Final Fantasy XV might just be one of the best titles in the series in terms of pure gameplay mechanics, particularly, and especially, if you're a fan of Final Fantasy in general.
In the game, you are a nobile prince named Noctis, surrounded by your buddies as you embark on a journey to quite literally get him married to a far away royal, in order to broker peace for a world that is at conflict.
Set in a world where there's automobiles, roads, and enough hair gel to make a warehouse storing hair gel have the owners put down deposits on ludicrous luxury items, the world of Final Fantasy XV is unique, but is steeped with history from the series.
The plot (and the openness of the world) immediately makes the title feel like a title where you've got enough liberty to do what you want, while at the same time, offering a reasonably good incentive to follow the main quest. It doesn't feel like this at first, though.
After worrying about the pacing during the first few hours of gameplay, the story picks right up, and the complex (and varied) game play mechanics along with the freedom granted to you to do things in the way you want makes the game appear to shine and glimmer with potential.
I won't spill the beans on the story; but the essence of the gameplay loop is pretty simple, and hits the RPG itch pretty well. Go to location, get told things about the location. Get tasks to complete that progress story. You can also gather rumours from the restaurants and other people in the areas that are loosely tied together outposts, travelling in a vehicle known as the Regalia.
You've got all the roads in the world to drive on, and you have the option of auto drive, fast travel, or if you want to manual steer along the railroaded road (this isn't a driving or racing sim by any means at all) you can do so, but for the most part, you'll be taking in the environment while on e of the other party members drives.
Alternatively, you'll be using the fast travel system, which forced my game to crash more times than I would like in the early stages, so I decided to keep it safe and use the automatic "not quite fast travel", which probably feels the same as "being on a flight path" in World of War Craft would be like.
As a treat to long time fans of the series, the car is fitted with a radio, and a gil sink; which allows you to purchase the soundtracks of prior games and play them in the car as a beautiful way to remind yourself that you're playing a Final Fantasy game.
If you don't want to drive, and go off road, you can always use a Chocobo to get around. There's even Chocobo races available as a side quest. There's so many sidequests in this game, which makes it feel a little MMO like. I spent about 20 hours in the early stages of the game doing just side quests for progression of my character's skills, completely ignoring the main story arc.
Side quests are pretty varied; involving hunting down certain types of monsters, collecting dog tags of fallen mercs, helping out people who have managed to become stranded in their vehicles, and supplying medical aid to those you discover in the wilderness that are prone to mishap and misfortune.
After a while, these quests get broken up a little bit by frog catching (yes, really) and the ability to craft and upgrade things like weapons and the very vehicle you drive around the lands.
There's plenty to keep you busy, and enough to wrench you away from the main story so that you entirely forget exactly what has happened. Story is where some parts of the visuals tend to fall apart. Sadly, in game cut scenes are pre-rendered at 1080p, while the game can run at resolutions far greater than this, which leads to a jarring transition of lower-quality visuals in the moments of narrative poignancy.
This is a problem that plagues so many games of FFXIV's generation, and was common on cross platform games. I can see why this is a tactic used by developers to ensure that the special moments in game can use additional effects not supported by the real time game engines, but at the same time; it is something that could be overcome by more creative ways of telling a story than just cutting out player control and telling a story.
The key element of storytelling is, forever, "show, not tell". This isn't something that leaves blemishes of FFXV's otherwise passable exterior. It is a game that is part Final Fantasy, part MMO, all open world, and with a cast of crazy, outlandish characters that force themselves to be larger than life than just being ordinary, interesting people with compelling stories.
There's one place where FFXV gets this correct, and it is throughout the lengthy periods of driving between location to location, where the entire landscape is on display; and you learn an awful lot about the world by looking at things like street signs, the environment, and the decaying infrastructure outside of the larger cities and outposts.
Overall, the entire game is a well apportioned package that has a couple of things going for it - at the time of writing, it is the most recent Final Fantasy game to have been released, and this gives a sense of "enjoy it while you can" (at least until FFXVI releases later this year).
In terms of a stand alone game, it probably only warrants a seven out of ten, but as a Final Fantasy game, and for those who love the series; it's an excellent way to, in a relaxed manner, get everything you want to get done, done - without the high stress of making some terrible mistake that will set back your character development permanently.
When you finish the game, you're able to tear around the world in a new-game+ mode, which is welcome as there was no way I was able to finish every side quest and character development pathway in a single play through.
I'll also need to make some more comments about the story, which ends up weaving itself around a serpentine plot that just might be one of the hardest hitting emotionally of the series, if you're paying attention to the game and allowing yourself to get sucked into the characters.
After the credits rolled, my initial impression was "this is one of the best Final Fantasy games ever". That may be a controversial opinion, but it is definitely worth a second look in the lead up to FFXVI, releasing later this year.
FFXV is a forgiving, relaxing game to play, and an excellent way to close out my play through of the mainline Final Fantasy series games. There's still more Final Fantasy out there, and lots of replay-ability in certain titles, so I have no doubt I'll be back for more, as a life long fan of the series.