Kingsglaive is a fine primer for Final Fantasy XV

One of the hardest things to do in this industry is keep things quiet. You’ve all seen leaks before conferences: release dates, game names – Christ, Ubisoft are even sort-of doing it themselves in their own games now – and so on, but one thing that’s especially hard when you write about games is trying to go on a media blackout. How does the media hide itself from itself? Well, it doesn’t, really.

“Boo-hoo”, you’re thinking, “Mr I get games early is whinging about spoilers”. But I’m not moaning, really. Part of my role here is read and sign NDAs and often they will have sections which specifically tell the critic about things they must not spoil. Now there’s probably an entire article based around the discussion that a review shouldn’t really be spoiling that kind of thing for the reader (or viewer, it is 2016, after all), but for now, it’s just part of the job.

Final Fantasy is one of my favourite series of games. The sheer ridiculousness of the numbering system, the obtuse and often ludicrous subtitles for some of the games. The absurd J-Pop haircuts (and the fact the cut-scenes keep getting prettier and more explosive, but the hair never moves). I love it, and I won’t apologise for it.

So, despite playing the two demos (and having mixed feelings about them), I’ve refrained from watching or reading too much about XV. It helps that, in truth, we’ve not had a huge amount of preview hands-on time with it: a small hands on at E3 (not the place to try a FF game, really) and a preview event which resulted in my dopey effort to edit together a video preview without watching the b-roll supplied, because I am that committed to the cause of not having it spoiled – don’t worry, I got someone to check it wasn’t a shit video.

But the hype is real, people. This is a game that was a large part of my formative gaming years, with FF7 remaining my favourite game of all time, and probably the one I’ve played for the most hours. I couldn’t wait any longer, I needed something Final Fantasy in my life.

Kingsglaive, then, sells itself by saying “The Final Fantasy XV saga starts here”. It sells itself by giving top billing to Sean Bean (good), Lena Headey (alright), and Aaron Paul (mixed). It sells itself by being an entirely CGI movie, and despite everyone hating it, I enjoyed Advent Children for what it was, but it sure as hell looked like money on the screen.

The Kingsglaive itself is a band of soldiers using the magical power of King Regis (Bean), and explains immediately why in the demo our guys can throw weapons and warp to things. It sets up the conflict between Niflheim and Lucis. It establishes the good guy/bad guy dynamic again, and it introduces some bad guys that I cannot wait to fight in the game. I mean, it even gives us a glimpse into the kind of enemies we’ll be fighting in the game, and to that end, I got a real FFVII vibe: a mixture of mechanical beasts and horrifying demons. I’m having to stop myself, because the excitement is overcoming me. Final Fantasy was my absolute favourite series up until XIII. I don’t think that game was bad, really, just missing something that made it feel truly special.

Some of the acting in the movie isn’t great, but it’s also partially because of the facial animations. The mixture of comical over-acted expression with sombre moments doesn’t quite gel, and Aaron Paul was superb until I realised it was him, which is my problem, not his. The flip-flopping of one character going between sides because of stupidity was a little hard to take, and a character that I feel had some potential depth was killed too quickly.

In fact, it’s the bad guys that shine. They’re very… well, they’re very Final Fantasy in their design. The massive demon-sounding-but-actually-human knight chap is wonderfully designed, while the Emperor of Niflheim actually seems interesting: he’s clearly mastered manipulation and has been keeping secrets for twelve long years, while his surrounding cast seem like they will be bosses in the actual game.

It looks incredible, too, of course. If Advent Children blew you away, Kingsglaive will make you soil your pants. I don’t want to know how much this cost to make, because it looks like all the money in the known universe went into its creation. There are moments that make you forget it’s CGI, it’s that incredible.

Ultimately, Kingsglaive is an okay movie, with stellar visuals and a story that will give some background to you before you start Final Fantasy XV. I needed some Final Fantasy to satiate me, and it’s done a good job of getting me ready for a universe I’d try to go in blind for. If you’re worried about having the game spoiled for you, I’d say this is the primer you need.