Final Fantasy XV is No Longer the Game that Square Enix Once Introduced as Final Fantasy Versus XIII

There has been a recent debate as regards to the role-playing game Final Fantasy XV which was released by Square Enix on the gaming consoles in November last year. Apparently, there are notions saying that Final Fantasy XV is the same game as the “Final Fantasy Versus XIII” that was started by game director Tetsuya Nomura, during the early development of the game.

[Blu3_Berry]

One of my main issues with the last few final fantasy games were the story being overly convoluted. I appreciate that XV went wit a simpler straightforward approach for the story/plot. While I do think the character development could use some work, I think it was for the best. I also like that its very easy to get back into if you take a long break from playing it. You shouldn't be too lost in the story or anything and should be able to pick back where you left off which is a major plus.

[Eamon]

FF1-10 weren't convoluted. Perhaps FF13, and the convolution was due to bad storytelling. FF15 however has barely any story that I could scarcely believe as I played it.

The reality was, the development of FFvs13 till the launch of FF15 was plagued by a tsunami of problems. Some were due to the technology, some were due to Square's inexperience, and some due to bad management.

Plot was just of two unforgivable things in FF15. The second was post-Chapter 9 where the game is very unfinished. It's clear that the 'choice' to make it linear after Chapter 9 had nothing to do with story. It was because that half of the game was barely done.

[Chaosdreams]

Wonderfully said.

[Becuzisaid]

I agree the second half was incomplete. But I felt the story was very strong, if you count the anime and movie. It put you in the shoes of Noctis from the first moment, and almost everything was from solely his perspective. The story being played out as radio broadcasts I think made you feel like a small piece of a very large conflict.

SPOILER

The only thing I was truly disappointed with was how they handled Tenebrae(?) and the death of Luna's brother. I felt they tried to make him be any ally all along and it just didn't make sense. His boss fight was awesome though.

[Dacapn]

Yeah I guess we definitely disagree. FFXV has my second favorite story in the series. Ardyn's story is the missing piece. I'm not going to spoil anything but if you look up his backstory, it makes the entire game make sense. The storytelling was definitely the problem. To tell his story would require a complete overhaul of the game, but I guarantee that would have resulted in delaying the game until 2017 or even 2018 so instead they went the dark souls route and told his story through the lore in the game (cosmology books).

So long story short, since we're comparing ff13, Final fantasy 13 had a bad story that was told poorly. Final fantasy 15 had a great story that was told poorly. Outside of that, the gameplay and world is absolutely amazing. My top 3 ff games are ff7, ff9, and ff10. 15 is number 4 only because of the story telling. If they got that right, it would have been my 2nd or third favorite.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

FFXV was a terrible story, it's obviously there was a lot missing so we end up with something like: "and then stuff happened". It's story was weak, the characters were weak, it's a pretty forgettable game, plot-wise. They had the potential for a good story, but they obviously needed more time to flesh it out. There was no foreshadowing or details about what was going on and we had long stretches of little or no plot and character development. I care for none or these characters or their world, I hope they do better with the next FF.

[Adrian_v01]

XII's story could be seen as convoluted, XIII was rather comprehensive, the prior ones too. Tidus being a dream was somewhat 'the hell?' but yeah.

I'm just sad that what was supposed to be the darkest FF yet turned into a cliche friends save the world from ultimate evil story. Especially the last scene felt like a shoehorned happy ending and left me rather disappointed.

[Last_Boss]

XIII had one of the easiest, even after not being flushed out past data logs. From my point of view.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

This is what I like about chapter 13 in XV, you find all these research papers and logs that help flesh out what was going on. Not enough of it to redeem the plot though.

[dkp23]

Ffxv dissapointing on so many levels. Bad story bad gameplay long load times.

[andrewsquall]

And you figured that out just now???