Final Fantasy 15 PS4 Review: "A brave attempt to evolve, but ultimately it failed to resonate."

Final Fantasy 15 PS4 Review

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Patch Version:  -- 1.10

Final Fantasy 15 begins with its story’s title:   The Tale of the Chosen King’ Saviour to the Star.  It then cuts to a fiery battle between four individuals against some nonchalant god-like creature who sits upon his a-flame throne as if bored with life.

However, it lingers in this moment for only a little before it switches backwards in time.  This cutscene showing us a rather estranged goodbye between a father and his son; the king and his prince.  The Prince, the character you will be controlling: Prince Noctis. 

The moment between them is very formal.  Tense and awkward.   The Prince's destination: Altissia, the capital of Accordo, where he will formalise the union of the states through his marriage to Lady Lunafreya of the imperial province of Tenebrae.

From there, the game cuts to our heroes who have broken down in their car and pushing it along the road; albeit begrudgingly.  The banter, the music, the cutscenes, the world… everything feeling very polished and beautiful.  This is definitely a Final Fantasy game!

Eventually we arrive at our first destination:  Hammerhead.  And it is here we meet Cindy.  A blonde bombshell with legs that don’t quit and a bosom that’s… well… as I already said, this is definitely a Final Fantasy Game and no mistake!  We then meet Cindy’s grandfather who it seems has no problems with his granddaughter walking around like she’s poolside, even though she's a car mechanic.

Gaining control of our character, we are then given no information on what to do next, but there’s some sort of marker over Cindy, and having spoken to her, she hands you a map which unlocks your minimap.  After which we are prompted to visit the local tipster to gather information.   These tipsters being located in the restaurants of the world.

First though I press the touchpad button.  This brings up an array of information about our character and his three companions, along with a plethora of other menus.

Before I dive into all that though, I head as instructed to the restaurant and speak to the gentleman behind the counter.  Doing so grants me three choices:

• Talk seems to highlight a fair few areas of interest on the map, such as another nearby outpost, parking spots, loot areas and some other areas of curiosity.
• Eat, displays a menu, the two recipes on sale way out of my price range considering I have absolutely no gil at this point.  (gil being the in-game currency for the uninitiated.)
• Hunt, which shows to me three available quests of varying levels.  I choose the lowest and accept it.

After which, one of our companions informs us that we have spent all our remaining cash on repairing the car.  Queue the first main mission:  Go speak to Cindy to seek out a way to earn some gil.  Final Fantasy automatically opening the quest menu for us, which only allows us to track one mission at a time it seems.  (Sigh.)

Upon talking to Cindy, and being offered the choice between three questions to ask her, we soon get the next quest step tasking us with killing some ‘ornery varmints’.   Final Fantasy then gifting us 10 AP points, these being the currency for unlocking abilities from the ascension menu.

Upon opening it up, there are 8 skill trees:

• Magic
• Recovery
• Techniques
• Combat
• Teamwork
• Stats
• Exploration
• Wait mode

The different path points of each tree increasing the requirement for AP to unlock the higher tier parts of each path.

Cindy then gifts us 1000 gil, but then advises us not to travel at night else we’ll get ripped to pieces by demons.  I’m instantly intrigued!

The first mission though is 436ft away, and if I’m honest, I can’t wait to see what the new combat system in Final Fantasy 15 feels like, so I head there with no delay.

Entering the area though I’m inundated with a series of on-screen messages, which freezes the game to detail the combat system to me.  It does break up the pacing of the experience a bit, but considering combat is Final Fantasy 15 is very different to past FF games, I let this slide.

The system takes a little getting used to at first because obviously it’s no longer turn based, but...

• You can change weapons at will using the d-pad.
• Pressing and holding square blocks, and tapping it will see you rolling/dodging out of the way.
• Timing block will allow you perform a parry, which if successful will trigger a link strike, which sees one of the companions attacking with extra damage.
• Pressing and holding circle chains your attacks.  Whereas pressing it once performs a single attack.
• But the most fun option is warping by pressing the triangle button.  This sees you throwing your selected weapon some ways in front of you before you warp towards it.  If you hold R1 which locks on to an enemy, and then perform a warp, this sees you performing a warp strike, which does more damage the further you are away.  This drains your MP bar, but this bar can be replenished by warping to a warp point by holding down the triangle button.

