I just finished it, and gave it some thoughts. So let me be clear right off the bat:
Primary FF element:
Main Story: 2/10
Character stories: 1/10
Secondary yet essential FF elements:
Gameplay: 9/10
Soundtrack : 9/10
World Design: 10/10
The FFXV movie "Kingsglaive" was a great introduction to a potentially complex world with full of new characters, provinces and points of interests. I was ready for an amazing journey. I was so disappointed.
You have great primary, secondary and supporting characters. Great cities. Huge world. Amazing points of interests awaiting to be explored. Astonishing daemon design. So you start... and go on... and then nothing. Just a bunch of a few main chapters with empty content, no real story in it. It justs getting nowhere. The only thing you know - you'll be king one day. And that's pretty much the whole story. There's no deep dive into characters, there's nothing happening in the cities, you don't feel you have an impact on the world. Even the story end is very empty in content and so predictable to a point it was so boring.
All the side quests feels like a MMORPG meaningless quest from the stone age. "Inspect 8 valves." "Find a dog tag" "Harvest a plant" "Deliver a letter to the hotel". Can't get more boring than that.
So yeah, my expectations from a FF game, especially this one with all these years and the hype, is to be dragged in. Pure immersion into a fantasy world. Unlike the recent FF games, this one had all the elements to be THAT final fantasy we were all waiting for.
At the end, from all cities, points of interest, characters, etc... you deep-dive like only 2% of all that great stuff. Look, you don't even know who your friends are!! Yeah, it is that bad.
The vast majority of the game is just to chill around, drive the car, beat monsters, and that's it.
Nothing to remember. All the potentially "wow" factors I was expecting have vanished.
This is the last final fantasy I will ever play.