All but Given Up on Final Fantasy XV...

So I mentioned previously that I struggle with open world games. There are some that hold my interest if the story and characters are there and it makes me WANT to go back to that world. Alas, this is not the case with Final Fantasy XV....

I tried. I really did. A game cannot take 10 - 15 hours to portray any story. There was an incident at the beginning to explain why you're bro-ing it up throughout the countryside, but that is about it. I thought it was very telling that when my wife walked into the room and asked what I was doing in-game my reply was "I'm not really sure... I gotta grab these spirit sword things for some reason. Oh, and there's these gods I'm going around fighting for some other reason."

"Why?" She asked.

"I...really don't know." I responded.

It was then that I hit the PS button and quit the game. That was two week ago and I haven't turned the game back on nor do I really care to. There are so many other games with engaging stories our there. I want something to keep me going back. And there just wasn't in this case. I'll probably move on to Rise of the Tomb Raider. I played the first 20 min of that and I was 100% more engaged in that 20 min than the first 2 hours of FFXV.

From a tech standpoint, the game is gorgeous. It is probably one of the best looking games this generation so far. But beauty can only get you so far. The combat was frustrating, the characters were good but could hardly carry the game, and there was a sufficient lack of exposition/story to keep me interested. If there was in-game lore to read to get some understanding, then I must've missed it.

So there's my review. I know it kind of ended in a fizzle. But that is all I could really muster for this game. No game should feel like a chore. This one did. If the combat had been tighter and the story better I would have stayed for the long haul.