[Ginkasa]

Alright, look: Final Fantasy XV has some clear issues with how SE chose to tell the story. It is incredibly frustrating that to really understand the story being told you need to shell out for a movie and some DLC. The DLC piece has been somewhat corrected with the Royal and Windows editions that people coming into it now are likely to purchase. It all comes with, but even then the main game still has gaping holes where you need to back out to a menu and choose to play a disconnected chapter to get insight into the story (and those who haven't played before and/or aren't following some kind of guide won't know to do this [and, in fact, the game discourages this by saying you should finish the game before playing these chapters {which is a really silly decision since each one of the companion's DLC pieces indicates in them exactly when they'd be experienced in the story }]).

And, yeah, the part of the game where it railroads you (literally) to the end is a bit jarring if you don't expect that.

With all that said, knowing the game's idiosyncrasies already and with some of the improvements added to more recent editions of the game, Final Fantasy XV is... well maybe not great because of these issues but I think its really good. Far and beyond my favorite non-MMO modern Final Fantasy. When I first played the game on its release, I did not watch the movie and of course the DLC Episodes were not out yet. I was very, very ambivalent on the game. I enjoyed playing it a lot more than XIII, but I was very bitter about some of the narrative delivery choices that were made.

This time I did go out of my way to watch Kingsglaive and Brotherhoord. I played Episodes Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis at appropriate points in the main game. I knew in advance of when the game would propel me forward at max speed towards the conclusion. The game has been updated to improve some parts of the game that dragged the worst and added in some new stuff to improve the experience. This time I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I would prefer if the narrative were packaged into one single experience. If they want to have Kingsglaive to flesh that out more that's fine, but the game should do more to provide the necessary details to a player who hasn't experienced the film (which is for the best - the movie ain't good). The DLC Episodes could have fit into the main narrative with probably not that much tweaking. There's space for it. If these things were done from the outset I think FFXV really could have stood out as one of more grandiose video games in terms of narrative, but now it just kind of feels disjointed if epic.

Despite these shortcomings, it is vastly superior to XIII in just about every way. XII is closer and provides a smoother, more whole experience. But some of its choices pull it away some from feeling like a Final Fantasy. Just about everything I enjoy from XIII is present in XV with a grander, if more disjointed narrative, more sympathetic characters, and more exciting gameplay. XV just also really feels like Final Fantasy in a way that XII and XIII don't capture.

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Regarding series structure, I've settled on the grand eras of Final Fantasy being I - IX as the Classic Era and X - XV as the modern era. Having gone through the whole series back to back (minus the MMOs), I just don't feel comfortable arguing X as part of the classics anymore. In retrospect, while I enjoy X a lot it just really feels a lot more like the more modern titles than the older titles in the way the narrative and gameplay is structured.

(don't ask me which I prefer between X and XV right now, BTW, I'm super conflicted)

If you want to break it down further I would say that I - V are clearly OG Final Fantasy. With maybe the exception of II, these titles build on one another and are clearly building on each other as part of the same series despite the stories being disconnected from each other. VI - IX take the series into a more cinematic era and break away from the generic fantasy setting into more sci-fi and modern settings (with IX being an exception here as a marriage of the cinematic quality of the later games to the more classic themes of the older games; it encapsulates what Final Fantasy was at that time and is a perfect capstone to the Classic Era).

The modern games don't fit so neatly together chronologically as they swing wildly from game to game. However, I do think disparate games pair well together. X and XIII have a lot in common in their world structure and character building design. XII and XV both chase after open worlds with lots of side content with larger scope narratives. XI and XIV are... both MMOs? I really haven't played a lot of XI so I can't speak in detail on it, but I think being MMOs itself is enough to pair those together.

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So, anyway, now I'm done. I - XV minus the MMOs (although I'm about to boot up XIV to play around in that and make sure I'm ready to 5.3 in a couple of weeks). Not sure what I'm going to do with my time now. The COVID situation is worse in my state than it has ever been, so its not like its time to go out and see the sun yet. I have been feeling Assassin's Creed lately, but I don't know if I have it in me to marathon the whole series.

I dunno, we'll see. Maybe its time for a quick FPS or something.