Final Fantasy XV is a game I've been playing lately, which is something I thought I would be saying 9 or 10 years ago, or never. Back when it was announced as "Final Fantasy Versus XIII". For reference, George W. Bush was still the president of the united states when this game was announced. Then we went through the ENTIRE Obama administration, in the time it took for this game to be developed and then released.
That's a long fucking time to be working on and funding a video game. Like "The Last Guardian", it was one of those "vaporware" projects that became a running joke about how it would never be released. Both games came out in 2016. Both of those games now exist in a finished state and are in my house, and I still don't quite have the words to describe what that feels like. It's as surreal as if Half-Life 3 got a trailer and was announced for release in october this year. Even if I saw it on store shelves, my brain would still resist it. It can't be real. It's been the Not Real thing for so long. Surely this must be some mistake.
But it's there. It's real. I'm about 40 hours into it. I don't remember a whole lot, most of the characters are pretty unmemorable, and the game is too in love with open-world game concepts, without working to mitigate the more annoying aspects of those games(such as vast, empty spaces of no engaging content, and too-long trips back and forth between areas to cash in on finished quests.)
But I don't hate it. I want to play more. If nothing else, it FEELS like Final Fantasy, even if through a very warped modern lense. If nothing else, I'm glad Final Fantasy games really try to experiment with the brand.
That said, fuck whoever thought there should be a fishing mini-game. Fuck everything about that. Those are the Water Levels of mini-games.
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~A.H.
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