FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION Reviews

So i've finished this game years after i first started it and the reason for this is the last couple of missions that have a completely different feel than the earlier ones. It starts out like a fairly open-world rpg with a beautiful world, interesting locations / story and quite fun game mechanics. But later on it changes into a boring dungeon crawler in linear indoor and outdoor spaces. The story also seems to stop developing and gets rushed into oblivion. by the time i reached the ending i felt zero emotional attachment to the whole thing, mainly because the ending is just as bad and rushed as the later missions. So yeah, i played on to finish it and experience the conclusion but was left disappointed.

I don't know what to tell you. It is a game that i enjoyed somewhat and then decided to just go for the main quest line. The story could be interesting if it was portrayed or executed well. If somebody took the story and remixed it a bit with all of the added extra things they did with the movies and such. Maybe it would have made for a good book or manga. But what they did is confusing and boring. I did like the Open world riding along with the Boyz stopping for pictures or getting engine parts to upgrade the ride and such, fishing and hunting is fun. Anyway i enjoy all of the side stuff but the main story really soured me on the game, maybe i will come back way later and continue playing now that i just do the side content. But tldr story is mid and 2b skin for Ignis goes hard. but this at a heavy sale.

Great story although it gets muddy at points, combat was fun and responsive 7/10

It feels like half the story ended up on the cutting room floor, but a bigger issue it is such a buggy broken unstable port that I can't recommend it. Stutters even on a 4080 and Ryzen 7900X. Have to save and restart it once an hour to avoid crashes. I don't have any stability issues with my other games (except FF16, but that is still far more stable than this turd) After a restart, I spent 20 minutes on the tedious [spoiler]Cerberus[/spoiler] fight grinding that health bar down to zero, only to get a 5 second cutscene, and then his health back up to 100% and literally the same fight in the same location, only for the game to crash out part way through and lose all progress. I'm done. I don't care enough about the story to deal with this. I wish I could refund it but please don't buy this game.

This game is a bit deceiving in that the opening cutscenes and gameplay make it seem like it'll be interesting but it becomes tedious and annoying after the 2-3 hour mark. This game has one of the most frustrating travel systems in recent memory which is why I put it down. Seemingly every quest involves fast traveling close to the objective and then having to run half a mile to reach it in the middle of nowhere before fast traveling back and running even more to find the person to turn it in. So much of the game is just spent aimlessly running through open desert it gets boring and grating real fast. Maybe I'll pick it up again when I'm feeling more patient but I just found it way too boring.

FF15 is a masterclass at confusing and scattered story telling. Detailing the story of a young prince and his rock band of misfits as they travel the countryside in the worlds most expensive mode of transportation only to eventually lead themselves back home, without said worlds most expensive mode of transportation. NO seriously the story is actually pretty good, and one of my favorite FF stories to date. Sadly it took the windows edition to eventually see this most of the full story to fruition, and even then that took far too long to reach our PC screens. And even then the story is by far nothing complete without being knee deep in reading, movie, and anime material along it's windy road at explaining a true, full, and understood story. But why is that? Well if you want to travel with the prince of light your going to have to put your controller down, that is if you care to see the story play out point for point. Here, and example, and i'll do my best to only spoil one early game part of it: "Noctis leaves the city in a cut-scene." "Player starts to play the game for roughly 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on playtime." "Player witnesses another cut-scene of the city....." HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Alright put your controllers down because this "cut-scene' is actually a full fledged movie that's roughly 110 minutes, or almost equal to 2 full hours of Final Fantasy lore that your going to need to know for anything later to make any sense. And i'm sure many will tell me no that's not true, but a lot happens in this movie and a lot we never fully get an understanding on, even in the complete edition. A lot of spoilers too, so for those more interested just take my word for it, you'll be confused why Luna has what she does, why the kingdom at all fell, why the empire are jerks, and why the crystal is important, and that we even had one in the city to begin with now stolen. Starting to see my point yet? This game is chalk full of it. DLC that came out months after release that impact moments of the story we simply randomly brush off as "I guess will never know" leading to critical moments in character development and behind the scenes questions. Things that, while they show up in game lead to nothing or simply confuse players. Looking at your Prompto. Writing that gives alternative story lines and branching narrative to the reasons why Luna's brother hates Noctis, and why Noctis has nearly 0 personality and reasons why he does anything. You know lore. I could go on, but I'll spare you from anymore needless banter if you somehow made it this far. So while the story is good and interesting it's only such when you understand it in it's full, and this game still does not do that. I could talk about other things also like gameplay or technical issues but these are not why I play a Final Fantasy game. I come for the story, the world and I only got 1/4 of the pie. Plus, without a story, what is a Final Fantasy game? Unless you like to ride in the Regalia, which, I wont disagree.

