Final Fantasy XV follows Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum of Lucis as he tries to reclaim his kingdom after it’s invaded by the empire of Niflheim. He’s accompanied by his three bffs (Giant Gladio, Ignis THE BLIND GOAT, and Picture Prompto).

They travel across the world defeating baddies and preventing the Starscourge from plunging the world into eternal night.

Frankly, that sounds okay with me but I get why they’d want to prevent this. Naturally, Noctis is the One True King who can harness the power of gods and crystals to save the world.

Overall, I enjoyed the game but had a lot of problems with the story.

*Spoilers*

Problem 1: The Train Scene

The train scene highlighted essentially everything wrong with FFXV: swaths of information that’s important to understanding what’s going on being left out or skipped over for unknown reasons.

Luna has just died.

Except apparently it’s been days (weeks?) in game since her death and Noctis is maybe depressed about it (who knows because). Gladio gets mad and tells him to man up, but like why can’t my homeboy be sad for a bit? Noctis has the burden of the ring, he went through that trial, and his true love died. Give him a break.

Oh and Ignis is blind. This all happened like 5 minutes ago for me, and maybe if we’d actually witnessed Noctis acting like a whiny brat for a week and refusing to do his kingly duties while learning the world is rapidly descending into daemonic chaos, Gladio’s crash out may have made sense.

Problem 2: Chapter 13

In Chapter 13, Ardyn literally takes everything from Noctis, even his weapons. However, it provides us gamers with an interesting break from fighting with the stealthy stuff and whatnot.

Then, like an hour passes and like you’re still in this dungeon without weapons. I also didn’t fully understand how to use anything except Death, so I was just running around trying to find an exit and merking daemons with the ring.

Eventually, Noctis gets his sword, but like you’re still in this dungeon. It’s been 2 hours. And in case you forgot, you’re still in the dungeon. And you’re not doing anything except killing spawns of daemons.

Then, you’re forced to waltz into an obvious trap. Ardyn legit says, “it’s a trap lolz”, but apparently being the savior of the king of kings doesn’t give you common sense. You do get reunited with your squad, but like you’re still in the dungeon.  And you get disunited .01 seconds later for a decade.

That dungeon should’ve been like 30 minutes tops. Or the creators should’ve made it interesting. Getting the ring of Lucii right off the bat minimizes the impact of losing everything – you lose everything but gain god-tier abilities a minute later.

But having to run around powerless for a bit would’ve made the dungeon stressful, but more interesting.

Also, why weren’t there any riddles or something Ardyn makes you figure out while you’re wandering around? Why weren’t all your homies captured and you have to rescue them one by one on a time crunch? Why can’t you find your weapons one by one via some puzzles? There were a lot of ways to make chapter 13 long but not miserable and none of them were utilized.

Also, Noctis ft. his crew getting separated because of the train is stupid. Literally could’ve just had them all captured and then have Ardyn free Noctis because he’s an immortal troll.

Problem 3: Underutilized Characters

How many times do we see Dog tag Dave on screen? Contrast that to how many times we see Aranea? Iris? The Emperor? Ravus?? Luna???

Ravus, Noctis’ almost brother-in-law (and that’s all we ever learn about him), dies off-screen after all his hype. We see him briefly alive and the next time he’s onscreen, he’s a dead daemon. We never learn anything about why he was working with Ardyn/the empire. His death wasn’t even impactful. He could’ve been some random daemon you fight and it would’ve made zero difference.

Luna perishes before anyone has a chance to care about her, including Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis.

We don’t know why Luna was so in love with Noctis. We don’t know why she didn’t just pick up the phone and call him if she wanted to hear his voice (??). We know almost nothing about her until she’s killed by Ardyn and then we learn she was dying anyway.

Ravus could’ve been removed from the entire game based on his level of irrelevancy. However, Luna should’ve stayed alive long enough to perish however she was going to die naturally and told Noctis about her inevitable demise.

So, then we get this whole Noctis is fated to save the world but can’t save the person he grows to love most plot, which is cliché but it would’ve made him moping over someone he spoke to maybe three times logical.

Chapter 10 could’ve been them getting to know each other. Luna temporarily joins the Squad to take care of Ignis, Noctis learns she’s going to die, they encounter some level 34823248390 monster Luna has to sacrifice the last of her life force to kill, she dies, and then Gladio gets mad the second time they’re on the train after Noctis has his BSOD moment.

Problem 4: Ardyn

Ardyn ultimately achieved his goal (aside from ending the world, I guess).

But what did he do for 10 years while Noctis was talking to Bahamut? Sit moodily on the throne whilst fantasizing about revenge?

A single cut-scene of Ardyn sleeping for 10 years, gaining dark energy or whatever would’ve easily resolved this problem.

Problem 5: Ifrit

Why was that fight even in the prologue? Luna, Ravus, even Umbra deserved that screen time.

Problem 6: Everything Emotional

Every emotional part of the story was grazed over. I know it’s a game but again why do we learn so much about Frog Lady, yet Noctis can’t have two minutes of woe?

Noctis’ dad died? Sorry, you can only be mad for 15 seconds, Noctis, and then never think about your father again.

Fiancée stabbed before your very eyes? Man up.

BFF Prompto reveals he’s a demon robot? Relevant for about 2 minutes and never brought up again.

The most emotional part of the game came after it ended (scrolling through all those pictures and having to pick one was pretty sad…), via that glorious camp scene. I lowkey wish that scene had come before Noctis tells his homies to stand tall.

To be fair, it would’ve been a spoiler, but at that point we already know Noctis is going to die.

I could probably think of more things to gripe about but overall I enjoyed FFXV, and was satisfied Noctis actually died and there wasn’t some Lazarus style revival at the end.

However, I also love a good story and I’m generally confused as to why, over the course of however long it took to make this game, someone couldn’t have found a way to resolve some of these plot issues in a way that makes sense.

Open world concept but you lose your car. –0.5
A plethora of plot holes and focus on irrelevant characters. -1

Final Fantasy XV Rating: 8.5/10.