Trophy Hunters: Final Fantasy XV – Final Episode

I finally did it! It took me a bit longer than expected at 75 hours, but I finished unlocking every trophy in Final Fantasy XV. My last trophy progress post was about a month ago, so that prediction of “a week or two to get the rest of the trophies” was a little short-sighted. The remaining trophies were the ones requiring the longest amount of time to complete – 80 sidequests and maxing out the fishing, survial, cooking, and photography skills. Of course, had I played nothing other than FFXV I likely would have finished this sooner, but there were detours through Monster Hunter, Bugsnax, and Ratchet & Clank on my recent platinum trophy quest. Let’s see what took almost another 40 hours after seeing the end credits to finish up, shall we?

Angling Expert

• Reached maximum fishing level

This was the final trophy in my way to the platinum. I had finished everything else, so it was pretty relaxing to sit back and do some fishing. I decided to sit on the dock at the Vesperpool northwest of Lestallum, which usually contains plenty of fish, so levels 8-10 didn’t take long at all…

Photo Expert

• Reached maximum photography level

I had unlocked and leveled up Prompto’s Snapshot ability pretty early on in the game, which provided more pictures after every battle and made this the first(and probably easiest) of the party to reach skill level 10. After many hours of playing, I have an entire album of memories saved from the party’s adventures across Eos.

Cooking Expert

• Reached maximum cooking level

I may have reached level 10 in Ignis’ cooking skill a little sooner had I decided to set up camp more often, rather than staying at the various hotels across the land. I’d usually stop at one to save my progress and cash in any XP previously acquired. To cover the last couple skill levels unlock the Cooking Expert trophy, I only needed to spend a little while at my campsite cooking up batch after batch of ‘Mystery Meat Sushi’ from the many, many Luncheon Meats I had picked up in Lestallum.

Survival Expert

• Reached maximum survival level

This was probably the most annoying(and time-consuming) trophy to get. Gladiolus’ Survival skill is only raised by traveling on foot – not camping, items used or anything else, ONLY walking or running across the map. I ended up setting out on a trek from Lestallum in the northwestern corner of the map all the way down to Galdin Quay at the southeastern part of it, only to more or less repeat the process a couple times to FINALLY unlock the trophy. Compared to the other skills, this one takes forever. One of my favorite aspects of FFXV was being able to kick back with the boys and ride around Eos in the Regalia while listening to the music from a range of different FF games. However, the fact I had to travel nearly everywhere by foot to get this trophy is pretty disappointing. I had a lot of fun playing through the game, but this wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable part of the experience.

Weaving a Tapestry

• Completed 80 sidequests

I’d been chipping away at all the sidequests in the game since the early chapters, which made this a little bit easier considering how the game becomes incredibly linear once you reach chapter 8 or so. Once you complete the game you have the option to return to previous areas and finish up any sidequests or other activities. The majority of these were usually simple “item requisition requests” and didn’t take too long to complete(minus the time required to travel there on foot).

Regalia Pilot

• Flew the Regalia Type-F

Speaking of riding along in the Regalia…

Over the course of the game, you’re able to transform(upgrade?) the Regalia to different types. Type-D adds off-road capability with essentially monster truck tires and once you find the Strange Engine in one of the enemy bases, Cindy the mechanic will take your mode of transportation another step by allowing the Regalia to take to the skies with a Batwing-like form. The Regalia Pilot trophy is unlocked your first flight…which is good, considering how tricky it is to land the vehicle, failure to land safely results in your entire party being wiped out and being sent back to the last save point.

