Aranea Highwind - Final Fantasy XV

Here's a messy sketch of Aarnea Highwind. Near the end of the game she became one of my favorite characters aside from Noctis and his gang (can't forget Iris either). At the beginning of the game she works for the Empire but as the story continues we learn she's a mercenary who isn't afraid to form her own opinion and follow through. Plus Biggs and Wedge (they have awesome British English voices) are part of her group. 

There's a lot to unpack regarding my thoughts on the latest Final Fantasy. I finished the main story earlier this week and have been enjoying the post game exploration of Lucis running through unexplored dungeons and seeing more story bits between Noctis and his brotherhood. Also got the Regalia Type-F which lets me fly around the world which has been pretty awesome. I honestly thought I'd never pick up FFXV again after beating it but I've been consistently coming back wanting to know more about the world and characters.

The story of FFXV is definitely a mixed bag to say the least. Rather than being a story that focused on many different facets from the political happenings between neighboring countries ar war to the Six Gods that govern the land, it's mainly a story about Noctis, Prince of Lucis and his friends on their roadtrip to meet with Noctis' wife-to-be Lunafreya who is Princess of Tenebrae. Their wedding is a peace keeping move to stave off the Empire from swallowing all both their lands for the time being. It's a simple story unlike past Final Fantasy games and I didn't mind that one bit. This game is more character driven and I honestly enjoyed it better for that.

Unfortunately, there are moments where chunks of story were just taken out for certain characters or events which would have given me better understanding of personal motivations and context to later plot events. Lunafreya's older brother Raveus and one of the main King's guard Cor are both glaring examples characters that would have been good to know more about but almost feel like they got written out of the main story but could have added a lot to the surround events. Some other story points were definitely cut and will be inserted back in as DLC later this year. There was a point in the main story where Gladio just up and said he had stuff to do and left the party for a couple of hours which was just weird.

Sound/music is top notch as expected. The engine used for this game gives excellent visuals. There's probably better tech out there which could probably make this game look even more amazing (looking at your Unreal 4 engine) but for what this is it's pretty nice. I played this on a PS4 (not a PS4 Pro) and it ran decently. The PS4 fan definitely ran louder and there were moments of slow down and dips in frame rate during really busy fights. That being said, for an open world game, I don't think I ran into any major glitches which is fairly impressive during my 40+ hours of play time. The game did crash on me once during a loading screen but thankfully the autosave kicked in prior to that so I didn't lose any progress. 

Final Fantasy XV is a great step for the Final Fantasy game series. It's a depature from how past games played which I personally enjoyed. I've read forums and rumors about tons of important plot points being changed or cut from when this game was in development from about 10 years ago. It's interesting to find out that the actual development time for FFXV (not Versus 13) has only really been maybe 3-4 years. A lot of the time seemed to be building the tech (as opposed to using someone else engine) and re-writing the story. Despite everything, it's definitely worth playing and I'm sure a PC "complete" version will find its' way to market in a year or two.

There's a lot more to say about this game and expanded universe (Brotherhood anime and Kingsglaive movie) but I'll cut it short here.

Did you get a chance to play/beat FFXV? If so, what did you think?