while this game has its flaws in story pacing and plot, the characters and atmosphere brought me to love it so much. i literally finished the entire story in 3 days bc i was having to much fun and couldn’t get enough of those 4 silly guys…. i still come back to it a lot since im trying to unlock all achievements at some point. don’t listen to what all the haters say abt ffxv this game is my baby!!!!! 🙏 it was also my very first final fantasy game so it will always hold that special place in my heart, i will always miss playing it for the first time </3

I knew this game had a fairly mixed reputation going in, but I had heard enough good surrounding it to justify giving it a whirl. What I found was a game that, despite being rough around the edges in plenty of areas, has a lot of heart and soul baked into it. I played the Royal edition which featured DLCs that weren't a part of the base game, and frankly I can imagine the experience feeling incomplete without them. On top of that I know there are multiple pieces of supplemental content such as a movie and a short anime series that provide some insight on the plot which likely make the experience far more coherent than having just played through the story.

The game really shines in the way it portrays the bonds between the four leads and their adventure to fulfill what is ultimately Noctis' destiny. As you play through the game you start to realize these are more than just friends, they're brothers that will do anything for one another no matter how rough things get along the way. The story could've certainly been told better if the aforementioned additional content was all found within the game itself, but what the main plot lacks in substance is made up for in the interactions between the main cast as you drive across landscapes and work through hunts or assisting the locals with whatever tasks they need help with. The DLC episodes also help to strengthen your connection to the characters even more by giving you a deeper look into how each of them feels and what their motivations look like in relation to the others and themselves.

As for some negatives however, there are two big ones that come to mind: Combat and Side Content. In terms of combat, despite a seemingly in-depth skill tree and the ability to swap to the characters not named Noctis (which apparently wasn't in the base game), many of the enemies you face often feel far healthier than they should and many don't experience the level of hitstun you would expect from other games in the action genre. Gear is a bit underwhelming as it's usually just stat-related and doesn't change how you play (barring the absurdly broken Ragnarok DLC weapon that for some reason is given to you immediately), and it leads to combat feeling overall just decent and nothing more.

My issues with side content largely come from the nature of the quests themselves as well as the sheer amount of it thrown at you consistently throughout the game. It's sort of a Catch-22 scenario where not only does a lot of the side content feel like busy work with a somewhat inconsistent fast-travel system being your main mode of transportation, but doing TOO MUCH of the plethora of side content you're offered will frequently cause you to feel overlevelled for the story content. Also, many of the game's most wholesome and fun interactions between the boys come from said side content so you're basically forced to artificially limit your experience at times if the experience boost is something you'd like to avoid. There are ways to circumvent this (such as an accessory that prevents use of EXP, or avoiding using mutlipliers for said EXP as much as possible) but I feel as if this could've been avoided by changing the way side content was handled.

I could probably go on further with both positives and negatives here, but I'll cut it short and just say that even with its issues I would recommend at least giving it a shot at some point if you're even remotely interested. As someone who has recently started gaining more of an interest in Final Fantasy as a franchise I'm glad I experienced it and see just what made it the talking point it is today.

"They're not your bodyguards. They're your brothers."

Firstly, I would like to clarify that I am devastated by the ending and will never smile again.

Okay, talking about the game now. The attempt at an open world is good until you get tired, because basically in it you just walk around with the Regalia and do repetitive and boring side missions. The story is very good, but there is important lore told superficially. Without a doubt, the greatest asset of the game is the friendship between the 4 characters and their interactions, aaaaa how I loved these boys and I already miss them even though I finished the game 10 minutes ago, the OST is obviously incredible too and I had a lot of fun in combat too, although it's a bit messy, once you get used to it it's just fun.

I know a game story worked on me when the last part of it moves me a lot. I liked this group of friends and their roadtrip. The focus on their journey shadowed Lunafreya, ok, but it made everything more powerful because you do feel for Noctis. The DLC should have been in game instead but Prompto or Ignis story worked on me a lot.
Music wise, Yoko Shinomura did a perfect job.
The open world is pretty but there is nothing to do there unfortunately. It's the big flow of this game. No minigames just hunts.
But i loved it and it's not the bad game I heard about. And to know it ended Hajime Tabata's career while he took over Tetsuya Nomura's chaotic development is so unfair imo.