Final Fantasy XV review
Sitting in the Regalia you squeeze your leather butt to fart out an Egg–Fried Crustacean Bowl prepared by the Egon of your little royal boy band group. Your hero, Noctis, is on a journey to marry his true love for the good of the kingdom. This is the only time in history a man is on a journey to get married. I thought the story would’ve been a Japanese road trip version of the movie “Saving Silverman”. So Noctis has to fight to reclaim his throne one diner quest at a time. The characters are four archetypes; the brooding teen, the funny guy, the nerd and the jock. Also most of the women’s outfits are from the closet of Lara Croft circa 1990.
The game play is called “Active X Battle” system, which was designed by an eighth grader who thinks putting an “X” in things is cool. If you have multiple fights I guess it’s called “Active X BattleZ” with a Z which is radical right dude? You can “lock on” to a monster and watch the camera spin out of control like a drunk NASCAR driver. Your other choice is to aim at the creature you’re fighting which is super fun when the monsters jump all over the place and the camera still flies around like a sailor on shore leave. As for weapons you have your choice of sword, gun, giant sword, magic, spear, dagger, shield and auto. Auto is a type of weapon that I would imagine means “automatic” which is a cross bow or a circular saw. Yes a circular saw, the most dangerous automatic weapon you can purchase at Sears beside a snow blower gun. You can switch weapons on the fly like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta but there really isn’t any point since most enemies die by one or two types of weapons so you can switch but I really don’t know why. There are also tombs that have Ancestral Weapons like a sword, mace (the weapon not the spray), axe, swords, (or I should say swordZ). When discovered these implements fly into your body and stay with you like deadly genital warts. I never really used these much because they chip away your health. So it’s a balancing act between do damage or stay alive. Another battle perk is the mighty Summons! Ifrit, Shiva, Leviathan, Titan A.E. or Ramuh Romano come to your side when they feel like it. You see in order to gain their aid you have to fill certain criteria such as fight by water or survive a battle long enough. These are few and far between and feel like a broken random number generator or that crush you invite to your party. You hope they show up only to be sad when they text “That was last night” the next day so you drink Peppermint Schnapps, alone, on the toilet at noon.
The game is open world with certain mechanics to get you around such as the Regalia, Chocobos and my favorite, running. In the Regalia you drive manually, automatic or fast travel to discovered parking spots. If you auto drive you get to hear your friends banter. Let me tell you there’s no one better at writing small talk than a Japanese design team. It’s so natural, not robotic or unrealistic. You can also manually drive which is just holding down the accelerator and slightly turning the wheel when you need to. It feels like driving a boring roller coaster that goes thirty-five miles per hour and runs out of gas, which is too real for a game. I can’t wait for the D.L.C. where you have to fight a giant Auto Insurance Agent with Flame SwordZ to get good rates! You can also fast travel to locations via parking spots but not to the actual quest location. So there have been quests that you have no choice but to drive there for about five REAL TIME MINUTES! To be fair I got some dishes done and a tweet or two but this is not fun. After a while you can rent a Chocobo by the day for fifty bucks and the more you use them the more they level up and do cool stuff like help you fight and guard you against status ailments. Again, this is just like the Summons and it feels all RNG, which is annoying. Side note, there is a shore town that has the longest boardwalk I’ve ever ran down in my whole life. Of course Chocobos aren’t allowed on the boardwalk because they would leave big stinky Gysahl Green poops all over and that would hurt tourism. Which is a lie because the giant crabs patrolling the beach is the cause of low visitations not bird poop. The load screens are pretty long which in conjunction with actually driving to a quest makes doing side work unbearable. Here’s an example: You’re in a town and you want to go do a side quest, like a hunt. You grab the hunt at a diner after eating Bologna and Shrimp fried in a donut. Now you can only fast travel to a parking spot close to the area, then drive four real time minutes to the side of the road near said destination. Park the car, get out, run or call your Chocobo, get to quest area, try to fight large killer bees that are ten levels below you but somehow you get wrecked and realize you can’t do this side quest yet, run back to the car via legs or Chocobo, get in the car, fast travel to diner, pick up a different hunt. By then the Bologna Shrimp Donuts makes you crap your brains out so bad it feels like Ifrit punched you in the colon. All in all this took five real human American hours, three Japanese hours because they are efficient, and the video game sun went from red to white to red then crescent moon which makes zero sense.
Leveling up is done through the Ascension system. Which technically isn’t experience points because you get them after fights and quests. They call them AP, Ascension Points. It reminds me of the A.P. Tests, Advanced Placement, you took in school. Meaning play the game well enough and you get to enroll in the sequel. You acquire AP for leveling up like taking long car rides (yay), fishing, setting up camp, taking useless pictures that you can save which is meaningless and finally cooking. Then you get to choose what to level up like combat, magic, good schools, job placement…oh sorry thought it was the AP test again. I put all my skills into fishing because I once heard someone say, “You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime until he dies and then uses Phoenix Down and rises from the dead”.
Finally, I did enjoy the game but I couldn’t’ help noticing all the horrible time management disasters that could’ve been avoided. Having to cash in quests one at a time, a ton of running around, mindless long wait times where nothing happens. Another side note, there is a segment where you walk around a moving train for about three minutes real time until you arrive at the station. Nothing happened on the train, zero dialogue, items or battles. You just walked or stood like you would on a real boring train ride. I found myself playing other games while waiting for this game to load. So pick this up if you have the patience of Saint Bahamut and the stomach for a boiled Fish Danish.
Follow comedian TJ Del Reno on social media @tjdelreno and listen to his video game comedy radio show Unlimited Lives Radio on CaveComedyRadio.com.