Final Fantasy 15, a video game about four men who just love hanging out and wearing black, has a few glaring issues. For example: The plot is a complete mess. The emotional beats are all there — by the end of the journey it’s hard not to care deeply about Noctis and his crew — but the story is poorly told.
Nothing makes up for the unresolved plot beats and seemingly missing cutscenes, but it does help to read this scripted prologue, which Square Enix released online earlier this week. This is an English translation of an audio drama CD that was only released in Japan, and it helps establish some of the character relationships leading into Final Fantasy 15.
In the prologue, we see the scenes leading up to the game’s opening, where a strangely sad King Regis sends Noctis out into the world and tells him never to turn back. There are also appearances from Kingsglaive characters and NPCs who don’t get nearly enough screentime in FF15. It’s worth reading if you want some more context for the game’s opening events.
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9 responses to “Final Fantasy 15’s Scripted Prologue Probably Should Have Been In The Game”
I just finished the first chapter of FF15 this morning. At the end of that chapter, a disjointed sequence of some of the climactic events from the Kingsglaive movie play out… only without any sound-effects, any narration, or anything to indicate what the hell is going on, where it’s happening, or why it’s happening.
I checked with the GF who was watching at the time, and she agreed that if we hadn’t seen the movie, we wouldn’t have a fucking clue what that sequence was all about. I’ve met high-school students studying video-editing at TAFE who could’ve done better.
Fortunately, I devoured every piece of media available in advance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if less-devoted players were utterly bewildered. Just awful editing.
Pretty much. I had no idea what was going on and only pieced it together after the opening of the next chapter. I plan to watch Kingsglaive before I go back to playing so this doesn’t happen again.
If it helps, that was probably as bad as it gets. The events of Kingsglaive culminate in all that ruin that kicks off the 2nd chapter of FF15.
You know how Lunafreya is walking out of the city with the ring, and meets her dogs and that priestess at the start of Chapter 2? Kingsglaive ends with her walking out of the city.Still, there might be some characters still alive at the end of the movie who may pop up in the game, I guess… probably worth a watch.
It’s kind of disappointing that some things like that appear to have been made for the game second and just sort of jammed in to save effort on making a cut-scene for the game only.
they do a similar thing with a bit of the omen trailer a little later on that works fine as part of a trailer but just seems out of place and with no setup when it happens in the game.(spoilered just in case but really it doesn’t tell you anything)
Honestly I think it would have been better without the disjointed kingsglaive shots, better to keep the player in Noctis’ shoes of not having firsthand knowledge of what happened.
Still really liking this game though.
I’ll say the best thing the prologue does is show Libertus in a generally more likeable light than he appears in kingsglaive.
Yup. You gotta wonder how they gave the thumbs up to that being the final cut of the cinematic.
Watching Kingsglaive and Brotherhood is an absolute must before starting this game.
Yeah. Until I finished the first chapter I’d have just said it was ‘useful’ to watch them, but now I’m of the opinion that it should be required.
I’m loving the poorly made character introductions for some of the side quests.
“Hey, there’s Mr/Mrs X. You didn’t see me, but I was chatting to them in Hammerhead and we now know each other. Let’s go see what they’re up to!” O.o
I have yet to watch the film (tomorrow likely) but I can’t say the first chapter confused me.
Though a bit vague, the plot points aren’t hard to follow. (Def left me thirsty for more though)
Of course, that’s me assuming context would be revealed over time.
I was wondering why nobody seemed to be giving me any details about the event itself, the “you had to be there” attitude gets old.
The thing is, that was added in post-release in the day one patch because SE was worried people wouldn’t understand what was going on. I just feel like the scenes either side of it would have the same (or even more) impact if they were left the way they were without splicing in the Kingsglaive footage. It’s weird and jarring.
That one shot from E3 where the dude in game looks back at the camera with the PSVR headset on just put me off this whole thing. It was so…. forced, and cheap. Like some geriatric old manager insisted on it because “the kids will love this bit” while everyone else is trying to tell him it’s a shitty idea without getting fired.