I’m sure I made this pretty obvious via the last
post, but it’s worth saying plainly here right off the bat: no, I haven’t
finished Final Fantasy 15. All things considered, you could argue that
I’ve basically dropped it. I only made
it through the first 15 hours, and haven’t looked back since. And the sad thing is that for the most part,
I don’t feel bad about not having it in my life. It says a lot about the situation when I’d
rather put a sum of 177 hours into other JRPGs -- Tales of Berseria and Persona
5 -- than see Squeenix’s latest through to the end.
So with the advent of modern gaming, that puts me
in a weird spot. News has broken that the
devs are planning to
add in extra content -- DLC, patches, updates, and the like over the months
to come. Presumably, it’s all in service
of making the game into a service to continuously suck up money come as
close to the creative vision as possible; it’s a way to iron out past mistakes,
tackle fan complaints, and add in features that were missing on release
day. Let’s go ahead and sidestep the
debate on whether or not that content should’ve been there in the first place for a game in development for a decade. The question then becomes one of archiving,
future-proofing, and integrity. What
happens to someone who wants to see the game as it was originally
released? What if I want to see the game
in a state where the devs thought an off-roading Regalia was a pipe dream?
I don’t know.
But I guess it doesn’t matter, because right now I can’t bring myself to
care.
From what I can gather, FF15’s plot revolves around Noct and the other members of Boyz II
Men going on a quest through the world of Eos.
As a prince from a newly-ravaged kingdom, he’s the only one with the
divine right of kings -- that is, he has to find the royal arms littered across
the land to increase his powers and…uh…I don’t know, I guess beat The
Empire. Because of course there’s an
evil Empire; there was one in FF Type-0 after
all (and every third JRPG ever created).
Also, of course Noct’s kingdom is ravaged, because that’s how stories
must go. Like Type-0’s.
I honestly don’t know much more about the plot
besides that. Obviously that’s because I
gave up on the game, but it doesn’t change the fact that I put 15 hours into it
and the most I can do is shrug and go “Iunno.”
Maybe it’s because my brain has started eating itself and left me with
an addled mind. That’s entirely
possible. On the other hand, maybe it’s
just because there’s so little to fill those initial 15 hours that it feels
like it’s bereft of substance (besides busywork). That’s also possible.
As you know, the true proof of gaming’s
evolution is the ability to do menial real-world tasks in a virtual space.
BEHOLD THE MAJESTY.
Squeenix has tried to sell gamers on One Direction
for ages now, and to be fair that’s not a bad approach. I don’t trust the company to tell a deep,
complex, overarching story; hell, I don’t even trust them to make a decent,
straightforward story anymore. If you
must have a narrative, then take the easy road by downplaying all of the
important stuff like world-building, conflict, and thematic heft and focus
solely on the misadventures of a core cast.
It’s worked like crazy before; the anime industry these days has made a
killing on the slice of life genre.
But because Squeenix can’t make anything decent
and straightforward anymore, they botched what should’ve been a slam dunk. True, there are instances where that
brotherhood aspect shines through; there are some conversations sprinkled in
that add flavor, and I like the idea that Noct and Ignis will have a chat
during a cooking lesson. Despite that,
“sprinkled in” is the operative phrase here -- events that are too few and far
between, left nigh invisible in the wake of all of the nothing that happens.
Nothing during transit; nothing during long walks; no events along the
way that breathe life into Eos or O-Town.
The fact that there’s so little of substance over 15 hours is an
absolute failure -- especially when there are so many other games out there
that do so much better.
I know that I shouldn’t keep making this
comparison, but I have to: FF15 is
basically just a really, really shitty Tales
game. Consider this:
That’s an optional skit you can trigger in Tales of Berseria, and one of several in
the “do comedy” sidequest. By extension,
that’s one of literally hundreds of skits in the game. Hundreds of those skits can be triggered at
the press of a button once the prompt shows up.
This isn’t some anomaly introduced in Berseria or made possible by the PS4 hardware; one Tales game after another has featured
hundreds of skits along the way -- optional dialogues that develop characters,
contextualize the world, establish relationships, or just offer some guttural
laughs. If you want to ignore them, you
can (save for some mandatory ones that trigger automatically, but you can skip
them with a button press). It’s all in
service of making sure that the player and the game alike can get the most out
of the cast.
In FF15’s first
15 hours, I got none of that. Or at
least, I didn’t get enough of it. I can
live without there being skits (because to be fair, Tales games can drown you in them), but there has to be more in the
way of proving that the Jonas Brothers are a cohesive, bonded, familial
unit. 15 does, to its credit, take a page from Xenoblade -- original or X,
take your pick -- and has them converse during battle or provide the occasional
assist. And that’s cool. I like that.
