I’m gonna cut to the chase, and then explain how and why: Final Fantasy XV is the best Final Fantasy game i have played since VII. It also gut-punched me and moved me in a way that hasn’t happened since Shadow if the Colossus. I wanted to write that yesterday, after completing it, but I felt it best to take a day to think on it and let my emotions settle. I mean, that’s a big statement for me. In the cold light of day, I stand by it.

The game only works because of the cast. Specifically, the 4 key characters - Noctis, Prompto, Ignis and Gladio. This game is a roadtrip, as has been noted endlessly elsewhere, and you spend the vast majority of the game with them and no-one but them - except for about 4 or 5 instances when your party may be joined by a temporary NPC. The secondary characters, though, range from serviceable to duff but it doesn't matter - all that matters is those 4 guys, and the relationship between them.

Nearly every time you take a quest and start walking, or driving, towards your destination the boys will start to chatter. Prompto is the fun-loving guy who makes light of everything and makes nervous jokes about not wanting to get eaten alive by some monster. Ignis is the serious, and British, one - admonishing Noctis for recklessness and encouraging others to pay attention. Gladio is the proud defender, a knight, who takes pride in his responsibility. Their characters fit within familiar frames, but the incessant chatter and interplay between them elevates it into a real dynamic. It’s not 3 guys having a friendship with you, it’s 4 friends. They exist to each other, they play off each other, they tease each other.

At the end of every day, whenever you camp or find a hotel, you’ll be shown a selection of up to 10 photos that Prompto took that day. It could be some of you walking through an area, it might be mid-battle shots, it could be a selfie or a group photo. You can save the ones you like the most, and it goes a long way to strengthening your bond. And while you look at those photos, maybe you’ll be eating a meal you told Ignis to make. Just them, and their adventures, and these little things - the chatter, the pictures, the group meals - make every day feel special and make you feel tighter as a group.

Of course, none of this would mean shit if the guys were mopey or dull. Squall from FFVIII as borderline-intolerable at points, but that worked for the game as he grew and opened up. But it wouldn’t work here. So thankfully, they don’t go that way. Bad things happen to these guys but they still laugh and joke. They are harmed by terrible tragedies and they suffer, but they pick themselves up and keep going.

As you drive around you can listen to music on your CD player. Cruising the roads during a sunny while you listen to The Highland takes the Air, or racing through the dark night with demons around while the operatic opening to Final Fantasy VIII plays feels perfect. And while you drive, you talk, or fidget, or check your phone. Maybe Ignis starts to drink an Ebony coffee, or Gladio reads a book, or Prompto checks his phone, they’re always doing something to alleviate the long journeys. And, of course, when it starts raining you’d better put the hood up, otherwise the rain will ruin their hair. Their gorgeous, beautiful hair.

They talk about their hair a lot, and their bodies. And girls. And everything, really. After battles Prompto may sing the music that used to play after winning fights in the old FF games. Or they might just all compliment each other, and check everyone is still alive.

It all feels so good, so happy. At least, until it doesn’t. At around Chapter 10, everything changes and things start getting worse. Bad things happen to good people. But these are not any old people, these are my friends, my best friends, and they undergo real pain. And then it gets worse again. This is not the death of Aeris, this feels far worse, this feels akin to SotC.

As I wander through a cave, Gladio is telling me to pull myself together, telling Noctis to pull himself together, except he can’t. I can’t. Nearby is a constant reminder of what has happened and I want to make it better, except I can’t, and I actually wonder whether I want to keep playing this game. Maybe I should just turn it off now. But if I do that, things will never be corrected and I plough on. We make something akin to a peace, and keep going.

And then chapter 13 arrives. As i said elsewhere, I’ve never had such mixed feelings on a game, and Chapter 13 is one of the big reasons for that. It’s been called a linear set of corridors, but it’s worse than that. It’s an endless series of levels and corridors that look nearly identical, where you must continually unlock higher levels of access on a keycard before backtracking to doors that were locked earlier in order to reach a new level and do all that again.

Oh, and while that all happens you’re alone. And you don’t have weapons - just a handful of spells. You’ll be constantly attacked, poisoned and chased. It’s supposed to make you feel alone and it worked, but it also made me feel angry and frustrated. There’s a certain irony to Chapter 13 being super linear given what the game started out as, I suppose. Maybe it was intentional. It feels like it lasts forever, but it’s only 3 or 4 hours. Once that’s done…things get even worse, but they play better.