Faithful Heir

• Collected thirteen royal arms

Throughout the main storyline Noctis will venture through a number or crypts and caves, receive one of the thirteen royal arms at the end. You pick up five of them as you play through the main story, but will need to do some sidequests and go a little further off the beaten path to find the rest of them. The final royal arm I needed – the Sword of the Tall was located at the bottom of the Costlemark Tower. The underground “tower” was definitely a test of combat skill…and patience as the lower levels of the tower are a series of movable blocks acting as walls and floors(somewhat similar to Control’s Ashtray Maze) which must be navigated in a specific order before finally reaching a Jabberwock guarding the final royal arm needed for the Faithful Heir trophy…

Tortoise Toppler

• Defeated the adamantoise

A special quest that unlocks post-game finds Noctis and the gang investigating the area to find out what’s behind a series of recent earthquakes that have been terrifying the nearby population. Upon closer inspection, the earthquakes are being caused by the adamantoise – an enormous tortoise that is quite literally a mountain. Next up, battling the terranean terrapin…which just so happens to be Lvl 99. and have 5,000,000 HP. The battle against the adamantoise can be a lengthy one, depending on character level and equipment – I believe it took me around 40 or so minutes of hacking away before finally unlocking the Tortoise Toppler trophy. Cowabunga!

The World Wanderer

• Collected all trophies

I did it! Another platinum trophy to add to the collection…

I had a lot of fun playing through Final Fantasy XV. I know the game has gotten a lot of hate from others since its release, but I’m glad I played through it myself to form my own opinion. I think the way it was rolled out as a live-service model, along with an abrupt shift from open-world to linear corridors about halfway through the game made for some inconsistent pacing, but had a lot of fun nonetheless. It may have not been the “traditional” FF game many gamers wanted, but there’s still elements of greatness there among those rough edges.

So, that’s another trophy run completed. There are quite a few DLC packs containing plenty of additional trophies, but I’m satisfied in what I accomplished for the time being. Another quick shoutout to Solarayo from Ace Asunder who has been playing through FFXV alongside me and posting trophy updates, it’s always interesting to check in and see where others are in-game and what trophies they tackled first.

Thanks for reading!

7 Thoughts on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake

This past Saturday, after 38 hours and 38 minutes I completed the Final Fantasy 7 remake…part one. I was unsure if I was going to jump into the game immediately at launch or not. I was deciding between the remake of Final Fantasy 7 or Resident Evil 3, and I opted to play through the former(first, anyway). Two separate games – Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the FF7 remake have pretty much dominated all video game discussion for the month of April. Normally, I find myself playing a number of different games during a given week(s), likely assisted by the combination of child-like enthusiasm and an attention span to match. However, I was able to complete the “only 40 hour” FF7 in 15 days. I do not feel the game is perfect by any means, but I still really, really enjoyed the updates and modernizations Square Enix brought to the beloved classic. There are aspects of the game that I absolutely loved and others that I felt could have been better. As I’ve been talking about the game a fair amount on here since starting this blog last year, I decided to make a quick write up of things I liked about the game along with things I didn’t.

Note: I only realized I had written down 7 different things about Final Fantasy 7 later, I swear.

Combat

I was cautiously optimistic about the new combat mechanics of the FF7 remake after seeing some of the gamplay from Square Enix’s E3 presentation last year. After trying out the demo in March, it felt like it had taken some of the swordplay elements from Devil May Cry and the stagger mechanic felt vaguely similar to the posture/stamina meters in From Software games. I was pretty satisfied with the combat after playing the demo, but was hoping battles and boss fights later in the game wouldn’t just turn into simple button mashing. Any reservations about the new combat system have been put to rest as I really found myself enjoying the flow of alternating combos of basic attacks, abilities and spells. The combat isn’t perfect, but provides enough depth to be engaging. It was especially enjoyable when your party is able to take down multiple enemies as you seamlessly switch between characters or just give attack orders to fellow party members. I know others have pointed out the combat mechanics in the game makes it feel more like Kingdom Hearts, but I personally enjoy incorporating more real-time combat elements in 3D RPGs. The updated combat also made for some epic boss battles in the game, some of which seemed to take about 15-20 minutes just to take them down. One the most stubborn bosses was Hell House, which felt like it took a half hour to bring down.

