OK, I'm done with Final Fantasy XV for now until the next episodes come out. Ugh, where do I begin with this? I think what bothers me the most is they spent about a decade working on this game and this was all they could come up with. It's very beautiful, the OST is the best I've heard in a long time, and I enjoyed fighting shit and exploring the world, and although there weren't puzzles dungeon crawling was really fun. But it suffered from deep, fundamental flaws, which even I, an idiot in her room, could easily pinpoint and say the remedy. Warning, this shit is gonna be completely filled with huge spoilers.

The first are characters. Besides the protagonist Noctis they're so... bleh. I have no idea who they are or why they're with me. Maybe Gladiolus because he actually works in the royal guard, but the other two I still have no idea why they're there. I've heard that you need to watch the Brotherhood anime to know the backstory, but that's not fucking excusable. Way back on my xanga, I pointed out in Lost Odyssey I still didn't understand why any of the characters came from another world, and people told me you have to read the light novels to get the full story. Reading the peripheries should not be a requirement for anything. Imagine for a moment in Final Fantasy VII we didn't know about Barrett's violent background with Shinra. That would make his character a lot less interesting, wouldn't it? But now imagine that shit for literally everyone in that party, and you've got Final Fantasy XV. A side anime or novel should add to the experience — kinda like how the Tales of the Abyss novels presented how Peony and Jade met or how the manga explored how Peony and Jade's sister fell in love — but it should not be necessary for getting the full picture.

Then there's the plot. I think fundamentally it was a good and they created a thorough world, but it was not presented well ... or at all in some cases actually. Let's compare with Final Fantasy VII again for a moment. Cloud had two main enemies, Sephiroth and Shinra. Sephiroth was the focus, but Shinra was still a major force to deal with. I want you to imagine for a moment if we heard of Rufus but didn't actually see him once until his final moments, and of Shinra as whole perhaps we only saw Heidegger and Scarlet in two cutscenes lasting about ... thirty seconds each, and maybe saw Reno.... twice. That's kinda the empire in Final Fantasy XV:

1. Emperor Iedolas only appears when he's already a demon, and you never glimpse his human form. The player actually could've missed it entirely because only when you kill him does he spurt lines that allude to his identity, except in my playthrough he was cut off by Prompto saying one of his inconsequential one-liners. The only reason why I could even identify him as a person was because I saw Kingsglaive. If I hadn't I probably would've just shrugged the whole thing off.
2. The player meets the empire's top lieutenants in imperial bases littered across the countryside, but seeing them in there is so brief that when there's a final fight with two of them, I couldn't even remember who they were. Really I'm not writing down any names right now because I can't remember any of them.
3. The main opponent in the empire is Ravus, whom you see maybe ... three or four times? It's enough to leave an impression, especially because it's Luna's brother, but it wasn't enough to give that same sort of deep hate like with Reno, who fucking blew up an entire pillar to kill everyone in Sector 7. Ravus also was completely, utterly poorly written; there was one cutscene with his sister where he inexplicably changes sides. I'm still confused why that happened. (Speaking of which, in that cutscene Luna reveals she's sick and will die soon anyway; when the fuck did that become a thing? They did not mention that once before or once after that.)

The empire was completely minimized. If Square had given enough cutscenes of you fighting them like Cloud did with Shinra, it would've been fucking amazing. After all, that's really why Noctis is gathering up his ancestors' weapons and meeting with the summons; to take down the empire.

There's a point in the story when Noctis has to have some sort of diplomatic meeting with the leader of Altissia where the player could select Noctis' responses. As a whole I had a feeling whatever I said would have no consequence, but I think that was the prime example of what could've been: Imagine if Noctis had to travel to all sorts of client-states of the empire, meet with their leaders, negotiate with them, and slowly erode Emperor Iedolas' power base. How fucking cool would that be? Using the main continent as a launching point, we could've traveled to all sorts of places and met all sorts of people and cultures. Maybe some would betray us and we'd have to work around that. Or we'd fuck up in the talks and wouldn't get as many troops as we could or maybe none at all. That would've been amazing. Instead we just got one conversation that really didn't amount to anything.

