first impressions: final fantasy xv
Nov. 30th, 2016 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluai had no idea final fantasy xv came out yesterday, actually, but i already had plans to hang out and play video games with an amazing brofriend of mine, and he was the one who was like "this came out today and we should buy and play the shit out of it and do the high school nostalgia thing" and i was like "AGREE"
disclosure of my own tastes/preferences: i've played all of FF6 through FF10 and varying amounts of others in the series; i think 10 is objectively the best (for some sense of objective—by this i mean the plot in that one is remarkably tight/streamlined throughout, in a way that even a non-JRPG fan would be able to appreciate, and the gameplay is very polished), but 9 is my personal favorite; i was bitterly disappointed that i couldn't really get into 13; while I appreciated that the series was trying new things, i thought they made some pretty major missteps.
anyway, thoughts so far:
* i really wish i knew when & why the final fantasy series as a whole decided that exposition is a pointless thing, to be discarded with as much as possible. this was perhaps my biggest frustration with FFXIII; i was like eight hours in and still felt like i had no coherent idea of what was at stake, who these people came from, or just what the hell was going on. and yeah, i know, there were like Backstory Cliff's Notes you could access from the menu, but out of principle i tried avoiding reading them because if i have to read Cliff's Notes to understand your story then you have fucked up, and even when i eventually broke down and read said Cliff's Notes, i still didn't understand as much as i liked, and the game had kind of lost its opportunity to make me intuitively, gleefully invested in the universe. i proceeded to play another tenish hours of that game (while drunk) but eventually abandoned it.
XV isn't as bad as XIII on this front, but i think this is largely because the setting's more familiar and the plot's less convoluted (so far, anyway). "four bros on a bro-roadtrip before one of them gets hitched" is, like, the plot of The Hangover, i've seen this rodeo before. but there's like, basic plausibility questions that i'd really like answered so that i know what's at stake. for instance, if i'm a fucking prince, how the hell am i short on money? when i'm getting my car repaired can't i just charge it to the royal bank account? and folks seem to treat the prince with general irreverence/indifference, like, who the hell tells a prince "hey can you go kill these annoying monsters for me"? unless royalty is just not that big of a deal or not that powerful in this universe? and who is this chick noctis is marrying, and does he even like her that much (it's kind of unclear whether this is mostly a strategic-alliance wedding or not)?
i wondered a bit if this has always been a problem in Final Fantasy, and i just didn't remember the awkward exposition in the earlier games because i was so young when i played them. yet, i remember when i replayed VII in college, my impression wasn't "wtf is going on" so much as "wow they are laying it on thick with the exposition here." it did the in media res thing, sure, but the dialogue just handed you a lot of stuff to the tune of "he's in SOLDIER, oh wow what a bad dude" and "hey cloud don't you give a fuck? these reactors are destroying the planet!" and "fuck shinra, man, they keepin' us down," which is, you know, heavy-handed, but at least it lets me get the basic picture of "okay, cloud's some shady mercenary type from some bad SOLDIER group, and he's helping out these captain planet terrorists who want to save the planet, also this Shinra thing is like a comically evil corporation" which is not that much but is exactly the correct amount of context i need to feel grounded enough to be invested.
* at the very beginning, you say an extended, loving goodbye to your kind, aging father. "he is so dead," my friend announced as soon as the scene ended. not only was my friend so right, but dad bit it before we even finished playing for the night, which i found hilarious
* the setting's... hm. i have weird feelings about the setting. like, it's gorgeous, but it's also very contemporary, in the sense that cars and roads and gas stations all look basically the same way they do in 2010s America, and the scenery is very semi-arid mountainous desert and thus looks a lot like Driving Down the West Coast. (admittedly the west coast is beautiful in extreme and often surreal ways, so maybe i just live in an actual Final Fantasy universe. conversation i once had with Bird Guy:
me: holy shit this park is so gorgeous why is this only a state park it should be a national park oh my god
him: uhhh... i mean, parks like this are kind of a dime a dozen in Washington, it's not that nice
me: WHAT THE HELL YOU PACIFIC NORTHWESTERNERS DO NOT EVEN REALIZE HOW AMAZING THE LAND YOU HAVE IS
so. we'll see. i did literally just finish the first chapter, after all; there's abundant time for the setting to change. i just remember how otherworldly the midgard slums looked, and how wacky some of the settings in VIII looked, and so on—it felt like being transported to another world. i'm not feeling that here, yet.
* it feels.... very strange to play a final fantasy without some kind of ATB or turn-based system.
certainly i didn't want another ATB/turn-based game; i've found it difficult to replay old FF games (even the ones i really loved!) since those systems feel disappointingly repetitive/grindy to me now. but wow the new gameplay is. very western RPG. quest markers, mini-map, Dragon Age-style banter between your party members as you walk along, Skyrim-style ridiculous cliff-climbing physics, and live-action combat. it's certainly more accessible and fun. but i realized i'm starting to get annoyed by quest markers, in particular, in modern games; it feels less like exploring a new area (with all the small joys that entails—getting lost, getting re-oriented, mastering the lay of the land) and more like just bulldozing towards the next dot on your map.
but those are petty gripes; the biggest boon from this modernization is the combat, which from what i've played so far is surprisingly fun. it's kingdom hearts, but more streamlined and with more mechanics to keep things varied and fun. you get damage bonuses for catching enemies via flanking, from behind, while they're vulnerable/stunned, etc, so you have to do some tactical running-around instead of just mashing X; the ally-abilities you can trigger are viscerally fun, and the warp-step mechanic that lets you jump up on cliffs and then plunge into your enemies has a pretty badass feel. that's what i'm itching to get back to, more than the story; my friend and i blazed through all the monster-hunting quests we could just because the encounters were so satisfying.
