Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition

Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition

The return on Final Fantasy XV was for me the opportunity to clarify things with myself. I like the game, I love it for all that it represents, and I love it especially for the quagmire that it is, for the hell that one feels while playing it. All of this, forms a set of reasons that, in addition to its intrinsic qualities, make it a game that has marked me. And you know that the transparency of recent AAA is that, now, to see one that stands out, for even just a bad reason, is a crazy good. Final Fantasy XV is back with a year and four months of additional development, the time to create three solo extensions for the three companions of Noctis, create a multiplayer mode, and finally introduce improvements to the basic game via a "royal pack" . I come from the basic version of the title on PS4 Pro, I took the Royal version on Xbox One X story to have a gain of visual clarity, some additions of technical frills, and a clean experience, more faithful so probably to the vision of a "complete" game. Moreover, this is the main question: "Is Final Fantasy XV a complete game? " Mwarf ... Long program in perspective.

I had rather good memories of my basic experience on the game, and I repeat: the offer Final Fantasy XV is frankly honest. But it was already at the time, only for the first part of the game, the longest fortunately. With the addition of the royal ship history to take pictures and fishing and other frills, the game was a little enriched / improved, with a series of fixes making everything much, much more digestible in terms of storytelling, but still a little too scattered without doubt. That said, the arrival of a codex explaining and detailing elements of background helps to find themselves in a story that thickens.

Yet these patches are not enough to hide the deeply chaotic nature of the project. It works better; the ship does not take up so much as the fleet with big leaks as we could see before, but the ship is still not waterproof. This is always said by the dynamic group, which also benefits the better of these patches to ease the tension between the player and what is told. As everything has gained consistency, we are better able to invest in the group.

And what a dynamic! Always faithful to themselves, the characters that make up the quartet of Final Fantasy XV still have their naive little conversations, always this little point of recklessness often moved in view of the context, but also some very human conflicts that settle properly in the story. There is more life and humanity in this group than in many open-world games, and this is the strong point of this title. Even when he says nothing special, there is always a remark, a small sentence - rarely replicated elsewhere - that gives life to the scene. Special mention to the camps and other places of rest, enjoying silent animations, where the work of scoring on the realization is enough to make understand that there is a friendly dynamic, even fraternal between our four friends.

It is this subtlety of realization, and sometimes writing, that Final Fantasy XV draws a certain nobility. Admittedly, we are not in the high levels of writing achieved by a Witcher 3, but the game of Square Enix never takes itself fully seriously. At least, when it does, it is with the coating that goes well. A lot of humor, not always successful, but that relaxes the atmosphere and installs this side roadtrip always contributing to this narrative schizophrenia that eventually becomes quite valuable: it happens serious things, and sometimes it takes guts because French dubbing are incredible, but can it allay to make it all more ... digestible?

Accidental success or not, Final Fantasy XV pulls rather a beautiful card in its first big part, and the multiple additions (all-terrain vehicle, additional activities, added scenes, appearance of the codex, overall improvement of the navigation) make of this first part a rather marked success. Of course, one makes with the completely missed side quests very often, where his hunting quests rarely exciting, but at least, the time when one does his boring tasks, the group dynamics continues, and contributes to the installation of more subtle issues than "save the world".

Because in Final Fantasy XV, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto, we can say what we want them, they have the concern of the fate of the character that we embody, the same concern as the player who followed the title development for what Noctis is: a tragic hero. And this Noctis ... I like it. I like the fact that he feels helpless, victim of his destiny, victim of chance, his rank and his birth. We feel that he wants to be anything but what we ask him. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XV exists only in its first part, and this innocence that one leaves him still to feel with his band of friends, will necessarily yield to the appeal of the famous boat. It's super sad huh, but next time, Tabata, makes a Final Fantasy calm and posed as the first half of this game; you do that well, you do not have to put up with Square Enixienne pressure and the base of another's work, and it could be cool to play.

But let's talk about DLCs do you want? Well already, let's start by evacuating the stinking turd: Episode Gladiolus. An hour of dungeon without riddles, where we beat up not very cunning enemies, with a final boss rather honest, but nothing that does the experience. We could have taken the excuse of Gladiolus's fighting style which is nice, it's true, except that now, we can embody it in the battles of the base game ... So, in fact, if you have the basic game and you wonder if it's worth the Episode Gladiolus: no. Like ... Really, it's shit.

It's so naze that I'm going to schematize it without being reductive: cinematic, fighting, camping blahed a minute, fighting, encampment, fighting, encampment, fighting, encampment, boss fight, cinematic. One learns something about the character of Cor, although it does not deepen the character, while the events told in this DLC are relatively uninteresting. Go your way if you can, but if you have the Royal Edition, well ... It's a dungeon, it can be fun to type stuff, and it's short, so yeah; if you have it basic, go ahead, but without expectations. Oh yes ! There is a music by Keichi Okabe (Nier and Automata). That's it, I found a reason to inflict it!

