I won't belabor an introduction to my lifelong love of Final Fantasy and the handful of disappointments I've experiences amidst the overall shining glory as a whole. The graphics are always cutting edge. The characters are worth investing in. The gameplay slowly evolved but always tests new systems. And the stories... Well, damn it, Square...
I don't like to cry, but I like a moving story. I have been okay with the feels that other FF games have given; even when they tear your heart out, they triumph in heroic glory. FFVI was a game that I don't think can be surpassed in terms of storytelling. It moved and rocked me and not one of the main characters had to die to do it. FFVII was the game that brought along the first death scene and I think no one can forget how shattering Aeris's death was. The spin-offs were actually welcome and brought such a richness to the whole. FFVIII brought along the bittersweet notes of two ships passing in the night and their children picking up the torch. Sorry, but FFIX was meh for me, but I didn't love the music or gameplay less for the story. FFX is to many people the last of the best storytelling. The ending was sad but sweet and you could make it even better with the sequel. FFXII is usually where most longtime fans start to fall off with the unconditional love, although I'm probably one of the few who really enjoyed it completely. It wasn't wholly memorable but it was a feel good game for me, although the bunny chick Fran was probably the worst character in the series as a whole. You wanted to be sympathetic to her story since her boyfriend, Balthier, was one of the most animated lovable characters, but she really fell flat.
XIII was the series that started to leave the bad taste in my mouth. It was absolutely beautiful but the first game was linear in gameplay and confusing as a whole. It brought along a very extensive vocabulary and while I loved Lightning and Snow and Hope, I had a hard time liking any of the others. Once I finally understood all the magical rules, the story itself started to become less clear. Let me summarize the rest because the blog post is ultimately about the newest entry to the series. The second game was an unexpected gem. The battle lost its anal-retentive structure and while I found Sera annoying in the first game, I truly liked her and her new sidekick Noah. Again, we got a sad cliffhanger ending. Enter Lightning Returns. I couldn't get through the very first town in this game although I restarted the game three times trying to get on the right foot. This game was nearly unplayable. I would have been more excited if you threw a bunch of one piece Legos at me and told me to build a dragon. I am still tempted to Youtube videos from the game to see what possibly resolved in this trainwreck of a series, but I can't bring myself to try a fourth time.
Type-0 had its jerky camera but couldn't been great aside from that oversight. The beginning cutscene was a tearjerker and it had some real downer moments, but I still felt like the plot made sense.
Ah, FFXV. I loved the brotherhood theme. The building blocks for all of the characters was masterfully done, a hard feat to accomplish with such a huge cast over the course of the prequel movie Kingsglaive and the Brotherhood anime. I have no complaints about either. They were easy to watch and really got me excited to game. And damn, the gameplay was a mark of grace and mastery. There is so much freedom in the choices which is also difficult to pull off. I never felt like I had to troll through menus to get what I wanted out of battle but the choices were there and they were fun to play with. I loved how you could tag team in your comrades' techniques to change the flow of battle. I loved that the menus could give you a breather without disconnecting you from the action. I'm the sort that loves trolling around on fetch quests so I loved the many, many that they gave me. The hunts were always fun (although I admit that I haven't yet beat the Daemonwall, mostly due to not leveling magic because I'm a melee whore). It was the story that could have murdered this game if not for all the shining talent that went into every damn thing else.
So spoilers, peeps, because this is where I needed to rant. It was a great story up until you wake up in Altissia. I didn't hate how Lunafreya died. It seemed inevitable. She hadn't failed to mention that her oracle duties were already shortening her life span just as the Crystal drained the king Regis. Basically, the first 8 chapters really built up a vast potential of possibility... and the rest of the story practically shit down its backside and wiped it up its back. It would be a bit tedious to really hash out all of the WTF moments without having to retell the whole story but I will attempt to bullet some points that bothered me, in no particular order.
*The Niflheim emperor never comes into play after Kingsglaive. He is mentioned but his enormous betrayal or fate never comes up again.
*Ravus is probably the largest most confusing plot hole. Luna had her hands full trying to sell Noctis's good traits to him and he had been a cold and great villain with promise. He gets a couple of cutscenes in the game and... then his body turns up. The smaller plot up to that point seemed to revolve around how he thirsted for the power of the Lucii (but was rejected) then took the sword because Noctis wasn't worthy of it. When you find his body, you might have missed the letters from his sister where for some unclear reason, he decided that Noctis was worthy of the sword and he would return it even if it cost him his life. Clearly it did, but what the hell specifically could have motivated him to both betray his emperor and risk his life? No telling because there was absolutely no real build-up here.
*Pryna... you know, the other dog. Umbra had the strange ability to transport Noctis and his friends "through time" (there's a reason I put that in quotes-- we'll get to that). This is significant in my opinion because this is where I believe the game might be hinting at something with all the references to sleep and dreaming. Pryna is the reason that Prompto turns his life around befriends Noctis but that is the last actual role she ever has... her last passive appearance being a dream Noctis has in the hotel. It is him just fighting a hopeless battle, exhausted and hurt, with Pryna. You see Pryna dead and he falls through the floor and wakes up. This is where I believe Noctis is losing his mind a bit or being pulled into a dream where he can't tell what is real or not.
*The ending supports that theory but hell if I can tell you what parts were real or a dream after a while. The whole 'ten years later' he comes out of the Crystal thing was irritating. The world falls into ruin while he's playing pat-a-cake with Bahamut or something. No one is surprised that Noctis shows up again, but why? The entire story from here at least seems like it is completely his nightmare. Is he going mad or did the daemons physically pull him into a dream that gradually became a nightmare? Did it start when his father died or was it the guilt of thinking he lost Luna where the line was blurred? Absolutely no clue. Did everyone actually die? I saw one theory that stated that the last scene where they are married was simply their last wish in the afterlife, their 'final fantasy.' Oh fucking groan, I hope to hell that corny attempt at wordplay was NOT the intention of the story. I feel differently here...
Once the end screen fades, you go back to the title screen. It is now bright white, with Noctis and Luna sitting together and the music switches from Somnus (Sleep) to the happier one. I would not be surprised if the song is called "Awake". I will research this a bit better when I'm not lazy and hungry, but I hated how depressing the face value story was and had to attempt to fill it in with my own imagination.
Which brings me to the 'final' point-- knock it the fuck off, storytellers, with the 'fill in the blanks' storytelling. In this case, it was extremely rushed and lazy. It was otherwise an amazing game, marred by the bad taste the story left in my mouth. Are you planning on redeeming this story with DLC or a sequel in this world, new characters if we were supposed to take that 'born to die' shit as gospel? I want to kiss everyone else who made this masterpiece, but I've got a bone to pick with what the final direction made of it.
I'm always interested in seeing what other fans may have to add or argue to my opinion pieces. Forgive any of my own oversights. I don't have a perfect memory so I may have missed things here or there. I absolutely believe that fans need to gripe, to hold their beloved developers accountable and work together in whatever active or passive arenas to get the games the absolute best they can be!
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