And this is what really pissed me off: Chapter 13. I'm usually whining about the annoying sneaking mechanics in that part, but it really is where I feel the developers just stopped giving a shit. You get to the empire's capital, and there's literally no one there. If you read the notes lying around — if! It's not a requirement — you find out the plot of the game. It turns out demons are actually humans, and the empire developed ways to control these demons and shield them from the sun. All of the capital have been turned into demons as the research went out of control. There's no cutscene, nothing. How could you not do that? I don't get the same sort of deep emotions when you leave shit as scraps of paper on the floor, talking almost passively about people I've never seen. Again, let's compare to another game like Final Fantasy IX, which was fucking amazing at tugging the heart strings. They knew how to do a set up. You travel to Lindblum, walk around town, interact with the people and become friendly with them, even participate in their hunting festival. You have fond memories of that place. Which is why when Brahne tears that shit down with Atmos it is all the more horrifying. Garnet's anguished wails as she watches really are the player's. In Final Fantasy XV Noctis should've chatted with the locals, maybe did some sidequests with them, and then suddenly people you knew transform into demons and you have to kill them. Or maybe you find a friend is now under the helmet of a magitek soldier. That's how you fucking do it.

Then there's Ifrit. There are books lying around the entire game that explain years ago Ifrit betrayed the rest of the summons and is the one who's causing the long night and turning people into demons. Luna, or rather the oracle, was the one keeping his powers back somewhat and with her death the nights became never ending with demons all over the place. That's really fucking important to know, especially because you have to fight him in the end. Let's think about that at the moment. First, you may not find a lot of these books, called Cosmogony, because they're found lying on tables or whatever. Second, they're really fucking boring or confusing so I stopped reading them after a while. And third, because you find them lying around, there's so much time in between that they don't form a coherent, smooth narrative in your mind. Going back to Final Fantasy VII, imagine if all that background about Jenova were cut out except in some notes you find in the Shinra Building, some inn in Junon, the Shinra Mansion, and in Wutai for some weird reason. That wouldn't've nearly been as good as watching Sephiroth pacing around, learning about his mother. In fact, because I didn't read all these books, Moham had to explain to me about Ifrit in the end. That's bullshit.

And now Ardyn. Ardyn was interesting as a main villain. I give Square props for putting him out there early on and frequently throughout so we do feel some sort of attachment, but he too falls under the problem of being poorly written. He was chosen by the crystal itself to save those who were becoming demons. Although he was able to rescue countless people, he did it by absorbing the demonic qualities into his body. Eventually he was rejected by the crystal and the summons for being unclean, thrown out by another with Lucian blood (who later would become king and Noctis' ancestor), and he couldn't even find respite in death because the demon inside of him was keeping him immortal. All that's left in him in anger, bitterness, and hatred as he waited for centuries for the crystal to choose another champion that he could enact his revenge upon. It's a solid, good background. Unfortunately Square decided to throw all of this on you through Cosmogony, some notes left on the ground, and a ten-sentence speech by Ardyn. Again, it didn't really hit me when he revealed his true identity because I wasn't reading some of this shit. If Square had played its cards properly and shown glimpses of Ardyn's life he totally would've been a sympathetic villain. Yeah, he's doing wrong in the world and we gotta stop him, but I get where he's coming from. I'd be pissed off too. It also would've been totally cool seeing personally how he played the empire, much like Hojo and Shinra. But nope, we missed all of that shit.

I'm angry because I can see that this would've been a good game. I don't know if I would've ranked it alongside VII or IX, but there was really strong potential there. And I guess I'll never know because Square just fucked it up. Maybe they should've spent less time working on sidequests, which let's be honest takes up about 70% of the game. I'll see how the upcoming episodes are, but I doubt it's gonna change much.