Episode 23: Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae—Girls, Goblins, and Mullets

Episode 23: Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae—Girls, Goblins, and Mullets

Platform: Playstation 4

Release Date: 3/17/2015

Difficulty:  Moderate

Price: Free! …If you bought Final Fantasy Type-0.

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic
 

Terra’s Review

Nutritious and filling! Just what you need when fighting goblins!

The Good

• It’s a Final Fantasy game, so of course the graphics and music are amazing.
• The demo featured an impressive open world to run around in and a cave to explore. People who were sick of F13’s hallways are sure to appreciate this aspect of 15.
• Noctis’ car looked pretty cool.

The Bad

• Oh boy, the combat. “Hi we’re a huge mob of monsters and we’re here to attack you and we move super fast and you can’t target us to pick us off one at time and hahaha Ramuh only knows what your AI controlled party members are targeting.”
• I realize this is a demo that’s mostly focused on the battle mechanic, but I wish that it had given me a better idea of what the main character’s personalities were and how they interacted with each other.
• The only female character that showed up was clearly designed for max sex appeal.  She couldn’t at least get a shirt that covers her bra? L
• Goddamn goblins.

The Ugly

• The hair. Just. Gladiolus has mullet and I don’t know what the hell is going on with Noctis’s hair.

The…Huh, I’m Not Sure How I Feel About That

• The Coleman product placement. On one hand, I find it hilarious. On the other, it’s really weird seeing those Coleman branded chairs in a world where the rest of the writing is Final Fantasy rune squiggles.
• The cooking. I like the concept, but it doesn’t seem like you get much control over what the game makes.

 

Behold the power of Product Placement!

The lowdown: I was hoping that the demo would blow my mind and erase all the doubts I had about some aspects of FF15, like the all male cast and the active battle system. Unfortunately, it just reinforced those doubts. I’m not writing the game off and will still play it when it comes out, but hopefully Square will at least make some improvements to the battle system before it’s released.

Music Credits:
FFXIV OST
RPG Roundup Theme Song: "Video Game Theme," J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.