My first thoughts though are mixed.  I enjoyed the first combat experience, especially the different animations and attack patterns I performed depending on which weapon I chose, but at the same time feels a little hectic.  I also have no control over my companions, and they seem to just target what the hell they like, often making it even more frenzied when they all start attacking the same target.

The next stage of the mission though sees me travelling 667ft to the next group of enemies.  And after that, the last step is 800+ft away.  I’m starting to see a pattern here, and I’m quickly getting tired of the travelling.  Especially because you cannot infinitely sprint.  Final Fantasy making use of a stamina bar for some reason!  And if you hold down sprint for too long you stop moving due to being tired, which further slows down your experience.

Having eventually reached the area and completed the mission, thankfully I’m not tasked with travelling back to hammerhead, instead, Cindy calls me on my phone and tasks me with tracking down a fella hunter called Dave, last seen in a nearby shed 400 some feet away.

Upon entering it though, you quickly get set on by a pack of beasts.  Combat in this is confined space against so many creatures is horrible.  It’s too compact.  The creatures too harassing.  You can barely get an attack off without being interrupted by them hitting you.    Eventually they are dispatched, but this Dave is nowhere to be seen.  There’s another shack nearby though, and having reached it, and cleaned out the creatures there, out pops this Dave.

However, the next mission has me livid. It’s 0.23mi away.  That’s miles!   I’m growing very weary of this endless trekking, especially because I’ve not ran into a single enemy other than the creatures linked to the mission.  Oh, and now it’s getting dark.  A demon spawns.  It’s level 30.  I’m still level 1.

Hmmm.  Is this really a Final Fantasy game that I am playing?!

Initial Impression:

It's been almost 20 years since I played Final Fantasy 7, and I'll be honest, there are only a few games from my adolescent years that have a special place in my heart.  Few games leave a lasting effect on us.   And in all that time never has the allure of a Final Fantasy game made me gravitate to it since.  So when I caught wind of FF15 I thought maybe it was time to embark on a new journey again and risk that golden memory I hold so dear.

Alas, I don't think I could have been any more disappointed, and I find myself with a quartet of questions.  Has my time away from the franchise left me stuck in the past?  Am I so far removed from that world I once knew and loved, that this new incarnation is just too different?  Am I a relic?  Am I just not able to summon the right mindset to grasp the fun anymore?

No...a resounding NO in all cases!  And why?  Well…I've been doing this long enough now to know what's fun and what's not.  And though the notion of what is fun is different to many people, I simply cannot fathom what sort of person would think that spending the majority of their time in an automated car, travelling on foot or in loading screens… FUN!  

In the first two hours I've spent more time doing these three things than I have actually partaken in combat or bathing in the rich story, of which, Final Fantasy is so famously known for.

It absolutely boggles my mind.  The second-to-second gameplay is just terrible!  The missions are so far apart that you have no option but to drive to them because walking/running is simply not viable.   And when you do get there, the combat is over before you know it, and then you’re back on the LONG road again!  I’m totally bemused.

The sad thing is if the mission system would allow tracking of more than one mission at a time and were closer, I’d probably just burn the car, and travel on foot between them in the most logical way possible.

The other aspect that completely baffles me is 50% of the game is unplayable at the start.  When I say 50% of the game, I mean when night time falls.  And why?  Well, there are demons that spawn, and these demons are way too powerful for me to even contend doing battle with.  This forces you to stop questing entirely and instead forces you to return to your last rest spot to sleep till morning.  Which in my case, doing so, popped me over a mile away from the next mission objective!   I seriously don’t get the point to this.

Bear in mind though that I’m only two hours in.  Perhaps everything will just work itself out and come together, but right now I’m struggling to see how anyone would enjoy the initial experience of Final Fantasy 15.

Nothing I’ve experienced so far has come close to a single moment of the last Final Fantasy game I played.

I truly hope things get better!

Initial Score after 2 hrs of play

Full Playthrough Score after 25 hrs of play

Overall Impression:

Everything I said in the initial impression portion of this review… sadly… still stands.  If anything it gets worse.  The distances between missions become longer.  The loading screens more abundant.  I simply cannot fathom who thought this was a good idea.

Admittedly the travelling on foot at least gets a little better when you unlock choccobos, which can be done early on, around the 3-4 hour mark, but still, the first 15 hours just did not feel like Final Fantasy to me.

