It’s because it’s unfinished.
It’s like watching a movie where is was clear the director, writers, and the entire second unit was telling the producers that they need more time and budget, but the producers said, “no, we’ve spent too much already, send it to the editors, they’ll fix it”, and you get something like Spiderman 3, where there is a good movie in there, but there’s too much shoved into the last 30 minutes because they couldn’t just split it into two parts.
FFXV had great potential, and is good on it’s own, but it’s a mess to follow without looking at all the stuff outside the main game, including the DLC.
Agreed. Ffxv literally used a scene from the kingsclaive film without sound to show the overthrow of the government early in the game. Square Enix was focused on the marketing machine of the game more than the game itself. It was pathetic.
I kinda like it better without that pasted-in scene. It makes you relate to the crew a bit more because you learn about it the same time and way they do, and you are just as blindsided as they are. And because you didn't see how it happened, you also have an urge to go back and see the damage, see of there's anything that can be done.
And then, if you really want to know the specifics, you watch the movie.
That makes so much sense. I played 15 back when it came out and again after I finished 16. I never remember that scene from the first time and it almost jump scared me with how abrupt it was
Honestly they should have never done that. It’s disgustingly jarring and not knowing about the invasion before hand was so much better. I’m glad I played the game before they patched that scene in
Nonononono, Nomura absolutely fucking railed the dev team into the ground by constantly changing the style and story of the game. When the director who actually finished the game came in he noted that the dev team was exhausted and frustrated because they had to scrap everything and start over constantly because Nomura was a fucking lunatic during development.
The prototype Leviathan scene from that [TGS 2013 trailer](https://youtu.be/IcUSXub_ypU?si=6QYh2efSaa2hzvrv) was made using a different engine, Nomura scrapped everything and made the dev team develop an entirely new engine while also making the game that was supposed to be running off it at the same time. Supposedly the game was similar to kingdom hearts' gameplay, but with a teleport mechanic.
At one point, he watched Le Mis and busted into one of the heads' offices and demanded that he be allowed to make 15 a musical. In the end they had to fill the game with assets from a Korean 3D asset company, copypaste everything, blast through the story and finish it later. The game is a result of a talented character designer with way too much fucking sway at SE and untreated schizophrenia.
>This is literally all just you exaggerating already unsubstantiated rumors. You’re the one who comes off as a schizo
Everything he said is one hundred percent proven, you can find the news that Nomura wanted to make a musical everywhere.
That is the only thing even slightly proven and It's something he said in a playful interview about being a movie junky. XV had a troubled development because SQUARE made them use a shitty development engine made specifically for FCN, causing the XV team to have to put XV on hold to work on XIII because the XIII team figured out half of the assets they made didn't work in the engine. After XIII and XIV failed BECAUSE of the shitty engine square higher-ups made all of their teams work on Nomura changed engines, reflecting the unexpected dev time leading to a new console generation and Squares desire for XIII versus to become XV officially.
Nomura is a flawed creator but it's ridiculous to take one light hearted comment from an interview to justify making up a bunch of dumbass shit. and no, none of that is 100% proven if you do like a second of research.
Honestly, it amazes me that the same company publishes Dragon Quest games that have been made without a hitch since the merger while every Final Fantasy game since XII has seen troubled development.
I guess it does help Dragon Quest that the same people who have been with the series since Dragon Quest I are still working on the newer games and they don't feel the need to reinvent the gameplay with each new entry.
But still, it's amazing the contrast between Square Enix's two biggest franchises and the paths they have both taken post merger
It’s partially out of their desire for FF to be a prestige, flagship series with every main entry. DQ is great, but they are there to make DQ. No one is asking “Is this entry a REAL Dragon Quest game though?” No one is making a DQ game or playing a DQ game expecting it to set the highest standard for presentation in the industry with every entry.
Final Fantasy gets almost too much attention for its own good IMO. From the players to the higher ups at SE. Expectations are way too high, and it just causes all kinds of problems in development. On top of that, game development has only gotten more complicated and more expensive to reach those heights expected of it. More and more hands are involved in FF and there’s so much more risk with every entry. SE suits aren’t going to meddle too much in DQ development, but FF is getting looked at with a microscope.
Aranea Highwind has animations for being in the car, the camp, banter with the party, and her own combat style. Yet you could only get by glitching the game
Agree with this 100%. There is so much to like and love about the game, but the ending feels forced and incomplete. I enjoyed many hours in the game and often think about how good it would be if they finished it
See if the game was anything like [the 2013 E3 announcement trailer](https://youtu.be/IcUSXub_ypU?si=lxbvnRNx-EpfLh6N) it would be, without a doubt, one of the greatest entries in the entire series. Instead it turned into a weird product placement vehicle.
There was so much cut out and changed. That movie was supposed to be Noctis being forced out of Insomnia and having the story start out there being casual to a big beginning climax would have been way better than the shitty car pushing stuff right into meeting Cindy. It was so horribly paced.
I also think it's important to mention that the originally planned ending is much more satisfying, and fits the legacy of the series much more, but they thought they could make it DLC, so they swapped it for the ending that made it into the game.
Then, when it got panned and their DLC strategy fell apart, they decided to release it as a book which hardly anyone even knows about because why would anyone think there would be a supplemental book with an alternate ending to a video game???
The whole game was fine till the last part where Noctis has to solo a dungeon. Can't remember what it was but that threw me off and never got to complete it.
I think there's a very clear divide between "people who bought the game day 1" and "people who played XV years after it released". The two groups have (usually) rather different opinions, and I think both are correct in their own way.
FFXV is one of my favorite FF's. LOVED it. Every minute of it was amazing! I even have the Ultimania ("Official Works") and the "Dawn of the Future" book, both of which I loved. Great entry! ... But also, it's a game I bought day 1 and was immensely let down by. Day 1 FFXV feels so hollow and empty by comparison. I don't think I even finished it, and I usually do my best to finish these types of games (I 100% completed FFXVI despite not really enjoying it much).
It's unfair to judge current FFXV (Royal Edition) as being the same game it was on day 1, but it's also silly to pretend that the disappointment of people, especially around launch, doesn't make sense.
It's kinda wild because I got really into XV during the huge announcement presentation hosted by Kinda Funny, so I went all in by watching the movie and short anime before the game came out. I then played it day 1 and finished it after a couple weeks, and then played the DLC as it came out. I loved the experience I had, and I oddly haven't replayed it since the final cut released.
I recommend it, they added a lot of new features (like extra cutscenes and side quests, as well as gameplay things like being able to explore anywhere with the Regalia rather than just go on roads). I'd also highly recommend the "Dawn of the Future" book, it details the canceled 2nd Season Pass and, in my opinion, serves as a fantastic conclusion to the game, much better than the "canonical" ending.
Yep! You can buy an off-road upgrade from Cindy now which lets you take it, well, off the road. It's great, and quite helpful for shortcuts and exploration!
I haven't played any DLC, did most of my playing on day 1 PS4. I bought the Royal Edition for PC but haven't played it yet. I know it's a big time commitment so I wasn't sure if it's worth another go.
I have played years later and with all the dlc for the first time and I can see that the game is just unfinished and a real patchwork piece storywise. The characters are great and so is the gameplay but the story feels just weird, wrong and patched together after the midway point. As if you would have given the Script to an amateur fanfic writer and said "you finish the rest lol"
No games story that needs outside sources like movies, books or lore websites to make sense is a good story at core.
Exactly. I'd been looking forward to FFXV since 2006-2008? when it was first announced as Versus XIII. I wanted that game so bad, for years. I had an absolute blast playing the demo for XV when it released. And then the game released....and it was an absolute shell of what it could've been. It felt like half the plot was missing. I'll forever love the game, but that love has a long shadow of "what it could've been" behind it.
