There will never be another game like Final Fantasy XV because it's a whole ass triple A title that stumbled backwards into accurately portraying the intense boredom and low level existential crisis of going on a roadtrip with your college friends. This was accomplished by having it stuck in development hell for ten years.
It's an open world game that actively sucks to explore. The clock on the dashboard works in game even though you literally cannot see it without mods. There's whole swathes of interesting locations that are alluded to but the primary setting is the empty plains of midwest america. There's bespoke animations for your party members complaining about a rock in their shoe. The entire magic system is completely inscrutable. It has maybe the most masterful emotional storytelling through sheer UI choices that I have ever seen in a video game. We had to ask one of the creative heads of the project to leave seven years into development because he got really invested in making the game a musical.
It's like lightning in a bottle, but way less awe-inspiring. Tempest in an empty mayo jar.
Completely accurate. You walk/drive around aimlessly listening to music, interrupted by occasional banter and meaningless conversation. You see something interesting once in a blue moon and check it out. At the end of the day you go through 20 selfies and group pics of your boring empty day and realise that at least all the characters had fun. You feed them a nice dinner or check them into a nice hotel and watch them play darts. At the end of it all you're forced to look back on all this and realise somehow somewhere you grew painfully attached to these characters. It is a weird, weird, weird game.