But it’s too sporadic to appear reliably, much less become a potent
gameplay feature. Even then, it’s offset
by the sheer amount of nothing that
happens -- or doesn’t happen -- in its stead.
After the opening hour or two, I got the feeling that the brotherhood
well ran dry. I’ve yet to be convinced
otherwise.
The fatal flaw here is that FF15 has a problem with its focus -- which isn’t a surprise given
earlier modern FF games, but they had
ten years to sort stuff out and they didn’t.
Question: is this game focused on the journey of its four friends across
a fantastic (albeit modernized) world?
If so, then why are we bothering with kingdoms and empires and “epic”
quests and destiny and thrones and ancient magic? If not,
then why do all of those concepts feel nebulous and insubstantial? If so, then why is it that I don’t know a
damn thing about these guys despite spending more than a collective half-day
with them? If not, then why is it that the world itself comes off as a bunch of
art assets that exist to show off graphics first and act as a credible,
characterized environment second?
Maybe I wouldn’t have so many problems with the
game -- chief among them, sheer apathy that drives me from continuing my run --
if I knew or actually cared about its characters. Right now the only one I have a passing
interest in is Prompto, partly because he’s the chief bringer of fun into the
game (inasmuch as he can inject fun into a bland series of meaningless
sidequests), and partly because he’s voiced by Robbie Daymond, who I’m
convinced can slaughter it in whatever role he’s given. But even Robbie Daymond can only do so much;
if his script makes it so that he’s a one-note archetype for 15 hours --
someone there to hyper-compensate for the blandness of the others -- then he’ll
be a one-note archetype for 15 hours.
I mean, it’ll still be a hell of a note, but you
get the idea.
The real weak link here, of course, is
Noctis. Execs up and down the Squeenix
ladder have tried to assuage fears of hungry gamers -- telling them again and
again that he isn’t emo. That’s what FF and JRPGs as a whole have been
stereotyped into having, and given that he looked like a dead ringer for Sasuke
Uchiha, it was only natural that people jumped to conclusions. By the looks of things, Squeenix wasn’t
lying. The good news is that for the
most part, Noctis isn’t emo. The bad
news is that for the most part, he isn’t much of anything else. Except maybe an audience surrogate, given
that -- despite being engaged -- he still goes out on a date with a cute girl.
I couldn’t tell you what his character’s supposed
to be, even if you plopped the full script and a briefcase full of money onto a
desk in front of me. So I guess he’s a
guy that likes sleeping and fishing? Okay,
fine, but those are hobbies, not personality traits (and the former one isn’t
even a hobby). I guess the implication
is that he’s really lazy, but that doesn’t stop him from gleefully taking on
sidequests for strangers. He can dish
out some sarcastic quips from time to time, but name a hero these days that
can’t. He loves his father and his
fiancé (I think?), but I can’t think of a good reason why he wouldn’t -- unless the former abused
him, and the latter came about via arranged marriage. And sure, maybe at some point I’ll get more
insight into the game’s leading man. But
I’m 15 hours in and I have no idea who I am.
That’s a problem.
I don’t know who Noctis is. I don’t know who Ignis is besides a posh,
quipping chef with a flair for the dramatic. I don’t know who Prompto is besides a
sugar-addled youth who, again, has to go into overdrive to mask his pals’ lack
of energy (and personality) and becomes four times more annoying for it. I don’t know who Gladio is besides a gruff,
sarcastic warrior -- except for one instance where he uncharacteristically
chews Noctis out for complaining about the bad situation they’re in. Side note: why is it that ever since FF13 and Birth by Sleep (at a bare minimum) Squeenix characters haven’t been
able to have an even-tempered, plot-relevant discussion and instead choose to
chew each other out for no raisin? Is
that just their idea of drama? (I guess
it is, especially when some of these conversations could instantly resolve the plot.)
Normally there would be some sort of cohesive
chain -- a string of events that would challenge and ultimately change the cast
as they’re forced to overcome various conflicts. If my understanding of rocket science is
true, then it’s a little something they call “the plot”. But there’s barely a plot for a huge chunk of
the game. Oh, sure, Nocty Noct and the
Funky Bunch originally set out so they can get our hero to his fiancé, and it’s
only a matter of time before DA EMPYARR starts mucking everything up, but other
than that? What relevant events
happen? What major story events shape
and reshape our heroes? There’s the initial
run back home in the face of an enemy infestation; there’s a struggle to start
collecting the royal arms; there’s Noctis’ mission to quell Titan. That’s basically it.
