I haven't been able to be as active on steem as I would like to be due to a lot of crazy things going on in my life some good, some bad. I wont bore you with the bad ones but I thought i'd do a post on one of the good ones.
After a 10 year wait Final Fantasy 15 has finally come out! I am now 60 hours into the game and for all it's faults I absolutely love this game. I would love to do a full review on the game but will more than likely wait till I get into NG+ to do so. This is going to be a completely spoiler free post about a discussion a friend and I had about the game and the direction of games in general.
I will preface this by briefly saying that I am not a fan of the DLC era of gaming we are currently in. I find it very unfortunate that the current market for games has bred an environment where companies rush their product to market unfinished. Sometime it can just buggy which makes me feel like the first buy consumer is forced to be a tester while the company rolls out updates. Sometimes it can just feel like you paid $60 dollars for the demo and have to continue to pay for the complete game. Some times they goes as far as actually selling you the demo for $20 to $40 dollars, then sell you the game for $60 just to come back and sell you the DLC later. While I do agree you can, and probably should, just wait to buy the game in a second release bundle at a cost lower than the initial release, I have yet to wise up to this as I am conditioned to just buy the games I really want when they release. What I have done is cease to buy season passes for games and just move on to the next game and not care. This has worked well for me considering that by the time the full schedule of DLC is out I am on to the next game anyway. For the first time I have broken my rule of not buying the season pass and bought the collectors bundle of Final Fantasy 15. Only time will tell if I burnt myself. What I can say is that the main game so far feels very complete.
With that said, Square Enix with Final Fantasy 15 have created a new (at least to me) concept to love or hate. The world, and story in Final Fantasy 15 is multilayered and multi media. For now we have the game itself, a featured length movie "Kingsglaive", and in some markets and soon in the States there is also a mobile game King's Knight. The mobile game I can not comment on, since I have not played it, and to talk about what I do know may be a little spoiling. The movie though is what spawned the discussion between my friend and I.
While discussing our likes and dislikes of FFXV my friend griped that she was lost in the story. I asked her "have you seen Kingsglaive?" she responded "No, and I shouldn't have to". My response to this was "but why wouldn't you?" So this is where we are and I just wanted to see what everyone else thinks about this. So I thought I'd compile a list of questions that, I hope, will get a good discussion on this topic going. Please feel free to respond to these in the comments which I think we should keep spoiler free and if it gets enough action I will create another post where people can get more in depth and feel free to spoil.
- Do you think you need to have seen Kingsglaive to enjoy, or understand the plot of FFXV?
- If yes, do you think it was fair for Square Enix to split their plot across a game and a movie and sell them separately?
- Do you think it was a cool concept or a greedy cash grab?
I personally did not watch Kingsglaive before starting FFXV. I will admit that I felt a little in the dark about some of the more intricate parts of the plot. I was, however, still really enjoying FFXV and felt like I was following the plot well enough. In all honestly playing the game made me only want to watch the movie even more, so I purchased it. I really enjoyed the movie and it only made me want to play the game more. After watching the movie the plot of the game did really sink in a lot more. On the topic of fairness I am torn. While I do not think the move or the movie was a cash grab, it was really quality and they put a lot into it in my opinion, I do feel like they could have given it to me for free. I think the best way for them to have approached it would have been to give it as a preorder bonus for people who purchased the collectors bundle. Now I am fully aware that there is more than likely market elements going on that I am not in know about. This elements probably played a hand in how and what they released and for what cost. With that all said I do not feel like I was cheated out of my money and do not regret spending what I did for what I got, which is saying a whole lot these days. At the end of the day I really think it was an awesome concept. I have seen a lot of movies based of games and most are terrible but all of them have been their own thing, with the exception of a few, but those were all later in the plot. Kingsglaive was, for lack of a better term, a supplement to the plot of FFXV. In conclusion while I do not like the way most companies handle their release and their DLC with FFX/Kingsglaive I felt that I got a very fulfilling experience and would be happy to see the trend continue. If you really like a game, especially a series like Final Fantasy, why wouldn't you want to watch the movie?
Please feel free to add any other topic/questions you might thing will lend to this discussion in the comments.
I apologize for any grammatical errors, or run on sentences but I am too tired to proof read this enough and if I don't post it before I go to bed I fear it will never be posted.