"Seeing you here now, ...it's more than I can take."

nobody told me this was the greatest pleb filter ever released in the videogame industry

final fantasy xv is a deeply flawed game I can attest to that and even tho I KNOW this experience has a lot of different problems in every single part of it like im not joking this is a broken vase fixed with duck tape dripping water and held together by who knows what kind of divine power but I cannot even lie in the fact that I enjoyed every single moment of the game the highs are high and the lows are low and either way people put WORK into this there was a good chance this game wouldve never come to life and I wont let this work go unrecognized for another second

this game being the new installment of a series where every single game is fucking different from the other one they scrapped everything in the games before this one and opted for a modern fantasy in the world of eos with a tale between humans and gods

that being said the modern fantasy setting is honestly so fucking good and also kind of weird because seeing people straight out of modern day japan do silly stuff like magic spell bombs or feudal wars or … monarchy ??? who does that (they informed me that japan still has monarchy im so sorry imperial house of japan I will commit 300+ hours of utawarerumono reading) so yeah the modern fantasy is SICK as shit

before I get into story beats territory I will first get into everything else territory and I'm trying to be more streamlined in my reviews because I'm already preparing some stuff for other games im not a free guy

art design absolutely jawdropping of course I'm the first guy to say "ugh graphical fidelity doesn't mean the game looks good it's not a 1 on 1 equation" ok this game looks GOOD every character is rendered to fucking heaven and back don't get me started on gladio already or I'm gonna go crazy

there's definitely a lot of different beautiful sceneries in eos and while most of the overworld doesn't have that much of a variety it's either desert or grass unless you get into a dungeon (and that stuff is definitely more interesting I gotta say) most of the time this is what you'll see do I care ? no going around these lands is absolutely a fucking experience and it never stops being as jawdropping as it sounds you can definitely see a lot of work to create this land filled with all kinds of monsters and side stuff to do so youre gonna spend a LOT of time here and even when they add some new sceneries allegedly Venice city its still a visual treat they really know how to push worlds and cities to the utmost potential (I played some ff13 and I remember that game having more variety this so there's a compliment im gonna give that game) even tho Venice City is a pain in the ass to traverse I spent 1 hour trying to get to that fucking bar

that being said the main focus of the game is definitely the combat and while I have my gripes with it its SO fUCKING FUN UGHHH I don't know why I'm so crazy about the combat but the entire progression of the battles is so interesting to me theres different swords you can use different techniques to exploit and the fact that you can teleport and do shit is pretty fucking dope now its not all fun and good im not a huge fan of how spells were toned down to fucking bombs and the summons are secluded to cutscenes and dungeons are not really the best place to fight in since there's absolutely no fucking place to teleport to BUT this all gets balanced by the fact that you get to do some party actions like finishers and shit or command your friends to do some special moves so I can actually excuse all that jank also I'm ff8 and ff12 #1 fan of the combat mechanic so like I'm not the one to talk

the combat doesn't actually get more intricated than that you're already with your full arsenal of moves AND THEN skill tree to upgrade your stats and movesets boom jumpscare . now listen I love skill trees to death so I'm just gonna leave this here

so yeah I mean for somebody else this is probably gonna be a game breaker but I honestly had so much fucking fun just approaching a bunch of enemies and decimating them there's really nothing really bad that I can say about this PART of the game so moving on

the ost is spectacular and to prevent myself to actually link 30 soundtracks that nobody listens to im gonna move forward before something bad happens

shall we address the elephant in the room now . the story now I'm a huge big fucking fan of this plot but it makes me also incredibly angry that it was handled like juggler balls everything is falling apart at the seams and you can do nothing but see this game add and add to the already jank fire the whole premise of noctis trying to get to luna for their wedding while the whole geopolitical welfare is combusting on itself starting from the death of his beloved father is such a great premise that sets a huge tone to the different events that you're gonna see but the meat of the game is certainly … lacking and the fact that I completed this game in like 25 hours which means that the story probably took up 80% of that means that its also underdeveloped to a fault like not only does this game have a bad execution it also has very little time to actually get some shit done and thats a huge fucking shame

now this doesn't mean I didn't love it again I absolutely fucking loved what was presented here and while I certainly feel some story beats couldve been smoothed what was here I genuinely enjoyed theres a lot of great moments that add a lot to the game like venice city being the center of a battle between gods and humans and the absolute climax surrounding luna you know what I mean or like the entirety of the final arc being also somewhat lacking but is definitely the whole culmination of what the game was striving for since the beginning and I can't really l hate it for trying to actually convey an interesting story with twists and turns here and there with some moments that embarrassingly enough left me without any tear in my eye whatsoever im not joking yall (sure there's a lot of weird points to be made like the whole shiva affair or the fact that the leviathan battle is basically both a high point and a lot point because the gameplay is just button smash and shit or the fact that most of the story missions are just "let's go to this imperial base and fuck it up" for like 5 times until the plot actually moves forward)

