Kingsglaive : Final Fantasy XV - Movie Review

I'm a big Final Fantasy fan, I've finished almost every Final Fantasy series (I didn't have PS2 and PS3, so I haven't played X, XIII, but I finished XII on my friend's PS2 lol). Final Fantasy XV was initially called as "Final Fantasy versus XIII". But we almost never heard of its existence until a couple years ago. I thought Square Enix dropped the project and moved on to the new one. But they didn't. So this game has been in development for 10 years. And we almost had it next month (september) until SE decided to delay it until November 29th. And here we are now, on August 17th, SE released a "teaser" of the game in featured movie, "Kingsglaive : Final Fantasy XV"
So I've watched this movie, how was it? Let's dive into it!


The story revolves on war between two kingdoms, Lucis and Niflheim. Niflheim tried to conquer other kingdoms and rule the world with its advanced technology, while Lucis stands still from Niflheim. One day, Niflheim came to Lucis and asks for Truce. But they need to surrender Imsonia (Lucis' capital city) to Niflheim. King Regis (King of Lucis) of course refuses this offer, and he offers another territory which is a neighbor territory from Lucis. Hearing that condition, Niflheim offered another term, the Lucis' prince, Noctis must marry Lunafreya, the Princess from Tenebrae which is a kingdom under Niflheim empire. And finally they agree on that term. and they will held a truce treaty in couple of days. King Regis thought that Niflheim won't make a truce and a deal this easy. So he sent one of his troops called the "Kingsglaive" to met Lunafreya in person. What will happen to Lucis? Will everything be okay? Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you! XD

This movie is a prologue to the Final Fantasy XV, so I think it goes without saying that this movie has an incomplete/unresolved conflict and stories. There's no resolution or whatsoever in this movie. But this movie did a great job on establishing the main conflict of the story. And hopefully some plot holes will be explained later in the game.
The first half of the movie is plot heavy. It could turn off some people who didn't really like that kind of movie. But not for me, I really love this kind movie/series where they really nailed it on the "world building".
All I can say that this story telling is much much much more coherent than previous Final Fantasy movies (i.e Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children or a non-existent Final Fantasy movie : The Spirits Within). And I can tell you that this is the best Final Fantasy Movie that we have right now!

The last half of the movie is mostly action. And I think the action looks cool and all but it is the kind of animation that throws a lot of stuff in one frame so when you watch it you'll be like
"what is going on? where should I look?". But this movie succeed on telling me about the "game mechanic" of this game. And I can't wait to play it! XD

The details on this movie are stunningly beautiful! I really want to screencap everything on this movie and make wallpaper for my desktop PC. Great job SE! I think this is one of the most beautiful/realistic 3D movie I've ever seen.

The soundtrack is amazing! Yoko Shimomura really nailed the tone of Final Fantasy XV. Modern yet classic at the same time! XD

The voice acting are great, this movie has amazing voice actor casts. (Sean Bean, Aaron Paul, Lena Headey)
Aaron Paul really nailed his role as Nyx. And I kinda wished he swear "B*TCH!" on this movie. Because that's what Jesse do on Breaking Bad X'D
The voice acting are amazing and everything felt natural when you hear it.

You can enjoy this movie without having previous knowledge about "The world of Final Fantasy". But it is very entertaining for a Final Fantasy Fan like me. There are a lot of callbacks or references to the previous games. And I noticed it is mostly from Final Fantasy VI (one of the best classic FF RPG) and also VII. For example, from FF VI, there's Magitek Armor and Fighting Ultros on the airship (if you remember that, you are awesome!). As for FF VII, there's a monster resembling Emerald Weapon and Niflheim resembles Nibelheim in pronunciation. which Cloud and Tifa's hometown. And probably there's more to it that I didn't notice when I watch this movie


The problems that I I had in this movie:

1. At the first and the last minutes of the movie, the movie uses a lot of "fade-to-black" screen transitions. It's kinda distracting and annoying at times. But I think it's just my personal nitpick lol. 
2. Even though the movie is titled Kingsglaive, we don't see a lot of them in this movie. They told us their background story a little bit. But I wished that I see more of them, since they are a group of badasses

So here comes the final verdict. Should you watch Kingsglaive FF XV? If you are planning to play the game, of course you should!
Some people say that this game is going to be the best Final Fantasy game ever made. But let's just manage our expectations right now and hopefully it won't make people left dissapointed like FF XIII.

So that's it from me guys, I hope that you find this review useful! This is Reikichi, signing out! XD