Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XV, game review, HRL, Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix

Review: Monster Of The Deep: Final Fantasy XV Is Some Weirdly Intense VR Fishing

Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is one of the many games in the now self-contained, expanded Final Fantasy XV universe because that was absolutely a thing we needed. And unlike some of the other games in this category, Monster of the Deep is genuinely enjoyable and was developed in-house at Square Enix. Many of the extended FFXV games are third-party mobile tie-ins, so this is our first test to see if Square can recapture the magic of Final Fantasy XV: The Boyband One and translate it into VR. And, well, they do actually manage it.

I was a little skeptical about the game after demoing it at PAX West earlier this year, as much of the game's internal physics seemed completely bizarre. I had fish that were swimming through what appeared to be solid rock walls. I can say that after some serious testing, I didn't experience anything even close to that glitch in the full game. However, there are a few fishing spots that do test the limits of your ability to suspend disbelief. You can cast your reel into fishing spots that are behind flimsy barriers like fallen logs, and then watch as a fish is reeled straight to you through that log. But I'm willing to forgive that, since a fallen log would be considered "soft cover" in most games and is often the sort of thing you can run straight through.

However, I did have as much fun playing the game this time around as I did back at PAX, and that's pretty much the key when it comes to VR.

For a game about fishing, though, MOTD can be intense as hell. The opening alone has you fish in a small contained bay, and after you reel in two fish, you're suddenly beset by a behemoth of an aquatic daemon that flies straight for your face. And in VR, that is uncomfortably close. I actually tried to take a physical step back despite standing with the backs of my knees up against my couch. So, like a completely graceless cat, I fell down and then pretended that I meant to do so (even though no one was around to watch it happen).

The game is pretty much designed to work with the PlayStation Move wands, though I did find that reeling fish in with the wands involved a decent bit of physical exertion that my wrists just were not prepared for. I then switched to the regular old Dualshock 4 controller and had the odd experience of trying to cast a line with both hands around a gamepad. Needless to say, I pretty quickly decided to try and cast one-handed, which the PSVR camera sensors did not like. So I accidentally kept casting straight out to the side, based on the position of the Dualshock's sensor.

Reeling was much easier on the Dualshock 4; all I had to do was circle around the left thumbstick to reel in my fish as easy as you please. The casting kind of put a dent in that.

And then came the crossbow. This bit we didn't get to test out in the demo, so was a completely new gameplay aspect as far as controlling it went. And I found that was pretty easy to do with both the Dualshock gamepad and the PS Move wands. Because, yeah. To catch the monster Daemon fish that you spend much of your time hunting, you have to shoot them with a crossbow first. A couple times. As they charge straight at your face.

But at least they made Noctis and his friends just as jumpy as they made me.

This brings us to the main point of Monster of the Deep. Not that the game isn't a lovely fishing sim with a side of fantasy RPG elements in there — it absolutely is. But what the game is mostly here to do is give fans what they want: more time with Noctis, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto before the World of Ruin. And what we wanted in Final Fantasy XV was a chance to actually hang out with Noctis and his best friends as they went about their casual road trip bromance.

And now we do. You get to set yourself up with a new avatar, and you play as one of the Insomnia's Hunters. Your plan is go around making the local fishing spots of Eos safe for everyone again by catching these legendary fish daemons. In doing so, you meet up with Noct, Prom, Iggy, and Gladio and get to spend some quality time with the boys both one on one and as a group. It is the ultimate wish fulfillment to sit there fishing alongside Noctis, or to reel fish in with Prompto taking photos of you. It is every fangirl/fanboy's dream come true.

And Monster of the Deep never really loses sight of that, which is great — but also kind of terrible from a critical and moral standpoint. This is just plain old fan service at its best. It is impeccably designed from your avatar customization options, fishing modifications, all the way down to player movement through teleportation and location.

One of the ingenious aspects of the gameplay is that it marries the best of the time-waster side-tracks that kept you playing FFXV for a few thousand hours. That is, fishing and hunts. And this time, they are the exact same thing, but we get two versions of each. The story mode takes you through several increasingly difficult hunts that also coincide with spending time with Noct and pals, and the hunt mode that just lets you go after some ridiculous monster fish without that pesky story getting in the way. Oh, and then there's the free fishing mode. That one lets you do nothing but catch fish, all day every day with no daemonic activity.

So, with this game, you can get all the zen fishing you want, as well as time with the Chocobros. And you get to be a badass hunter on top of it all.

Yeah.

This game was designed to appeal to FFXV fans on every level. And they've done it.

I don't even like fishing and I freaking love Monster of the Deep — as much as I kind of hate myself for it.

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