Final Fantasy XV is the newest installment in the Final Fantasy franchise. In the game, your character, Noctis, and his closest friends, Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis are planning on going on a trip before Noctis gets married to a princess named Lunafreya, but before they can embark on this desperate need of getting away from adulthood and being "tied down", they are informed that their kingdom has been attacked and that Noctis' father and many other people he and his friends know have been slain. After hearing this the four dudes embark on an adventure for revenge and answers as they bond with each other and try to bicker like idiots into America's heart.

Fantasy isn't truly a bad game, I wouldn't even say it's a meh game. It's a pretty damn great game. The characters are quite lovable and around the ending of the game, can't speak for all, but a lot of us got hit with the feels train as per usual when it comes to Square Enix games/JRPGs. But of course, this game ain't no gem. It's more like a diamond in the rough if you ask me or a pyrite jewel. Honestly, I was a bit annoyed with the game the first thirty minutes...and then confused 2 hours after that...and then frustrated, but also touched, in the last 40 hours. Now in the past few years, I started holding games to a higher standard than usual, meaning I will frequently be annoyed with video games but I won't give them a bad grade just because of simple, small changes. No, my complaints come from something I believe truly messed up the experience the games was trying so hard to create. With that being said, let's get into it.

Oh...and spoilers of course. If you didn't beat the game...honestly don't even know why you're here.

1. Missing plot.

My first problem with FFXV is my problem with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, except instead of a company firing their bread and butter, I believe this company, Square Enix, was possibly just way too ambition. If you were there, 2009, where you saw the second trailer for the mysterious and exciting FFXV, you witness the trailer giving off names of Square Enix employees that worked on previous Square Enix projects. At the time, I found it to be amazing, especially seeing names from Kingdom Hearts directors, ( ah the time where I thought Kingdom Heart's story actually made sense.). Looking back on it now, I believe that's what kind of jumbled the plot.
After reading a few message boards everyone has their own interpretations and reasons for why some things are the way that they are, like for me I too felt like the game was too short, but honestly looking back on it now, it's probably because the bosses were way too easy and the game doesn't necessarily allow you to "grind" as much as they did in previous games. Those matters are for another time; the plot is possibly one of my biggest gripes because I feel like it was a bit rushed, even if it was because of development issues or just a move the developers purposely chose, but I feel like the game could have benefited if things slowed down a bit for both the story-telling aspect and the character development aspect. I gotta give it to Square for the fact that it did keep me intrigued. I cared about characters and wanted to care about the story, keyword, wanted .I left my seat barely caring about the story because, once again, I think it went by too fast or at least wasn't organized well enough. On too many occasions I was left with the thought "wait what happened?" and "who the hell is this?"

These were small signs that maybe the game just wasn't finished or the creators were too ambitious, which I think is the best answer. The game was created by a vast talent of people who probably all had their own ideas or probably set a standard for their audience that was just way too high, whatever the case is, I still feel like if things were slowed down maybe the ending where we were confronted with all the memories before Noctis died would have actually hit us harder. (Or maybe we could have di all of the sidequests and reached level 99...I guess?)

2. Battle system and Choosing when I can use abilities and when I can't..

Hold square, Hold circle, Hold Square, Hold circle, try not to die. You died? Pop a potion. who cares.

If anyone asks, I enjoy Kingdom Hearts battle system a lot. So when I saw FFXV's battle system I thought I would have enjoyed it, but that has been proven false...at least a little false. I do love what the game allows me to do when I play as the emo hero, jumping around from place to place in such a badass fashion. Also, the moments when you partner up with your friends to deliver a critical hit on a foe, it's pretty cool as well, but it can get wonky and sometimes boring. I found myself having a lot of moments where I felt like the anime hero I always wanted to be, but then it just falls flat because the enemies just continuously and continuously attack me, thus having me hold down square button and just stare at my white ceiling for a bit until I realize I have to fight them. And a small note on the summonings, I get that they're super OP and the mana isn't the way like previous games so using them could be seriously broken, but I also don't like the summoning that much. To have summons by just luck and area or for just a small amount of usage is kind of lame. I remembered when I played the demo of FFXV and thought about how cool it would be to see all the summons used and how I would never get tired of it, only to find out that some of them are just used for plot furthering.
I want to also talk about the BS moments that occurred during puzzles or just free roaming. There were WAY too many moments in the game where I couldn't jump over something or couldn't warp to a certain spot...just because. We have characters that can jump 8ft high and a protagonist that can literally dash to any spot he wants, yet I can't jump over a fence because.... video game says so. It was frustrating to say the least, especially when they allow your character to survive high falls and warp to places that I never even imagined. I can warp at the end of the game where you fight Ardyn just for cinematic purposes. It's crazy.

3. Night-time.

This was a problem for me as well as this one Youtuber I watched recently; Nighttime is kind of annoying. I do enjoy the whole freaks come out at night thing about the game because honestly I just think it's cool to have these creatures walking around at night and the dangers of traveling at night, but to find myself fighting a monster 30+ levels ahead of me when I'm just trying to do a hunt for money because we don't earn money from killing monsters anymore was joy draining...to say the least. When I drive and I see a monster emerging from the dark abyss of hell I would like to not pull over and say hello to Satan, but to keep driving to get to the mission objective. This little feature killed the whole adventuring at night element of the game because I feel like I have to fight whatever the game throws on the road. And yes, I know you can just get out of the car and run away, wait for it to leave and then go back to your car to drive away, but that's pretty tedious.

4. Treasures (bonus)

Screw the treasures in this game. This isn't game breaking for me but it's once again a nuisance; don't let the player sell their treasures ignorantly, especially the high priced ones. Finding out you were selling an item that can help you unlock a special weapon or special items isn't fun...at all. I played a few games where a special item can be found in the "junk" or "treasure" section of the inventory but, from my memory, at least they said something that kind of warns the player. Like using buzzwords such as "mysterious glow" or "could be important." The items in this game usually had the description that their only purpose was to help the player make gil, not make the ultimate weapon for the protagonist (LOOKING AT YOU RUSTED BIT.)

...But in the end, should you buy FFXV? Yes.
Twenty yeses.

This game did a decent enough job for me to actually like it at the end, even though I was pretty much bitching the whole way. My thing is yeah, this game has its flaws but we had waaaay more games that have come out and were just absolute garbage to a point that we have to look past the flaws of games like FFXV and MGSV that did have shifty plots but handed us a pretty good time. There are debates out there whether you either hated the game or love it, ultimately it's up to the consumer. Play the game and you determine whether it was worth the 60 bucks.

But if you want my advice, just wait for a 49.99 price drop.