EPTif you are VERY curious and do not intend to play the game then here is my spoiler-free summary:
+ Show Spoiler +
bad game design all over, terrible story telling and directing, solid characters spoilt by a consistently lacklustre and uninspired script, unsatisfactory gameplay that probably could have been literally anything else and more fun, many HUGE parts of the plot literally "left out" for the purposes of being filled in at a later date by DLC (presumably), AND SO ON (mostly various forms of bad game design or just low quality implementations)
SPOILER WARNING DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME
+ Show Spoiler +
i didn't play this game. instead i watched a decent amount (~16 hours) of itmeJP killing mobs and then quit at the start of chapter 14 and instead watched the entire story on youtube with most battles removed (5hr30m)
i strongly get the impression that it was put together very very poorly
either that, or i get the impression that Japanese quality of game design is far behind modern Western game design.
this is not hard to believe, since the language barrier will mean that Japanese developers are isolated from many Western games, right?
i have followed the user reviews on metacritic , they pretty much unanimously agree that the storytelling and a lot of the game design is bad, and most still go on to give the game 10/10 rating, which obviously i can't agree with.
it shocks and pains me to see that a lot of the gaping holes of nothingness in the game, such as "who the fuck was aranea?" "who the fuck was ravus?" "where the fuck did prompto go?" and "why the fuck was ignis walking round half the game blind?", it pains me to hear that these are planned DLCs rather than actually being in the game
i mean, it doesn't PAIN me, it outright disgusts me.
i could go in probably every inch of gameplay and describe why it is bad and how it could be improved, for example,
the voice acting was not recorded in a studio but instead was just the actors reading out their individual lines in isolation and then them being mixed together , so noticeably often it just doesn't make sense. this is understandable for a big game, but it does mean you have to be more careful with how you implement it. however there were many dialogue pieces in the game that didn't quite make sense
the characters were good, but the script was so fucking awful and uninspired that i didn't laugh once during the entire game and probably smiled twice. i think i spotted as many outright "this doesnt make sense or is just really bad" parts as i did parts that were endearing. you can't design solid characters and just make them say generic things, like, you need to DELIVER their personality to us. otherwise its just shit. i imagine they communicate much better in the anime, which i will watch soon
they would kill off characters and then randomly jam in some character building cutscenes about that character AFTER THEY WERE GONE AND BURIED, e.g. after luna died we got some cutscenes trying to explain more about who she is and who that sheever woman is, ITS A BIT LATE NOW GAME DON'T YOU THINK? its just REALLLY fucking bad planning to do this. give us information and character-building about the character BEFORE you remove them from the game, it's not rocket science. do you guys remember the old woman you meet randomly when you're briefly with andrea who gives you a little cut scene about luna? no, neither do i.
the complete absence of worthwhile story or any value in half of the things the game wanted you to do. "hi, i'm the marshell, go to some tombs, bye". there is zero value in this.
the complete absence of characterisation in many of the places, e.g. all the tombs. i get the impression that , given time, square would have given each tomb a massive theme surrounding them, so the tomb where you get a lance has a theme and sub-story about lances and the king who ruled with the lance. there's so little characterisation in the world, even NPCs are all wearing the same clothes and saying the same things
the combat system, and since i haven't played it i don't have the right to speak about it, apparently it's fun but there is zero actual depth to it, less so than a game like Kingdom Hearts. personally i think it is unforgivable to have uninspired, lacklustre mechanics in a game that revolves so strongly around its mechanics. there is just no excuse for coming out with poor systems when you are given so much money and freedom. the mechanics in Soma were criticised, for comparison, but then in Soma you were only using them 1/5 of the time rather than 4/5 of the time.
anyway, here is my final thoughts. i do intend to watch Adam Koebal playthrough at some point and get a different perspective through him.
i think the game is an amalgamation of poorly planned, poorly implemented, low quality concepts. there are big issues with pretty much every single thing, from noctis' so called "dialogue options" to the most basic dev issues such as not having characters repeat the same line of dialogue 4x in the space of 1 minute when you go back in a menu (the last time you speak to Talcott) . the character design is solid, when you get it, however the writing is uninspired at best, and the storytelling is complete and utter garbage. i mean, i heard JP shout "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" enough times and i thought that was just because he was spending 4 hours out of every 5 grinding mobs. but i just watched the whole story in 5 hours flat and it's like mindboggling poorly directed. you couldn't do a worse job if you tried. however, individual cutscenes are very beautiful as self-contained pieces.
the only explanation really for them making the game so bitty and holey is that they plan to patch it all up with DLC ministories and such, but believe me i will be long gone from caring by that point . it is just disrespectful to purposely leave such gaps in your game, people deserve better from a game that is supposed to want to tell us a story.