in conclusion FFXV is surprisingly fun and hope i get to blaze through more of it soooooon
disclosure of my own tastes/preferences: i've played all of FF6 through FF10 and varying amounts of others in the series; i think 10 is objectively the best (for some sense of objective—by this i mean the plot in that one is remarkably tight/streamlined throughout, in a way that even a non-JRPG fan would be able to appreciate, and the gameplay is very polished), but 9 is my personal favorite; i was bitterly disappointed that i couldn't really get into 13; while I appreciated that the series was trying new things, i thought they made some pretty major missteps.
anyway, thoughts so far:
* i really wish i knew when & why the final fantasy series as a whole decided that exposition is a pointless thing, to be discarded with as much as possible. this was perhaps my biggest frustration with FFXIII; i was like eight hours in and still felt like i had no coherent idea of what was at stake, who these people came from, or just what the hell was going on. and yeah, i know, there were like Backstory Cliff's Notes you could access from the menu, but out of principle i tried avoiding reading them because if i have to read Cliff's Notes to understand your story then you have fucked up, and even when i eventually broke down and read said Cliff's Notes, i still didn't understand as much as i liked, and the game had kind of lost its opportunity to make me intuitively, gleefully invested in the universe. i proceeded to play another tenish hours of that game (while drunk) but eventually abandoned it.
XV isn't as bad as XIII on this front, but i think this is largely because the setting's more familiar and the plot's less convoluted (so far, anyway). "four bros on a bro-roadtrip before one of them gets hitched" is, like, the plot of The Hangover, i've seen this rodeo before. but there's like, basic plausibility questions that i'd really like answered so that i know what's at stake. for instance, if i'm a fucking prince, how the hell am i short on money? when i'm getting my car repaired can't i just charge it to the royal bank account? and folks seem to treat the prince with general irreverence/indifference, like, who the hell tells a prince "hey can you go kill these annoying monsters for me"? unless royalty is just not that big of a deal or not that powerful in this universe? and who is this chick noctis is marrying, and does he even like her that much (it's kind of unclear whether this is mostly a strategic-alliance wedding or not)?
i wondered a bit if this has always been a problem in Final Fantasy, and i just didn't remember the awkward exposition in the earlier games because i was so young when i played them. yet, i remember when i replayed VII in college, my impression wasn't "wtf is going on" so much as "wow they are laying it on thick with the exposition here." it did the in media res thing, sure, but the dialogue just handed you a lot of stuff to the tune of "he's in SOLDIER, oh wow what a bad dude" and "hey cloud don't you give a fuck? these reactors are destroying the planet!" and "fuck shinra, man, they keepin' us down," which is, you know, heavy-handed, but at least it lets me get the basic picture of "okay, cloud's some shady mercenary type from some bad SOLDIER group, and he's helping out these captain planet terrorists who want to save the planet, also this Shinra thing is like a comically evil corporation" which is not that much but is exactly the correct amount of context i need to feel grounded enough to be invested.
* at the very beginning, you say an extended, loving goodbye to your kind, aging father. "he is so dead," my friend announced as soon as the scene ended. not only was my friend so right, but dad bit it before we even finished playing for the night, which i found hilarious
* the setting's... hm. i have weird feelings about the setting. like, it's gorgeous, but it's also very contemporary, in the sense that cars and roads and gas stations all look basically the same way they do in 2010s America, and the scenery is very semi-arid mountainous desert and thus looks a lot like Driving Down the West Coast. (admittedly the west coast is beautiful in extreme and often surreal ways, so maybe i just live in an actual Final Fantasy universe. conversation i once had with Bird Guy:
me: holy shit this park is so gorgeous why is this only a state park it should be a national park oh my god
him: uhhh... i mean, parks like this are kind of a dime a dozen in Washington, it's not that nice
me: WHAT THE HELL YOU PACIFIC NORTHWESTERNERS DO NOT EVEN REALIZE HOW AMAZING THE LAND YOU HAVE IS
so. we'll see. i did literally just finish the first chapter, after all; there's abundant time for the setting to change. i just remember how otherworldly the midgard slums looked, and how wacky some of the settings in VIII looked, and so on—it felt like being transported to another world. i'm not feeling that here, yet.
* it feels.... very strange to play a final fantasy without some kind of ATB or turn-based system.
certainly i didn't want another ATB/turn-based game; i've found it difficult to replay old FF games (even the ones i really loved!) since those systems feel disappointingly repetitive/grindy to me now. but wow the new gameplay is. very western RPG. quest markers, mini-map, Dragon Age-style banter between your party members as you walk along, Skyrim-style ridiculous cliff-climbing physics, and live-action combat. it's certainly more accessible and fun. but i realized i'm starting to get annoyed by quest markers, in particular, in modern games; it feels less like exploring a new area (with all the small joys that entails—getting lost, getting re-oriented, mastering the lay of the land) and more like just bulldozing towards the next dot on your map.
but those are petty gripes; the biggest boon from this modernization is the combat, which from what i've played so far is surprisingly fun. it's kingdom hearts, but more streamlined and with more mechanics to keep things varied and fun. you get damage bonuses for catching enemies via flanking, from behind, while they're vulnerable/stunned, etc, so you have to do some tactical running-around instead of just mashing X; the ally-abilities you can trigger are viscerally fun, and the warp-step mechanic that lets you jump up on cliffs and then plunge into your enemies has a pretty badass feel. that's what i'm itching to get back to, more than the story; my friend and i blazed through all the monster-hunting quests we could just because the encounters were so satisfying.
in conclusion FFXV is surprisingly fun and hope i get to blaze through more of it soooooon
