Yeah, the setup and world integration of Comrades was really well done and the gameplay was pretty fun. But the grind was oppressive, imo. There's a lot of a content, I don't know why they felt the need to pad it out so much with level grinding.
My problem with Comrades was the amount of loadings. For a mode entirely focused on hub -> missions it felt tiresome to having to go to the camp and jumping screens, it should have been way faster. Otherwise gameplay is solid (less clunky than main game), nice ost, some genuine good storyline at the end.
I would have traded it easily for another "expansion" in the main game itself though.
I didn't realise how refreshing and cool it would be for an FF story to have an older and mature protagonist like Nyx Ulrich. Oh man. Kingsglaive is an absolutely stellar film, and I think I'll re-watch it soon, because my poor heart still aches. Nyx is amazing. I can't let go just like that.
On this note, I finally figured out what rubs me the wrong way about the entire FFXV universe despite the fact that it has grown on me so much over the past few months.
Inconsistency and the lack of self-sufficiency in the main game.
We can't see enough of the picture without having to watch the prequels, read the prologue, and play the DLCs. Luna has three (!) different canon appearances (the movie, the game, the CGI on a loading screen). Ravus has two. Iedolas starts as a witty and sly well-written character and is later diminished to a mindless cliche evil king repeating "my precious" a la Gollum. Galahd can never be visited. The very beginning of the main game is a very unfortunate attempt to capture the player; the fight with Ifrit seems very detached from everything that happens next; I know a few people who gave up playing after the first couple of outposts. Etc etc.
As I understand, the expanded universe and all the compillation titles were designed for those who were going with the flow and following the news on the development, because they had to be fed with some content once in a while. Also the Assasin's Festival and Chocobo & Moogle Festival DLCs, both of which are unavailable now. What about those who are terribly late to the party? Unforgivable.
I wonder if we'll live another 20 years to see a remake of Final Fantasy 15 for Playstation 15 or something...
Meanwhile, I had to slow down in Comrades. There are just a few Royal Sigils left to obtain, but all of the missions that unlock them demand much higher levels, and levelling is slow as hell. Also, I still haven't beaten Bahamut. Entered the fight when seriously underlevelled, was doomed to lose.
Anyway. FFXV is a great game. Definitely not perfect, but eh, imperfections always make someone stand out, don't they? Just like slight assymetry of faces in Kingsglave that looks extremely realistic and more charming than ever.
"Eidos were making XV" is a bit misleading. From what's on the article it doesn't sound it was something as drastic as Square giving Eidos what was done with VSXIII by the jp devs, asking them to re-do it and later take it back to the jp devs and ask to rework Eidos progress.
i finally got around to playing this after many years lol
overall i enjoyed it, but with caveats
for context, before playing i completed the three demos and the 2d bonus game, i have completed the main story and optional dungeons and most of the side quests except some of the photo ones that didn't activate and one of the cup noodle choices, and the main story of the 'episode' dlcs. i haven't done the extra choices/paths in the ignis and ardyn episodes and i haven't touched the comrades expansion at all yet. i've seen kingsglaive (had to download it because the main film was the only disc that was region-locked which sucks, boo you whore), brotherhood, and the episode ardyn prologue. i listened to part of the prologue audio drama and haven't read the novel yet.
when i finished it i said to myself, this is definitely a xiii-series game because it underutilises its villains. the emperor (pls don't make me spell his english name) appears once near the start then as a pile of clothes and a monster about a dozen chapters later, but at least he got to appear in kingsglaive. versatile appeared in the game once and never showed up again!
at least until you get to the dlc, which really made me wonder what had been deliberately cut out to sell back to you later as dlc. like the gladio dlc which took place on a part of the map i thought you would get to explore in the main game, that dark patch on the map haunted me. i went in expecting some luna-based disappointment based on some vague comments i'd read years ago and currently i am feeling like her role in the story was a bit thin. but since there was a lunafreya dlc planned but cancelled i wonder if they kept a chunk of her story out of the main game. i think at least some of the cancelled dlc stories were reworked into the novel?
as i played through the dlc (gladio > prompto > ignis > ardyn) i was increasing impressed with the scope. gladio's was basically what i expected from the dlc, here's a pretty linear simple stage to play through. but then prompto's gets a kind of mini-open world thing with timed missions, ignis' adds the grappling hook and that tactical map element, and ardyn's was the culmination of all that and i wish there was more ardyn stuff to play because it was just fun to play with the warping around. i started the game post-cancellation of dlc so i had my expectations tampered down but i would have liked to see where the next ones would have gone.