The second DLC released is called Episode Prompto. The latter is for the first time a good step above its predecessor, and it is thanks to its history - unfortunately enough shipped and too rich in revelations for its duration - that this DLC gets better. Because gameplay side, if the previous content was taken quite effectively for an action game, the latter is taken for a GST. With an engine like the Luminous Engine, Tabata teams should have said that it is a shit idea, unfortunately, this is not the case, and we bump so about two hours of soft and badly done GST.

Strong point that said: a more open structure and secondary content to exploit the snowmobile, rather nice novelty that remains exclusive to this little adventure. Too bad the gameplay is so winded, because with a little care, this piece of history could have been largely up to expectations, but this is not the case. Watch it on Youtube for the revelations of importance on the character of Prompto, who chopped in this chapter a pair of balls.

The third content is Comrades multiplayer mode. So if the idea of offering a multiplayer DLC seems to you farfetched, you're absolutely right, and that's why it will become a standalone soon. This content is quite generous in missions, weapons, specializations of character, and offers players to live an adventure during the huge ellipse of chapter 13 to 14. The adventure is dotted with some cutscenes and cameo to put a little salt in what is basically a bashing monster, where one exploits the solid gameplay of the basic game.

We raise his character level, and we unlock as new places. In short, the multiplayer mode is in fact rather convincing. Only terrible shadow on the board: the repetitiveness of what is proposed, and especially, the horrible loading times. What sabotage an experience that otherwise would be relatively pleasant. This is not an essential extension, but for its price and its content (enriched by updates) we can not advise against Comrades, who finally offers what is best in the gameplay of Final Fantasy XV: his fights .

The fourth DLC is Episode Ignis. The latter is particularly interesting, because quite short (count a big hour and a half to do all the content), and particularly well built. More spectacular, scripted, and yet curiously enough open, this content makes good use of a new gadget: the grapple, and allows players to be able to ... swim ... a feature absent from the base game, but that could have been added via this content, no? Anyway, the construction of the levels is much better, the story reveals a lot of things, and we are happy to see an alternative end proposed to the universe of Final Fantasy XV. Better yet: it is the DLC that shows that the Tabata team is able, when it wants to, to make a game really neat, dense and interesting to play end-to-end. Big recommendation so.

Finally, the Royal Pack adds a considerable amount of small things, various and varied adjustments that allow the basic game in its course to gain strength and thickness. The arrival of the codex and the cosmogony (as well as various documents explaining the background a little more) improves the overall understanding of history. Then, the introduction of full control of the royal boat is a gadget giving rise to nice fishing sessions, and a handful of side quests that make the arrival in Chapter 9 less boring, while offering a little change of scenery (... although this is a damn gadget). In the same vein, the Royal Edition brings a quest to recover the all-terrain vehicle, without it looking magical, and even races and other challenges to improve it. What make the whole more cohesive.

But the real big chunk of this DLC is the addition of a new area quite large in chapter 14, to make the end of the story less expeditious, and above all: to raise the interest of the second part of the story. It is true that after the affront of chapters 11, 12, and 13, the players deserved something a little more worked for fully accepted a grand finale. With the introduction of this area with its hub, some new mechanics and high level content, Final Fantasy XV is added an hour and a half of main story content and more, as well as the same time in secondary content (sometimes really cool to accomplish). The story really benefits from this new chapter to create a much more consistent end, allowing to enjoy longer a quartet that is changed, and whose group dynamics gives a real sense of conclusion of their adventure.

So it's a great success, of course. It is unfortunate that all this is introduced by a paying DLC and compels the players to start a full game to fully benefit from the real improvements of the flow of the main adventure. That said, this surge of quality for chapter 14 makes the three chapters of hell that precede it even more intolerable. We will say that this moment is relatively short (three hours to break everything), but it breaks so much the dynamics of the story, and suffers from so much sharp cut, that even the DLC Prompto which is inserted in the middle to give a little order fails to help the overall experience. Square Enix has therefore made DLC to fill the lack of its second part, and the success may not be complete (... future DLC developing a parallel story, we may remain on our hunger indefinitely many characters), the shot is still straightened.

Succeeding to make the adventure more homogeneous, and even risk taking a few risks, additional content of Final Fantasy XV blow hot and cold. If I advise you to skip the Episode Gladiolus and watch the Episode Prompto on Youtube, I recommend Episode Ignis for what it brings to the story and for its successful gameplay, but also the Royal Pack which rightens the bar of the final. Finally, the DLC Comrades are for those who are not shy about farming if the gameplay is good, and if discover what the characters have done during the ellipse interest them.

Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition, does not fundamentally change the game of the base game. Still unbalanced, it can be said to emphasize the fact that content once added together gives the second part of the game material to become more relevant. We will unfortunately not have much more to put in the mouth about this, because the next contents are intended to exploit the parenthesis that it is possible to live in Episode Ignis. So Square Enix has at least tried to straighten its broken game, although the patches remain obvious. While compromised, Final Fantasy XV never really manages to be worthy of an expectation that lasted ten years, but at least it manages to be a different Final Fantasy, condensed narration, honest history (awkwardly orchestrated ), but with its very highs and lows. Still, Final Fantasy XV is still a Frankenstein. However, it is now appreciated as a game quite honorable; pity that it took a year and four months to enjoy what we can now call a finished game.