COLOGNE, Germany—It finally happened, a decade's worth of expectation fulfilled with a simple push of a button. Though I still can't quite believe it (and a recent delay hasn't helped) Final Fantasy XV, a game that's taken on near mythical status alongside the likes of The Last Guardian, Beyond Good and Evil 2, and Half Life 3, is finally being released on November 29—and I've already played it.

Selecting "New Game" has never been quite as satisfying before.

Unfortunately for Square Enix, FF15 is unlikely to live up to expectations. Its development has simply been too long and its predecessors too divisive to escape the crushing inevitability of a game with this much hype and history behind it. Some will welcome Square Enix's take on the modern open-world RPG. Others will lust after the linear worlds of the PlayStation-era games. There will be those for whom nothing is more satisfying than a three-hour grind through a maze-like dungeon, while others will hope for more accessibility in a series that has sometimes tried, but failed to attract new audiences. Me? I just want a battle system that doesn't suck.

Disappointment strikes from the beginning. Remember the thrill you felt as the train chugged towards Midgar in FFVII, and the surprise of being thrown straight into a battle with Cloud and his oversized sword? Or the astonishment as three soldiers, clad in their Magitek armour, turn towards the horizon and walk off into the distance as the credits roll past? Or even the military march of FFXIII as Lightning stares down the barrel of gun? The Final Fantasy series has never been one to shy away from an ostentatious opening, but whatever new-found restraint has been applied to FFXV is misplaced. FFXV's opening is at best dull, and at worst confusing. At least it looks pretty.

Those hoping for a dramatic shift in storytelling will be disappointed too. From daddy issues, to teenage angst, to needlessly floppy hair, the opening cinematic (which you can see in its entirety in the gameplay video above) has all the hallmarks of a classic Final Fantasy melodrama with little of its trademark charm. Where text-based dialogue and pixelated sprites would let you fill in the gaps, voice acting and high-res art assets are far too revealing to let shaky writing slide. This is a series that has pushed for ever greater visual fidelity, without taking into account just how much it highlights any narrative flaws. And while it would be disingenuous to write off an entire story having only absorbed the first few hours of it (five, to be precise), something tells me FF15 is not going to give the The Last of Us a run for its money.































And yet, there are signs that Square Enix might be onto something. The first mission, where you're tasked with pushing a broken-down car (the Regalia) along a deserted highway, is filled with the sort of off-the-cuff dialogue you might expect from an Uncharted game. It's not as slick, but the voice actors make the best of the sometimes ropy writing and deliver their lines with conviction and without the over-the-top enthusiasm that dogged previous games. For the first time in a Final Fantasy game, you might get to know these characters by their actions, and not by having them just outright tell you how they feel. A small change, perhaps, but one that shows the series is growing up.

There's none of the slow, monotonous grind that plagued FFXIII either, the vast open world revealing itself from the off, without the prerequisite 20 hours of wandering down corridors. Sure, there are some artificial barriers in place at the very start (mostly story-related), and it's mighty odd that your car is glued to the road, so you have to get out to go off-road. But as soon as you've picked up your first hunting quest from an underdressed Cindy you're free to wander off into the wilderness, bro-army in tow, to take on the world. Forget about the pseudo open-world grind-fest of FFXIII's Pulse, or the drab, last-gen visuals of Fallout 4. This is a game made on the most ambitious of scales with the visual splendour often reserved for shorter action-adventures—a world to get lost in.

You can pick up hunt and fetch quests from truck stops and cafes, while the vast desert planes and grassy outcrops of the kingdom of Lucis hide Chocobo ranches (!), enormous demons that can be killed for kudos, and NPCs that might send you off an another adventure. It's easy to get distracted and veer off from the main story path, to complete a hunt in the hopes of landing an extra piece of gear, or—as I did—to spend too much time trying to master Noctis' fishing technique in order to feed a fish to a fussy cat (pro tip: fish in the day, there are far more fish around). Or you can spend your time mastering Prompto's camera technique, flipping through the random snaps he takes during your journey to find hidden gems, or finding new ingredients for Ignis to use in the meals he serves at rest stops where you bank your XP in one large lump (a reminder that Square Enix hasn't forgotten about the series' more frivolous moments).

There are distractions abound in FFXV's upgrade system too. There are multiple weapon and accessory slots that allow for deep customisation of stats, while an upgrade tree—similar to FFX's Sphere Grid system—allow to you pick your preferred path of skills, opening up new methods of attack and defence. The magic system has had the biggest overhaul, with crafting playing an integral part in the kinds of spells you can cast. There's a certain amount of resource farming involved (a trend that is unlikely to go away anytime soon, sadly), but once you've tracked down the various fire, ice, and thunder elements scattered around the landscape, you can combine them together with other random items to create customised spells. Adding an old animal fang to a few fire elements, for instance, might create a spell that lasts twice as long, or chucking in some thunder might turn it into a dual-casting spell.

























And so, to the combat, and the much maligned real-time system that Square Enix has used instead of menus. Honestly, I don't know how to feel. There are times, when you whip around the environment, warping in an instant between enemies, where the combat clicks, and you're lost in each and every attack. And there are other times where, having been fooled into thinking that FFXV has proper real-time combat—the sort that you might see from industry experts Platinum Games—the slow response of the attack button and the odd timing of the dodge and parry prompts make everything feel sluggish and wrong. Flipping between Noctis' four weapon slots isn't instantaneous (so forget about slick combos), and controlling other characters is limited to issuing just a few special attacks. And why do I have to throw spells like I'm throwing a grenade? Neat area of effect notwithstanding, it really ruins the whole flow of combat.

Combat is a mish-mash of ideas that hasn't quite come together. Perhaps, with the extra time for tweaks that Square Enix has been given, the rough edges will disappear. Or maybe, as the hours fly by, the combat will quickly become second nature (for the record, I hated FFXIII's combat initially, but it became one of my favourite systems). But it's hard to escape the feeling that the whole game is like this: that the years of protracted development and the decision to turn what was once a spin-off into a fully-fledged game has resulted in something that delivers neither a brave new direction for the franchise, nor a piece of fan service.

Or maybe, as the miles roll by on the Regalia and the sun sets on another stunning vista in Lucis, XP banked and side quests completed, FFXV will have won me over. I really hope it does.