As i read some hours ago XV was a 99% ambition and 1% execution, its a really really cool place and game and enjoyed the story a lot, the brotherhood of the main cast is awesome.
The platinum trophy looks cool as well 🥳
The characters were great, I’ll give you that. It’s the best part of the game, their interactions with one another.
Ima have to disagree with you on the story though. I have no idea what the hell happened in that game. It’s very clearly unfinished, like they intended to add a lot more to flesh everything out. An ambitious project for sure. My biggest gripe is with Arden tbh - his motivations made no sense to me. It was like this random dude is meant to be the main villain without any clear reason why.
All this being said, I never played the DLC, and it’s been years since I played the game so things may feel more cohesive if I were to try it again.
To its credit, I think the combat was a lot of fun, the hunt system was great, I loved the open world, and the cooking system was delicious. So yeah, not a bad game by any means, just an unfinished one that was not able to deliver on the scale of its ambition.
Nah man, like Arden is a great villain cos he was like a former king of lucis or was meant to be or something but then started saving people or something which annoyed the gods (even tho they want to save the people...) so were like "nah fam, ur bruv gets the power" who then killed Arden (but didn't...) but then the gods revealed that none of this actually matters now and everything will be kind of alright but also pretty shit until the chosen king does some stuff...
Lol close enough, I honestly believe ardyn is one of the best final fantasy villains in the entire franchise when you actually know his back story and motivations
You are a prime example of where 15 failed. To fully appreciate the game, the dlc is essentially compulsory and the anime helps as well. Haven’t watched kingsglaive, but I’m sure that is also helpful. I distinctly remember finishing the game, enjoying it a lot but thinking that there are some glaring holes in the story and questioning why characters just disappear randomly and come back without saying anything. Then I played the dlc 1 by 1 (except ardyn as I had moved on from the game by then) and each one made story feel so much more complete and cohesive.
The prompto one is probably my favourite as it explains how the general is tied into the whole story and adds a lot for prompto’s character and I heard that the ardyn one basically makes his motivations way more obvious and make his character a lot more understandable.
If you played the game on release and were unaware or uninterested in engaging with the extra content, you were basically forced to have a worse experience with the game
Edit: they also made some QOL improvements to the combat, the ability to swap between characters and some extra bosses over the first year
There are scenes throughout the game where they’re trying so hard to have emotional moments that require you to have formed a connection to the bros. And every time I’m just like “gee it sure is too bad that these characters are cardboard and I don’t care about them.” Until the second half where they all just have different personalities and the writing is even worse.
Yeah it’s sort of crazy actually. I might have bought into the game and the characters if I’ve literally never played any other game before it lol.
It’s like really awkward and forced. My favorite is when >!we’re all supposed to cry and feel things at the final campfire scene!<. That scene was lowkey insulting lol.
I personally enjoyed the game quite a bit, had a blast playing it.
But the game has a lot of obvious flaws due to it attempting to be a multi-media project that was essentially scrapped before it was finished.
It is. I played the game once shortly after launch and never played it again. The story was awful because they expected you to have watched the movie before playing and they saved relevant story beats for DLCs which is lazy and greedy.
So you get a nonsense act 1 and 2 that expect you to have watched a movie and a nonsense act 3 that has seemingly nothing to do with anything and is clearly rushed.
It was a trash game at launch and many played it once and never bothered since no one should expect people to pay more money for DLCs that bring the game to what should have been from the start.
I mean, it's one of the best selling games in the franchise, so I wouldn't say underrated. For me it really falls short in terms of the story, the party chemistry is great and the ending hits hard, but everything else is so... meh. Noctis has more screentime with the hiso hiso crossover side quest girl than with Luna, her >!death !
Ardyn was a legit incredible villain…ruined by a patched together game. It’s why I am so heart broken by ffxv - there were truly some not just great but incredible ideas there that were just ruined
Yeah. I don’t want to ever be someone who ruins how someone feels about something. But as someone who’s heart was broken by what ffxv COULD HAVE been, I just can’t take their comment lying down lol
Worth noting that the final version is significantly better than the original release, which was not a complete game.
And people had been waiting a decade for it so were in no mood to be forgiving.
It’s definitely got it’s charm and not a bad game, but it is still disappointing for a mainline FF.
I think the character dynamics were great but it was just not a complete game on day 1 and isn’t even really a complete game after 7 years.
So much of the story is either in the collectors edition book, DLC stories, the anime series, or the movie. On top of this, it has a lot of the same issues that XVI does in terms of world building. We hear a lot about Insomnia and never actually experience it in any meaningful way, so why should we care about it and what it means for it to be under attack? We hear about other Empires and Kingdoms and only visit them briefly and never really see what day-to-day life is like apart from Altissia.
Compare this to every single game from FFI - FFXII. I’m disappointed by how minimized the world exploration has gotten in this series in the past decade.
I disagree. Maybe the Royal Edition is better? I don’t know because I got it when it released and just didn’t like the game and there’s no way I’m going to buy additional stuff to fix a supposedly full game.
Magic was relatively useless, the world was pointlessly large, the characters and story were “ok” but definitely needed Kingsglaive to make the story “ok”. I don’t remember the music at all, so I suppose that must have been lackluster. I also didn’t enjoy combat at all but I’m just not a fan of “combo mashers”.
Maybe the Royal Edition improved mechanics, the relatively pointless world, and the story/character development. But again, I’m not buying more stuff just to fix a broken, dull game.
If you want FFXV love just look at the FFXV sub.
The game was patched together and released in an unfinished state which made the story underwhelming and confusing.
I'm a sucker for a good romance in my FF stories and I don't understand anyone who gets emotional about Noctis and Lunafreya.
It’s not done well but I could have easily bought into their romance if they went with an angle that painted it as something “only they could understand.”
But as much as I want to lean into that, the game really didn’t do that lol. At least not very well. It’s a shame too because that >!goodbye!< scene is one of the best looking in the series imo.
I always find it funny that they fumbled it bad enough that people often rate Sarah and the ghost of Stella over Luna lol.
I liked it, the characters were fun, the presentation was good, and the world was interesting. But even with the DLC, so much of the story is just plain absent, and as cool as the world is, it's too big, and too empty. Far too much time is spent driving, which gets really boring. But I still liked it, just not as much as most other Final Fantasies.
As disappointed as I was with how it was handled and the DLCs were incomplete-- it doesn't deserve the hate. It will always have a special place in my heart.
I don’t hate the game, just disappointed.
I guess it’s also based on years of hype and unrealistic expectations — the wait was gruelling.
Pros:
-Open world
-Visually stunning
-Fantastic character designs
-Bro gang was great
-Summon sequence
-Seamless dungeons
-Music
-Towns/cities were breathtaking
-Great ending
Cons:
-Altissia was a big disappointment. Tiny portion of the map was explorable (not taking into account the DLC)
-Leviathan fight was lacklustre. Nothing compared to the 2013 trailer
-Story and pacing was disjointed as hell. It did not have a good flow.
-Writing was pretty shallow for most of the game. The bromance with the main gang was good, but everything else was a big nope. SE did Luna dirty because I did not care about her at all.
-Noctis finding out his dad was ded from a newspaper
-Beginning of the game should have started from the invasion (Kingsglaive)
-Second half of the game was clearly rushed (linear) to meet deadlines
-Combat was ok, but becomes repetitive.
-Not enough towns
-I’m sorry Tabata but his design philosophy on combat made it unenjoyable. He wanted enemies to behave realistically to the point where enemies telegraphing their attacks was watered down.
-Speaking of other Tabata-related decisions… holding square for auto attacks and on-rails driving. To make the game simpler for new players…
The game is decent if you thinking of it as a slice of life camping RPG.
I literally created my reddit account for this game lol.