so that being said what actually lured me in was the characters and the vibes

like you cannot tell me that it doesn't feel good going around with the boys just chatting and telling each other how much they want to suck their duck off or them just goofing around while defeating people like the whole idea of the different skills for characters gives them a lot of individuality and I gotta say the pics prompto takes are probably my favorite part of the entire game I gotta say it's just SO FUCKING GOOD sitting in front of the campfire just looking at the different events of the day with your favorite gay bunch i was on a roll I just loved the vibes there don't @ me

while I certainly do feel the story is somewhat lacking I'm a huge fan of these characters don't get me started sure they're also not that much of an improvement over the story writing but they're just UHHHHHHHH they're chemistry is so fucking good I cannot

noctis is your typical emo protagonist with some deep trauma happening into his life so he's always kind of down BUT that's actually why the other guys are there to cheer him up to say hey man we got your back AND your ass teehee no biggie cues bareback gay sex and his character development throughout the game is pretty cool specifically for the final part of the game which yeah it couldve also been expanded on but I digress

prompto is cloud but more twink and less traumatised (kinda) and thats what makes him so special he's such a fucking goofball always trying to make people smile with how stupid he looks he's honestly great I love him hes my sweet little baby and I will protect him dearly

ignis is … he umh … he can cook

gladio guys I umh ….. I'm so fucking horny for him I literally saved every single pic with him in it he's absolutely gorgeous he got tits he got ass he got a great personality and has that older brother typa character flare that I really so love in my man he's just UGHHHH why the fuck did they make him that hot literally 90% of my playthrough was thirsting on the boy going "he's so strong and … so tall and so … so big hahah" and now cue the copypasta

this is a message that gladio sent me:

"My penis is so large I just cannot lug it around any longer. It is so insanely huge and has caused so many problems in my life. I cannot go to airports as they think I am sneaking something in. so everytime I go, I get groped as they try to take my penis off thinking its a bomb. I cannot pleasure women as they are so horrified at the sight of my cock, that they immediately run away. My mother and father disowned me after seeing the length of my shaft. Not only is it extraordinarily long, it is just too thick. I cannot sexually relieve myself as my hands are just too small to masturbate.

My humongous cock has ruined my life. I resent God for cursing me with this large chunk of meat that just drags across the ground. Doctors tell my I will never be able to get a penis reduction as they would have nowhere to put the penis. It would just take up far too much room.

I had a girlfriend when I was a young lad, she loved me for who I was and did not care for this deformity, but one day... I took off my jeans and my penis flung out, smacking her and flinging her out the window. She died 2 hours later in the hospital. She was the only woman who ever loved me. My penis is just... too ginormous. It has caused problems for myself and the people around me. For this reason, I will be ending it all. My penis has taken over my life... but it cannot take over a life that does not exist."

you take the conclusions

side characters are also a treat I definitely enjoy iris a damn lot and I liked her interactions with noctis which made me rethink the entire noc x luna fanfic in my head but then they showed me a flashback of them being cute as kids and telling each other they're gonna be together forever and I was like naaaaaah this is my shit and cidney is actually there just to be sexualised which is fine she has a nice personality to boot tho I love machinist girls don't get me started and now then even tho lunafreya sure wasnt the most complex or explored character of the entire game is actually a damn good female heroine that got me swooning every time she was on screen im sorry im a women's man

and shiva has big tits I guess

true spotlight to the fucking majestic ardyn who yes smells like shit yes doesn't take his skincare too strictly and yes his dick probably has cheese but do I care ? no bon appetite yall

ardyn is incredible every time he was on screen I was edging to hell and back I could take it no longer /srs and im still angry as shit that his villain origin story wasn't as explored as I wanted to (sure we got that in the dlc but I wanted MORE) and still he's one of my favorite people in the entire game and a damn good #2 of my most searched ff15 on rule34 guess who's the first one

to conclude whatever I was going for with this review I wanted to say SPOILER TERRITORY,


the foreshadowing of lunas death on the title screen is absolutely fucking jawdropping I wasn't really sure it was luna until I finished the game and the portrait of noctis was added next to her to the title screen I was actually BAWLING you don't get it nobody gets this game the whole scene where lunafreya dies is an absolute tear jerker the entire final arc is filled with nothing but grief the good days of going around eos taking pictures and being silly goofy are over and you're only left with your duty to save the world

also the characters are uglier when they're older like even gladio is uglier which i thought would've been an impossible task I like promptos goatie tho

i think i made every argument I wanted to talk about and again for everything that this game did wrong I could not for the life of me hate i was having a blast for the entire playthrough and I just wish it was longer to actually flesh out the entire story accordingly because as of now it definitely feels way more than unfinished

if any of you come for me just know I wont be listening to you I'm too busy listening to somnus byeeeeee

PS square need to fucking optimise games for pc following gods word because my god this one and ff7r are actually so fucking laggy how do you even fuck it up that bad