'Final Fantasy XV' Is Packed With So Much Extra Content, You May Lose The Plot And Not Even Mind

Final Fantasy XV is going to keep you really busy for a really long time, if my hands-on experience with Chapter 1 is anything to go by.

In Chapter 1, one of the first things that happen is that your car, the Regalia, breaks down. That means for the first chunk of the first chapter, you’re traipsing around the open world landscape on foot. It’s not infinite open world, but it feels like it. There’s tons of things to be found just lying around the landscape, from the elements you need to craft your spells to clusters of enemies just waiting to be wiped out.

About those enemies: Combat in Final Fantasy XV takes as little or as much time as you please, depending on how much time you devote to perfecting the score cards that appear after every battle. You’re graded -- every time -- on defense, stealth, and offense, so honing your skills on enemies until you start getting A+s all round is easily a way to lose time.

There’s also campsites to be found, which are exciting because every time you camp someplace new, you get new, fun rest cinematics. I can’t imagine ever being tired of watching Gladio tromp around with his big ole muscles, rigging up a tent while Prompto darts around taking photos. I don’t think the rest cinematics play every time -- what’s charming once gets real annoying every time afterwards, as anyone who summoned anything in Final Fantasy VIII could attest -- but they’re surprisingly fun.

You can also lose a lot of time in the various crafting systems. I didn’t have the chance to dive into the weapons upgrade system, more’s the pity. But Ignis has a cooking skill that requires you to collect certain ingredients for certain recipes. Those ingredients can be gathered out in the wild or purchased at stores, but why buy what you can get for free with a skosh of elbow grease and initiative? Then you’ve got the spell crafting system, which is a necessity, not a luxury, unless you don’t want Noctis throwing fire and lightning.

Two crafting systems and an upgrade system? That we know of? Get ready to tinker.

After the Regalia gets fixed, I realized that you could lose a lot of time just driving around. Driving the Regalia is not like driving around in a Grand Theft Auto game. You can drive on auto mode (aka hand the wheel to Ignis) if you don’t feel like controlling the car and just want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and the game will treat you to party banter and some great landscape views.

But driving on your own has its own rewards, like when I drove through a sudden sandstorm and heard a voice crying out. Sidequest activated! While I don’t like the feeling of driving on rails (why can’t I pull a Commander Shepard and drive freely and directly up a cliff while my party cries out for their lives, damnit), and you should still dismount regularly to explore any interesting map markers in the area, taking the road less traveled on the Regalia promises to be an addictive and time-consuming process.

Then there’s sidequests, easily found by speaking to everyone you come across. There are quite a number of ‘em and they’re real chunky, as a good sidequest ought to be. I don’t know how many sidequests will be more than glorified fetch quests, but the developers clearly made an effort to pack Chapter 1 with them densely. If that density of sidequests continues throughout the rest of the chapters, then getting to full completion is going to take a huge time investment.

Then there’s the skill mini-games, one for each character: fishing for Noctis, exploration for Gladio, cooking for Ignis and photography for Prompto. I’ve already talked a bit about them, but depending on which mini-game you enjoy the most, you may well find yourself putting off the main storyline in favor of sorting through Prompto’s photo album or reeling in a rare fish with Noctis.

And don’t forget the official mini-game that comes with its own tie-in mobile game, Justice Monsters 5. Good mini-games will make you forget there’s even a main storyline. (There’s chocobos, too, though I didn’t get to play with them in Chapter 1. Dude, chocobos.)

Finally, simply exploring every location will take up time, because each location feels lovingly crafted and shockingly real. Every shop feels like a legitimate storefront, with real products on the shelves. I felt like I could spend hours just checking out the convenience store at the garage where you leave the Regalia, hitting X on every book shelf and rack of products to investigate.

We may have waited a long time for Final Fantasy XV, but by god, director Hajime Tabata and his team have made damn sure we have a corresponding amount of stuff to do. We waited a lot, and now we’re getting a lot. A lot.

Are you looking forward to exploring Final Fantasy XV ’s density of content? Are you relieved the team has packed in so much to do? Feel free to talk about Final Fantasy XV in our comments section below.