Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV Preview — Fishing Fantasy

Jordan Boyd October 17, 2017 11:30 AM EST

Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV for PlayStation VR is quite a catch, despite it being a departure from the original FFXV VR reveal.

I can’t deny that I had some fun with Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV when I tried it out at New York Comic Con. As you may remember, it was surprising to see the previously revealed Final Fantasy XV VR spinoff go in a completely different direction after the original concept of an action-heavy shooter starring Prompto, debuted during Sony’s E3 2016 press conference. However, if you really appreciate the world and cast in Final Fantasy XV then it’s easy to get sucked into Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV.

Square Enix has really nailed mixing the fishing gameplay alongside the scenes where you’re interacting with the characters. For instance, after the main gameplay in the demo wrapped up, I got to sit in on a campfire scene with that really catchy tune that always plays while Ignis cooks something up. This was one of my favorite sequences from the original game and it makes the transition into VR a lot better than I expected it to. It’s very cool that VR allows for us to have that experience and I hope Square does it with another Final Fantasy game coming later on down the line (*cough* Final Fantasy VII Remake).

“…if you really appreciate the world and cast in Final Fantasy XV then it’s easy to get sucked into Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV.“

While there were moments where I had issues with the controls, it was only for a short period; once I got the gameplay down I never had any other experiences where the motion controls didn’t work. In fact, after I got the hang of the control scheme I found myself having a ton of fun fishing in the game.

Players are given a scanner that makes it easier to detect exactly where to cast your line. My objective during the demo was to simply catch a few fish and then take on a boss battle.

Thefishing mechanics are not too different from the main game: players toss their line out to a marked area and wait for an inevitable bite. The PlayStation Move controllers vibrate and make sounds like a fishing rod, so it’s a fun little experience that replicates real fishing as well as it can for the technology.

If the boss battles in Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV are consistently as fun as the one I got to go up against then the whole package should be exciting to play through. Not to mention that the giant fish monster I got to face-off against continuously gets up in your face and it actually got kind of intense in VR. At the end of the battle the game uses the PlayStation 4’s camera to take a picture of you where you can hold up your catch using the PlayStation Move controllers.

While it’s not the VR game we were originally shown, I’m very glad Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV manages to mix in the moments of fishing, action, and interacting with the characters of the underlying title. Additionally, they’ve done a great job making sure that you’re not thrown into any part of the game for too long. I’m looking forward to seeing what other fun tie-ins the team has decided to put in from the game’s world.

“While it’s not the VR game we were originally shown, I’m very glad Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV manages to mix in the moments of fishing, action, and interacting with the characters of the underlying title.“

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy XV in any capacity and happen to own a PS VR headset, Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is a worthy edition to the ever-growing world Square Enix has built for this universe and its characters. If you haven’t graced your VR headset with any new games recently then definitely do yourself a favor and check this one out.

Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV will be available exclusively on PS VR on November 21 later this year. If you’ve never played Final Fantasy XV before then you should totally check out our original review of the game from last year so that you can get all caught up.