Final Fantasy XV Review

The friendship is the achievement. Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto talk in the car, cook at camp, take photographs and comment on what you are doing, and the accumulated small talk builds something no amount of cutscene could. The first two thirds are a road trip through a landscape that feels lived in, with diner quests and a fishing minigame and long drives at dusk, and it is genuinely lovely. Then the game collapses.

The open world ends, the back half becomes a linear corridor, characters exit the party for reasons explained in a separate film, and an entire act appears to have been cut and replaced with a train. The combat is the other compromise, a hold to attack system with warp strikes that looks spectacular and asks very little, though later patches added depth. Years of updates added chapters and repaired some of the damage. What is left is half a great game and half an apology, held together by a car full of friends.