I HAVE FOUND A NEW RECIPEH

Took me a long time to play this game since my expectations for it were quite low, due to Final Fantasy XV usually being one of the games in the series that people classify quite low from the entire franchise or even go as far to claim it as not being worthy of having the franchise name.
After playing and experiencing the entire story and other media I can easily say that although the game has some flaws and obviously follows the trend/modern path of ditching both the turn based and other more tactical/complex RPG elements for others that are simpler to appeal to a wider audience, for me in the end it still leaves on the other side in a really positive light both as a great and fun game in general but also as a great Final Fantasy for sure worthy of the name.

The biggest flaw that the game has for sure is the unfortunate way that it handles the story, most likely due to the development hell that the game production suffered through, based on heavy changes to address the player feedback on the XIII trilogy plus to try re-use as much as possible of the previous game that it was as "Versus XIII", so the story ended up cut into multiple medias that you have to follow the crumb trail to experience it fully and clearly, plus to add to the issue some of this content at the time of the game release only got delivered way after the game came out as DLC - below I have put a a list with the order of the main media to play/watch that is not overwhelming and that gets the story told in a nice way.

The story even if troublesome to chase due to being cut up into pieces, if followed correctly it ends up being an amazing journey to go through of a really personal story but that also has overarching highstakes happening all around and to you, both at a macro level in terms of the world but also micro where your party and related people are considered, plus full of big set pieces that are a joy to play through.
The group is also usually a point of contention since it doesn't seem interesting and specially due to looking like a 2000s Emo boys band, but as you play through it all you really understand the underlying themes of the game such as Brotherhood as you follow the journey of these four people not only developing and improving themselves but also developing and improving the synergy with each other against all odds that they will have to face.

The game is also based around on the sub-theme of Road trip which you really get the feeling of a real life on, plus you also the feeling that "it's all about the journey not the destination". You always have a big main mission and objective, but as you are driving you car around you are compelled to stop and do side-quests or take photos, go fishing, track beasts to hunt, camp and cook a nice meal plus some training, go for a walk with your choboco, check out some new point of interest that you see on the horizon.
Also it's funny and impressive that the game never pressures you to stop enjoying these activities or force you to do anything really, quite the opposite you should take your time and enjoy these things, interweaving them in a slow pace while doing the main story, but as you hear your Party banter around and talking with each other about some main story related points or you hear a passerby talking about the overall world news that are occurring at the moment, you really get a feeling of something dark looming around and even light pressure that while your group is enjoying these activities that the rest of world is going through dark changes and that you need to get back on the road to go and try be the change to resolve some of these issues, since as the king you are not there to be served and pampered, you are the one to lead by example and be on the trenches helping out your people and resolving problems.

Smaller notes:
-The DLC episodes are really great since all of them obviously not only contribute for the story but have a different gameplay and thus feeling, from something like the "Batman Arkhams" that you are grappling all around a city fighting bad guys, to the "Prototype" game where you are teleporting around wrecking the city, to a "Metal Gear" where you are sneaking around doing stealth take down and shooting mercenaries.
-The Comrades is a really interesting take on having a multiplayer component
-The Magic system in the game is very undeveloped and ended up not using since it kinda sucks, plus same feeling along with the Royal weapons that due making you lose HP they never where worth it.
-The graphics are still really great after all of these years and the game ran pretty smoothly with no bugs or issues in the entire game.

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Best order to play the "must have" content to follow the story:
-1) FFXV - Dawn Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcGLfeni0og
-2) Watch FFXV - Omen Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIyfWSrw_FQ
-3) Open FFXV and play the intro until you see Chapter 1
-4) Watch the movie FFXV: Kingsglaive
-5) Play through the entire FFXV Chapter 1
-6) Watch the 5 episodes of the anime FFXV Brotherhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK5Fn__vQ00&list=PLbhHt7tfNMCAKp5X5y1UMg6er-xFUyB3J&index=5
-7) Play FFXV normally and just jumping at these points to play the Additional Episodes that show the perspective of parallel stories that are happening until Chapter 13.
-After Chapter 7 - play Episode Gladiolus
-After Chapter 9 - play Episode Ignis (don't watch the credits since they spoil some plot points regarding the ending and don't do any of the extra content)
-After Chapter 12 - play Episode Prompto (don't watch credits too)
-After Chapter 13 - Play Comrades just a bit until you get your first blessing just so that you understand a bit more about the state of the world in other places
-After that bit of Comrades watch FFXV: Ardyn Prologue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yOOF8AKQbw
-After the Ardyn Prologue go and play Episode Ardyn
-8) Play Chapter 14
-9) Main content done so you can go back to the extra content that you skipped in terms of side-quests within the main game, jump onto the previous extra content on each Episode that was skipped, play more Comrades to get through the end of that storyline or even explore some more videos and content that exists but that is not part of this list as a "Must Watch" since it's not that important.

Engaging story with nice characters, really sells the "road trip with the bros" vibes, well written banter and beautiful aesthetics across the board. Map seems massive. Combat is unique and fun but slightly janky, visuals can get a bit hard to follow, but it's definitely lively.

peak alert !!!!! this game is way too overhated, one of my favorite games

i like this game a lot
i want this again

After having played remake and rebirth, I wanted to give this game a try and surprisingly, I didn't regret it at all. It's just that I feel that the story is incomplete. I heard about the devs cancelling versus and the second wave of dlc and I was disappointed. This game really had so much potential to be the best final fantasy game but kudos to the devs who created this game. It was really a thrilling journey!

The only two negatives - performance and the beginning of the game is so tedious and gets off so slow, to me, it's the sole reason it isn't one of the highest rated, most played RPGs of all time.
The story is so touching, the gameplay gets better like 10 times and the sceneries are gorgeous to look at.
End game and new game plus is the most rewarding I have ever seen 100%.
I only wish they give loyal fans the closure they deserve by not canceling the remaining DLCs of this masterpiece, it feels really incomplete without it.

Stuttery mess due to shader compilation JiT on PC 🤡, while on ryzen 9 5950x and RX 6900 XT. I think it can be a great experience on Steam Deck since you don't compile the shaders yourself on the fly, but if you're on Windows avoid this game at all cost.

This game is way to demanding played it on an older PC when it was recently released fine but cant play it now ASS

Abysmal story. Bad texture management (how does this game look like a normal last gen game but use 14gb of VRAM at 1440p???). Gameplay is grindy. Quests are boring fetch quests. (I'm the king of a country!! Why am I looking for flowers for a random person??) It's just terrible at every angle.