Final Fantasy 15, a Cup Noodles commercial cosplaying as a video game, got its first piece of downloadable content this week, and you really don’t need to bother with it. It’s short, straightforward and — unless you’re particularly attached to Gladio — really boring.
Episode Gladiolus, which came out Tuesday for $7.55, starts off with the Final Fantasy 15 gang asking the question we’ve all wanted to ask since we finished Square’s latest role-playing game: Why does Gladio have two scars on his face instead of one? Then we cut to a flashback featuring Noctis’s brawny bodyguard, presumably during the time he inexplicably left the party during Chapter 6. Though Episode Gladiolus doesn’t explain why Gladio returned in a big spacesuit, the new DLC does tell us what he was doing while Noctis and the others hung out with Aranea.
As it turns out, Gladio was embarking upon trials (as you do) to fight Gilgamesh, a recurring Final Fantasy character who is usually played for laughs but in FF15 is extremely serious. To do this, Gladio meets up with Cor, a badarse warrior who unceremoniously vanishes after the first eight chapters of Final Fantasy 15, and the pair descend into Gilgamesh’s lair so Gladio can prove himself worthy as Noctis’s sworn shield.
The next hour consists of walking in a straight line through a series of tunnels and hallways, fighting monsters along the way. Playing as Gladio feels drastically different than playing as Noctis, especially if, like me, you immediately ditched Noctis’s greatsword because it felt too heavy and unwieldy. With Gladio, you can’t switch to daggers or a short sword. You’re stuck with the worst weapon type in the game. You also can’t use warp, which is what made Final Fantasy 15‘s combat feel so good in the first place.
What Gladio can do is A) use standard attacks to fill up an ability bar, allowing him to kill enemies with techniques like Tempest and Maelstrom; B) block attacks with a shield; and C) grab stone pillars from the ground and swing them at enemies, which is as fun as it sounds. You won’t need to pay too much attention to combat until you reach the final boss (spoilers: It’s Gilgamesh), who is surprisingly tough and requires lots of blocking to defeat.
If you’ve played Final Fantasy 15, you will not be too shocked by Episode Gladiolus, which has many of the same traits: Gorgeous scenery, some great new music, and a ton of frame rate drops (during one mini-boss fight the frame rate crawled so low that I thought it froze my game). Episode Gladiolus brings nothing new to the table, and I say this as someone who adored Final Fantasy 15. This DLC offers no character development or interesting decisions, and it’s not really that fun to play.
Actually, it does bring one new thing to the table. If you beat Episode Gladiolus, you’ll unlock this costume for the rest of Final Fantasy 15:
via NeoGAF
Comments
12 responses to “Final Fantasy 15’s First DLC Is Short And Pointless”
Just like the main game then.
Hahaha zing.
You should probably throw in a spoiler alert at the start of the article in case there are some readers that haven’t gotten that far into the game or for those who haven’t played the game yet. I personally don’t get bothered by that sort of thing.
Geez its almost as if they decided to cut pieces of the main game out only to sell it as dlc later. But thats just a jaded view right? Who would do that to a story driven game??
Who here still feels good about wanting a Final Fantasy 7 remake knowing this is the company your dealing with not the squaresoft of the 90’s.
You know what just fuck it all Im going back to Horizon….
It’s an episodic version of FFVII with a revisionist approach to story. Sounds about as fun as a prostrate examination.
In case you’re not caught up with the news, Square Enix forced the developers to release the game before 2017, oh and another thing if you’re still not caught up, Final fantasy 15 was developed for about 2 to 3 years because of Final Fantasy verses 13 was scrapped so don’t say “OH BUT THEY HAD 10 YEARS TO DEVELOP FF15” cause that is false. Don’t blame the devs that have had no control over the situation. And btw the devs are working their asses off to fix the story, not only that but they are also going to add in off road with the regalia, destructible environments, etc.
I am so glad Persona 5 is coming out. FFXV was great and all, but this DLC shit and the butchered story made it feel stunted and patchy.
FFXV combat is pretty boring regardless. Its hit boxes feel bad even when compared to Monster Hunter hip checks.
I won’t lie… prob gonna get it for shirtless Gladio
LOL seems like a steep cost for a costume.
You’ve clearly not seen the FFXIV community.
I’m surprised, because the original game wasn’t pointless and short. NOT.
Even though I am a self-professing Final Fantasy nut (own every game in the series) I was so horrifically underwhelmed by FF15 I haven’t even mustered up the energy to buy the DLC. Jason talks about how he loved the combat in the main game. I pretty much hated it. It managed to be deadly boring and yet horribly frustrating at the same time. The thought of going back to that world just makes me groan.
I would love to play an Episode Aranea instead of more of the boy band