Ff 15 Royal Edition Review

[Yi Pressimone]

FinalFantasy XV also has a lot of momentum going forward, something the previous single-player experience seemed to drop as it was released, Final Fantasy XIII. The experience left a fracture in the fan base, and to this day you can still read about how different the game was. Luckily, this long cycle helped get things to a place where the characters feel natural, the world comes alive, and the combat feels rewarding.

Noctis and his entourage are on their way to meet Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, the queen to be in an arranged marriage to our protagonist, Noctis. The reason behind their marriage is to unite north Insomnia and Nifelheim, two warring states that are in a constant flux of battle.

What threw me off was being able to drive the Regalia, the royal automobile. Being able to manually control the car is limited to driving in straight lines across the maps, often not allowing for any rambunctious off-roading or joyriding on the open road. You unlock fast travel quickly but I recommend not doing so as you often miss out on the insightful and often hilarious conversations Noctis and crew have during their travels.

The biggest gripe after the exhilarating combat is the simplicity that follows as the holding circle will perform combo strings, leaving the creativity to the wayside. Holding square will allow Noctis to block incoming attacks, and, when timed correctly, allow for parries on attacks. Warping is mapped to the triangle button and X is to jump, a first for the Final Fantasy series.

Progress is tied to the Ascension Grid, which reminds me of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. You gain AP from battle, completing sidequests and finishing hunts that are scattered around the world. Each character has its own grid that uses AP from a pool that is split between the four heroes. The categories you can unlock skills from include: Combat, Exploration, Techniques, Teamwork, Magic, Stats, and Recovery.

My original review was around launch day in November 2016 and in the span of a year and some change, Square Enix and director Hajime Tabata have made a great game exemplary with the continued support and success the latest numbered Final Fantasy has received. Not only have we gotten three-story packs featuring the royal guard, but a multiplayer expansion that ties into the story in wonderful ways.

Final Fantasy XV also made the jump to PC with the Windows Edition, which bundles all the DLC, and updates, and features some spectacular sights and sounds to experience for the crowd that waited for the longest.

After a slow start, the Crown Royal Noble Collection has had one of the best and most interesting string of releases in Canadian whisky - probably the most impressive since early Forty Creek - and I might dare to wager that the last few years have been even better. It took a while for the series to get going - cornerstone blend was an ok riff off classic Crown Royal blending, and the wine barrel release was a very impressive blend - but the previous 4 releases have been absolute apex predators and are among my favourite Canadian whiskies ever - the 13 year old blender's mash, the 16 year old rye, the winter wheat, and now this - a 100% barley whisky.

Sadly, this is the last of the series. Crown Royal has assured me that they will continue to release limited editions, but not in a series - however, they referenced their 29 year old as an example so it would appear they are leaning towards the expensive, smoother types that are less accessible and less interesting than the noble collection (that said, the 29 year old was no slouch). It is honestly very sad to see this go - after the demise of Forty Creek's annual release and the Wiser's releases (not sure? try the lot 40 port finish....). This was one of the last remaining bright lights from the big producers.

From my sources at Crown Royal, this whisky is a mixture of two separate distillation runs, at least 5 years old with a batch that was in the 7 year range too. Whisky is 100% barley with no other additions - 85% unmalted and 15% malted. It was a single distillation on a column still. You don't see whisky like this released often. They had me at "unmalted barley".

One might be tempted to think this is like an irish whisky with the mixture of unmalted and malted barley - but it is nothing like one. The nose is big, and very crown royal flavouring-whisky type. Big oak, dried apricot, intense and grassy spices, banana cream pie, fennel, white pepper, rose, icing sugar, tangy hibiscus, ferrero rocher, those round white coconut candies (raffaello), apple juice, white grape - and these are notes from just the first 20 seconds of nosing. It's an assault of scents from a south asian spice bazaar, but yet with confectionary and fruit notes. It's all in balance. Oh, there is one more thing - BARLEY. and lots of it. That bright, slightly earthy grain that the Scots and others do such a good job with.

The taste is rich, spicy, woody, and balanced nicely with dried fruit. Barley throughout. Terrific movement. It has the rich dried fruit and spice seen in many crown royals, and it starts sharply there before slowing down through some woody spice and fresh grain before drifting into light earth, clove, apple, and wood tannin. The finish is bright with fruit - fresh apple and banana (an odd combo I know, but it works) with oak, spice, sauteed apples, cream pies of various sorts, fresh grain notes, and a fermentation-type complexity as you see in some of the great examples of British bitters.

