Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition Ramblings

This is not a review. I’m only writing out my thoughts about the game as I feel like sharing them. I may add more to this post later on.

There are spoilers. They’re found toward the bottom of the post. I marked the section with a header.

Update:

~~ Tuesday, February 13, 2018 ~~

• Updated caption in IAP screenshot to note that the prices are in Canadian dollars.
• Added screencaps of the app description from the App Store and iTunes.

• Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition is pricey, but this fact shouldn’t be shocking considering this is Square Enix we’re talking about.

  

  PRO TIP FOR iOS USERS: *** ALWAYS READ AN APP’S DESCRIPTION BEFORE PURCHASING ***

  

  So many people are leaving stupid reviews about how the game doesn’t work on their device (re: getting a black screen or instantly crashing), or that it was advertised as free but really isn’t. An app’s description will usually list device compatibility and it certainly does for this game. Also, Square Enix already noted that only the first chapter will be free a long while before it was released. And guess what? It’s also written in the description that only Chapter 1 is free! As for in-app purchase pricing, you can usually find that on the app’s page under (Top) In-App Purchases.
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  I must admit that I noticed a discrepancy between the listing on the App Store and the one on iTunes: the first 3 lines are missing. I’m guessing Square Enix added them on later and that they’re actually separate systems so they’ll have to manually make a change on the iTunes one as well. 😡

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• I never liked the art style for the characters. 😦 Some people consider it cute and adorable but I kind of wish they went with the World of Final Fantasy-type style.

  

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• I played the game on a Huawei MediaPad M3 (BTV-W09 model) and while it can run the game on max settings, it can’t do it well and it definitely can’t run Pocket Edition at 60 FPS. I spent most of the game on relatively high settings but that changed once I got to the Leviathan battle. There was frame skipping and the game was totally not registering my taps on the evasion prompts no matter how many times I mashed on them.   When I reduced the settings a bit, the battle went much better. ^^
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  For what it’s worth, my initial settings were Highest Quality for Graphics, and Standard for Draw Resolution. I stupidly put the frame rate to 60 FPS even though it could never run at that speed. XD Later on, I dropped the graphics setting down to Lite and frame rate to 30 FPS.
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  Toward the end of the game, I reduced everything to minimum and ran it on 60 FPS. The graphics still looked nice though, but that may be because I’m easily impressed. ^^

  

  Incidentally, a Huawei P10 Lite can run the game too.

• Android users get this bonus. I’m still unsure whether it was available from the start or if it just pops up after I completed the game. I seriously never noticed it in inventory during the initial run through.

  

• Pocket Edition is vanilla FFXV. 😐 None of the tweaks and additions from later patches are in this game. This means you can’t switch between characters in battle, and there are no additional cutscenes, no Verse 2 for Chapter 9 (Pocket Edition’s equivalent to Chapter 13), etc.
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• Along with being the adaptation of the half-baked version of FFXV, the list of things to do has considerably shrunk in Pocket Edition too. Optional dungeons, mini games, hunts, broken down cars, and dumb injured hunters that can’t call out to you again for some reason so you’re left wandering everywhere in the vicinity of a marked area to try and locate them are gone. The whole concept of open world exploration and manually driving or riding chocobos went out the door as well.
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  The result is a game with much better pacing as the length of each chapter feels roughly the same. Naturally, all plot-related aspects such as story-necessary outposts, towns, and dungeons made the cut. There are still a handful of things to do on the side though. They take the form of hunting for ingredients for recipes, looking for cactuar figurines, and seeking out treasure by following clues from treasure maps. Don’t worry — these treasure hunts won’t have you trekking across the globe just to find the next piece of the map.
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• All side quests are chapter-specific which means they will all be completed in the chapter you’re in.

  

• On the subject of driving and chocobo riding being on rails, I found it strange that we’re given the option to move the camera around. And for the Regalia, you can even make it move to the left or right. I suppose it gives people something to do while listening to conversations.
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• There is no photography option which got me curious as to what would happen during a specific part near the end of the game. The answer was unsurprising though.
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• Pocket Edition was a lot more fun than I anticipated. I was wary about the auto-combat system since I assumed it would have the player mostly sitting around and occasionally tapping the parry/evasion prompts but it turns out that user interaction happened pretty frequently.
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  One thing of note is that point-warps only appear in specific battles. But see next point. ^^
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• Sad but true — I somehow forgot that it was possible to warp around the battlefield (which is performed by swiping in the direction you want Noctis to go to) and ended up doing the first 6 chapters of the game without warping at all. =_= I would still do warp strikes because that was something I remembered from the tutorial. 😛 Not warping makes for some frustrating battles.

  

• If you disliked the stealth parts of the console version, then you’ll be cringing to hear they’re still around in Pocket Edition.

  

• More stealth!

  

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• Important: Enemy bullets can still hit you if you’re standing behind solid objects. -_- You can use the nonsensical clipping to your advantage though! I specifically write about this in the spoilers section since I only made use of it during a late game chapter. ^^
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• Obtaining Ability Points after completing the game feels like it may end up being a chore. I have several nodes left in the Ascension grid that require 20 – 50 AP each. 😐 Aside from replaying the chapter that has the most cactuars and praying for Prompto to use Snapshot, I’m thinking the only way will be to replay the last few chapters as a means to keep levelling up. I’m kind of wishing that timed quests were available so we can get loads of AP for completing them as well as collect QP to exchange for Ability Points. :E

• The Astrals seem to assist Noctis and his friends at set points of the story only.
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• Some repetitive dialogue can get annoying. For example, Prompto and Noctis kept regurgitating the conversation about dreams over and over while I was exploring the area before the first tomb. -_- It got to the point where I just slid the voice volume bar all the way to 0 so I didn’t have to hear it.
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• Many NPC dialogues seem new to me. But then, I have a terrible memory and lines from background characters are things I really don’t bother remembering. XD Still, I’ll never forget the guy that excitedly exclaims, “I can eat a horse!”. Alas, he doesn’t appear in this version. 😦

• Some noticeable differences between console and mobile:

  

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Here’s a collection of screencaps. XD I loved the chocobo post a bit too much. ^^;

*** Spoilers below! ***

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• The first cactuar figurine side quest is initiated by speaking to Talcott in Lestallum. Sadly, he doesn’t do his cactuar impression when you complete the quest because you don’t need to return to him; the quest simply ends when you find the final figurine. 😦 However, if you speak to him multiple times, you’ll still get to hear his cactuar-themed lines. 😀

  

• Some royal arms can be found outside of story chapters. By the end of the game, I only had 10. I have no idea where to locate the last 3 as of yet.
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• Enemies can get stuck behind objects! In Chapter 9, this can be helpful when your only weapon is the Ring of the Lucii. Its ability, Death, can work on any foe that’s too dumb to find their way around obstacles. Of course, this only applies to the ones that can be killed with Death.
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  I’m not sure this will change with subsequent updates so if it’s not working for you, then Square Enix likely patched it. ^^;
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• Some monsters in Insomnia have been downgraded to their weaker cousins.

  

• For players that have completed FFXV on console, the photograph that Noctis takes with him is the most logical one you can think of. My guess is that it was probably the one many players chose in the original FFXV too. XD It was certainly my photo of choice on my first playthrough of the last chapter.
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• All the cut scenes during and after the credits are still in this mobile adaptation. The photos during the credits were amusing. I liked that Noctis did his “ultimate pose” more than once. ^o^
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• This is here too but as far as I can tell, nothing new gets added.

  

  It’s interesting to note that the buff you get from the final camp site carries over to whatever chapter you select to play. However, it will get replaced when Ignis cooks again.