this review has now been five years in the making since I picked it up on launch day in 2016, with an over four-year gap where I couldn't touch the game at all. just a high schooler at the time, this was my first eighth gen title after spending the last three years playing only retro stuff, and my first significant open-world game as well. it's hung over my ps4 like a spectre since I got it... a massive 80 GB of space dedicated to a game I couldn't convince myself to finish. given that I'm clearing out my shelved games as the year comes to a close, I finally managed to pop it in and pick up where I left off, right at the start of two hours of absolutely atrocious gameplay that reminded me of why I put it down in the first place.
when I first played it, the sense of scale in the open world was still novel to me as to paper over the issues with it (it's crazy to think that I got to play botw just months after this). driving around in the regalia and listening to the banter immersed me into this world even as the plot started to lose me amidst its many poorly-explained events. the combat enthralled me as well, as the warp made the action snappy and the frequent links, parries, and assists kept me on my toes. I couldn't help but endlessly pursue side content, explore optional dungeons, and take on dangerous hunts. the interplay between the protagonists reeled me in further with how real they felt and how comforting their campfires were. in a lot of ways I still feel this is the game's crowning achievement: creating a "dudes rock" modern fantasy adventure that involves you in the minutiae of the characters' lives.
of course the game is blatantly unfinished, and once I got to the linear sections of the game it couldn't hold my attention anymore. the supporting cast shows a remarkable lack of empathy to noctis as he transitions from sort-of-a-dick to complete tragic hero, and bombards you with cutscenes chewing him out. I felt legitimately angry at the tonal whiplash at the time I got to these scenes and it drastically decreased my interest in continuing. every time I managed to pick it up I would get plunged into some compulsory combat sequence and then get subjected to more cutscenes I didn't care about. eventually I couldn't rationalize picking it up at all; it simply wasn't fun anymore.
that placed me right at the start of chapter 12 when I picked it up recently, and thus after about half an hour I got placed into the infamous chapter 13. no party members, warping, or swords, and instead wandering through endless identical hallways while magically killing simple enemies from afar and sneaking in some half-hearted stealth sections. what bothered me most about this part is that with the combat stripped back, I realized just how bare-bones it was prior in the game. at the end of the day whether swinging a sword or using the ring, it's just a matter of holding circle and dodging occasionally. warping adds speed and damage multipliers that enhance the experience quite a bit, and switching out elemental weapons to capitalize on weaknesses adds a bit of rigor and memorization, but these alone can't deliver combat that completely satisfies on a mechanical level. once noct's powers were restored and the gang was back together, it definitely felt like a more fleshed-out combat engine, but I couldn't help but think that the core of it simply doesn't have much variety or depth.
having now finished, I can at least say despite how terrible the back quarter is, the final bosses are good, and noctis looks great in his more mature form. at the end there's a moment where you get to look back on all of the pictures prompto has taken over the course of the game, and scrolling through these made so many memories flow back. it's odd to think that all of that fun was crammed into 30 hours, a remarkably short amount of time given "open world action rpg," with an extra five hours tacked on after that that wasn't great. even with such a forlorn end to the game, I didn't feel like I understood the characters any deeper than I did prior, or even the overarching plot (I watched kingsglaive as well, and at the end I literally did not comprehend a single second of what happened). I was tempted to jump back into the open world in order to begin trophy hunting, as the platinum isn't that bad, but I'm worried that the positive memories I do have will be wiped away. it's a weird feeling to have about a game I was so attached to when it came out, and I still don't quite know how to comprehend it.
when I first played it, the sense of scale in the open world was still novel to me as to paper over the issues with it (it's crazy to think that I got to play botw just months after this). driving around in the regalia and listening to the banter immersed me into this world even as the plot started to lose me amidst its many poorly-explained events. the combat enthralled me as well, as the warp made the action snappy and the frequent links, parries, and assists kept me on my toes. I couldn't help but endlessly pursue side content, explore optional dungeons, and take on dangerous hunts. the interplay between the protagonists reeled me in further with how real they felt and how comforting their campfires were. in a lot of ways I still feel this is the game's crowning achievement: creating a "dudes rock" modern fantasy adventure that involves you in the minutiae of the characters' lives.
of course the game is blatantly unfinished, and once I got to the linear sections of the game it couldn't hold my attention anymore. the supporting cast shows a remarkable lack of empathy to noctis as he transitions from sort-of-a-dick to complete tragic hero, and bombards you with cutscenes chewing him out. I felt legitimately angry at the tonal whiplash at the time I got to these scenes and it drastically decreased my interest in continuing. every time I managed to pick it up I would get plunged into some compulsory combat sequence and then get subjected to more cutscenes I didn't care about. eventually I couldn't rationalize picking it up at all; it simply wasn't fun anymore.
that placed me right at the start of chapter 12 when I picked it up recently, and thus after about half an hour I got placed into the infamous chapter 13. no party members, warping, or swords, and instead wandering through endless identical hallways while magically killing simple enemies from afar and sneaking in some half-hearted stealth sections. what bothered me most about this part is that with the combat stripped back, I realized just how bare-bones it was prior in the game. at the end of the day whether swinging a sword or using the ring, it's just a matter of holding circle and dodging occasionally. warping adds speed and damage multipliers that enhance the experience quite a bit, and switching out elemental weapons to capitalize on weaknesses adds a bit of rigor and memorization, but these alone can't deliver combat that completely satisfies on a mechanical level. once noct's powers were restored and the gang was back together, it definitely felt like a more fleshed-out combat engine, but I couldn't help but think that the core of it simply doesn't have much variety or depth.
having now finished, I can at least say despite how terrible the back quarter is, the final bosses are good, and noctis looks great in his more mature form. at the end there's a moment where you get to look back on all of the pictures prompto has taken over the course of the game, and scrolling through these made so many memories flow back. it's odd to think that all of that fun was crammed into 30 hours, a remarkably short amount of time given "open world action rpg," with an extra five hours tacked on after that that wasn't great. even with such a forlorn end to the game, I didn't feel like I understood the characters any deeper than I did prior, or even the overarching plot (I watched kingsglaive as well, and at the end I literally did not comprehend a single second of what happened). I was tempted to jump back into the open world in order to begin trophy hunting, as the platinum isn't that bad, but I'm worried that the positive memories I do have will be wiped away. it's a weird feeling to have about a game I was so attached to when it came out, and I still don't quite know how to comprehend it.
Dief88
2 years ago