I could continue to wax poetic. The barley here is big - but it's nuanced, buffeted, and stretched in a way I've never seen before in my (humbly) fairly extensive whisky exploration. What is more - much like winter wheat - it's a whisky that continues to beg another sip and is incredibly easy to drink.

I thought about giving this a 93, but I bumped it to 94 - just because of what it does with barley. The grain isn't lost, but it's different than any other barley whisky I've had AND is stunning, so I couldn't resist. A 94 score means it's in my 97th percentile, e.g., I consider it better than 97% of the whiskies I've tasted to date.

Some other big distilleries send their aged barrels of Canadian distillate south to be blended and released by Non Producer Distilleries like Cooper Spirits, Cat's Eye, Barrell Spirits and the extremley popular Found North among others.

I thought a couple years ago when the Northern Border Collection was releasing gems yearly and in between that we were on the rise. I have come to the conclusion that the parent companies don't really care so we can look forward to some gems from North of 7, Two Brewers, Shelter Point among the many craft distilleries.

Final Fantasy is one of the most renowned and loved gaming brands in the industry, especially when we are talking about role-playing games. Given that it's the JRPG that many of us grew up with, the latest installment, Final Fantasy XV, didn't live up to the franchise's legacy in the eyes of fans and newcomers alike. After a long and troublesome development cycle, the game had major issues at launch. Some parts of the plot seemed to be missing or obscured. It was based in a world that didn't offer any meaningful interaction beyond activities and quests, which seemed easy and unoriginal. To top this all off, the new combat system didn't have enough technical depth to please genre veterans. Although the action sequences were flashy and impressive, the overall game left something to be desired.

However, the game was still a fun, solid RPG with beautiful visuals and the boldness to actually try something new, even if it didn't work out as expected. When we reviewed it in 2016, we gave it a solid 8 for those very reasons. After several updates to the game and story, many of which were paid DLC, we're looking at a different game today.

Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition (Windows Edition if you're gaming on PC) includes all of the paid DLC and then some. If you're already in possession of the base game and the Season One DLC, you can purchase a Royal Pack to get the equivalent content. The main questions that fans and interested gamers will have is, "How well does FFXV Royal Edition hold up when played as a 'complete package' in 2018"? After all, there were many valid criticisms when it first launched, and even more DLC is on the way. We took a look at the PS4 version of Royal Edition and were slightly underwhelmed.

Of course, the story remains the same. We take control of Noctis, heir to the throne of Lucis, on his way to marry his betrothed Lunafreya in an effort to create peace between his home and the kingdom of Niflheim. The plan backfires, and his father is killed and Niflheim has been taken over while Noctis and his comrades are looking for Lunafreya. What follows is a series of car rides and quests to fix what's gone wrong by searching for powerful weapons handed down by your forefathers. This is a fairly broad explanation, but to avoid spoilers, this should do.

The Royal Edition includes all four DLC packs so far, each of which focuses on one of Noctis' comrades. The DLC features stories that are set during the main story line but dives deeper into off-screen story elements that seemed out of place or unexplained. That only covers three DLC packs. The fourth is called Comrades and takes place after the main story. It offers an online co-op mode so your character and some online friends can venture into the world to hunt down enemies or restore infrastructure. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds a lot of fun since you team up in lobbies and take on contracts to kill monsters. It feels like a cross between FF Online and Monster Hunter, and it adds replay value if you're into the fighting system and like a challenge. It's not as open as the main game, but it boasts an impressive amount of content for DLC.

With DLC and free updates out of the way, what does the Royal Edition add to the Final Fantasy experience? It does add one or two significant content updates, but overall, it's more of a discounted all-in-one pack rather than an overhauled edition. The main addition is a more refined ending. The original story came to a very anticlimactic climax, and the surprise ending wasn't impactful because it came way too soon. This edition rectifies that by adding a new map for the Insomnia City Ruins, so there are more monsters and bosses to take down before the final curtain falls. The Royal Edition adds more, but the rest of the exclusive content falls behind in terms of significance. There's a new and more powerful combat move that uses all armiger weapons, called Armiger Unleashed, and it add something to combat mechanics, but it devolves into being little more than gimmicks.

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