Despite it’s many flaws, I like Final Fantasy XV quite a bit. The story was quite clumsy. It’s representation of women was poor. And some sequences in the game required some patching and reworking from the developers. But, I loved the music, setting, and, most of all, the main cast of characters.
From the beginning of the game, all the way through until the end, you play as Noctis and have your three friends, Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis, by your side at all times. At the beginning, as a player, I didn’t really care for them. In previous Final Fantasy games, the other cast members are just kinda there. They have their one or two story moments, and for the rest of the game, they don’t talk or add anything to the experience.
In Final Fantasy XV, your three friends, the other party members, constantly talk about pretty much everything that’s going on. Noctis doesn’t really say a whole lot unless it’s a pivotal story point. I think most people get annoyed about this. But after a while, it’s just the norm. And their character shows through all of the interactions they have. The friendship between the four characters isn’t really explained. It’s felt. It’s atmospheric.
For the first half of the game, none of this really has an impact. You basically take your party members, your friends, for granted. Then, at a certain point in the game, things change that impact your friendship. They become quiet and sometimes scornful. I was able to feel the magnitude of the decisions and consequences of the previous events through the change in atmosphere. I had come to care for these characters, and now that things had changed. It felt tense and sad.
And it wasn’t just getting passed what had happened or about trying to get things back to the way they were. It was about living with the decisions that were made, and moving forward. And moving forward together as a group, rather than breaking apart forever.
Being able to feel this connection to the characters and being able to relate to this kind of conflict through my own life was really powerful. The localizers did an excellent job conveying this dynamic between the characters.
Anyways, one of the other great things about the game is the photographer of the group, Prompto. Throughout play, he passively takes photos at somewhat random points. When you take a rest at the end of the day, you can go through these photos and keep the ones you like. Sometimes these photos even capture some glitches or bugs.
The following are all the ones I’ve kept.