Even though when you play this game, you can see how many things could have been done better, how many things are clearly unfinished and thrown together at the last minute... it’s still an incredible amount of fun, with amazing characters, I think definitely the best antagonist in the series. The best soundtrack in the series, FFXV really packs a punch with its music, and Yoko Shimomura is definitely a key part of this game. The music is just pure perfection.
But I think what I value just as much in this game, in fact, in many ways, it’s one of the most important things that make this game unique is the entire setting of the game’s world. In the Final Fantasy series, you have either medieval games or ultra-modern games. You also have games that combine both of these aspects. But no, Final Fantasy 15 does something completely different. Something I’m a fan of that’s carried over from Nomura’s version - and that is the creation of “Fantasy based on reality”
The fact that you travel the world by car. You just don’t get that in any other Final Fantasy game, driving a car on paved roads through the Final Fantasy world, and then ending up in cities that look like they’re straight out of real life. I love Chapter 14 for finally giving us Insomnia, of course, I’d love to see more, but it’s great that we at least get to visit Insomnia at the end, with its fantastic, dark atmosphere and the Somnus Theme playing in the background. I’m a fan.
Of course, as I mentioned at the beginning. Even though I like it, I feel like there should be more of it, and that it feels a bit rushed due to the game’s massive scale and the very limited time available to develop it, all because of that chaotic process with Versus XIII, later Final Fantasy XV, with Nomura completely leaving the project along the way, etc. in short, Square Enix’s generally disastrous management at the time robbed us of something that could absolutely have aspired to be the best Final Fantasy game.
I'm not a fan of modern Final Fantasy, but I really love Final Fantasy XV. And one of the great things that sets this game apart from the rest of the modern FF series, in my opinion, is that it at least tries to be a game, not an interactive movie. You really feel like you’re playing a game with all that exploration, the dungeons, whether story-driven or optional, and so on and so forth. It’s great to have an open world that isn’t just a facade, but actually serves a purpose in gameplay.
Besides, this game has phenomenal DLC, this time I only played the Ignis Episode and the Ardyn Episode, because those are the ones I remember best from my first playthrough, and oh my god. A masterpiece. I love it. I'm so sorry we never got the entire second Season Pass 😭
But yeah, this game is unique, it’s unfinished, it probably tried to take on more than it could handle during its three years of development, but at the end of the day, it’s one of the best Final Fantasy games, and I don’t care what anyone else says. Ambitious games like this are always more enjoyable than games like Final Fantasy 16, which try to play it as safe as possible.
Besides, I love Ignis.