Final Fantasy XV (Windows edition): What a strange experience so far. I don’t see myself as a fan of the franchise, but I’ve played many of its titles over the years, starting with the first one as a child.

The opening title mentions the game has been made for “fans and first timers”, so I expected some degree of nostalgia, despite it looking so different from its predecessors. I was served some… but in such weird ways. Let’s start with the composition of the Four Warriors of Light:

• The brat: Noctis, emo prince of teen attitude, as well as protagonist.
• The urban dad: Ignis, cooks elaborate meals and drives (always responsibly) the brat around.
• The country dad: Gladio, went to the school of life, must protecc the brat.
• The brat’s best friend that eats and sleeps at home so often he kind of becomes family: Prompto.

As Ignis was driving the warriors around in a fantasy rural North America, a desolate car centric landscape in which each road’s main destination is the next gas station, Prompto was making comments about playing video games. The car’s radio was playing FFIV’s Main Theme over and over again. Then it hit me: the nostalgia trip was not limiting itself to referencing lore from previous games, it was aiming to remind older gamers of how it was being a kid infatuated with classic RPGs. (A side note on the embarrassing haircuts the warriors are rockin’: back in the 90’s there were posters of these all over hair salons despite nobody ever getting one, but I guess this is really about modern jpop/kpop boy bands or something.)

It’s like FFXV is aiming for the worst possible kind of nostalgia: the kind that makes you glorify past experiences out of regret for the time when you were a pampered selfish kid.

Anyways I’m probably way off, but that’s my thoughts on FFXV. Oh also there’s chocobos so it’s not all bad. Thanks for reading.