Music

The music of Final Fantasy 7 is iconic and generally regarded as one of the greatest of all time. There’s a richness to the classic soundtrack in its lush, fully-orchestrated score. I had goosebumps just seeing the camera zoom out over Midgar as the music begins to swell as the FF7 logo appears on screen. The new renditions of the soundtrack are simply beautiful, not much else to say about it…

Characters

Playing through the 1997 version of Final Fantasy 7 recently, I was a bit surprised just how invested and attached I became to the characters within the game. It was even easier playing through the remake, the characters are given greater personality and depth. The further I progressed in the game, the more attached I felt to Barret, Tifa and Aerith – who seemed almost annoyingly positive concerning everything about her life in the slums, but after a while you begin to see the lingering sadness that dwells within. Avalanche members Biggs, Wedge and Jessie who are seen as lesser, background characters are brought to life with distinctive personalities and quirks. Characters that had always been an afterthought before, I found myself genuinely caring about.

Visuals

I’m a little bit torn on the game’s visuals – in one moment, the character models and environments are the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen on my PS4, only for the graphics to get a serious downgrade when roaming the slums of Midgar. Some of the graphics in Sectors 5 and 7, along with some of the NPCs more closely resemble the PS3 tech demo from years ago. It may not have been as noticeable if it wasn’t in stark contrast to the otherwise stunning visuals in other areas of the game.

Pacing

I’m not one to criticize a game for moving slowly, but a deliberate pace is different from contrasting nonstop action sequences with other sections that seem to serve little other purpose that to extend the length of playtime. Some of the pacing in the FF7 Remake was a little uneven, particularly whenever the story brought Cloud and company back to the lower sectors of Midgar. Nearly every single side quest of the game is contained in Sectors 5,6 and 7. The chapter that finds Cloud escorting Aerith back to her house in Sector 5, upon reaching Sector 5 Aerith comments that there are many in the area that could use Cloud’s help. Most of these side quests wind up being little more than fetch quests, which in itself I don’t despise to the degree other gamers do, but seemed to derail the momentum of the game almost completely. If the side quests would have been spread out a little more evenly throughout the game I don’t think it would have been as detrimental, but similar to the contrast in visuals, hitting the brakes in the over-arching storyline to help round up random children for the Leaf House or finding Wedge’s cats for him made for another Jeckyll & Hyde aspect of the game.

Performance

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an incredibly ambitious game and Square Enix has done an impressive job with it for the most part. There are a few areas where the game had its sights set almost too high, with there being a number of perfomance issues in it. Some of the environmental textures were pretty rugged and there was a significant delay after pressing the triangle button to interact with various characters. Also, when controlling Cloud, you are forced to slowly squeeze through an endless number of tight spaces as if it were a Naughty Dog game, Square Enix clearly decided to utilize the developer trick of using theses tight spaces as a means to seamlessly load the next area. I may have lost track of how much time I spent slowly making my way through debris piles conveniently restricting access, save for a small area to pass through(I also felt this way playing Jedi: Fallen Order). Future installments of the game will most definitely benefit from the extra horsepower of the Playstation 5…

Multiple Parts

I’m not overly excited about the fact the remake of FF7 is being released in installments. Given how the first “episode” of the remake takes place entirely within Midgar, I’m doubtful the game will comprise of any less than 3-4 parts. The thought dawned on me while finishing up part one that we’ll be WELL into the Playstation 5’s life span before we ever get to see the game’s conclusion. Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix have done a remarkable with this remake so far, but it’s going to be a test of patience from here. To be somewhat optimistic, I only first completed FF7 in its original form 22 years after it was released, so I’m hoping to finish the remake in considerably less time than that…glass half-full and all that, right?

The game isn’t perfect, but it is able to be genuinely fun and heartfelt at the same time. If you’ve played the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I’ve love to hear what you thought about the game. Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!