A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV Review

Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Player(s): 1
 
One of the facets of Final Fantasy XV that isn’t really explored in game or its external media revolves around the adventures of King Regis and company. Luckily, A King’s Tale covers one of these adventures in the form of a side-scrolling beat-em-up.

©Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

The narrative involves King Regis telling a young Noctis a bedtime story of one of his own adventures as a youth. The story is a simple one, revolving around Regis trying to stop a villain from gaining magical abilities (resulting in havoc) as he tries to recruit his friends to help him. It doesn’t get much more complex than that, but for the type of game it is that’s perfectly ok. The whole aesthetic and feel of the game is retro-SNES. It reminds me of old games like Double Dragon and TMNT in the way it is presented, the way the artwork is drawn and animated and especially in the way the music is wonderfully composed. It all comes together in a very nostalgic but enjoyable package. 

©Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

The combat is very straightforward. You have a light attack, heavy attack, roll, block and special. Nothing too exotic. It’s presented in a very Final Fantasy style, with franchise regular enemies such as Behemoths or Iron Giants along with a fighting style that fits Final Fantasy XV. The biggest feature is the warping feature, which is integrated into the attacks to create some really cool fights and to increase mobility a lot. What really helps make things interesting is that most every enemy is weak to a particular type of combo, which forces you to know all the combos in the game. This, in turn, teaches you to approach fights by constantly switching between different combos in order to have an extremely involving set of battles.

©Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

The first half of the game is mostly about learning all the different types of enemies, while the second half is where a lot of the crazy experimentation takes place. All of this culminates in a very fun final boss who incorporates its own combat style with random enemies you’ve met throughout the game peppered on the field. It’s not a very long game, but I had a blast playing through the whole thing. To help make the package even sweeter is the addition of a bunch of challenges which merely test your mastery of the game’s various mechanics.

©Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

Everything together helps to create a very fun and enjoyable game. In fact, I would have loved for this to have been a completely standalone product rather than an after-thought, because I’d play the heck out of it and happily pay money for it. With it being created with the intent of helping to hype up Final Fantasy XV, it does suffer from short length and some signs of poor polish (such as some awkward animations or improper enemy targeting). None of these things are the real issue with A King’s Tale though. The real issue is with the distribution method. The game was only available to people who had pre-ordered Final Fantasy XV at GameStop stores. This means not only is it a store exclusive, but it’s a PRE-ORDER exclusive. To limit such an enjoyable game to such a tiny crowd is, in my opinion, a crime in itself. Sadly, there are no plans announced to release it to the general public quite yet. As a side note, keep in mind that I played the entire game on the PlayStation 4. There are no differences between the two consoles that I could find.

©Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

Thus, while I love the game for what it is, it loses a lot of its merit due to its degrading form of distribution. No full game, especially one designed as a companion to something larger, should ever be offered only as a pre-order bonus, let alone from a single retailer. I hope this doesn’t show as a sign of where gaming is headed. On the bright side, if you are one of the lucky few who got your hands on this, then I hope you enjoy the game as thoroughly as I did.
 
-Teepu

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Graphics: GREAT
Sound: PERFECT
Gameplay: AMAZING
Value: TRASH
 
OVERALL: GREAT

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