For a game that was stuck in a state of supposed “development hell” for years, Final Fantasy 15 ended up releasing in a pretty solid state. By no means was it flawless, but for a game that was in development for nearly a decade, the fact that it came out at all was pretty impressive. However, the cracks were pretty immediately apparent when playing through Final Fantasy 15 for the first time. Severe gaps in the narrative thanks to its multimedia releases, near-abysmal loading screens whenever fast traveling or loading a new area, performance issues on PS4, among other minor gripes.
Four years after the game launched, playing Final Fantasy 15 in 2020 (especially on a next-gen consoles or medium-range PC) is a much improved experience. Both on a technical and narrative level, improvements to the game’s performance alongside expansions make the whole experience vastly better than the game’s launch. Issues that plagued the original release on PS4/Xbox One are largely solved through patches, in tandem with the next-gen hardware remedying one of the game’s biggest problems. Many of the gaping plot holes and time jumps from the original are mostly filled in, aside from some inconsistencies. Overall, playing Final Fantasy 15 is much better now more than ever.
Narratively speaking, the original Final Fantasy 15 had some serious inconsistencies with the game’s story. For one thing, playing Final Fantasy 15 alone didn’t even provide players with the full story: the entire takeover and destruction of Insomnia is contained within the Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV animated film, character backstories for the main party are relegated to the Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV anime, and several gaps in the original game’s plot were expanded with the Episode DLC expansions. For anyone that didn’t know or didn’t care to watch/buy these additional stories over time didn’t even get the full Final Fantasy 15 narrative.
This is still a problem in 2020, albeit a much less prominent issue. There’s still a complete and total lack of context with the invasion of Insomnia that happens at the beginning of the game (without watching the film), but the additional DLC wrapped together in the Royal Edition helps fill in narrative gaps in the late game. Problematic points in the base game have also been tweaked as well, including the infamous Chapter 13. Not only is there a new playable portion of Chapter 13 with Gladiolus and Ignis making their way through the capital city to look for Noctis, but players also have shortened spell-casting time to make fights less tedious in the original Chapter 13.
Plus, at the end of the day, Final Fantasy 15‘s development is finished. Any gaps or potential story issues are now finalized, so players don’t need to wait for an update or DLC to get the most out of Final Fantasy 15‘s story.
On the performance end, there were a few key issues with Final Fantasy 15 on consoles. Loading times in particular were especially awful, with the PS4 and Xbox One taking up to two minutes just loading into the game for the first time. Fast traveling in particular was just as heinous, taking up to 35-40 seconds just to go from point A to point B “quickly” instead of just driving there in game. While this was a common issue among last-gen games, Final Fantasy 15 was one of the worst offenders. One less egregious issue with the game was the occasional frame rate dips in high density areas or moments of high action in battle, though not as bad as the loading times.
Now that the next-gen consoles are all powered by high speed SSD technology, the loading times for Final Fantasy 15 on both cold startup and fast traveling are vastly improved on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Loading up a save from the start screen on PS5 and Xbox Series X, on average, takes around 12-14 seconds. That’s a huge improvement over the nearly two minutes of booting up the game would usually do on PS4/Xbox One. Fast traveling also takes anywhere between 9-12 seconds on PS5 and Xbox Series X, compared to around the 35-40 seconds on previous-gen hardware. Plus, even with the few framerate dips on PS4/Xbox One, the PS5/Xbox Series X handle the game at 60 FPS with ease.
Now, to be fair, some of Final Fantasy 15‘s biggest problems aren’t totally solved on next-gen. Compared to the game’s original release in 2016, Final Fantasy 15 is easily more enjoyable on next-gen consoles/PC than before. However, the issues with gaping plot holes and narrative inconsistency aren’t totally solved with the DLC expansions. Big gaps like the Insomnia invasion, or the pacing issues at the end of the game, are still very much apparent regardless of which version is played. Arguably the game gets more of a bad rap than it deserves because of these narrative inconsistencies, but they are a clear and present detractor on Final Fantasy 15‘s overall experience.
That being said, the improvements in performance and the DLC additions do substantially improve the base game. Not having to wait substantially long before getting back into the game is a big plus for Final Fantasy 15‘s once-horrible loading times. Plus, with the DLC stories fleshing out the backstories of the main party’s separation towards the end of the game, Final Fantasy 15‘s endgame is quite improved from before. Those who may have skipped out on this game before would benefit the most from playing Final Fantasy 15 now.
Final Fantasy 15 is available now.
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