After playing this game for over 200 hours, acquiring every achievement, grinding the Menace dungeons, and completing several super bosses in hunts, I can honestly say it is extremely difficult to explain why I kept playing this game.

Final Fantasy XV is not a game I would recommend to everyone. As a writer of fanfiction in the past, it's fair to say that I embellish a lot of what many would call sparse or plagued storylines to improve them in my head. I read things into a story that don't actually exist or didn't come from author intention. When I finished playing Star Ocean: the Last Hope, my immediate reaction was 'I could have written this better.'

I only mention this because while I think this is part of what draws me to Final Fantasy XV, I may have been able to write a better story, but I cannot make a better game. The ambition of the game and everything it tries to be stands out far more than a story left wanting.

Like many, when the Final Fantasy XIII announcement hit, I most looked forward to the action title Final Fantasy Versus XIII. More than a decade later, that game never saw the light of day, but its spiritual successor, Final Fantasy XV hit the shelves instead. If you haven't heard the stories of development tragedy plaguing this game, then feel free to look them up. Suffice to say, much of this title saw reconfiguration after reconfiguration and rushed through the door to come out unfinished. Only after the release of 20+ hours of DLC and additional content did the story come to some form of fruition.

Rather than blame the development cycle, the thing that most draws me to finish every additional hour of FFXV content is that the ambition of the project not only remained intact but nearly exploded. The biggest problem with FFXV comes from the fact that it attempts to function as a title that satisfies everyone on every note. The load screen itself tells you that this game should be a title for long time fans and first timers. And audience so broad can only find themselves disappointed.

FFXV's story might be unfinished, but the vision of the gameplay also came to life halfway to what could have been. FFXV boasted the most "polygons" of any game at the time of its release and still satisfies the graphical prowess the FF series demands, but the most compelling thing about FF is also its gameplay innovation. In this game, you can play an FPS, you can play a Batman style puzzle and scare tactics game, you can play a 1v1 action slog, you can play some kind of parkour akin to Assassin's Creed, you can even boot up an MMORPG that no one else will bother to connect to. Unfortunately none of it came out that great.

But I love it anyway. Many times, it's mind-numbing and grindy; it's unimaginative and retreads and rehashes the same enemy models or dungeons. As someone who loves optional dungeons and bosses, it felt insanely disappointing that every Menace dungeon recycled the same floor system and general color palette. One exception exists that I won't spoil, but did you want to play a platformer in your RPG? You're once again in luck, but it, again, might not be up to your expectations.

I don't think I've ever played a game that tries to make a homage to the greats of every genre, but I love to imagine that someone thought it would be possible. It's a terrible idea, really, but it's amazing that someone tried to execute it anyway.

You can blame the development cycle, but no matter what, the ambition remained intact. You can see what this game could have been with each chapter as you play through it. I don't play it to imagine what it could have been, I play it for what it attempted and the ambition encased in every moment. Too soon and too late didn't deter the FFXV vision. Many have hated the direction of the Final Fantasy franchise recently, but I'd much rather play a game that tries to be everything than another pixel remaster rehashing what we already know SquareEnix can do.

If you love -- not imagining what could have been -- but seeing undeterred imagination, even in the face of failure, this game is for you.

If not, then I understand that. But I can also say that I enjoyed most of my 200 hours of Final Fantasy XV. It isn't a great game, but it is an ambitious one. That is worth your time.