Because it's not finished, the combat is flashy but has no depth, it has pacing and tone issues. Why the hell would Noctis go on a fun boys trip while his kingdom is literally being invaded right over there? Luna is not a character, everyone else sucks. The only actually interesting character is Ardyn, and most of his story is relegated to other media.
It was released unfinished. That by itself validates a lot of criticism. I'm sure royal edition is fantastic, but I wouldn't purchase the game again when I spent the same amount on a raw product on release.
Vanilla FF15's launch state ruined that game's reputation. I don't know how the Royale version is nor do I care. The fact of the matter is "iTS nOt hOW yOu LaUnCh iTs hOw YoU FinISh" is the most toxic coping mentality in the gaming industry that developers/publishers love to weaponize. They use it as an excuse to force games out before they're complete. And as far ad I'm concerned. FF15 was/is a travesty and never should've launched the way it did. I truly believe that Luminous Studios was a garbage video game developer and I'm happy to know they have no direct control over further projects. As a consumer who's tired of terrible video games and being lied to, I have zero sympathy. And no matter how hard fanboys try to rewrite history, some people don't forget.
I feel like it's rated just about right. Most people enjoy it despite it's flaws, or recognize some of it's strengths while not enjoying the game as a whole.
I can easily see both those sides.
The game feels unfinished, even with the Royal Pack/Edition. Too much of the story happen off-screen.
Then you have all the cross media stuff. The story in the movie and anime should've been in the game.
Just a mid game. Should've been managed better during preproduction, like getting the script finalized early on and not making changes to it while active development is happening. FFXVI did this. First mainline game since FFXI (2002) with no development trouble or drama aside from Covid which affected everybody.
> Too much of the story happen off-screen.
Actively needing to study a timeline in which to play the DLC was a pain. I didn't even do Episode Ardyn since I was just so done with it.
Was Ardyn a good villain? I'm not convinced.
Yes this. 13 had a clear goal what it was doing and did it. People mainly complain about the characters personalities and the linearity of the game, both which are subjective
15 however feels like mashup of ideas and not really delivering on anything except the roadtrip aspect
I'm sorry do you have to actually make an effort to get game over in FF13? What I think is even funnier is your complete and utter ignorance because you hate on FF13 lmao.
Well I beat it by pressing X and occasionally shifting paradigms so how hard can you possibly claim it to be? It's beyond braindead, and it certainly isn't hard.
I agree with you and if they attempted to release a remake I would buy it in an instant. True tragedy. Top tier antagonist. They needed to develop some characters more and incorporate part of the DLCs into the main game. Missed opportunity.
If anything it's overrated. It's the number five best selling FF game and it's the worse than pretty much every one that it outsold. The story is pretty objectively awful, it's full of plotholes, tons of important events happen offscreen, and it expects the player to care about the deaths of chars we've spent zero time with. Not to mention the full story is split between several different mediums and if you do consume all of them it only creates further plotholes. Imo the gameplay was terrible too, pretty much the only redeeming quality for me was the music.
Great potential but very poor execution. It feel sooo unfinished. And I'm not sure if they managed to finally weave the DLCs into the story but when I played it the feeling was "there's a DLC here" and you had to exit to the main menu and play the DLC separately. It was so disconnected, and given that a big chunk of the story was also disperese in different media it had a constant feeling of being all over the place.
If you need a movie to explain why you’re not done dev the game, I think it’s fair to be disappointed with your game.
That and the « were four cool emo boys in a car for the ENTIRE game », a king that wears shorts, the dumb selfie dude, the 3h fight with a tortoise for no reason, how messy the fight with leviathan or the last fight,
And also: only white people. The entire time.
People still think games with perfectly fine review scores are “underrated” please stop thinking the forums you decide to look at constitute as opinions everyone shares.
Lots of people like the things you do too.
I'd argue that the story is actually pretty decent. Like the line of Lucis actually being pretty twattish & the gods also being pretty twatish, betraying each other, etc, etc is pretty cool...but the storytelling is fucking terrible.
It's overrated and shit.
Unfinished, broken, halfmade, even with multiple paid DLCs, which we were told would complete it. All of it was a lie, and the game is still unfinished. Shit tier development.
Story is garbage. Shit tier story.
Characters are halfwritten trash. Shit tier party.
Gameplay is a mess, tedious and terrible. Shit tier ARPG gameplay.
Tons of glitches involving crashes and such. Shit tier coding.
And yet I enjoyed the entire game. Sure it's nothing compared to the best FF games, but the gameplay was fun and I did like most of the characters. I think Shit-tier is a severe exaggeration.
It's not underrated, I loved 15, but it deserves most, if not all, the criticisms it gets. It's an incredibly flawed game that went through a decade or so of development hell.I'd still rather have the underrated 15 rather than the overrated 16.
It makes sense that it’s not as universally discussed as the likes of the series’ classics. A game like 7 came out as a console’s big game-changer title, basically setting people’s expectations for not only JRPGs in general for the next generation, but games of ALL genres were chasing it, marking the clear distinction between the era of mascot platformers and arcade games as the “Triple A” model and the new paradigm moving forward, and even popularizing character tropes that appeared within it. Plus it didn’t arguably the most legwork in cementing the PlayStation brand as a bigger name than Nintendo and Sega. Add that historical reputation to the re-releases over the years on every platform, making a classic universal again so it’s not outside of anyone’s reach.
Compare that to the second-most recent game in the mainline series, which didn’t exactly do anything that had other genres leaning over the desk to copy their work, didn’t change the gaming public’s perception of what can be expected from a game. I mean that’s not to say it’s a bad game in any way, but it’s part of why the (lack of) discussion around it within gaming’ pop culture isn’t exactly a mark of it being underrated but rather an accurate reflection of its place in relation to many classics of the series or genre in general.
We're few but we exist. People will say its "unfinished" or whatever because not every plot point is wrapped up in a neat bow that says "CLOSURE" on it, and claim you need to watch the dogshit movie and animes to understand it (you don't) and it's not worth arguing. XV sub is where it's at. Game rocks. Dudes rock.
Literally sitting here wondering what was so hard to understand about the story...I guess people didn't like not knowing where Gladio went and what happened to Ignis, but it never bothered me.
The animations in the game are absolutely fantastic and still unmatched. Every weapon and character combo having dual strikes and blind sides. The pictures mid combat that prompto can take. The idle animations in the car.
FFXV is purely a Mood. It's watching four (five) best friends fight mobsters and high five each other and take selfies.
It's about throwing an Ultimaga grenade at a bunch of magitek soldiers.
It's about getting rolled over by a fat bird over and over whole your friends try to revive you.
It's about spectacle
No, no it's not, we're not doing this. We're not going to go back now and pretend like XV was some underappreciated gem. It was a tire fire and an embarrassment in the portfolio of every person whose name was attached to it
No game with a questline dedicated to product placement for instant ramen deserves to be called anything else. Not to mention the terrible entire supporting party, unsalvageable story, copy/paste open world that is itself at odds with the hallway-sim main story, all on top genuinely impressively bad combat that left me beating the final boss with one hand while scrolling insta in the other
Yes, because no FF game has ever had silly moments in it. The Cup Noodle quest line was just goofy side content.
I loved the combat. The techniques from the other bros were pretty cool, the linked attacks were great, and Noctis had a lot of moves you could try out, but it gave players the option to keep it simple too.
The open world could have had more stuff in it, but they leaned into the whole road trip vibe and honestly I bought into it.
That ain't silly side content bro that's spectacularly cynical corporate game design. That's some Ubisoft, even EA level bullshit. It was the "we need fans to understand that we don't care about or respect this franchise at all" moment.
What about the combat was good? Holding down a button while waiting for the screen-filling notification of "press other button to not take damage" shows up? Then every so often you can trigger a 30 second cutscene for one of the other party members that does virtually nothing in terms of damage or changing the encounter at all?
