The new Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer makes me feel things

So the huge news of the day is that Square Enix put out a brand new gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XV at the Tokyo Game Show. Before I tell you how I feel about it, why don’t you check out the trailer below. I’ll see you on the other side.

Okay, that was a lot to take in based on what we saw from this game over a year ago at E3. After I saw that trailer last year, I thought that this the series lost me. The characters from their short snippets of screen time were unrelatable, and their appearance just didn’t do anything for me. And when this trailer started, I immediately thought, “here we go again”. Here are some young punks driving a sweet convertible their super rich father bought them and checking out some freakishly large monster for fun.

But the trailer presses on, and we get insights into the characters and their traits. The small dialogue between two characters sitting in the backseat makes me stop and go “hmm”. And the battles where they are helping each other out and communicating began to break down my developed anti-FF shell.

I had revelation as I watched this trailer, and it was that I judged the book by the cover, because I am protective for the nostalgia of the Final Fantasy series and what it means to me.

I technically entered into the series at a later point, with Final Fantasy VII being my first foray, as I assume it was for many others. Who didn’t love that game? And the story. Phenomenal. I was learning what life had to offer outside the world of Nintendo, and soon I was playing Final Fantasy VIII & IX. I went back and played the collections when they were released for PlayStation, and when I bought my PS2, the first second game I played was Final Fantasy X (love you Dark Cloud!).

But I had a hard time adjusting to Final Fantasy X-2 and I got tired of grinding in XII. It just didn’t feel right to me, so I waited for the next Final Fantasy to change my mind. But when Final Fantasy XIII was released, I didn’t bother picking it up. And no, I haven’t tried the MMO Final Fantasy games, so I won’t speak for all games.

In the end, I realized I lost my love for the series. It was changing with the times, but I didn’t want it to change.

So here we are, staring at a game that has been in development for a long time. This switch went off that I have changed my view of gaming quite a bit since I started writing in the video games media. I have learned to embrace games I thought were taboo or that I would have passed over due to various influences. I have started playing games like Madden 15 and The Sims 3 because those games are good in their own right (apart from being published by EA, to which my general dislike will never change), and they give you experiences an RPG can’t always give you.

It’s been a long journey, but I think it’s time that I personally, and maybe some of you feel the same way, is that we should try something out before we write it off as “no good” or “that’s not for me” or “it’s just not the same, man”. Final Fantasy is an incredibly imaginative series that has been with us for as long as we have been gaming, and for what I hope will be with us for long after we can no longer physically pick up a controller and push buttons (unless of course mind control is invented in the future). We owe a lot to it, and the least I should do is give these newer iterations a shot.

With that in mind, I am definitely going to follow Final Fantasy XV through its development, and try out Final Fantasy XIII in the mean time (which thankfully you can now pre-order on Steam for October 8th release!) because I don’t really need to, but because I want to.