Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV launches tomorrow on PSVR. We’ve got our review live on the site right now, so you can check that for our full opinion, but suffice it to say that we were pleasantly surprised. Square Enix have done a surprisingly effective job of combining the world of Eos from Final Fantasy XV, in all of its bombastic glory, with the seemingly mundane task of fishing.
Since the game won’t be out until tomorrow we’ve decided to stream it for a little while today to give you an idea of what it’s like to help get you ready to go. The stream will be live over on our YouTube channel this afternoon starting at approximately 1:00 PM PT and running for about an hour or so. Once live you can find it embedded below:
Stream coming soon at 1:00PM PT
Are you intersted in checking out Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV? Are there any specific new or upcoming VR games you want to see us stream? Let us know down in the comments below! If you missed last week we streamed From Other Suns and Skyrim VR.
Now just let me go get my gear and tackle box ready…
Square Enix is no stranger to quirky mash-ups and bombastic interpretations of menial tasks. The core Final Fantasy XV game has a special place in the hearts of fans due to its focus on a group of bro-tastic best friends and their car, which is a stark contrast to the dark, brooding tone of many recent entries in the long-running franchise. With Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV the Japanese developer leveraged a lot of familiar elements, characters, and settings to deliver an arcade-style fishing game that came way out of left field when it was announced at E3 2017.
Back during my first demo at E3 I was surprised by just how good the core gameplay felt. Using the right Move controller you cast out a line into different zones with varying types of fish. Then using the left Move controller you reel the fish back in once they bite, making sure to pull and tug in displayed directions. It all feels very authentic and much more interactive than other VR fishing games we’ve seen.
In Final Fantasy XV each of the main characters are defined by their hobbies and quirks. Ignis, for example, loves to cook and as fate would have it, Noctis, loves to fish. The premise of Monster of the Deep is that you are hired as a hunter to seek out and take down dangerous, giant daemon fish lurking in the depths of various bodies of water. In order to draw each large fish out you must catch several smaller fish to get its attention by teleporting around locations finding better spots, at which point you don a crossbow and take down the bosses in a first-person shooter minigame.
Between missions you spend time back at your cabin with Cindy upgrading gear, buying wonderfully detailed costumes, and heading out on new hunts and challenges. There are a handful of other game modes you unlock after completing the short main story, such as fishing contests with Noctis, that add to both depth and replayability. Overall I was pleasantly surprised not only with how much there is to do, but how inherently fun it is to do everything.
The biggest issue with the game has the same root cause as its biggest strength: fan service. Fans of Final Fantasy, specifically the most recent 15th entry, will love the attention to detail surrounding Eos and its characters. Chatting face-to-face with the iconic cast, sitting around a campfire together, and feeling like a part of the team is unparalleled. There is even a great feature that lets you take a picture after you catch a fish and then you can actually pick up and look at the Polaroid after the mission. However, if you don’t have an existing connection to the source material, I’m not sure the fishing alone is enough to reel you in (pun intended.)
The base gameplay is fun and rewarding, but it is relatively shallow (okay, I’ll stop now I swear.) Luckily, even if you don’t care about Final Fantasy at all, the environments are quite beautiful and unique. While other fishing games will stick you on a boat, floating in the sea somewhere, this game has the advantage of not being restricted to what’s seen in the real world. The monsters are huge and towering and the action is over-the-top and ridiculous.
Tracking was never much of an issue for me while playing Monster of the Deep since you’re sitting still and facing forward the entire time, so that’s a relief for a system (PSVR) that often has tracking issues. However, it was difficult to fine-tune my casts as much as I wanted. I found that I’d either flick my wrist and send my line flying way too far, or end up not casting far enough. Hitting the middle sweet spot was much more finicky than I thought it should have been, but that’s a minor gripe for an otherwise fun and engaging affair.
Final Score:7/10 – Good
For fans of the series that own a PSVR, Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is the perfect spin-off. There is enough fan service to keep you smiling and enough original content plus exciting gameplay to make it fun in its own right. Surprisingly, Square Enix was able to craft an addictive fishing game that lets us see brand new sides of beloved characters and really feel like part of the team.
Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV releases on November 21, 2017 for PSVR with a price of $29.99. You can see its PSN Store page here. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrive at our review scores.
There’s no denying the fact that Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV, at first glance, looks like nothing more than fan service positioned as a quick cash grab. Take one of the most popular and eagerly anticipated games of the past ten years (Final Fantasy XV,) let players make their own character, and set them loose on a fishing trip with Noctis, the core game’s chief protagonist. It’s a recipe that would likely get the job done on face value alone, but the folks at Square Enix have actually gone a few steps further and turned this into more than just a simple fishing game.
In Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV, the premise is pretty simple. You’re a hunter/fisherman that’s on a mission to eradicate all of the big bad monsters lurking beneath the surfaces at all of the various bodies of water. You’ll go on hunts to track down the giant beasts, catching smaller fish along the way, and restore peace to the region.
Thankfully the actual act of fishing (i.e. casting your line, hooking fish, and reeling them in) is extremely satisfying with the PS Move controllers. While holding the PS Move button on my right controller I fling my rod and release the button at the right moment to send my line flying. From here I can use the left controller in a rotating motion to reel it back in once I get a bite. Each region has various zones were fish like to congregate that you can target and you’ve also got a radar that sends a sonar pulse out to detect fish.
Once you look past the simple exterior of fishing mechanics you’ll see that Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV really, really wants to be a part of the Final Fantasy universe. Throughout the game you’ll hear familiar tunes and sound effects, Noctis treats you like his best buddy, you’ll spend some time chatting with Cindy, and read/hear plenty about the state of affairs in Eos.
Last week we reviewed Fishing Master on PSVR and were not impressed. For a game with such a bold title we expected something more and consider it quite funny that, despite expectations, Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is shaping up to be the better fishing game. Not only can you customize your gear (such as the rod and lure) in Monster of the Deep, but you get to create your own custom avatar and you can freely move around fishing sites to relocate yourself and explore.
Square Enix took the concept of a simple fishing game and dramatically expanded upon it. My favorite, seemingly innocuous, feature was the photo mechanic. After you make a big catch you have the chance to take a photo while you pose as your character. The best part though is that you can actually invert the view and use your real life PS Camera to take the photo.
This effect adds scenery around you and creates the illusion that you’re actually holding the fish and rod with your real hands. It’s a silly, simple feature, but I was enamored. After each mission you’ll be sitting around a campfire going over your rewards and you can actually pick up and hold a Polaroid-style print out of the photos you took. The whole gang from Final Fantasy XV might even join in on the hang out session.
I’m still early in Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV and can’t talk about the whole game yet, but consider me pleasantly surprised with the experience thus far. Square Enix seems to have a real understanding of what does and doesn’t work in VR for the most part and if this is an indication of the direction they want to take VR iterations of their franchises then I’m looking forward to what’s next.
Let us know what you think of Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV down in the comments below! And make sure to check back next week, on Wednesday, November 20th for our full review.
The roster of Tekken 7 will expand once again in early 2018 with the addition of Noctis from Final Fantasy XV. Doing a favor for a friend, he'll come to fight and will be bringing his trusty sword with him.
So far, Final Fantasy XV has had a rocky relationship with VR. Square Enix announced a VR add-on for the game in 2016, and even allowed show attendees to play a VR demo that put the player in the happy-go-lucky shoes of Prompto, the lackadaisical comic relief of FFXV’s boy-band quartet in which players shot at the iconic Final Fantasy enemy, the Behemoth. Square Enix fell silent on PSVR support until E3 this year, where they unveiled the Final Fantasy XV VR fishing experience, Monsters of the Deep. Then, only last month, they announced that the Prompto-Behemoth themed experience was just a tech demo which fans will never play.
It turns out the path from shooting to fishing was even rockier than we knew. Talking to Fandom, director Hajime Tabata said that the team considered several other options for FFXV’s virtual reality content, but that they all would have taken too long.
“The Prompto VR shooter that we created last year at E3, that was done about the span of three weeks,” Tabata told Fandom, “It’s like a showcase for the VR technology and platform. But we knew that if we wanted to make a full-fledged VR game based on battle mechanics of Final Fantasy XV, it will probably take at least two years just to do that…We thought, ‘Okay. Let’s leverage the world of Final Fantasy XV that we created and create an immersive experience around that.’ Therefore, we arrived at fishing as the main gameplay began. ”
When discussing other possibilities, Tabata mentioned racing, “One such idea was like a massive car rally across the world of Eos, but when we started looking into that, that would probably take as long, if not longer, than creating a VR game based on the battle mechanics.”
Production time has been a major issue for Square Enix over the last decade. Final Fantasy XV itself was announced in 2006 under the name Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and only came out last year. If the company felt it would take too long to make these experiences, they’re probably right.
But we still like the idea of cruising and racing around Eos in VR with our bros.
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