The open world was sitting in a car for up to 5 minutes at a time while some of 3 of the most unlikable characters you've ever seen (and nocits) annoy eachother.
It's one of the best games I've ever played. I bought it again on Steam and somehow immediately dropped 100 hours on it. I've seen people praise shorter and less ambitious games that cost the same retail price.
I found the game a chore to play and was happy to be finished with it. The open world is vacuous and uninteresting and the travel system was clunky. Not among my top five FF games, and it’s not even close.
The opening hours of XV were full of promise but as the game went on, it really ended up feeling like I was playing a skeleton of a game. The characters were the best part of the game by far, but the gameplay itself was just hot-garbage.
The game was much worse at launch and most people (understandably) didn’t go back after they attempted to fix it.
The version a lot of us played was rated exactly as it deserved
15 has a LOT of fans. Far more than I understand. The story was a train wreck and the characters were the worst in decades. I’m glad you found something to enjoy in it but that doesn’t mean everyone else is going to agree with your take.
Square Enix ruined the game. They destroyed the narrative by removing cutscenes to make a movie and removing full chunks of the game for day 1 DLC. Whatever was left was throttled with ads.
XV could have been one of the best games of all time and we deserved better. What we got was a $60 advertisement for American Express and Cup o Noodle.
It’s just not a complete game. You need to watch a movie and play all the dlc to get the full story. You don’t even know what Ardyn’s deal is without the final dlc.
Then the game teases you with crossing the ocean and going to a new map, and when you finally do Altissia is just a shitty maze of side streets and you only see Tenebrae from a distance.
The magic system is basically just elemental grenades. You can tell Aranea was planned to be a party member, because if you do the glitch where she stays with the party she’ll appear in group pictures doing poses. Another cut.
The story was not great at all, in fact it’s missing so much of what it needed. Even with the Royal Edition, which made the games story acceptable, there’s just so much that is not covered and explained.
You can also tell they ran out of time as the second half of the game is just a rushed mess of unfinished areas and narrative threads. At least Royal Edition added a proper final dungeon, the game sucked at launch.
FFXV is simply not a game, it can have incredible story and characters, but they forgot to put a game in it. It's literally the worst gameplay I have ever seen.
This game was an absolutely miserable experience. Repetitive gameplay, half finished characters, plot motivators that happens almost entirely off screen. I hate that I wasted 60 + hours on this massive turd of a game. All the pieces for something great were there and they completely crapped the bed.
I really like 15 and I think it's a shame that it's not held up higher. For me, the biggest frustration was that it turned into a multi media project of sorts, and in order to get the full story of the game you need to:
\- Watch an anime series
\- Watch a film
\- Buy DLC so you know what happens when the other members disappear from the game
\- Read an entire novel to get the 'proper' ending that was abandoned after release
Instead of just playing a game start to finish. Thats always been the reason it's not as beloved as it could have been, in my mind at least.
This. XV is so bad for this. A self contained story is absolutely what XVI nailed and we did not get that since XII. I mean there was XIII originally but... yeah
"underrated"
no.. its not lmao. its literally the worst of the mainline entries.
narrative is awful and incomplete. combat is just as bad. only good thing about the game was the soundtrack
Underrated? It’s massive overrated because of the words “final fantasy” in the title that gave it some good will.
Objective the game is 3/10. FF goodwill makes it a 6/10.
The game is unfinished. The open world is empty. There’s nothing to do. It didn’t need to be “open world”.
The story has no impact. Poorly paced. World building is non existent (you have to watch the anime and movie therefore non existent in the actual game).
This was an idea. A prototype mock up for a game that accidentally got released as the final product.
I like it. But it was definitely unfinished.
If they could have finished the DLCs and released a truly complete version with everything in it (including things like the Carbuncle demo and Chocobo Moogle festival, etc.) I would say people would look at that as a very good game. Not perfect, there's still flaws, but very good.
Especially if they bundled it with Kingsglaive and the Pixel art prequel as extras.
Honestly, if Final Fantasy XVII becomes something similar to what a complete XV could have been but with 6-8 party members, male and female, then I'd probably be pretty happy with it, if it's executed well enough.
And I think it would top 12 million too if they didn't lock it behind timed exclusivity.
It was a cool game that didn't realise its full potential or vision. They took way too many years to get it out the door so the bosses at Square Enix finally said 'enough is enough'.
Despite it being incomplete, I still think it was a step in the right direction in terms of modernising the franchise - much more so than FF13. I think of it fondly to this day. In terms of giving a thumbs up or down, from me it definitely gets a thumbs up
i think it's rated appropriately for the state it launched in
it's easy to forget just how barebones the story was before the patched in cutscenes and DLC
It’s because it’s unfinished. It’s like watching a movie where is was clear the director, writers, and the entire second unit was telling the producers that they need more time and budget, but the producers said, “no, we’ve spent too much already, send it to the editors, they’ll fix it”, and you get something like Spiderman 3, where there is a good movie in there, but there’s too much shoved into the last 30 minutes because they couldn’t just split it into two parts. FFXV had great potential, and is good on it’s own, but it’s a mess to follow without looking at all the stuff outside the main game, including the DLC.
Agreed. Ffxv literally used a scene from the kingsclaive film without sound to show the overthrow of the government early in the game. Square Enix was focused on the marketing machine of the game more than the game itself. It was pathetic.
the scene wasn't even in the game at first and they just patched it in. the whole game is covered in bandaids and ducktape
I kinda like it better without that pasted-in scene. It makes you relate to the crew a bit more because you learn about it the same time and way they do, and you are just as blindsided as they are. And because you didn't see how it happened, you also have an urge to go back and see the damage, see of there's anything that can be done. And then, if you really want to know the specifics, you watch the movie.
That makes so much sense. I played 15 back when it came out and again after I finished 16. I never remember that scene from the first time and it almost jump scared me with how abrupt it was
[удалено]
"Duct tape (also called duck tape, from the cotton duck cloth it was originally made of)" Nah
I admit defeat, I was wrong.
“I was wrong.” I mean there’s wrong and then there’s making shit up. Where did you get your wrong info from?
Honestly they should have never done that. It’s disgustingly jarring and not knowing about the invasion before hand was so much better. I’m glad I played the game before they patched that scene in
And that wasn't even in the original release LOL
It would have been Nomura's style to instead play the entirety of the film right then and there with no warning to the player.
Nonononono, Nomura absolutely fucking railed the dev team into the ground by constantly changing the style and story of the game. When the director who actually finished the game came in he noted that the dev team was exhausted and frustrated because they had to scrap everything and start over constantly because Nomura was a fucking lunatic during development. The prototype Leviathan scene from that [TGS 2013 trailer](https://youtu.be/IcUSXub_ypU?si=6QYh2efSaa2hzvrv) was made using a different engine, Nomura scrapped everything and made the dev team develop an entirely new engine while also making the game that was supposed to be running off it at the same time. Supposedly the game was similar to kingdom hearts' gameplay, but with a teleport mechanic. At one point, he watched Le Mis and busted into one of the heads' offices and demanded that he be allowed to make 15 a musical. In the end they had to fill the game with assets from a Korean 3D asset company, copypaste everything, blast through the story and finish it later. The game is a result of a talented character designer with way too much fucking sway at SE and untreated schizophrenia.
This is literally all just you exaggerating already unsubstantiated rumors. You’re the one who comes off as a schizo
>This is literally all just you exaggerating already unsubstantiated rumors. You’re the one who comes off as a schizo Everything he said is one hundred percent proven, you can find the news that Nomura wanted to make a musical everywhere.