i just watched adam koebal play through Soma, and i gotta say THAT game had a fucking solid, original, well-planned story and great, cleverly characterised, realistic voice acting. if that's what you're looking for in a game then get that. and you know what, it took him like 10 hours to complete. not even 20. and i would recommend that experience . but that's just me . i think we are beyond the point of recommending "mediocre" things when people are trying hard to go above and beyond
i strongly get the impression that it was put together very very poorly
either that, or i get the impression that Japanese quality of game design is far behind modern Western game design.
this is not hard to believe, since the language barrier will mean that Japanese developers are isolated from many Western games, right?
i have followed the user reviews on metacritic , they pretty much unanimously agree that the storytelling and a lot of the game design is bad, and most still go on to give the game 10/10 rating, which obviously i can't agree with.
it shocks and pains me to see that a lot of the gaping holes of nothingness in the game, such as "who the fuck was aranea?" "who the fuck was ravus?" "where the fuck did prompto go?" and "why the fuck was ignis walking round half the game blind?", it pains me to hear that these are planned DLCs rather than actually being in the game
i mean, it doesn't PAIN me, it outright disgusts me.
i could go in probably every inch of gameplay and describe why it is bad and how it could be improved, for example,
the voice acting was not recorded in a studio but instead was just the actors reading out their individual lines in isolation and then them being mixed together , so noticeably often it just doesn't make sense. this is understandable for a big game, but it does mean you have to be more careful with how you implement it. however there were many dialogue pieces in the game that didn't quite make sense
the characters were good, but the script was so fucking awful and uninspired that i didn't laugh once during the entire game and probably smiled twice. i think i spotted as many outright "this doesnt make sense or is just really bad" parts as i did parts that were endearing. you can't design solid characters and just make them say generic things, like, you need to DELIVER their personality to us. otherwise its just shit. i imagine they communicate much better in the anime, which i will watch soon
they would kill off characters and then randomly jam in some character building cutscenes about that character AFTER THEY WERE GONE AND BURIED, e.g. after luna died we got some cutscenes trying to explain more about who she is and who that sheever woman is, ITS A BIT LATE NOW GAME DON'T YOU THINK? its just REALLLY fucking bad planning to do this. give us information and character-building about the character BEFORE you remove them from the game, it's not rocket science. do you guys remember the old woman you meet randomly when you're briefly with andrea who gives you a little cut scene about luna? no, neither do i.
the complete absence of worthwhile story or any value in half of the things the game wanted you to do. "hi, i'm the marshell, go to some tombs, bye". there is zero value in this.
the complete absence of characterisation in many of the places, e.g. all the tombs. i get the impression that , given time, square would have given each tomb a massive theme surrounding them, so the tomb where you get a lance has a theme and sub-story about lances and the king who ruled with the lance. there's so little characterisation in the world, even NPCs are all wearing the same clothes and saying the same things
the combat system, and since i haven't played it i don't have the right to speak about it, apparently it's fun but there is zero actual depth to it, less so than a game like Kingdom Hearts. personally i think it is unforgivable to have uninspired, lacklustre mechanics in a game that revolves so strongly around its mechanics. there is just no excuse for coming out with poor systems when you are given so much money and freedom. the mechanics in Soma were criticised, for comparison, but then in Soma you were only using them 1/5 of the time rather than 4/5 of the time.
anyway, here is my final thoughts. i do intend to watch Adam Koebal playthrough at some point and get a different perspective through him.
i think the game is an amalgamation of poorly planned, poorly implemented, low quality concepts. there are big issues with pretty much every single thing, from noctis' so called "dialogue options" to the most basic dev issues such as not having characters repeat the same line of dialogue 4x in the space of 1 minute when you go back in a menu (the last time you speak to Talcott) . the character design is solid, when you get it, however the writing is uninspired at best, and the storytelling is complete and utter garbage. i mean, i heard JP shout "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" enough times and i thought that was just because he was spending 4 hours out of every 5 grinding mobs. but i just watched the whole story in 5 hours flat and it's like mindboggling poorly directed. you couldn't do a worse job if you tried. however, individual cutscenes are very beautiful as self-contained pieces.
the only explanation really for them making the game so bitty and holey is that they plan to patch it all up with DLC ministories and such, but believe me i will be long gone from caring by that point . it is just disrespectful to purposely leave such gaps in your game, people deserve better from a game that is supposed to want to tell us a story.
i just watched adam koebal play through Soma, and i gotta say THAT game had a fucking solid, original, well-planned story and great, cleverly characterised, realistic voice acting. if that's what you're looking for in a game then get that. and you know what, it took him like 10 hours to complete. not even 20. and i would recommend that experience . but that's just me . i think we are beyond the point of recommending "mediocre" things when people are trying hard to go above and beyond
