Wasted Potentials and Final Fantasy XV

This will be a rambly post, rather than a review, it's a way for me to set my feelings for this game straight because it really has been bothering me for a while.

So it all started after the announcement of final fantasy xvi, I finally decided to play XV again since it had been a good while.

And boy was it a funeral. In every corner, in every second of the game from the very beginning to the last second you're reminded constantly of what this game was supposed to be, what could have been. 10 years of troubled development that left devs crushed and fans ever yearning for what could have been.

10 years to end up shipping a game with a beautiful but empty open world and 12 hours of main story,assuming that's what you want to call most of it.

The only redeeming quality of this game is the interactions between the party members during the road trips and quest and that wasn't supposed to be even there like that on the early imaginations of the game, the game was supposed to be about life and death, a darker tone for a maturing audience but instead we got bro trip xv.

But why even though I can see what could have been and wasted potential in every corner, wasted characters of something that could have been greater... why can't I bring myself to hate and loathe this final waste of potential?

How can a piece of media leave you mad but at the same time yearning for more, what could have been? So troubled yet... willing to experience more of it?

I've finally come to realize the meaning of tragedy, it's the only way I could find to find my own peace with this story, not only inside the game but also outside. It is truly a development tragedy, how can 10 years go to such waste yet show so much abandonment and clear potential? It is beyond words and people that managed to play the game and enjoy it for what it was without knowing everything that happened before and after release should consider themselves lucky.

For the rest of us there will always be this huge hole in our hearts and minds called Final Fantasy XV.

So Hive gamers, did you play it? Did you follow its development or did you just stumble upon it and managed to have fun without knowing what could have been? I would be really interested in knowing what other people experienced this game like.