Final Fantasy XV: 6 Ups & 8 Downs

5. The Incredibly Linear Second-Half

After Final Fantasy XIII received a ton of flak for opening with essentially a hyper-linear 20-hour corridor, fans felt reassured that FFXV's open world would prevent Square Enix from repeating the same mistake.

Sadly, FFXV is basically a reverse FFXIII, in that the first half of the game embraces the wonderful open world, but at a certain point, the open world basically goes away and the player is funneled towards an end point in the most unimaginative of ways.

While the player can still use a bizarre time travel gimmick to return to the open word at rest points, this is basically just an awkward solution that further underlines how much the second-half of the game pales to the more open first half.

The irony of all this is that the second half has far more in terms of exposition dumps and plot revelations, but it's amid a decidedly less exciting style of gameplay.