Final Fantasy has been my favorite JRPG franchise since I was a little boy playing IV on my SNES and watching my cousins play IX on their PS1 over weekend sleepovers. It was the only reason why I ever had any interest in learning English, so I could understand what these colorful haired characters were saying. Since then, I've played through most of the main series titles, and managed to see something special in each of them, even if I didn't really love the game as a whole. No FF has ever made me as furious as XV, though. Yes, there are some bits and pieces of it that I do like, but the general experience is just way below the standard for the franchise. The thing that bothers me the most about it is that while FF games are (usually) self-contained, they are still largely self referential, and XV only needed to look back at its predecessors, but instead feels like it was made by people who never played a FF game before. A Final Fantasy for fans and newcomers, where?

Ok, so the first thing that bothers me is that the entire XV universe is completely implausible. It's impossible to suspend disbelief when nothing makes any kind of sense. So, in order to become King, Noctis needs to travel all over the world to get the blessing of the previous kings, and that involves a lot of tomb raiding. How is this practical to the Lucian government? And if every king needs to go through this, how come the tombs are in such terrible shape, and how is it excusable that Noctis basically destroys each of them? It's a king's tomb, surely there should've been some kind of upkeeping over the centuries since Lucis was established. At the very least these would be tourist spots! Noctis' road trip isn't any different from Yuna's pilgrimage in FFX, but his just isn't belieavable.

Also, I love analyzing the power dynamics in fictional worlds, but the relationship between the regions in XV don't make sense. Niflheim wants to defeat Lucis because... why? They want to restore the lost Solheim civilization... for what? The explanation seems to simply be "world domination", but then again, without the Lucian king the world apparently turns to absolute darkness and then there's no point in conquering anything. The invasion of Insomnia seems to happen only because Niflheim wanted to show off their cool magitek soldiers, which in turn only exist to give Prompto a really shitty backstory that basically recycles Cloud's arc in FFVII, only without any of the context, stakes or subtlety. There aren't any serious antagonists in XV, with Ravus and Aranea only playing hard to get before betraying their own causes to hang around Noctis for no apparent reason.

Speaking of the characters, Noctis's boy band isn't terrible. Gladio and Prompto are good opposites, but both lack any dimension, while Ignis has a lot of unused potential -- Episode Ignis was the best part of FFXV, even if it didn't take his character in any of the directions I would've liked it to. Noctis himself isn't a bad character, but he grows slowly and painfully. I was much more interested in Lunafreya's role as the Oracle than in Noctis's quest to man the fuck up. Why did she even like him? It felt like she only did anything in the game because she was meant to, without having any sort of agency over her actions or feelings, and sacrificing herself at the earliest opportunity. And of course it's Luna's sacrifice that makes Noctis finally shake off his insecurities, because that's not an overused (and sexist) trope at all.

As far as the plot progression goes, I really don't mind the later linear chapters as much as everybody else -- things were happening in these chapters, as opposed to the rest of the game. Listen, FFXV's battle system is fun enough, but I don't want to spend my time traversing a massive but empty open world, holding down a single button to fight off a nondescript hunt for a mundane sidequest. Those are all things that previous FF games have done way more successfully. FFXII had hunts too, but each hunt involved some sort of interesting exploration or fulfilling certain conditions, and the enemies always required some level of planning and strategy. FFIX had an entire sidequest about capturing frogs, which surely sounds stupid but served to further Quina's character and get some cool items, while FFXV has a frog catching sidequest just because!!!! Frogs are cool I guess???? GOD. Also, why is the King of Kings, the Chosen One, the actual only hope of the world even concerning himself with finding dog tags and selling photos to reporters?

On the topic of mundane... Everything that isn't in the main story looks, sounds and feels boring. Which I guess was an attempt to drive home the game's slogan of "a fantasy based on reality", but having goth anime boys standing right next to regular NPCs wearing jeans and tank tops is simply jarring. Every main character has some sense of fantasy fashion, while the rest of the world is dressed like a lost randomised sim. Fashion has always been a huge part of the worlds of Final Fantasy games -- and it clearly is in FFXV as well, but they just didn't even try very hard after they got the design for the main characters down.

The same generally goes for the music, especially while riding the Regalia. Yeah, it's fun to listen to previous games's soundtracks, but I would much rather listen to something new that could further the identity of the game. Instead, I only got the strange country tune that plays in every town stuck in my head and I hate it. Episodes Prompto, Ignis and Ardyn actually had some bits of really nice music.

The visuals and music for anything in the main story, however, are on an entirely other level from anything I've ever played before. Noctis's dream, Lunafreya's farewell, and the ending scenes, as well as anything from Episodes Gladio and Ignis, simply looked breathtaking. It felt like Square Enix arbitrarily decided that some things in the game were important, and didn't pull any punches when working on these elements, and everything else (towns, music, NPCs) were an afterthought, put together in a hurry to serve as padding between any two important moments. Noctis and Ignis look very sexy after the time skip.

"The throne brings you here? It sits only one." "Off my chair, jester. The king sits there." I actually loved this exchange between Ardyn and Noctis.