Another annoying aspect that infuriated me, was that if you have a 9 minute automated car journey set, (YES, I said 9 minutes!  But allow me to be crystal: there are car journeys that can be even longer if the destination is further) anyways, back to the point, let's say you decide to go do something else away from your console for the duration, like... to bash your skull against a wall because you hate the car so much!  Upon returning, sometimes you find yourself not where you expect.  Why? Because for some ungodly reason, one of your characters decided he wanted to take a photo of something, and because you weren't present and your response timed out, it automatically decided to take your lack of reply as confirmation that you wish to stop and do it.  The first time this happened I was furious!  I’d been gone almost 10 minutes and expected to be where I set the car to travel too, but no, I was outside the car, half way from my destination, with a new mission being tracked so my companion could take some pointless photo?! I was like what in the living hell is this (insert swear word)!

However, around the 9th chapter mark, Final Fantasy consisting of 14 chapters plus the prologue in total, it switches from its tragic open world affair in favour of going completely linear.   It was only during the last 10 hours did I start to enjoy myself with the game.  The story, the cutscenes, the gameplay all unravelling before me in true Final Fantasy fashion.

It should be stated, that though you are locked into this portion of the game, you still have the option to revisit the open world segment to partake in monotonous open world travelling, oh, and to complete option side quest content by returning to any resting point and calling forth Unbra.  A dog who is the faithful servant to Lunafreya.  Through him, you can revisit your memories and in essence, travel back in time to when you were still in the open-world part of the game.  This, in essence, allowing you to escape the confines of the linear world Final Fantasy becomes.  This feature becomes available later in the playthrough.  And at any time you are free to return to the present again and continue your mission with any XP gained, or items you have acquired, by speaking with Umbra again when at a rest point.  It was an interesting mechanic.  One I used only once to see how it worked before quickly returning to the present.  I just could not stomach doing a single moment of side content again.  Which is sad, because this also means I did not really feel like exploring the open world.  And normally it’s this type of action that is rewarding in Final Fantasy games, but in truth, the concept of spending a single moment more than I had to on foot or in that car was a taste I did not want to offend my mouth with a second longer than I had to!

But, as I said, once you hit that portion of the game where it turns linear it thankfully becomes fun, but sadly you don’t really get much room to explore off the beaten path.  So when I say’s linear, know that I mean it in every sense of the world.

However, there’s still a lot good in Final Fantasy 15.  And even though I hated 50% of my time with it, the overall score rating is still high.  This is clearly denotable by looking at the breakdown of that score because aside from the initial gameplay and the replayability that scored low, every other aspect scored highly.

Take combat for example.  Aside from the areas I’ve already mentioned in the initial segment of this review, upon finding three of the royal arms, which I will talk about next, it unlocks another feature that it calls the Armiger ability.  This, also unlocking a related skill tree too, bringing the total skill tree count to 9.

This armiger ability is a bar that fills up as your character engages in combat, it’s a bit like a limit break.  Each successful strike filling a portion of said bar.  When filled and activated by pressing the R1 and L1 buttons simultaneously, it unleashes the full power of the royal arms you have collected thus far, giving you untold speed and strength till the bar is depleted or combat ends.   This, in essence, turns every single one of your strikes into a warp-like attack and is insanely powerful.  The total duration, if whatever you were facing is still alive that is, feels sufficient enough in duration that makes the ability fun to use.  It also fills up rather quickly too if you are spending your time more and more in combat.

Another aspect I loved about the feature, was that if combat does end before the bar depletes, you retain any of that bar.  This is very handy, because it does not penalise you if combat ends abruptly or before you had intended, say, you exit the combat area by accident for example.

However, I did have some problems triggering it at times, this is because the L1 button also controls your companion’s abilities.  So you have to be absolutely spot on when you press both buttons, else you’ll bring up their interface and not trigger the armiger when you might need it most.

This armiger ability comes into play when you attain your first three royal arm weapons.  These are weapons that only Noctis can wield, being a descendant of the past kings of old.  There are 13 in total, each weapon scattered across the world in tombs.  Some you will find as you embark upon the main missions, others, only if you explore.  For the most part they can be found and are the reward for reaching the end of what Final Fantasy calls its dungeons.

These dungeons are actually rather well implemented and prove not only diverse but challenging.

In regards to the weapons themselves, other than being extremely powerful, there is one aspect about them you should know.  And that’s that they drain your health points each time you successfully land and hit with them.   I understand why this was done because the weapons are just that powerful, but at the same time found myself hardly using them.  The only time I did use them completely is when I triggered the Armiger ability; because it didn’t drain my health.  Still, I enjoyed picking my moments and deciding when to make use of them.