I've waited 4 years for this game, bought a whole PS4 for it and enjoyed every second of it. I think someone who didn't follow the production of this game and hasnt consumed the additional media to this game will have a hard time finding any sort of bond with the characters in the game because sadly the game seems very rushed despite the long production time (probably because they kept scrapping ideas and starting anew). That being said, I DID do all of that and I DID have a connection to these characters and loved seeing the interactions between the boys in game and out of it. I quickly grew fond of this game despite its quirks and bugs and to this day this is still my favourite game of all time. Since I stopped using my Playstation and started investing into proper PCs I felt like something was missing so I quickly spent another dime on the Windows version of this game. It runs horrible and my PC is really not bad, especially for this game. But it still captures the same feeling I had as a 15 year old kid booting this game up for the first time, hearing the Somnus theme and falling in love with Final Fantasy all over again.

6/10 Final Fantasy XV is easily the one I had the most curiosity for just due to how split it is among fans. Is it good, or is it terrible. Is it a misunderstood masterpiece, or is it a stain in the final fantasy legacy. I have fully tried to experience FF15, mainly through the story (didn't do post game content), I've watched the movie, watched the anime, done all the dlc, and will be reading the book after this review. Even after doing all that, I have come to accept that while no, I do not think FF15 is a misunderstood masterpiece or a stain in the final fantasy legacy, it is easy to see that it was a FF game with such high potential, ruined by a complex development hell, unrealized story potential, and a game that feels like it has missing pieces all over the place. Story This is easily the most talked about point of this game, with either the largest praise or the largest criticisms. Is it a masterpiece of a story? I wouldn't say, but I would say it is honestly a pretty damn good story... in theory. Understanding FF15 is understanding the 10 year development hell this game went through, with the most important point being they had to fire the old director, and made the new director cobble up whatever they had in 2-3 years, which while does seem like a ton of time, is NOT the amount of time needed to make a game of this scale. What is created is a great story, told in a piss poor way. Game starts and is centered around a war you have no idea about? Explained in the 2 hour long movie Kingsglaive. Main character and 3 of his buddies the game expects you to know who they are? Explained in the 1 hour long anime. Characters go missing and aren't explained what tf they did? Explained in the DLC. So many bits of this game has unexplained plot points that never go answered cause well, they weren't for awhile. With the final product we have now and with ALL of those new story bits, it does tell a pretty interesting story once you step back to understand everything... But of course you can't understand EVERYTHING cause now the future dlc got cancelled, so the final dlc of Ardyn which does explain the MUCH NEEDED reasoning for his motivations, creates a new plot of a evil god that will never be explained. It is just a mess and I do not blame anybody for just saying fuck it. The early chapters were honestly pretty good as well once I've watched the 2 shows, but it does screech into a halt from past chapter 3 all the way to around chapter 9-10. Even once you get to the new story development, if you do not play the dlc you end up missing a ton of context. With the context, it is amazing, as you witness Noctis come to terms with what he has to do as a king, and achieve his true mission... however only for the ardyn dlc to bring a new threat that will never be resolved. Even with this rant I still did like the story a ton even with how terrible it is told, messages of fate, with the main story focusing on following your true fate, and hints of defying your fate in the dlc were sprinkled, I can only dream if they actually realize the story's full potential. Character The characters of 15 share the same sentiment I have with the story, amazing potential, wasted with missing plot explanations and the inability to tell the player why they should care for anybody. Not only are the character designs for this game just so damn good, but playing through the DLC shows how much potential they all had, but is ruined by the story only taking place in Noctis' point of view. The four main characters feel like true friends, but you would never know that unless you saw the anime before that, and you will never understand their motivations when they go missing till you play the dlc. You spend so much time with them that it is a shame the game didn't deliver their development naturally throughout the game. Prompto ended up becoming my favorite of the friends, but only because I loved his arc during his dlc. Gladio has a great older brother vibe to him that honestly, the base game