Play XV
It's a great game, much better than 99% of JRPG released this generation. People just don't like it because it's too different from others of the franchise, but you are pretty much a newcomer and it will not bother you. The concerns about story were solved with DLC, get the royal edition and don't suffer from it. There are moments more suited to play each DLC inside your main campaign, I advice you to find on internet which DLC is suited to play each moment. Visually the game is gorgeous and the contemporary setting and worldbulding that comes along with a charismatic brotherhood-ish party and real-world mechanics (you need fill your car gas, sleep at night otherwise demons can chase you, and so on) made everything more relatable and immersive. OST is great as always and exploration could be better indeed, but I haven't found it tedious I like the freedom to go everywhere discovering items and treasures in thr map or just doing the side quests. You also have two styles of gameplay, try both and pick the one who you find more satisfying, I choose dynamic real time combat, just feel more suited for this game.
If you like turn base combat, FF X have the best turn based system gameplay of the series with real time change in the party and a great sphere grid that will give you freedom to do upgrade your party in the way you want (though most people just follow the natural path of each character), one of the best stories with great characters and a compelling worldbulding, it's very emotional and with a great OST. The graphics still beautiful and charming if you play the remaster version, you can get it on PS4. As far as classic turn based combat goes this can easily turn to be your favorite FF
After X, you can try XII: Zodiac Age it's a WONDERFUL game. The battle system is just so different from X they don't even like the same franchise at all. You control your party in a semi-real time combat, where you need to pre programming your party controls using action slots. It's something very unique and give a nice flavour to the combat. The story is more political than X, and do not focus as much on characters development, plus the art style and worldbulding imo is not as good as X, but it has much better designed maps and dungeons. Play Zodiac Age remaster for PS4, it comes with a great job system that fice you a great level of freedom to build your party, unlike sphere grid that strongly suggest you to go into a path here the characters paths are very counterintuitive and the "natural" path for each party member will hardly give them an optimal build. On Switch version you can reset the job of each character every time you want and build it again, I don't know if you can do the same on PS4, but testing builds was one of the most funny things I've made in Switch version
Last edited by IcaroRibeiro - on 13 June 2021
