When I say criticise, I don’t mean “hate”.

Imagine if no one criticised Final Fantasy XIII. Would we have seen Final Fantasy XIII-2? Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII? Or even the beginnings of what would have made Final Fantasy XV (Final Fantasy Versus XIII)? I know people want to be nice, but there’s a not so fine line between “positivity” and “denial”…

Why are we uncomfortable with criticism? Maybe because we think it attacks self-worth. We might tend to see criticism of Final Fantasy XV as attacking the game itself; and the game itself is the sum of story, voice work, music, gameplay, etc. But that shouldn’t be the case. The gameplay, music, and voice acting are outstanding. The story for Final Fantasy XV…exists. And it’s really interesting. But very subtle and poorly executed in many different areas…

Many people really wanted to believe that, finally, this was the Final Fantasy game. The hype made us believe that Final Fantasy XV was the “Change we could believe in”. It was going to “Make Final Fantasy great again”. It was good, but it was not the crowning achievement we were all promised…yet. How do we let Square Enix know what we want? Criticism. Not just “I don’t like it” or “this sucks”. This is vague criticism. This type of vagueness leads to a pendulum effect, where Final Fantasy games swing back and forth between opposite extremes. They need something they can work with. And it can’t be passive-aggressive criticism; criticism that pretends to help under the guise of hurting.

This video is example of good constructive criticism. Something for Square Enix to keep in mind when crafting narratives in the future.

Show, don’t tell

If Square Enix has the capabilities for high resolution graphics, and the option to show, showing is only logical.

But be of good cheer!

Final Fantasy XV is kinda like Final Fantasy V. It has very fun gameplay and an OK story.

If they learn what to do and not to do, maybe we could see Final Fantasy XVI become the next Final Fantasy VI

In terms of everything.