Final Fantasy XV Platinum: Proof The Franchise Is Dead

I’ve been a fan of Final Fantasy since the beginning. The very beginning. I am, however, one of those strange cases who say that despite playing and enjoying the initial entries, I finally fell in love with Final Fantasy VII. I know the so-called hardcore fans always say FFVII is “only your favorite if you started with it” but that is a mammoth fallacy. It’s most people’s favorite because it’s the best one, in my estimation. But that’s another topic for another editorial.

The point is, I’ve played every FF in existence (with the exception of spin-offs) and that even includes finishing, completing, and thoroughly enjoying FFXIII and XIII-2. Lightning Returns was the first FF I played and absolutely hated; the first I couldn’t actually finish, no matter how hard I tried. It was just awful. Since then, I’ve been hoping Square Enix would find their way with the next main installment, though it hardly gives fans the warm-and-fuzzies when they find out the new title is actually Final Fantasy Versus XIII and it has technically been in development for over a decade.

But even so, I was excited to try the Platinum Demo, released this past week. It was a chance for the developers to prove that Final Fantasy was back, that Lighting Returns was merely an anomaly, a misstep that we’ll soon forget. Sadly, this demo only proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this once great series is finished. And if there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s a bunch of self-righteous gamers bashing you for saying you hate it because it isn’t turn-based, or because it’s entirely real-time, unlike any of the previous entries. Yeah, well, am I allowed to hate it because it’s just BAD?

Why aren’t more people saying this? Is it the title that’s throwing people? Despite the obvious tailspin this franchise has been in for years, it seems the power of the Final Fantasy name is still capable of blinding a lot of people. Guys and gals, this demo is beyond mediocre; it’s poor. The mechanics suck. They really do. Beyond the obvious frame rate issues – which should scare the sh** out of you because these areas aren’t very big at all, especially not when compared to the big open-world areas of the final game – and the imperfect camera and lock-on system, it moves just…it’s bad. How many ways can it be said?

There’s an erratic, loose nature to the jumping, we should definitely question the collision detection, and the camera sits far too close (a problem many current action games have these days), thereby hampering visibility. And oh yeah, input lag?! Are you freakin’ serious? Didn’t we leave issues like lack of responsiveness behind in the PS2 era? Speaking of which, I will be brutally frank: I haven’t played a third-person action-oriented game – which FFXV most obviously is; as it barely qualifies as an “RPG” – that controlled this poorly since…I can’t remember. If Kingdom Hearts III is this bad, I will be immensely disappointed and strangely, I imagine that if it was KHIII, people would be freaking out more.

Actually, now that I think of it, imagine if this was any other game where real-time action is at the forefront. Imagine this technically flawed control mechanic in a Dark Souls, for example. And before everyone scoffs at the comparison, bear in mind that FFXV is more of a straight-up action game based on this demo; you can jump and string together attacks, everything is much faster, there are the standard action commands like guard and dodge-roll (and frankly, it doesn’t appear to have half the depth of a Dark Souls). And yet, if Dark Souls III controlled this badly, it’d get 5s and 6s. It really would; there’s just no excuse for this level of technical failure.

Now, on the flip side, I do like the atmosphere (even if it did remind me more of KH than FF) because it was creative, compelling and inviting. That’s nice. And Carbuncle is kinda cute. But the positive flip side ends there, because the graphics aren’t even that impressive. I could almost understand the frame rate issue if the graphics were blow-me-away amazing and quite simply, they’re not. We’ve already seen games this generation that look better. And we’ve certainly seen games that run better. Oh yes, and Square Enix said this demo was designed to showcase the “finalized graphics and combat/magic systems.”

Look, this has nothing to do with saying “it sucks because it isn’t turn-based anymore.” It’s an idiotic accusation, as virtually zero RPGs made today are pure turn-based. At best you’ll find hybrids on the Japanese side and on the Western side, you might get the opportunity to pause the game and issue commands, as you would in a Dragon Age, but that’s about it. No, turn-based is dead and we all know it. The problem is, there’s a very big difference between franchises like Dragon Age and FFXV; one is an RPG while the other feels like an action game first – where your button-pressing will determine your success far more often than your preparation and strategy – and a role-playing adventure second.

Compare something like FFXII to FFXV. You want real RPG complexity? A hybrid that might satisfy a lot of people?  Use an updated FFXII mechanic that actually forces you to think as opposed to being merely dexterous with a controller. Give me some evidence of an RPG. Can FFXV actually be in the same category as other games we call RPGs, like the upcoming Persona and Star Ocean titles? I’m not really sure about that. But all this aside, forgetting the genre debate, forgetting personal preferences, let me just repeat: Objectively, this game feels partially broken. Bad. Awful. Beyond mediocre. Whatever it is, whatever you want to call it, the core gameplay is seriously flawed.

Why aren’t we shouting this at the tops of our lungs? This isn’t exactly a rushed title, people; this is a game that is a decade in the making, though I know they restarted development at some point. The bottom line is I haven’t played a demo, or any game in this generation for that matter, that is as impaired as this one. And that’s that.

Disclaimer: Some of my favorite recent RPGs are absolutely action/RPGs, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and while I will always say the far more imaginative, creative and complex hybrid systems we often saw in the PS1 days (as with IPs like Shadow Hearts, for instance) were simply superior to this action-oriented, appease-the-masses, twitch-centric systems, that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize a good game, whether I like it or not. This isn’t about me “liking” FFXV. This is about me saying it ISN’T a good game, plain and simple.