Final Fantasy XV and Slow Gaming

[rynling]

I played my sixth 30-minute session of Final Fantasy XV last night, and it did not go well. I'm having a lot of trouble with this game, which I'm afraid is indicative of my failure to adapt to modern gaming. The biggest problem I'm having is that the map works in a way that is not intuitive for me, and the text and maps in the official strategy guide are not in the least bit useful in helping me navigate. I'm getting lost a lot, especially when the game decides it's going to be night and I can't see anything.

FFXV is an action RPG, and combat moves extremely quickly. With four people and swarms of enemies, even the first several battles are chaotic, and the fact that the player needs to control the camera as well as Noct does not help. The entire screen is filled with rapidly shifting information, none of which I know how to process. Although you can pause the game, there's no way to slow down the battles, and they are brutal. In other words, the player is expected to start the game at a fairly high point on the learning curve.

(By the way, if your response to my admission of difficulty is "I'm not having trouble" or "my friends aren't having trouble" or "the Let's Play Youtuber I watch isn't having trouble," check yourself.)

After every battle, the game grades you on your performance. I wish you could turn this feature off, because it makes me feel awful about myself. Even worse, every time you rest for the night (which you need to do in order to tally your experience points and gain levels), the game grades you on how well your exploration went that day. Because I want to explore the map and am constantly getting lost, this makes me feel awful as well.

You suck, FFXV keeps telling me. You're barely passing. You're bad at playing this game. You're bad at games. What are you even doing.

A lot of the work I do in real life is invisible, and I don't typically get a lot of feedback, positive or otherwise. I also don't get much feedback from my creative work in fandom, which (as much as I would love to say that "I create for myself!") is also tough to handle. One of the reasons I play games is because I need to feel like I'm capable of accomplishing something. Even if it's just gaining a level or being told that I found 100% of a dungeon's treasure, I like to feel that I'm making progress.

The constant stream of negative feedback in FFXV is so hurtful and alienating, and I don't know why it has to be this way. I play Final Fantasy games to experience interesting stories and explore beautiful worlds while falling in love with quirky characters as I gradually customize their growth. If I wanted to play a hyperdrive murder simulator, I would choose another game. There are a lot of them out there!

Because FFXV is so stressful, I wind down from play sessions by playing other games, mainly Pokémon Sun and Link's Awakening. Go at your own pace. Take your time, both games say to me. You're doing great! It's not that the games aren't challenging, but rather that they're broad enough to accommodate diverse playstyles.

I'd like to advocate for "slow gaming," which I see as a more individualized and sustainable type of gaming. I'm going to need to think about what this means before I write more about it, but basically, I want to say that the style of gaming represented by FFXV should not be understood as normal or standard or something that anyone can enjoy.

Comments

[flonnebonne]

I suck af FFXV as well, but I just chuck the controller at my little brother if it gets too hard. Or if he doesn't let me I try my hardest to do as terribly as possible without getting a game over! I am amused to hear the characters screaming for help but then I am a horrible person.

You might want to consider changing the difficulty to easy mode and also put it on Wait mode? That's what I would do if I didn't have a convenient little brother.

[rynling]

NNnnnnnnuuuhhhhhh don't throw your controller! Those things are expensive!!

It's so cool that you're playing FFX with your brother. I played the PS era FFs with my brother, and those were some good times. I wish me and my brother lived closer so we could play FFXV together (especially because he is actually good at games). I think that's one of the reasons I enjoy the Game Grumps so much, because they remind me of quality sibling banter gaming time.

I should go ahead and confess that I started the game with both Easy Mode and Wait Mode turned on. I am Very Serious about my loving and committed relationship to Easy Mode, no matter what the game may be. Like, one day there is going to be a Kirby game with Easy Mode, and I will still turn that shit on without even thinking about it, that's how Very Serious I am.