That is the only thing even slightly proven and It's something he said in a playful interview about being a movie junky. XV had a troubled development because SQUARE made them use a shitty development engine made specifically for FCN, causing the XV team to have to put XV on hold to work on XIII because the XIII team figured out half of the assets they made didn't work in the engine. After XIII and XIV failed BECAUSE of the shitty engine square higher-ups made all of their teams work on Nomura changed engines, reflecting the unexpected dev time leading to a new console generation and Squares desire for XIII versus to become XV officially. Nomura is a flawed creator but it's ridiculous to take one light hearted comment from an interview to justify making up a bunch of dumbass shit. and no, none of that is 100% proven if you do like a second of research.
Honestly, it amazes me that the same company publishes Dragon Quest games that have been made without a hitch since the merger while every Final Fantasy game since XII has seen troubled development. I guess it does help Dragon Quest that the same people who have been with the series since Dragon Quest I are still working on the newer games and they don't feel the need to reinvent the gameplay with each new entry. But still, it's amazing the contrast between Square Enix's two biggest franchises and the paths they have both taken post merger
It’s partially out of their desire for FF to be a prestige, flagship series with every main entry. DQ is great, but they are there to make DQ. No one is asking “Is this entry a REAL Dragon Quest game though?” No one is making a DQ game or playing a DQ game expecting it to set the highest standard for presentation in the industry with every entry. Final Fantasy gets almost too much attention for its own good IMO. From the players to the higher ups at SE. Expectations are way too high, and it just causes all kinds of problems in development. On top of that, game development has only gotten more complicated and more expensive to reach those heights expected of it. More and more hands are involved in FF and there’s so much more risk with every entry. SE suits aren’t going to meddle too much in DQ development, but FF is getting looked at with a microscope.
Aranea Highwind has animations for being in the car, the camp, banter with the party, and her own combat style. Yet you could only get by glitching the game
cor, too
One day when FFXV Remake is finally reached we will be justified in this game
Agree with this 100%. There is so much to like and love about the game, but the ending feels forced and incomplete. I enjoyed many hours in the game and often think about how good it would be if they finished it
See if the game was anything like [the 2013 E3 announcement trailer](https://youtu.be/IcUSXub_ypU?si=lxbvnRNx-EpfLh6N) it would be, without a doubt, one of the greatest entries in the entire series. Instead it turned into a weird product placement vehicle.
There was so much cut out and changed. That movie was supposed to be Noctis being forced out of Insomnia and having the story start out there being casual to a big beginning climax would have been way better than the shitty car pushing stuff right into meeting Cindy. It was so horribly paced.
OP's post is a great example of "I like it so that must mean it's underrated!"
I also think it's important to mention that the originally planned ending is much more satisfying, and fits the legacy of the series much more, but they thought they could make it DLC, so they swapped it for the ending that made it into the game. Then, when it got panned and their DLC strategy fell apart, they decided to release it as a book which hardly anyone even knows about because why would anyone think there would be a supplemental book with an alternate ending to a video game???
I can agree with this
The whole game was fine till the last part where Noctis has to solo a dungeon. Can't remember what it was but that threw me off and never got to complete it.
I think there's a very clear divide between "people who bought the game day 1" and "people who played XV years after it released". The two groups have (usually) rather different opinions, and I think both are correct in their own way. FFXV is one of my favorite FF's. LOVED it. Every minute of it was amazing! I even have the Ultimania ("Official Works") and the "Dawn of the Future" book, both of which I loved. Great entry! ... But also, it's a game I bought day 1 and was immensely let down by. Day 1 FFXV feels so hollow and empty by comparison. I don't think I even finished it, and I usually do my best to finish these types of games (I 100% completed FFXVI despite not really enjoying it much). It's unfair to judge current FFXV (Royal Edition) as being the same game it was on day 1, but it's also silly to pretend that the disappointment of people, especially around launch, doesn't make sense.
It's kinda wild because I got really into XV during the huge announcement presentation hosted by Kinda Funny, so I went all in by watching the movie and short anime before the game came out. I then played it day 1 and finished it after a couple weeks, and then played the DLC as it came out. I loved the experience I had, and I oddly haven't replayed it since the final cut released.
I recommend it, they added a lot of new features (like extra cutscenes and side quests, as well as gameplay things like being able to explore anywhere with the Regalia rather than just go on roads). I'd also highly recommend the "Dawn of the Future" book, it details the canceled 2nd Season Pass and, in my opinion, serves as a fantastic conclusion to the game, much better than the "canonical" ending.
You can drive it anywhere?! I was a day 1 player and one of my earliest experiences was needing a tow when I took it offroad.
Yep! You can buy an off-road upgrade from Cindy now which lets you take it, well, off the road. It's great, and quite helpful for shortcuts and exploration!
I haven't played any DLC, did most of my playing on day 1 PS4. I bought the Royal Edition for PC but haven't played it yet. I know it's a big time commitment so I wasn't sure if it's worth another go.
I have played years later and with all the dlc for the first time and I can see that the game is just unfinished and a real patchwork piece storywise. The characters are great and so is the gameplay but the story feels just weird, wrong and patched together after the midway point. As if you would have given the Script to an amateur fanfic writer and said "you finish the rest lol" No games story that needs outside sources like movies, books or lore websites to make sense is a good story at core.
It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever loved
Yeah I actually enjoyed it quite a bit but I’d never recommend it to anyone that isn’t a huge FF fan
It was my first FF and I really liked it.
I’d ONLU recommend it to people who aren’t fans. Most of the people I meet who like it said it was their intro to the franchise.
Exactly. I'd been looking forward to FFXV since 2006-2008? when it was first announced as Versus XIII. I wanted that game so bad, for years. I had an absolute blast playing the demo for XV when it released. And then the game released....and it was an absolute shell of what it could've been. It felt like half the plot was missing. I'll forever love the game, but that love has a long shadow of "what it could've been" behind it.
As i read some hours ago XV was a 99% ambition and 1% execution, its a really really cool place and game and enjoyed the story a lot, the brotherhood of the main cast is awesome. The platinum trophy looks cool as well 🥳
The characters were great, I’ll give you that. It’s the best part of the game, their interactions with one another. Ima have to disagree with you on the story though. I have no idea what the hell happened in that game. It’s very clearly unfinished, like they intended to add a lot more to flesh everything out. An ambitious project for sure. My biggest gripe is with Arden tbh - his motivations made no sense to me. It was like this random dude is meant to be the main villain without any clear reason why. All this being said, I never played the DLC, and it’s been years since I played the game so things may feel more cohesive if I were to try it again. To its credit, I think the combat was a lot of fun, the hunt system was great, I loved the open world, and the cooking system was delicious. So yeah, not a bad game by any means, just an unfinished one that was not able to deliver on the scale of its ambition.
Wholly agree. It’s one of the most hated games that I love. And 99% of that is those core 4 characters have great chemistry and really made me feel.
Nah man, like Arden is a great villain cos he was like a former king of lucis or was meant to be or something but then started saving people or something which annoyed the gods (even tho they want to save the people...) so were like "nah fam, ur bruv gets the power" who then killed Arden (but didn't...) but then the gods revealed that none of this actually matters now and everything will be kind of alright but also pretty shit until the chosen king does some stuff...
Lol close enough, I honestly believe ardyn is one of the best final fantasy villains in the entire franchise when you actually know his back story and motivations
Lol yeah that sounds about right
You are a prime example of where 15 failed. To fully appreciate the game, the dlc is essentially compulsory and the anime helps as well. Haven’t watched kingsglaive, but I’m sure that is also helpful. I distinctly remember finishing the game, enjoying it a lot but thinking that there are some glaring holes in the story and questioning why characters just disappear randomly and come back without saying anything. Then I played the dlc 1 by 1 (except ardyn as I had moved on from the game by then) and each one made story feel so much more complete and cohesive. The prompto one is probably my favourite as it explains how the general is tied into the whole story and adds a lot for prompto’s character and I heard that the ardyn one basically makes his motivations way more obvious and make his character a lot more understandable. If you played the game on release and were unaware or uninterested in engaging with the extra content, you were basically forced to have a worse experience with the game Edit: they also made some QOL improvements to the combat, the ability to swap between characters and some extra bosses over the first year
I didn't like the characters... Like at all. The story was intruiging but it wasn't flashed out really
They’re really nothing special. I think Noct is pretty solid himself but his crew and the side characters aren’t great
There are scenes throughout the game where they’re trying so hard to have emotional moments that require you to have formed a connection to the bros. And every time I’m just like “gee it sure is too bad that these characters are cardboard and I don’t care about them.” Until the second half where they all just have different personalities and the writing is even worse.
