North America.
 

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
I never used this method but you can buy a digital code for the game in Amazon and then redeem it on your PS account in either Sony's website or the console (PS Store):

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-does-amazon-ps4-digital-code-work

Just make sure the code you buy is from the same region your PS account is.

----
Edit: easier way, buy directly from PS Store in your console.
 
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