She Deserved Better.
Everything I hear about Final Fantasy XV just makes it seem weirder. Did you know that Prompto gains the ability to take selfies if you level him up enough? That Jamie Oliver's restaurant is offering an official Final Fantasy XV set menu? That Nomura had to be talked out of making the game into a musical after seeing Les Misérables?
Peru started selling the game two weeks early, and it's making things very difficult because now I'm terrified of running into spoilers. How on Earth did I cope during the PS2 era, when games routinely came out in Europe six months after their North American release?
I suppose fandom was mainly Livejournal-based during the PS2 era, though, and spoiler cuts aren't diligently used on the fandom platforms of the present day.
I saw Kingsglaive, the prequel film to Final Fantasy XV, a couple of nights ago! Verdict: it was better than I expected. Although, to be honest, what I expected was 'pretty and incomprehensible', so it managed to exceed expectations just by being pretty and mostly comprehensible. It wasn't the best film ever made, but it held my interest all the way through and definitely deserves more than the 13% score it currently holds on Rotten Tomatoes. (And it really was so pretty.)
The film did introduce a character I liked and then killed her off within twenty minutes, which was extremely unkind. I think she might actually have my favourite design in the entire Final Fantasy series. You can see her over here, if for some reason you're reading this entry without having seen the film.
(It was such a textbook fridging, too! This character existed only to be killed! I'm so grumpy about it. SHE SHOULD HAVE MET LUNA.)
Lunafreya seems a promising character! She's smart and determined and absolutely refuses to stand around and let things happen; if she spots a potential course of action, she'll seize it immediately. I got a bit annoyed with Nyx when he kept putting down her efforts. MAYBE SHE DOES KNOW HOW TO PILOT AN AIRSHIP. YOU DON'T KNOW.
(Although I do love that Luna did, in fact, probably go 'okay, the airship I'm on is crashing, I'm going to jump onto the next one and... I can probably, er... I can probably work out how to pilot this somehow...')
There were things I enjoyed about Nyx, particularly when he went 'I CALL UPON YOU, KINGS OF OLD' and the kings of old went 'okay, we'll help you, but one of your friends has to die in return' and Nyx went 'okay, in that case I actually called upon you just to tell you you're all dicks.' But I did feel he was a bit patronising towards Luna, and I was puzzled by the fight at the end, where he activated those statues to battle the invaders... and, in the process, destroyed huge swathes of the city and probably killed tens of thousands of people. Look, animators, I know collapsing buildings look cool, but the audience is going to worry about the people inside those buildings. It's best if your hero isn't the one who destroys them.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of Luna in the full game!
I really want to see Princess Lunafreya meet Sansa Stark, actually. Sansa would be so awed. (I originally just wrote 'Princess Luna' and then realised it sounded like I was talking about My Little Pony. Sansa would probably also be impressed by that Princess Luna, if confused.)
Peru started selling the game two weeks early, and it's making things very difficult because now I'm terrified of running into spoilers. How on Earth did I cope during the PS2 era, when games routinely came out in Europe six months after their North American release?
I suppose fandom was mainly Livejournal-based during the PS2 era, though, and spoiler cuts aren't diligently used on the fandom platforms of the present day.
I saw Kingsglaive, the prequel film to Final Fantasy XV, a couple of nights ago! Verdict: it was better than I expected. Although, to be honest, what I expected was 'pretty and incomprehensible', so it managed to exceed expectations just by being pretty and mostly comprehensible. It wasn't the best film ever made, but it held my interest all the way through and definitely deserves more than the 13% score it currently holds on Rotten Tomatoes. (And it really was so pretty.)
The film did introduce a character I liked and then killed her off within twenty minutes, which was extremely unkind. I think she might actually have my favourite design in the entire Final Fantasy series. You can see her over here, if for some reason you're reading this entry without having seen the film.
(It was such a textbook fridging, too! This character existed only to be killed! I'm so grumpy about it. SHE SHOULD HAVE MET LUNA.)
Lunafreya seems a promising character! She's smart and determined and absolutely refuses to stand around and let things happen; if she spots a potential course of action, she'll seize it immediately. I got a bit annoyed with Nyx when he kept putting down her efforts. MAYBE SHE DOES KNOW HOW TO PILOT AN AIRSHIP. YOU DON'T KNOW.
(Although I do love that Luna did, in fact, probably go 'okay, the airship I'm on is crashing, I'm going to jump onto the next one and... I can probably, er... I can probably work out how to pilot this somehow...')
There were things I enjoyed about Nyx, particularly when he went 'I CALL UPON YOU, KINGS OF OLD' and the kings of old went 'okay, we'll help you, but one of your friends has to die in return' and Nyx went 'okay, in that case I actually called upon you just to tell you you're all dicks.' But I did feel he was a bit patronising towards Luna, and I was puzzled by the fight at the end, where he activated those statues to battle the invaders... and, in the process, destroyed huge swathes of the city and probably killed tens of thousands of people. Look, animators, I know collapsing buildings look cool, but the audience is going to worry about the people inside those buildings. It's best if your hero isn't the one who destroys them.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of Luna in the full game!
I really want to see Princess Lunafreya meet Sansa Stark, actually. Sansa would be so awed. (I originally just wrote 'Princess Luna' and then realised it sounded like I was talking about My Little Pony. Sansa would probably also be impressed by that Princess Luna, if confused.)