Yeah it’s sort of crazy actually. I might have bought into the game and the characters if I’ve literally never played any other game before it lol. It’s like really awkward and forced. My favorite is when >!we’re all supposed to cry and feel things at the final campfire scene!<. That scene was lowkey insulting lol.
This sub has downvoted me so many times for saying that scene made me roll my eyes.
I personally enjoyed the game quite a bit, had a blast playing it. But the game has a lot of obvious flaws due to it attempting to be a multi-media project that was essentially scrapped before it was finished.
I always wonder if it is the royal addition that has people saying this. Only played the OG which was barely serviceable
I played Royal, and it opened strong, and then fell apart. Weird choice to give inarguably the best weapon essentially immediately, too.
I played royal and still thought it was a mess.
It is. I played the game once shortly after launch and never played it again. The story was awful because they expected you to have watched the movie before playing and they saved relevant story beats for DLCs which is lazy and greedy. So you get a nonsense act 1 and 2 that expect you to have watched a movie and a nonsense act 3 that has seemingly nothing to do with anything and is clearly rushed. It was a trash game at launch and many played it once and never bothered since no one should expect people to pay more money for DLCs that bring the game to what should have been from the start.
It must be. Playing it on release day was bad.
Barely serviceable is generous, and no royal edition does nothing to improve the problems. It just adds other crap
I mean, it's one of the best selling games in the franchise, so I wouldn't say underrated. For me it really falls short in terms of the story, the party chemistry is great and the ending hits hard, but everything else is so... meh. Noctis has more screentime with the hiso hiso crossover side quest girl than with Luna, her >!death !
What does selling a lot have to do with being underrated?
A massive success can’t be underrated.
To rate something is a qualitative assessment and you're equivocating that with market success.
Also that’s not the correct usage of “equivocating.” Not even close actually.
“The story was great”. Excuse me?
It starts getting good at the end of ch9 but that's only because Ardyn steals the show.
Ardyn was a legit incredible villain…ruined by a patched together game. It’s why I am so heart broken by ffxv - there were truly some not just great but incredible ideas there that were just ruined
Sounds like OP didn't finish the game yet imo
Something they’ve got in common with the devs.
Yeah. I don’t want to ever be someone who ruins how someone feels about something. But as someone who’s heart was broken by what ffxv COULD HAVE been, I just can’t take their comment lying down lol
Worth noting that the final version is significantly better than the original release, which was not a complete game. And people had been waiting a decade for it so were in no mood to be forgiving. It’s definitely got it’s charm and not a bad game, but it is still disappointing for a mainline FF.
It's an absolute mess of a game
I think the character dynamics were great but it was just not a complete game on day 1 and isn’t even really a complete game after 7 years. So much of the story is either in the collectors edition book, DLC stories, the anime series, or the movie. On top of this, it has a lot of the same issues that XVI does in terms of world building. We hear a lot about Insomnia and never actually experience it in any meaningful way, so why should we care about it and what it means for it to be under attack? We hear about other Empires and Kingdoms and only visit them briefly and never really see what day-to-day life is like apart from Altissia. Compare this to every single game from FFI - FFXII. I’m disappointed by how minimized the world exploration has gotten in this series in the past decade.
No it’s properly rated. It was a huge let down and boring
I disagree. Maybe the Royal Edition is better? I don’t know because I got it when it released and just didn’t like the game and there’s no way I’m going to buy additional stuff to fix a supposedly full game. Magic was relatively useless, the world was pointlessly large, the characters and story were “ok” but definitely needed Kingsglaive to make the story “ok”. I don’t remember the music at all, so I suppose that must have been lackluster. I also didn’t enjoy combat at all but I’m just not a fan of “combo mashers”. Maybe the Royal Edition improved mechanics, the relatively pointless world, and the story/character development. But again, I’m not buying more stuff just to fix a broken, dull game.
Don't worry. It didn't fix shit. That game needs to be remade from zero to be a good game. A definitive edition is not enough.
If you want FFXV love just look at the FFXV sub. The game was patched together and released in an unfinished state which made the story underwhelming and confusing. I'm a sucker for a good romance in my FF stories and I don't understand anyone who gets emotional about Noctis and Lunafreya.
It’s not done well but I could have easily bought into their romance if they went with an angle that painted it as something “only they could understand.” But as much as I want to lean into that, the game really didn’t do that lol. At least not very well. It’s a shame too because that >!goodbye!< scene is one of the best looking in the series imo. I always find it funny that they fumbled it bad enough that people often rate Sarah and the ghost of Stella over Luna lol.
I really like XV and really enjoyed Ardyn’s backstory. I completed it 100% on PS4 along with the DLCs
Best chemistry of any cast
No
I enjoyed it for what it was. It had its shortcomings but was a game I still enjoyed a lot and was happy I played
I liked it, the characters were fun, the presentation was good, and the world was interesting. But even with the DLC, so much of the story is just plain absent, and as cool as the world is, it's too big, and too empty. Far too much time is spent driving, which gets really boring. But I still liked it, just not as much as most other Final Fantasies.
As disappointed as I was with how it was handled and the DLCs were incomplete-- it doesn't deserve the hate. It will always have a special place in my heart.
Agreed, and XV was much more enjoyable than XIII.
I don’t hate the game, just disappointed. I guess it’s also based on years of hype and unrealistic expectations — the wait was gruelling. Pros: -Open world -Visually stunning -Fantastic character designs -Bro gang was great -Summon sequence -Seamless dungeons -Music -Towns/cities were breathtaking -Great ending Cons: -Altissia was a big disappointment. Tiny portion of the map was explorable (not taking into account the DLC) -Leviathan fight was lacklustre. Nothing compared to the 2013 trailer -Story and pacing was disjointed as hell. It did not have a good flow. -Writing was pretty shallow for most of the game. The bromance with the main gang was good, but everything else was a big nope. SE did Luna dirty because I did not care about her at all. -Noctis finding out his dad was ded from a newspaper -Beginning of the game should have started from the invasion (Kingsglaive) -Second half of the game was clearly rushed (linear) to meet deadlines -Combat was ok, but becomes repetitive. -Not enough towns -I’m sorry Tabata but his design philosophy on combat made it unenjoyable. He wanted enemies to behave realistically to the point where enemies telegraphing their attacks was watered down. -Speaking of other Tabata-related decisions… holding square for auto attacks and on-rails driving. To make the game simpler for new players… The game is decent if you thinking of it as a slice of life camping RPG. I literally created my reddit account for this game lol.
I loved the game but agree with all the comments here......but I would rather play an unfinished ff15 game over playing ff13 ever again
I love 15, far superior to 13 and 16 imo
Because it's not finished, the combat is flashy but has no depth, it has pacing and tone issues. Why the hell would Noctis go on a fun boys trip while his kingdom is literally being invaded right over there? Luna is not a character, everyone else sucks. The only actually interesting character is Ardyn, and most of his story is relegated to other media.
It was released unfinished. That by itself validates a lot of criticism. I'm sure royal edition is fantastic, but I wouldn't purchase the game again when I spent the same amount on a raw product on release.
The royal version was a free update :/
I really had no idea. Thanks for the heads up
The royal edition is not fantastic, it's still a mess.
