Square Enix / kiefer23 (YouTube)

I also remember loving the trailer’s song, with a lone woman singing mournfully in Latin. Aural memories are more powerful to me than those centered on sight or smell. The memories of the way my Granny sounded when she cursed or laughed are more precious to me than how she looked while doing so. For that reason, music, more than anything else, evokes the strongest emotions in me.

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So when that song “Somnus” started up when Noctis and his Kingsglaive bodyguard entered the city of Insomnia to slay Ardyn and return light to the world, I started to cry. It felt like I had been transported back to when that trailer was released in 2006. I had come back to that moment when I was an obsessed 19-year-old like “Ah, I shall now conclude this game that has, though it’s somewhat different now, stuck with me for 14 years.”

More than that, I finally reached the point of the game when everything was finally new. After an abandoned save and five years, I had come back to correct a glaring error in my Final Fantasy history. Suffice it to say, I got emotional.

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That emotion overflowed when I reached the end—I don’t mean the final campfire, or Noctis choosing which of the 112 pictures Prompto took to take with him to the end of his life. I mean the end after the credits and the final cutscene, when the menu screen—that had heretofore been splashed over a night sky—turned to dawn.

Menu at night vs. menu at day. Seeing the sun rise on the menu shattered me.
Menu at night vs. menu at day. Seeing the sun rise on the menu shattered me.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
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I understand why people don’t like this game. The combat never quite gelled, always weirdly paced and clunky. The game’s latter half is an unenjoyable mess, and without the DLC episodes, the story feels largely incoherent. I get their frustration over knowing what the game could have been, and how that possibility was shunted into cancelled DLCs and finally a last-ditch book.

But I’m able to forgive its numerous sins because the level of detail this game took with its storytelling is unsurpassed. Prompto’s humming of the classic victory fanfare, the banter between the boys as they drive, the devastating tenderness with which Ignis tells a chocobo “We’ll meet again” when he’s done riding—it has always been the smallest things that make this game the (somewhat flawed) masterpiece I believe it is. That little transformation of the menu screen from night to dawn—an enduring representation to the player of Noctis’ sacrifice—was what ultimately did me in.

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When the credits rolled, I took a second to blot some tears, put down the controller, and checked the time: It was 11:59 p.m. Seriously. I’ve now completed Final Fantasy XV and all of its side-story DLCs in nine days. My final savefile time was 35:58:53, which combined with the character episodes averaging at an hour a piece, means I spent 40 hours on this project all told.

This heart-wrenching moment brought to you by Coleman camping equipment.
This heart-wrenching moment brought to you by Coleman camping equipment.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
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To close out my FF15 blitz, I’m going to watch the Kingsglaive movie. And if the book Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future has an audio version available, I’m gonna snap that up too. When I first played this game I, rightly, didn’t want it to end, so I stopped playing. Now that it has ended for me, it’s rocketed to the top of my list of Final Fantasy favorites. It doesn’t beat FF12 or FF8, but it’s easily in the top three.

This video game road trip was fun, made more so by all the lovely tips, comments, and words of encouragement. Thanks. I could have done this without all that, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.