Danlanvos
1 review liked by Danlanvos
I have found friends through Final Fantasy XV, both in-person and online. It reinvigorated my desire to write fanfiction after a fic of mine had gotten popular in another fandom and led to broken friendships. This game brought me to a better place and helped me when it felt like little else could. This game saved my life.
When I tell you that Final Fantasy XV saved my life, I mean that it was one of the few things keeping me mentally stable at my absolute worse. When my full-time job was incredibly difficult, I would motivate myself by promising to myself that once I was done, I could get home and play FFXV.
The warmth of FFXV's setting and the people in it, the life it had, the vibrancy... The Chocobros were never alone, because they always had each other, and in losing their home, they stuck together. When I played, it felt like I wasn't stuck alone for months. It felt like I was in the Regalia with those dorks, experiencing their adventure and coping with the loss of my childhood home right alongside them. It helped me look forward to a time in the future that wouldn't be so awful, where I would find a home again.
I tell you this so you know exactly how biased I am in talking about Final Fantasy XV.
Mostly putting aside my biases for a minute, however, I would call this game a very strong 8/10. It is an amazing, underrated game. The voice acting is particularly good in the English localization. Ray Chase as Noctis gives an absolutely career-defining performance, showing the main character's sensitive core and strong conviction in every syllable he utters. Darin De Paul steals the show as Ardyn Izunia in a performance so definitive to the character that I'm convinced only Darin could have played Ardyn. Robbie Daymond as Prompto is a fucking FANTASTIC choice that really shines in the Episode Prompto DLC when he's allowed to flex his dramatic acting chops.
But the effects of its gruesome development hell can be felt on the game to this day.
The characters and ambiance of that game are top-notch and draw you in, yet some characters get really shafted (Lunafreya is the most infamous example of this), the endgame is really... restricted? and doesn't really have the openness of the early and mid-game, they cut an enormous amount of content out, if you want to fully understand the context of the narrative you have to go to a bunch of resources that aren't even IN the game like an entire feature-length movie and an anime mini-series on Youtube, the English translation changed characters drastically in a bad way, and yet.
And yet.
Final Fantasy XV is still unquestionably one of my favorite games of all time because what it does right it does REALLY right, and it has more heart than a lot of other video games I've played. It's my favorite Final Fantasy, it has a deep place in my heart. Play it.
When I tell you that Final Fantasy XV saved my life, I mean that it was one of the few things keeping me mentally stable at my absolute worse. When my full-time job was incredibly difficult, I would motivate myself by promising to myself that once I was done, I could get home and play FFXV.
The warmth of FFXV's setting and the people in it, the life it had, the vibrancy... The Chocobros were never alone, because they always had each other, and in losing their home, they stuck together. When I played, it felt like I wasn't stuck alone for months. It felt like I was in the Regalia with those dorks, experiencing their adventure and coping with the loss of my childhood home right alongside them. It helped me look forward to a time in the future that wouldn't be so awful, where I would find a home again.
I tell you this so you know exactly how biased I am in talking about Final Fantasy XV.
Mostly putting aside my biases for a minute, however, I would call this game a very strong 8/10. It is an amazing, underrated game. The voice acting is particularly good in the English localization. Ray Chase as Noctis gives an absolutely career-defining performance, showing the main character's sensitive core and strong conviction in every syllable he utters. Darin De Paul steals the show as Ardyn Izunia in a performance so definitive to the character that I'm convinced only Darin could have played Ardyn. Robbie Daymond as Prompto is a fucking FANTASTIC choice that really shines in the Episode Prompto DLC when he's allowed to flex his dramatic acting chops.
But the effects of its gruesome development hell can be felt on the game to this day.
The characters and ambiance of that game are top-notch and draw you in, yet some characters get really shafted (Lunafreya is the most infamous example of this), the endgame is really... restricted? and doesn't really have the openness of the early and mid-game, they cut an enormous amount of content out, if you want to fully understand the context of the narrative you have to go to a bunch of resources that aren't even IN the game like an entire feature-length movie and an anime mini-series on Youtube, the English translation changed characters drastically in a bad way, and yet.
And yet.
Final Fantasy XV is still unquestionably one of my favorite games of all time because what it does right it does REALLY right, and it has more heart than a lot of other video games I've played. It's my favorite Final Fantasy, it has a deep place in my heart. Play it.