Phazonmasher's Final Fantasy XV review

Interesting that this and the Last Guardian, both games that were in development hell for about the same amount of time, both surfaced within about a week or two of each other. I'm hearing a lot of the same thing about that game, too, that it would've been amazing... in 2006.

I'm enjoying FFXV, currently only in Chapter 3 and mostly just cruising around doing side quests. About 12 hours of play in a week and a half, which is quite a lot for me since I don't really get that much time for games. One of the main challenges any game has for me is to keep my interest, which so far this game is managing.

The linear stuff you mention has me a bit worried, though. I hope it's not like the abrupt directorial shift of Final Fantasy XII, where in the beginning, pointless quests are mocked and the game moves at a good pace... and then about half way through you're trying to find Moogles in a forest so they can fix a gate or something lame like that.

I mostly agree with this review. Although FF15 is one of my favorite games this year, it's pretty rough in some spots. The camera doesn't work in cramped spaces (Costlemark Tower's cube puzzle room comes to mind). Fortunately most areas are open. I also wish there were fewer side quests but they were more fleshed out like some of Witcher 3's. Fast travel could have also been streamlined a bit better. The story is actually my favorite since X, but it's just poorly executed. I think time and money were really a factor. The second half seems abbreviated like Xenogears. And first 2 hours of the game were turned into the Kingsglaive movie supposedly to cut development time. Honestly FF15 went through so many development changes I'm glad it came out as good as it did. Apparently Square plans to patch the game to improve Chapter 13 and add more cutscenes.

Oh man, fast travel. Every time I select "Yes" and I'm treated to a long loading scene I feel like saying "I've changed my mind, I'll just drive for 3 minutes!"