3/5 ★ – xXWoodinatorXx's review of Final Fantasy XV.

Concise Review: Four Bros riding giant chickens across this weird fantasy sci fi half-open world filled with creative wildlife, and enemies. It’s a fucking weird one but it’s doing something unique. The combat and RPG mechanics are not explained well, but become more enjoyable once you get the feel for the game... but they still aren’t that good. Amazing: zilch Great: The monsters, wildlife and enemies are very creative and fun. Good: The goofy aesthetic and world building is entertaining and original. Fine: The story has some over the top fun moments once it picks up, but it’s also very hard to follow, and there are slow sections throughout, and sometimes the dialogue/writing is awful (probably due to translation), so overall it’s fine. The combat takes like 8 hours before it’s any good because the game doesn’t explain things well and it’s weird, but once you understand it then it’s actually reasonable and it looks sweet, although it’s not very challenging and it gets repetitive by the end of the game. Bad: The game does a bad job at the beginning explaining the game mechanics. It’s awkward to pick things up or talk to people. Side quests are very lame, a lot of generic fetch quests. Boss fights/action sequences are often lame from a gameplay perspective. Awful: Facial animations. The story and gameplay pacing is poor, especially at the start, to much driving or running around. The god damn load times are so frequent and so fucking long. Journal Style Review: 4 bros on a road trip! I get the sense that I’m going to be confused by the story a lot. Also very long load times. Side rant: I hate when fancy editions of games give you extra dlc weapons and items to start. It’s fucking stupid and wrecks the natural progression. I don’t want to use them. This game is so confusing to start that it was hard to tell what was an extra and what is original. I was using a stupidly overpowered sword for the beginning and it wrecks the combat. Not a strong start to this game. Pretty boring. RPGs often have a slow start since it takes a while to explain the game mechanics and set up the world so I’m not completely disheartened. But it still wasn’t a great opening hour or so. A lot of running around. The graphics look like they were good four years ago in some areas and just average in others. They are still fine now but not special. The monsters are the best early part of the game. Early on there has already been a couple cool ones. I hope there is a lot of variety in monsters. Idk if the combat will end up being that good though. It seems like it might be too simple perhaps. Very confusing start to this game storyline wise and game mechanics wise. I’m wondering if I’ve missed things because it feels like the game thinks I should understand what’s going on with the plot but I have no fucking clue. So many fetch quests to start. Very boring. I’m 2 hours in, I’ll give this another hour or so at least but if it doesn’t get better then I think I’m done. Its getting a bit better. The game finally threw a bit of combat in the mix. I’m getting a slightly better understanding of the gameplay loop as well. Right now I’m planning to mostly mainline the main storyline quests. If side quests seem interesting here and there I will give them a chance but so far I have seen nothing that suggests the side quests will be entertaining or necessary from a story or gameplay/upgrades perspective. I haven't played this game stoned yet... but I have a strong feeling this game will be better stoned. And the stoned session begins. It’s good. It makes it better for sure. Facial animations are absolutely awful. This game is weird. The car aspect is weird. This game is like half open world. Very slow load times. And too much driving from place to place. But I’m at least liking the combat and the world they have created a bit more. Pretty great enemies so far though. The animals and daemons and military creations are all sweet and fun to fight. I’m pretty confident I’ll give it at least 10 hours. It’s interested me enough for at least 10 hours. Very dumb find the frogs quest. Too hard to see. Not fun. The game does a very poor job from a quality of life aspect. But still the strength is in the wildlife and enemies. The night cycles come way too often. It’s a nuisance. Combat is slightly growing on me. But I’m also getting more annoyed at how long it takes to get to places. It takes too long to drive around and the night cycle forces you to do it more often than I’d like. Second stoned session begins. And it begins with a great new character Ardyn. I’m liking his ridiculous vibe. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again probably but FUCK these load times are so slow. Okay that titan mission was cool. Not that much actual gameplay but cool nonetheless. This game gets waaay better when stoned. I really should only be playing this game stoned. I’m finding a new sober game. Riding around on the birds is hilarious and way better than driving. Okay this main storyline stretch has been pretty great so far. I’m for sure going to finish this game. It’s convinced me of that much. It has something to offer once you can actually understand what type of game this is. What the vibe is. How to play to enjoy it the most. That medusa fight was pretty great. Are you kidding me! A giant wizard looking motherfucker in the sky throws his staff at the enemy base out of nowhere? I loved it. I need more of that and the titan in this game. And the chickens. Love the chickens. Pretty solid session from like the 7 till 11 hour mark. The best it’s been so far. If this trend continues it will climb the ranks. Finished chapter 7. The last few chapters have been pretty good. But again I’m going to try to mostly play this game stoned. It’s so much more fun when stoned. The Venice city is kind of boring and difficult to get around in. The leviathan fight wasn’t very good. Fighting a giant monster like that should be a lot cooler than it was. I’m still barely able to understand what’s happening story wise. I just completed chapter 11. And while I’m still liking it more than I originally thought I would. It’s getting a bit too slow paced again. It’s losing a bit of the steam it had building. I thought this would at least get to nier automata levels (mid tier B+, severely overrated but still has some goodness). I’m still sort of liking the aesthetic and weird style to the game, but there are so many load screens and a lot of walking and talking and driving. The combat is fun when it actually gets going. The set piece action scenes are pretty bad from a gameplay perspective. This story is so ridiculous and poorly written but I’ve just accepted that. Now I’m embracing it. It’s better. Need to be stoned though.... Jesus Christ it’s bad at times though. Some of these cutscenes are way too long. Also worth noting I’ve literally never died in this game yet. I don’t think I will die once. Spooky demon power plant factory chapter was pretty good. I still don’t know what’s going on with the story. Okay the final Insomnia chapter is pretty sweet. They saved the best chapter for the last major one I think. It’s pretty cool and has a lot of intense fights. I did it under leveled because the side quests suck so it was quite hard. Epic fights leading up to the final Ardyn fight and then that fight was just okay. As soon as you go super god mode you just mash buttons with the super abilities. Final cutscenes were actually pretty good. And then the Florence version of stand by me is a nice song. And then the cutscenes kept going again. And they were not bad. The ending was not bad. It did leave me feeling like this game was epic. Because it was epic. It was just so bad and awkward in a lot of other areas. Epic world though. If this game had actual combat, not the fake combat they have, then it could have been sweet. If it was like jedi fallen order quality combat this game would have been unreal. I literally didn’t die the entire game... I failed a time trial section once because I wasn’t paying attention. Closing thought. This game has made me excited to play the FFVII remake someday. Because I think it has better combat. Here is how my opinion on the game changed. Total game time was about 22-23 hours. First 4 or 5 hours I was on the edge of giving up, it wasn’t doing it for me. It started to get better from hours 7 ish to 12 ish it’s probably at its peak at hour 12, the time when the game is a bit more open world and you get to ride the chickens was the best. Rather than continuing to get better as I had hoped, It stayed around the same enjoyment level for the remainder and occasionally dipped down lower again during slow sections. There should have been more use of the giant chickens. The final 2 or 3 hours were a solid closer. In the end it’s still a low tier B+. Final Score: B