Another aspect to combat that I did make plenty of use of though was the companions techniques.  These, in essence, the closest thing you will get to situational summoning.  Each of your characters having a special ability that when you trigger will see them perform whatever technique you have assigned them to do.  These techniques often ending with a timed event, which if you are successful in achieving, will see you landing a linked strike too for extra damage.

These techniques are powered by a separate bar, which like the armiger bar fills up in combat.  But unlike the armiger bar does so regardless of you landing strikes.  Certain techniques cost more to use, but in essence, if the bar is at max, you can chain these techniques if you can afford to cast them.

Sadly though, these technique abilities pale in comparison to the memories I have of summoning in Final Fantasy 7.  If anything these companion abilities are more like companion limit breaks if anything.  So where is the summoning in Final Fantasy 15?!

Well, it has them, you just hardly get to use them, which is a shame, because when you do use them they are absolutely breathtaking.  Finally! Something in Final Fantasy 15 equals my memory of Final Fantasy 7!

The attainment of these stunningly EPIC summons, comes in a similar form to how you attained certain summoning abilities in Final Fantasy 7.  You have to defeat the god first before you can summon it.

These battles are extremely challenging, but also extremely rewarding as they are totally different to normal combat situations.  I won’t tell you more as I think you will appreciate finding out for yourself.  However, there’s a catch, a problem that completely sours these summons.  And that’s that in the 25 hours it took me to complete Final Fantasy 15, I only summoned each of the four gods once.  That right, I only got to summon them once each.  One in fact is totally only summonable once even if I wanted to summon it again.

This is because you are only able to trigger them when you meet certain requirements in battle, for me it seemed more likely when I was in low health or was in combat for too long.  Two things that I was often not, which explains why I only saw each once.

This greatly disappointed me. I absolutely loved summoning in Final Fantasy 7.  I loved exploring and trying to attain the most powerful summoning abilities the game had to offer.  And to not have this in Final Fantasy 15 not only ruined it for me, it tainted my opinion of the franchise and what it is to come if this is any indication of the direction they are taking it.

Another aspect that differs in Final Fantasy 15 to 7 that I did not like, was that at the end of each battle, though your earned XP, the amount you attained different depending on certain attributes of how you fought, the XP is not directly awarded to your characters.  Instead, it builds up and only is rewarded when you go and rest at a resting spot.   The only benefit to this was, certain resting spots grant a bonus to the amount of XP you have attained.  1.5x the amount you have gained for example.

However, this meant that I never really felt like I was getting stronger after each encounter, and instead had to pull myself out of what little fun I was having to fast travel to a rest spot, first enduring a loading screen of course, then level up, and then return to wherever I was to carry on.  This was horrendous!  Completely detracting me for any remnant of fun I was having as already stated.

From an RPG perspective though the game shines in some aspects but lacks in others.  For one, your character can equip any of the different weapon types:

• Swords
• Great Swords
• Polearms
• Daggers
• Firearms
• Shields
• Machinery
• Royal Arms
• Spells

Whereas your companions are restricted to the weapons they specialise in.  What I loved though, was that each of your attacking animations for your character would alter depending on the weapon you were using.  So from that perspective combat always felt fun and very different.

Other than weapons, you can also equip accessories, which can alter any of your stats depending on the item.   You and your characters start with one slot to begin with, but you can increase the slots through the stats ascension skill tree.  Three max per character.  You can also change your attire, but apart from the ones I seem to have by default, only one of which seems any good, stat wise, and I never attained any different suits in the 25 hours it took me to complete the game.  Saying this though, I did not do all the optional content, so there could more powerful suits out there.

In regards to skills, not to be mistaken with ascension skills, your character has the fishing skill, and each of your companions has their own unique skill too.  Survival, Cooking and photography.  These skills levelling up whenever they are used independently of the XP you earn in battle.

You can expand these skills and view the reward for each rank, of which there are 10 ranks, however, you are unable to see an explanation or get further information on what the rewards do.  Some being a little ambiguous.

I realise that I have not mentioned magic at all yet.   And these come in the form of three types.  Fire, Lightning and Ice.  You start the game with 1 flask, but as you play can unlock more.  I attained six in my full playthrough.

