Hi, I’m Hamish Black and welcome to Writing on Games. Here’s a weird story for you.
Back in 2016, I made a video about Final Fantasy XV that was generally very positive. One criticism
I did have, however, was of the voice acting. I thought it was awful, unnatural, sounding
like every character was stiltedly shouting their lines as if they were advertising a
cruise or something. Given that I now had a chance to replay the game in the recently
released Royal Edition for PC, my first thought was to immediately change the audio language
to Japanese. Initially, it was neat; it was different, I was impressed at how the languages
seemed to be uniquely lip-synced… …And I lasted about fifteen minutes before
changing it back. In simple terms, it made things weird. Suddenly, with this small change,
even with everything else remaining the same, these weren’t the characters I knew, that
I’d previously spent a whole bunch of time sitting in a car with, studying their relationship,
feeling like one of a group of friends. Even though I’d previously taken issue with the
way those lines were spoken, it became one of the game’s many eccentricities that would
come to define it for me. In short, they sounded like idiots, but they were my idiots.
See, in the whirlwind of chatter surrounding the controversial games as service model,
where a game will see a foundational release that’ll gradually be built upon, I saw Final
Fantasy XV coming up a lot. It wasn’t finished! I’m not going to play it until they’ve
added more! That’s the game that should have launched! And while I understand where
those concerns are coming from, it didn’t line up with the fact that, well, I ended
up really cherishing my experience with the launch version, warts and all. While this
definitive version adds a bunch of new features in an attempt to fix the problems people had,
mostly they just served to highlight what made the original game tick for me.
For example, the newly added multiplayer mode seemed like a fantastic idea on paper; the
crux of the main game is a road trip with friends, so why not introduce your real friends
into the equation? In practice, it was a dramatically pared down affair, that only highlighted how
important the context of the main game and the characters within it actually were; without
that, the flaws in the individual mechanics and systems become more apparent.
See, the game’s combat in particular was always pretty simplistic, and despite the
numerous gear and customisation options available, there are very few situations that you can’t
simply brute force your way through if you just hold down the attack button while stocked
up on healing items. But I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it; there was a satisfying rhythm to
it all, a ballet-like spectacle that perhaps I didn’t get from turn-based instalments
of yore. More importantly though, the ease with which
I could take down enemies lined up with the more nonchalant traits I saw in my characters;
largely viewing their foes as nuisances to toy with more than genuine threats. Encounters
acted as a showcase of the subtle animations illustrating the extent to which these characters
have each other’s backs. When you’re controlling a mute, multicoloured schlub called P155D1NG0
going through a checklist of hunts, the simplicity of combat can’t be so contextually justified.
In a vacuum, it’s arguably a flaw. As part of a larger whole, though, the way combat
played out helped me interpret a side to the characters not conveyed through dialogue.
In that sense, sure, the multiplayer adds more to the package, but all it ended up doing
was make me long for that specific road trip once more.
This more is better approach isn’t just apparent in the modes available either. The
addition of an off-road Regalia model is nice as an option to more fully and quickly explore
the world, I suppose, but much like the flying model unlocked after the game’s completion,
I barely used it. I never saw my goal as one of seeing every nook and cranny of this massive
world, it wasn’t a place where I was thinking how I could most efficiently cut every corner;
there was part of me that enjoyed simply being a tourist, cruising through at a leisurely
pace. I’d take in the stunning scenery and watch my characters interact with each other.
Occasionally someone would get bored or see something in the distance and suggest we checked
it out, which I always ended up doing, and which helped bring some structure to the experience.
I didn’t need to go off-road for that, and the option to do so just made me appreciate
what I found so endearing about staying on the straight and narrow.
More crucially, that was the story I so loved in Final Fantasy XV. The borderline character
study told through off-the-cuff vignettes of exploration, snippets of incidental dialogue
and stretches of silence where things like character animations would tell the story;
it was all in service of showing the growth of these boys and the bond they share. The
game could have literally been “get Noctis from point A to marriage B” and I would
have been immensely satisfied. Which is why it was so disappointing, both
then and now, that the later chapters took a sudden turn towards focusing on the nigh-incomprehensible
main story involving political conspiracies, royal lineage, crystals and the like. Apparently
since release changes have been made to the story in terms of additional cutscenes. It’s
novel, for sure, going against the convention that post-game support can only be limited
to gameplay alterations. At the end of the day though, it’s still
a narrative that takes focus away from the more subtle, human stories we’ve been experiencing;
that sees Noctis, for example, treating the trauma befalling his friends, the ones we’ve
been controlling, as if it were nothing, while news of Lunafreya, a character we barely see,
sends him spiralling into despair. In short, it’s just more of a story that’s still
bad; that no matter how much extra detail is added to it, never lined up with the game’s
real narrative strength, ie. the daft road trip that facilitated it all. It’s not a
story that needed more; what it needed was focus.
But you know what? Even the abysmal corridor crawl of chapter 13 made me truly miss my
dumb anime friends and made the grand reunion all the more impactful. I mean, given how
certain characters react to Noctis’ strops, I could at least imagine the intent of forcing
you to go it alone in order to truly appreciate those around you. Either that or I’m clearly
willing to excuse a lot for these boys. All of this is to say that Final Fantasy XV’s
problems are numerous. But in terms of what these problems ended up saying to me in terms
of the characters, that they were merely a bunch of friends, of imperfect human beings,
concerned only with getting through this mess together; that is what has kept me thinking
about the game in such a reverent light. I didn’t need all these bells and whistles
attached; I either didn’t notice them (as in the story additions) or their inclusion
just reminded me what I enjoyed without them; again, more doesn’t always equal better.
I subconsciously ended up viewing the larger game in the same way I viewed the characters
within it; its blemishes and shortcomings served to give it a distinct, human identity
as I saw it. Like its characters, Final Fantasy XV was (and still is) a deeply flawed journey,
but importantly, it was my journey. So I hope you enjoyed my piece revisiting
Final Fantasy XV. If you did, maybe consider hitting subscribe as well as the little bell
thingy, and check out the podcast in the description. If you feel like going the extra mile, you
can always check out the Patreon like these wonderful folks currently on screen.
I’m forever humbled by your continued support. In particular I’d like to thank Mark B.
Writing, Michael Wolf, Artjom Vitsjuk, Spike Jones, Edward Clayton Andrews, Vasili Hrebinka,
Chris Wright, Dr. Motorcycle, Harry Fuertes, Ham Migas, Travis Bennett, Zach Casserly,
Samuel Pickens, Tom Nash, Shardfire, Filip Lange, Rob, Rusty Shackleford, Ana Pimentel,
Jessie Rine, Brandon Robinson, Iago Foxo Bouza, Justins Holderness, Biggy Smith, Peter, Christian Konemann, Cameltraffic,
Nico Bleackley, Nicolas Ross and Charlie Yang. And with that I’m Hamish Black and
this has been Writing on Games. Thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you
next time.