Yoichi Wada once asked that question and my thought at the time was, "What the fuck is that man on?". That question is totally relevant now.  I have been playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey for 145 hours with probably another 60 hours on the way. I'm getting that Platinum dammit. AC:O is not only an amazingly fun game it opened my eyes to what a "real" open world game should be and I have to say that Final Fantasy XV, as an open world game, failed in every single way.

I was convinced to buy a western developed open world game by a friend as a challenge. I had convinced him to buy FFXV which he played for a grand total of 3 hours before he put it down. When I pressed him about it, all he could give me was a bunch of comparisons to other games; you can do this in the Witcher 3, you can do that in Skyrim blah blah blah. Bunch of artificial bullshit.  He came back with the if you broadened your horizons and played more western based games you would understand it. Oh really? I took that challenge and we narrowed it down to AC:O because I wanted something comparable to FFXV. So, I went down to Gamestop and dropped 60 bucks on something that I was set to dislike to prove my homie wrong.

I played the game for 7 hours straight.

In those 7 hours I understood everything. Here is a few of my most notable comparisons:

- AC: O has a massive world. The minute the game became open I turned my focus to exploring 100% of the world while totally ignoring the main path. I am 145 hours in and currently at 87% explored. Fucking nuts at size of this game. FFVX, you could get into your car and if you wanted, have all locations on map found in a few hours.

- This massive world is filled with over 100 points of interest; caves, camps, fortresses, underwater temples/shipwrecks,land temples and you are always rewarded for exploring them. Always. I stopped getting out of my car/chocobo in FFXV because all that shiny shit littered on the ground was just worthless. Very rarely do you get cool shit.

- You get a Ship in this game and when I first set sail to my next island in real time I was blown away. I am so used to JRPG's and their world maps with traveling being simplified, or FFXV's sorry excuse for water travel or travel in general. Traveling in AC: O is just fun as shit. You get a hoarse early into the game but I probably only called that fucker like 10 times in 145 hours because the way the protagonist moves throughout world is just awesome. There is no type of obstacle that he/she cant interact with; climbing mountains like hes Spider-man, swan diving off of mountain tops, skipping across roof tops, jetting through water live a dolphin. Very versatile character. A knee high fence needs to walked around in FFXV. Bushes act as barriers. A jump button that amounts to absolutely nothing in regards to traveling the world. Altissa is a pain in the ass to traverse because we just cant jump down floors! We have a jump button and this is open world game! Why cant just jump down!?

- The world has a sense of being alive. civilians travel large distance across the map, Animals roam all over place, Bandits roam the lands, Mercenaries travel looking for their next bounty, Spartans and Athenian patrol their regions and they all interact with each other. Civilians will be attacked by roaming animals or bandits. If Spartans and Athenians cross paths they will fight it out. I once saw Spartans vs Bear vs Boar vs bandit battle. Shit happens in the world regardless if you participate or not. FFXV? nothing. completely lifeless world. Your the only people doing shit. 

It took AC:O for me to realize how underdeveloped the world of FFXV is. Multiple heads at SE have already hinted that the next FF will continue the open world trend (rumors say that Destiny is a major influence), but I am wondering if SE has the balls to fully commit to a strong open world, because it is going to have take another major overhaul of the brand to get there. 

I do think the fact that JRPGS are so robotic is one of the reasons they're a bit hard to get into. I never felt like the world was alive in most of the JRPGs I've tried out. That being said, I can't attest to Assassin's Creed's quality, I've never played one. You should try out more open-world Western games if you get the chance. There's quite a few good ones, The Witcher 3 and Horizon being notable example. Also, have you not played Breath of the Wild?

As much as I hate FFXV from the bottom of my heart it's not really a good comparison. FFXV is going for a complete different experience than ACO or other western open world games. The open world isn't even an actual open world. It's just a series of large areas as it is done in all large scale JRPG. In fact I have yet to see the first open world JRPG. The thing is, do we even need it? The west has already perfected open world games so it's nice to still have your regular JRPGs. Going into a JRPG and expecting ACO or the Witcher is like going into a JPOP concert and expecting Finnish Hard Rock.

