Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition

The Good
There are quite a few things to like about Final Fantasy XV. First of all, I applaud the developers for breaking away from constraints of turn-based Japanese RPGs. These linear, overly scripted games with little interaction could never compete with their Western counterparts in terms of gameplay. Square understood this and attempted to launch its flagship franchise into the realm of open-world action RPGs, such as the Elder Scrolls games.

The game's absolute highlight is Chapter III. After two short and rather unimpressive introductory chapters, the game elegantly glides into open world exploration. Now, it is not "open world" in terms of doing main quests in any order you want - the main storyline requires you to do things in a completely rigid progression. You can, however, take a break from the story and just explore. This is something that the series has done only sporadically, and it is a welcome change indeed.

Much of the gameplay in those early-mid chapters consists of driving around (yes, you have a car in this game, which is definitely a cool feature for an RPG), disembarking at any time and just exploring on foot. You can run, jump, look for items, and fight wandering enemies in action-based combat. All this provides a much more natural and smoother experience than the rather constrained journeys of the earlier games in the series. More importantly, the world of Final Fantasy XV is busier. There is quite a lot of detail, and all sorts of places of interest - parking spots, motels, outposts, dungeons, and towns. There is unfortunately way too few of these last two, and the world is quite modest in size in comparison to any Elder Scrolls game. And yet it is, probably, a more breathing, immersive world than anything the series (I dare say the entire Japanese RPG genre) has offered us before.

It is also a beautiful world. There are some marvelous landscapes, truly impressive fauna (there are some positively huge animals wandering the wilderness), and the whole laid-back, cruising feel is captured really well. The few dungeons vary in quality, but some of them do offer optional rooms and alike. They are still quite small, however. Nevertheless, it is fun to explore this world - that is, until the game brutally takes exploration away from you, or until you get sick from meaningless side quests and just want to get on with this.

There are also some nice touches in the gameplay, such as super-powerful weapons that deplete your health, food that one of your semi-controllable companions can cook to bestow bonuses upon the party, extra abilities to learn from a special menu, etc.

The Bad
Do you remember how the sixth game was all linear in the first half, and then opened up in the second? This makes some sense, since the first half acts like a long tutorial and a dramatic story sequence, preparing the player for the true gameplay "meet" afterwards. Well, Final Fantasy XV does just the opposite: its first half is relatively open, while the second is infuriatingly, inexcusably linear. When I say "linear" I'm talking number thirteen - a string of ultra-long cutscenes interrupted by contrived, short marches from point A to point B. The game just jerks you out of free exploration, and puts you onto rails. The second half of the game is truly, utterly terrible.

Sadly, this is not the game's only problem. Its first half, the one with the open world, is actually not that great either. Don't understand me wrong: it's still head and shoulders above the usual "traverse dungeon Z to get to city Y" kind of thing. It's just that Square probably didn't have much experience designing open-world games, and so it made the game shoot itself in the leg. You can drive a car - but only on the roads, with barely any control over it. You can do a lot of side quests - but they are boring fed-ex assignments or incessant monster hunts. There is a vast area with diverse features - but there isn't much to do there. There are a couple of impressive cities - but you can't enter any houses. The world is open - yet it's rather restricted by terrain, too reliant on roads to connect between points of interest, and really not big enough to have a lasting sandbox value.

Another major problem is combat. It just feels too unreal, too jerky and cartoony, with a definite arcade-like feel, with way too much chaos and too little planning involved. Also, the game's very low difficulty level makes much of it pointless. Your health always regenerates, you don't die immediately when your HP falls to zero, you get frequently revived by your allies, and can always rely on the easily accessible healing items to boost your health back. What's the point of doing all those side quests and seek out foes to level up, if you can pretty much breeze through the game as it is?

I won't talk about the story, since I've stopped caring about video game plots. It has to be said, though, that there are quite a few holes and serious pacing problems with the narrative. Also, the character cast this time is way below the usual Final Fantasy quality - the characters lack the charm and the depth of an average series cast.

The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy XV is interesting and appealing in a peculiar way; but in the end, though, the experience was definitely too flawed to be truly involving. I'm glad that Square finally tried to break away from stale Japanese RPG templates and venture into the world of more open-ended, flexible games; but I also hope that next time, they try harder.