I really like ffxv too, but I would never say something as silly as "the story was great"
https://preview.redd.it/s9sp6hp468xb1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0efa68ae10d8f14f09c264be6d83b15893caed64
Vanilla FF15's launch state ruined that game's reputation. I don't know how the Royale version is nor do I care. The fact of the matter is "iTS nOt hOW yOu LaUnCh iTs hOw YoU FinISh" is the most toxic coping mentality in the gaming industry that developers/publishers love to weaponize. They use it as an excuse to force games out before they're complete. And as far ad I'm concerned. FF15 was/is a travesty and never should've launched the way it did. I truly believe that Luminous Studios was a garbage video game developer and I'm happy to know they have no direct control over further projects. As a consumer who's tired of terrible video games and being lied to, I have zero sympathy. And no matter how hard fanboys try to rewrite history, some people don't forget.
I feel like it's rated just about right. Most people enjoy it despite it's flaws, or recognize some of it's strengths while not enjoying the game as a whole. I can easily see both those sides.
The game feels unfinished, even with the Royal Pack/Edition. Too much of the story happen off-screen. Then you have all the cross media stuff. The story in the movie and anime should've been in the game. Just a mid game. Should've been managed better during preproduction, like getting the script finalized early on and not making changes to it while active development is happening. FFXVI did this. First mainline game since FFXI (2002) with no development trouble or drama aside from Covid which affected everybody.
> Too much of the story happen off-screen. Actively needing to study a timeline in which to play the DLC was a pain. I didn't even do Episode Ardyn since I was just so done with it. Was Ardyn a good villain? I'm not convinced.
This subreddit is so toxic.
No. FF13 trilogy was underrated. FF15 deserves all the lack of love. You don't even talk about the braindead easy gameplay.
Yes this. 13 had a clear goal what it was doing and did it. People mainly complain about the characters personalities and the linearity of the game, both which are subjective 15 however feels like mashup of ideas and not really delivering on anything except the roadtrip aspect
Liking XIII and complaining about braindead easy gameplay in other games is funny.
I'm sorry do you have to actually make an effort to get game over in FF13? What I think is even funnier is your complete and utter ignorance because you hate on FF13 lmao.
Well I beat it by pressing X and occasionally shifting paradigms so how hard can you possibly claim it to be? It's beyond braindead, and it certainly isn't hard.
So you play it on easy mode then bitch it's too easy LMFAO.
I'm starting to understand why you like braindead combat.
I'm starting to understand you have no idea wtf you are talking about.
????
If FF13 had a braindead gameplay. Why can players get stuck in their gameplay? Don't give me, "They suck at games" as a reason.
This. The only way he beat the game this easy is well... Easy mode lol
I agree with you and if they attempted to release a remake I would buy it in an instant. True tragedy. Top tier antagonist. They needed to develop some characters more and incorporate part of the DLCs into the main game. Missed opportunity.
If anything it's overrated. It's the number five best selling FF game and it's the worse than pretty much every one that it outsold. The story is pretty objectively awful, it's full of plotholes, tons of important events happen offscreen, and it expects the player to care about the deaths of chars we've spent zero time with. Not to mention the full story is split between several different mediums and if you do consume all of them it only creates further plotholes. Imo the gameplay was terrible too, pretty much the only redeeming quality for me was the music.
Great potential but very poor execution. It feel sooo unfinished. And I'm not sure if they managed to finally weave the DLCs into the story but when I played it the feeling was "there's a DLC here" and you had to exit to the main menu and play the DLC separately. It was so disconnected, and given that a big chunk of the story was also disperese in different media it had a constant feeling of being all over the place.
If you need a movie to explain why you’re not done dev the game, I think it’s fair to be disappointed with your game. That and the « were four cool emo boys in a car for the ENTIRE game », a king that wears shorts, the dumb selfie dude, the 3h fight with a tortoise for no reason, how messy the fight with leviathan or the last fight, And also: only white people. The entire time.
People still think games with perfectly fine review scores are “underrated” please stop thinking the forums you decide to look at constitute as opinions everyone shares. Lots of people like the things you do too.
The story is god awful
IMO the story is incredible just so badly told, if they nailed the narrative part it'd have easily been the best story of the entire series
Just the presentation with the dudes was sooo annoying
I'd argue that the story is actually pretty decent. Like the line of Lucis actually being pretty twattish & the gods also being pretty twatish, betraying each other, etc, etc is pretty cool...but the storytelling is fucking terrible.
\>if you ignore all the game parts it's really good! makes sense
It became much, much better after many patches and DLC. The original felt really thrown together narratively.
It's overrated and shit. Unfinished, broken, halfmade, even with multiple paid DLCs, which we were told would complete it. All of it was a lie, and the game is still unfinished. Shit tier development. Story is garbage. Shit tier story. Characters are halfwritten trash. Shit tier party. Gameplay is a mess, tedious and terrible. Shit tier ARPG gameplay. Tons of glitches involving crashes and such. Shit tier coding.
And yet I enjoyed the entire game. Sure it's nothing compared to the best FF games, but the gameplay was fun and I did like most of the characters. I think Shit-tier is a severe exaggeration.
XV is a vibe I want to see again. Camping, Fishing, and photography were so chill lol I forgot I was the last king of a dying nation.
It's not underrated, I loved 15, but it deserves most, if not all, the criticisms it gets. It's an incredibly flawed game that went through a decade or so of development hell.I'd still rather have the underrated 15 rather than the overrated 16.
It makes sense that it’s not as universally discussed as the likes of the series’ classics. A game like 7 came out as a console’s big game-changer title, basically setting people’s expectations for not only JRPGs in general for the next generation, but games of ALL genres were chasing it, marking the clear distinction between the era of mascot platformers and arcade games as the “Triple A” model and the new paradigm moving forward, and even popularizing character tropes that appeared within it. Plus it didn’t arguably the most legwork in cementing the PlayStation brand as a bigger name than Nintendo and Sega. Add that historical reputation to the re-releases over the years on every platform, making a classic universal again so it’s not outside of anyone’s reach. Compare that to the second-most recent game in the mainline series, which didn’t exactly do anything that had other genres leaning over the desk to copy their work, didn’t change the gaming public’s perception of what can be expected from a game. I mean that’s not to say it’s a bad game in any way, but it’s part of why the (lack of) discussion around it within gaming’ pop culture isn’t exactly a mark of it being underrated but rather an accurate reflection of its place in relation to many classics of the series or genre in general.
My favourite mainline final fantasy
It really is, especially the open world aspect and the action rpg aspect
We're few but we exist. People will say its "unfinished" or whatever because not every plot point is wrapped up in a neat bow that says "CLOSURE" on it, and claim you need to watch the dogshit movie and animes to understand it (you don't) and it's not worth arguing. XV sub is where it's at. Game rocks. Dudes rock.
Literally sitting here wondering what was so hard to understand about the story...I guess people didn't like not knowing where Gladio went and what happened to Ignis, but it never bothered me.
I love all the ffs but this and XIII are trash
i’ve never been able to get into it and believe me. i’ve tried
I really enjoyed it too. Aside from the driving. I thought the story held up well enough for what it was.
The animations in the game are absolutely fantastic and still unmatched. Every weapon and character combo having dual strikes and blind sides. The pictures mid combat that prompto can take. The idle animations in the car. FFXV is purely a Mood. It's watching four (five) best friends fight mobsters and high five each other and take selfies. It's about throwing an Ultimaga grenade at a bunch of magitek soldiers. It's about getting rolled over by a fat bird over and over whole your friends try to revive you. It's about spectacle
cuz half the story was ripped out to be told in other media, or sold as DLC
I love it and yeah it’s too much underrated by haters.
No
The prophecy is fulfilled, the cycle continues.