did do a good job with along ignis, who is made even better with his dlc. Noctis himself was really damn good, but fails to reach the heights of other main characters in FF due to how short the game cuts off his development, and rushes his development near the end once the time skip happens. The biggest waste was easily Luna, who barely had any screen time at all. I cared little for her character, and her biggest moment in the game made me realize that she was just wasted. Ardyn was also such an amazing villain, in theory. He has such a peak design and has the building blocks to be one of the best FF villains, as his dlc finally explains his motivations. However, the dlc throws the blame towards an evil god we will never see the conclusion to. The other characters were interesting, but needed more development. Easily the highest potential cast I have ever seen in many of the FF games, but wasted by how much time they were given to develop in the main story. Gameplay Honestly, I liked the gameplay, especially after accepting this FF game is not traditional. Driving around the world, finding things to do around the world and doing hunts was a pretty enjoyable thing to do. Some issues do arise later on though. First, the combat at first is just a hold left click and dodge with right click, but the parry loop and upgrading the parry so it becomes pretty strong was very fun to do, even upgrading the standard combat was pretty fun. The magic system in this game was just broken, you either avoid it all together and barely use any magic in the game, or craft the spells and realize that while limited, they can nearly one shot most bosses in this game due to their insane damage potential. Getting bored of noctis gameplay? upgrade the casts so you can play as them, who all have much different gameplay loops to Noctis. After awhile however I wasn't feeling that much into the combat loop, making me for the first time in awhile not want to grind the post game for the superboss and quite honestly, I blame the sudden halt past chapter 10. The game decides to ditch what makes the gameplay special and make it a more linear, restricted experience. You lose your friends so no more switching, you lose the car, you lose your powers and are given a ring that is quite literally busted, but is not that fun to use. It is a shame cause I can see myself playing through the post game if that last chapters of this game doesn't ditch what makes this game so special in the first place. The DLC focus on the other party members and do showcase how special their moveset are, especially Ardyn, which the game does a wonderful job showing that while he is very strong, he mirrors Noctis in nearly every way. Music Pretty good music, you can tell how much love was put into the soundtrack of this game. Somnus, Valse Di Fantastica, Noctis theme, the character and dlc songs, it is pretty hard to hate on the OST just cause of how beautiful it really is. Alongside that, the game includes songs from previous FF games all the way to ff14, it is all so damn amazing. Last Positives/Nitpicks - Performance issues even with a 4070 super, but probably because I turned everything to max including NVIDIA features. -Terra and FF14 crossover side quests were pretty damn good. Conclusion If I were to talk about all of the pieces of this game as a total, I would probably say this game would had been one of the best FF games. However with how scattered the storytelling is, how lacking in story focused side content, and how instead of fixing the game as a whole, they did bandage solutions of telling you important aspects in either dlc, or a different media makes this game very hard to recommend. However, I still think this game was pretty fun at the end of the game, but easily is the most missed potential FF entry I have played yet. 6/10

[h1][b]Lovely Final Fantasy[/b][/h1] I love this game with all my heart, I previously played it in Xbox One around 2017-2019 (+200h, 100% achievements except Episode Ardyn), and I wanted to replay it in PC. I love all about it, the story, the characters, the soundrack (Same composer as Kingdom Hearts), loved all the boss battles, and literally everytime I play the end I get the feeling of crying. I think my only complaint is that the story could have been expanded with more episodes like Episode Lunafreya or Episode Aranea, but it could not be done. I totally recommend it [b]11/10[/b]

This was the second Final Fantasy game I ever tried (and honestly, it might be my last; not because it was bad, but just because I’m not super into the series). That said, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed traveling in a game as much as I did in this one. The world feels so alive, and the bond between the characters? Absolutely priceless. The story had me completely hooked, and man... I wish I had a friend group like that in real life. I played this instead of studying (no regrets), and honestly, it was the best decision. I was stuck in my hometown during the summer thanks to university nonsense, and this game made my days so much better. If you’re looking for an unforgettable journey, go for it.