Right now I'm playing FFXII which is from gameplay extremely similar to FFXV, except that it's not shit at everything it does. It's not about exploring necessarily but about experiencing a world with lots of strange and amazing set pieces while also having some roaming in between to fill time. Having amazing set pieces and varied environments is simply not possible with the western formula of open world.

I believe and hope that it will stay on the same path. We don't need more open world games, we need more big scale JRPGs that don't suck ass like FFXV. FFXII and Xenoblade Chronicles are great examples to lead.

I got bored of Assassin's Creed Odyssey in a few hours. Most of the exploration boils down to find another fortress or enemy camp, stealth kill and repeat, mercenaries along the way, that's it, repeat ad nauseam. Just the same basic Ubisoft game design ever since Far Cry 2. At Least The Witcher III's "monster of the week" approach managed to keep things somewhat interesting with the different stories you'd find along the way.

Not that FFXV kept me interested for any longer, mind you.

Please I don't want FF to become AC.........

Please no.

With FF you can only agree on one thing, everyone want something else =p. I love FFX's sphere grid. I love FFIX's equipping items to learn certain skills. I love the big action sequences in FFVIII + school (Clash of the gardens

I got the plat for AC: Odyssey in 125 hours. Took a break to play AC: Origins. Another triumph, another platinum and I've done all the DLC. Now need to go back and purchase Odyssey DLC for completion. Seriously, these games sucked me right in - half the time I just wanted to wander around staring at the locale, listening to the people going about their daily business, would be in the middle of a quest and then see a "?" on the map and just HAVE to explore. I have never played Assassin's Creed before these two as it never appealed to me, but I am a huge fan of ancient history, so had to give these a go; for whatever reason, however, I stalled getting Origins even though Ancient Egypt is my passion, and got and played Odyssey first. Doesn't matter anyway, both are incredible and are in my top games of all time now. Along with The Witcher 3, another incredible game which stole my heart.


Regarding Final Fantasy, only ever played 3 on DS and 13 on PS3. Just don't get it? I'm a huge, massive, gigantic (you get the picture) Legend of Zelda fan, but just can't seem to warm towards FF - it just doesn't appeal to me at all.

I would rather they go back to the game being like FF IX or X.

There are already plenty of open world and "Ubisoft the Game" out there, I don't need another one.

AC O and FF XV are completly different games that try to do completly different things. And ACO isn't even one of the best open worlds, its standard AC open world, lots of uninteresting things to do everywhere and some nice vistas. Anyway FF shouldn't try to be open world at all, it should go back to being more linear, maybe take a leaf from Persona 5's success and stick to your guns, we don't need every game to be open world.

I took into account the development history, but the game still has elements that feel backwards or against the concept of an open world game. It feels like the ideas were naturally just outdated.

I actually forgot to write in the OP that FFXV feels less open world and more like if the Calm Lands were the entire game. SE has made it clear that they intend to continue the open world and quite frankly bro, that opens the door to be compared to other open world games even if they're not directly trying to a western style open world. With that being said, I'm on the opposite side, they should redesign a Final Fantasy that fully commits to an open world if they plan to continue on that path. I love XV but it so half assed.

To be clear: I am not saying that Final Fantasy should be more like AC. NO! I am saying that open world Final fantasy needs to understand what makes an open world tick because FFXV was open world in the most simplest form. 

Final Fantasy is Global brand and one of the premiere Japanese IP's that is intended to represent the highest quality work from the country. It is not some B class JRPG. Where P5 is at Final Fantasy has been there done that a loooooong time ago. Up until recently, Final Fantasy has always been a leader that set the bar for Japanese RPG's and Japanese gaming in  general. SE should never turn Final Fantasy away from that role because that pressure is what makes Final Fantasy the beloved series that it is. Your idea is simply run away.