Since there's no topic about it.. Thoughts on Final Fantasy 15?

[-Ric-]

I'll start by giving my own thoughts with as little spoiling as possible. The game overall is quite enjoyable, I've finished it and am now close to completing every side quest and taking on the superboss. However, while it's definitely enjoyable, it's definitely not perfect.

Pros:
Great graphics (to be expected) on a PS4 pro at 4k resolution, however, make sure you stick with HDR off or on auto because it just absolutely kills the framerate when it's on.
The gameplay is fun,
It's a fully open world, you can basically access nearly every location from the start which is great, I had over 200 sidequests complete on chapter 3 (there are a total of 15 chapters)
The cast is a mix of funny, serious and badass characters, all of which get their moments where they shine.
The soundtrack is pretty good, I honestly enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.
Leveling is not difficult at all if you do sidequests, you'll reach really high levels without stopping to do any hardcore leveling at all.
There's a pretty good balance between the money you get and the money you spend on weapons and items.

Cons:
While the story is not bad, it definitely feels like there's a lot of stuff left out, you never get to know why some characters are the way they are, sometimes you're slapped in the face with information that feels incomplete and you have to come up with conclusions for yourself.. It just could use more refining. Square has acknowledged this and announced that they will be adding a free update which will add to the story and which will also feature a new game+ option.
THE FONT IS TOO DAMN SMALL. Seriously. When playing from bed which is around 2 meters and half away from a 43" 4K tv I couldn't read a damn thing. They've also acknowledged this and will also add some option to scale in text in that same free update.
Magic is basically useless unless you wanna take out some wayyyyy higher level monsters than you in the beginning.
Fishing sucks. (Though you can max your fishing level and finish all fishing-related quests in around 1h and half or so..)
The 2nd part of the game is far too lineal and one of the chapters is an absolute painful mess to go through, and not painful as in "oh it's so hard", painful in a "wtf is this crap" way.  Another thing they've promised to tweak in that update.


Overall.. I'd rate it between a 7.5 and a 8 out of 10. Not a bad game at all but definitely needs some tweaking and fixing.

[nfitc1]

Magic is basically useless unless you wanna take out some wayyyyy higher level monsters than you in the beginning.

I've yet to play a game where magic is done well. It's either strong early with limited uses but physical damage outshines it late-game in terms of DPS; Or it's practically "free" to use, but so weak that I never bother with it for damage output even in early game; Or it's really strong throughout the game, but is pretty expensive to use.

If the game revolves around the use of magic and physical attacks are purposefully weaker then few enemies are ever immune to anything so there's no difference between the different spells other than the quickly boring flashy effects.

[DLPB_]

FFX did it quite well. Much better than most.  When I get round to my difficulty mod... this will be addressed with FF7.

[-Ric-]

FFX did it quite well. Much better than most.  When I get round to my difficulty mod... this will be addressed with FF7.

Yes and no. It's like NFITC1 said. On FFX magic is very good and balanced early on but later in the game, especially when dealing with the dark aeons or the arena bosses.. it becomes useless. (but then again so does everything else if we are to be honest haha, quick hit, attack reels and hyper mighty guard is all you need).
To me, FF9 is still the best when it comes to the way the magic is handled.

[Jotaro]

Now, in Final Fantasy, I don't think that there's a game that does magic extremely REALLY well. Eventually, in general, there's no point in using magic when damage is so easy with standard attacks.
I think the MegaTen series does a good job of using magic though. The combat system really rewards the use of magic and weaknesses, especially in Persona 4, where even later in game, the only time magic gets "useless" is when it is blocked or weakened by individual strengths.

[DLPB_]

Breath of Fire 3 and 4 did a good job of it too I think.  Definitely some of the spells are useful later in game.

[Tekkie.X]

Can't say much more than "It's OK, nothing special".

Finished it after 41:17:17 at level 50, once you work out how to use wait mode properly the game became a bit more fun and a little easier, the story is obviously unfinished and missing chunks despite the 10 years it's been worked on, I assume a couple of things will be touched on in the DLC but they are things that shouldn't be DLC because they just leave the handful of plotholes the game trips over in a few places, especially if you haven't watched the Kingsglaive movie(Ravus for example).

Decent amount of stuff to do outside and even after the story (That big bastard is on my hitlist) that's only hampered by terrible enemy placement like dropping a level 54 enemy smack dab in the middle of the only walkable path on the way to a level 12 area or level 7 enemies in a level 50 area or the constant imperial drop ships that can't make up their mind if they're just gonna be full of assassins or only 2 assassins and the rest all being snipers.

I knew the magic system could be used to really fudge up some enemies once you get the multicast and added effect traits crafted in but it's a lot of work to have to keep going back in to craft the spells again because you only get 3 or 4 uses and extra storage slots are only found as you progress.

Looks good, even on an Xbox One, handful of aliasing issues with the hair and very few frame drops even during some of the busy fights.

At least they're going to keep working on stuff post release beyond the DLC.

[-Ric-]

the story is obviously unfinished and missing chunks despite the 10 years it's been worked on, I assume a couple of things will be touched on in the DLC but they are things that shouldn't be DLC because they just leave the handful of plotholes the game trips over in a few places, especially if you haven't watched the Kingsglaive movie(Ravus for example).

Yeah, that's how I feel. I don't feel that the story is "bad" at all, it just feels incomplete. Let's see what they do about it.

[Kaldarasha]

Breath of Fire 3 and 4 did a good job of it too I think.  Definitely some of the spells are useful later in game.

The Dragon Quest series has probably the best system. High level HP are not so op as in other games and spells do always the same damage cause there is only physical protection. Sure there are also special amours to protect against magic but these are rare. I can't think of a better balanced game.