I still haven't gotten an F on my report cards, but maybe I haven't been trying hard enough

[flonnebonne]

Yeah, having someone play FFXV with you definitely makes it better. The game is so dorky--you need someone with you to lovingly mock it.

Nothing wrong with Easy + Wait! I'm sure Wait Mode is there to make it feel more like a typical FF game for long-time fans. A lot of us play RPGs specifically because we don't want to deal with action.

[lassarina]

*screeching*

oh god that sounds even more demoralizing than the goddamned clock ticking in XIII-3, which flared my anxiety so hard I still haven't played more than an hour of it (tbf that was pre-medication; I'd probably be fine now.)

*braces self*

[rynling]

I keep thinking about why FFXV stresses me out so much, and I'm convinced that the official strategy guide is at least partially to blame. "Before this battle, be sure to unlock this skill on your Ascension Grid," the guide will say, and then I will spend ten minutes looking for the skill only to find that it doesn't exist. "You need to complete all the sidequests in order to stay ahead of the difficulty curve," the guide will say, "but for more information you need to go to the back of the book, where we have listed everything in random order and completely removed it from its context."

I'm strongly considering ordering the Japanese guides for this game. Based on my prior experience with the official Square Enix Ultimania guides, they are infinitely easier to use and have much more detailed and accurate information.

(Not gonna read the FFXV novel though, nope, life is too short.)

(I would make a stupid joke about having spent a full decade of my life learning Japanese in order to read strategy guides, but this is in fact what I did. Bitches gotta get a perfect game on FFIV.)

Another - and perhaps saner - alternative for FFXV is to just play the damn game without a guide and not worry about finding everything during the first playthrough. According to everything I've read (mainly on Polygon and Kotaku), there's no way to do a full playthrough the first time around anyway, and there is a bundle of patches and DLC that will be released soon anyway.

For what it's worth, XIII-3 was a big old NOPE for me. My little brother and one or two of my friends at Bethesda swear by that game, but I think it's an acquired taste. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding it anxiety triggering!

[lassarina]

UGH. I got spoiled by the FF13 guide, which for my money was the best strategy guide Square has ever, ever put out.

Yeah, XV is short enough that I probably can reasonably play without a guide the first time, and I might just do that. Instead of dithering for years about whether I'm gonna watch the anime/movie and whether I can play the game without (since I hear advice on both sides of the aisle for the same reasons - some folks say the characters in the game aren't as compelling without the movie and others say the exact opposite.)

[rynling]

Here is an update from my playthrough of FFXV: My experience vastly improved when I started leaving the guide on the shelf. I agree that the FFXIII guide was so good and so useful, but you absolutely do not need a guide for FFXV.

Also, I got better at the game once I figured out that the battle system is basically Kingdom Hearts, meaning that all you need to do is mash buttons. On Normal Mode, the game doesn't really expect you to pay attention to what's going on around you. You're really encouraged to trust your three teammates, and they do good work by themselves.

Basically, I was overthinking this game. I think it's meant to be more of an "experience" than something that requires actual strategy... at least on the first playthrough, which is probably one of the reasons why it's so short.

[lassarina]

.....Ooooh, good to know. I am unlikely to play on harder than Normal. (Husband might, but that's his hill to die on.)

[thegingeryone]

I'm really glad someone else had this experience with the fast moving games- since FFXII i've had trouble keeping up with the combat in the series- I really wish it would go back to the turn based. They're so much easier to keep up with :(

[rynling]

Thank you so much for leaving a comment!

I took me hours and hours to get used to the combat in XII and XIII too. When I finally learned how to use the systems in these games, they were a lot of fun, and I'm sure I'll eventually get the hang of XV when I return to it.

But still! When I replay the older games, I find the combat so chill and fun and relaxing, and I always enjoy the experience. I think the new games could really benefit from having an option for a more turn-based style of combat, if only so that the player had the mental room to step back and appreciate the monster designs and the gorgeous character and creature animations.