Kotaku Games DiaryThe latest thoughts from a Kotaku staff about a game we play.Stop the Regalia, I want to get out. In my soeke on get ready Final Fantasy XV before this Friday, when it disappeared from both the Xbox Game Pass and my Series S, I had reached the point in the game that I had been afraid of. This is the moment the story takes a 180-degree turn from the light-hearted roadtrip into a barely recognizable grim treatise on war and sacrifice. Oh my Shiva, I hate it.
There was a lot going on over the weekend to get me here – the boys waged a light guerrilla war, we climbed a volcano twice, ate across the continent, kicked our ass through a beautiful dragoon, and took nearly 90,000 screams of photos.
By doing everything, I amassed a whopping 19 hours of playing time, bringing me to 26 hours. Of the 19 hours, I would estimate only five of them were spent on story opportunities. I just could not hurry this match and now – as I stare down the prospect of tracking straight into the depressing endgame – I am so glad I did not. I’m pretty sure my reluctance to just do the story is due to the fact that I find, do and see very of things I missed during my first play.
For example: I had no idea you could have some one-time additions with the boys. After completing a hunt in the Galdin Quay area, I rested at a nearby campsite. In the morning, Gladio pulls me aside and asks if I want to run with him that morning. Of course I said yes, and the next day he and I rushed to the beach. Noctis teased and moaned all the time because he was not a morning person, but at the end of the race he said something like ‘You know, it’s quite nice at this hour’, and the camera pawned to get (and I can not stress) it enough) pretty a wide shot of the whole beach soaked with sunrise while Gladio said, “If that’s all you take from this, it’s good enough for me.” Show my heart melts. It’s like the game told me, ‘Yeah, Ash, you just wasted another five minutes doing something unrelated to your ultimate goal, but hey, you done get an otherwise unmarked recording of your favorite spot. So if this is all you get out of this, it was worth it. ‘
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I spent all Saturday camping to see the little vignettes and learn interesting things Final fantasy lore for my problems. In one of the Prompto adventures, he asked me to help him get a photo of a katoblepas. Now the katoblepas is a bulky monster of Greek origin which occurs in many games, not just the Final fantasy series, and for the longest time I thought it was pronounced as “kah-toe-BLEE-piss.” It turns out I’m wrong – it’s pronounced “kah-TOE-ble-pas” (which rhymes with how Strongbad says “fhqwhgads. ”) [Hums] “Come on catoblepas, I said come on catoblepas.”
Special call to the reader who, in response to my money problems, suggested that I go look for Vyv in Lestallum. I did every quest he had, and the cash flowing from it confronted me to my eyeballs. This is also why I ended up climbing a volcano twice – once to get him a photo and twice because I climbed the volcano once another soeke. Since I was already there, I decided to go back up the mountain and burn off the rubber of my shoes (and the HP of the health bars of the chocobros) to find one of the hidden Royal Arms. I did not do much with the Royal Arms in my first play-through, deterred by their HP-draining features, but to happen to find a hidden one is my obsession with finding the rest. I already got an optional Royal Arm that combined me at eight out of 13 with the one I got through the main search. Still don’t use it that much because my Ragnarok is still pretty easy to shit.
My quest to finish VF15 before the time was over, I finally needed to return to the story and bring my good times to a bitter end. I hit the part I will not spoil what I’m going to call The Sad Moment. There were a lot of Final fantasy Sad moments that really were not sad for me and moments that are not supposed to be sad but are completely destructive. I did not feel anything VF7‘s big surprise (if you know, you know). But I roared like a newborn baby when I was in Final Fantasy XIII, Is Sazh Katzroy’s son Dahj restored and Sazh – the funny man who happens to be one of the best goddamn characters in all Final fantasy cannon – falls to his knees, embraces his son and cries. I wanted to feel something for VF15It’s a sad moment, and I think I did, but more of the acting and the visuals of the scene than of any attachment to the characters involved.
What made me sadder was that the game changed fundamentally after that moment. No more fun rides in the car (except through a deus ex canine-ica This will allow me to travel back in time to before the point of no return). The game is already sad hours, which is fucking struggling.
I have to say, though, I like the way VF15 emphasize how many things are different now by changing the way you are used to playing. That food you raise through the stat? It’s gone – replaced by Cup Noodles, or, if you did not buy like I did, a cold can of dubious food. If you set up camp, instead of everyone sitting comfortably around a campfire, it’s a point of Gladio getting up and walking away in horror to sit by himself. Even the photos have changed. Instead of fun selfies or candid shots of the boys’ smiles, all Prompto captures with his camera are shots of everyone’s backside and Noctis hangs his in sadness.
I’m in Chapter 11 of 15 now. Where I used to worry about whether I would finish on time, I feel pretty good about my chances. So good that I’m going to sabotage myself with some new goals. I’m going to find all the Royal Weapons, including the one hidden in the optional Costlemark Tower mega-dungeon. (I also have a search for Dino, the Jeweler from New Jersey, there that I want to complete.) Most importantly, I have all the character episodes.
I’m pretty sure I’m all this head-searching distracting print a way to ward off the inevitable. I do not want this game to end, especially not because I am cursed with the foreknowledge that its end is so different and unsatisfactory from the start. As Final Fantasy XV was just a collection of diverse adventures glued together by a story about the bonds of friendship, and it would be a wonderful everyday time. But it was not and if it were not for the blessed ability to go back to the past and keep wandering, I would now consider quitting. Since I did not finish the game when it came out, and my memory of the endgame is so faint, I hope there is something I missed that saves the story. Maybe the character episodes – which I still have to experience – help there too. Either way, I’m still five days left in the house. See you all tomorrow.