History VideoGame / FinalFantasyXV

* TwentyBearAssess: Most of the hunting quests are to kill a certain amount of monsters or fetch quests requiring the party to kill monsters and collect their drops.

* FromBadToWorse: Niflheim attacks Insomia, steals the Lucian PowerCrystal and kills Regis. Then Leviathan causes the destruction of Altissia. ''Then'' Ardyn [[spoiler:kills Luna and initiates the Starscourge, plunging the entirety of Eos into darkness and tricks Noctis into entering the Lucian Crystal]]. And all of this happens ten years before the FinalBattle.

** What the game doesn't tell is that the AI partners it assigns to a party is not random (except for Kenny Crow), but will assign partners depending on the Sigils equipped. The AI's are also grouped into 3 categories based on their sigils: Offensive, Support, and Buff/Healing. So if the player is wearing a support sigil, the game will assign two AI partners with offensive Sigils to balance the party and if wearing an offensive one, it will assign one of each category.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Unlike in the main game where it's possible to travel everywhere and do quests without facing a loading screen, ''Comrades'' is instanced and the game needs to load if traveling to quest locations and other safe harbors. It's usually the norm to face '''four''' loading screens on just one quest, which gets annoying if trying to grind for materials, gil, or power.

* DeconstructedTrope: You're not a main character who has TheGift, able to become a MultiMeleeMaster with ease, but instead are just a [[MauveShirt regular person]] who has to fight their way tooth and claw for every advantage, every boost that they can get. In the beginning hunts especially, your performance against low-level daemons is as evenly-matched as can be.

** Weapons have max levels that, once reached, won't let you pour any more upgrade materials into them. Each weapon has a natural level cap, based on entirely on the weapon and its tier, that can be increased via meteor shards, only available in the post game where dismantling becomes available, which are the only upgrade material you can apply to a maxed out weapon, but there's a hard cap of 120 levels for any weapon even with meteor shards.

* EscortMission: There are 3 types of normal missions. Hunt, the most common, is just kill a specified monster without dying. Defend and Escort missions are both a form of this trope. Escort will have a moving vehicle as your VIP while Defend will be a stationary object. These missions aren't too bad on their own if you can keep aggro upon yourself, because normal enemies will (usually) focus on taking out the character instead of the escorted (except for bombs and flans). So long as you don't battle right next to the target, you're basically good... but if you can't, [[FakeDifficulty then it's a different story]].
* EquipmentBasedProgression: There are some stats given from level ups, but a significant majority are going to come from your equipment, which is more or less the main focus of the game. All the items that were vendor trash, quest rewards, or spell components are all combined into "Equipment upgrades", with each having stats or abilities to add to your weapon, with a few exceptions that can still be used but are more pointless. You instead have an equipment stat and upgrade system which requires strategic use of materials to produce the weapons you want, including things like EXP management [[note]] each weapon has an EXP bar and each material gives a set amount of EXP in addition to its stat upgrades. In general, more EXP is bad because each weapon has a level cap and once you hit it you can no longer add stats of any kind. [[/note]] weapon abilities [[note]] things like giving you elemental spells such as fire, or the upgrade versions or making it so each strike has a chance of giving a status effect that - barring a few exceptions - you can have one free space (per weapon) that can be given an ability from an upgrade material, and one that comes with the weapon, though in some cases weapons either have no/a second ability on them, meaning you can't customize them. Like the stats, once you hit the cap you cannot add any more abilities.[[/note]] and weapon tiers [[note]] some weapons will have bars beneath one or more stats, or in a few cases under the level bar, that if you get enough points in the assigned stat(s), the bar will fill up as more stats are added to show you how close you are, will add more levels and unlock a new ability for the secondary slot[[/note]] that play huge factors in your combat effectiveness. Equipment is heavily customization-based and if you want to stand a chance against later enemies, you're basically going to ''have'' to MinMax your weapons into the setups that you want.

* ResourcesManagementGameplay: Due to the weapon level system assigning stats . You can get as many upgrade materials as you have the time to grind for, but you can only apply them to a weapon if it has the room for the EXP the materials give it. Once it hits max level, what you have is what you stick with. You can buy another weapon (early game) or dismantle it (late game) to try again, and have as many tries as you like, but you still have those EXP limits that will determine how strong the end result is.

** As the game originated as ''Versus XIII'' and was to share the same basic mythos with ''XIII'' and ''Type-0'', a few basic similarities between this title and those ones can be seen if you squint a little. The Lucii are a fairly on-the-nose parallel to the l'Cie, warriors chosen by the Crystal to wield magical powers and are rewarded with a kind of "eternal life" for their service. The Astrals are comparable to fal'Cie as powerful god-like beings that watch over the world, and the ability to forms a Pact with them for power and the right to summon them is similar to the idea of fal'Cie giving a Focus to someone and with it the ability to summon an Eidolon. The Daemons are comparable to [[spoiler:cie'th, human beings that were twisted into monsters. Ardyn in particular is very similar in his power and how it manifests to partially formed cie'th like Cid Raines and Snow Villiers.]]

