Khalifa
Probably the worst “final DLC” in the franchise. Not bad but, again, just unmemorable. Marginally better than Knoxx, but not by much. It’s sad to see the OG Borderlands go out on a whimper like this.
Aggressively mediocre. Ends with a bang, but the journey there is unmemorable at best and annoying at worst. I finished it a few days ago and I can barely remember anything about it.
An absolutely abysmal, low effort piece of content that’s made even worse in the remaster because it introduces crashes. Not only is having to fight enemies for THREE CONTINUOUS HOURS on the same map, and then having to do that THREE TIMES not fun, it’s also a complete waste of time and energy. This is the worst thing Gearbox has ever put out, and that’s including Aliens, Battleborn and their Duke Nukem games.
BL1’s DLC expansions are nowhere near as good as BL2’s and 3’s so it’s hard to judge these having seen the true potential of what Gearbox can offer with these expansions. That being said, Zombie Island is a good first effort. It’s incredibly short, but it introduces a new area that’s visually more interesting than anything else in the game up until this point and the main story is campy fun. Largely unmemorable, but a fun ride nonetheless.
It’s genuinely shocking just how much Gearbox got right the first time around. The level design is a little lacking, the comedy is hit-or-miss, the visuals are dated (still easy on eyes though) and the story is…there but the gameplay loop is absolutely addicting and the gunplay, while not as refined as BL2 & 3’s, still feels absolutely incredible. They nailed it where it mattered the most for this type of game and it’s genuinely still very impressive.
2023
This is a good™ game. The story's good™, the characters are good™, the gameplay is good™ and the music is good™. After XV, a competently made video game like this one feels like a miracle but there's...nothing really special about it. Nothing really stands out, it's just good™.
The story starts off really well but kinda falls apart in the second half, the characters are well-written but I kinda struggled to get attached to any of them, the gameplay's good but gets old very quickly because the game is incredibly easy and doesn't really ask you to get into the nitty-gritty of the combat system. It also gets old because the game goes on for way too long. Not unusual for a Final Fantasy game, but there's a reason character action games (like DMC and Bayonetta which this game is trying to emulate, not action RPGs like NieR and Kingdom Hearts) only last about 10-15 hours. The music is great but sadly largely unmemorable outside of the banger battle and boss themes.
I don't know. I played it and had fun, but I'm not going to remember anything from it in two weeks, which is a bummer because it's an entry in one of my favorite franchises ever. Still, it's a lot better than XV and that's something worth celebrating.
This game's a giant fucking joke but I feel like the devs are in on it which makes it fun. Gameplay-wise, it's a lot like Team Ninja's other soulslike games, which means it's nowhere near as good as some of From's output but still pretty addicting. It's also a little more streamlined than Nioh. There's no equivalent to the (very annoying) Ki system here.
Better than 5.4 but not by much. Not feeling the villains at all which is a bit of a shame after Emet-Selch but it is what it is.
It's fine, I don't know. x.4 patches are always hit-or-miss and this was just kinda okay.
One of the game's best patches yet and a fantastic send-off to a great expansion. Endwalker has a lot to live up to.
Cool dungeon + interesting lore reveals + strong ending = great patch!
2016
I was genuinely excited to give Final Fantasy XV another shot. I had disliked it when I first played it, but I'll admit that a lot of that dislike came from years and years of following Versus XIII and being disappointed that the game was not what I wanted it to be (or what it appeared to be for all those years). That's not to say I didn't have issues with the game itself, but it would be foolish to think that watching the Versus XIII trailers for all of those years and kind of falling in love with the world through them wasn't clouding my judgement and affecting my opinion of FFXV negatively, because it is not that game and it will never be.
That's what I thought, at least, before replaying it and realizing that my judgement was in fact clouded, but it had the opposite effect. Even though I disliked it, it turns out that I was actually cutting the game a lot of slack because I was still so in love with the idea of it.
Final Fantasy XV is a failure. It's an absolute failure in every sense of the word. It has a horrible, chopped-up story that completely fails on all levels, a sad excuse of a combat system, genuinely horrible world design that feels bad to explore due to gameplay systems and design choices that feel like they're there to punish you for trying to extract some sort of fun out of this mess, visuals that look straight out of one of those "Nintendo hire this man!" videos (the Leviathan sequence is genuinely laughable), mediocre characters that are horribly voice-acted, and writing that's just completely embarrassing. It miraculously has a strong ending, but it does nothing to soften the blow of everything that came before it.
I've never played the DLCs and I won't do it now because this game does not deserve any more of my time and attention. I only hope that Yoko Shimomura gets another shot at composing the music for another mainline Final Fantasy game because her wonderful music is wasted on this heaping pile of shit.
It's an x.1 patch, mediocrity comes with the territory. Yawn.
The best expansion so far by a mile. Not that the bar was ridiculously high, mind you, as I thought Heavensward was good but extremely flawed and thought Stormblood was aggressively mediocre. Still, it's something worth noting and celebrating.
It starts off immensely strong and ends even stronger (the final few hours of the expansion are unequivocally the best content they've made so far) but just like the previous expansions and ARR, the middle part really drags. I also can't help but feel a little disappointed at them not using the setting to its full potential. You have this really cool fairytail-esque setting and this is what you do with it? Don't get me wrong, what they do with it is cool, but why stop there when you can do so much more?
Still, gripes aside, ShB has the best music, best dungeons, best story and the best villain, so I'm generally impressed with what they've manage to accomplish. Here's hoping Endwalker fixes the pacing issues (as hard as it may be) and wraps everything up neatly.
DO NOT ORDER MAJORA'S MASK FROM SHEIN!!!
For real though, what a fascinating game. The core concept is very strong and while the execution is faulty at times, it still works. it very clearly had a budget of $2 and 5 weeks of development time though, and you feel it in every single facet of this game. Still, the melancholy of the game kinda sucks you in. This is probably the saddest Final Fantasy game they've made. If not, then it's up there for sure. And of course, as with the rest of the trilogy, the combat system is absolutely incredible.
I've always loved Final Fantasy XIII, but I don't think I realized just how much it meant to me until I replayed the trilogy. The ending got me really badly.