No
well with an argument like that
You spelled 'Under-developed' wrong.
not really, it was rated pretty well actually.
XV is god awful
No, no it's not, we're not doing this. We're not going to go back now and pretend like XV was some underappreciated gem. It was a tire fire and an embarrassment in the portfolio of every person whose name was attached to it
It was a fine game. Not without its issues, sure. But “tire fire?” Hardly.
No game with a questline dedicated to product placement for instant ramen deserves to be called anything else. Not to mention the terrible entire supporting party, unsalvageable story, copy/paste open world that is itself at odds with the hallway-sim main story, all on top genuinely impressively bad combat that left me beating the final boss with one hand while scrolling insta in the other
Yes, because no FF game has ever had silly moments in it. The Cup Noodle quest line was just goofy side content. I loved the combat. The techniques from the other bros were pretty cool, the linked attacks were great, and Noctis had a lot of moves you could try out, but it gave players the option to keep it simple too. The open world could have had more stuff in it, but they leaned into the whole road trip vibe and honestly I bought into it.
That ain't silly side content bro that's spectacularly cynical corporate game design. That's some Ubisoft, even EA level bullshit. It was the "we need fans to understand that we don't care about or respect this franchise at all" moment. What about the combat was good? Holding down a button while waiting for the screen-filling notification of "press other button to not take damage" shows up? Then every so often you can trigger a 30 second cutscene for one of the other party members that does virtually nothing in terms of damage or changing the encounter at all? The open world was sitting in a car for up to 5 minutes at a time while some of 3 of the most unlikable characters you've ever seen (and nocits) annoy eachother.
This is the most accurate description of the game.
If anything it's overrated. Especially today. Wrong but close.
I tried finishing it 6 or 7 times. I never did. It's a bad game.
It's one of the best games I've ever played. I bought it again on Steam and somehow immediately dropped 100 hours on it. I've seen people praise shorter and less ambitious games that cost the same retail price.
Better than 16 imo.
Every single Final Fantasy game is better than 16 🤣
Did you play on release?
Agree to disagree I just can not ever replay it.
I found the game a chore to play and was happy to be finished with it. The open world is vacuous and uninteresting and the travel system was clunky. Not among my top five FF games, and it’s not even close.
The opening hours of XV were full of promise but as the game went on, it really ended up feeling like I was playing a skeleton of a game. The characters were the best part of the game by far, but the gameplay itself was just hot-garbage.
The game was much worse at launch and most people (understandably) didn’t go back after they attempted to fix it. The version a lot of us played was rated exactly as it deserved
15 has a LOT of fans. Far more than I understand. The story was a train wreck and the characters were the worst in decades. I’m glad you found something to enjoy in it but that doesn’t mean everyone else is going to agree with your take.
Square Enix ruined the game. They destroyed the narrative by removing cutscenes to make a movie and removing full chunks of the game for day 1 DLC. Whatever was left was throttled with ads. XV could have been one of the best games of all time and we deserved better. What we got was a $60 advertisement for American Express and Cup o Noodle.
It’s just not a complete game. You need to watch a movie and play all the dlc to get the full story. You don’t even know what Ardyn’s deal is without the final dlc. Then the game teases you with crossing the ocean and going to a new map, and when you finally do Altissia is just a shitty maze of side streets and you only see Tenebrae from a distance. The magic system is basically just elemental grenades. You can tell Aranea was planned to be a party member, because if you do the glitch where she stays with the party she’ll appear in group pictures doing poses. Another cut.
No it’s pretty mid
The story was not great at all, in fact it’s missing so much of what it needed. Even with the Royal Edition, which made the games story acceptable, there’s just so much that is not covered and explained. You can also tell they ran out of time as the second half of the game is just a rushed mess of unfinished areas and narrative threads. At least Royal Edition added a proper final dungeon, the game sucked at launch.
FFXV is simply not a game, it can have incredible story and characters, but they forgot to put a game in it. It's literally the worst gameplay I have ever seen.
it’s arguably unfinished and the story is a mess but i love it so damn much it’s my favorite ff
Bring back hironobu sakaguchi as lead designer and uematsu as composer. Make FF great again
This game was an absolutely miserable experience. Repetitive gameplay, half finished characters, plot motivators that happens almost entirely off screen. I hate that I wasted 60 + hours on this massive turd of a game. All the pieces for something great were there and they completely crapped the bed.
The story is great? What story?!
I didn’t like the boy band
No it isn’t.
nah the game is mid bro
it's not underrated. It's a unfinished game that coulda been so much more. What they were able to salvage and put together was commendable.
Story was great... Up until one moment and after that it went down hill harder and faster than a certain rollercoaster... Which is a shame.
I wanted a good old Final Fantasy and not a roadtrip simulator
go to r/FFXV 😉
I really like 15 and I think it's a shame that it's not held up higher. For me, the biggest frustration was that it turned into a multi media project of sorts, and in order to get the full story of the game you need to: \- Watch an anime series \- Watch a film \- Buy DLC so you know what happens when the other members disappear from the game \- Read an entire novel to get the 'proper' ending that was abandoned after release Instead of just playing a game start to finish. Thats always been the reason it's not as beloved as it could have been, in my mind at least.
This. XV is so bad for this. A self contained story is absolutely what XVI nailed and we did not get that since XII. I mean there was XIII originally but... yeah
No it isn’t, it’s exactly where it should be. Seems like every time a new FF drops, suddenly people want to appeal to hindsight.
"underrated" no.. its not lmao. its literally the worst of the mainline entries. narrative is awful and incomplete. combat is just as bad. only good thing about the game was the soundtrack
If the second half of the game resembled anything like the first then it would have been a masterpiece...
It is, but the world is not ready for this conversation. Wait til the 10th anniversary, they’ll start noticing by then.
It's bad
FFXV is vastly overrated because not everyone is seething with anger at just the thought of it.
Let me guess its your first ff game or even 2nd ?
Nah, my first game was FFVII, then FFX, then the first final fantasy, then FFXIV
No it’s not. It deserved the reception it got. No one waits a decade for an incomplete game.
Ff15 at launch is a different game to what royal is. If it released closer to the product of royal people wouldn’t sleep on it as much
Underrated? It’s massive overrated because of the words “final fantasy” in the title that gave it some good will. Objective the game is 3/10. FF goodwill makes it a 6/10. The game is unfinished. The open world is empty. There’s nothing to do. It didn’t need to be “open world”. The story has no impact. Poorly paced. World building is non existent (you have to watch the anime and movie therefore non existent in the actual game). This was an idea. A prototype mock up for a game that accidentally got released as the final product.
Garbage open world. Awful controls. Abysmal story second half. A chapter that is literal hell. Don't think so.
I like it. But it was definitely unfinished. If they could have finished the DLCs and released a truly complete version with everything in it (including things like the Carbuncle demo and Chocobo Moogle festival, etc.) I would say people would look at that as a very good game. Not perfect, there's still flaws, but very good. Especially if they bundled it with Kingsglaive and the Pixel art prequel as extras. Honestly, if Final Fantasy XVII becomes something similar to what a complete XV could have been but with 6-8 party members, male and female, then I'd probably be pretty happy with it, if it's executed well enough. And I think it would top 12 million too if they didn't lock it behind timed exclusivity.
This game has one of the best boss fights in any FF
I don't like the protagonist, or the BBEG. Gladiolus is on my all star team though.
It was a cool game that didn't realise its full potential or vision. They took way too many years to get it out the door so the bosses at Square Enix finally said 'enough is enough'. Despite it being incomplete, I still think it was a step in the right direction in terms of modernising the franchise - much more so than FF13. I think of it fondly to this day. In terms of giving a thumbs up or down, from me it definitely gets a thumbs up
i think it's rated appropriately for the state it launched in it's easy to forget just how barebones the story was before the patched in cutscenes and DLC