** UpToEleven in the novel ''Dawn of the Future'' where it's revealed that [[spoiler: Bahamut reveals that he wants to purge all humanity in order to cleanse Eos from the Starscourge, thus literally killing all.]]

%%* LowerDeckEpisode: The multiplayer expansion, Comrades, is one.%%How?

* LowerDeckEpisode: The multiplayer expansion, Comrades, is one.

** Ignis can choose between [[BladeOnAStick spears/polearms]] and DualWielding [[KnifeNut daggers]].

** Completing the Scraps of Mystery sidequest gives you to a Mythril Ingot, which can either be sold for 20k gil (meager by the time you're able to complete this sidequest), or be used in Elemancy to make a spell have a chance to cast without using a charge (which isn't exclusive to Mythril Ingot; multiple other VendorTrash items give the same effect. The note given to the player at the end of the quest lampshades this to some degree, stating that it was more about the journey and less about the reward.

** Once you have the beast whistle, you can repeatedly call and slaughter sabertusks in the Three Valleys to amass thousands of AP (and sellable VendorTrash) per hour.

* TraumaInn: Inns and hotels in offer many of the same benefits as campsites, including regaining HP and leveling up your characters. The advantage of inns is that they have multipliers that increase your experience points when you stay, making them ideal for after you fight big bosses that lots of XP. There's also a chance for an interactive cutscene to play where Noctis and Prompto chat on the roof, with the player picking the Noctis's dialogue from a few options and gaining experience for how well they fit the scene.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent:

*** Ignis can switch the elemental affinity of his daggers to give his attacks and Limit Break different effects, and the world area is based on control of a region, with Ignis being required to clear out a particular area of enemies in order to liberate it and progress in the DLC story.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Averted. Poison is an annoyance to you, but on enemies it's a godsend.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** The game's {{Brutal Bonus Level}}s usually throw armies of high-level enemies at Noctis' party and finish with a suitably difficult BossBattle... until you get to the Pitioss Ruins, a ''massive'' dungeon without a single enemy anywhere. It consists entirely of Noctis platforming his way through one of the most extreme examples of {{Bizarrchitecture}} in recent gaming history. Completing the dungeon can take anywhere from 4 to 12 hours for your first run, depending on your platforming skills and [[GuideDangIt the quality of your online guide]].
** All three DLC packs in the first wave change things up with the three comrades having different playstyles. The update that made them playable in the main game lets them bring their unique gimmicks with them.
*** Gladio forgos most RPG elements in favor of a more traditional HackAndSlash style, where he racks up hits with a combo meter and boosts a "Rage" gauge by blocking attacks, both powering up his attacks.
*** Prompto turns the game from an RPG into a ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''-style ThirdPersonShooter, with him using firearms he finds around the environment to combat enemies from range in various tactical options.
*** Ignis can switch the elemental affinity of his daggers to give his attacks and Limit Break different effects, and the world area is based on control of a region, with Ignis being required to clear out a particular area of enemies in order to liberate it and progress in the DLC story.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The hidden dungeon, [[spoiler:Pitioss Ruins]], is entirely devoid of enemies and consists purely of an enormous puzzle platforming stage.

* GunsAreWorthless: Guns generally go less damage than swords and lances and always do less damage than greatswords. They also do pitiful damage at range (sometimes just 1 or 0 damage), so it counterbalances their advantage there. They are also the only primary weapon type without a corresponding Royal Arm.

* RefiningResources: A variation. All upgrade materials give stats and EXP, but once you unlock dismantling you'll be given items back based on the status given to the dismantled weapon. The items you get from this are exceptionally efficient for stat point-to-EXP cost, but only work in one stat, except for meteor shards which are needed to maximize a weapon's level. A common end game goal is to dump all your upgrade materials into a weapon with a naturally high level and dismantle them for the materials, in order to build efficiently and specifically around the strengths you want for your character.

* DeathFromAbove: In ''Platinum Demo'', the spell Meteorain summons a bunch of orange, glowing balls that rain from the sky and OneHitKill everything on the field.

* SwordBeam: {{Exaggerated}} Ignis can shoot a beam so strong that it is effectively a PillarOfLight that he can ''then'' bring down on a given target.

!!All spoilers for ''Anime/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV'' are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenScrewWarned!

!!All spoilers for ''Anime/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV'' are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenScrewYou

!!All spoilers for ''Anime/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV'' are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!

* AbilityDepletionPenalty: Completely draining the [[SprintMeter stamina meter]] by running too much will cause Noctis to walk slower than normal until it fully recharges.