Chapter 14 is nihilistically bleak and piles on a series of visual and spoken wounds that play off of things you did earlier in the game that you probably didn’t even think about. But it’s all there, and you see how the world has changed, how you have changed, and how everyone you touched has changed. It’s a master-class in emotive storytelling, at least on a personal level.

On a general level the storyline really is absolute bobbins. Forget the whole “watch Kingsglaive” stuff - even important moments later in the story are given little context. Characters leave the story without warning, never to be seen again. In the beginning of the game you see the evil, scheming emperor of an aggressive kingdom. I expected to meet up wth him later, even though i doubted he’d be the main antagonist. I was wrong - he disappears for the entirety of the game after the opening and is just announced as “dead” later. Well…ok, I guess. There are also major revelations about major characters which are given barely more than a shrug, revelations that come with little to no build-up and then abandoned straight away. In those times i wonder what the hell the point was in the first place.

Also high on the bobbins scale is the camera. The battle system encourages fast warping across the battle field and aggressive tactics but, far too often, shows you little more than a wall, a tree or a close-up of a massive monster - all obscuring your ability to fight.

Side-quests are often not up to much, either. They’re more Dragon Age: Inquisition than Witches 3, often amounting to little more that a fetch quest or a request to kill X number of beasts. They also repeat, but with higher level requirements.

And hey, while i’m listing some more flaws, I should add a few more:

1. Audio cues often play over each other. For example, if your characters are chatting near the end of a battle but kill the best before there convo is over, the previous conversation will play on top of the convo from the following cut-scene, making both parts unlistenable.
2. The game has crashed a couple of times.
3. I’ve also had conversations refuse to start with characters, but am unable to go back to free-roam as the 2 characters just stare at each other, forcing me to quit and reload.
4. The bosses in the 2nd half of the game are a massive let down.

Let’s talk about 4. In the first half of the game there are some great fights and bosses. When fights work in this game they are absolutely exhilarating. You dodge, parry and warp across the battlefield, cutting swathes of enemies down. Giant mechs drop from the skies, and they are tough.

The game forces you to use potions constantly - this is not like Final Fantasy games of old where restoratives were hoarded for a rainy day. I think i’ve used more potions in this game than in all previous Final Fantasies combined.

But you get through, because you are just as deadly as your enemies. You use team-up link attacks where you fly through people’s legs, swap weapons and genuinely look awesome doing things together, or you might use Ignis’ Regroup skill to bring the group into a line and heal everyone ready for the next round, together. And the bosses live up to that, until the second half.

In the second half of the game, scale overtakes everything else and many big fights become little more than glorified QTEs. The game moves on at a rapid pace at this point, and keeps showing you huge incredible things and points to you saying “isn’t this awesome?” and you say no, because you’re not actually doing any of it, really.

Then, right at the end, it delivers a series of fights as good as anything leading up to it and all is well again. You walk towards your final destination, hurt but with friends, all united and showing utter conviction to bring the story to an end. Right before the final room, Noctis turns to them and doesn’t say something, he just asks for something, and at that point I genuinely felt close to tears. The something? A single photo. You've taken hundreds so far and gone through them all, but now you can take one, just one. I spent about 5 minutes going back and forth picking mine. It had to be a group shot, obviously but which one? I needed to see all their faces, they had to be smiling. That's how I wanted to remember them. But how could I pick just one?

You see, it’s all about those 4 guys. Their characters and their relationship is, without doubt, the greatest I have ever seen in a game, bar none, and it makes everything worth it. The 4 hour drop in quality, the technical issues - none of this matters when you buy into what this game offers.

And so you fight the final fight, and complete the game.

Then the credits play. And, oh my word, the credits are amazing, and the final barrier in the way of my tears fell and I actually cried. Seriously, what the fuck?

And then the game asks you to save a post-completion save, and you do. The game loads back up, and you head back into the world to do some extra dungeons and side quests.

I wasn’t sure where to go, but i decided Hammerhead was best, as it’s one of the early hubs and a place to do up your car and get quests. When I get there, Cindy the mechanic offers to do up my car with a special new part I got. So I wait and out comes my car again, looking very different. And now, when i drive it, there’s a new button I can press.

I get onto the tarmac again, speed up and press that button. Something happens. Prompto cries out “Awesome!” while Ignis remarks that we are taking the “high” road. Noctis doesn’t miss a beat when replies “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads”.

I laughed, and dived straight back in.