That satisfaction rate might—just might—have something to do with the fact that Final Fantasy XV’s core narrative stands out as one of the most poorly-executed, contrivance-laden, plot-holes-big-enough-to-drive-a-bus-through-riven experiences in the history of the franchise.



And that’s saying something.



I actually enjoyed XV from a mechanical perspective; as long as I ignored the nonsensical Fanfic.net-level writing, I was pretty damned happy with it (and will probably pick it up again on PC, because having it running at a steady 60FPS will make hunts a great deal more fun).



If Tabata really wants to improve this particular player’s satisfaction rating, he could try fixing the following ***SPOILERS FOR FF XV FOLLOW!!!!***:



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1.) Give me a reason to give a god damn about the connection between Noctis and Lunafreya. The base game only ever presented us with, “Yeah, they met once as kids, got engaged because royal reasons, and now they pass a notebook by means of mystical Shiba Inus.”



When Lunafreya is killed roughly halfway through the game, the player is supposed to feel something.



All I felt was, “Well, shit. That had about zero impact. Who was that again?”



2.) Do something about that whole “Oh, by the way, Prompto’s been an Imperial all along, and you probably should’ve sorted that out from the eye-bleedingly obvious tattoo on his hand that also works as a genetic gate key that he reveals at exactly the appropriate time in the game, and no one cares that he’s an Imperial or that he hid that fact because we need the plot to keep moving forward” mess.



Seriously, this is like high school-level creative writing class material.



3.) Maybe do something else with the Dragoon? She had some promise as a recurring villain/nemesis type character, but like most ideas in the game, she shows up a couple of times, and fuck-all happens with her in terms of plot/character development.



4.) Do something with the “World of Ruin” apart from having the player run down a single highway toward a camp, a cutscene, and then the final area. You’re referencing the second half of (what I think is the greatest entry in the franchise) Final Fantasy VI here; you owe it better than, “Oh, we called this area that, but you’re only going to spend about five minutes in it. SORRY!”



5.) As a general thing, maybe don’t expect players to engage with ancillary materials (the CGI movie, the anime, etc) in order to have a complete experience with the story of the game. Game narratives are self-contained for a reason; what you’ve done here is like asking me to read a book, but then telling me I need to read six others to get a full picture of what’s going on in the first.



That’s fine and well for academic research, but I get paid for that. I’m not interested in having to do that much legwork for an entertainment product.



6.) General narrative coherency fixes: We need a little more interaction with the principal villain, exposure to his motivations (that final monologue is a pretty poor excuse for character development), and a reason to either hate or feel bad for him. He’s basically a slightly more developed Kefka in a fedora at this point, and as much as I love Kefka (I find him to be a better villain than Sephiroth, as a point of reference—and yes, I know he’s flat; that’s part of the point), that just doesn’t fly in modern game design.



Maybe fill out some of the stuff with the Empire. Don’t kill major characters off-screen and then expect us to be wowed by the result (the shit you pulled with the Emperor was fucking sad).



TL;DR: Give me a compelling reason to care about the story and characters in the game beyond some vague sense of brotherhood between the big four. Then we can talk about that player satisfaction rating.

