Back in 2019, we went to see the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert in Berlin. Back home, I randomly searched for Final Fantasy in the App Store on my phone… and it changed my life. Accidentally, I discovered the best way to play FF XV. If you have never played FF XV or picked it up and fell off immediately because of the missing exposition, this is what you‘ve been waiting for.
I love this game despite its flaws (some trigger warnings are listed below). This is the game where the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. The relationships of the core protagonist group are built well and with many support systems. You want one example? Take Prompto’s photos. One of the characters in the game takes pics throughout the day and when going to sleep, he gives you a few of them. Are these just fancy screenshots? Or cool pics from one of these four friends? You decide. I love that.
A random selfie from Prompto
So, here’s eleven simple steps to correctly play FF XV:
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The first step isn’t necessary, but it helps and it’s increasingly easy to do these days. Don’t play any big and expensive open world games for at least 10 years. You gotta avoid getting tired with that design while playing the game. Instead, here and there, search for something about your favorite series from your childhood (if it’s Final Fantasy) and cherish every new discovery. Chuckle at the fact that there’s now more than 15 of them. Buy a pair of mugs with a Chocobo and a Moogle that slowly lose their color in a dishwasher. Slowly grow fond of video games again, observing indies like Celeste and Stanley Parable from some distance. Get tickets to see a concert with the familiar music from your future wife. Watch the Omen trailer.
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Play Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition. Yeah, that’s what I found back then in the App Store. The Pocket Edition is a demake made by Square Enix soon after the original game release. It’s kinda amazing — instead of the realistic graphics, you get chibi characters and cute isometric environments.
The epic tale gets condensed and the battle system is reduced to a few flicks of a finger. It retains the voice recordings from the original, so there’s a lot of charm left in there. It’s quick and you’ll get the first draft of the game into your head. You’ll know the outline of the story, and if you wanna get closer to the characters, that’s exactly what the main game is for.
At the time, it was one free chapter and pay to unlock the rest. I liked that. The pay to unlock was broken there the last time I checked, but you can play the first chapter on mobile and then find it on consoles in its “HD version” (the product strategy was outsourced to Ouroboros).
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After finishing the game, take your time. You know the story, so you don’t need to be scared of spoilers. The actual game only just started — you gotta make friends. Discover the extended FF XV universe — the movie, the anime series, the screenshots of the original game, the articles about its arduous development and amazing music written over 10 years. (Btw, this article opens with “What were you doing 10 years ago?” and in a few months, it will be a decade old.) Watch the Omen trailer once again. Wait a few days.
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Watch the anime prequel series Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV. You’ll get a coming of age story for each of the main characters and a nice finale. Then, watch Kingslaive. This almost two-hour long movie had a theatrical release back in the day (tell me about different times!) and it’s a little absurd that it isn’t included with the game. I’d say, this long cutscene is on its own the weakest link in this multimedia chain — however, it sets up the game reasonably well and there’s a few bangers on its OST.
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Okay, we’re getting there. Get yourself a Playstation (or a PC). Uh, you have it already? Good. Feel free to skip A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV — it’s a brawler that tells a backstory for Regis, the main protag’s dad. You can meet Ultros there, but he’s much less funny than in FF VI. The game is not bad, though — if you like the genre, give it a go. And then:
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It’s time. Play Final Fantasy XV. Get floored by the visual fidelity of the game. Your inexperience with open world games may help you with some of the dull sidequests, but otherwise, just enjoy your time with the game. The journey is the reward here.
Some salt directly into your heart
Discover the recipes, enjoy scenic lookouts while driving, throw your swords, connect with your ancestors, check Prompto’s photos, don’t drive after sunset, because the roads are perilous at night, talk with a friend while sitting on the roof of a gas station, rescue chocobo chicks and catch some fish (you wanna get the big one, just because of a cutscene), do the most absurd dungeon of them all… or not. The game is as long as you’ll want it to be — you can finish it in 15 hours. However, I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re aiming for the minimal playthrough — maybe you’ve seen it all already in the chibi version.
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So, here you are. Rolled credits? You played the game and came back to see the next steps? Oh yeah, there are DLCs! Play the Ignis DLC, definitely. Even just the music in there is unbelievable. The other two DLCs are okay. Then take a break. Maybe a week. And then…
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Watch the FINAL FANTASY XV – Special Program. Maybe take a morning off and watch it live. Oh, I forgot, not everything can be done exactly as I did it. It’s a pre-recorded presser anyway. A “Special Program”, right? The special thing about it is that in this half hour show, Square Enix announced the cancellation of 3 of 4 DLCs and the departure of the game’s director Hajime Tabata from the company. Surprise! Cry big tears.
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Watch the prologue to episode Ardyn — it’s a fifteen minute anime short. It’s okay. Play the final DLC, Episode Ardyn. It’s ridiculously good.
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Now, we’re getting serious. Get yourself a PS VR. No, not the new fancy one. The game is locked to the first generation PS VR. Get a sweaty 2nd hand unit for PS4. You may need an adapter for PS5 or maybe you just need to get an actual PS4. You can also visit me and I’ll let you in.
Yeah, we’re going to meet the friends. Get Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV: a fishing game where you get to meet stunlocked characters and monsters from the game while walking around beautiful lakes and rivers, killing some extremely big fish. Nobody will ever take away the memory of meeting mechatronic Noctis from you. Some of the fishing mechanics are fun. You can play Beat Saber or Superhot later.
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Try to stay in Eos for a few more moments — get the soundtracks (there’s two of them), the art books, the big guidebook from a seller on Ebay, the comic books in Japanese that you don’t understand. Read some fanfics; there’s a ton of them. Watch youtube vids. Try to play some Final Fantasy 15: Comrades that’s supposed to be fun, but the server is probably empty. (Why yes! Here I’m casually mentioning a whole another standalone game covering some story beats not seen elsewhere; the game has been incorporated into the main game at some point. I never even mentioned several mobile games that are now lost to history.)
Backstreet Bros
Get the The Dawn Of The Future book with stories of the cancelled DLCs. Realize how expensive it would be to actually make these! Episode Aranea would probably be interesting to play (at least more than to read). The episode Noctis would be nice to have and is finally a good chapter, but it won’t satisfy your desire.
Uninstall the game to see a battle mode that is only available when the game is being installed. (I didn’t actually do that but it’s cool.)
Play the soundtrack again and hit the stop button with force when “Luna” starts to play. A tear forms in your eye.
Quest complete.
That’s it! You found the recipe and you followed it to a T. Did you have a good time?
Trigger warnings: There’s body shaming in the Prompto episode of the prequel anime, some toxic masculinity between the bros, an overt fanservice and poor treatment of women in the story in general (with a few exceptions; the series did so much better in its earlier installments). You can see this game started development in 2006 in Japan.
Note: This guide focuses only on FF XV as it exists. The final design of the game may be flawed and different from some of the designs created along its 10 long years of development, but it is what we have.