In a nutshell, you can craft spells to use in combat, you can only craft a spell if you have a free flask.  You can equip a flask to you d-pad quick select like you can weapons allowing usage of said spell in combat.  The flask will hold three spells of the created type and has a rather lengthy cooldown to prevent you spamming it.  When you have cast all three spells, the flask can be reused, so you don’t just lose it.

To create spells, you first need to attain elemental energy.  These can be found in the world, normally near to campsite locations, and you can absorb up to 99 points of energy per type.   Once you have some energy, you can then select the corresponding type and decide how potent you want it to be.  This meaning how powerful the spell will be and increase its damage.  For example, if you have a full inventory of 99 fire, and construct a fire flask of a potency of 99, this will create a flask of three fire spells which will do the most fire damage your fire damage will do.  You can, of course, choose to construct two flash worth of fire spells, splitting the 99.  This giving you 2 sets of three fire spells.  But you can create a spell ranging from potency 1 right up to 99.

Items or potions are nothing new in the Final Fantasy ‘verse.  All the usual suspects are there.  Hi-Potions, Phoenix Downs.  All the ones you know and love.  Occasionally you can attain these in combat, but more often than not, you will find them from picking them up in the world as you explore about.

You can also purchase these of course from vendors at outposts, but also can order them whenever you like from the menu, which I liked, only because it saved me traipsing all the way to a vendor to buy more.

You didn’t think I’d forgotten about them, had you?  Choccobos!  These can be attained rather early on, thankfully, after that is you complete the quest which is prevented them from being used.   You only attain one, but it can be levelled up, which is done the more you use them.  Levelling them up increases their sprint speed, their speed in general and their stamina bar.  They can also unlock attack moves, which will see them occasionally helping you out in combat.  I loved them to be honest.  They were very fun to ride around on.

Considering this is an open world game, that switches into a linear game, you must be wondering what happens when the game ends?  Well, after it ends, you are returned to the main menu.  If you want to complete the optional content you have left you can, but to do so you must load the last save before you completed the game.

However, the game does unlock a gameplus mode after you complete it.  This in effect carries over absolutely everything you attained in your first playthrough; level, gear, skills, etc… into a completely reset new game, with two exceptions.  The Engine Blade, which resets to base.  And your hunting rank which resets too.  

Sadly, the game does not unlock a different difficulty though, nor does the content scale, so you basically start the game very overpowered.  Still, this does mean you can continue levelling your team and maxing out your ascension skill tree if you hadn’t already.

In regards to the story. It’s a Final Fantasy game. It’s got it all.  Love.  Friendship.  Loss.  Betrayer.  Twists. Turns… do I need to go on? However, because I never really connected with the game, I never really felt anything or connected with the characters, which was a shame.  Because I remember being so connected and invested in Final Fantasy 7, so much so, that there are moments which will always be with me.

Graphically the game looks really good, and I only experienced a frame rate drop when first getting on to a Chocobo for some strange reason.   Bug wise is relatively clean in the version I was reviewing.  The only issue of note to mention was the annoying problem that you have to be completely still to interact with something.  This is made worse because your character does not immediately stop moving when you try to stop him.  Meaning you’ll often run up to a prompt, press the button to interact, but because you are still in motion will instead jump, and then have to wait for your jump to end before you can try and interact again.

I’m torn.  Some aspects of Final Fantasy 15 are absolutely terrific. Yet others are exceptionally horrendous.  The first 15 hours for me were that bad that I just wanted to stop playing it.  The only reason I carried on was that when I commit to reviewing a game I always complete it to give a full account and to weigh it fairly.

However, by the time it picked up, this coincidentally happening around the same time the game turned linear, (read into that what you will) I had not really connected with any of the characters as much as perhaps I might have had if I had been enjoying myself more.  Because of this, key emotional moments of the story failed to resonant and impact on me as much as they did when I played Final Fantasy 7.   Because of this, the story failed to hit that emotional cord, nor do I think I’ll remember it.

There were some brave decisions made with Final Fantasy 15, and I applaud that bravery, sadly they did not pay off though for me.  I spent more time on loading screens and walking miles between quests to get swept away by the story.

It’s not a total loss though, and I can see with a few tweaks and changes 15 could be the foundation for a truly epic next instalment.  However, for me, 15 was an experience I wished I had never had. I’m keen to follow and see where they take the franchise, but I truly hope they fix the second-to-second gameplay else they will have lost a fan.

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Until Dawn: PS4 Gameplay

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