anyways i was playing the royal pack with all the extras and so i had bonus weapons and stuff and i think i probably didn't explore the battle system as much as i could have and instead just used the boost blade that does higher damage when you press triangle. after a couple of chapters i was like "oh right, maybe i should switch weapons more lol" also didn't really try controlling other characters much outside of dlc.
kind of wish there was a bit more variety in locations to explore than just leade/dascae/klein (idk how they're spelt). when you get on the train after chapter 10 and stop in niflheim territory i was excited that you'd get to see a bunch of different places, but then you get one small dungeon and the rest is trains until you make it to the capital (except that brief stop in tenebrae where you... don't do much at all). i played the fully patched version so i got the expanded insomnia dungeon (i think that's the change?), which was interesting. i liked all the signs and billboards around that had little ff references like minwu or yrp. i was looking around to see what i could find.
my initial thoughts after finishing it were that the story felt a bit thin, i would have liked a bit more variety location-wise, but i enjoyed the time i spent. i was maybe a bit unsure how i'd feel about the main characters before but it turned out fine. i think i had already heard that noctis didn't have the brooding personality his initial design might suggest but that was a nice surprise, and i ended up liking prompto more than i expected. if i'm making requests, i would have liked a bit more exploration of some of the other characters
also after how unenthusiastic i was whenever he took me fishing with him when i was a child, please do not let my dad or uncle know how much time i put into the fishing minigame
About the dlcs being what they are, they were done because people wanted the other bros to be playable but they didn't have the time to create their gameplay by the game's release.
Luna's DLC would be focused on an alternate canon (all the planned second set of dlcs would) so I doubt they cut some of her stuff storywise purposely to use later (she was supposed to be playable in the Royal Edition update as per datamine though).
I absolutely agree with how underused certain characters are. Most of the game's problems stems as a result of little development time imo, and multiple changes during production (trilogy then condensed to one game and other side-projects), the second continent would also have more stuff (one leaker even mentioned a cut Shiva's dungeon, and the Pocket Edition, released after the leak, had it. There was also a big train station that was cut, the map was a unified landmass initially but later divided).
Most of the game's problems stems as a result of little development time imo, and multiple changes during production (trilogy then condensed to one game and other side-projects)...
I love XV so much and am so glad its getting the respect it deserves. So many try to shit on it for being different or it's rocky road of development, but like it's story, it pulled through in the end.
Low-key sorta still hate-love it's ending though. I get what it went for and I respect it. But I'm not gonna lie and say Dawn of the Future isn't a more satisfying and complete conclusion lol
The XIII & XV entries of FF are special to me because of how different and subversive they are of the usual FF formula. They're experimental black sheep but I love them for that. They're controversial but memorable for good reason.
It came from the same leak that revealed the entire plot and other details months before release. Everything in that leak turned out to be 100% correct so that does give it credibility imo.
Find doubtful that Square would have considered making a XV trillogy when the project was struggling to make progress prior to the rebranding into mainline game.
Nomura made a creative decision to split the original story he was trying to tell in Versus into a trilogy, which was then canned when Square Enix assigned Tabata to XV (and removed Nomura, which wasn't Nomura's decision according to the man himself). That interview with Eidos Montreal further up actually explains a lot now from around that time.
I remember prior to the announcement that Versus XIII was changing to XV, Square Enix were actually debating whether or not to continue making single player mainline FF games as they were, and said that a lot would depend on future sales of the next mainline title. This was around the same time that Eidos are apparently claiming to have been handed the development of the next FF - and from that interview, it doesn't sound at all like it was Versus XIII (this was before the rebrand, which happened in 2013).
I'm not going to lament what might have been. A lot was riding on XV's success and it's a happy miracle that it did as well as it did given all the trouble behind the scenes. I can at least happily acknowledge that it proved modern FF sells well and kicked them up the ass to continue making new FF universes. I do still wonder what the deal was with Tabata leaving the company though. He managed to successfully salvage and release a mainline FF that might never have been made without him. I have my issues with Tabata but I'm really curious as to why he ended up leaving.
I remember Tabata mentioning how hard it was to have time in general to spend with his daughter. He clearly wasn't sleeping that well given his enormous eyebags too.
Maybe he realized big productions like this weren't his thing.
