Review for Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition. Game for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 06/03/2018
Probably no one had even theorized that Final Fantasy XV, released around the world in late 2016, would receive such massive support from Square Enix until well into 2019. Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is something more and something less than a classic Game of the Year edition: this version of the game will not include the future contents announced by Square Enix and is "limited" to merge into one package the base game, the season pass, all the individually released DLC items (including the very useful Booster Pack) and, last but not least, the Royal Pack, latest addition to the Final Fantasy XV Universe.
This is a version designed for players who, like it or not, did not experience the title at launch and do not have access to the Windows Edition for PC; all the others they will be able to purchase the Royal Pack individually, in digital format, from the respective online stores, at the list price of 14,99 euros.
The release of Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is accompanied by the update of the game to his version 1.23 which, in addition to compatibility with the Royal Pack, adds a long telephone dialogue and side missions during Chapter 10, a short cutscene at the end of Chapter 5 and a very useful archive dedicated to the main characters of the story, which in addition to providing information allows you to observe the three-dimensional model as in the already present Bestiary.
These contents, added free of charge, are accompanied by the innovations introduced by the Royal Pack. The off-road model of the protagonist's car receives your own questline to be obtained and upgraded, as well as a series of rally-style tracks in which to test your driving skills (and patience in enduring the questionable physics); the possibility of play in first person even during the fighting it works better than you might think, even if it is a feature clearly designed more to enjoy the beauty of the environments than to improve the experience of pure gameplay.
Even the introduction of the Royal Yacht is a welcome addition to exploring Eos, offering new fishing grounds, new animals to fish and, to the delight of dear Ignis Scientia, new recipes. For the rest, the navigation is monotonous and reserves just a few banter and photos that can make a smile, but does not hide - at least at the moment - any "old school" secret.
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition alongside the free Dossiers, already present in the base game, also an interesting one Datalog, with information on the folklore of the world, for the most part completely original and which allow a significantly improved immersion in the narrative context; even the optional dungeons, until today criticized precisely for their monotony, now have inside them the commemorative plates of ancient events and probably closely linked to the next, announced additional contents, dedicated to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and Ardyn Izunia.
Also the Supreme Panoply is a welcome novelty: a new version of the power of the King of Kings, which in addition to being much more powerful and beautiful to look at, allows the player to fight their opponents with real combo of moves, divided into land and air, as spectacular as tremendously effective. The complete collection of Royal Weapons therefore becomes functional to a useful game mechanics, given how up to now completism rewarded the player little or nothing, being the equipment in question almost unusable due to the constant damage to health that involves their use .
Finally, the Ruins of Insomnia, actual rebuild of Chapter 14: The Royal Pack and Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition offer an expanded and improved version of the endgame map, with new dialogue, cutscenes, side missions and opponents to face. The latter are certainly the most successful element, with well-chosen OSTs, well-kept animations and aesthetics and - finally - a smooth and collaborative camera management during battles.
It's a shame how the final showdown remained completely unaffected, with the exception of just a couple of moves and animations from Episode Ignis: the "qualitative step" between basic and additional content (for a fee) is painfully evident and one can only hope, at this point, that the continuation of support for the title during 2018 and the first months of 2019 will do justice and narrative coherence to a potentially epic bossfight, but carried out in a really too hasty way.
Excluding the news of the Royal Pack, Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is in effect a simple bundle of the original game: perhaps to counter the used policy, Square Enix has decided to sell in physical copy what it is in all respects ( including sticker) a disc of version 1.0 of the game, with every single update and extra content to be downloaded from the online store by code. It is a commercial move that has left many people perplexed and that certainly, alongside a packaging not at all precious, does not encourage the repurchase of the physical edition except in the case of the most diehard fans.
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is an excellent and economical opportunity to recover the fifteenth chapter of one of the most famous videogame sagas. This is a significantly improved experience compared to what was offered at launch, although those who want a complete and definitive version of the game content will have to wait at least another year for the release of the second Season Pass, currently only announced. The "cut and sew" to which the game is subjected can - and for this reason - make more than one person turn up their noses but, whether you like it or not, Final Fantasy XV is a title that will remain in the history of the medium, in the good and bad.
► Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is an Action-JRPG game developed and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 06/03/2018
