Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD First Impressions

When Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD was announced for the Nintendo Switch, I was excited. I liked the look of the graphics, the story, and the gameplay. I really wanted to check this game out. And thanks to Square Enix, we received a review copy of FF15 Pocket for the Switch and I’m playing it. Here are my first impressions of the game.

I’ve never played Final Fantasy 15 before. So you won’t see in comparisons  between the original FF15 and this new Pocket Edition in any of my coverage of the game. I am basing my opinion of Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD fully on the game itself.

I’m not very far into Pocket HD yet, I’m only in Chapter 2, but I wanted to provide our readers with my first impressions of the game so far.

Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD looks great on television. The graphics really come to life, with all the details in the levels and the characters looking especially excellent. In handheld mode, the graphics do seem a bit downgraded but I’m still really enjoying the game on the TV and off the tv.

The combat in this game is a pretty simple, you press Y to attack, with some extra commands/buttons for switching weapons and special attacks. The player only controls the main character and the other characters are controlled by the game. The character A.I. in this game isn’t perfect, though its not the worst I’ve seen. And even though the battle system is simple, I’m really enjoying it. The boss battles I’ve experienced are hard and fun.

I think it may be the game’s story that I’m enjoying the most at the moment though. Each of the characters in this game are unique and interesting. And yes, we’ve seen the whole two empires fighting thing before but I’m really liking FF15’s take on it. I’m interested in seeing where its all headed. Plus this game has excellent voice acting and that really brings the story to life.

As far as complaints, I only have a couple of main ones right now. The first is that I wish you could adjust the game’s camera as you walk around. FF15 Pocket’s camera is fixed and sometimes it gets in the way of exploration and fighting.

I also wish there were less load times in the game. Everytime you go to a new area, the game loads and these are not short load times. There may be other things I don’t care for in FF15 Pocket, but those are the main two I’ve encountered. I’ve been enjoying the game a lot.

Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD is a really fun game so far. The graphics are pure Final Fantasy, the gameplay isn’t exactly FF although it has its charms, and the story is totally in line with the kind of thing we’ve seen before in this franchise. I’m looking forward to playing this game a ton more.

Look for more coverage of Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD later this week! The game is available now via the Nintendo Switch eshop (and its sitting at #1 on the eshop best seller charts).