Final Fantasy 15 I guess

[Nique]

Only a few hours in. I guess this is a story about a prince and his BROS which is cool. Driving around in the Regalia is slick as shit, I love it. Cindy is annoying and regressive as fuck.

[Tev]

I can't watch a commercial for this game without "The Boys are Back in Town" playing in a constant loop in my head.

[Arcanum]

Game is great. Story is a bit of a mess. It's a neat story, just told so very poorly.

I definitely recommend watching Brotherhood (the anime that's free on youtube) if you haven't already. Gives some cool backstory on the boyband.

A lot of people say Kingsglaive (the prequel movie, which is mediocre at best but damn does it look pretty) is recommended viewing to understand the plot, but I feel that's not entirely true. You might understand a few things faster, but if you're paying attention then by the end of the game most things make sense.

[Solid Snake]

Cindy is terrible and I wish there was a Mod available that replaced her with like, a completely normal decent tomboyish mechanic who'd actually dress and act like a tomboyish mechanic would act, as opposed to dressing and acting like a stripper dressing up in a 'mechanic roleplay' outfit. Hell, just altering the outfit would be enough if not for the fact that Cindy's English VA seems to be completely sold on the notion of playing Cindy as the stripper and hams up every line with enough forced, unattractive attempts at sensuality that you just sort of roll your eyes, shake your head and wonder what the hell Square Enix was thinking.

(I always feel slightly uncomfortable these days using the word 'tomboyish.' It's not kindly looked upon by many SJW advocates for entirely understandable reasons, but I often fall back onto 'tomboyish' because there's simply no replacement word that's equally suitable.)

Anywhoo, aside from that I really like FFXV, which is surprising! I mean, I liked FFXIII and loved FFXIII-2 (in fact, FFXIII-2 remains my favorite FF released in the past decade) but I kind of came into FFXV thinking that I'd continue to be a contrarian and view a title the majority of Final Fantasy fans loved as overrated and so far...it's been surprisingly pretty good!

Ignis, Prompto and Gladiolus are all great and, in true Final Fantasy fashion, my least favorite character in the cast is the protagonist you control; even still, Noctis never quite reaches Squall-like levels of self-loathing and angst despite it actually being far better justified for him as a character given what he goes through. The Ascension system is kind of crap when you compare it directly to something like FFX's Sphere Grids but it's really unintrusive so it's not worth worrying about. The fighting system is just so addictive though. I can't help but grind, I enjoy it so much.

I really just wish the supporting cast of characters who weren't either the four in your traveling party, Iris (the one woman who's actually pretty great, and who Noctis predictably mistreats) and the villains were fleshed out appropriately. We really needed a few more decent women in the supporting cast with backstories and personalities to interact with.

[Arcanum]

Hell, just altering the outfit would be enough if not for the fact that Cindy's English VA seems to be completely sold on the notion of playing Cindy as the stripper and hams up every line with enough forced, unattractive attempts at sensuality that you just sort of roll your eyes, shake your head and wonder what the hell Square Enix was thinking.

I agree with not liking the outfit, but I was unaware that "southern drawl" equals "stripper" or "forced, unattractive attempts at sensuality." The accent is out of place, and the VA isn't the best, but I'm failing to see how you are making this connection.

Iris (the one woman who's actually pretty great, and who Noctis predictably mistreats)

I'm also curious where you're getting this from, other than choosing the awkward/"bad" dialog choices when touring Lestallum with her.

[Solid Snake]

I agree with not liking the outfit, but I was unaware that "southern drawl" equals "stripper" or "forced, unattractive attempts at sensuality." The accent is out of place, and the VA isn't the best, but I'm failing to see how you are making this connection.


If I wasn't on this damned trip through hell I'd have time to watch and link to random YouTube videos to make my point, but for now I'll just say that I remember wincing with various lines of dialogue from her where I felt like the poor VA (who I do not blame for this, at all) received the constant direction "Seductively" appearing before every word she spoke.

Maybe the VA actually embarked on a glorious rebellion against her voice direction by deliberately reading the lines so overblown that it played more like a parody of a porn video than actual porn.

But goddamn, the combination of her voice direction and those camera angles. Never refill your gas or service the car at the Hammerhead location. Choose literally anywhere else.

[Arcanum]

I just watched the entirety of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGzFb8rAMnA) and I'm still only hearing forced southern drawl.

I can't help but feel your bias against her appearance is making you exaggerate about her VA.

Unless you just equate southern accents with strippers and porn ;D that was a shitty joke don't take the accusation seriously

[Gregness]

I watched the first half that video, and I'm not really hearing it in the voice, but damn that character design is worse than I thought. And something about the body language of all the characters seems off to me. Like, it's the exaggerated movement and posing of an anime art style, but the graphics aren't correct for it. It doesn't quite match for me.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Yeah it feels a lot more out of place in the final game then it did when you saw her briefly in the demo. They wanted to go with "Sexy Mechanic" and fumbled pretty badly due to her outfit being too try hard. Probably were better off just going for a summer attire mechanic style uniform.

Subtlety is key when it comes to making a sensual character in any job like that.

[Nique]

I mean, I kind of think snake is right that the skimpy outfit and southern twang is a common sexualized trope (Daisy Duke?) and alao this is some DOA level cheesecake. But yeah like, grinding is actually fun in this which, wow, that totally surprised me. I'm gonna try to watch the movie and see if it improves the story at all.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

I mean, I kind of think snake is right that the skimpy outfit and southern twang is a common sexualized trope (Daisy Duke?) and alao this is some DOA level cheesecake. But yeah like, grinding is actually fun in this which, wow, that totally surprised me. I'm gonna try to watch the movie and see if it improves the story at all.

And wow it just occurred to me that Cindy might have been a Daisy Duke reference. Really, really unlikely but she really borrows a lot from that character.

[Nique]

Update: Everyone should for sure play 'A Kings Tale' because you never knew that you wanted to play a Final Fantasy as a side-scrolling beat-em-up, but you definitely do!