Honestly, I think the biggest struggle the crew
has faced so far is that they have to push their luxury car when it quits on
them. Because when you’re on the run and
trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself, the smart thing to do is cruise
in a goddamn luxury car in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
I can pinpoint pretty much the exact moment when I
gave up on the game. See, after a
certain point in their journey Noctis starts to get headaches and hear
voices. It’s reasoned that the source of
it has to do with one of the game’s summons, which they’ve moved within range
of; in this case, it’s the heavy-hitting giant, Titan. In order to stop those headaches, Hansen
decides to engage Titan directly -- even though I thought he was powering a
nearby city, but whatever.
What should’ve been a simple and straightforward
mission ends up becoming anything but.
Noct and Gladio get separated from the others, and forced to traverse a
heated canyon. Worse yet, DUH IMPYRRR
launches an attack to try and shut the prince down. And worse still, Titan shows no signs of
being willing to cooperate with our hero; he even goes on the attack to
slaughter Noctis before they can even have a decent conversation. Only by taking on Titan in a fight does
Noctis overcome the situation, and make the mountainous creature his own.
And that taking is done via a boss battle that,
honestly, made me as miserable as it did frustrated.
The game’s pretty much broken after that. Like, seriously -- the crux of the story,
near as I can tell, is that Noctis needs to travel across Eos to gain access to
ancient magical weapons and (by extension) summon-ready beings like Titan. If he does, then he’ll have secured his
birthright as a king and increased his power dramatically. So answer this question for me, reader: if
Noctis is on a quest to gain more power, then how much more could he possibly
need when he’s able to deflect the blows of a kaiju-sized golem
single-handedly? Isn’t he already the
strongest being in the entire universe if he can tank a haymaker from Titan and
not turn into a puddle of red paste?
It’s a level of spectacle that completely shatters
the game. Nothing else matters at that
point, because Noctis has been demonstrably proven to not need to bother with
ancient arms or summons. Plus, that
spectacle hasn’t been earned; I still don’t know who Noctis is, I don’t know
what his personal end goal might be, I can’t take his struggles seriously
because of how high the ante has been raised, and it’s worth noting that this
guy -- gameplay-wise -- would struggle against crab monsters mere hours ago in
real-world time, and struggle against woodland creatures mere hours later.
But despite that, he now has
access to an ancient being whose phenomenal power lets him flatten entire city
blocks if he so wishes. So he’s a
walking WMD, but also more than capable of getting wrecked by trash mobs.
And then, as if that wasn’t enough, an oracle
named Gentiana shows up out of nowhere and tells O-Town to go on a hunt for
magic orbs so Noctis can learn how to summon Ramuh. Because if she hadn’t appeared, then the plot would’ve come to a screeching
halt…as if it hadn’t already. Also, the
fact that I was told to embark on a middling fetch quest made me instantly
flash back to 13-2. “Oh my God, this is just the Graviton Core
sidequest all over again,” I thought.
So I turned the game off. And I haven’t played it since.
Guys? I
don’t know. I don’t know if I have it in
me to go back. I mean, yeah, it’s been a
good long while since I’ve had to suffer through a game. And in terms of maintaining a consistent
pattern? I wrote about 13-2 in 2013. I wrote about Type-0 in 2015. By that
logic, I should finish the fight with 15 for
2017. But I legitimately don’t know if I
ever will. I don’t know if I can summon
the energy for it. Not when there are
dramatically better games out there waiting for me. Not when there are just plain more games waiting for me, even if they
aren’t top-notch works.
And you know what’s really sad? Maybe I would’ve plowed through FF15 by now if it was actually, truly
awful. If it was a travesty on the scale
of The Lightning Saga or a slow-but-certain trainwreck like Type-0, then maybe this would be Part 7
of a 16-part miniseries. But it’s
not. I’ll contend that 15 is a bad game, yet paradoxically,
it’s bad at being bad. It’s not really
bad enough to be fascinating -- a 5/10 production (at best) that sands away any
potential talking points for the sake of mediocrity. And sure, maybe things will get better later
in the game. Maybe they’ll get
worse. Maybe in the end I’ll go back for
real. Right now, though? Even though I haven’t officially dropped it,
I’m a hair away from making that declaration -- and losing no sleep over it.
But before I do, there are still two more things
that I have to say.
So stick around.
It’s about to get real raw, real soon.
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