Final Fantasy XV First Impressions

I don’t play video games. It hurts my wrists and I can’t type a bunch and play in the same day. Causes my tendonitis to flare up badly, and then I can’t write. So I’ll repeat, I don’t play video games.

Except for Final Fantasy. 

I loved XIII. I know a lot of people didn’t, but I did. I thought XIII-2 was excellent as well, though a bit more of a slog, and unfortunately, my PS3 pooped out so I didn’t get around to Lightning Returns. I have the game, I hope to play it some day.

So I haven’t played another video game in earnest (outside of a couple of mario kart sessions or smash with my kid) since about 2012. I opted to splurge for XV as well.

Last night I did some prep work after picking the game up when it went on sale at Game Stop at 9 PM — I researched a bit about the game, watched the Conan O’Brien mocking it (which is funny and worth youtubing), and then watched the prequel movie that came with it.

I found the movie to be a bit nonsensical in that it glossed over important bits, really delved into world stuff that was bad for the pacing…. and then had gorgeous CGI visuals that one would expect. At the end of it, I thought it was a bit too long for the fight scenes, a bit too light on the plot, but I’m interested in the world. Not nearly as cool of a world as XIII, but Eos holds my attention.

Then I watched the anime, Brotherhood. This was a slice of life goofy kind of anime, 5 episodes long, really great character pieces for the main protagonists. I was pleased. Rate the anime a solid B+. With this, I was primed to start my game.

I’m about 2 hours in right now, won’t spoil much and don’t really have anything to spoil other than a couple of tidbits like “we’re going on a road trip!” amidst some confusion as to how this all ties in with the movie (certain events in the movie seem to not match up timeline wise).

Here’s my takeaways so far:

• Visuals are beautiful. A given. I don’t like that all the characters are wearing black trenchcoats VII style, they blend together too much.
• Quests are a bit grindy. It’s open world and reminds me a lot of the back half of XIII.
• The battle system is WEIRD. I am not sure i like it. I’m not sure I don’t. I know I’m bad at defense. When there’s a lot of enemies the camera becomes a bit of a cluster and that’s irritating. You have to hold down buttons and mash a bit, which is the opposite of what I like about RPGs for the wrists.
• Leveling system seems cool so far, not sure about it yet.
• I’m not sure about the storyline. I’ve been wandering around and all that a bit much and haven’t gotten far.
• I like that there’s extra skills with cooking and fishing and the like, very WoW-esque in a good way.  Magic being from gathering elements and crafting spells is cool too.

And that’s it. We’ll see how far I get into it before my wrists give out  or if I get bored. Will let you know. So far, don’t love as much as XIII, but am enjoying.